Every gig I ever went to

I’d been playing bass for a couple of years, and in the Spring of 1978 I joined a group in Oxford, fronted by my friend Mark, which became The No. I don’t intend to say much about The No, or any of the other bands I’ve played with, because it’s impossible to be objective, and because being in the group I didn’t really see the gigs. These days I wouldn’t make any great claims for The No, except that we were young and snotty, good musicians, and played fast, melodic tunes which might be bracketed somewhere between punk and power pop. We had some good songs, and Mark was a great frontman. We used to squabble all the time, that’s just part of how it is. Our regular gig was the Oranges & Lemons pub where we developed something of a following. In the Autumn we acquired a manager, who happened to be Social Secretary at the College of Further Education, which meant we got to play support slots for name acts there.    The first was with local legend and chart act John Otway, who I ...

Wilko Johnson left Dr Feelgood at the height of their fame, which at the time seemed like a perverse decision. It later – actually much later, in the form of personal testimony – emerged that he didn’t get on with the rest of the group, was difficult, cantankerous, and worse than that, university-educated and teetotal. Hindsight would suggest that Dr Feelgood in their original form had already peaked. Their last album with Wilko, Sneakin’ Suspicion, was patchy, and by far the strongest song, Paradise, turned out to be the one that caused the split since Lee Brilleaux – a much more authoritative singer than Wilko – refused to sing it due to what he felt were overly personal lyrics detailing the guitarist’s complicated  vie affective . Given that Wilko was the only songwriter and himself not particularly prolific, that was that; irreconcilable differences, your honour.   So Dr Feelgood recruited a new guitarist (see Gig 039) and Wilko eventually got his own group together, and s...