The Mistakes - A Punk History with Pictures.

The Mistakes

Bromley brought us the infamous troupe of posers the Bromley contingent but it also brought us The Mistakes, Vamp and the Meat. here's the story of the mistakes by their bassist

It’s the classic thing of they needed a bass player so I went and bought one. We started in the summer of 1977 ish and we basically got a couple of gigs straight away at the Roxy. We did our first one down in Brighton at the Bathing Machine with a band called the Meat. They were good mates of ours. The local bands were us, the Meat and the Tarts as far as I can remember.

The band – Ruth Norris - Vocals, Chris Hussey on Drums (he left to play for Dumpy’s Rusty Nuts and later Nuthin Fancy who became Terraplane and then Thunder) - replaced after a couple of months by Martin Everest (Max Splodge) named amusingly after a car park in Orpington and who was drummer in the Tarts - Andy Banks - Guitar and Me on Bass. Originally there were two singers - Cool Rob Bakewell and Ruth and also a sax player - John Karakashan who dressed a bit like Rupert Bear (No idea how to spell his name).

Left to right - Rob Bakewell (Vocals) - Andy Banks (Guitar) - Mark Griffiths (Bass) - Chris Hussey (Drums) - Ruth Norris (Vocals)

I remember the first two songs we wrote in the Beehive in new Elton. We just sat down with a couple of pints and first nothing happened and then we ended up making some ridiculous thing called 'Iguana' because we happened to have a pet lizard at home. Another song was called 'Boredom' which was pretty standard punk subject I guess. The first gigs were full of covers of New York Dolls and Ramones.

The Roxy? We just started going up there after forming the band. They used to have audition nights and went along to that. On that night Kevin St John the owner liked us and basically signed us up that night as the resident band. He was our manager for a little while though he didn’t really do much. However he did use to let us rehearse at the Roxy on a Sunday so that saved on rehearsal studios.

We would turn up play at the Roxy, get legless and go home. I never remember getting home or the journey in the van. We used to drink at the club until we played their regular and then we used tom go round to the pub round the corner until Max got us banned. he put a fiver in the jukebox and put the same record on over and over again and poised everyone in the pub off.

I remember the Roxy being a bit of a toilet, a bit smelly not too pleasant but a nice atmosphere. We got spat at all the time. The worst was the Tramshed in Woolwich. I smacked some bloke round the head with my guitar. They were really gobbing at Ruth and she wasn’t liking it.

We knew Max from the Tarts and invited him along. Great drummer and a livewire. Never a dull moment. He was always getting us banned from places. Rolf Harris gigs...we got lobbed out of there. Max was shouting all the answers to the Jokes and Rolf was getting really angry at Max shouting at him from the stage calling him a cheeky trout. Another time we stopped off at a pub on a way to a gig and I think Screwdriver was playing. We were making ourselves a bit invisible at the back because it was full of skins. Max went straight up to the front of the stage turned round facing all the skins and just went you're all wankers and then just legged it and we had to as well and we just made it. That was a standard Max evening out!

Max Splodge: We used to go to Rolf Harris gigs with Young Rolf rebels on the back of our leathers. We used to get in early and get to the front and then pogo about and get thrown out

Two pints of larger comes from the Crown on Chiselhurst Common. The barman was a bastard and wouldn’t serve us. Two pints of lager became a standing joke. Max got us banned from there.

We got some interest from a bloke in a jean shop who wanted to relases a compilation album. Auntie Pus were going to be on it too. We recorded 'Boredom' at a studio in St Johns Wood (I Think?) - It was a great studio and I'm sure the guy who recorded it was pretty well known (Can't remember his name) and it all sounded pretty good. Max pissed off Andy by singing over his guitar solo. Oops.

The Mistakes lasted thru 1979 but that was about it. I enjoyed every minute of the Mistakes it was a great time for any band - we played all the time all around London from the Roxy, 100 Club, Marquee, Vortex, Rock Garden (you still owe us £6 you mean mealy mouthed fucker) and the Moonlight Club to little pubs I can’t remember the names of - one of which had dog shit on the stage (nice).

I think me Max and Andy joined in with Wayne Kreegan from the Vamp (the rest of the band had left) for a while but it didn’t last long. Wayne looked way cool with a kind of ‘cat’ look to his head and huge syringe sticking in to the arm of his leather jacket. He maintained that he wrote loads of Polystyrene's songs - his story was always very convincing. We did a couple of gigs and then Splodge came about which meant Max didn’t have time to play drums for us.

While all this was going on Ruth recorded a single for Decca I think as a solo thing. We also had a band called The Switch (fronted by Slim Tarrant - He was DJ at the Orpington Penetration gig) which sounded a bit New York Dolls. Ruth came back when we formed the Afghan Rebels in around 1980 which lasted until 1981 and which was pretty full on.

Afghan Rebels Greyhound February 1981
Piccies - Mick Mercer