The Moors Murderers

Steve Strange – Vocals, Chrissie Hynde – Guitar, John Harlow – Bass & Rob Egan Drums

Ladies and gentlemen, what could possibly link the Moors Murderers above with the images below in the years 1977 & 1978? The answer is that some of these rather famous people, or members of the bands in the photos were all at some stage part of an infamous punk group that existed over some nine months and featured in both the musical and national press with controversy.

A band that took their name from Britain’s most notorious sex killers who are engrained in the British psyche with horror and who may have recorded arguably the rarest punk single ever in the world today. A band that you will probably never hear and even today mention of people in association with them can spark requests to have their name removed. This is their story in as much as can be gleaned from the sometimes conflicting memories of events from more than 40 years ago. 

This isn’t an attempt at sensationalism or judging anyone involved, but to piece together the fascinating history of the band and its many members. What you read on these pages is a several times updated story over the last 20 years. Beware of imitations who have ‘borrowed freely’ but not credited or updated their pages!

Steve Strange There are at least 400 punk bands around at the moment, and they all sing about the same things: boredom, unemployment…The kids are getting bored, they want something stronger. We’re different, but people say my songs are too brutal because I defend criminals. Well, I don’t… laws should be changed, or applied in a different way. What I’m trying to say is if a woman like Myra Hindley has been in prison for 13 years, then she’s not the same person anymore. She’s changed, but in the eyes of law & society she’ll always be a criminal. Boy With The Yellow Hair – Italian Punk Documentary 1977

Before we proceed onto the investigation it’s necessary to give you an insight into the real life Moors Murderers and their crimes as it helps to understand the reaction to the band.

The Moors Murderers were Ian Brady and Myra Hindley and the mere mention of either can provoke a storm of outrage and hate. She and Brady have entered public consciousness as something dark and intangible personified by the image of her with peroxide hair and dark merciless eyes.

Outrage as the Pistols showed, was a shortcut to getting publicity and achieving an end which will account for why people were willing to be involved or interested in the band The Moors Murderers and the song Free Hindley.

Without doubt, Ian Brady and Myra Hindley were two of the most infamous killers in the UK and even today many years after their crimes and imprisonment still evoke the same hatred and fear.

Named the Moors Murderers by the media, Brady and Hindley tortured, raped and murdered a ten-year-old girl while taping her screams. They raped persons of both sexes, killed and buried them on the moors and coolly picnicked on their graves. Brady invited a friend around the house to watch as he finished off axing a teenage male victim.  Brady and Hindley, the quiet and unassuming clerk and typist who lived together and murdered God knows how many. Brady who liked to listen to Hitler’s speeches and Hindley to dress up as a domineering Nazi.

In 1965, a case like this was unique in British crime being the first time in British history that a woman had been involved in a killing partnership that had involved the serial sex murders of children. The public couldn’t understand how any woman could take part in such a horrific crime; a woman’s involvement made the crimes seem even more evil and unforgivable. Both were given life sentences.

Interestingly Hindley attracted some very high level supporters for her parole release; people who believed that Hindley wasn’t a threat and that death by incarceration wasn’t supposed to be a humane substitute for hanging.

Not least of these was Lord Longford a member of Harold Wilson’s cabinet and potentially hugely influential. A relationship that was to prove a double-edged sword for her. While Myra believed having him on her side would aid her the priest at Holloway prison, Father William Kahle, thought otherwise.

I must stress that the publicity will not do Myra any good and will only be worse for her, possibly set her release date back many years – and just think of the parents and the neighbours and all those who were concerned in the case. Guardian 14.10.2006

Indeed Longford’s approach to the case was to make it so high profile that made it impossible for any Home Secretary as public opinion over the horror would be whipped up by the papers. Any chance to publicise her plight was taken but always generated negative publicity.

How much was Hindley using people? in 1985 Brady revealed that there were another two bodies buried on Saddleworth Moor with Hindley admitting her involvement in the killings. As a result of this, the police mounted a search and recovered the body of Pauline Reade. The second body of Keith Bennett has never been found.

Finally, Hindley cut off all ties with Longford. 20 years of support had basically destroyed his reputation. Still, he publicly supported her. Perhaps it’s fitting that his support and attendant media attention kept her imprisoned to the last.

Frank has been a pestilential pain in the neck over the years with his ‘campaigning’ and he glories in the publicity himself. God help me; he wrote an article a couple of months ago which was published in the Catholic Herald, and was over the moon because they offered him a column once a month where, he said, he can write whatever he wants about me to promote my cause. Guardian 14.10.2006

Hindley died at the end of 2002; Longford in August 2001. Brady unrepentant to the last died in May 2017.

Time has not lessened the outrage or indignation the public or media can whip up.

In 2006 Channel 4 broadcast a dramatic reconstruction of events provoking a series of comments online. Here’s an example.

How ironic that Channel 4 are being criticised for “publicity seeking” tactics. Isn’t that just what Lord Longford was doing by campaigning on behalf of the heartless cold blooded child murderer. After all – what else did he do to get himself noticed? If it hadn’t been for the child murderer most of us would never have heard of him. It baffles me how this man could sit & listen to the horror stories that were the Moors murders & it not affect his opinion of this evil thing – I refuse to call it either a person even less woman. Julie, Ashton 22/10/2006

Just goes to show you that religion is complete rubbish. We all know she should have been hung then she would have been forgotten decades ago Colin W, Stockholm 20/10/2006

Did they even think for a second about the families, this is just sick!!!! How low can you go for ratings get some morals CH4 naz, city centre 20/10/2006

Well done guys! Mission accomplished for Channel 4! All this just serves for some lovely free publicity for a programme that will have garnered a much wider audience now. I find it amazing that you guys never learn. In the instance of the Prophet Mohammed cartoon, just how many times was it reprinted after the outcry? Moaning about this will only serve to make the image iconographic and hype it. Keep going and it’ll probably be on every students wall by Christmas!

Take Marcus Harvey’s portrait of Hindley which is made up of children’s handprints. It was vandalised with ink and eggs while on show as part of the Royal Academy’s Sensation exhibition in 1997.

In August 2008 it featured, albeit briefly, in London’s Olympic promo bid video whipping up yet another storm.

The Sun is almost obsessive in its ability to bring the killers back into the public psyche at any chance. In February 2010 the Sun ran this headline and text

MOORS murderer Ian Brady was blasted last night after complaining about his TOOTHPASTE.

Yesterday the mother of one of his victims branded Brady’s complaints “grossly insensitive”.

Winnie Johnson, whose son Keith Bennett was lured to his death by Brady and his late partner in crime Myra Hindley, raged: “It is unbelievable just how much Brady moans.

“He is a cold-blooded monster and what little speck of pain he is feeling now is a drop in the ocean compared to the pain felt by the families of those children he willingly murdered. So what if his teeth rot? I hope all of him slowly rots away.”

Keith, 12, was one of five victims murdered by Brady between 1963 and 1965. His body has never been found on Saddleworth Moor, near Oldham.

Ashworth Hospital declined to comment on whether Sensodyne would be made available to Brady. The Sun 24.2.10

There’s something in the nations psyche permanently damaged by these two.

So why would a band in 1977/78 risk public wrath to write a song about freeing Hindley. They obviously knew it would be controversial as they wore bags over their heads to hide their identities.

Dave Goodman (Sex Pistols soundman and producer) recalls Strange claiming the reason for the song was.

… He felt that it was hypocritical of the government to automatically consider other child murderers for parole after a certain length of time, while ignoring Hindley.

In early 1978 in Sounds Strange would also claim

When I say she should be freed I mean she should be considered for parole. Like every British citizen that gets imprisoned for life gets considered for parole after 10 years. Sounds 7.1.78

And commenting on Lord Longford’s involvement

…Longford’s the reason why she hasn’t been released. The media and the public reaction makes the authorities scared but that’s only because Lord Longford blows it up all the time. If he could just keep away from Hindley the authorities could just quietly release her and that would be OK. Sounds 7.1.78

Noone but Strange (now dead) can confirm whether he was being altruistic or just attempting to milk the almost inevitable publicity that would ensue from both the band’s name and its song because lets face it any headline about the Moors Murderers would sell papers. The irony is his band created further unwanted publicity for her that would only reinforce public perception.

In the end it backfired as members of the band were threatened, the publicity did not develop the band and the band died to death. What it didn’t do though was hurt the future careers of the majority of its members who went on and still do work (where alive) in the music industry as you’ll find out.

The Moors Murderers story all starts back in June 1977 when punk face on the scene Soo Catwoman was reported in the T-Zers gossip section of the NME 18.06.77 as: “Reportedly forming a combo who will trade under the name of The Moors Murderers. “

Also in this combo was one Steve Harrington (aka Steve Strange aka Steve Brady). Steve Strange wasn’t always the glam man fronting Visage and New Romantic nightclubs. Back then he was a full on punk from Newbridge Wales, a place like many others in the UK, not too disposed to punk rockers wanting to be different.

Clockwise – Steve at the Pistols, Steve ..err. doing something in his later New Romantic years and Steve hits the media

Seeing the Sex Pistols in the Stowaway Club in Newport in September 1976 was a revelation and he became friends with Glen Matlock. Later putting on gigs for bands like Generation X, he added Billy Idol and JJ Burnel to his list of friends.

In November 1976 he made the move to London ending up at JJ Burnel’s place and while there got his nickname as the postman seeing him and a girl called Suzy he was involved with exclaimed ‘You’re Mr. and Mrs. Strange!’

Money came via working in Seditionaries and occasionally for Mclaren’s Gliterbest company which promoted the Sex Pistols, working for Gen X once they had signed to Chrysalis, and at the Roxy Club where he was sacked from managing the cloakroom for relieving others of their possessions. A change of scene came when he became friends with Rusty Egan of the Rich Kids in summer 1977 and moved to sleeping on his settee. the Rich Kids formed and Strange helped with the fan club and outfit design for the band. It also brought him into contact with Midge Ure. Egan’s wasn’t the only settee and he was also staying with The Slits then manager. By now like so many others Strange had tired of working for other bands and wanted his own.

Soo Catwoman. With regard to Steve Strange…The Moors Murderers thing was a big joke to be honest.  I was joking about getting a band together called the Moors Murderers and doing sleazy love songs, I had no idea he would actually go out and do it and it was fitting that he got slated for it.  As for the paper bag over his head on the cover (no I won’t say it) Punk77 Interview 2007

Back in 1977, punk could be a source of much needed cash for its protagonists as visiting film crews, anxious to film and record those crazy London punks for viewers back home, would pay for the privilege and the outrage.

The idea moves forward when Bravo, a German magazine, offers money for pictures of a punk band.

Soo Catwoman. At that time a magazine here and there would grab a bunch of ‘punks’ and do a photo session, for which you’d get paid a small sum, enough to buy dinner or get a cab home from a gig.  Strange got into it much more than I did; he always loved posing.  At one point the German magazine Bravo hired out a studio to take pictures of a fake band.  Strange got into pretending to be in a band despite no crowd and no music being present, but after about thirty seconds I got off the stage saying ‘this is crap, I don’t want to do this’.  I also remember meeting someone (not sure who it was), who told me he had showed Strange a poem he wrote and then found out Strange had used it as lyrics for a Moors Murderers song and claimed to have written it himself, which didn’t surprise me.” Punk77 Interview 2007

The feature appeared in August in Bravo as part of a double page spread on the UK Punk Shock and only with Soo Catwoman from the band which isn’t mentioned and to be fair won’t have meant anything to a German. It’s the smallest of insets with the caption.

They also come from London, like the singer Cat Woman, who is one of the most important figures in the scene there.

So there was a fake band set up in the beginning. But Strange takes it further and tries to form a real band ‘taking’ the idea and lyrics that would become ‘Free Hindley.’

John Harlow (Moors Murderers Bassist) I learnt a lot about what was going on with Steve Strange and Soo Catwoman – it was a big joke -They did a photo session and that was it. Steve tried to carry it forward. She wanted nothing more to do with it.

So why the Moors Murderers when it was bound to be so controversial?

Controversy in Punk rock was nothing new and in fact it was a key part of McLaren and Westwood’s modus operandi –  the former with the band the Sex Pistols; the latter in her clothes. It took on even more importance to McLaren as a PR tool as he realised the generation of column inches that could be achieved by shock and outrage and that limiting the amount the band played increased their profile, mysteriousness and demand so much that they didn’t even need to play. At the time the Bill Grundy incident (where the Sex Pistols swore on live TV), which led to them being thrown off the EMI record label, was viewed as a catastrophe by McLaren for the Sex Pistols though he soon manipulated the event retrospectively to have been all part of his master plan to get cash from chaos.

Clothes-wise Westwood’s designs had the same provocative intent as the band in the form of what she called ‘confrontation dressing’ and were designed to shock. T-shirts featuring the Cambridge Rapist, porn images, young naked kids and Cowboys with touching cocks to provoke reaction were for sale in their shop. Bad taste or provocative statement? With their use of swastikas, upside-down crosses and iconic images such as the queen with safety pins or swastikas added, images of Brady and Hindley would not have looked out of place.

Elsewhere the envelope was being pushed on what was acceptable. The Adverts had a song in the charts about American killer Gary Gilmore called ‘Gary Gilmores Eyes’ (Gilmore separately robbed and then cold bloodedly executed 2 men. He donated his eyes, hence the song which by the way isn’t a glorification, and was executed by firing squad), t shirts were in Boy featuring images of him and fake blood. Meanwhile, a band had formed, and were playing at places like the Roxy & Vortex, calling itself Raped who Strange knew.

The Sex Pistols had already hit the public consciousness both with the Bill Grundy show in 1976 and in the summer of 1977 hitting #1 in the singles charts with their song God Save The Queen right in the middle of Jubilee year, further enraging sections of the British public. Add to that lurid press tales of violence and antagonistic punk fashion, looks and attitude with spitting, pogoing and self mutilation via safety pins and an anti-social stance then it was open season on punks and punk rock.

Add in random violence such as attacks on Sex Pistols Rotten and Cook, The Slits‘ 15 year old Ari Up getting stabbed in the buttock by some random person at a gig, frequent fights by rival youth cults (teds, football boot boys and skinheads) and then add in angry passers-by and being a punk in 1977 was an often precarious but thrilling edgy anti lifestyle.

So taking up the cause of Britain’s most hated couple, Brady & Hindley who kidnapped, tortured, sexually abused and murdered several children, showed no remorse about it, refused to give the whereabouts of one the graves and whom most people believed had escaped the death penalty was always going to be a precarious business.

That said they were young, distanced from events before their time caught up in the excitement of forming a band, making music and with the added frisson of controversy, shock and danger, though like Raped, must have known their horizons were strictly limited!

It’s likely Strange working in Seditionaries/Glitterbest would be hearing McLaren’s rewrite of history and say what you like about him he was quick to pick up on opportunities and saw a way to copy the approach. The Moors Murderers had all the necessary ingredients in spades to guarantee publicity that could be exploited

Richard Durrant (Sick Things and Moors Murderers Guitarist) : It was Steve Strange’s band basically; he had the concept and this idea that was going to shock everybody and become massive and it did make the front pages.

So after Soo who was next? There’s a bit of a disconnect in that it could be Chrissie Hynde (Guitar) or John Harlow (Bass) both of whom Steve met in the Vortex.

Chrissie Hynde moved to London in 1973 and worked for a time as a rock journalist with the New Musical Express. In 1974 she came into contact with the future punk scene by working in McLaren’s & Westwood’s ‘Sex’ shop in the Kings Road.

Above Chrissie as Journo and right Chrissie with middle finger raised with Steve Jones, Jordan and Viv Westwood in Seditionaries

Having joined the Frenchies with Chris Spedding, she returned to America, came back, rehearsed with Mick Jones before he formed The Clash, and been in Malcolm McLaren’s Masters of the Backside with soon to be members of The Damned circa 1975 and the Berk Brothers before they oust her and get in Johnny Moped as lead singer. Chrissie had already had a colourful life of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll and had been involved with Hells Angels at home and in London.

She desperately wants to be in a band. Around mid 1977, she’d been contacted out of the blue by Danny Secunda who’d heard about this American girl guitarist.


Danny Secunda was an interesting figure in the world of music. Manager of the Move in the sixties, he had a flair for publicity and was seen as a major figure in the band’s success.

A true pioneer in music management and publicity, Secunda’s methods were years ahead of their time… Seemingly able to manipulate the press at will, Secunda dressed the group [The Move] as American gangsters and staged a contract signing on the back (literally) of a topless model! He also steered The Move away from Motown and towards a more psychedelic, West Coast-influenced live sound, while encouraging lead guitarist Roy Wood to write more material. The Move

He was also responsible for its biggest PR disaster publishing a libellous drawing on a promo postcard for the release of Flowers In The Rain of then Prime Minister Harold Wilson which led to the band being sued and losing all royalties for the single. Secunda was fired as a result.

He later managed such people as T Rex, Steve Took, Marianne Faithful and Motorhead.


Instead fair play to him he saw something in Chrissie Hynde and wanted to hear her stuff. She recalls being asked to play him some of her stuff.

“Anyway, I got there and knocked out a couple of chords from The Phone Call and I was still being pretty offhand and obstinate about the whole thing…But he said, ‘Yeah, great!’

Secunda had faith in the Chrissie Hynde songbook, promising to arrange studio time and to procure session musicians so she could cut some demos.

“… I really wanted was to get my own band together. Eventually, though, I figured that Tony really did need something he could get people to hear, and he was being very good to me, paying me a small wage and helping me with the rent and all.”

It’s highly likely that without Tony Secunda, Chrissie Hynde and The Pretenders may not have existed and gone on to do what she/they did. The problem was Secunda saw Chrissie as a solo front person whereas she wanted a band. But at this time he’d paid for her to do the demos. This would have been mid 1977 as John Cale has a very very tenuous connection to the demos and he was around producing records for Miles Copeland’s bands like Menace, Sham 69 and Squeeze.

So Chrissie would have been a very well known face on the scene and Strange was now actively approaching people to get them to play in his band. The place they met depends on who tells it so sometimes it’s the Roxy Club and sometimes The Vortex.

Chrissie Hynde (Pretenders) Then I met Steve Strange…who accosted me one night in the Vortex. I liked his shameless determination, singing like that with such unconscious belief. And the songs were good too; all about underworld gangsters, Al Capone, The Krays.. and a stand out tune called “Free Hindley”…When Steve asked if I would help him out – play guitar on a few tunes he was planning for some record-company guy – I was happy to get on board…Reckless. My Life As A Pretender 2015

Around this time was also the filming of the punk film Jubilee by Derek Jarman which featured various punk bands and required punk extras.  Jubilee is a chance to meet and recruit band members. It’s also a chance to get in boys’ pants!

John Harlow (Moors Murderers Bassist)  Steve’s way to pick up boys was to ask them if they wanted to be in bands. All the people who said they were in the band were people who would have been asked by him to join and hopefully sleep with!

Derek Jarman is using a singer called Steve Treatment (then an angelic looking boy with long blonde curly hair) to look for extras and Jarman must have been aware of Strange’s band.

Treatment himself and Jordan appear in the film’s bonfire burning scene and is approached on set by Steve Strange who is also an extra in the scene. In one of the more surreal Punk 77 interviews from 2004, an out of it Steve, with sunstroke from lying in the garden all day, recounts:

Steve Treatment:  Steve Strange was on the set for the bonfire scene with Jordan. I was penniless and jumped the tube. We had to cancel the filming because it rained in Docklands so Steve didn’t appear In the film. He asked if I could play music or write music and I said yes and keyboards and asked me if I wanted to be part of the Moors Murderers. I didn’t like the idea and put him off. We filmed next day and Derek said to phone Steve and then Chrissie Hynde answered and said ‘sorry we couldn’t wait for you because you didn’t turn up on time.’ Punk77 Interview 4.9.2004

Shooting was from late June to mid August 1977 so this backs up the timeframe for Chrissie’s involvement. As a coincidence, the film features Seditionaries/Sex assistant Jordan reading from a book to an assembled gang of Punks about her life before performing ballet steps and cutting Treatment’s long curly hair. She mentions Myra Hindley as a heroine in perhaps the strangest part of the script written by Jarman.

As a child my heroine was Myra Hindley. Do you remember her?

Myra’s crimes, they say, were beyond belief. That was because noone had any imagination back then. They really didn’t know how to make their desires reality. They were not artists like Myra. One can smile at their naivety. Amyl Nitrate AKA Jordan from the Derek Jarman film Jubilee

Flash forward to 2017 and the power to shock hadn’t abated when Jubilee was made a play.

A new play in Manchester has cut lines about Moors Murderer Myra Hindley being “a true artist” and a “hero” for fear of offending the audience.

The film included the lines, but the stage version removed her name from its script days before Thursday’s opening. Director Chris Goode, who has adapted the script for its stage premiere, said the lines were in the original film to show how punks  deliberately wanted to shock society and smash taboos.

He initially resisted requests to take out the reference to Hindley but was convinced to do so by a member of the “senior artistic leadership of the Royal Exchange” on Saturday. He said he had underestimated how the spectre of Hindley still stirred strong feelings, especially in Manchester, all these years on. 2/11/2017, BBC News

It’s interesting to note both the Myra Hindley piece in the script written by Jarman, with its almost Crowley ‘Do what thou wilt’ overtones, and the fact that Jarman seemed to know about the band and actively urge Treatment to join.  Anyway the interview got more surreal as Steve also made an interesting claim about the band.

Steve Strange told me the same people who did the Bill Grundy Sex Pistols scam (it was a publicity stunt the whole thing) were doing the Moors Murderers. It was all a set up. I don’t know his name. Punk77 Interview 4.9.2004

Hard to know what to make of this claim as Steve T, though seemingly out of it, was lucid enough to remember the Jordan quote from Jubilee above. It sounds like Steve Strange was bigging up the band to get him involved as per the approach outlined above. Whatever the case it was a ‘no’ from Steve Treatment.

But the London punk pool of musicians at the time was a fluid affair and what happens next is a mixture of coincidence and a revolving door of musicians who all know each other swapping around like a punk band tetris.

So whether it was Chrissie first or not the indefatigable Steve is on the lookout for more musicians and presumably more shagging! The next in line was likely John Harlow. John is an interesting character in the story of Punk as his history is the evolution into what became punk. From Being a skinhead in 69 to Bowie to soul clubs and fashion to Loiuses and Crackers and Chaguaramas to the King’s Road to the Sex Pistols and Roxy Club. At all these seminal places or events John was there but unlike so many other people on the scene, he managed to remain virtually anonymous and hardly appears in photographs.

John Harlow (Moors Murderers Bassist) If anyone tried to photograph us we would do a runner or hide. I wasn’t interested in being filmed or having my photo taken….

Like everyone else, he was constantly approached to be in bands

John Harlow (Moors Murderers Bassist)... at some point in the night [while out] someone would ask if you played an instrument, were in a band or did you want to join a band?  It used to be a competition who would be asked the most, or the most interesting or funniest band name. The Shit And Fucks are looking for a bass player. Johnny Thunders even asked me one night if I could play bass.  They had a bass player but it was the equivalent of ‘do you come here often?’ as an opening line. Are you in band.

And then one night that changes and he wins the competition and joins arguably the most controversial and infamous punk band in history!

John Harlow (Moors Murderers Bassist) When the Roxy started to turn to shit we went to the Vortex and that was the time I used to see Steve Strange around. I remember in the Vortex there were stairs there that I used to hide under for some peace and people would stick their head under and join me. Then one day Steve asked to join and we started to talk and the usual bollocks about being in a band came up and then he said “Do I want to be in his band?” and he said the name of it was the Moors Murderers. I didn’t know how to take that. I thought he was trying to shock and that’s going to do it! So I said “Ok.

Steve Strange at The Vortex

We became friends. Steve’s way to pick up boys was to ask them if they wanted to be in his band. I stayed round his place and slept in all my clothes and the next morning his landlady checked I was ok, but he got the message.

They managed to get a drummer Don Deveraux. Don would become the drummer in Levi & The Rockats in early 1978.

John Harlow (Moors Murderers Bassist) So it was just me and Steve at that time. The next person to come in was Don Deveraux on drums who was a friend of ours also from Ealing

Drummer wise Don was pretty unreliable; sometimes turning up and sometimes not. As I said I knew him from before the band and there was an incident where he and his friend Steve Bristow got involved in a fight in Oxford Street and some bloke got killed. Don pushed him and he went through a plate glass window and the window came down and decapitated him. Don got done for manslaughter but didn’t get put away; it was self-defence but he started to be called Don the Murderer and wanted to get away from. However being in a band called the Moors Murderers wasn’t going to help!

With just a bassist, singer and drummer the band was a bit hamstrung in terms of rehearsing but help came from some unlikely sources.

John Harlow (Moors Murderers Bassist) Marco Pirroni started popping up at this time and I was lent a bass and we used to go to Bazooka Joe’s guitarists Danny Kleinman’s place in Stanmore. His family was well off and had a studio in their house in the garage or basement and me, Steve and Marco used to go there at the weekend.  Sometimes Danny and Marco would show me how to play bass and also it was the beginning of writing stuff.

Marco – He wasn’t in the Moors Murderers

There wasn’t much on paper lyric wise and we were working through about 3 songs. Free Hindley would have been on paper with the rough lyrics and Steve had a rough tune that he would sing to us. I don’t even think it had a middle eight in it and it was pretty basic.  A lot of it would have been Marco because we didn’t really have a guitar player. It was basic three chords and once I was shown the bass line and that was basic, no puns intended. It was probably knocked out about then and the rest of the songs were film/tv theme tunes.

Most of the lyrics to Free Hyndley were there but we tarted it up a bit. I don’t think it was stolen from someone else. He had scraps of lyrics from cigarette packets. We were all coming up with stuff and we had bits and pieces of other songs. There were concerns about the band’s name and just having one song. 

Marco disputes this version and is very clear and concise.

I didn’t know Danny then. Didn’t meet him till 1980. I went to one rehearsal and Christie was already there. I thought the song was rubbish with or without the controversy. Very hard to say no to Steve.  Punk77 Email, April 2021

Steve would later lodge with Marco for over a year in 1978. This would suggest that there weren’t many rehearsals done and they were haphazard with either Danny or Marco. So either Chrissie was in the band before or after but if its after it’s harder to make the time frames fit.

One other person to add who has a bit part in the story and that’s Chrissie’s fellow countrywoman Vermilion (American Punk biker journalist cum musician in first Dick Envy then her own band). John Harlow had first met her at the Sex Pistols’ first Notre Dame gig.

Vermilion is the first to mention the existence of the band and their name and reports in her Street Report column for US magazine ‘Search & Destroy’ that “Moors Murders are coming!” Search & Destroy #3 1977

This would place the time frame as around October 1977. She ends up contributing one of the songs mentioned by Chrissie to the band.

John Harlow (Moors Murderers Bassist) Vermilion became a close friend about this time and did one about John Dillinger and there were others, lots of ideas and theme tunes from TV shows and simple stuff like Batman or Mack The Knife which Marco would show me how to play. It was all a good laugh at that time.

She reveals as such to Mick Farren of the Deviants in issue 11 1978 of Search & Destroy.

I wrote a song for the Moors Murderers about John Dillinger. All outlaws are heroes!

One thing is for sure is that with Chrissie ‘helping out’ the band actually starts to come together.

John Harlow (Moors Murderers Bassist) Chrissie was onboard pretty early. We got introduced to Chrissie at the Vortex who was this fantastic American girl Steve knew who was a bit whacky but interested. She came over with the intent of meeting Ray Davies and also get a band together and was hoping the punk thing would be a good platform. She didn’t know anything about the Moors Murderers story and wasn’t that clued up to it. She was just desperate to be in a band so she started hanging around with us and rehearsing and things started to move on and we then started to seriously rehearse at the Arches in Waterloo.

So through October/November/December 1977 Strange, Hynde and Harlow are rehearsing at The Arches, Waterloo, London (later to become Alaska Studios),

John Harlow (Moors Murderers Bassist) So basically it was me, Steve, Chrissie and Don now and again. Steve had the gift of the gab and was always coming up with ‘so and so is interested in doing something or putting up the money for the band’ but you can imagine how hard it was to take it so seriously. As much as it was a bit of fun and there was a chance of gigs it was never going to last long and once the name got round there would be a lot of hostility.

I used to borrow a Rickenbacker bass (in photos) that belonged to Glen Matlock. Steve knew him quite well and just asked to borrow his bass and I thought I would never have to give it back because I loved it. Then of course he wanted it back and reluctantly I did. I also had his flight case with Sex Pistols stencilled on it.

We looked the part, Steve had blonde and I had black hair and Steve loved all that stuff – anything for attention. I was a bit more blasé about it all. Inwardly I suppose I was liking it but I played it cool. With Chrissie though it was impossible to be cool. We used to go to greasy spoons and she used to love climbing up on chairs or tables and singing Johhny B Good and air guitar. She always wore leather trousers and jacket and had a lot of bravado. She was trying to work out where she was in this scene.

They are captured by photographer Sheila Rock with some stunning photos which were used in her book ‘Punk+’.

Eve, Steve, John, Rob, Jane & Chrissie – Photo Credit Sheila Rock

Sheila Rock: I was asked by Chrissie Hynde to come down to a rehearsal. She was a fellow American and a friend. She was not the singer but the guitarist. There was no audience. Just me and everyone on the stage playing.  Steve Strange was singing.  He wrote the words. The rehearsal was held in the railway arches in South London. It was not a commission. I just went along with my camera because Chrissie suggested I might like it. Punk77 February 2020

Also there because of Chrissie was journalist Jane Suck.

Chrissie Hynde My mate Jane Suck, who had taken over my room in Clapham and was writing for the NME, came along for a laugh…The most memorable part of rehearsal was that it was the only time I’d punched someone in the face. (Jane – after she threw lager all over my guitar.) Reckless: My Life As A Pretender

Interestingly neither Strange nor Chrissie provided any info on other people in the picture to the book researcher:

We know Chrissie, Steve Strange, Jane Suck and John (Photons) are in it but not sure if the drummer is Vince Ely or Nick Holmes. Also, there’s an unknown blonde woman.  Do you think you might be able to identify them? I’d really appreciate it because I contacted both Chrissie Hynde who can’t remember and Steve Strange who doesn’t seem to want to remember and it seems a shame to leave it a blank. Punk77 email 8.2.2013

Subsequent to the email above we can identify the people in the photos. So from left to right is Eve Goddard (Adam Ant’s wife at the time) then Steve Strange, then bassist John Harlow, then drummer Rob Egan (a relative of Rusty Egan of the Rich Kids and whom Strange was running the fan club for) and who went on to join The Spiders in the eighties. Next to him Sounds Journalist Jane Suck and finally Chrissie Hynde.

John Harlow (Moors Murderers Bassist) Chrissie had her own friends that would turn up as did we. It was always a bit of a party. She knew a lot of interesting people and how seriously she took the MM I don’t know but she always turned up contributed and enjoyed it. It was good fun and were a good little crowd together.

Anyone who turned up used to join in. By this time we had 3 or 4 songs and as I said Don was pretty unreliable and drummers were always a bit of a floating thing so by this time were used to get a couple of young kids coming in and one of them was Rusty’s brother and whoever Steve was knocking about with at the time.

Steve, John & Chrissie
Rob Egan
Chrissie & Eve

The photos above are copyright Sheila Rock. Click for larger images

That Eve Goddard is doing backing vocals is a surprise but

John Harlow (Moors Murderers Bassist) I started seeing Eve Goddard and found she was Adam Ant’s wife. Both she and Jane Suck used to turn up and hang around as well but neither of those were in the band. I think they were hanging around with Chrissie. She was just on the scene – another pissed up night and she was there.  I just got off with her one night and that was it. She was quite weird. I don’t know what she thought about me, but Adam didn’t get a good review from her! Laughs.

Adam & The Ants had also rehearsed at this studio and there’s some of Adam’s old band Bazooka Joe’s backline there.

At this time the band is captured on film at Alaska rehearsing by an Italian film company most likely in September/October 1977.

Strange has a bigger part in the film.

In late 1977 Italian TV journo Angelo Campanella goes to London with a couple of cameramen. RAI (the Italian state radio/television company) supposedly commissioned him a reportage about what’s happening in the capital in those days, without a particular focus (“Just go there and look for anything interesting, if you’ll find something”). So Angelo goes there without a clue: his forté as a journalist is politics, with a specialisation on terrorism – the key factor in Italian political and day-today life at that time. Once in London, he sees this new breed of eccentric youngsters called punks. Legend has it Angelo and his cameramen could only count on their own money and technical means to round things off in just a few days (a very strange ‘commission’ indeed). So, short on finance and in absence of more appealing subjects, they turn to punks.

Their first move is strange – just like the guy they bump into and choose as some kind of host, i.e. Steve Strange himself. Dressed in a sort of Wehrmacht/Nazi attire, Steve is evidently taken as the Archetypal Punk by Angelo & his men, who follow him first while he collects his dole money, then at rehearsals with his band The Moors Murderers.

Angelo’s unease in all things punk turn into short, tactful interviews with punks on politics and the frustration of being young in late 70s England. A unique, real diamond in the dross of late 70s TV garbage.

Back in Italy, Angelo struggles with the results: punk it’s not front page news in Italy -maybe the video material isn’t appealing enough for the italian audience, and surely it’s not a prime time kind of thing. So, on the brink of being cancelled and after a wait of months, RAI 1 (the foremost national channel) decides to show it at an impossible 4:00pm on January 28th, 1978. ‘Il ragazzo dai capelli gialli’ (The Boy With Yellow Hair), a 1-hour documentary is shown in ‘Scatola aperta’ (Open Box), a program focusing on culture and politics. I vividly remember catching it totally by accident, going through channels. Glezös Alberganti Punk77 email April 2020

John Harlow recalls the filming.

John Harlow (Moors Murderers Bassist) Round about this time Steve got this Italian film crew interested which was fun. I don’t know what story Steve told them but they didn’t have any money and they were winging it. We did 2 or 3 days with them. They spent a day with Steve prior to us meeting up then they filmed us rehearsing including doing the Free Hyndley song.

They filmed us being interviewed down the Kings Road and then at the Houses Of Parliament with us jumping up and down screaming and shouting at the Queen. Then for some reason they wanted to see a punk bedroom at my place in Northolt but the traffic was too busy so we just went to a club or pub somewhere.


Part Transcript Italian Translation from the film

Steve Strange talks to the Italian RAI crew outside the dole office.

Steve Strange: I come here every Tuesday, I get 17 quid a week.
RAI journo: What about your band? You don’t see it as a job?
Steve Strange: Yeah, but as we’re still beginning we have to find money for rehearsals, and if they find out about the band they’ll stop the money straight away.

RAI journo: The other band members do the same?
Steve Strange: Yeah, they all signed up, but living on 17 quid a week is very hard. I don’t work, so sometimes you get money by selling different things. A little bit of robbing (laughs).

RAI journo: You still do it?
Steve Strange: Yeah, we nick clothes in punk shops, that’s easy for me. You steal a 30 quid pair of trousers and sell them 10 quid less, or a 40 quid jacket for 30.
——————-
Leather/Seditionaries clad Steve Strange, John Harlow and Eve Goddard walk into a punk clothes shop. While John Harlow tries on a t-shirt, Steve Strange and Eve Goddard speak to the Italian TV crew.

Steve Strange: I’m not interested that much in spending money on clothes. I’d spend it straight away in beer, cigarettes or something else anyway.
RAI journo (to Eve Goddard): Do you think punks dress like that to challenge people?
Eve Goddard: Well, I think they dress as they feel like. I think they look pretty.
___________
Steve, Eve & John talk to the RAI crew in a small restaurant.

Steve Strange: I’m out of work from a year and a half. John is out of work too, he used to work in the computer field.
RAI journo: But how can you afford an expensive French restaurant like this?
Steve Strange: (looks around) Is it really French? I didn’t notice! (laughs). Anyway, it’s John who pays, he must have done some robbing somewhere. Won’t you tell us John?

Eve Goddard & Steve Strange

After the rehearsal sequence, on minutes 00:29:15 Steve, John and Eve walk into a pub. Here they play pinball and pool, then go out in the street for a cigarette while chatting, drinking beer, laughing and discussing the night’s rehearsals.

Steve Strange: Tonight we’ll decide what we’ll play tomorrow. There are at least 400 punk bands around at the moment, and they all sing about the same things: boredom, and unemployment. It’s been going on and on like this for a year and a half now. The kids are getting bored, they want something stronger.

We’re different, but people say my songs are too brutal because I defend criminals. Well, I don’t. I’m only saying if you rape a woman or steal something in a shop, then society labels you as a criminal. Everyone stole a chocolate bar when they were kids, so everyone’s a criminal: laws should be changed, or applied in a different way. What I’m trying to say is if a woman like Myra Hindley has been in prison for 13 years, then she’s not the same person anymore. She’s changed, but in the eyes of law & society, she’ll always be a criminal.


Nina  Spencer, drummer from Muvvers Pride, also recalls seeing the band maybe for another film or perhaps the same one.

Myself, Joe King, Dee Marsh and Subi were plucked out of Boy while we were working by a Japanese film crew. They took us to a basement where they had a mattress on the floor and swastika painted on the wall!

We had them paint over it. I think they had a plan but we said fuck it and started jumping on the mattress dancing around making the film crew was scared of us. Then all of the sudden the Moors Murderers turn up. We knew Chrissie because she would hang in BOY with Nigel. Steve I knew from the Roxy and Global Village. They had brown paper bags over their heads. I think we were bit drunk and just messed about, got paid and left to go to the Roebuck.

Meanwhile, post the Roxy Club closing and new club Void not opening debacle (it became the Vortex under John Miller), Andy Czezowski and partner Susan were looking for a break from managing clubs and instead doing band management and looked for other premises as a base. They found a warehouse at 29 James Street in Covent Garden fruit and veg flower market which was derelict and hadn’t been used for 2 or 3 years.

We rented out one of those warehouse buildings in August 1977. The rest were derelict. They didn’t care as they thought it was going to be knocked down so they didn’t care about renting it to a group of noisy young punks.Our launch party was a big party on the ground floor which was one big open space where they stacked potatoes and above that were management offices so we let out the ground floor to some friends of ours called PX, which is the Stephane Raynor Acme Attractions person. They had split from Acme and wanted to go with a diff style and we offered them a space. Punk77 Interview 2005

Also there were Soho Records and a PR company. Finally In the basement of 29 James Street a rehearsal room was set up and became a regular hang-out in the fall of 1977 and early 1978 for musicians including Keith Levine, Chrissie Hynde, the Nipple Erectors, Levi & The Rockats, Radiators From Space, The Adverts and The Photons.

Shanne Bradley (Nipple Erectors) I was around all these people at James Street at that time we rehearsed ‘the Nipple Erectors’ in the basement too using their gear and Soho records [The Nips record label releasing their first single ‘King Of The Bop’ in 1978] had an office on the first floor. I remember Mark from the Ants too he always wore shades. Email December 2001

Andy Czezowski. In the basement we set up a really cheap mock up rehearsal studio where people like Chrissie Hynde and the Moors Murderers used to rehearse. Punk77 Interview 2004

Getting band management going hadn’t been an easy ride for Andy & Sue as Chelsea, Generation X, The Damned, Wire & Adam & The Ants had all parted ways at one time or another with the dynamic duo. Now Andy C attempted to put his own band together. In October, following the band Chelsea splitting, he was back managing Gene October and tried to set up a psychedelic revival-style band fronted by him called Love and Kisses.

Around November Mark ‘The Kid’ Ryan, ex-guitarist of Adam & The Ants, enters the story. Interestingly, though likely to be unconnected, he also appeared in the film ‘Jubilee’ playing guitar on the two Adam & The Ants live tracks. Vermillion also misreports in her next issue the sacking of ‘The Kid’ by Jordan over the phone and his joining Gene October’s new band ‘First Love’ on bass. The band is short-lived for both the Kid & Czezowski.

Mark ‘The Kid’ Ryan. After I rehearsed with them (Love & Kisses) for a few weeks they decamped to the Police’s label [Step Forward] as Chelsea again while I decided to stay with Andy and set up a new band.

That new band would become known as the Photons and the first person to join it would be Vince Elite (Ely) ex of The Unwanted whose history is covered more in depth here and they play a big part in the story-sharing band members and running parallel for a time.

John Harlow (Bassist) In late November/early December, Steve Strange and I had bumped into Andy Czezowski and he invited us down to James Street to audition with the Kid and Vince Ely, or as he was called at the time Vince Elite, who were the remains of Love and Kisses.

So me and Steve auditioned. It wasn’t much of an audition; we went downstairs, Steve jumped about and I was shown a bass line for a song called Walking On Paper which was about Howard Hughes who used to put tissue paper on the floor wherever he walked. It was very simple and two minutes later we were in. That was it! To be honest if you looked the part for Andy that was enough. I was not only in the band; I also moved into James Street to live.

At that time there was no name and yet as much as Steve was trying to get into what would be The Photons he was still dabbling in The Moors Murderers trying to get a record and some interest.

On Wednesday December 15th 1977 a gig by The Slits at singer Ari Up’s Holland Park Comprehensive School (she’s 14 so technically still at school there) comes about and the story takes a turn as it’s been claimed that the Moors Murderers play at this gig. It’s interesting to consider how this pairing could come about because it’s a combination of a small pool of people and coincidences. Andy Czezowski obviously knows The Slits, and indeed the band played the opening night of James Street earlier in the year where he recalls Strange outside selling tickets to tourists to hustle money. As David Littler from the Spitfire Boys recalls, Strange is staying with The Slits then tour manager (Likely to be Barbara Harwood) Strange is also friends with The Slits so you can see how an idea would come into Strange’s head to just surreptitiously go on first in the mayhem and see what mileage could be got from it a la Bill Grundy style.

Punk77’s interview with Mark Ryan confirms this.

Mark Ryan

Mark’ The Kid’ Ryan (Adam & The Ants/Photons) The band Andy set up around me were the Photons: me on guitar, John Harlow on bass and Vince (Vince Ely formerly of the Unwanted and later of the Psychedelic Furs) on drums. Now he pulled in Steve Harrington on vocals.

We started rehearsing a few numbers but within a few days a benefit came up at Holland Park Comprehensive for the NSPCC. Andrew thought it would be a good time to pull out the Hindley numbers and the next day we had headlines in the paper: HOW COULD THEY BE SO CRUEL!. I was off knobbing somewhere so missed the outrage.

Steve Strange and Chrissie Hynde wrote the songs. They’d given it up as bad idea when I went to see Andrew Czechowski after I’d been sacked from the Ants.

Andy Czezowski has always denied being involved with the band but is placed at the scene. Chrissie is placed there by a couple of people, but she doesn’t recall it in her autobiography. Likely, Chrissie wasn’t but Eve was.

John Harlow (Moors Murderers Bassist) Andy had a little 12 seater van that he used to hire so we all just piled into that. It was me, Steve, Vince, the Kid and I’m not sure which girls; if they were around it would have been Eve or Chrissie. We were on first and we sounded rough and a typical first gig sound. It was all impromptu with equipment we weren’t used to.

We found out after it was a thing for a children’s charity but the funny thing is once the kids found out what we were called and we had gone off stage and tried to leave they were going fucking mental. We got into the van and they were trying to roll the van over and banging on the glass calling us ‘cunts’ and ‘wankers.’ How we got out I don’t know, but Andy just gunned it and we were out. It was quite funny like the Beatles film ‘Help’. It was crazy!

The Kid first mentioned being in the band in Mick Mercer’s fanzine Panache #16. The Kid’s words are paraphrased by Mick afterward as his tape had an issue and the quote’s facts are a bit mixed up.

He joined up with steve strange and vince (of Pschedelic furs) in the moors murderers and then after two gigs joined the photons, a early psycedelic band! Thought about a role in Gene Octobers Love & Kisses but gave that up and fell in briefly with Vermilion.

With the Photons and Moors murderers so tightly interwoven over a compressed time period it’s no wonder people have got it wrong (including me lol!) For instance, Dave Thompson wrote in the Psychedelic Furs biography ‘Beautiful Chaos‘ from 2004.

Adopting the Photons own name for the occasion, the Moors Murderers played just one major show, albeit one with plenty of tabloid potential opening for the Slits at an NSPCC benefit concert. Aired that evening, the group’s tailor made for occasion controversy anthem ‘Free Myra Hindley’ managed to push almost every panic button in the national press.

He also puts Andy Czezowski in the frame as the man behind the Moors Murderers

By the end of the year, Elite [Vince Ely] was drumming for the Photons and moonlighting in the Moors Murderers, a provocatively named, and controversially opinionated creation launched, by former Roxy Club Proprietor Andy Czechowski, for the sole purpose of winding up the tabloids. What else?

When Andy Czezowski was asked about this he denied the claims though as we’ve seen he was involved albeit briefly for the gig.

Andy Czezowski: There is no link. It wasn’t my name, idea or concept. I just let them use the basement studios for nothing.  Nothing to do with me. Punk77 2020

Interestingly Strange’s recollections also contradict Mark’s who doesn’t seem to recall Chrissie, though bear in mind that below is Strange’s history of the Moors Murderers in his autobiography without actually mentioning the band!

At one point I got talking to Chrissie Hynde at the Vortex…We rehearsed for a while and got as far as doing some songs supporting the Slits at Holland Park Comprehensive school. The lead singer Ari up was a pupil there and it was the last day of term. But nothing really came of the band and Chrissie moved on…it was actually quite hard to get a regular line-up going. Blitzed! The Autobiography of Steve Strange

Dave Goodman (who had previously produced the Sex Pistols and managed and produced Eater among others for The Label) did the PA for this gig and revealed more about how he got involved though incorrectly remembering the date of the gig as mid-July 1977.

Dave Goodman. There was a support band who I assumed were friends of the ‘Slits’. They had this singer dressed in black leather calling himself ‘Steve Strange’. I also remember at least one female musician who turned out to be Chrissie Hynde. The other female could have been Patti Paladin.

I couldn’t believe it when they announced themselves as ‘The Moors Murderers’. It really was controversial; I had lived through that gruesome event and the darkness it brought to my childhood still felt gloomy. To protect me, my mum would remove any ‘Moors Murderers’ tabloid sensationalism from the papers after reading it herself.  Dave Goodman Site

Dave Goodman

At The Slits/Photons Holland Park show Dave Goodman is approached about recording the band.

Dave Goodman.  After the show Steve Strange came up to me at the mixing desk and confirmed the band’s name. I’d heard right – it was as I thought. We got talking. It turned out that they had this song called ‘Free Hindley’. They’d just performed it but I hadn’t noticed. Steve wanted to record his ‘Free Hindley’ song. Dave Goodman Site

It’s likely that Goodman hadn’t noticed because the gig was sheer anarchic bedlam that culminated in a massive food fight involving The Slits and school kids. According to Goodman, it was he who suggested recording the ‘Ten Commandments’ (as in the bible) set to music. He also suggested talking to Lord Longford who had been visiting Hindley in prison and was campaigning for her release.

Strange then asked Dave Goodman to record them and use his Fulham basement to rehearse. Goodman said he’d think about it though nothing ever happened according to him.

In terms of sensationalism following this gig, both the Kid and Dave Thompson are wide of the mark concerning publicity. The gig provoked no reaction. It was reviewed in Zigzag in January 1978 as a gig at “Holland Park School on a Thursday afternoon” and “it ain’t every school that gets The Slits for its Christmas knees up.” and not a mention goes to the Moors Murderers, though it is probable Needs was only interested in the Slits full stop. The review also talks about the Slits soundcheck turning into the actual gig so any playing by Strange & co would likely have occurred post-Slits set and in the general mayhem. There’s no mention either in the music papers of either the gig happening or a review. The gig also features in Don Letts’ Punk Rock Movie and again there’s nothing of the Moors Murderers there. Interestingly ‘The Kid’ doesn’t mention Chrissie or any other female playing with them.

This hasn’t stopped the story growing about the event and its significance. The event which Dave Goodman remembers as having “all 2000 or so kids have been invited” now also becomes a NSPCC – National Society For The Prevention Of Cruelty To Children – benefit gig which adds a certain spice to the proceedings if they were true. 

Still from Don Letts’s Punk Rock Movie

Again the filming of the gig in the Punk Rock Movie shows a poster with no mention of either The Photons, Moors Murderers or NSPCC. That’s not to say it isn’t true, just no hard evidence to support it.

So Strange, despite being in another band, is still running with the Moors Murderers as his main option and was now ramping up publicity to get a deal on the back of it. I suspect an idea for more PR was to say the Moors Murderers had done a gig at a school, offer the money to the NSPCC and reap the inevitable publicity/uproar as the story was leaked to the press. However, as Sounds reported in their Jaws column of 21.1.78, the NSPCC refused.

Two days later Strange made the music papers gossip columns of the NME music paper 21.12.77 and named for the first time in print as ‘Steve Brady’ when he watched the Pistols play in Coventry. He gets between Tracey and Debbie from Seditionaries and the bouncers in an altercation and some glass is kicked in. He’s arrested. Vivienne paid bail but he was then let out at 3am after the trains had all gone as had everyone else concerned.

But we get ahead of ourselves. In late December 1977 journalists visited Goodman’s Fulham office for an interview after Strange had tipped off journalists about the band and the gig.

John Harlow (Moors Murderers Bassist) I wasn’t involved in that. Steve was trying to get Dave Goodman involved all the time, ringing him up to record or help promote it etc. Steve probably set the whole thing up. He was one of those guys who when he was famous would make an arrangement to meet Boy George to do some private shopping where a shop would let them in on their own for an hour to avoid publicity and he would say to the shop ‘I don’t want anyone to know were down there’ then he would be straight on the phone to the Star or Sun whatever papers and tell them where to be. He was very savvy at self promotion. Steve used to set that up quite a lot. Its very easy to get four people wearing bin liners and it doesn’t matter who they are.

The band members attending wore white hoods to hide their identities and despite offers of up to four figures they refused to unmask. Dave Goodman, the only one unmasked, is wrongly identified as the man behind the scam despite him saying he was just the Sex Pistols producer and had no involvement:

Dave Goodman. A following Saturday morning, me and my business partner Caruzo Fuller had just returned from the café, when our flatmate Dave Fowel, announced that “two journalists had been there looking for the ‘Moors Murderers’. He told them that he “didn’t know that they’d escaped”. He told them to come back later.”  What’s going on I wondered, as I sat at my desk working and waiting.Down the back steps trundled four leather-clad beings with pillow-cases over their heads. I opened the back door. “It’s me, Steve, I’ve got the News of the World interested in the single, they wanna do an interview and I needed somewhere to do it so if you don’t mind…?” Well, it was a bit too bloody late now, so in they trundled. I believe Chrissie Hynde and Nick Holmes (Eaters roadie) were two of them. Nick apparently played drums on the ‘Free Hindley’ recording. The next day, on the front page of the News of the World there was the headline ‘How Could They Be So Cruel?

The question would have to be why Dave Goodman’s offices if he wasn’t involved and though conjecture, the likely answer is as the only one interested (and who was a producer and had rehearsal rooms and a record label to boot) Strange took the initiative to show him there was genuine interest and seal the request from The Slits gig. Whatever the reasoning Dave Goodman’s active involvement ended with this incident.

The incident turns puts a diffrent complexion on what seemed a jooly jape with the Slits

John Harlow (Moors Murderers Bassist) Andy kept saying to us you’ve got to drop this fucking Murderers thing because it’s becoming a bit of a pain as people were asking questions and the negative publicity. But Steve Strange wouldn’t let go of the MM and was using the situation and still flogging the MM at every opportunity saying there was a record and it was Steve S being Steve S.

It seems there were doubts about Strange’s ability and reliability as a frontman from the start and he is given the boot from the fledgling band after barely a handful of rehearsals.

John Harlow (Moors Murderers Bassist) The band weren’t very sure about Steve S’s singing. He could sing but he was very nervous all the time and when out of his head he’d have a go. When we joined, Mark and Vince had some songs together by this time, but I don’t think Steve’s heart was in what they were doing so he wasn’t coming across as credible. He still had this punk look and turning up like wurzel gummidge but for us punk was finished.

That Christmas Steve went home to his mum and while we were rehearsing there my mate Steve Davis used to come down to watch and he got to know everybody pretty well. Steve always had a great look and people wanted to look like him and he had a bit of style so Sue and Andy thought Steve D would be a great person to be in the band and why don’t we audition him. So while Steve Strange was in Wales they auditioned Steve Davis to see if he could sing and they liked him so they asked him to join.

Strange took it on the chin pretty well and to be honest I don’t think he was that interested in what Andy was doing with the band anyway. I don’t think he got the power pop thing with Andy. In addition to that it wasn’t his lyrics and he wasn’t the main man and he had to come with lyrics and lead but he couldn’t. He didn’t come through with the goods. We were all writing stuff with all our teenage warblings on bits of paper but he wasn’t contributing.

However, before being given the boot Strange (now calling himself Steve Brady) was on a roll and hadn’t given up on the idea of selling the single to a record company and a live showcase at Andy Czezowski’s James Street rehearsal studios was arranged with Danny Secunda and interview with Bruce Elder of Sounds music paper. Interestingly, the Sounds music paper is the one that goes through a splurge of publicity through January and February with an interview and various mentions. You can only conjecture that as Sounds journalist Jane Suck was some way involved with the band that this was why.

In a rerun of the Dave Goodman/Fulham offices incident, you would have to ask why here and as suggested before ask again if Andy Czezowski was involved. By now John Harlow was living in James Street and practicing with The Photons, Chrissie Hynde was practicing there so as Andy says below it wouldn’t take much for John to help arrange this.

Andy Czezowski: I don’t recall being aware of them but Steve or John would have been sufficiently aware to have had a key made and sneaked in without me knowing with other people which is no more than I deserve. I did the same to Acme Attractions with the Damned. When I went to their warehouse to pick stuff up I sneaked in with the Damned to let them rehearse. So I got my comeuppance. Nothing to do with me. Punk77 2020

John Harlow (Moors Murderers Bassist) I don’t think Andy knew anything because it was all done at the weekend.

The article which comes out before the Sunday Mirror article on 7.1.78 is almost comical with three of the band, with bin liners over their heads, meeting the reporter in a local pub much to the bemusement of the publican and regulars, complaining about it being like a sauna in the bags and walking to the James Street rehearsal studio with the bags on their heads and Chrissie Hynde arriving late and apologising!

John Harlow (Moors Murderers Bassist) The photo of the three of us in the bin liners with me next to Chrissie with a cigarette is in the Nags Head. It was where all the opera goers went for their pre show drinks and ironically we could drink in there but not in say the White Horse opposite. The opera clientele in the Nags Head were more tolerant and weren’t shocked by scruffy lads with dyed hair and you used to meet interesting people there and they’d buy you a drink because they were interested to you. It was a bit of a meeting place

Dahn the Nags Head for a few incognito swift pints!

We did two auditions; first one with all our faces showing and the second with bags on and the outrageous quotes from Chrissie. There was a writer there called Bruce Elder and Chrissie was more interested in getting her stuff down and trying to impress Danny Secunda and the fact that she was in the band and she had a song The Operator and a demo of it.

We did the photos outside the shop with the bags on and it ended up in Sounds. ‘Caviar and Chips’, ‘Mary Bell’ We didn’t keep anything too secretly. The Tony Secunda thing was mainly Chrissie trying to get a deal for herself. Apparently but he was giving her money to keep going so it was more to do with that. We thought we were doing something for ourselves but I don’t think we were. Steve was trying to promote the FH thing coz he was telling everyone there was a record or there as going to be one but at that time there wasn’t.

James Street outside the clothing PX store and basement where the Moors Murderers rehearsed. Bet it was hot inside those bags!

Talking to Elder, Brady attempts to be serious about the song and band:

Steve Brady: We’ve written a song called Free Hindley. When I say she should be freed I mean she should be considered for parole. Like every British Citizen that gets imprisoned for life gets considered for parole after ten years. Myra Hindley’s been inside for thirteen. She hasn’t even been considered. Sounds 7.1.78

What follows is a discussion on Longford and whether his support of Hindley is harming or benefiting her cause before the band remove the bags to perform. They play ‘Free Hindley’ and the article mentions other songs they have in the pipeline such as ‘Caviar and Chips’, ‘Mary Bell’ (Mary Bell was a ten year old girl who had strangled two toddlers aged 3 & 4) and ‘Streets of The East End’. Free Hindley is described as:

…a song with mandatory wall chords but with a neat and thoroughly pop hook line. Bruce Elder Sounds 7.1.78

They are named as John Kray, Steve Brady, Christine Hindley (as a change from Mary) and a fourth member Vince Kray to complete the outrageous false name concept. The Krays were twins Ronnie and Reggie Kray who were notorious east end gangsters involved in murder, armed robbery, arson, protection rackets and assaults and were in prison. They were still very influential so this would be a risky move by the band. As if there’s not enough controversy, Christine asks Bruce Elder if he wanted to photograph her being pack raped by the rest of the band! He declines the offer.

Meanwhile at the end of the session:

Danny Secunda’s showing interest and discussions start on demo tapes and studio times and producers. The music machine is starting to drop into gear. Bruce Elder Sounds 7.1.7

Except it all backfires bar the publicity side of it. You’d have to ask why was Secunda there and the answer is at the time he was negotiating with Andy & Sue overpaying for the the film rights of what would become the Punk Rock Movie and/or he already knew Chrissie Hynde so was there to see her and the band.

While doing this session, nothing had come out in the music or national press. Interestingly Chrissie recollects in her autobiography that it all backfires. For Strange it’s him as the solo star with a backing band and hot extreme single.

Chrissie Hynde When Steve asked if I would help him out – play guitar on a few tunes for a showcase he was planning for some record-company guy – I was happy to get on board, mainly because he promised that we’d all be wearing bin liners over our heads, no one would know who we were. So I saw no reason to think that this little jaunt would in any way have an impact on my own plans -and I would get to play! Great! Reckless – My Life As A Pretender

Chrissie’s memory then goes a little pear-shaped as surely she would have remembered that the record company guy in the showcase was none other than Tony Secunda – her manager!!!

The day after the desired publicity and notoriety kicks off. The Sounds article appeared and a Sunday Mirror feature appeared dated 8.1.78 with the headlines. Moors Murderers’ in pop row
Why must they be cruel?

The article named Steve Brady and Mary Hindley as members of the band, that they had been together for around a month and that their forthcoming single was a plea for the release of Myra Hindley.

The paper also printed comments from victim Lesley Anne Down’s mother.

Anything more sick or cruel is hard to imagine. It seems my heart will never heal… I appeal to music publishers to have nothing to do with this. How can anyone be so heartless as to try and cash in on such a dreadful crime. I am upset beyond words.

The paper also took the opportunity to run a Hindley article next to the above about her being too evil to be freed and that three high-ranking women prison officials reckoned her the ‘…the most evil woman they had ever known.”

Interestingly and bafflingly, a reworked version of the Sunday Mirror article also appeared in a Norwegian porn magazine some five months later dated 11/4/78 with a completely different photo and again claiming Dave Goodman as the man behind the group.


This is Pop’s New Band

Today’s rock bands know the art of shocking. They calculate their impact with stone-cold precision. Let’s present the newest news from England, a group which calls itself “The Moors Murderers.” The band aims to cash in on the violence and terror wave in pop music that emerged after the punk rock.

Their first record is called “Release Myra Hindley”, a claimed prayer from the members of the band to have the famous female killer released.

Myra Hindley achieved world fame 12 years ago, when she was sentenced to life. Along with her lover Ian Brady, after she committed a series of horrifying child murders, that are today remembered as the “murders on the moor”…

Chances are great that the notorious lady never sets foot outside the walls.

The horror band “Moors Murderers” resides in Fulham in West London. The vocalist calls himself Steve Brady, a clear hint to Miss Hindley’s companion, who is also suffering life for participating in the child murders. The mastermind behind the band and their record is Dave Goodman, who has many terrifying record releases on his conscience. Goodman has produced records with England’s most famous punk group, “Sex Pistols” whom we remember from a memorable visit to Norway.

The moral of “The Moors Murderers” hymn to Myra Hindley is simple and easy to understand, albeit not quite acceptable at first glance: “Myra Hindley is just an ordinary woman who fell in love with a man. Why shouldn’t she be free…”

The young musicians cannot be entirely sure about their cause, however. They dare not step out into the media with their faces shown. Every time anyone requests photographs of the band, the band insists on hiding behind Ku Klux Clan masks.

Experts within the field of pop music do not predict a glorious future for “The Moors Murderers.”

Norwegian magazine article courtesy of Anders Moe. Translation by Aske Lange


There is also a mention on a major TV show Opportunity Knocks, a prime time TV talent programme hosted by Hughie Green on ITV and which at its peak got some 20 million viewers so getting your name mentioned on it was big publicity. Add in the four million readers of the Daily Mirror and you have the makings of some publicity to cash in on.

I have a vivid memory of this mysterious band being mentioned on “Opportunity Knocks” of all places. Before this particular show got underway, Hughie Green said something along the lines of “Friends, before we start tonight I’d like to bring to your attention news of a punk rock group calling themselves The Moors Murderers who have released a record entitled “Free Myra Hindley…” (audience go “oooooooh…”) “Are there any depths to which this pop craze will not sink…”! or words to that effect. This was talked about at school the next day which is why it has been fixed in my memory all these years. Paul Townshend email to Punk77. April 2010

Which Steve Treatment remembers as well:

The same people who did the Bill Grundy Sex Pistols scam (it was a publicity stunt the whole thing) and Steve Strange told me it was and the MM was being publicised by the same person. It was all a set up. I don’t know his name. Even Hughie Green on Opportunity Knocks mentioned the MM band – all publicity.

And as mentioned in Sounds Jaws column of 21.1.78

Remember this is the band  of which that wonderful human being- and we mean it most sincerely friends – Hughie Green said (apropos of nothing) on ‘Opportunity Crocks’ last Monday: “They represent  a new low in entertainment.”

The thing is though, the publicity was wasted. If the Moors Murderers had had a single out then it would have had an impact. But without a product, it was just notoriety that would die down as quickly as yesterday’s news. Alternatively, it would need interested parties to move fast to cash in on the publicity.

What does happen is Secunda gets cold feet at the publicity (remember he’d been here before with the Move), him and Chrissie argue and he slams the phone down and that’s Chrissie Hynde back to square one at least for a while. Her recollections are slightly wrong in some places and arguable in others in her autobiography. She claims the showcase and her ‘outing’ made the front page of Sounds when in fact it makes a feature and then later a few inches in their gossip column but she also claims the focus was on her.

Chrissie Hynde I was mortified. I don’t think Steve was happy, either. He was all set to garner the notoriety for himself. Then it got all over the tabloids. Steve was completely overshadowed by me. Reckless – My Life As A Pretender

He’s not the only one; Jet records, a record label set up by Don Arden with artists like Electric Light Orchestra, Roy Wood, Ozzy Osbourne and Bernie Torme were also interested until the publicity broke.

I can confirm that Jet Records were apparently thinking about signing the band – I have spoken with at least one member of the then Jet staff who remembers this. As far as I know they didn’t see them play. I suppose they just lost interest after the initial splurge of notoriety calmed down and they realised they couldn’t really do anything with a band called The Moors Murderers! Steve www.lowdownkids.com

Following the showcase the band played the Roxy Club on January 13th, 1978 unannounced as support for Open Sore. Bob Kylie their singer recalls. 

Bob Kylie (Open Sore) This blonde creature got up and said can we use your gear mate and it turned out to be Steve Strange but he called himself Steve Brady. A girl was playing and that was Chrissie Hynde. They were terrible! Absolutely dreadful!!

John Harlow (Moors Murderers Bassist) Vermilion and Dick Envy were drinking in the Nags Head one night before playing the Roxy and they invited us down to watch them and I think the Open Sores were also playing. Once their gig finished Steve jumped up and asked if we could use their equipment so we jumped up and did an impromptu set. Subie from Muvvers Pride was in the audience and she was laughing at me and pointing and I asked ‘what the fuck was the matter?’ She said ‘you’re not plugged in you moron.’ It would have been most likely me Steve, Mark and Vince.

The publicity for the band is not good and what you would expect from the music papers and letters. The Jaws column in Sounds for 21.1.78 reports

They’ve been banned from the Vomitex and chased down Wardour Street by an irate East Ender who shouted, “I’ll find you wherever you run, I’ll kill you.” Steve Brady, only remaining original member of the band as featured in the recent articles commented”….we still need a manager.”

They’ve been banned from the Vomitex and chased down Wardour Street by an irate East Ender who shouted, “I’ll find you wherever you run, I’ll kill you.” Steve Brady, only remaining original member of the band as featured in the recent articles commented “….we still need a manager.”

The name “Moors Murderers” caught my eye. I recall that they used to rehearse at Alaska (in Waterloo) at the time I was there with the Method. They were er, “high-energy” but then they were very young (weren’t we all?) Paul 06 September, 2009. Worthless Trash Blog

The performance of the band that was filmed in late 1977 by an Italian TV film crew, playing ‘Free Hindley’ and other songs is broadcast January 28th 1978 as 

Il ragazzo dai capelli gialli’ (The Boy With Yellow Hair), a 1-hour documentary is shown in ‘Scatola aperta’ (Open Box), a program focusing on culture and politics. Glezös Alberganti Punk77 email April 2020

It has not had a UK airing.

We are now into early 1978 and the band is finished and key members of the band distancing themselves straight away.

Chrissie Hynde. Steve Strange and Soo Catwoman had the idea for the group and asked me to help…The name didn’t mean anything to me – I just thought they were good songs. I played on the tape and I’m in the Sounds pic but I wasn’t trying to cash in, which you made it look like.”  Letters page 21 January 78 from NME

So did Strange as per a news snippet in Sounds ‘Jaws’ column of 28.1.78.  

Steve Strange: I’ve left the Moors Murderers. They do not exist anymore. I was misunderstood. Goodbye.

Except not quite. There was yet another version of the band that probably lasted a couple of weeks. Originally we had this line up as being the first or running parallel based on guitarist Richard Durrants 2020 interview who was originally in the Sick Things.

There must have been 30 people who played or claimed to have played in that band but we were among the first ones. I was never in the hood photos.

The Sick Things were a band that had the briefest of life spans managing a handful of rehearsals, one gig and some demos for Raw Records before imploding late 1977. The band was made up of Roxy Club frequenters Charlie Greene, Malcolm Hart and Richard Durrant. Malcolm, who knew Steve Strange from the Roxy & Vortex club scene (Strange pictured right at Vortex – Picture Ray Stevenson), joins the band on Bass and then gets Richard Durrant to join him, Steve & Chrissie. Ironically the last version of the Sick Things featured Nick Holmes on drums who’s often associated with this story.

Now that we we’ve had John Harlow’s version we went back to Richard who’s placed some events which gives it a later timeframe. What makes this feasible is the narrowest of time gaps between Strange coming back to be fired from The Photons and his need for a band based on the impending media articles and hopefully publicity leading to a deal. There’s also the additional info that Malcolm Hart was one of the people in hoods at Dave Goodman’s office that supports the timescale as well as the Lonesome No More/Koulla/Thunders information. You can well imagine them joining the band and then seeing the uproar back out. It is highly likely that Eve Goddard was still doing an occasional rehearsal on backing vocals or perhaps a girl called Mary mentioned by John Harlow in his interview as the ‘penthouse pet’ in the story below.

Richard Durrant: Malcolm was already there in the band and they brought me in as the guitarist. Steve, Malcolm, Chrissie Hynde and a guy Alex? playing the drums and a little punkette who was a like a penthouse pet/centre page kind thing on backing vocals – it was a very strange collection. It was Steve’s songs and it was a really good band actually.

This would be at the time of the front page tabloid pics with the bags over the heads. I was working that day so wasn’t in the photos, but Malcolm was. If you can get a date for those papers, it might help you. Nick Holmes was not in the Moors Murderers.

There was loads of energy and we rehearsed 4 or 5 times and then Malcolm, me and Chrissie realised we would be killed if we ever tried to play somewhere, so me and Malcolm left. We hooked up later with Chrissie for maybe a couple of months and were working on material that appeared on her first Pretenders album.

They had several songs which I think were written by Steve. It was at the stage where we working the songs. I don’t think Chrissie had any input into writing the songs.

We rehearsed in James Street Covent Garden then when we rehearsed with Chrissie after the Moors Murderers we were almost opposite in the basement of a clothes store called PX.

We left because we just wanted to live! The Pistols were getting chased all around London and threatened. Imagine if you were known to be one of the Moors Murderers, there was a lot of violence in those days.

Immediately after Malcolm and I left, we formed Lonesome no More and brought in Nick. Neither Malcolm nor I played with Chrissie again. We were busy with the LNM stuff. We were touring almost as soon as we formed. The only time we would have been in contact was when Johnny Thunders was recording So Alone and Chrissie and Koulla did some backing vocals. Punk77 April 2020 and April 2021

I think the above is very likely, but there are a couple of holes in it. Sue Carrington’s diary doesn’t mention Chrissie Hynde rehearsing in the basement though Andy does recall her doing so and also

Hi, yes she did, with the Moors Murderers and pretty sure with her band. Do you have a date so can check diaries? … directly opposite us was nothing just a big hole in the ground, but maybe nearby !!

From L-R -Mal Hart & Richard Durrant – The Sick Things

As Richard says this line up lasts just a short while.

The indefatigable Steve Strange was still trying to sell the single and song and as we’ll see, people were approached and recordings were finally made in February/March 1978 with him fronting a cobbled together backing band. Speculation is on who produced and who featured on them. The name most commonly thought of as producer behind the recordings is one member of the Police with Lee Wood being tantalizing and adding drama in his 1989 Spiral Scratch MM article:

 I found out the identity of a very famous pop star (not famous at the time) who financed the recording. In return for this information I had promised not to reveal his name or the label it was to appear on (as this would be a clue to his identity).  I will always honour that promise. What I can say is that as far as I am aware Malcolm McClaren was not involved nor Richard Branson.

That member was The Police’s drummer Stewart Copeland, who to be fair has always been open about his involvement even mentioning it in an NME interview in 1979 and the band was a likely candidate for his brother Miles’ labels; Illegal recordings or even Step Forward.

It’s interesting that Strange still thought there was some mileage in the band and songs which were duly recorded in strange circumstances as recounted on another page. According to Goodman Steve also took up his advice to contact Lord Longford though nothing ever came of it. “Steve also rang me later and said he’d had a very interesting conversation and lunch with Lord Longford.

But following one last hurrah in Sounds from old chum Jane Suck in late February 1978 and the recording, Strange gives up the band. And to complete the circle is re-recruited back into the Photons who had unceremoniously booted him out some months earlier because of his singing by guitarist David Littler and on the strength of his singing on the ‘Free Hyndley’ !! David was played the song by ex Photon’s bassist John who’s also the bassist in the Moors Murderers!

In that same Sounds the band is name checked in a Siouxsie & The Banshees review by Lindsey Boyd from the 100 Club.

With hundreds of people turned away (and a brief visit from the police), it was bound to be weird. Lots of Sham fans too and a phase of people getting onstage and yelling things about the Moors Murderers. Siouxsie came back and settled that one (‘castrate Myra Hindley’) Its a pity if people associate her with every sicko creed going, but hell she can handle it.

Another written account of the band is also an interesting one and appears randomly in a one off fanzine published in early 1978 called Don’t Flex where an anonymous member of the band talks about the single, being banned from the Vortex and what happened to the band. It doesn’t help getting a clearer picture though as it puts Dave Goodman back in the frame and also Andy Czezowski!

The old band split up and Dave helped form a new band. The reason the band split up was because the manager wanted to change the name and become a powerpop group. Steve Brady left to form a new group.

As a final aside, the Moors Murderers got one more mention related to the above story that when I read it I thought was so out there and made up it was laughable but worthy of inclusion. John Miller, an ex-Irish guard ended up running the Vortex among many other escapades in his life and, like Steve Strange’s autobiography, gives a lurid and much-embroidered view of the times to sell the book. So you get this about the Vortex:

The sights onstage were equally astonishing. Groups like the Moors Murderers strutted about in Gestapo uniforms. John Miller, Former Soldier Seeks Employment,

But as we’ve seen Strange is filmed in the Italian documentary dressed in Nazi garb and funnily enough though Strange did appear on The Vortex stage on December 13th (two days before the impromptu Free Hindley run through at The Slits gig) when Vermilion (remember it was she who said the MM’s were coming and wrote a song for them) and Raped supported Eater and I’d love to have heard what they played. Steve Davis, who was the drummer then for Vermilion before joining the UK Subs, recalls:

Steve Davis: It was late, Eater had packed and gone, but there were a few of us still there from the bands, punters and people from other venues would turn up, I think the Vortex remained open till 3.

Steve was a larger than life sort of character, and Vermilion and him were just talking about playing, creating music. It was her idea that we just have jam session cos I do remember her just looking at me saying,  something like, yes, Pete you will be up for a late night Jam kind of thing.

I can’t remember who else, Fritz I think from Dick Envy, maybe the others were from Raped. I have no recollection of what we played other than Steve led us through a proper, ‘make it up as you go’ type jam.

In later years Chrissie when asked about her involvement gives pretty much a stock answer but never ducked the question, though as pictures and accounts show she was more involved than she recalls.

Chrissie Hynde.“I just happened to be in that part of town the next day and although I wasn’t really in the band, I knew he [Steve Strange] was anxious to make it. He asked me to put a black plastic bag over my head like the rest of the band, and I thought, ‘Well, if they’re all doing it, why not? What I didn’t realise was that some journalist was in on all this and the next thing I know there’s stuff about ex-rock journalist Chrissie Hynde singing with a band called the Moors Murderers, and the whole thing had a very nasty flavour to it. No one bothered to ring me up and ask me what was going down or anything. That’s the rock press for you.” The Guardian Mark Williams 28.5.14

Here’s her recounting of events on an audio interview with even a bit of the ‘Free Hindley’ song and melody thrown in to boot which echoes the above but again not quite matching the facts.

That said her autobiography Reckless devotes a few pages to her time in the band and uses one of the Sheila Rock images from their Waterloo rehearsals.

Steve Strange however, once famous, pointed the finger at others to deflect any blame when clearly we’ve seen he’s been the driver, almost to the point of obsession, to making the single.

After I left home I went on the Anarchy tour with the Pistols – as a friend of the band. Then I came to London and one particular guy- I’m naming no names – got me involved in something called the Moors Murderers….I wanted to be in a band. Smash Hits January 1981

He went one stage further in 2002 when he published his autobiography naming Dave Goodman as behind the band.

In 2002, Orion Books published a biography on Steve Strange, ghost written by Bruce Dessau.  In it was an untrue story claiming that Dave Goodman was the prime instigator behind the controversial ‘Free Hindley’ single by Steve’s band ‘The Moors Murderers’.  Dave threatened to sue Orion for libel and they withdrew the story and published an apology in the music press. 

Goodman also published his account of the band (though we’ve shown there’s some time errors in his memories and there’s the fanzine excerpt above) tellingly titled in the meta tags for the HTML page ‘Steve Strange is a lying cunt, says Dave Goodman.’ The bit that’s odd in Goodman’s account is he freely admitted being shocked by the band but then suggested songs for them – The Ten Commandments and PR by involving Lord Longford in publicity. Then there’s also the suggestion the band rehearsed under his Fulham offices and the presence of the band and press there, them phoning him and playing the song to him after it was recorded and there’s more than a few questions left unanswered there. Andy Blade of Eater who worked a fair bit with Dave says this:

Andy Blade: Dave was helping them put it together, I don’t know how big his involvement was but he was pretty enthusiastic as I remember – even though he’s since said he wasn’t…Be careful what you write about Dave… he’s very slippery. Email July 2004

Andy also said interestingly that the retraction wasn’t what Dave was after. He was hoping for Orion to pay him some cash but it backfired.

That said it’s likely any involvement was fleeting as in January he was with Mclaren and the Slits doing sound for their French gigs in Paris. Here in the end, following Goodman’s legal threats, is a repeat of what Strange writes about the band. Talk about missing some bits out and summarising a critical year in his life!

Steve Strange: At one point I got talking to Chrissie Hynde at The Vortex and we chatted about working together…We rehearsed for a while and got as far as doing some songs supporting The Slits at Holland Park Comprehensive school…But nothing really came of the band and Chrissie moved on. Lots of people talked about being pop stars, but when push comes to shove it was actually quite hard to get a regular line-up going. Blitzed: Steve Strange

Well wadda ya think about all that then? In essence the Moors Murderers started as a ploy to get money out of the papers and became something much bigger lasting from 1977 into early 1978. Strange is the principal mover assisted by Chrissie Hynde and John Harlow in assembling a band and songs from a constant pool of musicians and faces looking to start/join bands. The controversial name and subject matter are seen by Strange as a direct route to publicity and a cash in as per McLaren’s blueprint with the Sex Pistols. It’s also one reason why the lineup is so fluid as musicians are wary of their personal safety. Another is musicians who want to play and have a career and this band was unlikely to deliver either of these!

Two unannounced gigs happen, there’s mainstream Sunday Paper shock/outrage press, a showcase, music press and finally a recording with a sniff of a record deal. By the time of the recording the moment has passed, the band over and some musicians are thrown together for one last time. It was never really a real band because it never really got going but what gets people’s interest is that it features some famous personalities namely Steve Strange, Stewart Copeland, Chrissie Hynde and Vince Ely (who really played a walk-on part in the story) and a hefty whiff of Punk controversy.

Interest is also centred around the recording the band made. A studio recording and mix was definitely made of the two songs by Stewart Copeland of The Police and at least one acetate and tape recordings taken which a number of people confirm and have heard. What’s strange (sic) is that none have ever surfaced, even as a bootleg, given its scarcity and likely value. If you think ‘God Save The Queen’ on A&M goes for £15k and rising every year how much would you value this then? 

Though in later years Strange would distance himself from the band and his involvement (in essence airbrushing it out), the funny thing is it WAS instrumental in his later music career because he ended up back in the Photons some months after the Moors Murderers petered out on the strength of the Free Hindley song. In The Photons two songs were written, Tar and Mind Of A Toy of which the latter was the second hit for his New Romantic band Visage and it brought him into contact with other musicians.

Likewise for Chrissie Hynde, it’s arguable that without being dropped by Tony Secunda post outrage, she would never have managed to eventually mobilise her own band, the Pretenders, and go on to have the success she has.

John Harlow (Moors Murderers Bassist) Anyone who’s ever heard it has been surprised that its not as bad as they thought it was going to be. I’ve had this for so long that if I wanted to make money out of it I would have done it by now.

I don’t want anyone to be alive who would get upset by it and I know there’s a mother of one of the children who never found out where her son was buried. I would hate to get involved in something where people think these horrible ‘twats’ made a horrible record and on top of that were making money out of it.

But for me it would be a shame if it just disappeared and it became a mystery and all these people who said it never existed and that this bunch of wankers never did fuck all was how it was left. Or it does exist and people who’ve heard it say it’s got merit and its got its place in that time and is of its day.

You’ve got to have drive and its what level do you want to commit or bail out and say I want no part of this. You can be naive like us but we were just young kids wanting to be part of something and it can turn out to be great or it can turn out to be shite. They were great experiences, great days and great times. 

Don’t Flex – Silent Single 1978 – Punk Fanzine. The fanzine was done like a 7″ single and this issue was even called “Silent Single”. It came out in early 1978 and is housed is a silk screened 7″ single sleeve and included 3 double sided hand printed inserts. It includes the nearest thing you will get to a single by the infamous Punk band The Moors Murders and one of the inserts is an interview and photos with the band and talks about the single. Has a chart featuring the Moors Murders song and also Klaxon Flirt?? Interestingly I’ve never seen or heard of an issue before or after though this is issue 4. Also has no price and the hand made construction suggests this was a labour of love/art!

Bet your heart missed a beat there! Like the Holy Grail of yore, there is one single inescapable fact: No one has ever tried to sell a copy on the open market of a Moors Murderers single or tape. On this evidence alone you would be tempted to say it’s all a hoax, but there’s so much evidence to suggest otherwise. Was there a record? Doubt it. Were/are there acetates and cassettes? I’d say yes. Have people heard it/them? Yes! Are there copies out there somewhere? Yes because people have been played the song over the years, but it’s debatable how many are left! Read on! There is a happy ending.

So what has been detailed historically?/ Both the two books below have virtually identical entries for the band giving a release date of May 1978. I love the ‘extremely limited’ description!

5-78 Free Myra Hyndley (Extremely Limited Private Pressing) Popcorn

 So are there any recordings? Let’s have a look at the evidence.

Witness One – John Harlow (Moors Murderers & Photons Bassist)

So you can’t get a better witness than someone who was present and who played on the recordings. As mentioned previously, John was out of the Moors Murderers and in The Photons when old mate Steve Strange, who still hadn’t given up on the band, called on yet another favour from him.

I said I’d help Steve S if needed. I think he thought I was going to just show whoever he got in how to play it and that was the intention but one day he turned up and said ‘John  can you come down and help out because I can’t get a bass player’ and I said ‘yeah ok.’ He came into the office and said get your stuff together and go down to Pathway to record.

By the time I got there they were there already rehearsing it but I’m not sure that they had done any takes. I wasn’t surprised it was Stewart Copeland and I’d seen the Police playing with Cherry Vanilla. Stewart was pretty pleased when I turned up and I sat down and we just did one take. I’d never played with these guys before so there was a few stops and drop back ins and retakes. The guitarist was Peter Taylor and was the brother of a girl we used to know called Carol. Carol was a friend and she was one of the Smile (famous hairdressers) crowd and her flat in West Hampstead that she shared with her brother Pete was one of  the places we used as a base when we went out clubbing. 

I was surprised Pete was there myself. I knew him but I didn’t know he could play or was involved in any way. I don’t know whether Peter has been in bands or done anything musically since. Its funny for someone to just pop up and then disappear again. If you could play a tin pipe in those days you’d be in a band. The drummer was Egan or the Eater roadie Nick Holmes but I’m not sure and there was a girl called Mary who did all the screaming bits of it.

Then off the cuff we wrote the 10 Commandments song. I think someone [Dave Goodman] had given Steve the idea [Dave Goodman] but it was made up there and then; a simple bassline with lots of weird noises. Got a box with all sorts of percussion stuff like maracas and that was that. I wasn’t there for the mixing. Free Hindley isn’t a very complicated song and the b side was done there and then. It was pretty quick to record and we did it in one afternoon. Once I was told that was enough I went; I didn’t even hang around for a drink. Next day Steve turned up with a tape. I don’t know who paid for it but whoever did owned the master tape you’d think. Rumours were it came out on Popcorn Records but no one ever saw a copy.

I was told last minute and it was all a bit rushed. I wish it hadn’t been done this way because the song could have turned out ten times better but studio time isn’t cheap.

Witness Two  – Stewart Copeland drummer from The Police

Let’s face it he’s always been in the frame and he’s always been open about being involved so you get the sense this is a man you can trust. Plus, unlike others who had to rely on their memories, he kept a diary. Here’s some excerpts from the time supplied by Dietmar Clös who had access to Stewart’s diaries and has them on his Police Wiki and who has corresponded with him for Punk77. Because it’s never simple though, Stewart adds another name into the frame on guitar called ‘Pete’. The thing you can’t help but notice is Stewart must have had the patience of a saint and makes an extraordinary effort to help out Strange on what must have been the most shambolic recording session ever considering this is what Strange was working to for over six months!

22.1.78 – “The Moors Murderers” singer (Steve Strange) contacted Stewart. Stewart replied that if his record was good he could get it out.

12.2.78 Stewart Copeland produces two songs of “The Moors Murderers” at Pathway Studios. Stewart drives to Andy Summers to collect his drums. He drives to Pathway Studios via Sting’s place.

“The Moors Murderers” recordings begin at 12:00pm, but there’s no guitarist or bassist there. Guitarist Pete arrives 1 1/2 hours late – high on LSD. Singer Steve Strange leaves and returns with a bassist, but without a bass. Stewart drives to St. John’s Wood to bring his own bass guitar. Stewart and engineer Pete Fox manage to record two songs with “The Moors Murderers” until 10:00pm. Stewart then returns his drums to Andy Summers’ place.

In short, Stewart was producer, mixer, supplier of the bass and drum kit for the recordings and most likely drummer for a thoroughly disorganised recording session with a hastily assembled scratch band. It’s obvious he was keen to help the band by going to that amount of trouble and also he knew how controversial the band were by disguising their name! Stewart remembers producing the band under his own “rather clever” nom de guerre of “Popcorn.” Interestingly that name would be used in a later Sounds review and New Wave Record list books as the record label name i.e. Popcorn Records.

This amount of effort only adds to the mystery though of who financed the recordings, mixes and acetates as Strange was living pretty much hand to mouth, and on people’s sofas so unlikely to have this kind of money to hand? According to Stewart, Steve Strange probably found the money as it was his idea though we’ll discount his wondering if Stiv Bators was involved on account of how long all this was now! Does it link back to Strange’s assertion to Steve Treatment previously mentioned, that there were persons or persons helping fund/direct the band or did Strange just find the cash from somewhere?  Another loose end to tie up at some stage!

When Punk77 emailed Dietmar about who drummed, he checked with Stewart on 18.12.19 and his response was he thinks he wouldn’t have dragged his own drums across town just for another drummer to play them, so it’s likely that he himself played drums on these two Moors Murderers songs; ‘he doesn’t remember playing on the recordings but he thinks he DID play them.’ Within a week the songs are mixed.

17.2.78 As he was in bed at 4:30am Stewart Copeland gets up late. He leaves the house at 04:00pm. He picks up Steve Strange and Pete from “The Moors Murderers” and they drive to Pathway Studios. They remix the band’s two songs from 07:00pm to 10:30pm. Stewart later attends a concert by “The Slits” at the Crypt in Paddington.

Witness Three – Dave Goodman Producer of early Sex Pistols demos and soundman for Pistols & Slits among many.

Though declining the offer to record them Strange took up his offer for some song subject matter and later during the recording Goodman recalls:

Dave Goodman.  They rang me from the studio and played me a very tripped out version of the Ten Commandments.

Later on Dave remembers being played the songs:

Dave Goodman.  I remember hearing an acetate of the two recordings ‘Free Hindley’ and ‘The Ten Commandments’, possibly played to me by Nick Holmes the drummer. Not long after that, I saw an ad in the back of Melody Maker or NME for the sale of ten ‘Moors Murderers’ acetates @ £10 each, I believe. I seem to remember Malcolm bringing that ad to my attention. Anyway I didn’t buy one, I’d heard it once and that was enough. Punk77 email

Witness Four – Lee Wood owner of Raw Records

I (Lee Wood) once offered £1000 for a copy of the record but nobody contacted me. I can reveal that only 2 or 3 acetates and 6 cassette copies were made. No records exist.

In 2010 he revealed he went to some strange lengths to confirm its existence and hear it!

I paid £50 for a friend of Steve Strange to get me into his flat, without him knowing, to listen to it – just once! It is really quite good. A bit more pop than punk! It was an acetate – not a record. So I guess it was never pressed.

Witness Five – Jane Suck journalist with Sounds weekly music paper who almost reviews the single in Sounds not long after the recordings are made.

HI GANG! I tell lies.

SINGLE OF THE WEEK should be ‘Free Hindley’ by The Moors Murderers on the Pop Corn label, but we’re far too humane to tolerate trash like ‘that’. So-ooo… 25.2.78

 Let’s not forget that Jane had rehearsed with the band so more than a little involved!

Witness five – Dave Littler of the Spitfire Boys & Photons actually brought Strange into the band after John Harlow the Bassist in The Photons played him the ‘Free Hindley’ track:

I had known Steve Strange from the Spitfire Boys days as we both hung around with the Slits and Steve lived with The Slits tour manager at the time. Because I knew him and had heard the MM track (which John Harlow played me at Andy’s office also in James St) I asked him to join The Photons when John and Steve Davis went. From a musicians point of view it had a brilliant vocal and arrangement (others can judge the words) and inspired me to ask Steve Strange to join the Photons. Punk77

Witness Six – An anonymous member of the band talks about bootleg singles being produced in Don’t Flex fanzine1978. Interestingly also mentions Strange/Brady joining the Photons. If anyone has the full interview could they scan it and email me please at [email protected]

I wish I could get some money from the bootleg. Obviously the guy ripped off some tapes and is making bread. What fucks me off is no one would release the single for us so how did the bootleggers get outlets for it.

And some more confirmation of these acetates by email 13-6-2002

Regarding the ‘Moors Murderers’ section, while I have never actually seen a copy of the single, I do believe that it exists. I have two reasons for this. A collector who I knew as very reliable (now dead, unfortunately) was adamant that he saw a copy in a box at a record fair during the early1980’s. Also, you may remember Small Wonder Records, based in Walthamstow, east London? Well, I knew Pete Stennett (who owned the shop and the label) quite well. I once asked him if he had heard of this single, and his reply was: “Yeah. A bloke phoned me up and asked me if I wanted to buy any off him. I told him to fuck off”!  Cheers, John.

In an interview in 2010 with Punk77 Lee Wood revealed

Over the years I had a couple of journalists contact me and offer a few thousand pounds to reveal what I knew. Obviously I told them where to go and phoned Steve’s PR company to warn them.

…So the details have been revealed. Steve Strange and Chrissie Hynde are known members. The drummer was Stewart Copeland from The Police. So I guess the man behind it all was Miles Copeland?

I can reveal that only 2 or 3 acetates and 6 cassette copies were made. No records exist.

So in short let’s face it, it was recorded and some cassettes were done from the acetates. In fact here is one of them below! After all this time and research, it was almost a disappointment to see it. It’s a bit like Indiana Jones and the Holy Grail when in the cave Indiana has to choose the grail from all sorts of exotic cups and it’s the rough-hewn, nondescript one. I’m not sure what I expected but the more I think about it, it’s perfect in that as John says below, Steve probably nicked the tape and recorded over it for John.

The Moors Murderer’s demo tape – perhaps the only last existing one!

John Harlow (Moors Murderers Bassist) Anyone who’s ever heard it has been surprised that its not as bad as they thought it was going to be. I don’t know why it’s got ‘sunday bloody Sunday’ written on it and I never knew why. Steve probably nicked the tape!

The tape is off the mixing desk but its highly likely that mine is the only copy left, unless Steve has given something to someone else and its lying undiscovered somewhere. Steve lost everything when his flat burnt down.

As you can imagine, this is a rare artefact from the punk times and arguably the rarest punk tune and noone would hold it against John to cash it in. But he’s resisted the urge not least because there are people still alive who would be affected again by the resultant publicity and as we’ve seen with the recent production of the play Jubilee the name still touches a nerve.

I don’t want anyone to be alive who would get upset by it and I know there’s a mother of one of the children who never found out where her son was buried. I would hate to get involved in something where people think these horrible ‘twats’ made a horrible record and on top of that were making money out of it. I’ve had this for so long that if I wanted to make money out of it I would have done it by now. But for me, it would be a shame if it just disappeared and it became a mystery and all these people who said it never existed and that this bunch of wankers never did fuck all was how it was left.

Or it does exist and people who’ve heard it say it’s got merit and its got its place in that time and is of its day. It would be a shame for it to disappear. I don’t want to hand it over to just anyone and find it’s got destroyed or something has happened to it. Punk77 Interview 2021

It’s an oddity that we have a full set of lyrics for a single never released but I can only assume it was part of the publicity/ controversy to be generated.

They say it started in 64
Myra Hindley was nothing more
Than a woman who fell for a man
Why shouldn’t she be free

Brady was her lover
Who told her what to do
Psychopathic killer-nothing new
Free Hindley Free

What she did was for love
The torture scenes the boys and girls
Hindley knew but couldn’t say
She was trapped by her love
What mother in her right mind
Would allow a girl at the age of nine
Be out on her own
Don’t blame Hindley
Blame yourselves

Brady was her lover
Who told her what to do
Psychopathic killer-nothing new
Why shouldn’t she be free?
Free Hindley Free

Not a glimmer of hope for parole
Although ten years have passed
Other criminals get considered
But for Myra not a chance
Free Hindley free.

As a twist of fate the Sex Pistols at their most exploitative and arguably their nadir, mention the pair in ‘Noone Is Innocent/The Biggest Blow’ (Virgin 1978) with Train Robber Ronnie Biggs:

God save Myra Hindley
God save Ian Brady
Even tho he’s horrible
And she ain’t what you call a lady 

There are so many people claiming or purported to be, in the band that it’s a veritable orchestra. In fact when you look at the below there appear to be more skin thumpers than the Japanese drummers of Koto! There are also variations of the band depending on rehearsals, photo shoots, gigs and recordings. The one constant is Steve Strange and next is John Harlow with Chrissie Hynde coming in and out of the picture and course some anomalies and loose ends.

The likely suspects

Soo Catwoman – Co founder of the band with Strange. Vocals on one off fake band photography session fetured in German magazine Bravo before bailing out.

Steve Strange (deceased) – Vocals and mainstay through the life of the band. Why? Coz we know so. Deceased

Chrissie Hynde – Guitarist from early on in the band and on/off involvement in it. Possible guitarist at The Slits and Roxy Club gig. In the Italian film. Definitely part of James Street and Fulham offices bags over the head incidents. Not featured on the studio recording. Later Chrissie would form and lead her own band, the Pretenders, but on her way to that band would work up songs with ex Sick Things and Moors Murderers musicians below.

John Harlow – Bassist from early on and  involved on/off till the end. At the Slits and Roxy Club gigs and James Street bags over the head incidents. Wasn’t in the Fulham bags over head incident. Why? Because he says so in the Punk77 interview. He was in the MM rehearsal pictures by Sheila Rock was in The Photons and mentioned in Sounds as John Kray! Featured on the studio recording. It was he who played the Free Hindley song to David Littler in James Street. Not the member of the band interviewed in fanzine ‘Flex’ from 1978.

Marco Pirroni – Not a member. New addition to the story in 2021, though according to Marco, he only went to one rehearsal after being persuaded by Steve Strange and thought the song and band terrible. Steve Strange would later lodge with him in 1978/79 for a year during the early New Romantic days.

Don Deveraux (aka English Don) – Third member of the band. Confirmed by his girlfriend at the time. Intermittent unreliable drummer who later joined Levi & The Rockats who had played their first gig in November 1977 and who also rehearsed at Czezowski’s basement studio in early January 1978. Deceased.

Rehearsals at Alaska November 1977

Vocals  – Steve Strange
Bass -John Harlow
Guitar – Chrissie Hynde
Drums – Rob Egan
Backing Vocals – Eve Goddard and Jane Suck

Eve Goddard (Adam Ant’s then wife) – Occasional backing Vocals. Appears in Sheila Rock rehearsal pictures and Italian Punk documentary the Boy With The Golden Hair which featured the band in rehearsal playing Free Hyndley and one other unknown song. Possibly the ‘penthouse pet’ punkette referred to by Richard as being in the band already.

Jane Suck aka Jane Solanis aka Jane Jackman – Sounds Journalist -Jane had been looking to form a band since early 1977. Photos from Sheila Rock show her singing backing vocals with Eve as the Moors Murderers rehearse but her input was likely to be fleeting and occasional. Possibly featured at the Slits gig but unlikely.

Rob Egan – Drummer in the Sheila Rock rehearsal pictures. Related to Rusty Egan, drummer for the Rich Kids, who will feature in The Photons story and likely to have got the gig because of Strange being friends with Rusty. Occasional drummer for the band but fleeting and noone recalls him playing on the recording. Deceased.

Was named in a feature on a band The Spiders in a later edition of Zigzag in 1980.

Rob had previously played with a few little known London bands as well as working with Steve Strange on the notorious single by The Moors Murderers. A venture he obviously doesn’t want to talk too much about. Spiders interview ZigZag April 1980 

While Rusty Egan – Drummer was named by the International Discography of the New Wave in their entry for Visage confusing him for the above ‘Rob’ Egan.

The what would become The Photons connection and gigs with the Slits and at the Roxy Club.

Mark ‘the Kid’ Ryan – Ex Adam & The Ants. Played at The Slits and Roxy gig though he’s not in the December rehearsal photos. Not part of the James Street showcase. Member of what would become The Photons at same time before going solo and still rehearsing in James Street before leaving music. Deceased.

Vince Ely – Slits and Roxy Club gigs, drums at James Street bag over the head photo session and showcase. Why? The evidence says so.  Not featured on the studio recording. Why? Stewart Copeland’s diary. Prior to the MM was in the Unwanted and appeared on their 1984/Bleak Outlook single. Was in what would become the Photons same time as the Moors Murderers hence being drafted in to the James Street session. Later joined the Psychedelic Furs in August 1979.

With Steve out of the Photons in early January an attempt to keep the Moors Murders running lasts a matter of weeks and a handful of rehearsals.

Malcolm (Mal) Hart – Sick Things bassist before joining Steve Strange & Chrissie Hynde very late 1977. According to Richard Durrant, Mal was one of the bags over the head people at Dave Goodman’s office.

Richard Durrant – Sick Things guitarist and friend of Malcolm Hart joined soon after but both left after around five rehearsals as worried for their physical safety.

Alex last name unknown – Drummer – mentioned by Richard as being the drummer when he joined. Nothing else known.


The Recordings band

Vocals  – Steve Strange
Bass -John Harlow
Guitar – Pete Taylor
Drums – Nick Holmes? Rob Egan? Stewart Copeland?
Backing Vocals – Mary
Producer – Stewart Copeland

Stewart Copeland (Police and Klark Kent Drummer) –  Producer of the Moors Murderers recordings, loaner of the drum kit and probably the drummer as per his diaries from the time and subsequent Punk77 follow up questions and lets be honest only himself, Soo Catwoman and Chrissie Hynde (to some extent) have ever told the truth.

Pete Taylor – Name checked in Stewart Copeland’s diaries from the time as the guitarist on the recordings and present at the mixing. Carol Taylor was a friend of John Harlow and Steve Strange. When Steve quickly pulled the people together for the recording session her brother Pete was a surprise addition on guitar. A cameo appearance in the story and never did anything since.

Mary – “There was a girl called Mary who did all the screaming bits of it.” John Harlow. This must have been the recreating of Eve’s and Jane’s backing vocals. Last name unknown.

Nick Holmes – Sick Things Mark 2 drummer and Eater Roadie. Potential player on recordings and Fulham bag over the head incident. Why? Couple of mentions – Dave Goodman & Andy Blade – suggest him. Ian Woodcock recalls sees Strange and Hynde at the Label Offices. Likelihood high for recording as John Harlow thinks it could be either him or Egan. If he had though, Richard Durrant who played with him in a later band would surely have known.

Andy Blade (Eater) Well Nick was the drummer in the project, I dunno how far off the ground it got, there was a tape but I never got to hear it. Dave was helping them put it together, I don’t know how big his involvement was but he was pretty enthusiastic as I remember – even though he’s since said he wasn’t. Email July 2004

Ian Woodcock – I remember her being at The Label offices. Steve Strange was there as well…18.1.21

Richard Durrant, who played with Nick first in the Sick Things and then post MM in Lonesome No More, is adamant he wasn’t in the band.

Nick Holmes was not in the Moors Murderers. Immediately after Malcolm and I left, we formed Lonesome no More and brought in Nick.

The self confessed but come on really?

Interestingly Tex Exile, aka Anthony Doughty, and best known as the keyboardist for fun pop punk posters Transvision Vamp, adds Topper Headon and himself into the frame and gives some tantalisingly close snippets of truth i.e. Jet Records and the beatings that suggest the slightest of slightest grain of veracity. Tex has refused to comment for Punk77 and the question is whether Zelig like he’s managed to insert himself into punk history as there are several errors scattered through his biography that render them more than a little suspect not least why the hell would Topper Headon offer up to play drums. The details on his site were as below but the site has since gone.

“THE MOORS MURDERERS ….. 1978-1978

  • Steve Strange— Vocals, later to become, not only a complete wanker, but also leader of the New Romantic movement and his group VISAGE
  • Chrissy Hynde—Guitars, later to become THE PRETENDERS
  • Topper Headon—Drums, borrowed from THE CLASH
  • Tex—Bass

This band never managed to play a gig, but did achieve an unsurpassed notoriety by recording a single for Jet Records called “FREE MOIRA HINDLEY” one of Britain’s notorious Moors murder child killers, still in prison to this day. The record was banned before it was ever released, and the band appeared in The Sun Newspaper all wearing black plastic garbage bags over their heads. The British nation was appalled, Punk’s were the scourge of society at that time. Even with bags over their heads Steve and Tex were somehow recognized on Oxford street and beaten up very badly by members of the public.”  Texexile.com

In 2019 I received the below from representation of Topper:

Dear Punk 77,
I have been instructed by Nick ‘Topper’ Headon of the Clash to contact you in regards to content featuring his name on your website  punk77.co.uk

We have noticed that on your site your mention Topper’s involvement with the band The Moors Murderers: 

I’ve discussed this at length with Topper, and he has confirmed that he was never in the band, nor does he feature on the recording referred to. Please could you remove his name and any and all other mentioned associations between Topper and the Moors Murderers band from your site.
Kindest regards Selena

In the scheme of things, I don’t think I’m doing Topper a disservice by keeping it here. The assertion is pretty ludicrous. The trouble is other sites don’t credit the information to Tex but instead repeat it as if it were fact so it features on many websites. Check your facts boys and girls – don’t just cut and paste.

And finally an email from several years back from Peter Ratcliff naming none other than Sid Vicious (deceased) but I think we can realistically count that one out as well!

Dunno if you caught the Lydon interview on Talk Sport on 15/5 or not…but whilst talking about Sid & the Flowers of Romance he mentioned that Sid was in a band once called the Moors Murderers and that they had tried to play the Vortex!!!…..I suppose he would have known if it’s right or not…thought it might be of interest…something else to throw into the debate?

That’s it. That rounds up all I have and what I know! Last words to John Harlow on the subject.

John Harlow (Moors Murderers Bassist) The fun was watching the names that were suggested There’s all the people that probably would have liked to have been involved, then those that were so far fetched and then you have the actual people who don’t want to be reminded of being involved. Chrissie wants nothing to do with it. Vince has never mentioned it. Steve claimed it was someone else. Don’t know about Peter; Carol doesn’t believe I’m me so I’m not in touch with them.

I was there from the beginning to The Photons and all the people I said were there were the people who were there. The guys out of the Sick things were never there. The Transvision Vamp bloke might have been there the night Steve got beat up after the Vortex because he was the kind of guy Steve would love to sleep with. All the people who said they were in the band were people who would have been asked by him to join and hopefully sleep with.

It’s strange how these people come up with stuff. The band has got a myth about it. Oooohhh did they exist? Who were those idiots in this thing? Was there a record? Same old bullshit. But all the people who were involved didn’t say anything. Chrissie didn’t; I didn’t; Vince didn’t and Steve dropped it like a hot potato when things got better for him.

The below was posted to the Visage website’s Guestbook page in July 2003 after the publication of Steve Strange’s autobiography ‘Blitzed’  which named Dave Goodman as the man behind the Moors Murderers.

Dave did take legal action and the offending passage was removed from the book and in all future reprints. Interestingly Andy Blade from Eater who worked with Dave a lot claims the legal action backfired as he was really after a payout!

It also appears in Dave’s excellent book My Amazing Adventures with The Sex Pistols finished and published after he died in 2005 by friend Jay Strongman. The book is all about how Dave saw the Pistols, became involved them, and his contribution which he has never had the respect, recognition (or recompense) due and though it contains several factual inaccuracies it’s a true account in the main. The chapter below sticks out like a sore thumb as it is obviously non-Pistols related and doesn’t fit, but he was still rankled by Strange’s assertion.

Dave was always very helpful in our email exchanges and was complimentary about the site.


The Truth About The Moors Murderers!

It’s summer 1977 and Ari Up’s last day at Holland Park Comprehensive School, a huge, modern, controversial, forward thinking, educational establishment, catering for the local youth aged 8 to 16. As proof of their liberal and experimental attitude, they have allowed Ari to give a performance with her new band the ‘Slits’, in the main hall. All 2000 or so kids have been invited.

Now, Ari Up happens to be the daughter of Chris Spedding and Nora Lydon. Chris I’d never really met, although we’d both produced the Sex Pistols. Nora I’d met at the Roxy and Sex Pistols’ rehearsal rooms in Denmark St. A very kind woman who became a sorta ‘older sister’ to many waywood punks. I’d been booked to supply my 2000 PA system – the same one the Sex Pistols used to hire.

The party itself was a bizarre scenario with eight year olds dancing with teenagers and kids running riot, having the time of their lives. GLORIOUS SUMMER HOLIDAYS HAVE ARRIVED! It took me back to my last day at school in 1967, when my band ‘Frinton Bassett Blues” gave a concert in the main hall which up to that point had been divided in two – girls one end, boys t’other. The next term they were going comprehensive, and that concert was a taster of things to come.

Back to 1977 and Holland Park. There was a support band who I assumed were friends of the ‘Slits’. They had this singer dressed in black leather calling himself ‘Steve Strange’. I also remember at least one female musician who turned out to be Chrissie Hynde. The other female could have been Patti Paladin. They had a certain ‘first gig’ quality about them, their sound being somewhat chaotic and the lyrics unintelligible.

I couldn’t believe it when they announced themselves as ‘The Moors Murderers’. It really was controversial, I had lived through that gruesome event and the darkness it brought to my childhood still felt gloomy. To protect me, my mum would remove any ‘Moors Murderers’ tabloid sensationalism from the papers after reading it herself.

After the show Steve Strange (pictured right – Photo Sheila Rock) came up to me at the mixing desk and confirmed the band’s name. I’d heard right – it was as I thought. We got talking. It turned out that they had this song called ‘Free Hindley’. They’d just performed it but I hadn’t noticed. I had my interest – what was the motive behind it? Steve explained. He felt that it was hypocritical of the government to automatically consider other child murderers for parole after a certain length of time, while ignoring Hindley. Being a high profile case, I believe he felt they were just pandering to public demand. We also discussed change and to what level people can achieve it.

Steve Strange – Photo Credit Sheila Rock

Steve wanted to record his ‘Free Hindley’ song. I suggested two main things to Steve –

1. To show he is not condoning murderers, he should create a balance. Why not record the Ten Commandments to music, for the B-Side? You know, drop some acid in the studio, really get into it man! He liked the idea.

2. Talk to Lord Longford, he’s been visiting Hindley in prison and is campaigning for her release. He liked that idea as well.

Steve wanted to rehearse in my basement in Fulham and wanted me to produce his song. I said I’d think about it.

I rang Vivienne Westwood, who knew Steve Strange and Chrissie Hynde. Vivienne pointed out that the Queen is in effect a murderer, as she signs death warrants. After much soul searching I bottled out and the ‘Moors Murderers’ went ahead and recorded it themselves. They rang me from the studio and played me a very tripped out version of the Ten Commandments. Steve also rang me later and said he’d had a very interesting conversation and lunch with Lord Longford.

A following Saturday morning, me and my business partner Caruzo Fuller had just returned from the café, when our flatmate Dave Fowel, announced that “two journalists had been there looking for the ‘Moors Murderers’. He told them that he “didn’t know that they’d escaped”. He told them to come back later.”

What’s going on I wondered, as I sat at my desk working and waiting. Down the back steps trundled four leather-clad beings with pillow-cases over their heads. I opened the back door. “It’s me, Steve, I’ve got the News of the World interested in the single, they wanna do an interview and I needed somewhere to do it so if you don’t mind…?” Well, it was a bit too bloody late now, so in they trundled. I believe Chrissie Hynde and Nick Holmes (Eater’s roadie) were two of them. Nick apparently played drums on the ‘Free Hindley’ recording. The two journalists returned and an interview took place in my office. I sat in the corner in amusement whilst the journos offered them ever increasing amounts of money to remove their hoods for a photo. It got into four figures, but the band wouldn’t comply. One of the journalists turned to me, “Who are you then?” I informed him I was the Sex Pistols’ producer and went on to explain my involvement (or lack of it) in the record.

The next day, on the front page of the News of the World there was the headline ‘How Could They Be So Cruel?’ and I was incorrectly named as ‘the man behind the record’ which is total bollocks and I should have sued them there and then for Libel, but I was a stoned hippy with little resources. Months later I spoke with some solicitors but they felt it had passed its ‘sell buy’ date so I put it all down to experience.

I remember hearing an acetate of the two recordings ‘Free Hindley’ and ‘The Ten Commandments’, possibly played to me by Nick Holmes the drummer. Not long after that, I saw an ad in the back of Melody Maker or NME for the sale of ten ‘Moors Murderers’ acetates @ £10 each, I believe. I seem to remember Malcolm bringing that ad to my attention. Anyway I didn’t buy one, I’d heard it once and that was enough.

Years later, when entering a record store in San Francisco, I saw a sign offering thousands of dollars for one. That was the only time I wished I’d grabbed one, when I had the chance.

The above is a truthful and accurate account of the events as I recall this 10th May 2002 So help me GODDESS.

Recently I came across a reference to the ‘Moors Murderers’ in Steve Strange’s so called autobiography, where he claims that the original idea for the band and the record was mine. That is total lies and I will be challenging his distorted account of history in due course.

Rainbow Love,

Dave Goodman at Sunday, May 12, 2002 at 13:13:51 (BST)



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