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My first guitar was a bass guitar costing £12. My mum bought it for me. She said she'd buy me an musical instrument if I wanted to learn how to play; I suspect she was thinking of a violin or a flute, but she bought it just the same. It was fairly basic though: a short scale bass with a chipboard body. Still, it made a noise.
I had been round to my friends Eric and John. They'd invited me because I was the only one with a tape recorder and they were playing music and wanted to record it. I ended up joining the group, playing bass. We played an odd mix of Sixties music. Some pop stuff: the Beach Boys, The Monkees, and several Shadows numbers, and mostly, and increasingly, Blues songs from John Mayall and Fleetwood Mac albums, and various more obscure LPs that Eric had.
And of course we did "All Along the Watchtower"...
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When I went to college in 1971, I saw an advert saying "Wanted: musicians for folk-jazz-rock fusion band". I went along and met Dave Mattey, who was trying to get any sort of group together. It being the early seventies it either had to be prog-rock or electric folk, and it turned out to be folk. The band was Zyzygy, with Kathy Bowen-Jones on vocals, Karl Moore on vocals, guitar, mandolin and fiddle, Dave Mattey on guitar, myself on bass (the same bass) and Keith Long on flute. We played traditional folk songs, initially to an electric backing, but later we went fully acoustic (except for the bass!). Nick Barraclough introduced us as "Mud" when we played at the Portland Arms. Electric instruments in folk clubs were still a bit taboo, even in those days of Steeleye Span and Fairport Convention. We also used to do some Bob Dylan and Velvet Underground songs. Zyzygy's version of 'Heroin' was something to hear!
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Zyzygy: Karl, Kathy, Keith, Dave and Mike
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Zyzygy at the Portland Arms: 1972
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After I left university, I ended up (several years later) in St. Ives, in Cambridgeshire. One day I met John Pethica, who I knew from University. He needed a bass player for his Ceilidh band, and knew that I played bass, and asked if I wanted to play. The band was called Cobbler's Last, now mostly known as The Mad Professors. Soon we recruited Dave as well and the old Zygygy rhythm section was rocking again. This year (2004) we've been playing together for 33 years! Scarey eh?
The picture on the left shows me at a Cobbler's Last gig, with my young son John joining in. By this time I had replaced my old guitar with a homemade one that I made out of an old chemistry lab bench that my dad gave me. The body was teak, and the fingerboard was paduak. The pickups were a pair of Fender precision pickups that I bought from Dave Cammish, a superb guitar maker, living in St. Ives.
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Cobbler's Last gigs are always great fun. John and Pam play traditional Irish jigs and reels, and Dave and I smash out a not-too-subtle rock backing. Fireworks were often in evidence in the early days (see picture below) until we set off the fire alarms at one venue, and had to restrain ourselves in the future.
At one gig in an Oxford women's college, we raided the gown cupboard and attired ourselves for the occasion. This classic picture of Dave on the left was taken at that gig. The name 'The Mad Professors' started making an appearance around that time, especially as John was a professor, and a Fellow of the Royal Society!
Dave is also playing a home-made guitar, made from some Koa wood he bought when he was working in Hawaii.
Dave also plays with another band, Listen With Mother
(www.listenwithmother.co.uk).
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'Professor' Dave Mattey
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Cobbler's Last: fireworks on stage
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An occasional group, fronted by Eric Chardin from the old Cambridge days, was called The Wavering Trilbies, in homage to its superstar status, and contained Eric, Dave, and Nick Meyers. Nick played with me in a band called the Southern Blots, who also contained Matthew Binns, Phil Green, Steve Allan and originally Fiona Tomley.
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Dave and Mike
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Eric and Mike
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When I moved back to Cambridge I decided that playing music was what I really liked doing, and that I wasn't playing enough. I put my name on a Musicians Wanted web site, and got an offer of a position in a Stony Stratford based band called Potion. This was a rock band, fronted, in some style, by an Australian rocker called Steve Wright. Initially this was just to help out for a gig or two, but I ended playing with Potion for a year or so. Steve has written a whole bunch of great songs. Book them! Finally the trek to Stony Stratford got too much, and Steve recruited a local bass player. See their website at
www.potionmusic.co.uk.
By this time I was playing a new home-made guitar. It was a copy of a Musicman Stingray bass. The body was made of ash and english walnut, with a piece of birdseye maple for the neck, and an active Bartolini pickup.
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Potion playing at the Stony Stratford Festival
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My big break though, happened one cold February day (actually I can't remember the month) when the phone rang, and someone I didn't know from Adam asked me if I wanted to play bass in a Rhythm and Blues band. It turned out he was the little brother of one of my close friends from Glasgow, Joan Thompson. This was Peter Laing, lead guitarist of Mystery Train. I went round to Pete's house and had a go at a whole load of songs I didn't know. Somehow I ended up playing bass at a gig in the Wheatsheaf, and just totally winging it! Everyone was so friendly, and they were all such fantastic musicians that I had a great night, in spite of not knowing half the songs.
So that's it. Two more pictures...
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Mystery Train at the Wheatsheaf
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Mystery Train relaxing between recording sessions in upstate New York
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