Er, no cymbals by order of white noise fearing guitarists, and no snare by back-beat fearing bassists meant Mick Turtle played loads of percussion for months, years even, but for some reason drum-machines and 'found' drum tracks played by others were considered alright. Flip would use Wasps and VCS3 analogue synths (imagine) and later Casios and whiteface, whilst Veleroy always had a lovely violin tone run into the shrillest amp possible (alright it was a nice old Vox AC30 much of the time). Geoffrey Armes had a bass guitar and whatever borrowed amp was to hand, while Finn Paton borrowed Geoffrey's guitar and ran it through whatever delay pedal was to hand that week... the scene was a shambles. Did record eight track on the same rig as Dave Stewart in Camden, and another rig not used by Dave Stewart in Putney, and loads of 4 track in Lewsham and Woodford and Camden, but the most famous session was Stockwell 1984, during a brief reformation. The band never got past the rough mixes on that because the gear got nicked the next day (and Flip lived right opposite the cop-shop then). Mick and Geoffrey left the country in disgust, to Basle and New York respectively, never to return in earnest. Tape of the week in Melody Maker, mate!
Influences
It was London 1980, 81, 82, come on....
Sounds Like
A glorious noise, an artsy squat, a wideboy pose, cheap pop.
On the tube, New Cross, 1980, an ad for office copying machines spawned the moniker for the already underway project being micro-managed in tyrannically democratic fashion by Geoffrey Armes, Mike Turtle, Tim 'Flip' Flitcroft, Veleroy 'Rab' Spall, Finn 'Floter' Paton. This is the same project that finished sundry sax players like 'Robby', 'Andy', and featured a two year old keyboard wizard on 'Trust In Rust.'. These boys also rocked a singer named 'Frenchy' on occasion, as well an unnamed and unfortunate bass-player drafted after Geoffrey left for Rotterdam.
In reply to "Weren't you the catalyst for Mike and Geoffrey's meeting?" I think I remember now... Wasn't the connection a young Rashid Ablewhite by way of Villeroy Spall? Rashid, Mike and Marius were also working on a project at the time.
