The Websters were my first band in the early 80s and it had a lot of unfulfilled promise. We had many people attending our gigs and interested three record companies. Listening back perhaps it was all a bit twee but the 8 piece line up with sax (Andy Hampton and Martin Winning) made for a good souly sound with punky influences. Here’s the second demo recorded at the BBC studios in Maida Vale.
Punk band
On reflection I should have formed a punk band while I was at Uni 6 years earlier then people would have been keener to listen to my music! As it was we were pursued by the Bronze label and an ex manager of Deep Purple Derek Lawrence offered to manage us after he’d seen us play at Dingwalls in Camden. No one in the band was very keen as we were offered a contract that had been originally given to heavy metal band ‘Uriah Heep 
(Very ‘eavy, very ‘umble) with a lot of strange ‘riders’ involving beer and fruit and the returns were small to say the least. At Dingwalls we were on just after the wonderfully named Half Man Half Biscuit (Hit record ‘John Kettley is a weatherman’) and it was there I had my only groupie experience. I have to admit I thought that being in a band would increase my chances of pulling but it never seemed to work for me or anyone else in the band. Anyway this somewhat worse for wear woman in her thirties wandered up to me and said in an American accent: ‘I didn’t know whether to choose you or the sax player but I’ve chosen you.’
Rather innocently I asked her what it was I’d been chosen for? A talent show?A chance to win a new Hoover? A week’s holiday at Butlin’s?
‘No! To have sex with me’ she said possibly too angrily. As I was just about to meet my girlfriend Olivia outside who had been at the gig, I politely rejected her offer.
‘What about the sax player then?’ she asked slightly desperately.
‘Well he’s the father of three kids and already left so he can say goodnight to his eldest daughter, but I can ask some other members of the band if you like? The drummer’s just split up with his wife so he might be up for it?’
‘No that’s ok!’ she said petulantly, and strode off somewhat unsteadily.
After we’d had a drink and collected the gear up I saw her standing up grunting away against the wall near the cars with no one we knew, who gave me a thumb’s up and said ‘nice gig mate!’ over her shoulder.
We had various guests, but the regulars were Graham Puddifoot and Nick Bye on guitars, Adam Roake on bass, and Julian Treasure on drums. Martin Winning frequently accompanied Andy Hampton as a sax duo, and has since had a hugely successful musical career playing with Van Morrison, John Martyn, Peter Greene and Tinita Tikaram amongst others, and is still a mate. The most successful period was when the girl singers were Mandy and Litza and Simon Chamberlain was on keyboards, later to be a terrific session player and with whom I wrote ‘Hey Get a Life’. We were then managed by Ric Lee who was the drummer with Ten Years After (who had a silver disc of their live success ‘Undead’ on the wall of his flat in Fitzroy Square, which featured a whole side of one of the records which was his twenty minute drum solo entitled ‘Hobbit’). I liked Ric very much. Ric was excellent and enthusiastic and we played masses of gigs and almost got signed by Stiff and several other companies that couldn’t quite find the hit single amongst all the tunes I’d written. ‘Close but no cigar’ was the Stiff rejection letter. I’m a better writer now of course but (sob) it’s far too late.
Here’s a video of the first single ‘Could You Care for me’ with the first line up, apart from the two girl singers Mandy and Litza who were away, so my then girlfriend Olivia (the curly haired one) and a girl I’d never met before (or since) did the honours. It’s all a bit basic! We were young! The vid was by Marek Budzinski.
Above are the brilliant Mandy & Litza shot at either Dingwall’s or the Marquee. Yes we played there! We supported Wayne County. Who I think was Jayne County by then. Litza is married to top top bass player Steve Pearce who played on my album ‘Eggshell Heart’.
The band sort of faded away in 1983 when I did the review ‘Out of Order’ with Chris Middleton for Edinburgh and the New End Theatre. But it reformed ‘comically’ as the Kondos in 87 with much the same members! Here are some more pics, the ones we did for publicity purposes.
This below is a later line up after Julian had made himself unavailable due to work commitments. that’s Simon Chamberlain in the back row. The girl on the left was called Tatiana. I’ve remembered her tho she was nothing to do with the band at all and just turned p for the photo session. Martin Scott was the drummer. He was excellent!
We did a lot of gigs without the proper line up being available so many deps came in. We had a disastrous gig at the Rock Garden in Covent Garden when Graham couldn’t play so I hired a guitarist who got so pissed on the night that he forgot everything! What was upsetting was that Graham’s job had ended early so he came down to see us playing without him! It was something of a shock to see his little bespectacled face appear amidst the disapproving spectators. It was shambolic as you can guess. We never played there again! We often used the sax player as a dep with the then fashionable ‘Roaring Boys’ (they signed a huge recording deal and then vanished). Tho a nice chap and a good player he was agonizingly expensive and depleted our always non existent funds.
Here is that very song at our very first gig at Darwin College! It’s not bad for a first gig! I’ve got some other recorded material of other gigs which is unfortunately very distorted but I’ll put a couple of tracks up that reveal the large crowds that were attending the gigs!
Here’s ‘Could You Care for Me’. Also Live at Darwin College.
This is Red Shadow. I think this is the first and only time we did it!