1. 9 Tree Hill, Bristol, sometime early 1975

One small Speaker Amp between us. An old Tape Recorder Microphone for the Singers. Band and Audience crammed into one small room. Bassist knew only 2 chords. Overwhelming Success. Floor gave way. Police called.

2. The Mall, Bristol (sometime later that same year)

Band and Audience again crammed into one small room. Bassist still only knew 2 chords. Unmitigated Disaster. Room empties after two numbers. Police called.

3. Live at the Winston Theatre, Bristol (even later in 1975)

An early practice/jam session with a carefully invited audience of four. Desperate attempts to teach the Bass guitarist a third chord end in failure. Three of the audience leave shortly after we start playing. The fourth is too drunk to move. Sound Recordist leaves soon afterwards to search for Big Foot (seriously).

4. Christmas at Stanstead Hall, Suffolk, 1975.

Too dark to see our instruments. The set includes a 14 minute version of “Roadrunner” which, at least, the band enjoyed. Bassist unbelievably bad. Sacked.

5. Neville’s 21st, also at Stanstead Hall, Suffolk, June 1976.

Bassist had blagged/begged his way back into the band as the Vocalist. 1st Farewell Tour. Drug crazed women invade the stage. Felt we had to go on.

6. A flat somewhere in St John’s Wood sometime early in 1978

1st Welcome Back Tour. Why or how we were there, no one can remember. Maybe we weren’t even invited. A distinct possibility. However, it’s the first time we have a Pukette as a backing singer. A Damascus moment. No stopping us now.

7. The “Blackers” somewhere in Sussex June 1978

They thought they had booked a Country and Western Group. We are now up to two Pukettes.

8. Shiplake College, Oxfordshire June 1978

A faded Hippy Party. The quality of the music didn’t matter as they were too stoned to hear anything anyway. Again two Pukettes. We manage to persuade them that stockings and suspenders should be their standard stage gear (for them at least). Happy Days.

9. Toyah Wilcox’s Mayhem Studios, Battersea December 1978

We hired the venue (an old British Rail Storage space under the Arches) from Toyah to throw a Party Night. 2nd Farewell Tour. The Band plays different numbers at the same time to celebrate. Even the presence of a further two Pukettes, bringing the total to four, couldn’t save the complete disaster.

10. Carnegie Hall (the one in Sussex, not New York), June 1979

Decided to start the gig with the Vocalist driving a 1000cc bike up a ramp onto the stage amongst swirls of dry ice, to The Tubes “The smell of burning leather”. Forgot that dry ice is effectively iced water. Bike immediately skids into the drummer, perched high behind the band, knocking him and all his kit back off the stage. Petrol and Oil spray everywhere from the overturned bike. The audience love it, thinking it is all part of the act. This is the last time that Nev appears with us on stage as he is killed in a car crash a week later. His memory lives on for ever.

11. The Cock Pub, North End Road, August 1980

After Nev’s death, it takes us over a year to feel like playing again. The Pub’s name is clearly ideally suited to the Band. The Landlord is highly reticent about booking us, is horrified when we actually start to play and tries to stop us (see also Press Cuttings for details), especially as we come after Easy Money featuring Marc Storace as their vocalist, who then went on to fame with Krokus. However, said grumpy Landlord sells more drink that evening than he has ever done, turns into Mr Exceedingly Nice and begs us to take a residency. We again have Four Pukettes, three of whom’s microphones are turned off. To this day, they never knew.

12. The Roundhouse (yes the real one this time), Chalk Farm Sept 1980

Somehow, someone had told the “Not the 9 O’clock News” Team that we were really good (!). They were looking to book another band for their Christmas Party at the Roundhouse so sent two of their team round (including Richard Curtis – see Memorabilia) to check us out. As luck would have it they arrived just as our set at the Cock was ending and the audience were cheering ecstatically - because we had finished, not because we were any good. They mistook this as genuine appreciation and booked us on the spot. At the Roundhouse, we blew is badly. See “Stories” for full details. In short, the replacement PA blows up after two chords. The Bassist is too stoned to stand up. Our special effects man blows up all 3 guitarists. We were asked to stop after 3 numbers. Didn’t.

13. The Cock Pub, October 1980

A bit like doing something again quickly after you have had a traumatic experience or you will never do it again. So we go back to the safety of the Cock. We’re sure that we saw someone in the audience who had seen us before.

14. Chelsea Barracks, December 1980

Party to celebrate the completion of Operation Drake. Explorers had come from all over the world. Our power was disconnected after 5 numbers by someone from New Zealand who quite correctly said “I haven’t flown thousands of miles to listen to this shit”.

15. The Soho Poly Theatre, June 1981

We somehow blagged our way into headlining this evening as part of the London Comedy Festival. We shared the stage with Comedians Norman Lovett and Randolph the Remarkable. The latter was a gentleman of large proportions who ended his fire eating act by climbing up a ladder and belly flopping into a child’s paddling pool. We were clearly amongst friends.

16. Rougham Tree Fair, Suffolk, September 1981

One of the wonderful Festivals held in the 70’s and 80’s in East Anglia. Rougham was a broad collection of the spiritual and truly bonkers.

There was the small “Rap” tent where you could pop in and talk to the person inside, the man dressed up as a chicken who clawed and clucked his way around the site at 6.00 am in the morning, the Peace Convoy, the local chapter of the Hells Angels (hired as security) who insisted on re-enacting “The Viking Wedding” twice a day (basically a booze up which then turned into a punch up - “Oy you, yes you, stop looking at my woman”). The usual issues for the band. We found we hadn’t actually been allocated a slot, despite being booked, so we had to rush the stage right at the end. By the time we started to play, the quiet and rather sacred Tree Ceremony itself started just behind us. We were not invited back the following year.

17. The Cock, North End Road, February 1982

A welcome return to our London “Home”.

18. The Barracuda Club, June 1982

An article had been put into the Evening Standard asking for new Pukettes to call the Vocalist’s number to book an audition (the Vocalist, of course, hadn’t been told this was happening). The tape on his answering machine is in Memorabilia. The audition produced 3 new Pukettes one of whom charmed all the members of the band as well as all the males in the audience at the Barracuda Club by not wearing any knickers under her leather mini skirt. Afterwards, we were approached by 2 people, clearly totally out of it on drugs, who wanted to be our Managers. We agreed, on the basis that we would only be flown by private jet or helicopter to any future gig. We never saw them again.

19. Alistair Beddall’s 21st, Iver, Berks August 1982

A beautiful, still, Summer night. At 11.30 the Police arrived to ask the Host to turn the volume down. Obviously, once they had gone, we turned it up to “11”. They came back 30 minutes later and were invited in by the Lady of the House for a cup of tea (those were the days). “Don’t worry Madam, no point in turning the volume down now. Everyone in all the surrounding villages is now awake. No, it’s the lyrics which they are complaining about”.

20. The Riverside Studios, Hammersmith, September 1982

The theatre was having funding problems so we wrote to them to offer a Benefit Gig. We hadn’t appreciate just how desperate they were because they accepted instantly. The resulting mayhem included, on stage, a vintage motorcycle, a sword fight, Big Debbie in a particularly sultry mode and a really really bad fruit juggler that we had met in the street the day before. See Videos to join this rather unpleasant experience.

21. The Surrealist Ball, Fulham Film Studios, November 1984

Our final performance and a fitting way and venue to end. The organisers wanted the vocalist to start the set encased in a vat of water with a bungee cord attached to his waist. As the band started to play “Ground Control to Major Tom”, he was to be released. Idiots we may have been, but we had sufficient intellect to understand that that would result in certain death. Instead we found ourselves being pelted with frozen chickens throughout the gig and having to ward off a flock of sheep that had been brought along for the evening. The plug was pulled on us about 3 numbers before our final number. The correct way to finish an epic career.