Activity to help alleviate isolation, mental health and loneliness during the 2020 Coronavirus 19 Global Pandemic Lockdowns.
We present another amazing immersive experience! Join us for a spectacular journey into Sound And Vision as we bring you
‘Views From The Dashcam’
“This episode filmed on a late sunny October afternoon, highlighting the autumn colours as Spon and Jon take a drive to Devil’s Bridge for some shamanic shenanigans. This trip reveals the spectacular wooded Cambrian Mountain countryside in Ceredigion, Wales. Although this area is often cold an wet in the winter, palm tress can be spotted amidst the almost alpine scenery. Devils Bridge, Pontarfynach”
On a bright sunny autumn day back in early October my good friend Jon and I headed out to the mountains around Devils Bridge in Ceredigeon in West Wales. We were looking to travel from our base to the heights above Devils Bridge at the Hafon Arch 1300 foot 375 metres above Sea Level. By Himalayan standards it’s not that high but for this part of the world close to the Sea and at this latitude , that is pretty high. It is the point where the moorland starts. Beyond this area know as Cymystwyth/ Hafon is the “Wilderness” or “Green Desert” of Wales. This is an enormous swathe of unpopulated barren moorland that stretches for tens of miles and it is commonly known as the Cambrian mountains.
The Mountain walks and scenery above Hafon ArchOn the edge of the “Green Desert Of Wales”
There is a minor road an old pack horse route leading through to Rhayader on the other side and then some miles to the north is the main road , the A44 leading from Aberystwyth to Llangurig again on the other side of the mountain range.
We decided that day to visit the area above the Hafon Arch with it’s stunning views and pleasant mountain walkways (and mountain biking tracks) One could set off from here on your nike or by foot and get lost for days! This is nothing on the scale of the ‘wild west’ or Canadian outback but for the southern UK this is one of the remotest areas in England and Wales. Not as busy as Snowdonia but this are in many ways has plenty of scope for discovery and adventure.
Looking south east towards the Cambrian Mountains
It would be good to mention at this point that our mission would include some autumnal foraging and that part of the ‘shamanic’ mission was moderately successful and we had an enjoyable walk . Anyway back to Devils Bridge, one and a half miles downhill from the Arch, the chocolate shop was closed! Ah well
We lit the massive cheech and chong and we forgoes the munchies, the only food available was those white things dotted about in the fields everywhere round here but they were still alive. Or kind off, whether or not there is anything going on behind those wide eyes and non stop munching is hard to know. One thing for sure, there are more Sheep around here than people.
At the time of writing England is once more in lockdown. Earlier this year we invested in a modest 4k webcam for the car and I put in a 64 gig chip. It continuously records but wipes the earliest recordings with the latest. At any one point there are several hours or even days of motoring trips. This year I have driven a lot around beautiful Wales. It struck me that the video footage may be worth watching. So I downloaded everything after our first trip around Llyn Brianne and was gobsmacked at stuff I had missed because I had my eyes more on the dodgy mountain roads than admiring the scenery.
I had been building up a new PC music system and fitting up my Studio and was sifting through some of the work I had been doing under Lockdown and just prior to it, when I hit upon the idea of placing my sounds onto the video footage.
I run music production software called Cubase and this not only allows me to create and record music but it will also play back a video file in sync whilst piecing together the music for it
This I found truly inspiring. Not only was I able to relive those lovely journeys in the autumn colours but composing music became an almost magical shall I dare say a spiritual process?
Devils Bridge or to give it it’s correct Cymru name “Pontarfynach” without looking into it “Pont” I think means “Bridge” (ie pontoon) “arf” I am unclear of “y” I think means “The” and “nach” hmm I think this means “Small” Please feel free to correct me if I am wrong So The Small Bridge ?? (I have just read that it actually means the bridge over the river Mynach)
The word Mynach is Welsh for monk; one theory is that the river got its name from the fact that it was near land owned by a monastery. Wikipedia
Watch the video. Please turn up your volume first
Anyway the story oft told is that “
“According to legend, the original bridge was built after an old woman lost her cow and saw it grazing on the other side of the river. The Devil appeared and agreed to build a bridge in return for the soul of the first living thing to cross it. When the bridge was finished, the old woman threw a crust of bread over the river, which her dog crossed the bridge to retrieve, thus becoming the first living thing to cross it. The devil was left with only the soul of the dog.” Wikipedia
You wouldn’t know it from driving across the bridge that actually there are three bridges each built on top of the other one. It is said that the Romans built the first bridge nearly 2000 years ago which was rebuilt in Medieval times. What we know for sure was that the first bridge was built in Medieval times then built over on two separate occasions each time the newer bridge was built over the older bridge. The latest bridge an iron bridge was built in 1901 and then refurbished in 1971. The bridge spans a deep gorge with a waterfall running through it down to the Rheidol Valley (Cym Rheidol) 230 metres below. Many tourists visit this spot and apparently there is an Annual Welsh car rally that drives through it.
The Hafon Arms Hotel
As written on the Youtube video….
“
“But why just admire the view when we can add music? Set up your audio speakers and playback loud on a good quality sound system for maximum effect and enjoy the ten minute journey accompanied by “Port Sian” a stunning new track written by Steve Spon for Nostramus. Share this exhilarating experience from your armchair as we take the high roads of Wales. We hope you enjoy the ride! Please click “Like” and “Subscribe” to our Channel below. Also please support us at our Patreon Channel, coming soon! “
Eighteenth century view of Devils Bridge. Wikepedia commons
Matt Hudson and Steve Spon discuss life in punk Luton back in the day.
I was featured recently in an Anglia TV special marking 40 years since the punk movement. This two part mini documentary series is about punk in the Eastern Counties and was hosted by Anglia TV’s Matt Hudson who was a big punk fan and UK Decay fan.
Matt was the same presenter who featured UK Decay and Bauhaus in “The Origins of Goth” feature back in 2014.
Also featured are Steve Ignorant from Crass, Charlie Harper from UK Subs and author and university lecturer Matt Worley whose new book No Future is an in-depth look at the effect punk had on politics and culture.
There are also some still shots of early 1980’s Luton Punks featured on the show taken from UK Decay’s Communities web archive.
I shall be calling in on the two punk music documentary s, “The Clash: Westway to the World & Dump it on Parliament Revisted” being shown at The Hat Factory Art and Media Centre in Luton on November 3rd. This being part of the Punk 1976 season…
November 2016 marks 40 years since the release of the Sex Pistols' debut single, Anarchy in the UK. To mark the anniversary of the movement, Luton Culture present a short season of Punk events. Punks influence and impact on Luton will be explored, as well as its continuing influence, from fashion to film, politics to identity, and, of course, music.
A film double bill.
The Clash: Westway to the World is a career retrospective of British punk band The Clash, featuring exclusive interviews with the entire band.
Dump It On Parliament Revisited tells the story of how in 1986 a group of Bedfordshire bands put together a music compilation tape to protest against a proposed nuclear waste dump near Elstow, and how that counter culture, DIY ethic still resonates for local bands and musicians today.
The film, created by Andy Willsher, meshes the past and the present, using interviews and original footage, and referencing the cut-up film making techniques that emerged in the Punk & Post Punk era in the late 1970s & 80s.
I make an appearance in the The Dump It On Parliament Revisited documentary a project I was significantly involved with and very much enjoyed over 2015.
I am Steve Spon guitarist with the 1980’s internationally known post punk band UK Decay. I have always been a keen fan of independent record stores and as a band we would go out of our way to support the small retailers. However Record Store Day 2015 has unfortunately made us aware that some areas of criticism are rightfully justified.
Terror and Wonder: The Gothic Imagination
British Library (Open until Tue 20 Jan 2015)
Last weekend EJ from Diamondseeds and I spent a day visiting exhibitions held at the British Library and at the British Museum in London.
First we visited the British Library near St Pancras to view the exhibition, “Terror and Wonder: The Gothic Imagination” where “Two hundred rare objects trace 250 years of the Gothic tradition, exploring our enduring fascination with the mysterious, the terrifying and the macabre…”
EJ
Spon, “ere mate….lend us ten pence!”
It was pointed out to me a few weeks back that one of our UK Decay records “The Black 45” was on display at the exhibition as well as a giant sized poster of the seminal “The Face of Punk Gothique” article written by Steve Keaton for Sounds in 1981 (he is still around but today uses his real name, Steve May). A number of years ago we visited the Tate Gallery for “Gothic Nightmares” exploring the dark and gothic side of art, this time the emphasis at the British Library was of course to be expected on the literature side.
So in a clockwise direction we headed into the crowds viewing each of the exhibits, starting with memorabilia centred around Horace Walpole’s “The Castle of Otranto” written 250 years ago , supposedly the first of the ‘Gothic romances’. There were audio clips and video clips to enjoy dotted around the exhibition with the ‘Bride of Frankenstein’ and Boris Karloff making appearances in the movie realm. A poster for the ‘Night Of The Demon’ loomed, a film that scared the shit out of me as a kid, me and a mate used to rent the super 8 version to play to the other kids in the neighbourhood in our very own ‘garage cinema’. A mention of how Batman was in some way inspired by Victorian bogeyman ‘Spring-Heeled-Jack’ here a spread of Police newspapers with an extended cartoon impression of the Whitechapel murders (Jack The Ripper).
The Wicker Man, The Birds, The Night Of The Living Dead, a Vampire slaying kit, Dracula, Frankenstein, Christopher Lee, Mary Shelley’s first draughts of the literary Frankenstein, Wallace & Gromit’s Were-rabbit sat alongside a host of early and almost unknown 18th and 19th century Gothic romances. Then there was Clive Barker’s Hellraiser, Stanley Kubricks The Shining and a selection of recent novels, films and TV, notably clips from BBC 3’s “In The Flesh” a Zombie/Vampire drama series. All in all fascinating stuff, camera’s were banned so unfortunately no pictures! However turning the corner into room 6 , the giant sized poster of “The Face Of Punk Gothique” can’t be missed, it hits you in the face! Sitting right underneath it is the inner spread out sleeve of the Black 45, alongside Bauhaus’s Bela Lugosi’s Dead – we took the opportunity to cheekily snatch a couple of photo’s at this point. They can’t actually do us for breech of copyright can they?
The Black 45 on display at the Terror And Wonder Exhibition
Spon at the The Face of Punk Gothique
Ella Jo joked about me turning into a museum piece now! Hey we are still active today and writing new stuff although the Black 45 is now pushing forty years , gosh!
The last room contained a series of photographs of the April 2014 Whitby Goth Weekend, of course pertinent to the band and myself as we performed there on that weekend. I saw the odd face in the photo’s that I recognised!
Witches and Wicked Bodies: The British Museum
That was it , time to move on to the British Museum to view amongst other things an exhibition of “Witches and Wicked Bodies” , a fitting supplement to the Terror and Wonder experience earlier.
This was about paintings, sketches, engravings and other artwork examining the portrayal of witches and witchcraft from the Renaissance to the end of the 19th century. There was nothing to say against taking pictures, so we had a field day. The only difficultly was negotiating the crowds, many of whom we noted and recognised from the gothic exhibition earlier.
Macabre, sublime and succinct images by artists such as Dürer, Fusseli, Goya, Delacroix, Burne-Jones and Dante Gabriel Rossetti held the slow snake like processions transfixed . “The magus, or wise practitioner of ‘natural magic’ or occult ‘sciences’, has traditionally been male, but the majority of those accused and punished for witchcraft, especially since the Reformation, have been women” , so stated the museum blurb on the subject of the art. Sadly this was the last day of the exhibition, for us (and hundreds of others) it was a must see!
A selection of art from the exhibition.
Anglo Saxon (almost!)
Almost Anglo Saxon a new album by Ella Jo, produced by EJ and Steve Spon, featuring Mel Rogers from Tarantism on Flute, Steve Kerr on Guitar, Ed Branch from UK Decay on Bass, Steve Spon also from UK Decay on guitar and piano and Fiddlin Flick on violin. Folk lore, Myths and Stories from a thousand years ago, beautifully crafted into songs, sounds and sung by Ella Jo… “Only a few bars of music survive from Anglo Saxon times, a thousand years ago, but there is evidence of the instruments that they used. We experimented a lot, as the challenge was to write songs relating to that history and produce an album that is musically credible as well as educational. Choosing subjects such as King Ethelred the Un-ready and the folk tale of Wayland Smithy, I wanted to tell the stories as the Anglo Saxons may have known them. I was trying to stand in the shoes of those who witnessed historical moments in Anglo Saxon History, like a woman watching the Viking ships land (in the song ‘Dragon Ships’). I also allowed a modern point of view such as the discovery of buried treasure in the song ‘The Hidden Hoard’, and in ‘The Minstrel’s Song’ I wanted to embrace the place of music in culture and show how highly it was valued in the past.” For a full interview about Almost Anglo Saxon see http://diamondseeds.recklessrelic.co.uk/
After that with the whole of the British Museum at our disposal and too little time and with fatigue beginning to set in we headed for “Ancient Europe” and particularly the Sutton Hoo Anglo Saxon material. This was befitting because Ella Jo and I have just completed an album project entitled “Almost Anglo Saxon”, which is a collection of (modern) songs depicting myths, legends, life and sounds from the Anglo Saxon period. We marveled at the famous armored helmet and at the Franks Casket with it’s inscriptions of Weland the Smith and at the nearby Lewis Chess set who’s pieces almost comically displaying their bulging eyes and glum expressions.
We also caught a brief glimpse of some of the horrific and dark Aztec material which freaked EJ right out! Very soon we were nearly out of time and in need of a resuscitating coffee, which we drank in the magnificent covered courtyard , just time to enjoy before our journey home.
Ah , what a lot of punk rock nostalgia is around us these days. Seems churlish not to add to the pile , a little nostalgia never did any harm……
It always struck me that whilst there was a lot of available press interviews etc from the 81/82 “Twiggy Era” , I really knew very little about the early part of the band’s career. Not a lot ever got written about the likes of Pneumania and the Resistors , so I was thinking this might be some good stuff to get “on the record”.
At the start of 1979 I was a spotty little 14 year old enjoying the delights of Dunstable , we were all into punk bands but it was the mainstream Pistols/Clash/Buzzcocks kind of thing. Gigs in Luton pubs were something you heard mentioned by older kids , but sadly not on the agenda due to lack of transport/cash/ability to get served. So I heard of all the Luton scene from afar , and it wasn’t for another year or so that I got to see any of these bands. By which time UK Decay were probably a lot better live , but I’d missed the formative years. Kindly Spon agreed to submit to an interrogation on the subject , where certain grisly details were dredged up to be preserved for posterity.
Spon, Steve Harle the ‘Captain’ and Martin Dill; a ‘Welly’ st. scene.
The Luton Punk Scene..an interview with Steve Spon by Paul Rab John
Ok , taking it right back , were you actually born in luton? where did you grow up?
Yes I was born at the L& D (Luton and Dunstable Hospital) I grew up in the Swifts Green area of Stopsley. Although I spent a year or so of my early childhood in Widnes, Merseyside.
Looking at pre-punk days , what were you listening to in 75-77?
I was into David Bowie, Roxy Music, Hawkwind, Pink Floyd and The Bonzo Dog band, amongst others. I went to lots of gigs at the California Ballroom and Queensway Hall in Dunstable , mainly Soul and Reggae bands at the ‘Cali’ such as KC and the Sunshine Band, Rufus Thomas and the Fatback Band as well as The Glitter Band and Steve Harley.. At the Queensway Hall the taste was a bit heavier I saw Hawkwind 3 times! And other bands ; Thin Lizzy, Curved Air and Judas Priest amongst others!
Was pneumania your first band or were there others before that? Were you playing guitar before punk , or did you pick it up then?
.
.
The first Luton Punk band was The Jets. They appeared on ‘Farewell To The Roxy’ which was recorded at the famous Covent Garden club in early 1978
I had previously to punk played keyboards in 3 bands, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Poser and K-OS. As punk kicked in eventually I found myself getting increasingly frustrated in getting my ideas across with keyboards so in late 1978 I picked up the guitar with the idea of forming a brand new band.
Toad the Wet Sprocket – good grief! these are the same guys who did the “Metal for Muthas” track i presume? i saw them live in 81 at the queensway , my memory is of a sort of bluesy rock band , not quite heavy enough to compete with iron maiden/def leppard type acts from that scene who “made it”. were they like that in your days? any of the stuff from your time in the band get recorded (with you or after you’d left)?
.
.
Well yes my very first band was called Dragonfly, later changing their name to Toad the Wet sprocket (From ‘Lord of the Rings’) Based in Studham , that was in 1975 I think. I was on keyboards, the band recruited a guitarist from Dunstable, ‘Curly’ Ridout and had a guy called Mick Mustafa on vocals. They were into the usual‘Dinosaur’ stuff, Led Zep, Deep Turtle etc at first. When the band wanted to get more into serious blues and things, I started losing touch, 1976 happened and I started opening my eyes and ears to Punk. They shunned Punk so a parting of ways was inevitable.
I was aware they moved on and released at least one record, I do know there was a Canadian Band of the same name however, early 90’s or so..
I know ‘TTWS’ became a very highly respected ‘Muso’ band in the Dunstable area during the 80’s developing a Bluesy, Jazzy style, I hear Curly teaches guitar now. There is nothing other than the odd faded C90 rehearsal tape left from the time I was in the band. A time that I guess was necessary for my development I suppose in retrospect.
Hey this makes the uk decay family tree a lot more fascinating now :-
‘Laughing out aloud’ Yes who knows where it could end!
Would you say you had “influences” as a guitarist ( i’d struggle to suggest one….)? who did you really admire when you started playing?
I liked the ragged ‘anti-guitar’ playing style of Gang of Four, the pure energy of the Sex Pistols sound. Around 1978 I started listening to the Velvet Underground and Ramones, Captain Beefheart and Pere Ubu. As well as Magazine, XTC, Public Image and Siouxsie and the Banshees. Always in my life there was John Peel, who would continually play new and exciting music in fact I would go as far as saying that ‘Peely’ himself was probably single biggest influence on me for introducing me to a whole world of new music.
From Pneumania right through to Nostramus you’ve always bravely resisted “playing the blues” , or ever doing covers. Does “classic rock” interest you at all?
Yuk! I had dabbled with ‘the blues’ in ‘TTWS’ and ended up feeling there has got to be a better way! It’s why I got into Punk. To see grown men wetting themselves over yet another guitar solo from ‘sonny boy howling lone wolf rogers’ or come to that ‘cock rocking’ themselves to Queen or Status Quo, didn’t then and doesn’t now appeal to me in the slightest.
I have no problem with ‘covers’ providing they are done for the right reason and perhaps with some sense of artistic respectfulness to the original. It’s just not my general style to ‘cover’ other people’s songs.
Luton punk in 1979
So moving on to Luton in 77 , did you know the other guys in UK Decay / Pneumania before punk took off , or was it then that you met them all?
Not at that time apart from ‘Captain B’ who was playing with ‘The Jets’. They had played at ‘The Roxy’ in the previous year.
At the time I was in a band Called K-OS and we had a support slot in Bishops Stortford with Sham 69 and we had just lost our bass player so ‘Captain’ covered for us in what turned out a most memorable debacle! It was pure Chaos but that’s Punk!
After that I became good friends with ‘Captain’ and we started to get our heads around building a rehearsal room, by the end of 1978 it was finished. Around this time Captain and I had got involved in helping to get the new Art Centre together. It was an old abandoned Hat Factory and was full of crap, one day on arriving to clear one of the upstairs rooms out, we were astonished to find a right proper ‘din’ crescendoing around the old wooden staircases.
We attentively entered the room, which on first appearance seemed empty but on further investigation there was a cupboard door slightly ajar in the far corner. Opening the door there was two young punks; beating the living daylights out of a sprawl of Tupperware boxes with broken drumsticks we were all startled!
It was Steve Harle and Martyn (Segovia) Smith, after a few uncomfortable moments silence we all broke out laughing. We got chatting and learnt Steve and Martyn were forming a new band but money for drum kits amps guitars and rehearsal rooms etc was a bit thin on the ground!
.
.
.
Fanzines, Town Hall and the ’33’ art centre
Over the next few months moving into early 1979 we would meet up down the ‘Grapevine’ and met up with Abbo, Gaynor, Steve the voice and the rest of the Luton Punks who were around at the time.
The Jets are generally seen as the original luton punk band , which i guess you’d agree with? what did you make of them?
Undoubtedly they were! They were the role models for all the Luton Bands that followed! They had a background in Art, Jazz, Reggae and Rhythm and Blues. Despite this they had locally at first a huge amount of ‘street cred’ and respect and then they seemed to lose it. They should have gone a lot further!
After that followed a chunk of local punk acts like the Resistors , the Clips , the Friction , Pneumania etc etc. was it easy to get gigs and make things happen locally back then? there certainly seemed to have been a lot of bands in action……
Yes in those Halcyon days down the Grapevine it seemed the entire congregation of punks that drank there also had their own bands. I had been involved in promoting gigs before and so had a bit of experience approaching potential venues in view of promoting Punk Gigs, it was a matter of being ‘economical with the truth’ as far as the venue landlords were concerned and hoping for the best!
There were others too, Abbo was able to get gigs going at the Tech College (now the Uni.) Roger Holdstock ( The Friction) and the Jets/ Tee Vees also put on gigs. Fahim Qureshi out of ‘The Five Year Plan’ managed to sucker Barnfield College into putting on gigs. There was the Luton Carnival and the Marsh Farm Festival as well as the Grapevine and other odd public houses. There was potentially a big audience in town so the ‘carrot’ was the‘rentacrowd’ in the Landlords mind, we got away with it mainly.
Until much later, when we got banned from everywhere starting with the Town Hall!
Was there much rivalry or was it a big bunch of mates?
I think it would be fair to say there was a kind of ‘rivalry’ amongst the bands at the time, friendly but serious to the point of competitiveness, however we were one big community in the pubs and particularly the ‘awaydays’, we would ‘stick together’ as friends We needed to in those times
Very few of the luton punk bands made records , so a lot of people out there won’t have a clue what they sounded like. who do you think were “the ones that got away” who should have got big but never quite got it together?
It’s a real shame The Statics never recorded their music, they had some classic tunes such as ‘Life is like a Coke in a Mickey Mouse Glass’ and ‘Electric City’ that would I am sure have set the charts on fire had they have been released. They had a very colourful approach in their music and in their stage presence.
How did Pneumania evolve then?
Gaynor was the most outstanding figure in the Grapevine Which I guess could have been seen as being a bit of a callous way of choosing a vocalist for your band, but that was the plan! In true punk fashion we (me and the Captain) asked her if she would like to try singing in a band. She said she had never sung before but would love to give it a try. That’s where it started; we arranged a jam session in our new rehearsal room a few days later (this is late 78)
Gaynor at play
Gaynor was already a ‘veteran’ of the local Punk scene, she hadn spent the previous couple of years charging the tourists for photos in Kings Road, Chelsea and ‘liggin’ at Seditionaries.
She was awesome, a true London 1978 ‘Madonna Punkette’. She was ‘street-wise’ and had lots of experiences to sing about. Gaynor promptly showed up, bottle of cider in one hand and make up kit in another and a crew of her friends in tow, Tibor, Steve the Voice and Skinny Tony.
Captain was to play drums (he was playing Bass for the Jets at the time!), I was to play guitar (for the first time!) Gaynor of course on voice but there was no bass player!
Steve the Voice said he would give it a go, so we had a band!
After a couple more sessions, there was talk of a gig so we needed a name, as Gaynor had long ‘jack frost’ white style hair she kind of adopted the ‘Snow White’ name, so we used ‘Sno White and the sic Punks’ for that first show.
After a couple of months Captain decided Drums wasn’t his thing after all, so he made way for Nigel Dark. It was then that we changed our name to Pneumania that was just before we recorded the Split Single.
So roughly what was the timescale of Pneumania (with you in it) , when did it start and when did it finish?
In spring 1979 “Sno White and the Sic Punks” changed our name to Pneumania. In about September 1979, I had left Pneumania and joined UK Decay.
Pneumania floundered for a while then Steve the Voice picked up the pieces and formed the second line-up of Pneumania with Elaine O’Brien on voice. They flourished for a while ; they were quite good in their own right! But sadly finished after 18 months.
Pneumania Flyer
Did you play many gigs? what did you think of yourselves as a live act compared to others on the scene?
Faces of Pneumania
We probably played about a dozen or so gigs between March and September 1979.
Although I had gigged before it was like starting all over! I was now playing a guitar that missed its last string! This gave my guitar playing a darker sound and I adapted a technique for using this. We were quite ramshackle in our performance, Nigel played a
light energetic almost Jazzy style. Steve the Voice who’s real love was Reggae and Dub gave us a ‘Dubby’ feel. Gaynor would sing her heart out. In retrospect I guess we were living out a kind of Punk fantasy a synthetic dream or soap opera. Pneumania was always going to be a precarious entity.
We would never know until we actually got up on stage and started playing whether we had actually got a band! “Was Nigel going to actually turn up” or “Was Gaynor going to in the right frame of mind to be able to sing in front of a crowd”? such were the vagaries of a Pneumania gig! That did make the odd gig that we successfully completed an even more extra-special event!
The rare moment that everything was running on all four cylinders though seemed to make everything else worthwhile, we felt unbeatable!
I guess very few people ever heard the Resistors , i was a really big UK Decay fan and i’ve never heard a note. is the UK Decay side of the split single a fair indication of what the Resistors sounded like?
The short answer is yes it is! As is ‘Disco Romance’, ‘Rising from the Dead’ and ‘Middle of the Road Man’ from the ‘Black 45’ and the RFTD EP Abbo played the guitar in the Resistors as well as doing vocals, when I joined Abbo was free to concentrate on singing. I learnt the guitar parts formerly played by Abbo and for a long time on certain songs Abbo would continue to reach for his guitar. The Resistors were a really good band in their own right , they summed up and acted out the spirit and aspirations of the Luton Punk movement admirably.
They became the omnipotent voice of the people for the time, so it seemed to me.
UK Decay Flyer
Spon Joins UK Decay
I think i’m right in thinking the Resistors had various singers in , and then Abbo took over vocals too and it became a three piece. Did you see the much with all these line-ups? did they “have something” back then that made you think they’d be the ones to go far?
You are right in saying that. I think there was a guy called Simon from St. Albans who did vocals, he was around late 78 until early 79.
I don’t remember a lot about him. In early 1979 when I got closer to the band, Paul Wilson was on vocals with Abbo on guitar along of course with Steve and Martin.. Then they lost Paul and became a three piece. The Resistors definitely had a lot of promise back then, they were the champions of the rising Luton Punk scene.
At the time, I was in Pneumania and the 2 bands played many gigs together, we teamed up and by doing so found we could do so much more together, ‘Yin and Yang’! I guess we were a bit of a double act really; sometimes we literally ‘fused’ together to form the ‘Stevie Band’ with the 2 Steve’s from Pneumania and the 2 Steve’s from the Resistors. So there was a lot of fusing together of potential in the embryonic UK Decay days.
So Pneumania recorded 2 tracks for the split single. were these the best 2 songs ? did you have a lot of other material?
‘Exhibition’ and ‘Coming attack’ were written shortly before the recording of the Split Single. Exhibition grew out of an earlier ‘Snow White’ song; Gaynor parodying herself in the lyrics. After recording the ‘S.S’ (about May 1979-Nigel Dark joined just before) we started writing a new batch of songs.
These were unfortunately never properly recorded, although we played them at various gigs over the summer of 1979. Save one live recorded rehearsal using the new at the time, ‘binaural’ recording system they had just got in at the ‘33’ Arts Centre. Unfortunately we only have a very poor copy of this tape and its mostly way too ‘decayed’ to restore! There were some great moments in some of these‘prototype’ songs.
Pneumania
Incidental anecdote; On the day of the’33 Binaural session’’, we took a break midway and legged it up the Grapevine for a swift half; as you do! On the way back (at closing time) we got jumped I nearly had my arm broken by some nutter picking on the ‘Punks’ He jumped out of an alleyway with a baseball bat and started walloping us! I put up my arm to protect my face and took the blow on my elbow.
Somehow we got back and continued our session to the wee hours in extreme agony Ah those were the days!
More Split Single shenanigans
Were you happy with how the split single came out? how many did it sell in the end?
I think at the time we were over the moon! At least I was, it was ‘mission successful’, the culmination of a couple months of hard work. We had a launch gig and party to celebrate, we had the local press all over us and school kids wrote in asking if they could have a look round the (‘Plastic’) ‘record factory’! When the New Musical Express review came out, we were at first surprised then when we realised the implications. It was the best thing that could have happened, in true‘Punk’ style!
Rough Trade were on the phone that afternoon asking for more, because they had sold out of their stock. It took a couple of weeks for the pressing plant to do another re-pressing; we were still learning the ropes as far as supply and demand. Overall however when I think back on it the ‘S.S’ was a ‘triumph’ of ‘DIY’ and collaboration between not only the 2 bands but also the enlarged community of people who helped make it all possible.
I think, I am pretty sure that in the 2 presses of the ‘S.S’ we ended up selling something like 1500 at the end of the day.
Is it right that a couple of UK Decay songs were actually re-worked Pneumania numbers? Which ones were they?
Yes, Music-wise obviously, Abbo of course put some new lyrics to a couple of tunes that I had written. Previously they had been worked on with Pneumania.
The songs will be familiar to those who have heard ‘The Black 45’, they were ‘The Black Cat’ and ‘Message Distortion’
Anyway, it all ended when you left for UK Decay. Did they invite you or did you offer your services?
Aha! That’s a question. Pneumania were a ‘temperamental’, ‘finicky’ beast to say the least. There were several factors that lead to the situation of me leaving Pneumania and joining‘Decay’.
There was I suppose a frustration on my behalf with some of the other members lack of serious attitude when it came to things like rehearsals and eventually gigs. I would literally not know whether certain people were going to turn up or not.
The ‘S.S’ had given us a great opportunity to progress further, we were getting offers of gigs left right and centre and we were trying to write new material for the Pneumania follow up to the ‘S.S’ But unfortunately certain members didn’t seem to get it!
I think that Abbo and the boys could plainly see what was going on and saw how they could turn the situation to their advantage, so they asked me to join them on guitar.
I could see that they were dead keen to move on; I weighed everything up and took the offer.
Difficult decision or was it obvious UK Decay had more potential? How did the rest of Pneumania react?
No , at the time it seemed an easy decision for me although it wasn’t easy breaking the news to the other members of Pneumania. Steve the Voice (bless his heart) was the most disappointed. Nigel had already done a disappearing act and Gaynor was smitten with personal problems anyway. I think however that they all respected my decision to leave the band and join up with UK Decay.
Did you ever see “Pneumania mark 2” that Steve the Voice put together later? What did you think of it starting again without you or snow?
I think Steve the Voice did really well forming that new look Pneumania MK2.
I saw them at Barnfield College in 1980/81 I think with new drummer Dave Sidley new vocalist Elaine O’Brian and on guitar Pete Keady (I think!) Steve of course was on Bass.
It was something else witnessing a baby that I had helped to create, playing some of the tunes we used to play! They had a great sound and it’s a real shame they didn’t go any further and record some of their stuff.
I had no problem at all with it, I only wish that I had more time to help them somehow but we by that time were up to our necks in our own work. I have often wondered whether there were any half decent recordings of their music. I have absolutely no idea why or exactly when this line up finished though.
UK Decay late 1979
More Black 45 EP
So then you joined UK Decay and it was onwards and upwards. to an outsider the “black 45” is like a different band , it all seems to gel and there’s a real band sound which carried on developing over the next 3 years. Did it all come together quickly when you joined?
Yes it all happened very quick, I brought over a couple of songs from Pneumania and learnt the Resistors songs we had a short intense period of rehearsals to work out the new live set and bang! We were in the studio recording the ‘Black 45 EP’.
Next we were playing out of town Oxford, Northampton, London and that moved on to Berlin and Europe. I had worked with Steve and Abbo before in the ‘Stevie Band’ I really liked his powerful rolling style. Martin had a more driving Bass guitar style than Steve the Voice . We very soon were developing a sound, a very raw sound at first, Abbo was left a lot more freedom to concentrate on his vocals and I felt I had much more space to manoeuvre with my developing 5 string style. Steve and Martin had by now developed into a really tight rhythm section so the pieces were in place!
We felt we were on to something. The following period was a blur of activity with the production and release of ‘The Black 45’, more and more gigs, negotiations with ‘Fresh’ records, Fanzines, Indie Record and Punk clothes Shop and John Peel sessions. This lead on to more formalised tours, in Britain and Europe and then on to the Dead Kennedys first British tour in the Autumn of 1980. Then there was‘For My Country’, followed by ‘The Unexpected Guest’ singles! It seems incredible looking back how much shit we did back then in that short while.
Then Martin ‘segovia’ Smith, hit us with a bombshell!
So how many did the black 45 sell then?
That’s a good question Initially of course it came out on our own‘Plastic records’ label and I think we did about 2 or 3 thousand. We ran into supply and demand and cash flow problems pretty soon however as we were a small outfit I guess, some of the shops and distributors thought we could wait for our paychecks! So that’s where Fresh records stepped in with their licensing offer, which is what the relationship Fresh had with the ‘Black 45’ always was.
I don’t actually know exactly how many Fresh went on to sell but it sold consistently over the next couple years. As Fresh went down I don’t suppose anyone will ever know
Is it fair to say you started writing most of the music, or was much of it done collectively? What was the song writing process in the band?
UK Decay – Pneumania shots from the first couple singles.
When I first joined ‘Decay’ they already had a set. So I had to learn how to play the already established tracks such as ‘UK Decay’,‘Middle of the road Man’, ‘Disco Romance’, ‘Necrophilia’ etc, so that was the very first priority as there were gigs booked. We soon got established and now we had to get some new material together for the forthcoming studio sessions (Black 45) Gradually as time went by new songs replaced the earlier Resistors songs. As I had some sort of formal music training (keyboards) whenI was a kid I was able to work out and put together chord sequences and structure to the songs. I pieced together chords at first by looking at a keyboard and then transposing the notes into chords (very limited at first!) on the guitar. I had been in a couple of bands before so was a little older and wiser and probably more able to articulate composition to the others to begin with at least! Playing the guitar for me unleashed a lot of creative energy, I had got bored with playing keyboards or the sound of them and the guitar sounded fresh and exciting.
So this earlier period of ‘Decay’ for me personally, was a ‘peaking’ period where I felt a lot of energy and enthusiasm and new songs and ideas seemed to flow in abundance.
Steve, Martin and myself, used to jam a lot and in this we would get tighter together and of course songs or parts of songs would develop out of this.
However the vocal department was always well governed by Abbo,who would so often ‘knock us out’ with some of his twisted lyrics and performances.
But it is also fair to say that as time went by we did get more collective’ in our approach to writing music, especially when Eddie‘Twiggy’ joined the band.
Finally, UK Decay were the sum of its component parts. It was the combination of the individuals that made up the whole band. It simply wouldn’t have happened if there had been anything different in the line up, in my opinion.
Well, there you have it. Just think, in a parallel universe EMI heard “Metal for Muthas” and signed Toad the Wet Sprocket rather than Iron Maiden , and Spon ended up in spandex playing to thousands of hairy grebos all over the globe. Hmmmm , maybe we all had a lucky escape there………..
Maybe next issue we will get “The Fresh Years”…..time will tell.
Thanks a lot to Spon for delving deep into the memory banks for that lot.
Questions by Paul Rabjohn for UK Decay Today Two 2006
Pneumania formally known as ‘Snow White and the sic Punks’, were formed early in 1979 in Luton UK by founding members and nihilists, Steve Spon and The Captain (not Sensible!). They had just converted a basement in a soon to be demolished terraced house in Luton, into a rehearsal room and went on a hunt for a Vocalist and Bass player.
Their search led them to the ‘Grapevine’ public house that was the ‘hub’ of the thriving Luton Punk scene. Amongst the throng of ‘spikey-tops’ and ‘Seditionary’ clothed regulars, one girl stood out from the crowd. Her name turned out to be Gaynor and although she had never sung before, she gladly accepted an offer to come along to a jam session in view of forming a Band.
Gaynor had spent the last year or so, charging tourists along Kings Road in Chelsea for taking her picture. With her bleached white ‘Jack Frost’ haircut and stunning punk fashion clothing she wouldn’t fail to catch the eye, but the ‘real deal’ about Gaynor was in spirit she was a seminal punk Goddess. It wouldn’t matter if in a musical sense whether she could sing or not, what she had to say would be more important.
Initially, the Captain who formally played guitars and at the time was currently playing Bass with Luton’s first punk band ‘The Jets’, would now focus on drums.
Spon who formally played keyboards, would take up the guitar. For the first few sessions this was the line-up and although much ragged round the edges, within a short while a new sound developed with a hand full of songs becoming established.
Recruiting the right Bass Player however, was proving a problem. Cue Steve the Voice, who had been on the sidelines for a little while. An ex-art student with his ‘nose on the streets’ who couldn’t play a note wanted to give it a go. With initial reservations he was given a chance to prove himself on bass, which after a while he did! For the early part of 1979 the new band thrashed away in the basement and gathered together a set of tunes.
A name for the band was chosen, ‘Snow White and the sic Punks’ and before long the first live gig was on the horizon. This provided a dilemma for ‘The Captain’ as the ‘Jets’ whom he also played bass for, were booked on the same bill! This thought the Captain, wouldn’t go down very well with the guys in the Jets. To get round this the Captain played the first ‘Snow White and the sic Punks’ gig completely swathed in ‘Mummy’ style bandages, so as not to be noticed by the Jets or so he thought!. Half way through the gig the bandages inevitably started to come adrift eventually leading to severe embarrassment on the Captains behalf. This led to an altercation the following weekend whereby Captain was indignantly thrown down the stairs to the washrooms at the Grapevine by the guys in the Jets. After this, the Captain decided to move into management, vacating the Drum kit.
The first gig at Luton’s Barnfield College was historical in the sense that this was the location where the Idea of ‘The Split Single’ was first conjured up, alongside fellow Luton punk band ‘The Resistors’ (UK Decay) who were on the same bill. Putting aside ‘Captains’ embarrassment, it turned out to be a really ‘stunning’ gig. However, ‘Snow White and the sic Punks’ were now in need of a drummer.
Cue Nigel Dark, a friend of Steve the Voices, Nigel was an accomplished drummer with a grounding in Jazz as well as ‘Nihilism’. Within a few rehearsal sessions Nigel had fully integrated himself into the sound and it was at this point that ‘Snow White and the sic Punks’ would now change their name to ‘Pneumania’… TBC..
Part 2
The ‘Welly Street’ abode complete with rehearsal room and outside bathroom – minus roof, during the early part of 1979 quickly became established as the HQ for Pnuemania and The Resistors -who later changed their name to UK Decay. The formal tenancy of the house was at an end and the demolishing contractors were pulling the houses down around to make way for a new development. This sense of uncertainty galvanised much support from the punk community whom rallied round to help.
The Captain and Spon who were then residing there, decided on a strategy to hang on to the home and base for as long as possible. One day the contractors started demolishing the house next door, the response by the punk residents was to fetch the amplification equipment up from the basement and to set it up in the street outside – then to blast the neighbourhood with loud punk music, in the middle of the working day -in Luton town centre.
Meanwhile Captain got onto to phone to the local press who were based just a few streets away, they could hear the noise from their offices. Very soon, the local press, police and a huge crowd had gathered to see what the fuss was about. Very quickly the demolition work halted and a stay of execution for a couple months was granted for consideration. This created much interest locally and provided motive and a strong sense of mission to achieve as much as possible in the time remaining at ‘Welly Street’.
Around that time a ‘locally -famous’ piece of Luton graffiti appeared – ‘C-O-U-N-C-I-L – V-A-N-D-A-L-S’ – each letter man-sized and painted with a roller-brush of white paint, running along a street full of front doors – each house sadly empty and awaiting demolition. This proved a great spin for the press to use as a certain Mike ‘English’ , made sure he had this as backdrop when the local press took his photo.
It was spring 1979 that the idea of the two bands collaborating came to root amidst this background. Thatcher was now in power, things looked grim all round. An idea was taking shape, the two bands pooled their resources and a new record label – ‘Plastic Records’, was created.
A release date had been set for two months and Pneumania set about writing and perfecting the two songs they had committed for the recording session. Captain now took on a ‘Manager’ role as new drummer Nigel ‘Dark’, who stood tall, aloof and looking every bit a character out of a Hammer movie – took his seat. His style was much more flippant and progressive, compared with the standard ‘2 – 4”s of the usual punk drumming. Grounded on the ‘arty’ and ‘jazz’ side, Nigel’s involvement showed great promise for future progression. He had a highly distinctive and original style. However the nickname ‘Dark’ wasn’t just his punk pseudonym – it was how he was. He would keep everyone guessing as to whether or not he would actually turn up for a rehearsal or even a gig!
Within the ‘Split Single’ development period, the two bands collaborated on a number of self-promoted gigs. They also self-penned their own networking tool – a fanzine called ‘The Suss’ which was released to coincide with these events.
The homogenisation of not just the two bands but by now a thriving community, was working very well. These were very creative times and the whole ‘Plastic Records’ gathering was gaining momentum. The recording studio was booked and the day had arrived.
Pneumania recorded two songs; ‘Exhibition’ and ‘Coming Attack’ that day, it turns out to date the only songs the band ever released. ‘Exhibition’ is the liturgy of a pure raw strangled, angry punk goddess – lamenting the attitudes the rest of society has towards her and her ilk. Her performance on the record was full on with her insides hanging out for all to see. Her ‘naked and beleaguered punkette soul’ – looking into the mirror. The music was raw and cutting with juxtaposed ‘dubby bass’ and ‘staggered drums’. The guitars phaser-slicing – jagged chords from Spon’s five strings. It builds, there’s tension, followed by a finale. “It’s a freakshow – nothing new”. Superficially it was wide open to criticism, but on another level it was a really potent performance by all in the band.
‘Coming Attack’ – the terror at the heart of urban nightmares- is a poem written from the narrative of the deceas-ed’s perspective. The loneliness of the victim succumbing to the inevitable fate in a street attack. Being a ‘Punk’ didn’t necessary mean being any different to anyone else in society. We are all vulnerable and made of flesh and blood. Actually being a punk back in the day, did increase the risk of ‘inviting’ attack.(Sadly, there are still isolated cases today – visa Sophie Lancaster)
This actually happened back in the day, to three of the band whilst returning to the rehearsal room one night. They were ‘jumped’ by a stick wielding thug who nearly broke Spon’s arm.
The music is a very fast paced three-time rhythm with a running bass line, the sheering 5 string guitar plays a single rhythmic chord. It builds, peaks rebuilds and finally crescendos as the knife strikes home. It’s all over in little over a minute – but wow! what a unique idea and production.
The afternoon in the studio had been reasonably successful, the band were happy, now it was time to get the recording released. All systems go on the ‘Slit Single’ project – five weeks to go before the deadline…….
Dump it on Parliament: 1986 Luton Compilation (aka the Anti Nirex Tape – BAND)
UK Decay, Furyo and In Excelsis were gone but in their wake, the town of Luton still had a bustling ‘alternative’ scene in the mid eighties. At the time, Click Click, Karma Sutra, the Party Girls, Penumbra Sigh and a host of other acts were ‘wooing’ the local audience’s. Click Click were pioneering new industrial sounds at their Lung Function HQ and Karma Sutra were flying the flag for the ‘anarcho-pacifist’ movement. Both bands were regularly playing gigs out of town and around the country, even playing in Europe by 1986.
Thatchers government made great issues to protest against, we had seen the Falklands adventure, the Miners strike. So in 1986 when it was announced that an old WW2 supply base near Elstow in Bedfordshire was to be the host of the nations nuclear rubbish dump, it was decided that something had to be done to stop it.
The focus for the towns alternative community at the time bedside’s the obligatory ale houses such as the Blockers Arms and The George, was the 33 art centre in Guildford Street. A three minute walk round the corner in Bute Street was situated the printing workshop. The upstairs rooms hosted Click Click’s ‘Lung Function’ – rehearsal rooms for bands. Both ’33’ and ‘Lung Function’ provided rehearsal spaces and acted as informal gathering and networking havens. So ideas, pre- internet days, would spread quickly.
So it was relatively easy to galvanize the towns alternative community into an action to try and prevent this nuclear waste dump from setting up just 15 miles away. Chernobyl was fresh on folks minds and with this a campaign was started – Bedfordshire Against Nuclear Dumping (B.A.N.D.)
Most of the towns young ‘alternative’ musicians got behind the idea quickly and very soon the idea of a protest – compilation tape would be in order. Bands and individual musicians were asked to contribute a specially written and recorded song or two, protesting against the Governments nuclear agency – Nirex.
In the mid Eighties Government Policy determined that a site in mid-Bedfordshire near Elstow, was to become the main national and an international Nuclear-waste dump.
In the true ‘Punk-spirit’, the Luton ‘alternative’ scene galvanized their protest against Nirex, the government agency responsible for nuclear waste.A 24 track Tape was produced which included works by many local artists.Presented here are the digitized cover scans for the tape and below that, you can download the MP3’s:-
It is with good credit to the people involved because an idea is one thing, however turning an idea into reality is another! Recording studios and equipment back in the day wasn’t cheap to come by. The real hard work was holding the idea together until the project was achieved. Most of the tracks ended up being recorded on 4track cassette ‘Porta-studios’ as this was the only method that could be afforded at the time. The process seemed to take forever and at times the project nearly ground to a complete halt. But eventually the tape was finished. According to the hand written text on the back of the Cassette,
“This tape was put together on very cheap equipment, nothing flashy at all. So obviously the quality suffers somewhat and for this I apologise not only to you but to the bands and artists that have contributed their songs and their time completely free. Although it hasn’t quiet turned out as good as it could have done, I think it still proves that anyone can produce D.I.Y. Tapes easily and cheaply. Without the help of the money merchants that control the major record companies but simply with a little trust, solidarity and cooperation”
Profits from the project were to..
to be sent directly to people who have been fined by the courts for their participation in acts of direct action against the plans” (for nuclear dumping)
Ironically it tuned out that soon after the tape was released, the government dropped their plans for Elstow, the whole country at the time was up in arms against the nuclear industry! So victory for the aims of the campaign and reason for the tape, by default! This may have taken the wind out of the sails for the project at the time but today this collection stands as a historical snapshot of Luton’s alternative musicians, community and culture of the mid-late eighties.
In 2004 one of the original artists to have appeared on the tape, Bugsy – digitised and sent the UK Decay Com website the MP3’s to host, which we have hosted to this day, now twenty five years after it was originally released. In 2006 Spon re compiled and remastered using another recently found copy of the original, selecting the best quality to have survived the years of each track on the tape.
So thanks go out to Bugsy, Spon and Ella Jo for the BAND poster and of course all the bands and artists that contributed to this historical and unique Luton collection.
Welcome toUK Decay Communities Top Forum Articles A selection of the best and most read articles that have been published in thepopular UK Decay Communities Forum, between 2004 and the present.
Diamond Seeds talks to Steve Spon on matters Nostramus and UK Decay.
We recently caught up with Steve Spon to ask him about his re mastering of ‘Earthlights’ an album that he wrote and produced in 1997 for Nostramus. Steve Spon (aka ‘Spon’) has recently re-joined the re-formed legendary eighties post-punk-goth pioneers, UK Decay.
We were fascinated to gain a glimpse into the thinking behind the re mastering of the classic nineties ‘D ‘n’ B noir’ album.
Which, according to one reviewer is “probably the best Drum and Bass album you have never heard”
Where the worlds of drum ‘n’ bass and post-punk and goth collide, stands a man like Spon
We were intrigued…….
D.S.# You have returned to your punk roots playing guitar again with UK Decay, in your musical evolution how does that relate to your D ‘n’ B oriented Nostramus?
“Although it can be argued that the music of Nostramus is completely different from the music of UK Decay, I feel there are threads of similarities between the two. Born out of the alternative punk-post-punk-early goth mela of the early eighties and like many ex punk types, I moved with the musical underground into the heady nineties rave scene. I sacrificed my guitar and took the technological path. It was important for me to continue to create music with an alternative message to counter the commerciality of popular music.”
D.S.# Would Nostramus appeal to the average UK Decay fan given ‘drum and bass’ surely had so much bad press?
“I know Nostramus’s mix of Drum ‘n’ Bass, Dub and Electronica may not appeal to every UK Decay listener but I know it will to some. Most of the guys in UK Decay, actually love Dub and Reggae music and have done so since the 70’s so there is nothing new there. The D ‘n’ B scene has received a lot of bad press in the past. Understandably, for many, the tragic murder of Sophie Lancaster by ‘hoodie’ thugs has put some people off the musical tastes of these low-life monsters. But I believe that mutated minorities in any genre, should not be allowed to hold good music to ransom.”
D.S.# Drum and bass was cool back then?
“From my point of view, the early hedonistic nineties D ‘n’ B scene was an invigorating and exciting proposition for many who wished to carry alternative music forward. The development in recording and playback technologies opened up a new universe of musical exploration and possibilities. Earth shaking bass lines, impossibly tight drum structures, emotive complexity in keyboard sound-scapes and sampling, all led to a new excitement in the then stale music scene. I took the plunge into this maelstrom, as it’s part of my make-up to explore new musical adventures.”
D.S.# Surely being an ex-punk had drawbacks on the emerging drum and bass scene
Spon on the run
“The movers and shakers of this emerging British scene were young DJ’s who had no hack with the old ‘rules’ of creating music. Like many others, evolving from the former 80’s punk scene I moved into the D ‘n’ B at a early stage in its development.
I liked the anarchic approach to creating the music and found for a time comradeship and a sense of purpose and enjoyment in the underground party scene. Back then I found a refreshing openness and tolerance to the music and the people generally in the scene…anything went!”
D.S.# What gave you the idea, or set you on the journey to creating a drum and bass album?
“Drum and Bass as well as other so-called ‘rave-music’ was developing it’s own set of rules that related to the flux’s and flow of the dance-floor. My tastes were still on the darker, deeper and hopefully more thoughtful side. At that time I was a recording studio engineer/producer and that made me open to a wide input of styles. Steve Harle introduced me to the D ‘n’ B scene back in the very early nineties. He encouraged me to embark on the musical journey that would eventually create my first album under the name Nostramus.
I called the new album ‘Earthlights’ and it summed up four crazy years of my experience of the underground party scene at a time when the music was at its most vibrant, purist form.”
D.S.# What was your aim in creating Earthlights your first album, how did you go about determining what it would be?
“The album was written using Atari computers, but I wanted it to have a live feel. I invited guests to contribute spoken and sung performances. The tunes included obscure iconic samples to create light and dark moods to give a sense of meaning. My aim was to create the most organic quality as possible, to create a journey for the listener. I wanted something that was easy to listen to, yet also had a deeper, substantial level. As a ‘non’ DJ, I even broke the dance mix rules, making it virtually impossible for DJ’s to mix the album with other tracks. I wanted to make ‘Earthlights’ stand out in a crowd.”
D.S.# Sum up Earthlights message?
“‘Earthlights’ takes the listener on a journey through themes, ranging from our pagan past, to future space travel. It questions and studies the doubts and optimisms of the human race.”
D.S.# How many did Earthlights sell back in the nineties, how did it fit in with the drum and bass scene?
Recordings of Substance version of Earthlights originaly released in 1997
“I released this album first in the UK in 1997, on ‘Recordings of Substance’, and then licensed it to ‘Shadow Records’ for the US market in 1998. In total, there were 6000 sales worldwide. It didn’t make the top ten, but it sold steadily over a period of time and some of the feedback from reviews and emails have been fantastically encouraging. A review a couple of years back summed it up quite nicely “Probably the best Drum and Bass album you have never heard!”
D.S.# What led you to re-mastering Earthlights?
Earthlights 2010 re-mastered CD front
“Although I was reasonably happy with the original mastering of Earthlights, I’ve since become more fluent with audio mastering techniques. In the new edition of Earthlights, I reworked the source master tapes, taking care with every step of the process in order to retain the original concept and flow. I feel I’ve now created a much more considered dynamic to the sound-scape, hopefully bringing the whole thing up to today’s audio standards and listen ability.”
D.S.# Did you just re-master or is there anything else added or taken away?
“Aside from the re-mastering, I have re-edited and re-mixed ‘Babel’ the opening track to the album, mixing in some new warped-up a-men from the un-released Jungle version of Babel. There are also one or two other new samples, subtly crafted into some of the other pieces to spice up the mix. Overall, I am much happier now with the sound and flow of the re-mastered album and I hope the listener will enjoy it even more”
D.S.# What about the rumours of Earthlights II any chance soon?
“I have had most of the material for this sitting on my shelves now for a good few years. Now with the help of Diamond Seeds work is in progress to see this project through. I shall be editing and remixing some of the material and with the addition some new performances and samples, I will collate into the final cut. I am hoping for around March April 2010.
D.S.# UK Decay are famous for being one of the first eighties post-punk bands, to make the crossover from ‘punk’ to ‘goth’
What are your future plans with UK Decay, are you enjoying their revival?
Spon back with UK Decay in Milan, May 2009
“I am really enjoying playing live with Decay again. It’s a real buzz playing guitar in a live situation, I had forgotten about that.
Because of commitments however, Decay can only play a few times a year, which is fine by me. UK Decay are currently working on a new album, which is an exciting challenge. Getting wild sounds out of my guitar is refreshing to me after so many years of programming songs together. The guys in UK Decay between them have a wealth of new ideas and experience to draw upon. At the end of the day UK Decay were adventuress in seeking out new sounds, we were ‘dark’ back in the day and that’s partly my fault, so they tell me! I look forward to mashing it up with them.”
D.S.# Any future Nostramus beyond Earthlights II?
“We shall have to wait and see!”
Click here for Earthlights Re-mastered 2010 £10.00 inc. shipping. thru Paypal
Nostramus is now signed to Diamond Seeds Productions.
