Good morning. I've been thinking about doing this compilation for a while. Lockdown has probably sped up the process. This is a collection of demos and recordings that haven't appeared on any LP, EP or single. The recording quality of much of it, carried out chronologically on 4-track, 8-track and Garageband, isn't the best in places. Not to worry, it's free if you want it to be. Right now, it should be. The tracks are laid out in roughly reverse chronological order, for the simple reason that the early recordings, while they may possess a certain charm, are hardly album launchers. There are several phases; France now, France in the noughties, Liverpool after the rest of Ricky Spontane left town, Liverpool during Ricky Spontane, Liverpool pre-Ricky Spontane and snippets from naive days in Birmingham and Cheltenham.

Half of the tracks run concurrently with Ricky Spontane peak days and if I remember well both Tim Benton and Klaus Joynson need to be thanked for loans of recording equipment and any number of people for the odd pedal or guitar or organ. I was going to make a compilation named 'Richard Wanders Around Liverpool' (my real name is naturally not Jonny Brownbow but I have come full circle and returned to my Cheltenham pseudonym as they seem bright and light days inhabited by sweet people) from the Spontane days demos but that project has now morphed into this one. I remember wandering a lot down Bold Street and around the south side of town - also bright and light days inhabited by sweet people, but the urban version. I remember a poetic, lovesick but upbeat and optimistic phase where Frank Sinatra's Nelson Riddle recordings never seemed to be out of my Walkman.

Sometime towards the back end of 1987 or the front end of 1988, I took the train from Cheltenham, Gloucestershire to Birmingham with Oliver Ferris. Alighting at New Street station, we headed swiftly to Musical Exchange, a veritable sweet shop of delicious instruments and accessories of every hue. Ferris’s mission was to get a 4-track and he was prepared to haggle. Would it be Fostex or Tascam? The two big names of the era were the only realistic choices - the Coke and Pepsi of 1980s home recording. We ascended through jumbles of amps and wires to a top floor brightly lit by Brum's hazy vista. There we met a legend called Neil who explained things like they had never been explained at school; such thorough instruction we had never known. He was a straight-laced but humbling and (decades later) quasi-mythical presence. I suspect Neil would find his legendary status baffling and preposterous.

Ferris walked out an hour later with a Fostex and I bought the same model a couple of months later, ostensibly as a way to record songs but in truth it was also an excuse to get another meticulous schooling from Neil. A handful of these tracks were recorded on Neil's magic analogue machine, hence the title of this ragged-trousered compilation.

On reflection, it must have been on this very train journey where the name ‘Brownbow’ was conceived. As a rainbow appeared from the train window, Ferris and I dreamed of a world where rainbows were only different shades of brown; we used to take the piss out of brown as a square colour back then but now there are some shades I rather like and I suspect Ferris feels similarly. For the record, ‘Jonny’ was coined by Cheltenham guitar legend Kurt Jurgens, who was convinced I looked like Johnny Rotten, but whose charismatically gaunt cheekbones resembled Rotten’s rather more than mine did, in truth. So that’s the story of the moniker, Monica.

I really like Bandcamp a lot, especially its aesthetic, but one thing that is a small inconvenience is that to access the track notes, you must click on the track itself rather than just let the album play and so from then on in you have to keep clicking on individual tracks to play them. I think there might be occasions where you'll listen while washing dishes, in which case you won't need to read, but a bit of concurrent reading and listening is a nice way to pass the time, so I shall put all the individual track notes on the front page too. Here they are:

MUTABILITY

The music to this track was recorded in 2005 in Talya's flat in Royal Oak, London and the vocals added in 2020 in Chartres, France. I used her beautiful and battered Spanish guitar which has a lovely timbre. The words were penned by Percy Bysshe Shelley and published in 1816. I love Shelley. At the age of 17, well before an even half-decent song had escaped my fingers, Naicher Mann and I would sit and recite his poems sat on a log, surrounded by the gorgeous aroma of wild garlic. We’d rub its leaves between our fingers between poems. In the last series of Dr Who (2020 as I write), the Doctor is faced with the choice of destroying Shelley, and with him forever banishing the threat of the Cybermen. She cannot, and says,

"His thoughts, his words inspire and influence thousands for centuries. If he dies now, who knows what damage that will have on future history? Words matter! One death, one ripple, and history will change in a blink. The future will not be the world you know. The world you came from, the world you were created in won't exist, so neither will you. It's not just his life at stake. It's yours."

Beautiful, true and brought a tear to my eye. Another hero of mine, Noor Inayat Khan, one of the bravest people in history, also appears in the last Dr Who series. She appears briefly on the Friar Johnsun Brownbow EP 'Deeper Secrets of the Hungry Monk', on the track 'Soup of the Day'.

The youtube video of this song features the extraordinary artwork of Michael Lacey, chosen partly because it seemed Shelleyan in a modern way, but more because much of it is astonishing. Do visit his website, you shan’t be disappointed.

michael-lacey.co.uk/collage/earlier/

Photo by Jo Lewis

BAD HOME GOVE-RNANCE

"I think people in this country have had enough of experts."

Recorded in 2019 as an extra track on the Brownbow EP, ‘Bullingdon Groupies.’

Drawing by Brownbow. It is of the villainous ‘Toaster’, who appears in my short novella ‘Escape to Vinyl’. To read that and other stories, please click here. It’s a trip.

www.smashwords.com/books/view/830852

GREG’S VOICE

An old song, occasionally performed live by my first Liverpool band Spontaneous Cattle Combustion and once I think by Ricky Spontane, but not recorded in any shape or form until 2018. The lyrics have been updated, though the reference to a 'tape-recording' remains. This song was about our mate Gregory Gate, who had such a soothing and mellow voice I thought it could be used by governments as a sort of 'anti-weapon'. The way he said the word 'cheat', while playing the card game of the same name, was particularly mollifying. His mellow pipes were dulcet even when being sardonic.

Picture by Brownbow. Two honeyed tonsils.

I MISS YOU WHEN YOU’RE NOT AROUND

2008, in brutalist pastel architecture surrounded by quiet people. An extract from the unreleased 'heavy metal' album, Richard II. Lots of whisky, listening to the Stooges, bad Little Richard impressions and guitars on full. A big thank you to Tim Benton who corrected my technical incompetence by putting much of the album into two ears.

Drawing by Ollie Hutchinson. A classic from an old ‘Lump Nonsense’ poster.

THE THING

Another extract from Richard II. Nothing to do with Kurt Russell's Arctic monster.

Photo by Barry Woods.

UP TO SCRATCH

A further extract from Richard II. I did some weird bendy barre chord thing on the semi-leccy which I'd never been able to do before and which re-appeared on Ricky Spontane's 'Genocidal Maniacs (in Languedoc). A bendychord would be a good name for an obscure, faddish instrument from the 70's. 'Twas probably the whisky that done it. 'Christie done it! Christie done it!'

Photo by Brownbow.

SELF-DESTRUCT

A final extract from Richard II. Apologies for a couple of moments of digital distortion. I thought it worth sharing overall.

Photo by Barry Woods.

MT GOES ON A DOWNER

Early 2000s in Liverpool. Featuring the transcendent casio of Naicher Mann, autumn never felt so good. The rare luxury of melancholia. Caramel pelicans, ochre droopings, fresh-scented sludge and dripping emeralds.

Photographer/artist unknown, but taken from a flyer for a show by Naicher Mann’s theatre group, Reject’s Revenge.

LEONARD COHEN

Recorded in an ex-consulate apartment in Liverpool, 2004. Initiated by my brothers, love of Cohen lies deep in my upbringing, every bit as much an immovable object in my psyche as Bowie, The Clash, Julian Cope, Fats Domino and Kate Bush. This is the besuited, almost Godfatherly Cohen munching fruit on the cover of ‘I'm Your Man’. I concurrently recorded 'Mr Leonard Cohen', a more in-depth study, but this has a better tune so this one's going on.

Apologies for the panning, which is due to poor mastery of an eight track and the zip disk is now corrupted. Nevertheless, I deemed it worth sharing.

Photo by Elodie Jousseaume.

96.7

Early 2000s. An ode to the wonders of Radio City on 96.7 FM, my captor and tormentor in many a temporary 'situation'. They literally only played the Top 20 when I was in its clutches. For further details on the matter please refer to my book, The Temp Pest.

www.smashwords.com/books/view/291401

Thanks to the Wiffsni who get a co-writing credit.

Photo by Jo Lewis.

THE SPOOK

An obscure recording from 2003, of a rather lovely dream of a Canning Street basement, Liverpool. This was performed once and once only by the Rickets. Two people politely clapped as if a cricketer who had just made 7 were leaving the crease in a dead county rubber on a Monday. A lad shouted 'Crowded House' bitterly and disparagingly, but, hey, I like the keyboard, so here it is. Apologies for the glitch, thought it was worth sharing anyway. The song structure is slightly off-kilter, like Fats Domino's 'Darktown Strutters Ball'.

Picture by Brownbow.

HAPPINESS

This was a reject from the 2000 album Richard I and was very happy around this time. I was listening to a lot of art punk; Doctors of Madness, Television, Magazine, Roxy Music - that’s where this particular kind of happiness led me. Wonder was on the agenda.

Photo by Michael Lacey.

SUMMER OF HATE

A 4-Track recording from the late 90s.

I almost felt like a proper musician doing piano trills. This is the demo version. There was another slightly more polished version produced by Tim Benton from Baxendale, who has always been so supportive and kind with his time, which went on the B-Side of Ricky Spontane's 'Domino' single. We didn’t have the dosh to go into the studio and I guess the free LIPA sessions we’d been having had dried up, plus it was nice to surprise people with a bit of electronica.

Then Tim himself wrote a version for Baxendale with lyrics and all which I guested on. It was cool, I like all the versions, and the fact of doing a song with instrumental verses and a sung chorus. Might have to try sung verses and an instrumental chorus one time. Also on that Baxendale single was a song based on Ricky Spontane's 'Dry Ice', called 'Hey Steve', which changed one note to interesting effect, toning down a semitone; one nameable difference between pop and rockabilly.

Once a girl came to the Water Rats in London to see us (Ricky Spontane) play, having travelled from somewhere quite far like Devon, on the back of having heard the Summer of Hate B-side. Disappointed that in reality we were some kind of guitar band and to boot didn't even do the song, she told our manager we were the worst band she'd ever seen - which was fair enough because we were dreadful that night and I gave in half way through.

The samples are taken from Dr Who: Fury from the Deep, with voices by narrator Tom Baker and Victor Maddern as the irascible inverted snob Robson.

Picture by Brownbow.

THE LATE REVIEW

The demo version of the song of the same name that featured on the second Ricky Spontane album, ‘Hit the Town’. Recorded round about 1998.

In hindsight perhaps this is a slightly mean-spirited song about the BBC 2 show ‘The Late Review’, which at the time was hosted by Mark Lawson and nearly always featured the pretentious Tom Paulin as a guest. In fact, nearly all the guests were insufferably pretentious (I liked Bonnie Greer) and tended to pick apart stuff I liked with disapproving upturned noses and with their figurative cutlery snootily and gingerly picking at some smelly carcass of an artwork or artist. However - and it’s a big however, I came to really enjoy Paulin as a loveable and possibly unwittingly comic entertainer as time went on and it became essential viewing. Maybe I was being just as uptight as them in retrospect - plus, you’d never, ever, EVER write a song having a go at such small fry these days, with cretinous demagogues like Trump, Bolsonaro and Farage about. Oh, to return to those minor grumbles! Good old Tom!

Stephen Fry hilariously lampooned ‘TV critics’ on Room 101 and brilliantly explained why their shortcomings were ‘a question of theology’. That said, on the same show even such a luminary as Fry proved that anybody can make erroneous judgements by criticising ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’, the greatest TV show in history, for the intonation of the cast’s voices.

Drawing by Talya Davies

MR EVERYWHERE

Mr Everywhere, to whom I eventually spoke to only fleetingly, was, frankly, everywhere. Then he disappeared one day. He was the one Roger Hargreaves missed. One time I saw him at the bar of the Everyman pub in Liverpool. No word of a lie, I left with former Ricky Spontane keyboard player Mark 'Fronty' Davidson (who'd independently remarked on seeing him everywhere - we'd often see him together and say, 'look, it's that bloke again.') with Mr Everywhere still at the bar. We took the short taxi ride (very idle) to Le Bateau on Duke Street, home of the Liquidation club night, only to find on heading to the bar for an overpriced, watered down pint that Mr Everywhere was already there sipping from a pint glass, perched alone upon a bar stool. Before you ask, yes, the research was done and he doesn't have a twin brother. Apparently not, but you'd imagine the Everywhere family tree to be shrouded in mystery.

For the record, I was most certainly not married during Mr Everywhere's perplexing reign, but you should never let facts get in the way of a good rhyme - nor indeed verb tense inconsistencies get in the way of a good joke.

DELGADO SONG

A tribute to The Master - the greatest Master - Mr Roger Delgado. All good, clean, sociopathic fun. Delgado’s voice features on the song ‘Leather Hands’, a b-side to ‘If You Don’t Want Me’ from the solo LP Richard I. The song was a nod to Pol-Pot, whose contempt for humanity probably rivalled the Master’s, but without the wit.

Probably recorded in 1997.

Photo by Brownbow.

LOVE IN THE LAKES

Happy, lazy, loopy, loping, lolling, lemonade, lakeside love song from the late nineties. I generally take Robyn Hitchcock’s advice not to use alliteration in actual song, I should add.

We mounted Skiddaw with no water on a warm day. The bottle of ‘real lemonade’ we drank after descent was possibly the finest thing I’ve ever tasted.

Somebody, whose identity I have forgotten, misinterpreted the opening line ‘let’s kill some hours’ as ‘let’s kill some owls’. I was quite mortified by this.

Drawing by Talya Davies.

HARD FRIEND

The demo of the song of the same name which appears on the first Ricky Spontane LP, ‘Spontane Time.’

Seeing us live at the Water Rats in King’s Cross, the late journalist Steven Wells thought I or perhaps all of us were gay, based on the song lyrics to ‘Hard Friend’ and indeed ‘My Favourite Restaurant’. I could see why in hindsight. The latter is disappointingly sardonic while the former was an unwitting reverse double entendre, rather than the Formby-esque straightforward double entendre that had clearly come across to Swells. Never included a penis in any of my songs. They’re everywhere in Formby’s world. As are vaginas (‘underneath the archway where the Sweet William grows’). Context is a funny thing, the guy made people laugh with his warmth and toothy grin but would have been strung up in ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ or perhaps horse whipped in pre-Renaissance cloisters.

I didn’t really have a hard friend but everyone loves the tough kid at school who sticks up for the underdog and acts as a kind of go-between between the sports kids and the nerds. I narrowly avoided needing a hard friend at school as I was shit hot at cross country and the 400 metres, but most of my mates were in the nerds camp. Or some other in-between camp.

Photo probably by Dave Evans.

YELLOW SONG

This is a very, very light one from the late 90s, almost perhaps to the point of being a bit wet, but I just like the melody and the way the twelver crackles and pickles. Mixed and mastered at Tim Benton’s, hence the superior sound quality to most of my other late 90s efforts.
Thanks, Tim! What’s your favourite biscuit?

By the way, Tim warned me against calling the song ‘Summer Girl’ as it would be insipid. Haircut 100 would’ve got away with that and made it into something delicious, marshmallowy and meadowy, but me? Nah ...

Photo by Canning Street.

OOH OOH OOH

Late 90s demo. I like the fact this is titled after a non-worded chorus rather than on subject matter and I like the fact the chorus has no actual words. ‘Who loves you baby’ was nailed by Kojak anyhow. This track appears on the second Ricky Spontane album ‘Hit the Town’ and although I prefer that version for the proper musicianship it entails, it’s also more frantic, whereas this version is more of a groove pace, complete with Mr and Mrs Casio on drums.

The first line ‘I wanna wake up next to her eyes’ is kinda gross when you think about it. Insert comic horror caption here.

Photo by A. Plankton

SHE DOESN’T NEED

This one didn’t quite make the Spontane album cut and in fact I’m not sure I ever wanted it to as it couldn’t function without the aeroplane noises and I didn’t think we’d be able to do that as purveyors of independent rock and roll tunes. I regretted the loss of the middle riff though, so reused it in The Rickets’ ‘The Fat Man Versus the Beard’. There’s more insecure whinging here. Songs can be unfair, of course, capturing a fleeting feeling here and there and then all is rosy, bouncy and dandy a summer’s morning later.

All apologies for the grammatical inconsistency. Grammar is expendable.

Origin of photo unsure.

DOMINO

The original demo version of the Ricky Spontane classic from 'Hit the Town'. It evolved from skifflebilly to full on glam.

Here’s an extract from a previously written piece about Domino and his performance at the Hammersmith Apollo in 1992.

“Elvis Costello once said that if you take the ‘roll’ out of rock and roll it becomes ‘boring music for boring people’. I’m not sure I agree because there are always exceptions like Thin Lizzy and anyway everything about Lynott’s boys spiritually speaking was rock and roll, but I get Elvis’s point. Bum-de-bum-de-bum you can dance to and have fun to, whereas bum-bum-bum is head banging. Especially in the 1980s when rock was the dirtiest, smelliest word going. Nobody does the ‘roll’ bit like Fats Domino. His music swings and boogies and lilts and skips irresistibly, so as classic after classic poured from the Hammersmith stage, I decided I had to express my appreciation, so went and stood right at the back in a fairly generous space between the back row and the theatre entrance and danced away. The hits were coming thick and fast – it was all passing too quickly! My Blue Heaven came and went. I have a memory of going berserk to his brilliant cover of Hank Williams’ Jambalaya (on the Bayou).

“Son of a guorn, we’ll hiv’ big forn, orn the Bay-oh.”

Not many artistes can take on a Hank Williams song and blow the original away. Fats Domino can. The phrasing, oh the phrasing!

Time flies when you’re having fun. Something extraordinary happened which had to mean the gig was peaking and nearly over. What, already? I don’t remember during which song it was, though it may have been an extension to the aforementioned Jambalaya, but I vividly do remember trumpeter and legend Dave Bartholomew leading the entire brass section on a joyous dance up and down the aisles, while Fats tinkled and rolled out the chunks of rhythm on his abandoned stage. I love Domino’s hunched posture at the piano, a few seconds of looking at the keys followed by turning a grinning face towards the audience. Like the easy rhythm of inhalation and exhalation; concentrate/grin/concentrate/grin.
As is Domino’s wont, the set finished with a New Orleans take on When the Saints Go Marching in, which was absolutely brilliant and I don’t even particularly like the song! By this time I’d managed to squeeze down one of the outer aisles. The front rows had now all stood up in homage to the great man and I wanted to join them, but a bouncer stopped me in my tracks. I think if any one person deserved to be at the front it was probably me, but I guess it didn’t matter. Deeply moved by the realisation I was actually watching the crescendo of a Fats Domino concert, I was content as a cloud. During the last song, as he always does, The Fat Man kneed his piano so it gradually moved from the side to the centre of the stage. What a lovely, good-humoured thing to do. Then as the band played on, Domino got up, covered his suit in an exotic, furry coat, and shook hands with the stage hangers below, grinning away. So it wasn’t my destiny to shake the hand of the man who had given me so much joy and would provide yet more in the future, but so what? Fats is a musician, not a healer nor a saint, and the experience was ample food for the soul. It had been wonderful, and pretty much lived up to every very high expectation.

I say Domino is no saint, but in his music I nevertheless hear and feel so many of the qualities I hold dearest in humanity; kindness, love of life, a good sense of humour, humility, gentleness, fun, simplicity, striving for excellence and love of dancing and rhythms. I’m sure I’ve missed a whole lot more qualities out, too.

In Sick and Tired, Domino sings to his girlfriend, after moaning about her laziness,

“This is my last time telling you to change your ways, I’m telling you, baby, I mean what I said. Last time telling you to stop that jive – or you will find yourself outside.”

Yeah, right! Sure! No chance, you big softie!”

Photo by Jo Lewis.

GOOD THINGS

The first of three versions. A second similar version was recorded with Tim Benton for one of the b-sides to the 'Domino' single. Then a third version with the full band appeared on 'Hit the Town'.

Photo by Michael Lacey.

QUA QUA QUA

Qua-ck Qua-ck Qua-ck, ducking hell, I was miserable, youth is wasted on the young! I like the synthetic trumpet though, so it makes the cut.

Photo by Will Hutchinson.

MINOR LOVE JAZZ WHINGE

The narrator is a bit of a moaning bellend, hence a retrospective change of title, but the lightness of the trip created some prettiness I can still enjoy, so on it goes.

Photo by Jo Lewis.

SHIT WEATHER

Classic song from the amazing Teenbeat. I sang it in the most angelic voice possible so the line 'guess I'll have to sell my smile, hang around in toilets for a while' would sound as jarring as possible. Or, more likely, because I could never reproduce the gruff grittiness of the Teenbeat vocal, though the melody and music of the original is a thing of beauty. Writer Adrian R Shaw gave this the thumbs-up, so on it pops.

Photo by Jaine Laine.

THE THREE F’S

The original reggae version.

Photo by Jo Lewis.

CAPTAIN HADDOCK

Blistering, barnstorming bombardment of billions and billions of blue blistering barnacles turbulently tossed by tons of tens of thousands of thundering tornadoes and tumultuous typhoons.

Tonnerre de Brest!

Mille millions de mille milliards de mille sabords!

Picture by Brownbow.

SHRINKING VIOLET

From a manic bunch of demos round about 1996/7.

Photo by Brownbow.

SCREAMING CAMBRIDGE

Cambridge walks into a club and sees what he most dreaded seeing.

Photo by Lee Bradley.

(NEVER BE A) MILKSOP

From about 1994. I don’t why, but there was one summer I kept getting thrown out of phone boxes and having my fags robbed by ruffians. Also around this time I was mugged by a gang of bloody 16 year-olds in Birmingham city centre. The ringleader seemed to want to impress the two girls who for some reason were knocking round with the goons. Anyway, I had 70 quid in my bag and a shiny, multicoloured Japanese purse with a few quid in change. When I pull the purse out, I thought, he’s going to find it effeminate and hit me (hence the reference to the purse in the song). Amazingly, he didn’t mention it, but just took it and then said ‘Throw a punch’. My thought bubble was something like ‘there are seven of you and one of me, and I’m a milksop anyway. I’m hardly gonna throw a punch, you utter prat’. I told him I wasn’t going to hit him, and fortunately while waiting to be clobbered in the face a police siren went off around the corner and his mate pulled the cretinous ringleader off, while apologising to me! He seemed alright, I hope they went their separate ways ... that purse was a gift from a friend, you bastard ...

The conclusion was that in Liverpool muggers actually needed the money and left you alone if you handed it over, whereas in Brum they wanted a fight whatever the outcome.

The following pop song was the result. This track appeared on the ‘Spontane Time’ album, but my favourite version was on a Ricky Spontane demo. I’m fond of this one too, it’s daft and funky. Raise a glass to the milquetoast!

Photo by Will Hutchinson.

SCI-FI 60

The first of two doodles recorded with the mighty Naicher Mann in early Liverpool days, 1989 or 90. Sounds more his work than mine - check out the legendary ‘No Fish For Tea’ on youtube, plus his extraordinary Casio work on ‘MT Goes on a Downer’ and ‘Demagnetised’ from Richard I.

youtu.be/ZKlb32V0RYk

Photo by Will Hutchinson.

... AND I BEGAN TO LAUGH ...

The second of the early Liverpool doodles. Enjoyable nonsense to do and I have more recollection of doing this one than Sci-Fi 60. The Syd Barrett influence was strong in these boys.

Photo by Lee Bradley.

ME AND MY SHADOW

Recorded in King's Heath, Birmingham, 1988, as the album moves into its post-adolescent phase near the end of the tracks, getting us closer to the womb like in Philip K Dick’s Counter Clock World, where smokers inhale smoke and diners regurgitate food into perfect sausages.

Drawing by Talya Davies.

ULTIMATELY STUPID

Recorded at the beautifully named Coldbath Road, King's Heath, Birmingham, 1988, using this cosy bass you could almost stick under your jumper and whose lumpy, bumpy sound I loved. I don’t remember how or when I acquired it or how I came to not have it.

Photo by Trish Owen.

SHE BELIEVES IN FAIRIES

Recorded in Cheltenham, spring 1988. I was and still am very much in love with the Casio MT 70. The riff at the beginning was subconsciously nicked from Brookside - the juxtaposition of fanciful ideas and flitting fairies with Barry Grant amuses me.

Photo by Lee Bradley.

HEYWARD ON VALIUM

Recorded in Cheltenham in spring, 1988. I thought all the way through recording this that it was light-hearted (the other stuff largely purported to be 'heavy' and there's no way you're getting to hear it) in a Nick Heywardian type of way and hence named it 'Heyward' at the time. It wasn't a love song to Nick Heyward, rather an imaginary maiden, but I like titles that reflect something else other than the subject matter. We concurrently had a band in Cheltenham called the Lump Nonsense (with a genius called Kurt Jurgens on guitar, Oliver Ferris who went on to make records with A Boat and Ideal, the British not German version, on drums, the one and only Naicher Mann on keyboards and Bozwell Feign, arch songwriter in A Boat and much later Ricky Spontane's 658th bass player and pop scientist, author and lecturer, plus the odd guest appearance, I think, by Will Fatt, later of Spontaneous Cattle Combustion and Ideal and penner of solo classics such as 'Evesham, You're Mine, Evesham Bypass and Kylie and Jason) and two of our songs were named 'Psychedelic Song' and 'Punk Song', which I loved. We didn't quite gel but I think if we reformed now we'd be the best band that ever walked the Earth.

The rhyming lyric 'the kisses would be long ENOUGH to stop the sun from getting ROUGH is truly dreadful. Quite proud of that one. There IS a reference to Honey Bane 'cos I fancied her on TOTP when I was about 14 but it could be heard as 'honey, babe', I guess. For some reason I thought she was from Dudley and that meant as a West Midlander I'd have to bump into her one day soon and I could tell her about my punk band, but I just checked and she was from London. Why did I think Dudley? The crush almost lasted until the following week's TOTP ...

I think I borrowed Simon's guitar for this one, which he'd acquired on Denmark Street and whose previous owner was Justin Hayward. That's Justin, not the great Nick, but still, dots are kind of joined. What a fantastic night in white satin to be nobody's fool in a favourite shirt!

So, thanks Simon!

I recently added 'on valium' to the title, since while I can still hear a Heywardian element, it does sound a bit depressive - Nick's work can be melancholic, but not depressive ...

Drawing by Laurent Jérôme.

I CAN SEE THE SEA

Written in Cheltenham, aged 20. I thought I'd written a hit. It's post-adolescent, ultra-naive, contains an annoying thud and probably isn't that good but I love it. Happy, balmy days amongst fine company.

Photo probably by Naicher Mann.