Chapter 4 - York

When I first started work at York University in October 1976, I actually stayed in nearby Harrogate, with my old friend from Queen's University, Paul Davis, and his wife Grace. I had been his best man a couple of years earlier. A year or so later, Paul would enrol on a Social Work course at York, where he would meet and introduce me to Percy Aggett, who would join the by then well-established Klingons. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Popular mythology had it that there were 365 pubs inside York's city walls, one for each day of the year. I don't suppose that's true, but there certainly were a lot, all of which had to be inspected and the beer sampled. It seemed to me that almost every other pub had live music, with styles ranging all the way from Punk through to Jazz. I happily spent my first year at York working my way through all of these hostelries.

The Psychology department where I worked was quite new, and the staff and students were all very friendly. A tradition of Christmas and summer staff-student parties had developed, which included a bit of review-style entertainment. Significant among the contributors to these was singer/guitarist Trevor Bell, who in addition to doing straight songs, also had a good line in sending up the staff. If you imagine the following words set to the tune of "All Along The Watchtower," you'll get the idea.

	No reason to get excited
	The Prof. he kindly spoke
	There are many here among us
	Who think psychology is but a joke

I kept in touch with Trevor after he graduated and we met up on a few occasions. But time moves on, and before we knew it 20 years had gone by, when we discovered that we both visited Cumbria on a regular basis. We recently arranged to meet up again, and here's a picture of Trevor, his wife Helen and me, taken at Christmas 2000.

Klingons I

I had a good friend, Charles Dunstan, who was a lecturer/producer in the University's Audio/Visual Department. He was nearing the end of a temporary contract, and as a parting shot he got us into his studio to make a video and a recording of the band. I remember a very irate Physics professor storming in to complain about the noise, and to protest that this was supposed to be an academic institution, etc, etc.

This photograph was taken during the studio recording session. Guitarist Rob Hingley, who had some good contacts, managed to get it on the front cover of the "North Yorkshire Student" newspaper, along with a very tongue-in-cheek interview. Click here to read this interview. (Look out for Star Trek puns, etc.)

In addition to Rob Hingley and myself, the band also consisted of vocalist Mick O'Connell, young Geordie guitarist Tony (Jah) Foxton, drummer Den Nash, and ubiquitous saxophonist Dave Dallison. The video was screened on the student TV service on York campus, and we even had the arrogance to send it off to Yorkshire TV in Leeds. I believe we sent it to Richard Whitely (of Countdown fame), who presented a local magazine programme at the time. He sent us a very polite and encouraging reply, but in truth the band was pretty rough and ready then, so it went no further. Sadly, we didn't manage to hang onto a copy of the videotape, as it was before the days of home video recorders. However, I still have a copy of the soundtrack, and include for your entertainment our version of that old 70s favourite amongst rock bands, by Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Den liked to do huge drum rolls right round his formidable array of drums. Unfortunately, these rolls didn't always reach the end of the bar at the same time as the rest of the band. This was something of a fundamental problem for a drummer, who, if nothing else, you expect to keep precisely to the beat. It took a little while for us to realise this, but once we did, Den had to go. Mick too, wasn't really up to scratch in the vocals department, so he too got the chop. Bands can be cruel!

Klingons II

We also were lucky enough to find a new singer, in the shape of Screaming Hugh Butterworth, literally lying in the corner a campus bar, singing and playing blues harp. I traded in my old Mini Estate for a cavernous Ford Cortina Estate, and after a few rehearsals the Klingons were on the road again.

Our repertiore had its roots in R&B, which we were unfashionably playing against a rising tide of punk, but we were constantly adding more and more of our own compositions all the time. You'll need to classify our style for yourself. One of my earliest favourites was which almost breaks into free-form jazz in the middle. It is well worth following the lyrics of this and the other Klingons numbers while listening. You can see these by clicking on the rightmost column (Lyrics) on the music download page, or by clicking . All the Klingons songs presented here (except for Freebird) were recorded live at York Arts Centre on 3rd December 1979.

Rob had a vivid imagination, possibly fuelled by his avid reading of comics. All the characters in his songs gradually came together in a fantasy world populated by the likes of Dicso Boy, Mary Do You Wanna, Johnny Cool, the Downtown Dudes, and Johnny Goballs. And of course they all hung out at Smokey Joe's cafe. Even my girlfriend at the time got described by Rob as "Kay (wife of Superman) Kent" in his introduction to . I think that this song has all the attributes of a classic rock'n'roll number. However, it also has something for the conspiracy theorists amongst you, who love to discover hidden meanings. What sounds like MaryDoYouWanna, "makes you weak at the knees," and "has you crawling back for more?" Could it just be Marajuana? Read the rest of the and see what you think.

We usually opened our sets with one of two straight rockers which bounced along and were easy to play, either or the somewhat navel-gazing . In complete contrast to these is Rob's rather poignant love song, , which I particulary like.

As a band, we generally didn't take ourselves too seriously. The punk-reggae number (It's a load of old toot!) reflects this, as does the somewhat politically incorrect . This didn't always endear us to the new wave subculture at the time. We were enjoying ourselves too much and not protesting enough, etc. Something of a good-natured running battle developed with student journalist Mike Bennett, a.k.a. Mick (wipe it on your) Sleeve, to whom we dedicated the song . You can read one of his reviews by clicking here, though to me, being lumped in the same bag as Fleetwod Mac and The Eagles was more of a compliment than an insult.

Anyway, there we were having a great time, corny advertisements and all, when our drummer Mark dealt us a body blow. Along came this smarmy git with a Rod Stewart style haircut which wide boys sported in those days (and still do?). He persuaded Mark to leave us and join him in a band doing the rounds of the top clubs, with the promise of making loads of money. Needless to say, said money never materialised, but that happened too late for us, and the Klingons were drummerless again.

Ironically, this event gave me the chance to experience playing at a York working man's club, the very one at which above-mentioned smarmy git had previously played before chasing the big time. This job fulfilled my stereotypical expectations to the letter. The resident band consisted of an excellent but very cynical organist, a laid-back drummer, and me on bass. We would do a few numbers on our own, and then back the "Guest Artistes," playing along to the sheet music which they supplied. (My ability to sight-read music was not the best, but we'll gloss over that minor detail.) Most importantly of all, during the intermission for Bingo, the resident band would head for the bar and consume as many pints as possible in the limited time available. At the end of the evening we got paid, in proper wage packets, with tax deducted and everything. Quite a contrast with the grubby handfuls of fivers which the Klingons usually received.

Meanwhile, the Klingons were still short of a drummer. Unbelievably, given how scarce drummers usually are, we managed to find one, Mark Turner, a student at the University. At about the same time Percy Aggett arrived on the scene, and joined us on keyboards. A work colleague of mine, Rob "I mixed for Pink Floyd" Fletcher, started to help out on the sound desk, which by now had evolved onto a 9-channel Heath-Robinson affair. This photograph is the only one I have got showing the entire band. It was taken at an outdoor street festival in St. Paul's Square, York in the Summer of 1979.

New material was now constantly being added to our repertoire. Rob and I would tend to thrash out the basic tunes late onto the night. Rob would then produce the words out of nowhere in his own prolific manner, and we would then bring the rest of the band up to speed at the next rehearsal. The melodic content and complexity of our songs was improving all the time, and being good examples. (Watch out for the great guitar break at the end of Hit Record.) was based around a bass riff of mine, with a few obscure lyrics. Hugh came up with a song on his favourite theme, , and Percy also contributed with the dark and menacing . In retrospect, this song reminds me that evey time I ever passed The Blind Beggar pub in the East End in Percy's company, he always gleefully pointed out that it had been the Kray twins' headquarters. (Percy doesn't actually play on this live recording. He had by then moved back to London.)

Somehow, in the midst of all this activity, I managed to find the time to play in another band at the same time. Ex-Klingons drummer Mark Wootton had reappeared in the York music scene, his club band venture having gone down the pan. He got a few musicians together with a view to forming another club band, and he roped me to play bass, though on the strict understanding that the Klingons took priority. We worked up quite a good repertoire of standard cover versions, but unfortunately we never actually made it onto the stage anywhere. A typical example of our material was . originally by Betty Everett in the 1960s and popularised by Linda Ronstadt in the 1970s. The excellent Paul Smith plays some cool guitar on this, with Mark and me forming a really rock-solid rhythm section (even if I do say so myself). I am embarassed to admit that I don't remember the names of the rhythm guitarist and vocalist of the band.

The Klingons were going from strength to strength, but inevitably the end was looming. Despite it's somewhat pastiche disco-beat, was a serious song, reflecting this imminent change. I don't remember whether it was obvious at the time, but I now think that Rob was putting more and more of his personal feelings into songs such as this, and into . Both are great songs, and show his ambiguous feelings about moving on. Read the and see.

Percy went back to London in the Autumn of 1979. Rob had been working in bars and restaurants since graduating, and my contract was coming to an end, so it was time for a change all round. When Rob moved to London in the Spring of 1980, who else but Mark Wootton, the drummer who had abandoned us a year or so earlier, re-joined but this time on guitar, as a replacement for Rob. We played a few gigs with that line-up, but then Hugh, Mark Turner and I all gradually ended up in London too, in the Summer of 1980.

Soon we got together and played a gig at one of Percy's work parties. However we were all living literally in the four corners of London, with Hugh and I in the North, Rob in the South, Percy in the East, and Mark in the West. This made rehearsals impractical, so sadly, the Klingons dematerialised as we all got involved in our own worlds.

Percy started playing around the East End, and continues to do so with The Donuts, an excellent 60s/70s cover band. Rob had been working in the Forbidden Planet comic shop, and soon moved to their new New York branch. There he was a founding menber of The Toasters, who he has been with ever since, and who are now a very well-known ska band (see www.moonska.com and/or www.toasters.org). Interestingly, though none of us could have known it at the time, the Klingons song . can be seen a predictor of Rob's subsequent attachment to ska.

I, on the other hand, had a quiet year or two on the music front, until I received a surprise phone call from old fellow musician, Paul Kerr from Armagh, who just happened to live round to corner from me in North London. He was looking for a bass player to join him and his partner Hilary McCutcheon in making some studio recordings. But that's the subject of another chapter.

Meanwhile I'll close this eposide in my musical history with another of my favourite Klingons songs, the optimistic and perfectly crafted .