They wound everyone up, Lisa loving every minute of being a star... it was a John Waters vision come to life - canned off after 2 minutes at Kingston Polytechnic, the worst was yet to come.
Somehow they became part of the whole madness. I used to sit in the back of the tour bus marveling that I could have created such a monster. I can hear Lisa's insane laugh even now, culminating in the night we stopped in a truck stop to get drinks at 1a.m. and I found Lisa standing on top of a table waving her huge tits at irate truckers shouting "you want this then...you wankers..." then the police arrived as X was taking a leak in the car park... marvellous!
It all adds to the vibe. Even the support act was like no one else. The Sputnik Mad World was beginning to take shape and it was all still underground, outside the mainstream media and radio.
But not for long.
I was looking through my archive of Sputnik photos the other day and I found an early picture of one of the bands first London shows which we played at the Electric Cinema in Portobello road. I remember it well, especially as I had the whole event filmed by Dan Donovan, Don Letts and Magenta.
It was a legendary event. We'd done one of our first pieces in the NME with a brilliant photo shot, again with Derek Ridgers, at the Hippodrome nightclub with the massive Close Encounters Lights behind us. We used to hang out there too, listening to Thriller and Idol’s songs, waiting our turn to have a record on the decks one day.
Peter Stringfellow always believed in us and let us in for free and with free drinks at his table. Degville loved that. Anyway, there was a 2 page piece in NME out on Thursday, the gig the next day at the Electric on Friday.
That Friday afternoon 11 record companies, all London’s majors, phoned us up to ask to be on the guest list. I actually filmed all those A&R men trouping in to see the show myself.
As support act we showed the S&M film "Maitress" (it’s got Gerard Depardieu in it).
And there, in the very front row of the gig was a deathly white face staring up at X playing guitar. It was Johnny Thunders himself come to us his blessing.
