Nottingham group circa 1973/79. A mix of keyboard and guitar driven rock with some prog sensibilities.

One of the founder members Jos Burton told me about their beginnings including photos:
The band originally formed in 1973 when four school friends at what was then Arnold High School got together pretending to be Deep Purple. The original members were Ian Johnson on guitar, Andrew (Ted) Taujanskas on keyboards, Jos Burton on bass and Steve (Billy) Barnard on drums and lead vocals. Nick Brown joined as the main vocalist in 1975. The band played a mix of covers and original pieces at several school performances and a few local gigs in Arnold – by which point they’d got the bug.

The drummer, Steve Barnard left in 1975 to go to the Royal College of Music studying percussion – he went on to become the principal timpanist at the National Orchestra of Wales and is now (2025) the longest serving professional timpanist in the UK.

In 1975 Ian and Ted left and were replaced by Andy Moseley on guitar and Graham (Kerry?) on drums. They were now writing and performing more original material but only played a handful of gigs in Nottingham before Nick and Graham (K) left to be replaced by Ben Ross on drums (from Mench and The Galactic Symposium) late in 1976.

Simon Husbands joined in 1977 (from Mench and The Galactic Symposium) and when Ben Ross moved away he was replaced by Graham (Grez) Tuck on drums. This line up remained stable for the next three years or so playing all original material at numerous gigs in the midlands area. They had residencies at the Imperial, the Mint Bar and the Hearty Goodfellow as well as one-off gigs at pubs and clubs all over the region.

Hear them on YouTube here.

Line up #1 1973-75
Ian Johnson: Guitar
Andrew (Ted) Taujanskas: Keyboards
Jos Burton: Bass
Steve (Billy) Barnard: Drums, Lead vocals

Line up #2 1975
Ian Johnson: Guitar
Andrew (Ted) Taujanskas: Keyboards
Jos Burton: Bass
Steve (Billy) Barnard: Drums
Nick Brown: Lead vocals

Line up #3 1975
Andy Moseley : Guitar
Jos Burton: Bass
Graham (Kerry): Drums
Nick Brown: Lead vocals

Line up #4 1976
Andy Moseley : Guitar
Jos Burton: Bass
Ben Ross: Drums

Line up #5 1977
Andy Moseley : Guitar
Jos Burton: Bass
Ben Ross: Drums
Simon “Sy” Husbands: Keyboards

Line up #6 1977-79
Andy Moseley : Guitar
Jos Burton: Bass
Graham (Grez) Tuck: Drums
Simon “Sy” Husbands: Keyboards

Pete Shepherd: Saxophone (Occasional Guest)

Keyboard player Simon Husbands had been in Nottingham group Mensch from 1971 to 1977. At the end of 1977 Gwaihir playing the local circuit at places like The Imperial, Club Malibu (Sy Husbands “That was a fun place. We put our band logo on the skateboard concrete, fun times!”) and the Outlaws Bar. In the late summer of 1979 they changed their name to Zero-iD and shortened the songs giving them a more pop sound.

Four tracks by Gwaihir were recorded in 1978 and were released in 2023 and can be heard on Spotify, iTunes or a YouTube playlist here. Some of the Gwaihir stuff was done at Paddy Flynn’s Rainbow studio and the later stuff was done at Byron Sacorophos’ place in Mapperley Park, Sin City – which became Network Studios on Forest Road.

Beautiful Girls
Fat Men With Tingling Fingertips
Go-Go for Broke
I Didn’t Get Where I Am

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Jos Burton: A bio

Childhood

Jos was born at home in Clifton in 1958 but moved to Sherwood shortly after in 1960, and then to Woodthorpe in 1968 where he has lived ever since. Jos was originally named Jonathan but was calling himself Jos at school and the name has stuck ever since. His first school was Seely Primary on Perry Road, Sherwood, where he started playing the violin from 7 years old. He joined the Nottingham Youth Orchestra and was their joint-youngest player along with Sarah Middleton (daughter of the famous local writer, Stanley Middleton). Jos continued playing violin up to grade 5 (equivalent to O-level?) both practical and theory – even though he wasn’t particularly great at either – but they did help him musically later…

Early Influences

Jos’ father (John Burton) loved classical music, he played the piano and sang classical pieces but never really enjoyed much from the 20th century onwards, not even ‘modern’ classical music. However, through his job as a physiotherapist at the Cedars Rehabilitation Unit (on Mansfield Road in Sherwood) he brought home singles from their ‘exercise to music’ sessions once the patients got bored with them – so there was a steady stream of records that Jos had not heard on the radio or telly and couldn’t have come across otherwise. The key stuff Jos remembers that had an early influence were the obvious ones from the 60s: The Monkees, The Beach Boys, The Hollies, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and of course, The Who – only the greatest rock band of all time!

Adolescence

It wasn’t until Jos got to secondary school at Arnold High School (then the county grammar school) in 1969 that he discovered Deep Purple – indeed the first album he bought with his own money was Deep Purple In Rock – and it was around this time that he knew he wanted to be a bass player. Incidentally, the second album he bought was Hunky Dory by David Bowie. By 1972 Jos was taking music O-level along with two friends: Steve Barnard and Andrew Taujanskas, and they talked about forming their own band. They asked another friend, Ian Johnson if he was interested in playing guitar – and the rest of that story is continued in Gwaihir’s backstory elsewhere. 1973 was something of a musical turning point for Jos: he was introduced to Dark Side Of The Moon, Close To The Edge, and Quadrophenia – and became aware that there was so much more to contemporary music than just the 3-minute, 3-chord wonders that they heard on Top of the Pops!

Student Years

In 1976 Jos went to the Nottingham School of Art (then part of Trent Polytechnic) which was another pivotal time for him. He quickly found out that being good at drawing wasn’t the same as being good at Art. But he did however get to meet some great people many of whom were also musicians and the various synergies proved to be really productive. It was here that he met Ben Ross who introduced him to Simon Husbands and Grez Tuck – and things really started to take off for them musically from that point. They were able to develop their own musical style rather than imitating others – and the freedom to be themselves was hugely creative. Jos finally dropped out from Art School 2 years later, following many of his musical heroes, rather than stay on and pretend to be something he wasn’t!

Jos’ top 10 bassist influences from the 70s:

John Entwhistle, Jack Bruce, Chris Squire, Jaco Pastorius, Percy Jones, Jeff Berlin, Greg Lake, Geddy Lee, Tony Levin, and Stanley Clarke.

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After Zero-iD came to an end Simon Husbands went on to form English Electric who in turn became Blue Train with success in the USA. More on them later.

More photos from Sy Husbands below.

1978

1979