I had just left Ravensbourne art college when I met Ben and Scott – they had just arrived there. They had a band and I went along to try out.
It all gets very hazy but Ben and I got together and he then went to Brighton where few tried to form a band – a dreadful experience that was only made bearable by making friends with a young punk who taught me how to make steam pudding. His name was smeggy of the cheesey bits – later to be known of course as smeggy of King Kurt. Funny how these thing happen but he took over as lead singer from Jeffers( Julien Harvey) who’d started the band as Rocking Kurt and the saurkrauts. Jeff and I were in the V.D.U. ’s.
We escaped back to London as fast as we could get Ben transferred to a London Art college. Desperately tried to get a band together. I can’t quite remember who we had a this point. I think Vole was on bass but not sure about the guitar. We were called the ANARCHO-BANDITS at this point.
We put ads into the music press – attitude/image/ talent essential for a guitarist. I can’t tell you the sort of people who answered this. We were so sick of having to sit in pubs with blokes with long hair-BEARDS!!! army coats covered in badges – who thought they were god’s gift to Punk.
In the end we made potential guitarists meet outside in public places, probably holding a music paper as identification, that buses ran passed. This was so we could secretly spot them from the top of the bus and stay on if needs be. There were quite a few needs be .
I think we were beginning to think we were the last ones alive then one day our dreams were answered and a cheeky fresh faced boy came along with black spikey hair at the back an outrageous long fringe, white jeans tucked into his studded boots and an Adam and the Ants trenchcoat. It was an answer to our prayers but could he play? He soon proved he could and from there brigandage was born. Meet Mick Fox.
I found the name in the dictionary – I was looking for something similar to Seditionaries – what a surprise!
We played with everybody we could so we could play to different types of punk audiences. There was no point just playing Anarcho gigs - that was a converted audience. We wanted to play to others who might not listen to anything but oi or thrash.
The Batcave was a great club, I loved going there and one day we saw this band we thought were great even though we were very different to them. SEX GANG CHILDREN – they gave us our first support slots and we supported them at a packed gig at the 100 club. Fantastic – I was finally standing where I’d seen the Pistols all those years ago. AND SEX GANG PAID US! which was amazing they didn’t have to.
We had so many record deals thrown at us it was unbelievable – I had virgin ringing me up at work. I’m not sure if we believed it all – I’m not sure if I was really interested in recording. We also had someone who was supposed to be managing us and I heard that record companies didn’t like dealing with him.
CherryRed/Anagram made us an offer — I think I turned it down because they said I had a PUNKFOLK VOICE! I was so pissed off I wanted to be johnny Rotten crossed with Patti smith. Folk didn’t come into my vocabulary. How stupid can you get.
I think we were hanging on for a major. We knew that whether it was an indie or a major label we were bound to get shafted so we wanted to be paid for the experience.
I don’t want to talk about Positive Punk except to say that richard was told by his editor to go out and write a big piece about all the bands he and Tony D (Ripped&torn, Kill your pet puppy) had been reviewing. We were estatic - finally some major press – not just for us but our friends BLOOD AND ROSES, Sex gang etc. Lets just say that when the other papers realized they missed the boat the backlash was massive and people who were supposed to be friends started slagging each other off and blaming people.
This did start even more offers and we finally chose a small label licensed through A&M – perfect so it seemed. I can’t remember exact details but dissent started with the fact the label wanted us to put a thin Lizzey track on the B side. I said NO! I think the boys wanted to. Then we started rehearsing new songs and they were SHITE! total rock without any roll. I think don’t fear the reaper came into it somewhere.
The bottom line is that one day our friend Jamie came round to Puppy Mansions to let me know there’d been a coup and I’d been thrown out.
We never kept a distance with any of the bands we played with. Some of my happiest moments were playing with Sex Gang, Ritual, Action Pact and gigs at the Anarchist Centre with Blood & Roses, Rubella Ballet (we did lots of gigs with Rubella) Lack of Knowledge – my memory deserts me here. We all had our own Identity – that was the point . I didn’t want to keep my distance but some in the anarcho community couldn’t understand that I had strong political convictions and I that I could like clubbing and dressing up/messing up/ fucking up.
