Bands

Some of us came to Mod via the spirit of Punk Rock, way before Quadraphenia. Through this association with Punk and New Wave came the realisation that we could form bands and one of the earliest incarnations of this influence along side Anglea Rippons Bum and SLS (Street Level Stylists) and the Reggae Band 'Living Legend' was 'Take Oath'.

The two images here circa 1981 were as far as I recall the earliest version of Take Oath with Gary Dartnell 'Gadger' on drums, Nicky Bytheway on guitar, me on Bass and Bill Mayell who at this point hadn't picked up the guitar and was in the band as the singer and Melodica player.

 This is a later version 1982. At this point bill had met 'Elvis Saitch' a 'Long Haired' and he'd influenced him massively and Bill had started to play proper chords, but was quickly moving away from the punk influences and play crap like The Police and Dire Straits! This version of the band circa 1982 was UXB which included Twinkle using a Premier Drun set that I'd financed that was bought from Honky Tonk Music in Hadleigh? The shot here was taken in one of the rooms at the back of the youthie that led into the Garage.

 This is an earlier Take Oath shot circa 1981 in Jamies room the same session with SLS. Me at the Mic.

Gougey the manager of Take Oath at the Youth Club circa 1981.

Dan bailey was talking about this a couple of days ago and I found this amongst a load of pic's I shot using an Olympus XA. Wide angle compact camera, no zoom on HP5+ rated 400 iso and dev'd in D76 normally. Which means we were right down the front. I do seem to recall there was virtually no-one there though.