This was taken at an early gig at the Union Tavern, London on 1 March 1984, Alan McGee's Living Room club.
I had met Alan at an earlier club he had run, where we had gone to see the Television Personalities. I got talking to Alan that night, and we had kept in touch. I remember how impressed I was that he had set up a club, was running a fanzine and had even released records (by his old group, The Laughing Apple). When Alan started running "The Living Room" club, it was natural to send him the demo tape we had recorded at home. I'm not sure that Alan actually liked the tape, but he put us on anyway (figuring that, even if we were hopeless, at least we'd bring some friends and swell the audience numbers!)
From then on, we became regular players there. I loved it. The best part was the camaraderie - meeting people who loved music, who were in bands, who were happy at last to have somewhere good to go in London. We had so much fun playing there that we never even thought about the money - we'd just break even on most gigs, but it was worth it for the experience.
More importantly, it was a place that music journalists went to regularly. It did not take much time at all for us to be noticed and the first reviews and interviews came quickly. There followed a strange time when we would be regularly in the press, lauded as the next big thing. The reality was that we were playing to maybe 150 people in London, but were completely unknown outside this small band of people.
Nevertheless, we started to pick up really good reviews in the music press, and began to feel as if this might progress beyond simply being fun. Alan's lable, Creation, had started up by this time. He was now putting out great singles by the likes of The Loft and The Jasmine Minks. Every time we played a gig, we began to feel that he might well ask us to be next to join the Creation roster. Alas, it was not to be. Apparently, Alan thought it would have been "Too obvious" to sign us! I often think things might have worked out differently for us if he'd made a different decision.
Instead, a friend of Alan's called Simon Down decided we were too good an opportunity to miss. Simon therefore formed his own label, Pink Records, and offered to release our records. As there were no other offers at the time, we thought it might be a good idea...
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