Plexus

[Pete Gray]

Hi Maart,

Had a look at the revised website just now and am well impressed by the layout - and content.

The first entry got me wondering : -
Did your work with Plexus include the folk club gigs? I remember two or three Plexus nights, late 70's, at the Cartwheel Folk Club, Barlow Nr Chesterfield, with a very charismatic frontman .... ?
Desperately trawling the memory brings Desperado to mind and a fiddle player.......... ?
Was it you ..... ?

Somewhere at home we have a copy of a flexi LP of Life up the Creek - signed I think. Should I contact Southeby's ..... ?

Pete

[Maart]

Hi Pete

I played with Plexus in 1976 from about April to September. Andy Speechley was the front man and Nicky Wright (no relation) was the pianist. I played six-string bass. We played folk clubs and colleges and we made the first album during Wimbledon, which Chris Evert won, and the album was produced by Nick Strutt, who spent most of the time picking fleas off his dog. We played Desperado live but I don't think it was on that first album.

When they recorded Life Up The Creek I was a session player on it and it was recorded at Bill Leader's studio near Halifax. The fiddler in question would have been Paul Sax, whose father played on Eleanor Rigby(!). I later played with Paul (who went on to play with Sonja Kristina), Nicky, Chris Rudd (Lost T-Shirts Of Atlantis) and Jojo McCall (sadly departed) in a band called One Eyed Jack, which Andy Speechley managed. It was a boy band long before the idea caught on. What let us down was that we could play our own instruments and write our own stuff. Chris and I were thinking of doing it again and calling it Dadzone, but we never got round to it. Maybe we'll have another go in 15 years time and call it Grandadzone...

Maart

[Pete Gray]

Maart,

Thanks for the reply, all good stuff and quite a few links there - in particular re. Sonja K. who also visited Cartwheel Folk Club, circa 1988, with her new band Acid Folk - I think including Paul Sax. We payed only £100 for the privilege of their performance
She/they.. was/were.. fantastic in our small informal club setting and later all 7, including their local "agent", of them stayed at our house for the night .
He turned out to be none other than Steve Moxon the recent local Government Whistleblower, and author of the widely discredited "The Great Immigration Scandel".

Funny old game, folk music !

Pete