In December '83 (after 3 years of messing around with local bands), I decided to enter OAK STUDIO in Belle Vue, Shrewsbury to start recording a tentative 3 track E.P. release (in the format of choice back then: Cassette). With local "entrepreneur" (must be careful with the legalise) Mick Stewart wearing the Production/Engineering hat, I asked a couple of good friends of mine to help me with the recordings. The plan was for me to provide the songs and first guitar with Paul "Fin" Findon providing second guitar and Dave Percox adding bass guitar and vocals. The drums were added by the studio drum machine (I think, although I do seem to remember bringing a portable beast to the proceedings). The 3 tracks on the PUSH E.P. were: PUSH, SUFFER YOUR AMBITION and FRONTIERS. Dave pulled off 2 great vocals on the first 2 tracks . For FRONTIERS .. we basically made it up on the spot .. and it's great! I've also added the 2 bonus cuts that I put on the 'B' side of the release: an instrumental version of SUFFER YOUR AMBITION and an alternate PUSH with yours truly playing the bass. Btw, PUSH was originally called TIMESCAPE (as is noted on the original demo cassette I found during the trawl to unearth all this "stuff"). After the cassingle came out, I met up with Les Briscoe (who happened to play the bass) and hunted out Dave Goodman (the future husband of an old school friend of mine) who played the drums and I knew he liked the same sort of music that I did at the time).
I'm not entirely sure, but I think we recruited Roger Corfield on vocals through an ad. Whatever the failing recollection, we all became pretty firm friends. It's from this lineup that the rest of the tracks on this BITE page are made up (before we evolved into GUNLAW). Next on the playlist are 2 songs we put down to tape during a rehearsal in one of the timber sheds at my old workplace: R.B.RICHARDS & SONS. Here we're playing PUSH and a new song: THE MASSACRE OF YOUTH. Before too long, we were back at OAK STUDIO recording WOLF, FRIENDS BEFORE LOVERS, THE MASSACRE OF YOUTH and a re-record of PUSH. All those first mixes .. we hated! We felt that they sucked big-style and we dumped THE MASSACRE OF YOUTH and PUSH, adding SOLDIER OF FORTUNE and recording some sax (from a bass player (no less) that we knew, called Charlie). For 25 years, I thought those original 1st mixes were wiped over, never to be heard from again, but in the vault search; I turned up a safety cassette with them on! After those lost gems, comes the band-approved final mixes of FRIENDS BEFORE LOVERS, SOLDIER OF FORTUNE and WOLF. These tracks were going to form the COMING IN FROM THE GLOOM vinyl E.P. We had covers made with artwork depicting a wolf, drawn by another pal; Colin Hawkins (who much later provided artwork for the PRODIGY's FIRESTARTER single). To form a little break between those 2 sessions, I've included a track of me noodling around on the guitar, that I found at the end of the tape. Due to the funds for pressing costs being squandered by "A.N. Other" (not a band member or friend thereof), COMING IN FROM THE GLOOM didn't get pressed up. The final batch for this page are the portastudio demos for BREAK, HEARTS & FLOWERS and THE ELITE, recorded by another friend of ours; Simon Colley. These were made at our rehearsal room in a village hall in Halfway House in Shropshire. All these songs were remastered at KEBABYLON STUDIO for optimum sound quality on the 10th November 2008. The songs were culled from a multitude of sources (7" Reels, Cassette, Minidisc) and sound better now then when they were first recorded.
