Spiral - Unsupergroup

I think I've now finished going through all the slides in my collection and putting them through the scanner. At least, all of my own. There are some of a great-uncle's still to go through but they are mostly scenics of Switzerland dating from the 1950s, with only a few of people I know.

But then as I was coming towards the last few slides, this turned up.

It shows me aged 18 or 19 and the band that I was in at the time - Spiral. It was taken at a time when band members of famous bands were starting to break away and form new bands which were dubbed supergroups. So amongst ourselves we used to refer to ourselves as Spiral - unsupergroup! From left to right are: me, Ian 'Oz' Rostron, who was Best Man at my wedding to Fran, John 'Johnny' Briggs and Gill Lovett.

Gill went off to Wrexham to university and we carried on as a threesome for a while until I got married and moved to Blackpool. They were good times. We didn't play nearly as many gigs as I do these days with Creeping Bentgrass but we used to spend most evenings together, rehearsing or writing and arranging new songs. Ian and Johnny were the songwriters. I contributed one or two but it was never my strong point.

Here we are in 1973 on stage, topping the bill at a memorable gig. I remember it particularly for a guitar string breaking and bizarrely whipping up to gash my cheek. We finished the song with blood running down my face and the other bands afterwards were amazed that we hadn't stopped. "You must be professional?" one bloke said to us. Ah... if only...

Happy days!