New Wave
The New Wave Years
The 2kW two-bar fader, breakfast with The Enid and a Power Pop hit single.
Suddenly, the UK music scene went through a seismic shift from the moody melodies of progressive rock to the high-energy tunes of punk rock and New Wave movement. 20th Century was in a bit of a quandary about how to approach this and stay culturally relevant (without becoming offensive). The first decision was easy. We all had short haircuts and got into tight drainpipe trousers...
C20th at the CCAT, 7 March 1980: Tony Simons (Gibson Les Paul), Mark Hammond (Fender Precision), Mark Allchorn (lead vox), Simon Matthews (Premier Drum Kit), Dermot Boyle (any old guitar) and Graham Gill (mini-Moog and organ). Graham says that Mark negotiated this gig for the princely reward of zero groats. Not a lot of people know that.
1979: Playing to our Strengths
Tony Simons, lead guitar 1977-80, recalls:
Around this time, the Greenbelt Christian Arts festivals had been running for some three years; and we used to go along as a group, camping in the fields of Northamptonshire, attending the daytime seminars, which helped us refine our mission as Christians in the Arts; and of course we stayed up late for the concerts on the main stage, which featured artists as diverse in styles as Cliff Richard and the early U2. We were great fans of a UK group called After the Fire, which headlined the festival. They had gone through a progressive rock phase, sounding like Camel; but with the arrival of the New Wave in the late 1970's they suddenly abandoned this and produced a series of rather rough-sounding, short, punchy songs.
I didn't like this at first; but later, they won a contract with CBS and refined their sound, with the addition of a guitarist who played harmony lines opposite the synthesiser. Suddenly, we all realised that this was the exact model for 20th Century to follow. Besides, Mark Allchorn knew the After the Fire group members through some local Eastbourne connections and they came to visit him in hospital (see earlier), which was a real morale-booster. He got out on crutches by the autumn and we set about re-building the band. And After the Fire had a hit single with One Rule for You.
C20th Road Crew: We were kept going by John Roe (here fixing something) and, later, by Mike Stone (not shown), who between them ran the sound and lightshow. Our PA and foldback system and the lighting rig were all home-made. Mark Allchorn and Graham Gill are discussing some aspect of the set-up.
In addition to the regular musicians, some talented members of 20th Century served as technicians and road crew. Along with Barry Jones (now graduated) and David Hepper, we had also acquired the valuable technical skills of John Roe (subsequently a distinguished Mathematics Professor at Oxford and Pennsylvania State), who built lighting rigs and sound-effects units from all kinds of bits and pieces that we picked up at junk sales. John built a wind-noise generator, with an emergency cut-out for when the oscillator went unstable. John and Mark finished the new PA system (see above) and then built footlights using chipboard boxes, 150W light-bulbs, coloured gels and baking foil as the reflector.
The hardest thing was matching impedances. I remember John having to insert a resistance shunt made from a 2-bar 2kW electric fire into a circuit, so that some high-power theatre spotlights (kindly donated) could be controlled by the same faders as a standard 150W light-bulb rig. At the start of our concerts, the faders were down and the electric fire came on. The road crew (John Roe and probably David Hepper) would roast at the back of the hall, until curtain-up when the spotlights came on and the 2-bar fire could finally cool down!
Simon Matthews ferrying Dermot Boyle around on his Suzuki GT500 motorbike, in Godalming, 1980. What is Dermot playing? Thanks to Mark Hammond for this picture.
1980: The New Wave Line-Up
Tony Simons, lead guitar 1977-80, recalls:
I fell back into the saddle as lead guitarist, having bought a Gibson Les Paul Custom with money earned during my year in France. Dermot Boyle joined as second guitar. Mark Hammond took over the bass guitar position full time, after Dave Hobson graduated, and he played a fine Fender Precision model. Mark Allchorn (complete with leather trousers) was a convincing New Wave front man, backed by our up-tempo symphonic rock style.
We had a new drummer, Simon Matthews, who played a Premier drum kit. I remember him mostly for his skill at milking space invader machines of their cash (it's a drummer's sense of timing) and then buying us all a round on the proceeds! Either that, or for ferrying me at breakneck speeds down Jesus Lane in Cambridge on the back of his powerful Suzuki motorbike.
Graham Gill took over from Paddy Searle-Barnes on keyboards. The main keyboard stack had an electric organ, a piano, and a second-hand Multimoog (bought off Duncan Mackay from 10cc). Sometimes a second stack of a Hohner Pianet and a Jen synthesiser was also used.
C20th at Kerygma, Great Yarmouth, 12 July 1980. Tony Simons (black on white), Mark Hammond (white on black), Simon Matthews (old school tie), Mark Allchorn (shiny leather trousers), Dermot Boyle (clothing malfunction) and Graham Gill (the same C20th T-shirt).
Stand Up and Be Counted - front cover.
1980: Stand Up and Be Counted
Tony Simons, lead guitar 1977-80, recalls:
We decided to record Graham's song Stand Up and Be Counted, backed by Jon Wicks' song He is the One. We pitched in a hundred quid each (my student allowance for one term!) and, together, this gave us enough to record and produce the single. We used the Hertford studio of a progressive rock band called The Enid, who gave us a very favourable rate (£12 an hour). They were a cult hippy band, whose albums sounded like classical symphonies, played with rock instruments. They had a large farmhouse called The Lodge and seemed to live communally there, with the studio built in the basement. We spent all of the first day setting up the microphones, recording the live performance guide tracks and laying down the drums for Stand Up and Be Counted. Simon was so exhausted, he kept getting his bass drum and snare beats inverted after the fills, so had to keep on re-recording his track. At 3am, he crashed out on the couch saying, "I do NOT want to be a rock-star".
The Lodge, in Hertford: home of The Enid's recording studio.
We woke up to a cooked breakfast of eggs, sausage, bacon, tomatoes and toast. This was unexpected since The Enid were all vegetarians! On the second day, we laid down the guitar and bass tracks. I wrote a new instrumental line for the chorus of the song and double-tracked this in the final chorus. By mid-morning, Mark, Graham and I finished the lead and backing vocals. We were so exhausted and relieved after completing side A of the single that, somehow, we were more relaxed when recording the B-side.
This had more of a bluesy feel, with my guitar work based on fast, damped runs and Dermot pulled off a fantastic shredding blues solo. Graham, Mark and I decided to do an alternative arrangement for verse 3, which sounded really great in the final mix, rather like The Stranglers. The crew from The Enid were really kind to us: at first they thought we might be some upstart punk outfit, but realised, as we laid down the complex harmonies, that we really could play the instruments. Graham spent the second night working on the Moog solo parts, which gave our band its peculiar blend of Progressive and New Wave styles.
1980: Best Student Band in Cambridge
Tony Simons, lead guitar 1977-80, recalls:
We took the master tape down to a disc cutting studio in Maidstone. The first pressing of side A failed, so they ran the whole process again. A thousand copies of Stand Up and Be Counted were eventually pressed. These were all snapped up by our fans in one year, partly through direct sales at live concerts and partly through Rough Trade, an independent distributor. We played several concerts in and around Cambridge and were voted the best student band in 1980. We received a congratulatory letter from Bill Latham, Cliff Richard's producer, who heard our demo tape. We were the kings of Prog New Wave, a style which blended up-tempo streetwise songs with arpeggiated lyrical interludes on the Moog. In Japan, this style became known as Power Pop and for some years, we were pursued by Ren, our biggest overseas fan, who tried to track down more copies of the single long after we had sold out.
Graham Gill, keyboards 1979-81, recalls:
I do have the order slip for the record pressing company Ellie Jay Records, signed by "M. Allchorn (Manager)" on 14 February, with a release date of 1 March 1980, but they delivered late. We did not have the singles on the Eastbourne leg of the tour, so I suspect they were sent to Surrey and we actually released at the Guildford Crusader Hall on Friday 21 March. But I may be wrong...
Tony Simons, lead guitar 1977-80, recalls:
During that year, we heard that, sadly, Barry Jones had died; and that the cause had eventually been attributed to new type of leukaemia (he had been one of Addenbrookes Hospital's 12 unsolved cases). We attended the funeral in Gainsborough on a rather grey, cold and windy day in Spring.
C20th in full flight at Kerygma, Great Yarmouth, 1980. The lead vocals take a break, the keyboards have a solo break and Dermot's shirt and trousers finally break.
Stand Up and Be Counted - back cover.
Tony Simons, lead guitar 1977-80, recalls:
We went on tour that Summer to Kent and Sussex, performing at village halls, schools, clubs and at one prison. I was mobbed at Brighton and Hove Girls' School; and my second-best C20th T-shirt still bears the rip-marks. Those were the days! At the prison chapel, the plan was for us to play for the first half, and the chaplain to give a talk in the second half. In the interval, the chaplain came to us, weeping tears of joy, saying "Go on, play some more, they're listening to you". So we played our entire repertoire. One of the prisoners half-inched the chapel pot-plant as he left.
Graham Gill, keyboards 1979-81, recalls:
All I remember about the prison gig was that Dermot broke three strings during the first instrumental song (Joy), which he didn't even play in. That tour was memorable: we went to Eastbourne, Brighton, Chaley, Ringmer, Bexley Heath and so forth. That year, we had managed an amazing 35 gigs between 16th November 1979 (the Selwyn Diamond) and and 12th July 1980 (the Kerygma Centre, Great Yarmouth).
I still have the complete gig list for that year, showing how much we were paid for each gig - something which it was my job to record, as the group's treasurer. We kept up a healthy balance (despite Murk negotiating some gigs for a reward of zero groats). We recouped in sales all the money speculatively invested recording the single. And we all got decent degrees when we graduated.
Editor's Note: John Roe passed into glory on 9 March 2018, after a battle with cancer. He leaves behind a treasure trove of wisdom in his blog Points of Inflection.