Huw ‘Shugs’ Davies Bass, Mark ‘Sybs’ Seabright Drums, Paul ‘Guivey’ Guiver Guitar, Gavin ‘Ol’ Man’ King Vocals.

The band was ‘really’ formed in the summer of ’78. GK had left his previous band Uncle Po – which included Helen O’Hara later of Dexys Midnight Runners – and one night attended a gig by the Wild Beasts, whose bass player Andy Franks became Robbie Williams and then Coldplay’s tour manager, while the drummer, Kenny Wheeler, owned Sound Conception Studios where we were to record most of our material.

GK: “I was watching the Beasts when  a couple of guys I knew slightly carried this bloke over to me – he was drooling and couldn’t stand up. They asked if I was still looking for someone to write with. ‘This guy’s brilliant’. They said he would come over to see me next week. Sure enough, next week I saw this bloke with a guitar outside my flat. I thought, I’m not letting him in, he’ll soon go away. But he didn’t. And I let him in and he stayed till about three in the morning, and we wrote half a dozen songs that night, including ‘She Said Go’. That was Paul Guiver.

We needed some collaborators though. Uncle Po’s ex-drummer, Jimmer Hill, ended up playing in Sneak Preview, who also appeared on Avon Calling. The main man behind that band was Neil Taylor, now Robbie William’s lead guitarist. Neil often played with the Dicks live and on a few recordings. Jimmer’s girlfriend cautiously mentioned that her young brother was in a band called The X-Spurtz and that they had parted company with their singer. They were very much a three-chord punk band, 15 or 16 years old. They recorded one notorious single I believe, ‘Rape’, about a serial rapist at large in the Clifton area of Bristol. Guivey and I drove down to see them in Somerset but weren’t particularly optimistic. However the rhythm section blew us away. They were shit hot. Sybs - the drummer - was stunning, even though he was only 16. And Shugs, the bass player, played a Gibson Grabber with the treble turned incredibly high, like Jean-Jacques of the Stranglers. The guitarist was a bit arty, and he was more into Siouxsie And The Banshees – which was ironic because later on, one of the guitarists who used to jam with us a lot was Jon Klein who became a Banshee after his time with Specimen.

This band – under the working title of Cliff Ton and The Trendies -  rehearsed down at The Docklands in St Paul’s, Bristol (the site of the Riots in 1981) and the other guitarist decided to move to London. The remainder of us were sat in the bar:

 PG: ‘Look, we’ve been trying to accommodate this guy, but Gav and I have a ton of material that doesn’t suit him. Do you want to give that a try? Pints finished, the band returned refreshed, we struggled through the Dub Disco to our rehearsal room - and gave ‘She Said Go’ a shot. Twenty minutes later we looked at each other in amazement at what had been achieved.

GK: Nowadays we are often asked about the origin of the band ‘s name. It appears that most youngsters see it in rather a different context than more aged folk, in a nudge-nudge way if you like. However, it came about in a far more innocent way. I was a big fan of Philip Marlow and made the guys watch Bogie in the title role. At one point he is asked ‘what are you some kinda cop ?’ He says ‘Me ? I’m a Private Dick’. We were searching for a name, we’d considered a few – The Plagiarists, Psychotesseracts amongst others -  but the words from Bogies lips just seemed to jump out of the screen at us. We all looked at each other and said ‘We ARE Private Dicks. (Umm, I think that drugs may have played a part in this also). That’s it’. The song Private Dicks (very tongue in cheek, thrown together for the B-side of She Said Go) was based around another Bogies movie which we thought drew some threads together. Lauren Bacal says to Bogie ‘If you want me just whistle . . . you know how to whistle dontcha ?’ That answers many people’s questions about the ‘whistling’ lyric on the song Private Dicks itself.

At the time I would say that Elvis Costello’s first album really inspired us apart from all the usual suspects. The song writing and delivery just blew us all away. As a child the first single I bought was ‘I Get Around, by the Beach Boys. I was a chorister and so learnt about harmonies at an early stage and that must be where my fascination  came from. Someone once likened us to a mix of the Hollies and Queen. Well the Hollies I’d take cos I just loved their harmonies but Queen? Do me a favour. I reckon it’s just that I had a (ahem) big voice and Mr Mercury weren’t much more than a shouter either (should I say that? He is dead and a national icon . . .).

We began to go through a ritual in rehearsal. Turn up, play those songs that had been rehearsed to satisfaction, run through them again – until satisfied – and then start work on a new one. This way we soon built up a well-rehearsed set of songs. After a few weeks it became obvious that we had something that was worth recording and got in touch with Ken Wheeler and booked an eight hour session one Saturday. It was eight weeks since the other guitarist had left and She Said Go worked out. We picked out three songs – She Said Go, Forget the Night and Green is in the Red. We worked so hard on getting these so well rehearsed that we could just play them live in the studio and get them down. Remember, this was really the first experience that the young guys had had of studio work. The songs were laid down in 8 hours and mixed the following Tuesday in 4 hours.

We couldn’t stop playing the tape. We dragged everyone and anyone back to listen to them. We honestly did think they were the bees knees (again I think drink and drugs may have coloured our opinion). However, we knocked on Simon Heartbeat’s door and played them to him and he immediately asked to put one of them on Avon Calling. Three days later he rang back and said ‘stuff putting She Said Go’ on the album I’m going to put it out as my next single’. One of our most explicit memories is going to the Music Machine to play a gig (to about six people) and before going on going over the road to a kebab shop to eat. They had Mike Read’s show on Radio 1 playing and as we were waiting to get served he played our single. Honest, it’s a feeling you can’t beat.

PG: The mainstay of our early days was the Crown pub situated in the centre of Bristol which had a dank “Cavernesque” old cellar bar run by an old German lady who greeted us as her “little darlinks”. It was often frequented by Biker’s who, after a while stopped trying to kill us. The deal at the Crown was that we would only receive payment if the bar showed a profit of something like £100. After three or four gigs, we packed the place and actually got paid! The Private Dicks were at that time a fast punky band just playing to its strengths really. After all I was actually a bass player and the drummer and bass player had no more than 12 months experience. However the song writing soon became the strong focal point and daily rehearsals suddenly saw us turn into more than three-chord wonders.

GK: After the great reception that our single received, we were on the verge of recording the follow up ‘Don’t follow my Lead’ when we played The Hope Chapel with Jon Klein guesting. In the audience was Simon from Heartbeat and afterwards he introduced us to one Mark Dean (see the introduction to Simon Garfield’s book ‘Expensive Habits). He didn’t actually say ‘I’m gonna make you stars boys’, but he did say that he could see our faces plastered over millions of girls walls, t-shirts etc. He invited us to breakfast at the Holiday Inn the next day where he presented us with a sample contract to take away with us. He would negotiate a release from Heartbeat and get us signed and in the studio double-quick. I should have known better with my experience and should have kept the young guys feet on the ground. As it was I was the one who led the hugging and singing in the Holiday Inn bog.

We immediately did what was natural to us and went to the Kenny in Redland to celebrate the news. After a good session we reached the notorious Elmgrove squat (see The Elmgrove Story below) in the pouring rain, the contract fell out of the grip of a drunken guitarist, into the rain soaked gutter.  Said guitarist accidentally trod on it leaving his dirty size nine footprint on the front.  It was just like we didn’t value it instead of it being the most important thing that had ever happened to any of us. As it was treating it like a piece of shite was actually very appropriate (again, see Simon Garfield’s book ‘Expensive Habits’ and the problems that signing exactly the same contract caused for George Michael and Andrew Ridgley).

By this time we were in all probability totally out of control, rehearsals a distraction from going to the (again notorious) Dug Out and getting laid. We did manage to fit in our best ever gig at The Granary – a benefit for Cambodia – but once Mark Dean got involved he steered us in all sorts of wrong directions. If I had managed to stay straight long enough then I would have been able to ensure he was steering in the direction that I knew we should be going. As it was I was an arsehole. We did however manage a Radio 1 session which was recorded in January 1980.

The memory of this event is a little different for all of us. I remember the session going really well – the version of ‘Don’t follow My Lead’ on the Homelife album shows how powerful the session was. However, it deteriorated when we couldn’t get the tuning correct for an overdub and Chris ‘Wyper’ Lycett who was producing began to run out of patience. In fact when you consider that Sybs forgot his cymbals (he gate crashed a recording of the BBC Concert orchestra to blag some) and that the only memories the rhythm section have are of wheelbarrow races up and down the corridors, flicking peas at Kate Bush in the BBC canteen and as usual, being pissed for the whole experience, I feel were lucky to come out with something they could broadcast. As I say (thank you David O’Leary) ‘arseholes’.

PG: My memory was that I was laying down guitar overdubs for 'catalogue girls," I could not get the guitar in tune. It would be fair to say that I always tuned guitars by ear and that the tuning of all the Dicks recordings varied subsequently. I tried, Franksy(Tour manager) tried and anyone who might have walked past a guitar shop in their life had a go, with no joy.

Franksy returned with a big grin on his face and with a metal object in his hand, I looked puzzle. To an uncultured punk/new wave guitarist it might well have been the last remaining egg of the Dodo and about as much use. "What that the fuck am I supposed to do with that" I asked. With that Franksy struck it on the edge of a grand piano sitting in the studio and stabbed on its body." Its a tuning fork you tosser,  try tuning your guitar to it". Well that didn't help either.

We did however finish the overdubs to "Catalogue Girls" with an out of tune guitar, I think the guitar was getting its own back for me thrashing the living daylights out it for years. The session was played 3 times during 1980 and I cringed every time I heard "catalogue girls". Luckily there isn't a copy of that session in existence, as the BBC destroyed the session  some time in the eighties.

GK: Although if you know different . . . rumour has that King of the Loan – John Ashton – took the only copy . . . I’ll ask him when he gets parole (sorry John).

Whilst hearing the session broadcast (ignoring the tuning problem) was such a thrill we were being badgered to sign Mark Dean’s contract. I wanted him to first put money into the band (he wanted us to move to London and survive by servicing ladies for money – allegedly) so that we could rehearse with a sound and lighting crew. He just said sign or I walk. I told him the contract was crap and that  refusal by me led to his departure and to the inevitable arguments and finally a quick flounce out the door by the singer (I’m a good flouncer me). Oh, and hey, 30 years later they’ve forgiven me enough to play with me again – they say I’m still the same arsehole tho’).

The Legend that is NIGHTMARE ON ELMGROVE

Cast of additional characters

Franksy – Tour manager of Robbie Williams et al. Prepared himself for life on Depeche Mode’s notorious Notorious tour with a tour of duty at Elmgrove.

Flattop – aka Sean McLusky, now big in the music biz (hopefully not as a lawyer)

Jon Klein – Sometime Dick, later Banshees guitarist. More bounce to the ounce.

John Ashton – One-time Dicks roadie, driver of the ‘Tardis’. Now a big noise in art. Reformed (hopefully) kleptomaniac

Wogie: Man with the Juice (electric that is, no one else in the house had any)

Barry the dead Badger: self-explanatory

Pete the One-Eyed Pigeon: again, self-explanatory

Hippie Steve: Occasional roadie. Vegetarian. Now missing in action.

[SCENE 1: FREE RANGE FLATTOP]

Paul Guiver: “He was known as Flattop because of his hair-style. He used to comb it with a spirit level, if I remember correctly.”

Shugs: “Flattop was a prick who nicked my bass speaker cabinet (well, the one I borrowed from Syb's dad four years earlier). So anything that happened to him was just plain funny. Being the drummer in the Stingrays then JoBoxers should have been punishment enough, but not for us. One night after the Dug Out we decided to pay him a visit. He lived in the basement of our building and when I say 'our', this is how we felt. Just us and ‘the others' - hippies and/or Flattop in the basement. We had the next three floors and there was a couple of lesbian doctors on the top floor (at least, Sybs said there were lesbian doctors on the top floor, but I never saw anyone coming or going in the years I lived there). We all ran down to the basement at 2am, shouting that we were going to break in and kill him, cause he was a wanker, etc. Sort of open up and we won't hurt you too much, kind of thing. No answer. So we kicked the door in, ran into his bedroom, where we found him (can't remember if his weird girlfriend was there or not – [she was GK]), cowering in the corner. We suddenly felt a bit sorry for him – and then got over it. We threw all the eggs we could find in his kitchen at him. There were a lot of eggs for some reason and, although pissed, our aim was spot on

[SCENE 2: PETE THE PIGEON & MRS D’s CHOCOLATE CAKE]

Shugs: “Pete was a one-eyed pigeon who walked in through an open window one day and never left. He lived off the tons of food left lying around the flat, mostly on the floor and in people’s hair and clothes when we had a Mrs D's Chocolate Cake eating contest (more of which later). Pete lived behind the bog in the only bathroom and came out once in a while to see if we were all still alive. It used to amuse us when visiting women, well girls, well, tarts mostly, went in for a leak and while they were sat prone, as it were. Pete would appear from between their legs and walk around in circles, cooing. The circles bit was because he only had one eye and with it being on the side of his head . . . well, you can work it out. The screams were anticipated with bated breath and enjoyed with much mirth.”

“A Mrs D chocolate cake eating contest is when I came back from a visit home (for clean washing and money) with one of my Mum's famous HUGE chocolate cakes - chocolate sponge filled with chocolate icing and topped with . . . more chocolate. They were about the size of a small television. Sybs, Guivey and me would clear a space at the table, sit down and cut the cake into three HUGE slices. Then on the count of three (we didn't usually stick to the agreed 'start' rules), start stuffing as much as possible in our mouths. The first one to eat a whole slice won. No-one ever won because the rules didn't forbid making the others laugh, tickling them, throwing things at them or even punching them in the gob. We did all of this, mostly pissing ourselves laughing and on a couple of occasions, just pissing ourselves. Have you ever tried to get chocolate icing out of the crack of your arse while trying to eat as fast as you can? Once we calmed down, we would all go off to the pub and leave Pete [see above] to clear up the evidence. The lads always thanked Mrs D for the cake though, and she never had the slightest idea why suggestions such as 'would you like a walnut cake next' were always turned down.”

GK: “There was the time when our roadie Hippy Steve went away. Cos he was a veggie the Elmgrove reprobates turned his flat into a budgie cage complete with painted bars on the walls, millet, a ladder and a bell. Elmgrove eventually got condemned, the public health people found a dead badger in the Dicks’ kitchen. This is the same Barry the Badger that Sybs decided to dance with one night but his paws fell off (Barry that is)”.

Shugs: “John Ashton was a fantastic artist. He once painted a space scene across an entire partition wall in Elmgrove. Took it with him when he moved out. It's then that the Kebab wrapper-mountain in the kitchen tumbled into the lounge and we found Barry, the dead badger. Ash was an amateur taxidermist, who brought animals back to the flat for stuffing (in a non-sexual way), put them in the kitchen, and forgot about them. The five-foot high level of takeaway food wrappers hid them for a long time (we did notice a bit of a smell though). Ash left Bristol in typical form. A guy called Waders wanted to sell his old BMW and Ash said he would buy it. Asked Waders if he could borrow it to go to the bank to get the money, drove off and moved to Devon immediately. Ian Greenwood, or 'Angry' to his mates, when landlord of The Kenny' used to open the till as soon as Ashton walked in and would get out a tenner for him. Ian said he would only borrow it anyway or ask for a 'slate', so it just saved time and another bloody sob story about lost Giro's, rip-off merchants or some other half arsed excuse.”

GK: “He was ALWAYS borrowing and owing money which pissed off a lot of people. He needed some business cards printed to start a business. I knew someone who rushed them through for him. I laughed when he tried to pay by cheque. He said “what kind of bastard do you think I am. You’ve done me a great favour, you’ve helped me to start a business to feed my family. Do you think I would reward you with a bouncing cheque?” BOING! Two years later he needed his teeth fixing. My wife was everyone’s dentist _we had a massive following of pissed dentists from Bristol Dental School (hello Andy Toy) – and against her better judgement she fixed Ashton’s teeth. You’d think we’d learn wouldn’t you? BOING! Some years later a bank started a massive billboard campaign to promote the bank, which showed a chequebook with the prominent name 'John Ashton' on the cheque. I always like to think that this was the ironic humour of one of his victims - there were big ad agencies in Bristol.”

[SCENE 3: KLEIN TAKES FLIGHT]

Paul Guiver: “Johnny Klein fell from a three-floor house at one of our wild parties at Elmgrove. I think at the time, he thought he was Superman. He unfortunately broke his back, ankles and jawbone in the fall, and could not be operated upon for two days due to the amount of alcohol and other substances in his blood.”

Gavin King: “Truth was that Paul Guiver got fed up with the others arriving back from the Dug Out pissed up and jumping all over him and his girlfriend. So, to stop them this particular night, he nailed battens across his bedroom door. Miffed, Shugs, Sybs, Kleiny, John Ashton and a few others decided to break into his bedroom by tunnelling through the bedroom wall. This was taking too long for Kleiny and he decided that he could swing from the drainpipe - three storeys up - swing out and around, and smash through Guivey's window, just like the movies. He told us at the Avon Calling re-launch that he remembers the fall incredibly clearly and that, yes, his life did flash before him. He still has nightmares of the fall and can tell when it's going to rain cos his scars hurt badly.

We're not sure how long it was before the guys noticed he was missing. Someone looked out the window and saw him lying on the grass. They called for him to get up thinking he'd walked down to the garden to get some fresh air and had passed out. First, they tried a spitting competition to see how close they could get and then, yes, a pissing contest. It was only when he didn't move that someone said 'I think there's blood coming out of his mouth'. Shugs ran and called an ambulance. Gave Kleiny's name and when it was reported to the police, all shit broke loose cos they recognised the name. John's dad was a senior copper! How the fuck they didn't get banged up for attempted murder, I'll never know. John told us at the re-launch that his Dad told him - just before he died last summer - that when he turned up at the hospital John was on a trolley in the corridor. When he asked why he was told 'Well, he’s not going to make it - there's no hurry.’ The first thing I knew about this was when I turned up in our local base, a pub in Redland called the Kenny on Saturday lunchtime. The guys were already getting stuck into their hairs of dogs and I asked them why it was they kept standing on the seats, falling to the ground and then all cracking up.  They said it was a new dance - 'Doing the Kleiny'. 

Shugs: “A few corrections! It was a party and nothing to do with going through the wall (that was another night when me and Sybs smashed a big hole through the wall between Sybs and Guivey's bedrooms with our heads). Jon just decided to climb across the wall from one window to another (he liked rock climbing as a youngster). Problem was there was no foot or handholds and he was three storeys up. Anyway, as he was pissed or stoned or both, he decided to jump across. Missed!” However, the spitting and pissing contest is all true, I’m afraid. I phoned for the ambulance from the phone box on Gloucester Road (less than five minutes away). When I got back there were already three police cars there, including dog handlers. I don’t remember ‘doing the Kleiny’? Did you make that up?

Gavin King: “No, I didn’t! I was sober, you were still out of it from the night before but with no idea of the seriousness of the situation until much later.”

Paul Guiver: “I have to confess I shamefully remember doing the "Kleiny" in the Kenny and the spitting etc. I think it was me and Sybs.”

Shugs: “Did Gavin mention that on 'Jonny Klein Flight Night', John Ashton was seen by everyone - except the ten cops stood next to him - trying to hide the motorbike he had stolen a few days before, under an old blanket in the garden. About 10 feet away from Jon 'White Men Can't Jump' Klein.

Gavin King: “The thing with Ashton and the bike was that we all suspected he had nicked it but he denied it until he was blue in the face. Swearing furiously that he would never, ever do such a thing because it could get the whole band into trouble. And there he is, with Kleiny lying betwixt life and death, ten coppers facing the other way, and him quietly pushing the bike off into the distance.

[SCENE 3: WOGIE’S NIGHTMARE]

Gavin King: “Wogie lived in the room downstairs. Elmgrove had no electricity except in Wogie's flat. Every weekend he would go home to Ma and Pa's mansion outside Bristol and upon returning would have to retrieve all his electrical goods from upstairs and disconnect the extension lead that had been run upstairs to power them. One day he turns up in [local pub] the Kenny, ashen-faced. ‘You all right?’ ‘Nah, I've had the most appalling dream. I was flying over a funeral procession. I followed and followed it until they lowered the coffin in the ground. I watched them fill the grave in. After all had left, I swooped down to find out who was in the grave and it was me!’ Man, he was so freaked. So much so that, that evening, he got very, very drunk and had to be carried home from the Dug Out. The boys put him to bed and then one of them remembered the dream. First they emptied his wardrobe and placed it over him, door open, just like a coffin. They then placed everything, chest of drawers, tables etc, on top of it so it would be impossible to just shove the wardrobe off. They were woken by a hysterical Wogie screaming, running around the house threatening murder.”

Shugs:  New Year’s Eve 1979 we decided the only place to eat at 4am was the motorway services. We all piled into the van, drove across the Clifton Suspension Bridge on the wrong side, taking all the crash barriers out en route and went to the Services on the M4 near the Severn Bridge. Went in and there was not many people about, except a few bored workers behind the counter. So the only thing to do, well, it was New Year’s Eve - was to have a food fight. Jelly, custard, chips, fried eggs, gravy etc, all flying though the air. Bloody funny. Big Steve (who I think is a Dentist now) lay down on the floor by the entrance to the cafeteria with the drum stool base and a tom-tom drum arm, playing Commando, and shooting anyone who wanted to come in. Then he was sick on the floor. Someone shouted 'cop car outside' so we all left (the women behind the counter were laughing though) back to the van. En route, we passed the cops walking in (no one had phoned them, they were just on their break I guess. So we did what we did best. Let all their tyres down and ran away. Back over the Suspension bridge on the wrong side, taking the one remaining barrier out. Home to bed at 7am, up at 11am for the pub and a brand new 1980.”

Various other stories come to mind: the world record attempts for emptying the contents of a living room into a street from three floors up for one.

Suffice it to say that it was probably a great relief to so many people the day the inhabitants of Elmgrove arrived home to find the place boarded up and chained.

Happy Days.

And now? Well, in 2007 we started to be contacted via circuitous routes by fanzines, radio stations and people who wanted to know what we were up to. Someone told us to get a MySpace page up and running and from that gig requests have been coming in from Bordeaux, Italy, Japan, New York, San Francisco.

Our Homelife album has been released on VINYL in Italy and has sold like hot vinyl. So much so we have been persuaded to record a new album to be called ‘Exiles in Neverland’ which we are halfway through. Hey . . . you’re a long time dead. In the final analysis, it is just so gratifying to know that something you do actually does mean something to someone (and mostly youngsters at that). Roll on the bus pass.