Indie Rock

The Indie Rock Years

Cloning the keyboard player, spare brain, indie rock...

The successful musical formula of the 20th Century Rock Band flourished for some years.  After that, the flow of talented musicians seemed to dry up, and the members turned their hand to drama instead.  However, by 2000, there had been some recovery and at the turn of the millennium (the end of an era for 20th Century), the society offered several bands and a drama group.

C20th crew back at Kerygma (aka St George's Arts Centre), Great Yarmouth, in 1981.  We think this includes:  (door) Jez Richards, (roof) Neil Walker, Deri Jones, Simon Matthews, (front) Graham Gill and Richard Bryant.  Thanks to Graham Gill for this photo.

1981:  All Change

Graham Gill, keyboards 1979-81, recalls:

In the following year, new members included Deri Jones on the road crew, and Jez Richards replacing Tony Simons on lead guitar.  I think Jez only did one year in the band and left after the gig at Milford Village Hall on 30 June 1981.   The new lead singer was Richard Bryant, replacing Mark Allchorn.  The new bassist was Neil Walker, replacing Mark Hammond.

We tried to re-create the "band on the van" image when we returned to Great Yarmouth, but I don't think this picture was quite as successful.

Tony Simons, lead guitar 1977-80, recalls:

Graham continued for another year, after which he graduated and was replaced by Glenn Vinnicombe, who looked almost identical to Graham.  We surmised that Glenn was actually a clone of Graham, since his playing style was also quite similar.  The new lead singer was Richard Bryant, who sounded rather posh after Mark's rough-edged New Wave style!  The band went down to one guitarist, initially Jez Richards, but then Matthew Lefroy, and acquired a great bass player in Neil Walker.  Simon Matthews continued on drums for another two years.  He kept adding to his row of tom-toms, and also bought an early drum machine.  I heard them play in Godalming, during Graham's last year, and they were awesome.

Mad World - front cover.

1982:  It's a Mad, Mad World

Tony Simons, lead guitar 1977-80, recalls:

In the year 1981-82 the band made a second single, tending towards the indie rock style, called Mad World, backed by a indie/funk number called Show A Little Of My Love.  The opening of Mad World was an ironic piano and vocal line, tonally adjusted to sound like an older recording, with poor dynamic range.  Matthew's guitar then came crashing in with a crunch rhythm and Simon's drums entered with an impressive fill on all of the tom-toms that panned right across the stereo image.  Neil's driving bass added to the sense of frenzy. The song has a sudden change of pace to a slow middle passage, with some great chord modulations and a sound reminiscent of the group's former progressive rock days.  The song ended with a recap of the original frenzy.

Mad World - back cover.  This copy was signed by members of the band.

The B-side featured some excellent funk-style bass playing by Neil Walker, who had a Rickenbacker bass guitar, which emphasized the high tones as well as the deep ones.  The cross-cutting rhythm in the linking section between verses was a neat feature to listen out for.  Simon managed all kinds of drum gymnastics, such as cross-rhythm beats and the famous double-whammy on the bass drum pedal.  Some people say they like the B-side better than the A-side!

C20th recording at The Lodge, Hertford.  This features Richard Bryant (vox), Neil Walker (bass) and Glenn Vinnicombe (keys).  Thanks to Simon Matthews for this photo.

C20th recording at The Lodge, Hertford.  This features Simon Matthews (drums).  Thanks to Simon Matthews for this photo.

1983-85: Indie Electronica, Spare Brain

Andrew Murphy, electronic drums and percussion 1983-85, recalls:

I was a member of the band in the new lineup after the departure of Richard Bryant, Neil Walker and Simon Matthews the drummer.  Our 1983-84 lineup was:  Glenn Vinnicombe on keyboards, Andrew Murphy (me) on drums, Mike Polkinghorne (son of the famous John Polkinghorne) on bass and saxophone, Jon Mason on vocals and saxophone and Matthew Lefroy on guitar.  The band had an indie-feel to it.  Some thirty years later, it strikes me that we sounded most similar to the English post-punk group Magazine (no bad thing in my mind).  We continued to play Mad World for a bit, but otherwise composed our own songs, with Matt and Jon doing most of the actual writing.  Glenn and Matt left in the summer of 1984.

The original C20th logo and button badge.

In the autumn of 1984, Jon took over keyboards in addition to his other duties.  Likewise, Simon Chesters joined to take over lead guitar.  Mike, who in those days really wanted to be in Kraftwerk, took the band more in the direction of electronica.  I had an early Simmonds electronic drum kit, mostly because this allowed me to practise quietly with pads, rather than skins.  This was controlled by a brain-box which sat behind my drum stool, which I adjusted between songs to get the right sounds from the pads.  This led to Jon's sometime quip about having "left Andy's brain behind".  I also wrote a couple of more poppy tunes.  Jon wrote most of the songs, which we all thought sounded like Split Enz, his favourite Kiwi band (he's a Kiwi himself).  Having said that, they were excellent songs.  We only played two or three gigs per term, so not up to the output of previous generations of the band.  We still used the old sound equipment built by the late 1970s generation.

1985-1990s: Drama as the Music Fades

Andrew Murphy, electronic drums and percussion 1983-85, recalls:

I, Mike and Jon all left in 1985 and handed the band over to Dick Higgins, an accomplished songwriter and guitarist who had played in various bands in Cambridge in the preceding years, including in Hot Persuit with myself, and who was staying on for his PhD.  I went back to Cambridge and saw this line-up live, playing to a good crowd and, to my delight, still using one of my songs!  I think Simon stayed in the band.  I played in many bands before and after 20th Century but I've got to say this was the tightest and probably most talented band I've ever been in.

Tony Simons, lead guitar 1977-80, recalls:

We don't really know much detail about what happened to the group line-up from the mid-1980s until the end of the 1990s.  It appears that the old 20th Century Rock Band gradually faded out, as members graduated without being replaced by new blood.  In the early 1990s, the society could not recruit sufficient musicians, so decided instead to branch out into drama.  This was inspired by work written by the Riding Lights Theatre Company at York by Murray Watts (ex-Emmanuel College), Paul Burbridge and others.  In the later 1990s, musicians were recruited again.

Year 2000:  The End of a Century

Tony Simons, lead guitar 1977-80, recalls:

In 2000, I received an invitation from Phil Hasnip, a one-time president of the society (but now an affiliated PhD student), to a 20th Century reunion in Cambridge.  The slightly blurred photo below shows who came to the reunion.  The society was still flourishing, although at the turn of the millennium, they had decided to rename the society as Ark Cambridge, since the contemporary feel of the old 20th Century name had just become an anachronism!  The interest in both music and drama had continued.  In the summer of 2000, there were two different bands, one was an Indie RockBand and the other was an Acid Jazz Group!  Clearly, the musical talent had returned in spades.  Anyhow, it was great to see that the flame had been carried on down the generations.  At the reunion, I realised that there were people there who hadn't even been born when I graduated!  

The Y2K Celebration:  we have no idea who all these people are, apart from Phil Hasnip (red T-shirt) and Tony Simons (striped T-shirt).  Suggestions welcome.

We met before lunchtime near Scudamore's Punts and hired a few, then we punted all the way up river to Grantchester, "doing the bridges" on the way.  This involves leaping off the front of a punt, hauling oneself over each low, wrought iron footbridge and leaping back onto the rear of the punt before it passes completely under the bridge in question.  This reminded me of the days when Dave Hobson (bassist, 1976-1979) was crazy enough to do the Silver Street road bridge, down-river!  

Once on Grantchester Meadows, we spread out a nice picnic and were entertained by the Drama Group who performed a couple of sketches, including the Whole Gospel in a Minute.  Afterwards, we returned to Cambridge and over a pizza supper we were treated to a concert by The Sixth Hour, which was the Indie Rock Band.  As an act of generosity, they invited old members to join in playing one of the songs from our own period in the group.  Little did we appreciate that we were reaching the end of an era.

The new logo for Ark Cambridge.

2000-06:  Ark Cambridge

The last year of the society, from the Ark Cambridge website:

The society, operating under the name of Ark Cambridge, seems to have kept going from 2000-06, after which no further sign of its existence has been found.  In its last year, 2005-06, it was still operating as a  student-run Christian evangelistic music and drama group based in Cambridge.  The constitution of the society stated that their aim was:  "to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ by means of contemporary music and drama".  The society had adopted a new logo, a fish in a circle, in the style of the Christian ICTHYS symbol (an acrostic in Greek for Iēsoûs Khrīstós Theoû (h)Uiós Sōtḗr, which translates as Jesus Christ, Gods' Son and Saviour).

Logo of the band, Sixth Hour.

The Ark Drama group wrote and performed sketches to spread the Christian message, tackling almost any subject.  The group had a wide variety of material available, and if none of this was exactly what was wanted, they offered to write new scripts according to the requester's specification, or even perform the requester's own scripts.  They had previously performed for college Christian Unions, local schools, churches (including youth groups and Sunday schools), on the streets of Cambridge, on the radio, and even in a football stadium!  The Ark Drama group met weekly at 8:00pm every Monday during the University term time, in S15, Pembroke College.  The contact person for Ark Drama was Tim Kelby.

The indie-rock group Sixth Hour was also available for Christian musical performances.  The vision of the band was to be an evangelistic resource for Christian organisations across Cambridge.   The contact person for Sixth Hour was Andrew Collier, through whom bookings could also be made.  The old Acid Jazz band had clearly folded by this time, since Ark Cambridge declared they were seeking to set up a new band in 2005-06.  There were no preconceptions about the style or make-up of the band.  Interested parties were to contact Geoff Martin.

The last events recorded in the calendar were dramatic performances.  On 31 May 2005, they performed Ark presents the Bible (by God) to the Christian Graduate Society, Leckhampton, dinner.  On 19 June 2005, they performed The Best Dad in Britain and on 11 September 2005 they performed Noah and the Platypus Delivery, both at the 8 o'clock service.

Tim Kelby, the last president?

The last officers of the society, from the Ark Cambridge website:

The only other point of note was that the society at this time had a club mascot, known as Prospero the Penguin.  Apparently, this stuffed toy attended all Ark AGMs, allegedly canvassing for votes.  When people asked "Why a penguin"?, the response was mysteriously given as "something to do with everything being black or white with God."

Prospero the mascot.

It is not clear why the society quietly folded after 2006, after fifty glorious years of continuous witness and history.  Maybe the job of refreshing and renewing Christian music was considered done?  Maybe there were now so many contemporary groups in existence carrying the message to the people that it was no longer seen as such a revolutionary thing to do?  Or, maybe it had become harder to operate as a Cambridge University student society for other reasons?

Wouldn't it be good if a new generation arose to form 21st Century and take up the challenge for a new millennium!  If you're a Christian student at Cambridge, and also a contemporary musician, why not?