Wyan

During 1986 I was playing bass guitar, with Steve Dyer on guitar and vocals, Chrissie Jacobs on keyboards and vocals, with guest appearances by David Bickley (keyboards), Ian Caple (sax) and Rob Hawman (harmonica). These events happened alongside, and sometimes shared, gigs or venues with my other commitment to Tom's Island.

By April 1987, I had acquired and started gigging with, Alison Reynolds's old Manson fretless bass. This enabled a more fluid style to emerge and worked well with the funky and laid-back feel that developed within Steve and Chrissie's collective song writing. The band had a pretty fluid line-up, starting life being called One. By August the name Wyan had been launched, at the time of the Harmonic Convergence party held at the village hall in Sancreed. This was a massive gig involving Steve, Chrissie and myself, along with David Bickley, Alison and Med Reynolds (now based near Lamorna), the late Ian Caple, Rob Hawman and Tito (vocalist and percussionist with Zambula), Hami Hocking, plus Ian and Seth from Tom's Island.

Chrissie Jacobs

Steve Dyer

Steve Bayfield

At one of the Wyan gigs at Sancreed Village Hall we did an impromptu set under the name Spearing Fish using some sequences produced by David Bickley (who played keyboards and saxophone live) and were joined by Seth Marshall on the drums. In the spring of 1988, Alan Burton joined us on synthesizer and sampler keyboards, and later went on to establish an excellent reputation for playing uillean pipes on the Monday night Celtic music sessions at the Star Inn, St Just.

Steve Dyer is currently based in Totnes, Devon, studying performance art at Dartington. Chrissie lives at Newlyn and produces relaxation music. Alan Burton is at Bath, Somerset, working with the Celtic-Hungarian band Fianna.

Tom's Island

Jamming at Nanpean Farm

As a result of the St Just Collective's public response, it was decided to set up a smaller nucleus, to work on a more constructive musical approach. This hardcore unit featured Ian Payne (vocals and guitar), Alison Reynolds (fretless bass guitar - the same instrument that I later acquired), Seth Marshall (drums) and myself on guitar.

After Seth moved to London, the line-up changed considerably when his twin brother Pete took over on drums and I switched to bass when Alison was unable to continue. This group became more workable when we were joined by Gavin Nichol (ex-Sadig Sadag) who had a good writing and playing relationship with Ian Payne. By July 1986 this had become the line-up of the band Tom's Island and we started gigging by the end of that month.

I had become interested in bass playing over a period of many years and after Alison Reynolds moved away, the demand exceeded the supply. I also played bass with Steve Dyer and what was to become the Wyan band. During this time David Bickley continued to visit on a regular basis, often jamming and gigging with the band, playing a variety of instruments - synthesizers, piano, clarinet, saxophone, trumpet and percussion. One of the great successes in August 1986 was the Dance Away for Ethiopia gig that Charlotte Gunn organised at the St Just Town Hall, to raise money for famine relief in Eastern Africa. This was the first of many gigs we played in St Just and established the band very strongly in the area.

I also played with Steve Dyer's band that night. It was halfway through the Tom's Island set that Seth Marshall made his return to the band and took over playing the drums for us. Pete devoted more of his time to playing guitar and photography, studying at Dartington College, and later formed local band Freakish Ways.

In September, Gavin moved to Wales to study arboriculture and we were fortunate to find a replacement in Alan Burton, playing percussion, rhythm guitar, doing backing vocals and even playing his uillean pipes on a version of Lyonesse played at the Greenpeace gig we did in December 1986. At this time, Tessa Weaver joined us as second backing vocalist and by 1987 the band was reaching its peak in sound and energy.

In March we did a charity gig at the St Just Town Hall to raise the initial funds to start off the Nancherrow Project - a local committee with the purpose of purchasing and setting up an arts and music workshop in St Just. It worked. One of the local bands of the late 90s, Blew, began at the Nancherrow Centre, then following a move to Manchester they changed the name to Haven and became a local success story.

Throughout the summer of 1987, Fred Quale stood in for me on bass guitar at the gigs I couldn't make, while I was away doing long distance trucking. This was a necessary ploy to earn extra money for a new instrument and amplifier and speaker set-up. The last big gig Tom's Island did was another charity fund-raiser, this time for Green-peace at St Just's Town Hall.

I was now playing fretless bass guitar, which I continued to do with Steve Dyer's Wyan band for some time. 1989 saw a new band with Ian Payne and Seth Marshall, this time with a sax player known simply as Stefan. However its future was short-lived due to conflicting ideas of musical direction. We did two gigs under the name of Storm Dogs. Very wild and funky in its early stages of development, Seth and I believed it had great potential, but the general consensus was not inspired in this direction. It could have been excellent . . .

St Just Collective

During the summer of 1985 I met Ian Payne, who hosted regular jam sessions at Nanpean Farm near Cape Cornwall. By this time I'd had a few jam sessions down at Sancreed, with Malcolm Starr (guitar and vocals) and Geoff Tresidder on fretless bass guitar. Ian had played in many local bands - Sid's Taxi, Harmonix, Zambula and Sadig Sadag.

Steve Bayfield

In September, Steve Dyer moved to St Just from Bristol. We worked together in the studio and were both very interested in forming a band for live performance. This happened in January 86 and included local mystics, Alison and Med Reynolds (who later formed Thelemic Pulse), plus Ian Caple and Ian Payne. The resulting ensemble became known as the St Just Collective / All Saints / New Town Band. We played twice at the Trewellard Arms, a few miles from St Just. At this time it was the only location in the area where it was easy to put on gigs. However, the line-up involved around a dozen people and proved to be near impossible to manage for organised rehearsals, but the public response endorsed the need for a local band.

Dancing Stones

From the start of 1985 I was based in St Just near Penzance in western Cornwall. My motivation for moving here from the south-east of England, was inspired by the landscape, the wild jagged line separating sea and land, and the Bronze Age remains of stone circles and standing stones. Shortly after arriving, I set up a small 4-track studio, with the intention of exploring and developing my own style, with no other motive than to create a record of my journey away from conventional music.

In the early months I was often visited by David Bickley (by then based in London) and we attempted to express the stunning landscape and history that surrounded this place. One of the major events that influenced my move to west Cornwall, was a night spent at the Merry Maidens stone circle near Lamorna, where David and I both observed the stones doing a repeated 'dance'. This was on the night of 13-14 September 1984. We were both amazed.

The Stone Dance

Without commenting on what we saw, we alternately asked each other to describe what we were seeing. The outline of the stone circle appeared to be shimmering and vibrating - each pair of stones would, over a period of several seconds, lean towards each other, to an angle of 45 degrees, return to upright, and then lean away, towards the other stone next to it. This sequence repeated many times and the cycle ended by each stone stopping in the upright position and then rotating through 180 degrees. I am pretty convinced that the stones, seen in moonlight, were not actually moving (!) but suspect the apparent motions could have been caused by an aura or energy field surrounding the stones, that was oscillating to some natural rhythmic pattern. We were spellbound. One of the pieces I recorded, inspired by that night, was titled The Stone Dance (Dans Maen).

Spearing Fish

It was during 1982 that I first met David Bickley. He had formed a jazz-funk unit called Klat Pans Tac which included the guitarist Steve Edwards who I had worked with in the Unusual Tree Arrangement collective, and it was he who invited me to a session with David's band. I continued to write and record with David during my time with Sheep In Fog and we also gigged together with Dolphin Lust. Another Dolphin Lust member, Andy Sliwa, also joined us at the end of the year to play in the New Rays of Radiance band.

In the early part of 1983 I did a number of recording sessions with David, producing music to accompany an exhibition of photographic images of the island of Malta, that were publicly displayed at the Commonwealth Institute in Kensington, London in March. I also contributed to the sound-track of a video that David wrote and produced, The Rite of Rain, which won a Sony Award when shown at the National Film Theatre at London's South Bank Centre in October 1983.

In 1984 I did (an intended) one-off gig with David Bickley, Erik Moore and Simon Godfrey as Spearing Fish. We spent two months working on a short 'EP length' set, featuring David and Erik's interplay (synths/clarinet and electric guitar), dancing over a repetitive, looping rhythm section, with myself on rhythm guitar and Simon's percussion, mixed in with drum machine and bassline patterns. Strangely tribal and more than a little trancy and laid back, it was based on one of David's artistic concepts - "this should only be heard once and not repeated".

David later moved to south-east London and with Simon Godfrey, started the Synchroma studio and music library for the film and advertising industry. At the end of 1984 I moved from Hampshire to West Cornwall.

Green Coyote

In June 1983 I hired a generator and filled a van full of equipment and headed for Glastonbury Festival. The intention was to have a bit of a jam session in the camping field. In the early 80s mixed camping was the norm, with vans, cars and tents scattered all over the public areas.

The organised music never got started until the Friday evening, whereas many people had usually arrived and set up camp by the Wednesday. We decided to (at least) play a bit of a pirate gig on site. The people involved were to include every-one from the Dolphin Lust/Red Mess collective who could make it there for the weekend. I travelled down with David Bickley, met up with Marten Ingle and did a brief improvised set on the Friday evening and played again on the Saturday afternoon with Ian Walker, Marten Ingle and Andy Sliwa.

Andrew Sliwa, Ian Walker

Steve Bayfield, David Bickley

Marten Ingle, Andrew Sliwa

We were later invited to fill a vacant spot on the small stage at the bottom end of the main theatre tent field at 5pm on Sunday 19th. This was the day that Curtis Mayfield and King Sunny Adé closed the festival on the main stage. We played, under the new name of Green Coyote, an assortment of songs written by Marten (one had even been composed that morning on Glastonbury Tor) that were very improvised and not previously rehearsed. A typical Dolphin Lust/Red Mess output - however, this was the last time that we all gigged together.

Winter Solstice Trucking Company

From December 1982 to December 1983 I was working with Tony Pettitt again (from Earthforce, 1977), now based near Carmarthen, South Wales and Bob Phillips from Farnborough, Hampshire. Two poets who had worked together before, doing performance poetry under the banner Winter Solstice Trucking Company, gigging at the West End Centre, Aldershot back in 1976. This new concept was a much expanded live performance unit with the intention of staging an assortment of songs, sketches, poems, dance and musical interludes.

The general theme was of an anti-nuclear nature, forming a statement of protest aimed at the world governments who indulged in the 'race for supremacy / total overkill' school of thought which prevailed in the early eighties.

Rob Dingley-Linton

Tony, Bob and I began working with percussionist Rob Dingley-Linton from North Wales and a growing number of contributors based around the Carmarthen and Kidwelly districts, including from Glyn Abbey, Jim Greer (set design) with dance choreography and performance by Janet and Sue Bilsborough and Diane Greer. I first met Rob back in late 72, in the days of Planet Oa at Fleet, Hampshire. Bob Phillips and I made many journeys down to South Wales from Hampshire to work on this ambitious programme.

On the last of these occasions in December 1983, Rob was unable to make it. Days later while in Bristol news came to us of Rob's untimely death following a motorcycle accident, we just had time to make it up to Llansilin to attend his funeral. Any enthusiasm we had for the on-going project dwindled away while we came to terms with this sad loss.

Sheep In Fog

Towards the end of 1979 I met with Paul Hyland and Murray Cheesman. Murray played drums with John Lathey and Nigel Rolfe in the Jaffi band, back in the late sixties. Paul and Murray were both playing in the Gobi's (full name Gobi Desert Yachting Club, a local jazz-rock band) and were keen to form an experimental writing / jamming collective. We had regular sessions from November 79 to January 80 under the loose title of Unusual Tree Arrangement. It also involved Alan Shipgood on bass, a guy called Mike from Selborne on electric piano, Steve Edwards and Erik Moore on guitars and Derek Cottrell playing bass and penny whistle. It never became a fully fledged band but laid down a useful foundation.

In November 1981 I again jammed with Paul Hyland (violin, guitar) and Oliver Cheesman, brother of Murray. It was at this time that I started using the Roland GR300 guitar synthesizer, a cumbersome analogue device, difficult to tune in cold weather, but capable of some pretty impressive (for that time) brass and orchestral string sounds, particularly when connected to the RE201 Space Echo. It was quickly superseded by the programmable digital models, which proved more stable, but it did open the door to new possibilities and gave me, as a guitarist, a greater awareness and understanding of electronic music.

Steve Bayfield

Noel Taylor

Boz Warnock

Oliver Cheesman, Erik Moore, Paul Hyland in the Wire Band

Paul Hyland and I began a period of more productive writing in early 1982 and were soon joined by Noel Taylor (clarinet and piano), followed by Erik Moore (guitar, fretless bass guitar) and a french horn player from Iceland named Polly. Once we had the ball rolling and sufficient material, Oliver Cheesman joined us on drums and we began to get the whole shape of the music into focus. This became Sheep In Fog, the name chosen randomly from a book of collected poems (one by Sylvia Plath) plucked from a bookcase. The band varied in number - from five to a maximum of nine, playing a vast assortment of instruments (see Gig List for details). The style was different to other bands I have worked with - a mix of jazz flavoured rock, which could break into bizarre spells of discordant anarchy, or lock into cycles of rhythmic trance. We played many gigs in 1982, but decided collectively to dis-band when Oliver moved to Scotland.

Sheep In Fog tracks:
The Gobi Desert Yachting Club on Myspace.

Dolphin Lust

In January 1981 I had a jam session with old friend Ian Walker (guitar) and his American-born cousin, Christian Lunch (keyboards). Chris was then based in Hamburg, Germany and had worked with Jello Biafra around the time the Dead Kennedys were a big band on the American punk scene. We decided the music was pretty crazy and that we ought to arrange it enough so we could do some gigs. I suggested we could name the band after one of Chris's songs, Dolphin Lust.

The line-up varied quite a bit over time (as did the name), degenerating into what became known as The Red Mess. Chris Lunch was also doing some gigs with London scene band, The Flying Club, and one of their prominent members, Steve Hayle, also gigged with us a few times (see Gig List for details).

Chris Lunch did an album entitled Shark Bait while based in Hamburg, and had previously recorded The Witch Trials with Jello Biafra. We continued to do occasional gigs during 1982 and 1983. Chris is currently based in San Francisco.

Christian Lunch : The Witch Trials, Unreliable Sources

Home Brew

Steve Bayfield, Mick Marsh, Malcolm Marsh

By the end of the 1970s more pubs were having live music and the opportunity to get gigs greatly improved. In October 1979 I did a one off gig with Alan Shipgood, Mick and Malcolm Marsh and Tony Wright. Malcolm and Tony were already working as a duo in the East Hampshire area and were interested in developing a rock/pub band to run in parallel.

In March 1980 we started up again under the name Home Brew (quite amusing to see on the events boards in public houses!). We gigged from March to November, Mick Marsh and Nigel Watts-Plumkin played drums, Alan Shipgood on bass, I played second lead and rhythm guitar behind Malcolm's excellent lead guitar and backing vocal. Tony fronted the band as lead vocalist. The material we played were all cover versions, ranging from Dire Straits to Joe Cocker. The Hell's Angels regulars at the Coach & Horses in Farnham, Surrey seemed to like it !!!