Before Pigbag

Ollie Moore has written a great piece about his musical beginnings and how he came to join Pigbag. See Ollie’s Story for the full details.

The Pop Group

Simon Underwood played bass with The Pop Group until shortly after the release of their first album.

The Pop Group’s line-up was:

• Gareth Sager
• Mark Stewart
• Simon Underwood (replaced by Dan Catsis)
• John Waddington
• Bruce Smith

Visit my late friend Dixon Coulbourn’s excellent Pop Group web site for more information on The Pop Group.

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Hardware

Mike Chandler sent me some info about Hardware. He was in Hardware when it formed it in mid-1976 in Cheltenham with Chip on
drums, Kevin, shortly to be superceeded by Dan (John Danlyszyn) on vocals,
John Bennett on bass, James on guitar (and alto later on) and Mike Chandler also guitar.

Roger Doughty (owner of Driftin Record store in Cheltenham and
later Revolver in Bristol) joined a few months later on tenor sax and Wasp
synthesiser. When John went off to Uni, Crispy Collier stepped in playing
bass. Mark Smith played bass on the 2nd Hardware single / EP. Supported
Killing Joke twice in London, did loads of gigs around Herefordshire,
Worcestershire and Gloucestershire – got spat on regularly.

Released two 33 rpm EP’s over 78 / 79 which are listed on the band’s Discogs page. The last single never made it out – still on 2″ ampex tape in Mike’s spare room. Band split up around July 1980. Some great times with a superb and eclectic bunch, says Mike.

• Chip Carpenter – Drums
• Roger Doughty – Tenor Sax and Wasp synth
• John Bennett / Crispy Collier – Bass
• John Danlyszyn – Vocals
• Mike Chandler – Guitar
• James Johnstone – Guitar
• Mark Smith – Bass

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Monsters of the Deep

Chip and Ollie are also members of the Monsters of The Deep along with Mike
Roden, John Bennett and Mike Chandler, the band which Hardware was formed from,
but alas (for the British public),says Mike, they’re still going, with a line up
virtually unchanged from ’76. Material – rock & roll covers / ham it up
band for parties etc.

• Mike Roden – Vocals
• John Bennett – Bass
• Ollie Moore – Sax
• Chip Carpenter – Drums
• Mike Chandler – Guitars

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The Drowning Craze

Angela Jaeger moved from New York to London to study voice and musical theatre. She became part of the UK punk scene and formed The Drowning Craze with Simon Raymonde (who went on to join The Cocteau Twins and later run Bella Union records).
She recorded one single, “Storage Case” (on Situation 2) before leaving the band. The band subsequently found another singer and released another single, “Trance”.

I asked Simon Raymonde about the band, he kindly provided the following:-

“Couldn’t throw much light on her stuff since we worked together, but we
met through Peter Kent who was the Associates manager (we were on the
same label as them) and the first time we met was in a rehearsal room in
Fulham Rd a week before we made our first single. It was done on 16
track and produced by my brother who now is more (in)famously known as the man who found and developed TAKE THAT!

The single was loved and was Single of the Week in both NME and Melody Maker, Paul Morley and Dave McCulloch reviewing. She left to return to college, strangely the lure of London was not strong enough. We were distraught and found another singer from Chicago who is now Groovie Mann in Thrill Kill Kult!!!”

All of The Drowning Craze singles and John Peel session recordings were released by Bella Union on CD in 2018 – “The Drowning Craze – Singles ’81/’82“

After leaving The Drowning Craze, Angela also recorded with The Monochrome Set, Billy McKenzie, the Bush Tetras and recorded ‘Bali Hai’ with Disconnection, a Y Records house-band, before joining Pigbag.

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Shriekback

Brian Nevill was a founder member of Shriekback (another Y Records band) before joining Pigbag. They have their own Shriekback website and the band are still sporadically active after 40 years.