Picture from our second band photo session in 1978
The advent of Punk rock is often referred to as ‘the punk explosion’ and it’s a good description. By 1979 the dust had settled and the creative atmosphere was like an uneasy calm after the storm. We were too young to be an active punk band but I think we were lucky to be reaching a point where musical competence was at least visible on the horizon during this particular period. There had been an interesting mod revival, the Two-tone scene was vibrant and some fine dub reggie was in the air too - but for us, as novice creators, the canvas was welcomingly blank.
I had no idea what to write lyrics about but with the help of Nick we came up with a few simple ideas that suited the emerging music, which had radically slowed down from a three cord chaos to the careful, ponderous pace of the beginners we were.
We were very secretive about forming the band, not wanting to attract attention to a venture that we thought might easily come to nothing. However, one person who was fully aware of what we were up to was our (mine and Justin’s) brother in law, who happened to be a doctor of science. Dr. J was a leading authority in Parapsychology and was blessed with a great enthusiasm for music and electronics. And it was he who helped us make our equipment from speakers and components he acquired from dusty old electrical shops in the side streets of neighbouring towns and bits of wood we managed to find or borrow from building sites. He was agreeably eccentric and loved the challenge of designing, finding and wiring the parts together for as little cost as possible. Which suited us very well.
I seem to remember him asking Justin “what do you want your guitar to sound like?” to which Justin replied “not like a guitar”. And so his first creation was highly complex chipboard speaker cabinet as tall as Justin with a 12” bass speaker, a 12” midrange speaker, three 5” cone hi frequency speakers, and four piezo electric tweeters - which we painted black and covered with chicken wire.