Defiant

Defiant, formed from a group of regulars at The Roxy Club and were originally called Shame. Like a lot of bands at the time musicianship wasn’t a prerequisite as Pape (nee Fiona Dutton) recalls.
Everyone had a band so why not us. I was the drummer, my sister Dij (Deirdre) was on bass, Kaye (school with my sister) on vocals, Dok (Dermot O’Keefe) on guitar – he had been at school with someone I was at college with which is how we met. There were various other people in and out but that is the only line up we actually played with. Adrian Thrills (O’Dolan) was in for a while though he was in every band including The Nips.
Fiona Dutton
The manager of the band was Alan Anger who also edited the fanzine Live Wire which meant the band would get some exposure there.

At the time Pape was at college in Pitsmoor Sheffield and it was there that Defiant played their first gig on Jubilee Weekend. They could play on condition that the girls took part in the mud wrestling!
That entire week in Sheffield was brilliant, I don’t think I have ever laughed so much, at the gig we were watched by two kids and a dog, the lead for the bass wasn’t working and I had actually never played a real drum set before. We managed to avoid the mud wrestling and got threatened with a shot gun. We all stayed in my room, along with a couple of local punks, eating fish fingers and Kaye’s famous Cheesy Peas (frozen peas with processed cheese melted over the top). We had no money.
Fiona Dutton
Recalling the gig now Alan Anger says.
The first gig was in Sheffield in a park on jubilee day. Pape was at college up there. We all piled in and Adrian Thrills came with us. They played in the park with all sorts of other bands. Not sure if there was an audience or not…very little one probably and wondering what the hell was going on. What did they sound like? Not bad to be honest. Dok could play guitar. None of the others could really play. It was just a good laugh.
Alan Anger

Adrian Thrills reviewing it in his fanzine 48 Thrills #5 at the time remembers differently
They were “fuckin’ terrible. At least they knew it and didn’t try and make any excuses afterwards.
Adrian Thrills
The band had got drunk. They started their first song ‘Prince Charles’ and 5 seconds later it was over. More false starts and then they launched into ‘Roadrunner. During their next song ‘What a Life’ the promoter pulled the plug!

Following this first taste of rock’n’roll the band acquired Alan Anger as manager who got them rehearsal space and regularly featured them in his fanzine Live Wire.
Alan got some people down who were from a dirty film company and they signed us! I seem to remember that they did a film called Star Whores (not starring us). They leased the old cinema by platform one on Waterloo Station and gave us a key. All the seats had been taken out and there was a platform in the middle covered in black velvet and surrounded by film lights and we used to rehearse there. Playing there, the place was full of our friends and it really was just us mucking about – we were absolutely crap except for Dok.
Fiona Dutton

We had a residency in the Man in the Moon at Worlds End for about four or five weeks, Hope and Anchor, Roxy, can’t remember. We went on tour to Erics in Liverpool, Sheffield University, York University. When we got to Liverpool it was freezing and snowing and some students took pity on us and let us sleep on their floor over a second hand TV shop in Penny Lane, as we huddled together for warmth Dok told bed time stories to his ‘lovely princesses’. We actually got a really good reaction, one night we finished and some boys collected £10 to persuade us to go back on again.
Then there was the time we were at the Hope and Anchor and a really crap band were playing and we just took over – whole place chanting ‘give her the bass, give her the bass’ when the original bands bass player wouldn’t hand it over.
Fiona Dutton
We played the Roxy the night Elvis died. I think the Buzzcocks were playing the Vortex so a lot of people were there that night). There was a terrible storm that night and we got absolutely soaked on the way home. I thought we supported a band called The Violators who were really young but I seriously can’t remember.


Songs in the set included one good song, Telephone, by Dok and a load of self-penned absolute crap like Throwing Up, London Transport, Words and we used to do Come on Everybody and Roadrunner.
In the end Defiant were together for about a year and in the end just drifted apart.
Dok played in much better bands, he was actually talented unlike the rest of us. We did have other bands later and played at the Notre Dame and a few other places, Moonlight Club, Nashville, Rock Garden. Dok later played in the bands Car Crash and Self Control.
In a stunt worthy of Malcolm McLaren pulled off by Alan Anger, a Defiant non record came about. For whatever reason the songs Social Climber & LSD never made it to vinyl. Instead Alan Anger, who had printed up the labels in anticipation of his own Angry Records label, got hold of some Frank Ifield singles. He defaced the sleeves and stuck his own labels onto the records. He then sent them to the music weeklies and even got a review in Sounds who were in on the joke.


Step Forward was started by Mark Perry. For a laugh I did a similar kind of thing. The idea was this record was going to come out. So I did the A&B side labels and had them all printed already but it didn’t get done because I couldn’t get them in the studio or whatever.
I thought I’ve had all these things printed up and I don’t want to waste them. So I bought a load of singles up and labelled them and sent them off to the music weeklies. Most of the papers actually reviewed it for a laugh and they got the joke. We got single of the week in Sounds.
Alan Anger

Of course the main thing about Defiant is that the single is the most sought after punk single in America and the fifth rarest record in the world which is interesting as we didn’t make a record. What happened is that we recorded it, had the labels printed then had no more money. Allan and Dok stuck labels to old singles (Gene Pitney) scratched ‘ha ha’ across them, made picture sleeves and sent them off to NME and Sounds and we got reviewed [Linnet Evans – Sounds 19.11.77] – might even have been record of the week in Sounds. I have actually seen someone advertising for sale a whole list of punk singles INCLUDING our non-existent one.
Fiona Dutton


Why didn’t they release it afterward?
Alan Anger. I don’t know. It never got done! They eventually did go in the studio but I’d stopped managing them by then.
Left. Pape, Alan, Kaye and Dij. Photo Walt Davison
Thanks to Fiona Dutton (Pape) & Alan Anger & his fantastic Live Wire fanzines

Fiona Dutton photo booth shots. It was on the way to the 100 Club but it was later that year (1977) because I remember it being really really cold. I was waiting for Kaye who always used to phone her mum to see what was for tea before she could decide whether or not to come out – which is why we were too late to get into the Notre Dame to see the Sex Pistols!
Fiona Dutton
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