1977-78  I began playing guitar at 14 with a school friend of mine, Mick Cheale (who is still playing in local Cambridge bands). It began as the traditional story of struggling through "Smoke On The Water" etc. (not to mention the pain of the "barre" chord!). We formed an acoustic duo going by the name of "The Swarf" - inspired by a poster in the school metal workshop which said "beware of the swarf" - this was 1977 remember! With that in mind it is not that much of a leap to understand our set, which consisted of several Punk songs by bands like The Clash and The Stranglers, mixed with Manfred Mann (Are you sure?, Ed.) and Black Sabbath. All played in completely the wrong keys using just the 4 chords we knew!! As a home made badge at the time said "We're A7 Crazy"!

The picture on the left shows me aged about 15 with my first electric guitar, a Watkins Rapier 44, bought from a 2nd hand store in Bedford on FA Cup day 1978. You can also see my crappy Kay Acoustic in background.
 

1979-80 It was not until I went to Long Road 6th Form College in Cambridge that I joined my first "real" band. This time playing fretless bass in a group called "Horizon". Playing mainly our own instrumental tunes in a jazz rock/pop vein. The band consisted of Angus Graham (he now runs a P.A. hire company, Guitar), Martin Freeman (keys), Pete Heslam (drums), Myself (bass) with occasional vocals by Andrew Gerrard. The band split when we began jamming without Angus and with various other drummers with me taking over guitar duties.
 

1980-81 My second year at 6th Form saw me forming "Orcrist". The 5 piece line up consisted of Martin Freeman (keys), Andrew Gerrard (vocals), Myself (guitar), Tim Maitland (bass) and Chris Maitland (drums) and played gigs at the College and a few local parties. We were very into heavy prog bands such as Led Zeppelin, Rush and Magnum, and included a full version of the Rush classic "Xanadu" in the set. The band split up just after the end of school in 1981 when Andrew and Martin left Cambridge to go to University; London and Leeds respectively. Chris went on to join local metallers "The Axe Band" with Tim also joining about a year later.
 

1981-83 Having left 6th Form things went quiet for a few months before I got together with a few ex-Long Road-ites to form the Psych' band "Masque". This band, which consisted of myself (guitar), Steve Watling (acoustic guitar and bass), John Reed (bass and keys), Ashley Wykes (drums) and Jo de Waal (vocals) played self-penned songs which tended to be in the vein of Hawkwind, Steve Hillage and Gong with a hint of folk. This was, by far and away, my first serious gigging band playing all around East Anglia, although making no money at all! Our girl singer Jo gave the band an unusual sound due to her very precise choir-type voice. She was compared to Sandy Denny in one advert for the Peterborough Glasshouse. After a year and a half I felt that we had run out of steam and were beginning to repeat ourselves, it turned out this feeling was shared by the rest of the band and in early 1983 we split.
 

1983-84 I had begun to be interested in Jazz-Rock again after a year and a half of "head" music and was able to go some way in this direction when I joined Mick in our first band together "Cheap Sneakers". This band played mainly our own songs written by Mick and Pete with a few by Chris Bartlett (keyboards). The band played a few gigs around Cambridge and split in 1984.
 

1984-86 After "Cheap Sneakers" split I was involved in a band called "PMS" formed by Pete Boyd, Mick Holloway and myself but we never played a gig and soon fizzled out after a period of rehearsing, mainly because we felt that without a singer we couldn't carry on.
In 1984 I also began filling in on second guitar with local metallers "The Axe Band". The line up consisted of the Brown brothers, Andy (guitar) and Phil (vox), the Maitland brothers - again! (Tim on bass and Chris on drums), and myself (rhythm guitar). Playing a combination of Brown Bros. songs and covers we gigged regularly around East Anglia, with material leaning towards the twin guitar sound of Thin Lizzy. Steve Jackson (vox) (see "Livin' Dangerous", "Burn" and "Bedlam") who had been generally hanging around with the band began guesting on a few songs - in a similar way in which I had been guesting with the band at the beginning. This situation lasted until Phil left; at this point the band became "One Night Stand". This band continued in a simlar vein, with Steve on lead vocals, for about a year or so until Tim left to work in the USA at which point we called it a day.
 

1987-89 After the demise of "One Night Stand", I felt a need to change direction completely and so I called on Andreas (Rez) Rose. I knew he had a leaning towards folk music and owned the various instruments needed to play it on; 6 and 12 string acoustic guitars and a mandolin. I had played a mandolin before and thought I could pick it up. We got together and I quickly became familiar with the instrument while we jammed some self penned jigs and reels. "Scallywag" only played one proper gig at The Ely Festival held at The Maltings in Ely in 1988. We went busking in Cambridge a few times but gradually the enthusiasm petered out and we eventually stopped playing together. In 1989 Rez moved to Northampton to go to Teacher Training College.
Also in 1988 "One Night Stand" got back together for a one-off gig when Tim Maitland came back to England for a visit.
 

1989-90 After "Scallywag" had played at The Ely Festival in 1988 the organiser of the event asked me if we could play at a charity event he was holding at a barn near Soham, Cambridgeshire. As "Scallywag" had by then ceased to exist I said that I could get together another band to play. Calling on my "Cheap Sneakers" mates (minus Chris, as he had moved back to Wales) we began rehearsing for the event playing anything which was quick to get together and soon had a greatest hits set of 60's and 70's material. The gig went very well and we blew the organisers band off the stage. We were so pleased with the way the evening went that we decided to carry on, calling the new band "Current Event". We played several more gigs around the Cambridge and Peterborough area. The band split when Graham was offered a national tour with his other band "The Jailbreakers".
 

1990-92 Formed during the summer of 1990 to play at an annual event held at a pub in Hemingford. "The Hemingford Band" for this year included Dan Soar from "Strontium", event organiser Olaf Laos and Steve Jackson. The band needed a drummer so I bought in Mick. We rehearsed for about 4 Saturdays before the event and it turned out to be a fun evening. We enjoyed it so much that we decided to continue although Mick declined to join the band. Instead we turned to another ex-"Strontium" man, Phil Bryant. This band became known as "Livin' Dangerous" and played hard rock and heavy metal covers of bands such as Cinderella, Poison and Dirty White Boy. Very much the "Hair Metal" of the time.
 

1992 In 1992 we replaced Olaf with my cousin Simon Pledger on rhythm guitar and changed the name of the band to "Burn". We played a few gigs around Cambridge and supported local metallers "Hope and Glory" on several occasions. The material by now had shifted to a more punk and grunge form of metal, although we did keep on a few of the old Thin Lizzy numbers. We heard at some point that there was a band already going by the name of "Burn" and so we changed the band's name to "Bedlam". Not realising that this was the name of several other bands already in existence.
 

1993-95 I continued to play with "Burn/Bedlam" during this time. I also auditioned for and joined a 60's and 70's cover band which was orginally called "After Midnight". After our first gig we changed the name of the band to "Matrix". This was to turn out to be my most continuously working band up to this time. The line up was to change several times during this period most notably when Ken Scullard was bought in to replace Eddy Boyd on bass and later, on New Year's Eve of 1995, when Mike Richardson played his final gig with the band.
 

1996-98 By 1996 "Burn/Bedlam" had fizzled out. In 1996 several jam sessions were held with Mick, Bill Terry and myself and a singer called John. The first of these sessions included a keyboard player called Chris. This pointed the way to future but it was not until a year later in 1997 did we finally get the first line up of "S.w.a.m.p." together. I was still working hard with "Matrix". We tried several singers out to replace Mike Richardson and played several gigs with various stand-in singers. We also held auditions but in the end it was decided that I should take over the role of lead singer. The band was still as successful as ever and played many gigs over the next 2 years until in early 1998 the band split.
 

1998-99  "Matrix" still had 2 outstanding bookings to play at large venues which we had played at over the previous years on a regular basis so while Bob Leach, lead guitar, went on to join "Get Back" (another local 60's cover band). The remaining members, along with Bill Terry on rhythm guitar, decided to play the outstanding dates. After these 2 gigs were out of the way the band changed it's name to "The Timebeats" and continued on with this line up until Bill decided to leave the band after just 6 more gigs. At this point the band became a 3-piece and remained this way until we decided to split after the New Years Eve gig of 1999. In August of 1998, "S.w.a.m.p." played their debut gig at the Blockfest Festival, near Ely.
 

2000-01  During this time "S.w.a.m.p." was my only band and we continued to bring in new songs and play gigs around the Cambridge area.
 

2002-03  "S.w.a.m.p." played more gigs. "The Timebeats" also reformed to play a one-off gig for my parents Golden Wedding and decided to carry on. Over the next 2 years we played 5 gigs. Meanwhile, Bill had not been happy within "S.w.a.m.p." for some time and after a gig on May 1st 2003, he announced that he would be leaving the band. He fulfilled his commitments to the band by playing 2 more gigs. The final one being on July 30th 2003. The band continued with Ken Scullard taking over on bass. He played his first gig with the band on October 29th 2003 which also signalled the end for "The Timebeats".
 

2004-06  "S.w.a.m.p." ditched a lot of the jazzier pieces and began concentrating on the more progressive rock side of the band. This still gave an opportunity to stretch out as musicians without the self indulgence that jazz can sometimes bring. Ken's input re-energised the band for a while and the band added lots of new material on a regular basis. "S.w.a.m.p." played at many new venues to a good response. Unfortunately in 2006 we probably played a few too many gigs and were not able to rehearse enough or bring in new songs and this may have contributed to the bands eventual "burn-out". The band officially played it's last gig on 29th November 2006. Rehearsals for a new 3-piece band and a whole new set began taking place.
 

2007-08  In the middle of January, the new band became "The Kurmújun" and we played the first gig at The Rock, Cherry Hinton Rd, Cambridge on Friday February 9th 2007. The band continued to develop over the next 2 years. I began to play a set of Elka PM-13 midi bass pedals, which were later upgraded to a set of Roland PK-5A pedals. This expanded on the sound of the band greatly. In fact, "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" would have been impossible to do without them.
 

2009  In January 2009, "The Kurmújun" became a four piece with the addition of Phil Morgan on vocals.