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Whilst still at school I became very interested in the emerging musical scene in and around Cambridge. I seemed drawn towards Rock and Roll in particular, although as time was soon to prove this was going into somewhat of a decline, (amongst the trendy youth of the day), to be replaced by the Blues and R & B movement. I seemed to naturally drift with the flow. I also seemed to drift toward percussion and became a drummer, completely self taught of course!!!
I had been very friendly with a local Polish family for some time, eventually teaming up with the two brothers to form the 'Fen Four' (below). Also included in this line up was an old school chum and fellow vintage car enthusiast Dave, an excellent bass player and vocalist. This band did a mix of covers and some original material, gigging in and around Cambridge. I was playing an ancient Premier drum kit with cymbals of unknown origin! I seem to remember a heavy dependence on Mums and Dads doing an endless taxi service during this period!
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The Fen Four
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The "ancient Premier kit"
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Surprised!
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Bands seem to have a natural or sometimes un-natural life span. Well the Fen Four expired, I think if my memory is correct because of differing musical tastes and interests (a common tale). Dave and I felt the need to explore R & B and formed a new band called 'The Tykes'.
The (eventual) line-up here was:
Dave: bass, lead vocals
John: keyboards, vocals
Reuben: lead guitar, vocals (ex Terry Reid and the Red Beats)
Bob: drums
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The Tykes
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The band played a mix of pop covers, soul, Motown, and R & B, early Beatles and Rolling Stones, Manfred Mann, Spencer Davis etc., and gigged just about everywhere (or so it seemed). Very happy days, and some amazing experiences. I have great memories of some of the venues and particularly some of the band we supported. Here are just a few, in no particular order:
Chris Farlow and the Thunderbirds
The Graham Bond Organization (just before Ginger Baker left to join Cream)
Family
The Foundations
Screamin' Jay Hawkins
Gino Washington and The Ram Jam Band
Jimmy James and the Vagabonds
The Who
The Hollies
Jimi Hendrix
Jon Hiseman's Coliseum (Hiseman is about the best drummer I have ever seen!)
The Moody Blues
The Bee Gees
Also a very young David Essex needed a backing group for what must have been his very first gig (California Ballroom Dunstable ) and yes we backed him for two or three songs, with absolutely no rehearsal! This guy has great personal charm and charisma.
Here are some more pictures of The Tykes:
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The Tykes
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The Tykes again
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The kit I used in these days was Trixon (German) but later I acquired a Ludwig Acrolite Snare drum to augment the kit. Oh how I loved that snare drum! The cymbals were improving as well.
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The Trixom kit
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There were some really great Cambridge bands around in those days, and we obviously rubbed shoulders and worked together sometimes at venues. The most notable of these for me was a band called "Jokers Wild". They of course became "Pink Floyd" not long after Syd Barrett joined.
During this time we were working for the Ken Stevens Band Agency and dear Ken used to let me "borrow" drums and cymbals to try out at gigs. What happy days - can you imagine that happening today? Ken was a great guy and terrific Jazz pianist and band leader.
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As I said earlier, bands seem to have a natural life span, so it was with The Tykes. A change of management and band agency led us to some changes in the material we played, so it seemed natural to have a name change! We rebranded and become known as "The Muffin Band".
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The Muffin Band
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The line up also changed, not immediately, but eventually, and John left to be replaced by Dick an amazing Blues guitarist, and as he was heavily influenced by Clapton and Hendrix, our repertoire also moved more than a little in that direction. Around this time I can remember seeing Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac in Pidley Village Hall (a very small village north east of Cambridge). You can see why some of us older musicians rant on about just how good the Sixties were: where today could you have such an intimate mind blowing musical experience. This was a real moment for me. We just had to become a blues band. Peter Green's guitar playing and vocals were just the best! Needless to say we did not become the second Fleetwood Mac or anything close. In fact gigs seem to be few and far between, maybe partly due to a change in the "pop mood" i.e. the discotheque which by now had started to make major inroads into venues and parties, and of course they were cheaper to employ than bands ... oh well! (apologies to Fleetwood Mac). Also there were more bands in the Cambridge area playing the "right" kind of music (highly debatable stuff here). In reality we had been gigging all over the South and East of England, and we returned to a smaller "world", populated by bubblegum groups and discos. The band eventually folded, because by now we all had seemingly more important things to do and virtually no gigs.
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September 4th 1971
Another milestone, and a great day (Bob and Ginny's Wedding). From this point our time was taken up with the huge amounts of work. We had to renovate our first house. This was a Victorian terraced house in Cambridge, built around 1875, and complete when we moved in, with lots of original fixtures and fittings, including working gas lights - again I digress - back to the story...
I did gig from time to time during this period, albeit very occasionally with scratch bands, but my interest in popular music dwindled. "Glam Rock" came along, and well, I just had other things to do. The Premier Drums were sold...
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Ginny and I had moved around the country due to changing jobs that kind of thing, and we finally came to rest in Willingham, not our present house, but just around the corner from where we are today. No gigging at all, somewhat of a musical desert.
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And finally to our present house and yes more major restoration was needed - I'm digressing again -
During 2000, or maybe early 2001, one of my office colleagues was offered a promotion to our California office, and so he had to pack up the contents of his house ready to put into store. As he had no idea at this time of the type of accommodation he would be able to rent in the US as housing in California is far more expensive than Cambridge! Well you guessed it, he had a Pearl drum kit that he no longer required and we did a deal. Lots of practice at home followed...
Later that year my neighbour Cliff (these days Mystery Train's resident harmonica player) invited me along to the Blue Ball in Granchester one Thursday evening to hear some good "blues guitar" playing. Well what an amazing evening, none other than Peter Laing (who unknown to me at that time lived just two houses further along the same road in Willingham) gave a virtuoso performance, as he does today at all of our gigs. I was hooked on the Blues again, and invited myself into the band at the following Mystery Train gig. I persuaded Malcolm and Rob that acoustic gigs are great but at larger venues they needed the bass and drums. Well if you don't ask!
Seriously I really owe a great debt to these guys. Also to Ginny who has had to endure a lot of noise in our house in recent years. Mystery Train have really developed and sometimes are joined by other great local musicians, Steve Lockwood being a classic example. I perform with Steve and other local musicians for special occasions and functions from time to time, and also work with other local bands on a regular basis, so I'm really just making up for lost time.
Well to complete the percussion history, I now own a truly amazing Drum Workshop kit. DW drums and Zildjian Cymbals. A great combination ... as indeed are the members of Mystery Train.
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The latest kit
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Bob Simpson
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