The Fashion Plague / Cheam

Catalogue Number - GIL 519

Label - Lightning Records

Year Of Release - 1978


Above is the original two page press release that promo copies of the single was sent out with.


Geno Buckmaster Guitar & Vocals	Colin Swan Bass & Vocals	John Clarkson Keyboards	Gary Hurley Drums
In Battersea Park, London 1978

"Not that much is known about THE EXITS. They were a South London Power Pop band, formed in 1977, based in Battersea and Tooting. By the spring of 1978 they’d released the now extremely rare ‘Fashion Plague’ single on the Lightning Records label, who at the same time were enjoying unexpected chart success with Althia and Donna’s ‘Uptown top ranking’. The single climbed to Number 7 in the punk/new wave charts in June 1978. The band’s two main composers Colin Swan and Geno Buckmaster, were writing some powerful pop tunes, a kind of Costello meets Townshend via Graham Parker hybrid, and were attracting some good reviews. The band performed a few gigs in the Croydon, Battersea and the Twickenham area, plus a showcase gig at the London Dungeon on April 14th. 1978, with the late Screaming Lord Sutch headlining. The Exits set at this time was made up of around 10 originals, and a couple of covers, which included ‘I think we’re alone now’ ‘Halfway to Paradise’, ‘Slow down’ and ‘Tin soldier’ Among the ten or so originals, mainly written by Colin Swan and Geno Buckmaster, were some quality tunes. Plans were made by Lightning Records to begin recording an album in the early part of 1979.... so what happened next?

During the autumn and winter of 1978, the band rehearsed their own material, ready to begin work on the projected album over Christmas, and into the January of 1979. The Exits were playing a residency during this period, at the Ferryboat Inn on Hampton Court bridge promoting the material from their ‘forthcoming album’, which at that point were nothing more than a handful of decent demos. Amongst them were ‘FOOL TO FALL IN LOVE’, ‘INDEX LINKED’ ‘LOVERS TALK’, ‘ROOM NO. 7’ ‘MUSIC FROM YOUR RADIO’, ‘HOLIDAY SHOTS’ and ‘KEEP ON TRYIN’ which was slated as the next single. Over the following months, it became apparent that Lightning records were backing away from the New Wave, and back into it’s more familiar territory of wholesale record suppliers, mainstream music was accelerating into the lucrative emerging soul disco market. Frustrated by the lack of progress, and the lack of live venues which were quickly becoming disco haunts coupled with the doomed album, The Exits finally imploded, and split up for good during the Autumn of 1979.

Sadly, apart from the Fashion Plague single, most of the material never progressed much past four track demos, but the Swan/Buckmaster originals demonstrate the early workings of what was to follow.

These are the historical recordings that will make up this fabulous EXITS compilation (shown above). It’s all we have left of a great band ,who deserved a whole lot better. What is apparent from listening to early test pressings of this CD, is that The Exits material progressed leaps and bounds in a six month period, from the two songs which made up their one and only single and until now, their only commercially available output. Two years on from the EXITS last stand at The Ferryboat Inn Hampton Court, Buckmaster and Swan re-loaded and re-emerged all guns blazing as The Direct Hits. The rest as they say, is mod history"

Jimmy Henderson

"When I think about being in that band, it was much more Geno’s group. I suppose that’s because he asked me to join, and it was sort of already formed. Listening to this stuff again almost 30 years on, the songs were a lot harder edged than I remember. I mostly put that down to being angry young men, but also Geno’s influences were harder edged than mine. I’d been listening to The Beatles and The Monkees, and not much else since I was seven, whereas he went straight in at ‘The Slider’ and then ‘The Man Who Sold the World’ which I found a bit hard to digest, even though ‘The White Album’ was pretty avant-garde. The funny thing is, around 1980, I gave Geno all the Beatles albums to listen to, and he gave me all the Who’s albums, which we both got into and that’s how we arrived at The Direct Hits, that was the ingredients. From 1976 onwards, like most other bands after the Pistols arrived, we began to write in that angry vein, which the song ‘Cheam’ was all about, although I find it pretty embarrassing and naive now. After the single came out, we began to compose more sort of, clever clever. ‘You’d better leave her alone’ ‘Index linked’ ‘Fool to fall in love’ it wasn’t until I went back and listened to these songs that I realised how far we’d progressed from ‘The Fashion Plague’ which was just nonsense pop really, I think the original idea of ‘the Fashion page’ (which is included in this set) was much more subtle.

It’s a pity we never got to record this stuff in a proper, grown recording studio, although I still think these cleaned up, remastered demos sound great. We were peaking at about that period, and as a live band, The Exits were pretty powerful. I loved the keyboard as the third instrument. We talked about bringing keyboards into The Direct Hits after the ‘Blow Up’ album, but somehow it never happened. The Exits blew apart from the inside, because the personalities were so different. We would barrack each other all the time, there was always the feeling that something could kick off at any moment. I suppose it was a pretty volatile band really which is why the sound is not a relaxed sound, it’s an anarchic sound, which is how I remember being in The Exits. ‘The Fashion Plague’ has appeared on quite a few mod compilations since, which must’ve been cut from the record ‘cause the 1/4” reel master tape is still in my bottom draw!"

Colin Swan -
January 2007


Gary Hurley	John Clarkson & Geno Buckmaster
Live at the "Dungeon"


John Clarkson	Gary Hurley
At rehearsals