30th August 2020
Graham Moores has sent me some CDs that he has put together with very lovely artwork. One of the CDs contains a collection of songs of Iain Smith and this reminded me of my first day at Torquay Boys Grammar school. The first person I sat next to in the school room was Iain.This was when I discovered that there was an alternative spelling of my christian name.
Iain formed a band with another Torquay Boys Grammar school chum called Steve Rawson in the sixth form called The Gatecrashers, who then became the Shift. I saw at least one Shift gig where they played with two bass players which is very unusual. The drummer in the Shift was Steve Milton who had previously played in the legendary Torquay punk band Systum. This punk band was fronted by Martin Johnson who was also the lead vocalist in Decontrol. Martin had a shop in Market Street in the 1980's called Individual Fashions.
It always makes me laugh when Steve Honeywill tells me the story about when he was in a band called the Walking Wounded ( later called MIA ) with Steve Rawson. They paid a visit to Martin's shop to see if he could arrange a gig for them, I think it was Steve Rawson's idea. Martin said “ We want bands Rawson that are threatening the system not funky salsa rubbish.” Martin actually used a rather more offensive word than rubbish, one beginning with c and ending in p.
I remember that Iain Smith went to Exeter University to study after our last year at school. I would see him occasionally but then in the very early eighties I didn't see him for ages until I happened to visit the rehearsal room in Swan Street. This was somewhere that most of the local bands used to rehearse. Iain was rehearsing with a new band and Richard Hele ( previously in the Golgotha Boys ) was playing bass. I think he had a really rubbish Satellite bass that had originally belonged to Gary Long who then gave it to me. Later possibly I had given it to Richard? The machine heads were made of plastic and one had broken off so that Richard had to tune it with a pair of pliers. I recall Phil Andrews once saying to me that you only had to blow at the machine heads of a Satellite guitar and it would go out of tune.