CHAPTER 3: You Need Songs Kids
We had song titles, ideas, but no songs yet. Its often the best way to develop. You play your favourite covers and gradually your own original sound starts to mutate.
One song started to take over. Endless versions of BE BOP A LULA in dub. A sort of stretched dubbed up groove using a Roland 301 Space Echo for the vocals. It had a
kind of Public Image bass like Wobble because we loved PILs album Metal Box, another big influence. We recorded endless versions into the PortaStudio.
While we developed our Rock and Roll vision we continued to look for new “stars” to complete the band. Me, X and Degville became a familiar sight around town, back in the cafe, all still hanging out at Deg 's Kensington Market shop YaYA every Saturday afternoon, just watching kids go by... looking and waiting for fate to once again give us a sign.
We were rehearsing one weekend when I had a call from my old friend Christopher Gierke who managed Thunders. Could I bring a guitarist and drummer over and do a show with Johnny at Gibus club in Paris? He’d send tickets. I told him about the band I had rehearsing and Christopher said well bring Degville as well. We all stayed at a flat belonging to a friend of Christopher’s, sleeping on the floor, the band’s first Rock and Roll nights in Paris. It also became the first time the early Sputnik would ever play together, as Degville got up after Thunder’s set and we jammed three songs. The audience had never seen anything like it.
