London
London was a bit of an anomaly. They seemed to come out of nowhere and from mid 1977 the next 6 months were a whirlwind. They picked up a flamboyant manager in the shape of Simon Napier Bell who had managed Marc Bolan and Yardbirds. Through him they landed a support slot on a Stranglers major tour and played the Roxy Club and Vortex and lots more places.
They quickly signed to major label MCA – courtesy of Napier-Bell and his innovative publicity – and released a single mid 1977. But from there on it seemed to go on a downward curve. They temporarily parted company with bassist Steve Voice after The Stranglers tour, had disagreements with their record company over the cover of the second single No Time and the third single like the first had no cover at all and to add to it no sales.
An album was recorded but by the end of the year, their drummer John Moss, disillusioned with the lack of success, had left to join The Damned. The band played its last gig in December at the Marquee and split. The album came out in 1978.
This history is made up from a Punk77 interview done with singer Miles Tredinnick (Riff Regan) in 2000 and something. Theres also some quotes from Colin Wight interspersed as well from another Punk77 interview from around about the same time.
I formed London at the end of 1976 by putting ads in the Melody Maker. The first to join was Steve Voice the bass player and with whom I wrote some of our songs. He’d been living in London for a few years but was originally from Andover. Jon Moss was next but there was a problem, he was being tried out as a drummer for The Clash at the time and wasn’t happy. I seem to remember that he didn’t really hit it off with Joe Strummer accusing him of crappy pseudo-revolutionary rhetoric!!
Jon wanted to leave but all his friends were telling him he’d be mad to walk out on a name band like The Clash but he was adamant so we drove down in Jon’s car to The Clash’s rehearsal studio in Chalk Farm and Jon packed up his drum kit. When Strummer and Mick Jones got back they saw the empty room and realised that they’d have to find a new drummer.
The last member to join London was Dave Wight, who came from the North-East. and was an accomplished guitarist.
Dave Wight Riff and the others probably don’t know this, but I actually rang up first and gave my real name (Colin), but Riff (I think) asked me what kind of music I was into. I foolishly told him the truth; Hendrix, Tamla Motown, lots of R&B stuff and Blues. I think he threw up when I told him, and Colin did not get an audition. Luckily Riff did give me an indication of what my influences should be, so Dave emerged complete with some of the right background influences. When Dave eventually rang up a few\par hours later he did get an audition! Punk77 Interview
We didn’t play any other kind of music before punk but the band were musically pretty tight as opposed to other bands who were literally starting from nothing. To be honest, although MCA pushed us as a punk band we considered ourselves more ‘new wave’ than punk. We just happened to emerge during that exciting time, a bit like The Stranglers or Buzzcocks or XTC did.
I had never been in a band before and my influences before punk would’ve been David Bowie/Lou Reed/The Who/Rocky Horror Show/Mott the Hoople/Roxy Music/Sparks. Later it was The Damned/Pistols/Generation X. The whole period was incredibly exciting. Every night we’d go to a gig and I felt punk was very close to bands like the Small Faces/Kinks/the Who in the 60’s. There was a real buzz in London during 1976/77 that the music was changing and that the dinosaur bands like Pink Floyd, Yes and Led Zeppelin had had their day.
Colin Wight Actually, although I could play anything by Hendrix backwards I found the stuff Riff wanted me to do quite hard at first. He was coming from a kind of speeded up Ziggy Stardust/Mott the Hoople kind of thing and I had no idea of that stuff. All the chord changes were alien to me. So it took some time to adjust. Also there was just the sheer speed everything was played at. And I do remember that they were always on at me to stop playing that guitar solo stuff (but then everybody is on at me to stop that). Punk77 Interview
Another side of it that attracted me was collecting the records. Picture sleeves and limited editions became popular and it was fun to hunt them down. I often used to go down to the Soho market (no longer there) and search through the record racks. There was always this other guy doing the same, later I realised he was Paul Weller. I built up an incredible collection and then about fifteen years ago, when I was really broke, I had to sell them. I wish I hadn’t.
Simon Napier Bell So I went one night to a punk club in Soho to see what I had been missing …When the group came on stage they stiffened their bodies and bounced up and down as if they were on pogo sticks. The audience threw beer at them and spat, and the group spat back…I was impressed…Thirty minutes later I was backstage offering a management contract with an advance of ten thousand pounds. Black Vinyl, White Powder
Very soon after we formed, our manager Simon Napier-Bell got us a three month UK tour supporting The Stranglers. Their first album was selling well and they had a big single hit with Peaches, (I remember being amazed that they hardly ever played Peaches during that tour). This meant that we were playing fairly big venues and as London were the support band we went on first.
For many people throughout the country we were the first punk band they’d ever seen. Their reaction was good until about halfway through the tour the Sex Pistols released God Save the Queen and the tabloids went punk crazy stressing the violence thing, particularly between Punks and Teds.
The audiences, fuelled by the media, changed. There was quite a bit of violence at gigs and a lot of gobbing. Steve and Dave would walk off stage with guitars covered in it and Jon’s drum kit almost had to be hosed down! It usually happened during the first number which was always No Time. I remember one gig in Birmingham where I walked on with a rolled-up umbrella. As soon as the gobbing started I opened the umbrella up to protect myself. I must’ve looked like a punked up Penguin out of Batman! When I walked off stage at the end of the gig I couldn’t close the umbrella. It’d gone rock hard with spittle!
Simon Napier-Bell got us the deal with MCA. He was really on the ball. He got us into IBC studios in London in the middle of the night and we recorded our first single Everyone’s a Winner in about twenty minutes. He then had fifteen cassette copies made up and got a motorbike courier to deliver them to all the main record companies with a note saying ‘This is London. If you want to sign us call this number’. It sounds incredible now but by midday quite a few record companies had phoned him. The two best offers were from Virgin and MCA. Virgin actually came down to see us play the Nashville in Kensington but signed the support band XTC instead! So we went with MCA.
Colin Wight Our manager Simon Napier Bell, who incidentally used to have this big fur coat thrown over his shoulders all the time, got that together. I think MCA thought they needed a Punk group cos everybody else had one. But they never really understood itand marketed it all wrong; just look at the Animal Games cover.
In my opinion, London was musically more proficient than most bands at the time (with the exception, perhaps, of The Stranglers and XTC) but I wouldn’t say we dumbed ourselves down to suit the times. We just loved playing and Steve, Dave and Jon were first class musicians. When we started we sounded a bit like the early Who or Stones but the later numbers like Animal Games and Swinging London were heavily influenced by The Stranglers. By this time the material was being written by all four of us and we had just done this huge tour with them.
Our manager was Simon Napier-Bell (left in picture with Japan) who had previously managed the Yardbirds and Marc Bolan. While he was managing us he was also looking after Japan. Later, of course he went on to manage Wham and George Michael. He had some good ideas and he also produced all our records. His assistant Danny Morgan had spotted us playing our very first gig at the Rochester Castle in Stoke Newington and Simon came to check us out at our next gig which was at the Roxy.
I think the incident about ‘ringing home to mum’ referred to Jon Moss who was still living with his parents. Simon phoned him up one day and was surprised to hear this well spoken woman pick the phone up. Simon was always encouraging us to be ‘oikish’ which wasn’t really in our characters so we’d fight against it. We were far more interested in our music than striking some fake rebellious street-cred attitude.
Obviously, Simon dials it up for his book because he’s trying to make it more readable.
As was to be expected from a punk group, they were vile, bad-mannered, foul-mouthed and dirty. They deliberately trod in dog shit before coming upstairs to lounge in my plush pad…
Then phoning to arrange a TV session discovers the band aren’t molotov throwing street urchins!
Simon Napier Bell …the phone was answered by a charming woman, refined and polite…She called upstairs in sweet motherly tones. ‘John, darling!’ I’d discovered the truth. ‘John’ lived in a big house in Hampstead, the son of a millionaire tycoon…As for the others, the biggest trickster of all was the all-swearing, all-spitting singer Miles Tredinnick. His father was a vice Marshall in the Royal Air Force
It was typical of the period. Punk wasn’t really anarchy, it was a sham. To most kids, so was the adult world. They were playing it at its own game. Black Vinyl, White Powder
We did play the Roxy Club on a few occasions. It was a club we had been to many times before. I remember seeing Generation X there on one of the first nights. It was good because there were only about eight venues in the whole of London where you could hear that kind of music then. The audience was always friendly. It was very small, had a tiny stage, and people stood right in front of you. There was a good atmosphere and always the chance of members of the Pistols or The Clash turning up. To the audience, there was very much a feeling that this was our club. You know, exclusively for new wave and punk bands whilst somewhere like the Marquee still had one foot in the old rock camp but to the bands it was just another venue that we could perform in on the circuit, so to speak. I saw some great gigs down there. Sham 69 and Cherry Vanilla with Sting on bass come to mind.
We played the Vortex once I think but this was later, well after the first wave of punk bands. It was different to the Roxy, slightly bigger and more like a lounge bar in a normal pub. We only played for about twenty minutes though. There was a short somewhere in our backline and we kept getting shocks off each other.
The London scene in 76/77 was fantastic. A different gig each night. The main venues were the Hope and Anchor (where we played a lot), the Marquee (where we did our last gig), the Nashville in Kensington, where we often played with 999 (my favourite band at the time), or XTC, the Rock Garden, Dingwalls (where we supported Wayne County), the Roxy, the Camden Palace and the Roundhouse (where we did two shows at the end of the Stranglers tour). Also the Red Cow in Kensington (where I saw the Jam in their early days). It was quite a close network then, people tended to know everyone else. It was very friendly.
My favourite song is No Time as it was the one that opened our show. I also liked Friday on my Mind and, of course, Everyone’s a Winner as that was our first single. Siouxsie Sue was an excellent song written by Steve Voice. It was originally called Susie Sue but Jon Moss suggested we change the title to Siouxsie Sue. I was against the change but the others liked it. The song had nothing whatever to do with Siouxsie, it was just a little tale of punks that Steve penned, it was a good number. Definitely popular with the fans who’d call out for it all through the set.
I liked our album Animal Games but on listening to it now I think it was a shame that we didn’t slow one or two of the numbers down a bit. It all sounds too fast and frantic. When we started one of the things we prided ourselves on was that we were the fastest band around. The nearest anyone else got to our speed of delivery was The Damned. Still, the album was very representative of what we were doing at the time. It was basically our stage act that we recorded immediately after The Stranglers tour, so it was very tight.
Towards the end of 1977, Jon was particularly worried that we weren’t making hit records. Our live act was always good and our gigs packed them in but this wasn’t reflected in the record charts. Jon had an offer to join The Damned in place of Rat Scabies so off he went. There was a bit of a delay because he had a bad car crash and was in hospital for a while. When he came out he played one last gig with us at the Marquee in Wardour Street, that was filmed by an Italian TV company, and then immediately went off on tour with The Damned. I went to see them play at the Roundhouse. Jon looked very rock ‘n’ roll but not very happy.
I think he quickly realised that The Damned wasn’t for him and it wasn’t long before him and The Damned guitarist Lu broke away and formed their own band the Edge. After Jon left London the rest of us tried out a few drummers (including John Towe ex-Chelsea and Generation X) but eventually decided to call it a day. I was kept on by MCA Records as a solo artist and made four more singles and then went to CBS Epic where I made my last record Hard Hearts Don’t Cry. Steve and Jon played on some of these singles, as did Lu from The Damned.
Colin Wight Well, for one thing the money ran out. Second, John left to join the Damned I think. Third, the records didn’t sell well enough. Fourth, I think all things Punk were intended to burn out soon. Anything which endured for any length of time wouldn’t be Punk any more. It would have been incorporated into the mainstream and become boring. Punk was more than just a music movement, as I am sure you know. It was also a cultural and political smack in the face. But like all smacks in the face you don’t want them to keep on happening.
The fans in London and the South were much more hip, much more aware of who the NME were calling the trendiest band that particular week and going along to support them. The fans in the North were more friendly and approachable. Some of our best gigs were in Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester, Coventry and Retford.
I very much enjoyed my time in London but we were only together for a very short time, about a year. At that time I very much wanted to write songs, make records and be in a band, so all those ambitions were fulfilled. The main thing I really got out of punk is anything is possible. Before punk it was very difficult to get a record made, then bands just started putting stuff out on their own labels. The whole do-it-yourself culture is very much with us today and it all began with punk. Look at television. It is only my opinion but if it hadn’t been for punk you wouldn’t have had things like Live Aid, Big Breakfast Show, TFI Friday, Brookside, Reeves and Mortimer, the Young Ones or Bottom etc. Punk opened doors all over the place. These days people just find a way to do what they want. Things are much better in that respect. It’s hard to believe that before punk the only music shows on TV were TOTP and the Old Grey Whistle Test.
I remember we played Coventry on the Stranglers’ tour and then came back as headliners ourselves a few months later and were given this fantastic welcome. That stands out in my mind as the best gig we did but there were many others. The best thing about London was always our live stage show. Part of the act was I’d come on with one of those sex shop blow-up dolls and throw it into the audience where it’d be tossed about above everyone’s heads. That used to go down well but at the end of the night someone always nicked the doll! We called her Randy Mandy and we got through dozens of them. I believe Simon Napier-Bell had to open an account with one of the Ann Summers’ sex shops. The boot of the hire car was always crammed with these plastic dolls with their permanently open mouths!
I loved 999, Generation X, the Damned, the Stranglers, Penetration, the Adverts, Elvis Costello, Pistols, the Clash, the Drones, the Jam. With the exception of Blondie and Johnny Thunders, I wasn’t particularly keen on the New York scene.
(On how punks changed over 77/78….) Yeah, they changed a lot. For a start their appearance. Mohicans and safety pins came in in a big way. Up until then, the new wave image seemed to lean towards the mod thing of the 60’s which I quite liked. Drainpipes, smart jackets, two-tone shoes, button-down collars etc
Miles Tredinnick (Riff Regan)
Colin Wight Look let’s be honest here, we were always a second wave band. The innovators like the Pistols, the Clash, the Damned were what all\ the rest were trying to emulate. How would I describe the sound? “Thick, Fast and Heavy, with a melodic edge”. Some of the tracks I think are really good in retrospect (No Time, for example). Punk77 Interview
Everyone’s A Winner / Handcuffed
(MCA June 1977)
Riff Regan Simon Napier Bell got us into IBC studios in London in the middle of the night and we recorded our first single Everyone’s a Winner in about twenty minutes. He then had fifteen cassette copies made up and got a motorbike courier to deliver them to all the main record companies with a note saying ‘This is London. If you want to sign us call this number’. It sounds incredible now but by midday, quite a few record companies had phoned him. The two best offers were from Virgin and MCA. Virgin actually came down to see us play the Nashville in Kensington but signed the support band XTC instead! So we went with MCA. Punk77 Interview
Punk77 says – MCA didn’t have a clue how to market punk. The covers above are foreign releases. The UK single came in a plain company bag which at the time it was released was commercial suicide. They did push it promotion wise in the music papers but the single stalled at about #50 odd in the charts.
Passable pop punk and not to be confused with the Hot Chocolate song with the same title. “Everyones a winner. Everyone’s a golden wonder.” Hard not to think of the brand of crisps!
No Time / Siouxsie Sue/Summer Of Love/Friday On My Mind
(MCA 1977)
Riff Regan My favourite song is No Time as it was the one that opened our show. I also liked Friday on my Mind. Siouxsie Sue was an excellent song written by Steve Voice. It was originally called Susie Sue but Jon Moss suggested we change the title to Siouxsie Sue. I was against the change but the others liked it. The song had nothing whatever to do with Siouxsie, it was just a little tale of punks that Steve penned; it was a good number. Definitely popular with the fans who’d call out for it all through the set.
Colin Wight I do remember bumping into the Banshees at a motorway service station on the way back from a gig. There was no comradery there. In fact, the atmosphere was pretty hostile. Partly, I suppose because of the song title.
Punk77 says It’s easily their best single but by the time it came out it was a crowded market. Hard to believe the band kicked off at the record label about the record cover looking like a ‘cornflake packet!’ At least they got a cover this time and a 12″ version as well in an attempt to push the band. No Time is a fine tune and has an air of Eddie & The Hot Rods about it which is no bad thing. Siouxsie Sue is probably their punkiest sounding song.
Animal Games / Us Kids Could
(MCA 1977)
The final single and MCA’s approach made no sense. I can only assume that with an album in the bag, this was to try and recoup some money and finish the contract.
So issued in the UK again with no picture sleeve. No surprise it didn’t achieve great sales.
It’s a great song but it’s not single material.
Animal Games – (MCA 1978)
Punk77 says: Ok I struggle with this album in the same way as I struggle with The Depressions and Suburban Studs albums in that they just don’t move me and seem a little too contrived.
Colin Wight …. listening back to it now I don’t think the album is that bad. Some of the stuff I was doing on it is probably out of place, but people didn’t realise that we were probably one of the first punk bands to use irony. The guitar intro to Summer of Love, for example, is meant to be a piss-take. The album is not a Punk classic, but then how many are? Punk77 Interview
Riff Regan I liked our album Animal Games but on listening to it now… I think it was a shame that we didn’t slow one or two of the numbers down a bit. It all sounds too fast and frantic…When we started one of the things we prided ourselves on was that we were the fastest band around. Still, the album was very representative of what we were doing at the time. It was basically our stage act that we recorded immediately after The Stranglers tour, so it was very tight. Punk77 Interview
The album artwork story below tells you just how far off the mark both the label, manager and band were design wise.
We’ve had to YouTube the video as it’s not on Spotify. About time this was reissued on some nice coloured vinyl with extras methinks!
Miles Tredinnick We weren’t even sure that MCA was going to put out the ‘Animal Games’ album but they did in February 1978. Simon Napier-Bell had a sleeve designed that showed dead animals in a slaughterhouse. He was trying to do a Beatles ‘butcher’ cover type thing but the MCA bosses were appalled and told him to go away and come back with something a little less controversial.
So he got Chris Townson to design the sleeve as he knew him from when he managed ‘John’s Children’ the band that Chris was in with Marc Bolan. The front cover has this big ape smashing all the band’s equipment up (and other members of the band) and the back showed the ape signing a contract with a couple of wide boy managers. Years later Danny Morgan who was Simon Napier-Bell’s assistant and the guy who had first seen us play told me that the ape was meant to be me and the two figures signing him up were Danny and Simon! Eyeplug
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