A brief history of the band

Formed in the summer of 1986, the original line up being Simon Thorpe - Vocals, Nick "Arfur" Penny - Guitar, Shaggy - Bass and Andrew "Dr Rhythm" Plank - Drums. Simon, Andrew and Shaggy all worked at Hayden's Bakery. The first songs attempted were covers of Black Sabbath's Paranoid and The Damned's New Rose. After drawing inspiration from Shaggy's attempts to write songs with Robert McTaggart in the third year at St. John's School, they came up with 'New Generation'. This was a song written by Shaggy and Robert, but the lyrics needed changing a little. This was the start of a promising musical career. 'Trouble' was next off the production line, with all members chipping in with ideas. Apparently, the guitar riff is from a Fuzzbox song. Third, and most regrettably, came 'White Lies,' lyrics written by Shaggy in a lunch hour in Marlborough Priory Gardens on the back of a Waitrose paper bag. It took about half an hour, and boy does it show. Arfur wrote the music the following Saturday at practice in a similar amount of time.

Two more songs followed in quick succession, showing Arfur's anti-war stance, 'Battle Cry' and 'Our World." In addition to these, were cover versions of The Damned's 'Nasty', and an attempt at Dr & the Medics version of 'Spirit in the Sky.' Unfortunately, the timing of the vocals on Spirit in the Sky was slightly too much for Simon, so it was promptly discarded.

Our First Gig

Marlborough Town Hall - 3rd Jan 1987
Our first gig was supporting The Suburban Reptiles, a local band who had built up a following for about 3yrs. The set list was Battle Cry, Our World, New Generation, Nasty, White Lies, Trouble and Paranoid.

1987 saw us play three more gigs on April 11th (Gunjur Gig), April 25th ( Marlborough Town FC) and May 23rd (Carnival Aid.) We also wrote three more songs, "On The Edge," "Big Ego" and "The Martyr". The riff for The Martyr was taken from a video arcade game, whose name escapes me at present. At this point, Arfur also left the band to join Loth Lorien. He was replaced by Simon Roff.

1988 saw two more songs written, "Destroyer" and "Vigilante" Destoyer was dedicated to Margaret Thatcher, and Vigilante was written when a friend of the band was beaten up by four "Brave" guys. We only played one gig that year on July 1st at Marlborough Youth Centre. This was Simon Roff's one and only gig with Room 101.

1989 was a quiet year. No new songs and two gigs. Simon Thorpe had switched to guitar and Chris Gardener had joined on vocals. We played our first out of town gig in Billericay, Essex on December 30th. The after gig party was at The Pink Toothbrush in Rayleigh, and Chris managed to knock over a whole table of drinks. I don't think he was too popular.

1990 started fine. We played at Lockeridge village hall on February 17th. This was to be the last gig with all four members. On the 10th March we had a gig at Axford Hall, but Simon was away that night, so Shaggy attempted the guitar, and Huw Morgan stepped in to play Bass, without learning any of the songs beforehand. It wasn't the disaster that it could have been. On April 7th, we again played at Lockeridge village hall, but Andrew was on the Gambia exchange, and so Haydn Warren agreed to deputise. Andrew didn't take too kindly to this, and the band fizzled out.