Rock and Roll stories 1 - The Birth of the False Dots in 1979

This February, The False Dots will be 45 years old!

 I cannot really believe it, where does the time go?

On the third of February at The Dublin Castle, we will be having a party to celebrate. 

Please come along and join in the fun, we promise you a night to remember.

This is the story, warts and all, of how it started, up to our first gig. I think it might make quite a good film, if anyone out there is looking for a good rock and roll story

The first year of the False Dots, was like a story from a horror movie, in truth an unmitigated disaster as I recorded in my scrapbook. We got together for the first rehearsal on the 14th February 1979. Myself and Pete Conway had been planning to put a band together for a couple of years. Pete left Finchley Catholic High School in June 1978, got a job at Dewhursts Butchers and bought a bass guitar. I borrowed my sisters Kimbara Les Paul copy, which looked amazing but played like a cheese grater. I hustled some money together and bought a FAL 50 watt amp, that Pete and I could play through. We started madly writing songs and learned a few cover versions. By December1979, we thought we were ready and recruited Dave Edwards and Mandy Spokes, at a gig at the Marquee featuring The Fall and Manicured Noise. We spent a month or so discussing things, getting songs together, Dave Borrowed a drumkit, the most basic possible. It had a bass drum, snare and hi hat. It suited our ability and our minimalist music. The original songs were nihilistic blasts, with strong and very naive political rants, with titles such as Never Free, Power Game, Wrong and No Confidence. The covers were dodgy versions of songs that we sort of thought we could manage, including WIld Thing, I Wanna Be Loved (by The Heartbreakers) and Johnny B. Goode. We also did a punk version of Rockabilly Guy by The Polecats, who were our mates. I'm not sure that they appreciated the tribute. 

In August, following a rehearsal, our drummer Dave Edwards was viciously attacked on his way home from a rehearsal. He was pushed head first through the window of WH Smiths on Mill Hill Broadway. He was then chased up the road and thrown through the window of the Jewellers, where Rockman now is. The reason? the lads thought he was Pete Conway, who had taken the mickey out of one of them for wearing a Fred Perry shirt with a tie. Dave severed a tendon as he put his arms up to shield his face. He was with his girlfriend and our then singer Mandy Spokes. The band had been booked to support the UK Subs in Derby. We also had an interview booked with Xpert-I fanzine.  His assailants were arrested at the time, by a passing Police van and got 18 months. The fallout from this resulted in a  big tear up in Mill Hill Broadway a couple of weeks later, between the mates of his assailants, who were Mods from Burnt Oak and the local Rockers, who were our mates. One of our mates had his car set on fire in Hartley Avenue. It was a customised Rockabilly motor, his pride and joy and he was devastated. I think it was the only riot in the history of Mill Hill. 

Two weeks later, Pete Conway was ambushed by the same group. He had a severe beating and made his way to my house. We were supposed to be going to see Crass. My Dad wanted to take him to hospital, but Pete refused and we went to the gig. A week later, I was waking back from Burnt Oak station, when three of the gang approached me. They chased me all of the way from the Watling to the bottom of my road. I was fitter and they ran out of puff. I ran in, found my Dad's woodchopping axe, and then ran back and chased them all the way back. I lost them in the park and started screaming that if I ever saw them again, I'd chop them up. I then came to my senses and ran back to Mill Hill. I had taken a large amount of amphetamine sulphate that night and I felt like Superman. In the morning, I reflected on what happened and never took any, ever again. A few weeks later, a friend that I'd bought it off, who lived in Kings Cross and a bunch of their mates died after taking a batch cut with something poisonous. It made the front pages of the press. I concluded that someone, somewhere was looking after me. 

We had to cancel the gig with The UK Subs and the interview with Xpert-I was as disasterous as you could imagine. Pete was completely pissed. All we could play them was dodgy cassette recordings of rehearsals, that sounded awful. Pete, who was normally eloquent and highly intelligent acted like a complete idiot. We realised it was a disaster, but Pete thought it was hilarious and we'd got one over on the inteviewer. When it came out it said that the only thing more immature than our music was our personalities and that we were the perfect example of how not to be in a band. I wish I could find a copy. 

The band had two more rehearsals, but the fun had gone and we split up in acrimony in September. That was that....

Until December 1979. I'd not seen Pete, who I'd known since I was four for three months. I bumped into him on Bunns Lane. Having both spent three months telling everyone we hated each others guts, we immediately got talking and decided to reform the band. We both agreed we were rubbish. We needed new songs and new ideas. Having sworn to everyone that I'd kill Pete next time I saw him, we went to the Railway pub, drank five pints of Guinness, got into a fight with some other customers and banned, then went back to my house. We talked about music properly. We'd both expanded our interests since we last spoke. I'd seen the Specials and the 2-Tone tour in 1979 and this influenced me. I'd also listened to the Velvet Underground. We realised that the political rants left a lot to be desired. The Specials songs, such as Much to young made me realise that you could tell stories to get points across. 

Pete and I discussed the 'new material'. We said we'd write one song at a time and get it right and only play songs we were proud of. If it meant taking five years to get a set together, so be it. We decided that the first song would be a statement. We would write something so shocking, so controversial, so left field that we could not be ignored. But what subject? With some influence from the Velvet Underground and Lou Reed and also an incident in the Moonlight Club, where Pete chatted up someone we'd now describe as pre op transsexual, without realising, we decided to write a song about a boy in the sticks, who decides he's a girl, moves to London and starts working as a prostitute. She gets involved with a Tory MP, who falls in love, but cannot take the relationship further. She had been controlled by a violent pimp, who stole all her money. She disappears and is never seen again, when he catches up with her. The song took her side, the marginal person, the person no one ever sees. It was a far more mature song than the people who wrote it, we'd sing it and giggle. 

Then one day she won't be there

She can't have taken enough care

She met someone that she used to know

She packed her bags and she had to go

We wrote a proper song, with a proper structure. Pete started going out with "Deb", who played drums. We had a rehearsal at my sisters flat, playing this and two other songs. It sounded so good, that we knocked on the door of the Hippies who lived next door and asked them to come in to listen. They rolled a few spliffs and said it sounded great. 

Until that moment, the band had no identity and nothing of interest about it We were a few kids posing as musicians. That was the moment when The False Dots really became something more. We realised that being in a band requires more than posing, playing tightly and shouting slogans. We then had a two or three month period where we were madly writing songs. When we fell out in September 1979, we stopped hanging around and going to gigs together, we'd made new friends, but for 2 or three months, we spent three nights a week writing songs. We recrited the son of Hank Marvin, Paul on drums. He brought Paul Hircombe in on lead guitar, a 14 year old school mate from Moat Mount. We got to jam at Hank's private studio in Radlett. In June, Paul Marvin left and Dav Davies, a brilliant drummer and mate of Alan Warner joined to do a demo. With two competent musicians in the band in Dav and Paul Hircombe, the band, which had widely been considered a joke by our friends, became a serious proposition. The demo turned out far better than anyone could have anticipated. We agreed to start looking for gigs, then to my horror, Pete Conway left in August, he had a new girlfriend and could no longer be bothered with the band. This was a pivotal moment. The band had always been Pete and myself. He was the bassplayer and singer. I was horrfied.

By now, I was at Orange Hill School. There was an excellent guitarist there, called Craig Withecombe. Craig said he liked the songs and could do something with them. He joined. He lacked Pete's electric persona, but was a brilliant musician. He joined on lead and Paul moved to bass. We started to rehearse and the songs sounded amazing. I immediately decided to do another demo. I then set up a gig for the band at The Harwood Hall. Three weeks before the gig, in December, Pete Conway got in touch. He didn't know that we'd replaced him. He suggested a beer. We went and he said "How about giving the band another go?". He'd been unaware that we'd replaced him. I knew Pete would do a better job as a singer, but he was rubbish on bass. The band was far better without him. However, they were his songs as much as mine and we'd spent three years getting to this point. I agreed that he could come back, but only as singer. 

I discussed it with Paul, Craig and Dav and they all agreed. They were quite pleased as all felt Pete would be a great front man. We rehearsed for two weeks and I felt we were more than ready. The gig was at The Harwood Hall in Mill Hill on the 13th December 1980. We got local reggae band, featuring my mate Roy Nkoji on guitar. We billed it as a Rock Against Racism gig, something important to us. I blagged a Rock Against Racism badge off a mate, Debbie Pointer at Orange Hill. I promised I'd wear it at every gig I played if she gave it to me (a promise I kept, apart from for one gig, where we had a singer we called Mark The Fascist, who was a Thatcherite, who hid it to piss me off). 

We got the local paper down to review us. We got all our mates along. We borrowed a PA system in. We had a couple of brilliant rehearsals. Without a bass to think about, Pete was a simply electric front man. He was good looking and stylish and had a massive personality. How could we miss? Sadly very easily. Pete didn't show up. Fortunately we'd rehearsed quite a lot without him. 

What should have been brilliant was sort of OK. A triumph from a disaster. Just about everything that could go wrong did. Dav's snare drum broke in the third song to top it all. But we came through. Dav left the band shortly after. I saw him last year for the first time in 43 years, when I visited Shrewsbury, where he now lives. He told me that he found a tape of the gig, He said that the songs sound surprisingly good and fresh. 

The press did turn up. Kevin Black from the local paper wrote this article >>>>

In some ways, I think that what happened was all for the best. It made me reealise that music isn't easy and there will be tears. You lose lifelong friends and you will sometimes be distraught. 

But that gig also taught me the elation you get when you do it. 45 years later, we are still going.  We still play Not All She Seems live. It is a great song. Later this year, we will release it as a single. I hope I can finally give Pete Conway his 30 pieces of silver from the royalties!

Please come and see us at our 45th Birthday party, here's our latest single