Simon, Phil and George at
the final.
1. International Rescue
As with many other great/bad ideas, the idea of a forming a group started in a bar.
Simon and I were at college in 1981, and had become friends due to a mutual love of punk rock, and having played in dodgy local bands, amongst other things. With our punk rock heads on, we looked at the posters for the first round of a student talent contest and sneered. A couple of beers later, someone had an idea: why don't we do the punk rock thing and form a band, have one rehearsal and do the talent contest as a complete piss take. Top idea.
The group was formed by the people who happened to be there. Simon Beesley and me on guitars, Chris Nineham on drums, Jez Wallis on vocals and Andy Johnston (George) on bass - in spite of the fact that he had no bass and had never played one. An hour spent teaching George how to play a borrowed bass and one rehearsal later we were ready.
Simon, Phil and George at
the final.
We did a short set involving lots of running about and falling over but not a great deal in the way of musical ability. Much to our suprise (and to the horror of the musos making up the competition) we won the round, and the next round two weeks later and came second in the final (the winners were a jazz rock band...yeucchhhh). All this by sheer bravado and attitude. It was great. One of the judges in the final round asked us to play at the Venue supporting The Higsons a few weeks later. Wow. Could stardom be beckoning?
Phil Wilson, Andy Johnston, Jez Wallis, Chris Nineham, Simon Beesley
Well, no, actually. A few more gigs and a demo tape later and we disbanded. It had been fun, but in the end pointless. I certainly didn't want to be permanently in a band that was little more than a joke.
I still played music, though. At the time, I was very in to "Throbbing Gristle" and other arty noise. I spent months making self-consciously "Weird" industrial music, using tape loops, snatches of music and speech from the radio, and found objects for making rhythms. Whilst good fun, it ultimately felt pointless - I thought it had all been done before, and done much better.
I was still sharing a house with Simon from Rescue, and so once again the idea popped up of doing a band - but a proper one this time. Thus, with the drummer from Rescue and a friend of Simon's from school, The June Brides came into being.
End of round one.