Spike's Space Weekend

I remember seeing the first Young Marble Giants gig in Grassroots (we were initially misinformed by one of their friends that they were 'The Clones', they were that new). They were shocking. They made me feel very, very ordinary with their refrigerated delivery of sounds like you'd kind of heard before, possibly in an obscure monochrome art film or in a strange dream. All at Z Block became huge fans, albeit with a little jealousy of their audacious originality. We weren't jealous of their crowd-pulling though. There were many gigs where, if you removed the Z Block crew, there were literally one or two people in the audience - Cardiff was a hard place to be if your sound fell anywhere outside mainstream rock and roll or R&B - I guess Reptile Ranch had that, at least, in common with them and this made us allies, if not close friends. We eventually persuaded them to get involved with the Cardiff compilation album we'd organised.

Weekend evolved out of two different projects started by Alison Statton following the Young Marble Giants split in 1981. News of the split apparently came as a bit of a surprise to Alison (rumour has it she learned of the split courtesy of a live interview with Stuart and Phil over the radio in San Francisco - hmm, say no more). The first hint that Alison and I would work together came before the YMGs split. Z Block got involved with a BBC youth programme, Something Else, in the Summer of 1980 and we managed to persuade them to put YMGs on the bill with The Damned. We all attended the post production party at Broadcasting House in Llandaff, ended up having a drunken (friendly) cone fight with The Damned in the BBC car park. That was the night I made my first tentative approach to Alison about working together and was ecstatic when she didn't snub me - it was hardly a commitment but it gave me hope. It would be almost a year before we actually started writing together in her flat in Boverton Street, near Ninian Park.

Cardiff is a small city and it was clear that Alison wanted to escape, I guess in part because the YMGs split was still a painful experience and the tangle of mutual friends must have made it difficult to avoid those awkward accidental meetings. Whatever her motivation, Alison left home for London where she had been offered a room in a squat. Here, my knowledge of events gets hazy. All I know is that, some weeks later, Alison phoned me to talk about our project (we'd already written a handful of tunes), told me she was working with a guy called Simon and suggested that we merge the projects. Initially, I was horrified (I'm such a control freak) but Alison managed to talk me round, mentioning Simon's Scritti Politti connections and his old band, Methodischca Tune. I agreed to the merge, insisting on returning to our duo project at some point in the future regardless of what happened with the merger.

I started making trips to London, staying at the huge squat at 3 Regents Park Road in Camden Town. Camden shocked me. I couldn't believe that you could have a Bentley (we didn't have them in Cardiff) halting at a pedestrian crossing for a homeless bag woman (we didn't have them either). It seemed a city of extremes. I remember finding it unbelievable that there could be so many people in one place with no-one conversing - I'd never experienced that before, it was disturbing and alien. The squat itself was typical of Camden at that time and I was pleased to discover that my old Cardiff flatmate, Hywel Thomas (Test to Destruction & Thomas the Voice), was a resident. Before long, Phil Moxham too was living there which almost defeated the object of Alison moving to London. Other Z Block friends like Andrew Tucker and John Williams, were regular visitors, using the communal rehearsal room for their bands.

Our trio remained nameless until fellow-squatter, Simon Gillam, suggested 'Weekend' and it was obvious from the start that the name was gold-dust. We recorded two demo tapes, the first in Cardiff and another god-knows-where outside London. Although we all got on and Simon was always incredibly generous and accommodating to me, I was never comfortable with the jazzy influence, for one thing, it really exposed my technical limitations on the guitar. I guess I felt threatened. Part of me wanted Weekend to be over even before it really began.

Simon's skill and connections netted us a deal with the incredibly wonderful Rough Trade. It was Rough Trade who made Z Block's Is The War Over? possible by guaranteeing at least 200 sales thus covering our costs.

We recorded our first single, The View from Her Room, in January or February 1981 in Blackwing Studios in Pepper Street, Southwark. I recall Harry Beckett, the great jazz flugelhorn player, taking me to one side, interrupting Depeche Mode's rehearsal and showing me how to write swing rhythm - I had scored all the horn parts in the classical style - how embarrassing. Harry was so generous with his knowledge and I'll always remember his sensitivity - I'm sure a lot of people would have relished humiliating a young upstart in such a situation, but not Harry... what a gent.

Weekend's first gig in March 1981 was a low-key, unpublicised affair at the Rock Garden followed by the big opener at Imperial College - I remember being so stoned that I left my viola in the dressing room, 3 floors up from the stage and had to run like the wind to fetch it when I realised at the start of the first viola song (looking quizzically at the set list thinking 'what am I playing on this one?). Oh dear, not a very professional start. Geoff Travis, founder of Rough Trade, personally took us under his wing and even came on our first Euro 'tour' which consisted of 2 gigs in the Bain Douches, Paris, and a live Radio France performance in Lyon on the university campus. That night was the nearest thing to being in The Beatles I'll ever experience, complete with screaming girls and would-be groupies, but it left me feeling angry - our drum backing tape fluctuated horribly, making for one of the worst performances I have ever heard, but still they screamed as if it was the best thing since sliced bread. I became very cynical about the Weekend audiences - it all seemed like an elaborate con.

We recorded the second single in the same studio, this time with a producer. I knew we were onto something special when we landed one of my heroes, Simon Jeffes, from The Penguin Cafe Orchestra. He introduced me to the wonders of Zubrowka when I was too uptight to record the acoustic guitar for Midnight Slows. I got it eventually.

By now, Weekend were hitting their peak and getting lots of media coverage including a slot on The Old Grey Whistle Test (now I realised we were famous). Now it was time to find a record producer and record the album. We were introduced to the little-known, Robin Miller. He had apparently produced some really good African bands which seemed apropriate given the guitar styles I was using for much of the Weekend set. Robin was in the process of acquiring Morgan Studios in Willesden - we were the last band to record in Morgan and the first to record in Powerplant as it officially changed while we were recording the album. He was also in the process of losing his sight; he could still make out our faces at the first meeting but, by the time we'd finished the album a couple of months later, he was virtually sightless. It is weird to think that we were among the last people he saw. Robin, of course, went on to become one of the top producers of the 80s with huge success of Sade (the production values on her first album bore more than a passing resemblence to Weekend's La Variete as some people have pointed out) and Everything But The Girl who were once one of Weekend's regular support acts.

By this time, saxophonist Larry Stabbins, had become an integral member of the band along with Roy Dodds (drums) and Dawson Millar (percussion). Personally, from the time we left the studio with the masters, my mind was on other things. I was planning my next project with Alison which I assumed was going to be a formality as we'd proved ourselves by becoming Rough Trade's second most successful band in purely financilal terms (YMGs being the most successful - us Cardiffians are cheap!). We promoted the album in UK and, Belguim, Netherlands and France but I was impatiently awaiting the end. There was pressure to continue and build on the success but I would annoy the hell out of Simon and Rough Trade by prioritising my Cardiff band, Table Table, over Weekend. Not surprisingly, they were not amused. Yes, we had agreed that this was a one album project but they argued that we should let it run on and maybe negotiate an extension of the contract - I wasn't interested. I was determined to end it and get on to the next thing, ideally, picking up with Alison where we'd left off before Weekend - I was 22, arrogant, headstrong and very, very naive - bad combo.

We agreed to play one final gig and record it for posterity. We became the first pop band to play the sacred main stage in Ronnie Scott's and got Keith Tippett in to play piano (what a nice guy). Everything But The Girl were again our support band. Alison was in a very poor state of health and I suggested we cancel the gig - Simon and Larry were outraged - I was outraged that they were putting the gig before my friend's health - it really soured relations between us but, looking back, I can see how it could easilly have looked unprofessional and possibly even a deliberate act of sabotage. It is a shame really. We had already agreed that the band was over and there was nothing to be gained from bad blood.

I returned home to Cardiff intending to continue with Table Table to find that the band was in terminal crisis and it too folded that year.

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