beingCRAYOLA

1984/5 - form a band at school called the fourth man in which i sing. i am listening to jesus and marychain, smiths, marillion and frankie goes to hollywood. the bass player likes rush and U2. the guitar player is a classical wiz and likes big country. we are shit. we play an afternoon concert in the dining hall of school and everyone but everyone thinks that our drum machine is a tape recorder and that we mime. we don't. we are just shit. fortunately the one recording session we did has been lost forever.

1986 - said fourth man guitarist and i start a duo called I use a pink comb. i have no idea as to why. we play at the local sixth form - a mixture of dour self penned numbers and weather prophets and smiths covers. we are also very shit.

i am in 2 minds as to whether to see jesus and marychain or big black in birmingham who are playing the same night. arrive in birmingham in a confused state and bump into a girl called harriet - she professes a love of big black and so we decide to go to the marychain gig....motorcycle boy are supporting and are strangely great, but J&MC suck. i get a lift home from harriet and find out that her favourite bands are big flame, the green telescopes, yeah yeah noh, the pastels and the TVP's. later i find that her dad used to build amps for the who and ran the lights at the UFO club. he has a lot of old valve amps in a shed in wales so we form a band. we call ourselves cheese engineers and record a cassette called batman. i start working hard on getting gigs and we end up playing with the likes of the mctells, 14 iced bears and st. christopher.
we change our name to colgates and the tweeness disappears from our songs. in fact we become membranes wannabes.

1987 - colgates begin gigging in earnest. name a toilet venue UK wide and we probably played it. in hindsight it was all very easy. plug in the drum machine and off you go. started trading gigs with pale saints amongst others.

1988 - i get a letter from some guy out of the rosehips telling me that colgates are the best band in the world.
then i bump into stan batcow at a dandelion adventure/pastels gig. i have got in for nothing by pretending to be mark flunder (a mutual friend of stephen pastel and me) and am greeted by a slightly confused stephen pastel with "yr not fuckin' mark"...the atmoshpere is broken by aggi saying "no, but he looks more like you than you do stephen" there are laughs all round until dandelion adventure soundcheck and my first words to stan are "you guys are great, you sound like the membranes"....

1989
- colgates play their last gig supporting rubella ballet of all people. i turned down the chance of supports with skeletal family and radical dance faction for, i think, obvious reasons.
- i get to know john robb who is a very nice man and very supportive.
- i print the "drugs not jobs" t-shirts for kilgore trout (as made famous by jason spaceman in an old issue of select magazine) and also the shirts for 14 iced bears.
- i run out of money. i get a job at a factory. one day a new guy starts and he's wearing a black flag t-shirt. i fall in love with him.
- his name is simon.
- there is one last attempt at keeping the colgates alive, including about 4 guitarists, drummer and drum machine, all sorts of crap. it is forgotten very quickly.
- start corresponding with moe tucker.

1990 - simon and i sit in a field and decide to start a band called pimp.

1991 - start a cassette label called inner psyche productions (later to be called thee foundation for nothing).

1992 - under the pretence that "i wanna start a group like the incredible string band" i split pimp up. i am thick.

1993 - 1997 - the 'wilderness years'. spent doing real-life stuff, recording, and little else.

1998 - meet keith adams of zuno men fame. i design the cover for one of their singles and get them a gig in falmouth where i am residing. i put a band together with simon and little dan. we are thee crayola 3.

1999 - horror. family stuff. not nice.

2000 - arrive fresh faced in london to work as press person at nation records. do nothing musical.

2002 - simon, now dubbed g* for all time, and i start kabuki kore. i move to italy.

2003
- return to london with a smattering of italian and a chip on my shoulder. start organising kabuki kore nights at the betsey trotwood in farringdon. join the mini version of the free french as bass player.

- put together a three piece band and call it sarandon with james of HOST and joe of the reverse playing drums and bass respectively. the band make crunchy catchy pop with all songs clocking in under 2 minutes long.

- there's a naked photo session for the future sperm brasil box set.

- record an exclusive song for kabukikore's "there is no hidden meaning" compilation. it's called "vacancy".

- sarandon go into the studio with scissorkicks (collapsed lung, junior blanks, pregnant neck) and record 7 songs for their first 7" which will be released on run out records in the uk and banazan in the usa.

- sarandon play their debut gig at the guided missile night in london. the set is 9 songs and 13 minutes long. everybody but everybody loves them.

- work on new projects with småkake. sarandon 7" album due out in october with a mini tour to follow.

- kabukikore release retrospective albums by colgates and pimp.

- second sarandon record released by banazan. it's another 7 track 7" and it's called the big flame.

- start organising kabukikore club nights at the firefly in leicester. first bill includes montana pete, keith john adams and sarandon.

- begin work on an album of duets with steve beresford.
- g* joins sarandon on drums.

- strike a deal with wrath records to release the next few sarandon records. the first is "the feminist third" 7 track 7".

2006
- a new sarandon mini album, "the june bride" released by wrath records with an album compiling all the sarandon mini albums being released later in the year.
excitingly, phil wilson of the june brides and alan brown of bIG fLAME join in on the new record both adding vocals.
- g* leaves sarandon and kabukikore is folded.

- start up new company called drinkMILK.
- stuffy joins sarandon as drummer.

2007
- alan brown joins sarandon as bass player and the new band play their first show in london before going into the studio to record a new EP. the record will be called "joe's record".
- tom greenhalgh replaces stuffy as sarandon drummer and the new line up record a cover of the june brides' "every conversation" to be released as a split 7" with phil wilson.
- start recording a full length sarandon LP for slumberland records. it is to be entitled, "KILL TWEE POP!" and will be released in spring 2008.