Oddie Ordish

Reminisces...

 

Formed out of the ashes of 'The Guernsey Flowers', then changing their name to 'The Amazing Doctor Octopuss' before settling on 'Lockjaw'. The first ever gig was under the name of 'The Guernsey Flowers' and it was at 'St Francis' Church Hall, Balcombe Road  in Horley. For a laugh we put a load of confetti in a cardboard box over the stage. It was my idea of special effects!! What we didn't realise that earlier in the day, the box had contained flowers from Guernsey, and this was actually printed on the side of the box!!! These special effects (or not as the case was...) lead the audience (one man and his dog with a few Hippies chucked in for good measure)  led to a slight misunderstanding. The upshot was, the assumption we were called 'The Guernsey Flowers' ... Not the best name for a young well 'ard Punk band starting out in those days! It took ages to shake off this name but thinking back it was a good old larf...

In our two year existence, we recorded many tracks for 'Lee Wood's' "Raw Records" and managed to release two singles on his label. The first being 'Radio Call Sign' which was actually written by our faithful Van Driver / Roadie come Manager 'Dave Gallup', the older brother to 'Simon Gallup'. The label actually credited a 'D. Gallot' but this was a typing error. The follow up single was 'Journalist Jive'. Unfortunately, the other studio recorded tracks have been lost in time......or have they? It would be good if we could track down the masters to all these tracks, or good quality versions so that we could release then as a retrospective release and actually make a little dosh as we never saw a penny from Lee Wood!!!

When we were gigging as 'Lockjaw' we used to play with another local band called "Easycure". We used to play under the heading of "I KNOW AN EASYCURE FOR LOCKJAW". A year later they dropped the 'Easy' and became 'The Cure' and we changed our name to the "The Magazine Spies" or just Mag/Spys.

Just as the 'The Cure' were breaking, the band were invited to support 'The Specials' in Paris so a few members of the 'Mag/Spys went along as roadies for them.

Sadly, the Mag/Spys wasn't really in existence that long as things were really taking off for the other local band  The Cure' as they had just been signed to 'Fiction Records' and 'Mick Dempsy' has just left and his space needed filling. So 'Robert Smith' asked 'Simon Gallup' & Matthieu Hartley' if they would like to join The Cure. Sadly that was the last time we saw those two for many years!

Years later, I went on 'Head On The Door' tour with 'The Cure' and Robert Smith ponced a fiver from me....I suppose some things never change!

 

The rest is history so to speak....

 

Martin "Oddie" Ordish
8th January 2006

 

 

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