THE KEYS TO THE KINGDOM:
The record sold OK in a couple of record shops, not enough
to change our lives, we travelled down to London & played it
to Rough Trade who took a box off us. It got played on local
radio & even on Radio 1, fame for a fleeting second. Then we
returned to the reality of being a small fish in a small pond.
There were local gigs & some of them were fun, but there was also
a growing sense that we were stagnating, we were loosing the faith
of the audiences you could see it in their eyes. Throughout our
time together there had been two tribes with the band, our keyboard
player & the rest of us. Gary was a good guy, enthusiastic about
playing live, loved to be on stage. Maybe it was just down to musical
taste, the classic ‘differences’that splits most bands, but the day
he didn’t show for a rehearsal, siting a drinking session the night
before, we took it as a sign that his priorities were changing &
decided it was time to let him go. It may have seemed harsh to him
the day Alf & me went round his house in Splot to let him know,
but he went back to his old band & had a lot more fun. That left a
hole in our band we had to fill quick, gigs were booked. It did
however give us an opportunity to bring in someone on the same wave
length as the rest of us this time, though finding a keyboard
player who could afford to own a synthesiser & who wasn’t already
earning good money with a ‘big band’ seemed impossible, until Stuart
remembered his best mate from school.
Stuart was a talented guitarist, a brilliant history graduate,
formerly the front man with the Soft Centres & always broke. He loved
music & a beer, could pick learn a tune in minutes, but didn’t have a
clue how to look after his gear. Bits of his guitars were always
falling off & getting lost. We bought him a vintage Strat once & even
that ended up missing bits he left behind, migrating between borrowed
flats, the soles of his pointy white shoes full of holes, a fantastic
smile & always looking fly – girls loved him.
(K)
Karl Hyde 