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1979 The evolution of The Name mirrored closely the tensions
and changes in music in ’79. Guitarist Ian Graham quit new wavers
Gobblinz in the summer of ’78, and set about finding a purer outlet
for a fist of post punk pop songs he had been keeping back. It
wasn’t long before The Name Mk1 emerged with Ian ‘Emu’ Neive (
vocals ) Nick Joinson ( bass ) and former drummer from punk pioneers
‘The Now’ Jo Macoll. They played a couple of gigs during the autumn
’79 the most notable being a support to The Lurkers at the Wirrina
stadium in Peterborough (notable mainly for a ferocious audience
brawl rather than the music). However the sound of this line up
had more to do with the punk of previous years and this material
and Ian’s idea for a sound was as close to that of The Jam as
it was The Clash. Nick was replaced on Bass by Dave Colton and
Emu by Ben McKnight on lead Vocals early in ’79.
Early sets were a mixture of new arrangements of classic soul
songs and Ian’s pop explosions. ‘In Crowd’, ‘My Girl’ and ‘Track
of My Tears’ featured in their first gigs early in ’79 at the
White Hart in Acton (the first supporting Squire) alongside ‘Lose
that Girl’ (first single) and what was to become their best known
number ‘Fuck Art Lets Dance’. Ben’s ability to sing across the
styles that were thrown at him and yet stamp his own identity
on the songs was to be the bands greatest live asset. In July
‘79 the band played their first gig at Vespers in Charring Cross
with Squire and The Teeniest. This and another gig with the Killermeters
a week later at the same venue launched the band on to the bigger
scene and the band started to build a following. A demo of five
songs recorded at the end of the summer of ’79 attracted the attention
of several companies but eventually the band signed to Virgins
new offshoot label Dindisc at the end of ’79. The band also played
several gigs with Oundle 'refugees' 'Riff-Raff' (including Billy
Bragg) who had moved to the 'Country' from Romford, to further
their career (and 'farm' the local girls!). One notable gig with
Riff-Raff took place at the Red Lion, Clopton nr Oundle, nr Peterborough...phew,
and involved a missing Chicken!
1980 found the band gigging constantly with a mixture of
tour supports to The Purple Hearts and The Chords and headline
gigs at places like The Rock Garden and Fulham Greyhound. Their
most notorious gigs however were further north often with The
Killermeters (who had allowed the band to support a lot in London
in `79). Their first single ‘Lose that Girl’ having been recorded
and produced by Huw Gower of The Records at the start of ’79 was
shelved for reasons known only to their label, and the band were
sent into the studio in March to record again with producer Mike
Howlett. The result of this was a watered down version of ‘Fuck
Art Lets Dance’ called ‘Forget Art’. In spite of the bands request
to release the much better B side ‘Misfits’ Dindisc released the
single in the spring of ’80 when the band were on tour with The
Purple Hearts. The band were augmented by Tony Trundle on sax.
On June 1st the band played their biggest crowd to date. Supporting
the Q tips (featuring Paul Young) and the J Geils band at the
Lyceum. August Bank Holiday saw one notable gig at the Penthouse
in Scarborough supporting the Killermeters which nearly ended
with a riot when it was thought that the Killermeters were 'unfit'
to play! From August to November the band began to change with
drummer Jo Macoll quitting over musical direction as the songs
became more esoteric..
1981 With Mexican Pedro Odiz on drums and Dick Young on
keyboards the band continued to play live at such places as the
Moonlight club in West Hampstead and ironically headlined for
the first time at the Marquee in the spring. In the summer the
band added Nigel Davis on guitar ( who later wrote songs for the
band with Ian Graham) and Andrew ' Tommey' Tomlinson played some
gigs on drums. However, having failed to secure another record
deal (having left Dindisc early in the year) they decided to call
it a day and the final line up of Dave, Ian, Pedro and Ben played
their last gig on 4th November at The Cressett in Peterborough.
1981 - 2002 Pedro was last seen playing percussion in David
Bowies band at live aid in 1984. Dave and Joe continued to play
together and became members of indie pioneers The Pleasureheads.
During the mid 80's they recorded a peel session and had releases
with Red Rhinos label Ediesta.Ben moved to London and continued
to perform, joining dance pioneers 'Lovelife' with Clive 'Faz'
Farrow (this band having evolved from 'heads on sticks' formed
by 'Tommey Tomlinson in 1986') . He also modeled for various designers
and lived in Germany and the States.
THE NAME WEB
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