Early years,:My first musical meanderings were aged about six when apparently I tried working out ‘Jesu joy of man’s desiring’ on my dad’s piano. I was duly despatched for piano lessons. Despite the usual many distractions (Football, girls,beer, Rock ‘n roll, bikes etc.), some of it stuck and I eventually gained a grade 7 on piano, before descendininto that dark pit that is rock music! My first band ventures were with the usual youth club bands and everyone wanted to play lead guitar, including me. Some-one had to play drums though, & as I had a sense of rhythm I ended up behind the ‘traps’ for a few years!

Bands
With the exception of one-off and short-lived ventures, here are details of the various ‘popular beat combos’ I’ve played in-as far as I can recall. I can’t remember every musical project so if you’re an ex-band member & stumble across this site please get in touch, I’d love to hear from you.
*-Trespass- 1973-1975 my very first ‘proper’ band! Me on drums, Frank Gregory on bass, Joe O’reilly bass and Graham Sheard vocals. We played songs by Free, The Who, Bowie etc. (Sign of things to come!) Dig that groovy tank-top & panda collar +Franks Homepride flourgraders shirt!
*-Skid Jenner- 1974-1976, me on drums, Billy Longden-vocals, Dave Goodridge, Vic Szcznowicz-bass, Dave Sunter-organ. Another rock covers band. I later played drums occasionally with Vic in a band called ‘Rough Joddy’ which was the fore-runner of the Killermeters
*-Around this time I did a lot of freelance work playing drums in dance bands. It may sound very genteel but not so! One band- Romantica- a polish dance band made Spinal Tap seem pretty tame!
*-Biggles – 1975-1978. We really paid our dues in this band. Sleeping on the gear in the back of a Sherpa van on freezing nights with a knackered heater and a slow puncture, oh fond remembrance!!. Line up- me, Paul Gant-guitar/vocals, Steve Eames-keyboards, Simon Turner-drums and Nick Roberts- lead guitar. We played the Northern club circuit solidly in the heyday of the big Working Men’s Clubs. I moved from drums to guitar to bass in this band. Although we started out doing covers we eventually experimented with our own material, building a new identity, which became:
*-Glossy Mags- 1978-1980 Line up- me- bass/vocals, Paul Gant, Steve Eames, Si Turner and Bill Goler/Chris Haley- lead guitar. Playing our own stuff in the heyday of the punk/new-wave era was great fun. Blowing the gig fee on post-gig curries at The Dreamland with friends and road crew became a firm and fondly remembered ritual. We had interest from a couple of record labels but the band broke up before we could capitalise on the interest. We did however, commit most of our own songs to tape. These have now been transferred to Digital and, subject to interest, a limited edition CD will be available. Email me if you’d like a copy.
*-Leap in the Dark- 1981-1983 After Glossy Mags called it a day, I went back to the club circuit, playing Guitar and keyboards in LITD, playing the Northern club circuit again
*-Silver Cloud duo- 1983-1986 Me and Frank Gregory playing the clubs to backing tracks done the hard way-all backing instruments & vocals played in the studio by us. There were no computers,midi or sequencers then! I think this may well have been the only band that I made more money from than I spent! ]
*-Trick Llamas- 1986-1990 Line up- me-keyboards/guitar/vocals, Den Bottomley –guitar/vocals, Pete Leng-bass, Tim Mulley-drums
*-Buditstu/Stash- 1996-2001 After a break from bands while the kids were young I was approached by drummer Stu Whittaker to play bass in an 8 piece soul R&B band. As is often the way this band fizzled out before we did any gigs, but from the ashes Rock band Buditstu was formed (The name comes from drummer Stuart’s phone greeting-‘Hiya bud-it’s-Stu’ A big highlight was headlining the mayors charity event at King Georges Hall Blackburn. Alas Stu had to give up live playing due to hearing problems. Steve Mount joined on drums and the band changed it’s name to Stash. A highlight of the live gigs was the set closer- an epic Who medley comprising Behind Blue eyes, Pinball Wizard, See me feel me and Wont get fooled again
*-Barefaced Cheek- I played bass with this outfit during 2001-2003, while I was living back over in Yorkshire for a bit
*-Snatchinitback – 2003-2006
*-The Bounders- 2005- When Glossy Mags keyboard player Steve Eames got remarried, the guys reformed to play at Steve’s wedding in 2004. We enjoyed it enough to try to keep things going. Unfortunately Paul Gant couldn’t continue regularly as he’s now domiciled in London, so my old musical pardner Frank Gregory was dragged out of retirement. The Bounders web page
* The Cooler Kings - 2005 - present

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