Nottingham group 1982-1985

Line up 1:
Steve Webster: Guitar, Vocals
John Kaukis: Keyboard
Simon Toplis: Drums

Line up 2:
Steve Webster: Guitar, Vocals
John Kaukis: Keyboard
Simon Toplis: Drums
Douglas Thompson: Bass Guitar

Steve Webster gave me the story of It’s Viable and some of his background too.

The band was formed when myself, Steve Webster, Guitar and Vocals, met a keyboard player
John Kaukis at my place of work in a shop in the Victoria Centre, Nottingham in 1982, We met up at John’s place and quickly developed a good friendship and understanding of what we wanted to play, which was a sort of cross between Big Country and Ultravox type synth music. John got a job at Carlsbro sound music shop and bought a top keyboard and we started rehearsing. It’s a long time ago now but I seem to remember our first gig was re opening the Old Malt Cross opposite the Imperial, anyway we played around 100 gigs over the next 4 years and also added a drummer in Simon Toplis and later a bass player Douglas Thompson. In 1985 we recorded a session for Radio Trent consisting of 4 songs. We also made several demos and received several write ups in the local press. We played the usual gigs in Nottingham including Lyrics wine bar, Old Malt Cross etc etc and built up a steady following.

Steve started playing with a group called “Eyewitness” in 1977 who later evolved into Zoot Alors and told me a little of that history.

“In 1977 I had been learning to play for about 4 years. I was into general rock stuff such as Rush Wishbone Ash, Be Bop Deluxe, Rory Gallagher etc etc and I saw an advert for second guitar, went for an audition at Carlton Forum where a band called Shadowfax awaited. A guy named Andy Toone I think came in, he plugged in and was brilliant, the rest of us might as well have gone home. He got the gig but the band never got off the ground. A month later Drummer Pete Pearson from Nottingham phoned me and said was I still available as the band had finished and he had joined another band from Tuxford, North Notts. This was Kevin Thorpe’s outfit (Eyewitness) and I got the gig, we rehearsed mostly Kevin’s songs, but I remember a Tom Petty number called “Fooled Again” and I contributed a Thin Lizzy type number, otherwise it was a bit hippy songs, all very nice but a bit west coast. We gigged for about 9 months and then I left”.

note: Andy Toone had been in Odysseus who featured on the Nottingham Castle Rock album on 1974.

“So, Zoot Alors emerged from Nottingham/Tuxford in 1978. We had been playing for about 9 months as EyeWitness, a sort of Tom Petty/Thin Lizzy sound and had some good gigs including the Boat club (Sunday 5th February 1978) and a social club near Retford where we went down as if they had never heard of rock music before !!! I left and a new guitarist/singer called Alan Fearn joined Kevin Thorpe, Pete Pearson, and another new recruit Paul Sneap. The band started to play Power Pop and straight away caught the attention of Tom Mcguiness who got them signed to Decca records no less. They released one single and then disappeared, very sad I thought that they were not allowed to develop”.

“After EyeWitness I played with a group called Cold Subjects but we never got off the ground. Times had changed for music as you know and the old heavy rock day’s were thought to be over. We had a Springsteen sound and we actually had a gig lined up in the Market Square during the Nottingham Festival, but we had to cancel as our Bass player phoned a few days before we were playing and said he had joined a band in Canvey Island and moved !!! I then met up with two brothers in my local pub, Wayne and Clive Hallam, who were raw but full of enthusiasm and we added a drummer, and Clive switched to Bass, and became part of the Nottingham music combine for a while, they arranged some good gigs. I remember playing a gig with another band called The View, who were equally enthusiastic, they later morphed into No Tears. Wayne eventually joined them and Clive was poached by Visible Targets”.

It’s Viable Recordings

The Line – Released on the cassette “Bright Lights” in 1984

Radio Trent session 22.05.85. – 4 tracks
1 Brightside
2 Big Cities
3 In the name of progress
4 New

Gig Posters

More Coming Later …..