Nottingham band 1977 – 1979

Including: The Transylvanian Flubcheck Band, Steppin Out, Nightlife & The Stumble

Line up:
Joy Astley (now Pearson) – Vocals
Tony Ward – Keys and Vocals
Roger Banks – Bass
Brian Pearson – Drums
Ian Shellard: Guitar and occasional vocals

Their roots were in a five piece group called “Stepping Out” in 1975. When Stepping Out split Roger Banks, Brian Pearson and Ian Shellard formed RIB. Adding Tony Ward they became known as “Nightlife” in 1976. They changed their name to Outward Band in January 1977 and with the addition of Joy Astley in May 1977 became a five piece playing until late 1979 around the Notts, Derby, Lincs, Yorkshire region.

I spoke with Ian Shellard to get a little more insight into the band. November 2023.

“When Brian and Roger left Stepping Out (which was the cause of it splitting up) they asked me if I wanted to form a new band with them doing all original material in a funk-jazz-rock style. So the prototype of the later “Nightlife/Outward Band” was a three piece (provisionally called “RIB” for Roger, Ian and Brian). That’s what got me into “pedals”, because the other two always wanted a sound like a sax or a sound like a synth or something. (I don’t really use any these days.) Then Brian found Tony, with his keyboards and vocals, which took a lot of the load off the guitar, plus adding to the writing team”.  

“Our first gig, in 1976, was under the name “Nightlife” and was at the Victoria Embankment bandstand and there is a poster”.

“We tried hard to avoid any musical classification – mostly because we wrote all our own material and the influences of the writers were very diverse. Tony and I wrote the bulk of the tunes, most often to lyrics written by Brian’s brother Michael, who was an actor and theatrical director in Cardiff, but also to lyrics by Joy, Brian, Tony’s girlfriend Karen and, sometimes, ourselves. When we collaborated, the songs had a clear style with highly melodic sections by Tony interlaced with more jazz-influences bits by me. Roger also wrote several songs entirely on his own, and his influences were more funk-based”.

“Last Call (who we knew previously) had the Friday residency at the Hearty, we had Saturdays, from early ’77 to our spilt up in late ’79. I can’t remember whether they started before us at the Hearty or the other way round, but we were both amongst the first bands to play there. Pete Butcher, the bassist with Last Call at the time (later replaced by Mick Wheat, formerly of Desperate Dan) is still a friend of mine. I remember Skyye being probably the first band at the Hearty, back in Dominic and Theresa’s days as licences. I remember the guitarist had a double neck 12/6 in a Gibson SG style”.

“I’m not sure of the provenance of the “and then there were 4” quote (re. the newspaper cutting Aug 1978). It might refer to the fact that we started as a 3-piece (Roger, Brian and me, all formerly of “Stepping Out”), then Brian came across Tony via a mutual friend, and he joined. Tony didn’t want to be the named lead vocalist, and it was a conversation between, I think, Brian again, and Bill Hill of Ice, where Bill said he knew someone who could sing and had an ambition to join a band, which was Joy.  So we auditioned each other, and that was that”.

Joy was the final addition – she was recommended to us by Bill Hill, the bassist with “Ice” who were one of our favourite local bands at the time. (Sue Mellard, Andy Ferguson, Lon Reader and Bill Hill.). But we were gigging as a 5-piece by mid-’77, so, if the quote refers to Tony, it must have been a comment on our history”.

“I first saw “Ice” at the Town Arms (where I first saw a lot of bands back in those days, including Staple Diet and Ian Belton’s “We’re Ned Ludd – were Dead Good” with Beano Summers). Sue Mellard was definitely singing with them then. They also did a Radio Nottingham session, which had Barry Foster from Wheels on guitar, but he’d not joined them permanently and it was (American) Lon Reader who was in the band when I saw them”.

“Tony was living in Lincoln in our early years, and he got us gigs over there, including a “band of the year” contest, which we won – much to the annoyance of a local journalist, I have to say! She commented that the judges were swayed by (if I remember rightly) our “professionalism and experience”, where she preferred a punk band who came second. For reference, that was our second full gig as a band, which meant it was Joy’s second gig ever. So, “professionalism” was about actually learning the instruments and music, not “experience”.”

“The photos (below) must be 1979, after about April, because I have a Fender Super-Reverb, which I bought in April ’79”.

“Outward Band spilt up in 1979 – can’t recall the date. Brian, Joy and Roger formed a new band together, aiming at shorter, more “up to date” music. I can’t recall what they were called, but I can ask Joy and Brian next time I talk to them (they live down near Dunstable now). You mentioned Lincolnshire – we played in several places there as well as the band contest. I specifically remember a place in Gainsborough. But our main place outside Notts was The Dickens Inn in Rotherham”.

Roger Banks is now with Copperhead Road. Ian Shellard would go on to play with Token Gesture and The Stumble (also with Tony Ward). Ian also formed a working relationship with Nottingham’s own original blues man Colin Staples, something he still keeps up in the 2020’s.

“Tony and I had a short-lived ventured called “Token Gesture”, with Chris Maillard (Evening Post journalist who was later editor of “Kerrang” magazine) on bass, Mike Bresnen on drums and a number of singers, starting with Broz Woolwyn from Tatum, but he moved back to Buxton before we’d got a set together.  After a couple more false starts, we ended dup with two singers – Les Murphy and Sue Slessinger.  However, the band only did a few gigs, then spilt.  Tony and I then formed The Stumble (not to be confused with the later Legendary Stumble Brothers) with Mike Bresnen still on drums, Mick Hart on guitar, Mick Parker on bass and Becky Morley (formerly Jagged Edge) on lead vocals.  I’m guessing we formed in early 1981, because I recall it was before I moved out of Radford and up to Mapperley Rd”. Token Gesture are mentioned in the gig guide on the TV programme “Look Hear” in 1981 near the end of the clip.

“The Stumble was together for around 3 years. We played all over Nottingham, including The Hearty, The Admiral Duncan, The Trent Bridge Inn, The Greyhound at Beeston, others I can’t recall, plus several University gigs at the Portland Building and various Halls of Residence, and sometimes up Mansfield way.  After we split, I think in about 1984 time, Becky and I carried in doing an acoustic duo for a while, then she formed a new band and I went through a succession of short-lived (but fun) bands as well as joining up with Colin Staples full-time when Breadline split.  I can’t recall the date, but it must have been before I moved down to Leicestershire in 1987, because I used to drive up here for gigs with Colin after that.  The only one of the 1984-1987 interim bands that might be of interest was National Debt, which was Mark Makin (ex-Great Eastern and Slip Hazard) on guitar and lead vocals, Andy Davison, from Leeds, on bass and me on guitar and second vocal.  We were an acoustic blues trio, with Mark and I mainly using his National steel body guitars, hence the name. (Although on the only photos of the band I’m playing a Gibson Southern Jumbo.)  Mark and I played Bracknell with Michael Messer and Ed Glennis, both as a support duo and in a jam with Mike and Ed at the end of their set.  I also played with Michael again, and Woody Mann, at an impromptu spot at the 2006 Stamford Guitar Festival”.

1976

1977

February 1977

March 1977

April 1977

May 1977

June 1977

November 1977

December 1977

1978

April 1978

August 1978

November 1978

1979

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There is an interesting track by a young Ian Shellard from 1968 on youtube called Beechams with the following explanation.

“The Transylvanian Flubcheck Band”, formerly “Keef and The Kastles” meet in Escrick, Yorks, aged 14/15, for the first time since guitarist “Beechams of St Helens” moved away from London the previous year, and create improvised mayhem. What are they on?

I asked Ian a little more:

Blimey, “Beechams”!!!

The story is this:

I first started playing guitar when I was 10 or 11, with a primary school pal called Danny Potter (now award-winning music composer “Danny Chang” – check him out on Google). We went to different schools after the 11-plus and lost touch until he found me via an old primary school page on Facebook. At secondary school, 4 other guys and I formed a “band” (really just kids messing about – I think we only performed for other people once, and that was at a party at the singer’s house). We were “Keef and the Kastles”, with Keef (Keith) Bogue on vocals, Mark Ward and me on guitars, my pal Dave Swift on bass and his neighbour John Callum on drums (he had an uncle who played in a trad jazz group, so he had access to real drums). I think we formed the “band” in our third year (66-67), because I’d got my first “beginner’s” electric guitar for my 12th Birthday, in late November ’65, from my grandparents, once they’d realised that playing guitar wasn’t just a “fad” I’d grow out of. My dad had made me an amp out of an old broken TV set.

Obviously, we were mostly influenced by the pop music of the day, particularly, as I recall, The Who and The Troggs.

My family moved to York at the end of my 3rd year, so the band was very short-lived. but I kept in touch with Dave and Keef. They came to visit a year or two later, and we made some recordings on my old Ferguson mono tape recorder. By then we were into different stuff. I was well into folk and acoustic blues. The others were into “underground progressive”, especially Beefheart. “Beechams” was the result. I’m playing what’s basically a Muddy Waters standard riff, with Dave (or “Fingerless Fred Ferret” as he was billing himself at the time) on his home-made fretless bass and Keef doing his best to sound like, and be as mad as, Beefheart, by singing the instructions from a packet of Beecham’s powders.

I’d forgotten all about it, because Dave took the “masters” with him when they went home and we never met again. Then, in 2010, out of the blue, I got a letter saying “Please accept my apologies if you’re not the Ian Shellard I was at school with in Gravesend in the mid-1960s…”. It was Dave. Long story short, he’d recently inherited his mum’s old house in Gravesend and, in clearing out the attic, had found his old fretless bass, the “Beecham’s tapes” and an old reel-to-reel tape machine that still actually worked. He made a CD of everything on those old tapes and sent me a copy. Most of it is just nonsense, or solo acoustic stuff by me, but that track is a good bit of fun. As for the last bit, I just dubbed it, probably on the old Vox Stroller electric guitar I’d used with The Kastles “all those years before”.

Sadly, I never heard from Dave again and neither of us could ever find out what had happened to Keef after he left school. Dave was a brilliant, but fragile man. Keef was a total madman. I learned later that Dave had got a PhD in Chemistry from one of the London University colleges (matching mine in Physics from Nottingham), and had regularly got good jobs in industry, but had, unfortunately, also spent a lot of his life in and out of psychiatric wards. I suspect he had another bad period shortly after we’d re-established contact, and that he either forgot about me or something worse. It was a shame. He and I were good friends in our early life. I went to his mum’s for tea every Tuesday, when we were required for the School’s small bore rifle team training after school, as well as having our musical links. I could never forget their address – “106 Thong Lane”!