Rock and Roll Stories #24 - Forty Six years of making a Godawful racket!

The False Dots are forty six years old tomorrow! We have our birthday party at The Dublin Castle on Sunday from 2pm to celebrate. Around this time of every year, I start to think about the rather long story and the rather unlikely group of people who made it happen. We had our first rehearsal on the 14th February 1979. The first song we played was a song called Wrong. It probably sums up how our career has gone ever since! 

The Dots, with Dav (flat cap) at
our birthday party last year!
L-R Tom, Graham, Rog, Dav, Fil
Dublin Castle, Camden

By pure coincidence, I had a beer with Dav Davies, the drummer who performed our first gig with us back in 1980, at the Mill Hill Services Club. Dav lives in Shrewsbury now and it is the first time he's been to Mill Hill since he quit the band in January 1980. He was in the band for about six months. Dav was five years older than the rest of us. He was also a far better musician and when he joined, he transformed us into something that actually sounded like a proper band. I was chatting with him about this yesterday. He said he liked the fact that we had attitude and were a band. He liked performing original material. He said that when he saw the Beatles video, he noticed how Ringo was watching what the other three were doing, before he joined in. Dav said he'd just bash everything and hope for the best. When I listen to the demo's with Dav playing, that is certainly not how it sounded to me. It got me thinking about key people in the history of the Dots.

In the history of the Dots, we've had quite a few drummers. Some have been deeply technical, such as Bill Lucas, who was a jazz drummer, some have been very metronomic (in a good way) such as Adam Francis. For me, Dav and our current drummer Graham Ramsey are the ones who suit the music I write the best. This is because both enjoy what we are doing and the songs we play. I always felt most of the other drummers kind of liked the music, but if a genie granted them a wish, they'd be in another band playing a different genre of music, be it Jazz, Rock or Pop. Don't get me wrong, they all made a massive contribution, but only Graham and Dav have embraced the more weird and wacky ideas we've presented. I should mention Tony Cavaye here, who drummed when we reformed around 2000. Tony was a great rock and roll drummer. When we played Rock and Roll, he sounded amazing, but all attempts to get a good Ska/Reggae vibe faltered as I just felt he didn't like the musical genre. He'd rather be playing twenty minute long blues/rock jams.

Perhaps the most important person in the formation of the band was Pete Conway. He was my primary school mate. We were the first two punks at FCHS and we spent from September 1977, when we both realised we'd discovered punk rock until the formation of the band in February 1979, talking about it and planning to get the band together. To this day, I am not really sure whether we'd have been the best or the worst band in the world if Pete had stuck with us. What I do know is that we'd never have had the band. Pete was a  brilliant lyricist and had some amazing ideas for songs that sounded like nothing else I've ever heard. For his own reasons, he left for good in December 1980. 

Paul & Rog 1981
Harrow Art College

The next key member was Paul Hircombe. Paul was fourteen when he joined, in February 1980. He was a great musician. When Pete Conway quit, he switched to bass. Although Pete was the reason we started, Paul was reason the band still exists today. He was the rock that kept us going. Whenever there was split or someone left, Paul would quietly encourage me to keep going. Paul was an outrageously good looking guy, very quiet, very sharp witted. I always felt he had my back. He was talented when it came to putting music together, but didn't want to take the lead, he'd just quietly suggest improvements or play me things he'd heard that inspired him. Unlike Pete Conway, he wasn't passionate about the music we were playing, but he was totally committed to the band. Paul was the bass player from December 1980, until December 2008, when he moved away. He died in 2012. God rest his soul. 

Top row - Rog & Mark
Bottom Paul & Craig
Orange Hill School 1981

Perhaps one of the most important and difficult, for me, person in the history of the band was Guitarist/singer Craig Withecombe. Craig came in when Pete Conway left. He was/is a brilliant guitarist. I am not really sure if he knew how good he was. When Craig came in, with Dav drumming, the band sounded amazing. There were three problems for me with Criag. One, which is probably a sign of my own immaturity at the time, was that he was very straight laced and square. He always looked awkward and had no real sense of dress sense. He did try and he'd take onboard our mad ideas, but he always looked like Craig. Two. He wrote cringeworthy and bad lyrics. He wrote great tunes, but his words were awful. If he'd been in a band of geeky nerds, it would have been brilliant, but it wasn't The False Dots. As I wanted him to be happy, we recorded some of his songs on demo's, but I'd always feel embarrassed playing them to anyone and never really felt they were real Dots songs. I think Craig realised this and it probably annoyed him, but at least he was in a band doing stuff, I always felt he was waiting for the main chance, the big problem was every time we saw A&R people, they'd say "lose the nerd". Three. He was a bit of a schemer. He was a bit more crafty than he seemed. When he left the band, it was on very bad terms. He'd tried to stage a coup and sling me out of my own band. Paul, of course, stayed. He took the drummer, Bill Lucas and the female singer we had at the time, who wasn't very good. I don't think they ever played another gig. I was mad at him for decades, but tried to reach out to him last year for our 45th party. Enough time has gone by. I failed.

Venessa Dingwalls 1984

When Craig went, we got Venessa Sagoe in. She was a brilliant singer. In any sane universe, Venessa would have been a superstar, but her size and colour was deemed not suitable for the UK pop scene. If I knew then, what I know now, things would be different. For about six months, I think we had the best club band in London. It all came together, but it completely imploded. To this day, I regret a couple of very bad decisions in regard to the band. The biggest mistake was getting a flat with Venessa and her boyfriend. I am not an easy person to live with. I've not seen her for decades, but still love her to bits.

Chris Potts, Rog, Graham, Allen & Ubungus
Belgium - Le Tiki Club 1985

Venessa went and poet Allen Ashley arrived. The band could not have pivoted more. Allen made an amazing contribution in his two stints - 1985, 2012-2019. As a lyricist, Allen is second to none and I really enjoyed working with him. I think he wrote/co-wrote some of the Dots best songs. He also gave me a lot of inspiration to keep working as a musician in both stints. In 1985, I was feeling very down after the line up with Venessa imploded. Allen got me back into doing music and got me excited about the songs. In 2012, I was raw after the death of Paul Hircombe. Allen came in and we did songs not associated with Paul, which was easier for me. I will always be in his debt.

When we got the band back together in around 2000, Fil Ross joined. He did it as a favour and has been with the band for 25 years. Given that we had a break from 1990-2000, he is the person who has played with the band longest, apart from me. I cannot possibly understate Fil's input and influence. Like Paul, he joined on Lead guitar. Like Paul, he switched to bass to help out. Fil is an amazing songwriter/arranger. He is also brilliant when we play live. His bass playing has really developed and is now exceptional. Fil makes the band fun. 

I must mention Connie Abbe who sang with the Dots from 2009 for a couple of years. Connie is a South Sudanese singer, who proved my belief that we'd never have a better singer than Venessa Sagoe. We did a stack of really decent gigs with Connie, at some of London's better clubs. The injection of raw talent and energy she gave the band disabused me of my belief that we were too old, as a band, to do anything worth doing musically. I really hope to work with Connie again at a suitable point. Like Venessa, she should be a star. 

And finally, the last of the hall of False Dots Fame. Mr 'Trumpet' Tom Hammond. Tom agreed to help out on some recordings in the Autumn of 2023. He just fitted in. He has transformed our sound and our energy. Tom was born in 1985, the year Graham Ramsey first joined the band. Tom is a highly accomplished musician, who has played on a stack of songs (CLICK HERE TO CHECK HIS WORK OUT). Having a trumpet player has enable me to realise quite a few musical ambitions, especially when it comes to our reggae/ska numbers. Tom is also singing a few songs, which adds a different dimension to our sound, which is a very good thing. As a special treat, he'll be performing Wrong! which is the first song we ever played at a rehearsal. We've never performed this live before, but we did it and it was actually rather fun!

So there you go, those are the people who got us to where we are today.