Time is a funny old thing isnt it.....I dreamed last night about all things 1984 & it ocurred to me that around 30 years ago my then-group The Dream Factory were getting ready to go into Grosvenor Studios in Handsworth to record our debut record, Wine & Roses. THIRTY years!?! I actually cant quite get my head round that if honest! Back in 1984 we were incredibly raw, not very tight & fashionably unfashionable but somehow we meant a great deal to a great number of people & to this day I am both in awe & grateful to the love & dedication shown to us by our followers. For some I think we kind of filled a gap in peoples musical lives that had been left by the demise of The Jam & the retreat of Dexys. In Tim we had a charming & forthright singer who connected instantly with the school of 84 & our music seemed to attract both scooter boys & mods of the time (& many others who had sod all to do with either scootering or the mod scene). Looking back at those times I cant quite believe how f*cked up, crazy & tough they were. Very gritty:& violent days with huge political & social unrest thanks to Maggie & that acrid atmosphere infiltrated into our lives as a band. Somehow the Dream Factory was caught up in the eye of the storm. We witnessed rioting, racism, blood-letting & when we played with Bad Manners & The Meteors at the race circuit at Donnington in June 1985, someone was even knifed. Scootering back in the mid 80s was just enormous: everyone seemed to be on a Vespa PX (or PK!!) or a Lambretta & that whole hotchpotch of different youth cultures was misunderstood & hated by the music press at the time. I shall never forget or forgive being stitched up good & proper by Sounds who had an alternative agenda when they featured us so prominently. Their largesse was of course largely a clandestine bid to stir up tribal hatred between scooter boys & mods but it taught me a hard lesson that has stood me in good stead ever since. The band was indie to the hilt in terms of our DIY aesthetic, our punkish attitude & it was ironic that by the time we actually DID get rather good a couple of years later & when we started to attract bigger labels, we lost out to the emerging Stone Roses...... The Dream Factory was a big part of my snotty adolescence. To this day I am touched by all those people who approach me to say how much we meant to them in their own formative years.
Posted on: Sun, 27 Jul 2014 17:35:46 +0000
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