Virtual Jukebox

A very self-indulgent one next. I was chatting to an old band-mate the other day and I mentioned how none of the music we'd ever made was on-line anywhere. He corrected me, telling me that he'd digitised an old cassette and put it on YouTube (thanks Fluffy)!

Love, Chips and Peace (LCAP) was the nearest thing that Bradford's 1 in 12 Club had to a "supergroup". All of us were in "serious" punk bands, but the lead singer had an amazing way with comedy lyrics set to the tunes of cheesy disco songs, so collected together whoever he could to put together the silliest band we could possibly manage. I played bass for them for a couple of years, and also a couple of years ago when we reformed for a friend's birthday party. My first gig with them happened when the original bass player couldn't make a gig in London - I learned the entire set sat in the back of the van on the drive down the M1 to London, which for LCAP was considered a rather luxurious amount of practice. Despite being as sloppy as possible being one of the guiding principles of LCAP, it was, of course, by far the most popular of any of the bands any of us were in!

Unfortunately the whole tape is one long video, and the quality is terrible, so don't feel as if you have to listen to all (or any) of it!  I don't think I'm on much of this recording, as it was mostly made before I joined the band permanently, however if you jump to around 22:20, there's a delightful picture of me and my DIY customised bass at that very first gig that I played with them (in a squatted pub called the Grievous Bodily Arms!) There are photos of the lyric sheets if anyone fancies singing along!...

Hey were you the one with very long hair and facial fluff? I had very long hair too back then plus a little goatee which wouldn’t grow any longer, I was a hippie type, then later a biker type. 

Hey were you the one with very long hair and facial fluff? I had very long hair too back then plus a little goatee which wouldn’t grow any longer, I was a hippie type, then later a biker type. 

I'm really glad you enjoyed it; I was a little nervous about posting something so self-indulgent!

) ( said:

you were so lucky being in in all of that

Yes, I was. Despite the autistic social problems that led me to give it all up, there were some wonderful times and wonderful people. I struggled a lot with the travelling, crowds, and enforced closeness to people of gigging, but there was a camaraderie that I do miss; the bands from which LCAP members were drawn often played or toured together, and we always helped each other out through hard times to make it all possible.

) ( said:

you never actually over did it to just be crazy

We wouldn't have got away with it! The DIY punk scene was strange like that, I was always amazed at how many punk gigs ended with a cheesy disco and everyone dancing like crazy to Abba. The biggest gig we ever played was in France (the drummer of LCAP is French), where most folks couldn't understand the words even if they were able to hear them on the crappy PA. When we came on in the early hours of the morning, all these spiky-haired punks threw off their studded leather jackets to reveal their spangly, sequinned disco gear underneath!

) ( said:

Hey were you the one with very long hair and facial fluff?

Yup, that was me! I'm not so different now, aside from being a lot more grey. Even when I was on the punk scene, I could never get my head around the whole fashion thing. I always thought it was odd that a scene who prided themselves on their free-thinking all dressed the same. The final band I was in was just me, looking like that, and a drummer who was a skinhead (old-school, from before the National Front infiltrated and messed everything up). We played a couple of gigs where everyone left the room just because we didn't "look like" punks. If anyone accused me of being a hippy, I used to point out that Johnny Rotten always said his favourite band was Can!