Artistes - Iain Collins
I was born in Hanover, West
Germany, on the 19th of September 1964. This was because of my dad serving
with the Royal Engineers as a Technical Quartermaster [amongst other things].
So, until 1979, the British Army of the Rhine was essentially our family
and our home.
By a miracle of cowardice I managed to avoid the armed forces; though
I had assumed, until I was 16, that my career would inevitably involve
being in the army. When I actually realised what secret agents do in real
life, I bottled out. The other thing that happened when I was 16 was a
particular birthday present from my mum, which would have an unprecedented
effect on the future of my life. It was a Framus 335 copy, or in lay terms,
a big red electric guitar. I loved it because it looked just like the
one that Alvin Lee played at Woodstock. Unfortunately, the neck (which
was plywood!) had an extremely unstable relationship with the body, which
made it almost impossible to tune.
On a trip to Bavaria in 1980, Jez Quayle taught me the blues shuffle rhythm
and the 12-bar blues, and that was it. I was hooked. Within a few months
Jez and I were annoying shoppers in Bar Hill with covers of Rock 'n’
Roll classics from Chuck Berry & Eddy Cochran to David Bowie. Jez
went on to form a band called “Surfin’ Druids” and I
joined Big T~Total and the Half~cuts with my rented double bass. I soon
met a real bass player called Chris Todd who, with the aid of Rod Norman
on drums, formed “The Pedestrians” with me. My first job as
a singer and frontman. Eventually, when Rod left, we found another drummer
and a guitar player and formed “The Melting Men”, who were
described in the local press as “a cross between the Pretenders
and the Byrds”. While I was living in Bar Hill, I also spent over
2 years in vocal training, perfecting my technique and building my confidence
as a performer.
Around 1987, I moved into Cambridge and took up playing and singing more
or less exclusively. Around this time I met Gary Shepherd, who loved The
Sisters and spent most of his time trying to out~goth Carl McCoy. Personally,
I think he would have done better to give me the guitar job, instead of
James Cupid. John Vary was the bass player in what turned out to be called
“Hollowland” - named, oddly enough, after a song which I wrote
for them. I did the vocal part on their first demo of the song, sounding
as Eldritch (with a capital ‘E’) as I possibly could. After
my brief flirtation with goth, Dave Goose and I set up what could perhaps
loosely be described as a folk club, in the King St. Run, also known as
the Horse and Groom. After about 2 years we had established a fairly stable
line-up and decided that we were fed up of being called “Live Music”,
so we called ourselves “Rugrats” ~ though we also recorded
under the name of ‘Dr. Dave and the Tokers of Plenty’ ~ this
was an abbreviated line-up featuring Stewart Lewis on Bodhran and Pennywhistle,
besides Dave and myself. The complete line-up included; Julie Hatter (violin
& accordion), Equator Goldstein (vocal & percussion), Maya Preece
(vocals), Dave Goose (Guitar & vocals) and Ian Collins (Vocals, guitar,
mandolin and harmonica.)
Besides two or three performances at the Cambridge Folk Festival, most
of my time in the mid-80’s was taken up in pursuit of Girls or Weed,
not necessarily in that order. Oh, and I wrote some reviews and some songs
as well.
Sometime in the late 80’s, between travelling to and from Europe,
the Southwest and various squats in London, Cambridge and Amsterdam, I
met Juliette Angus.(a.k.a. ’Ziggy’) and was talked into joining
the Ethnic Theatre Company. So, while the rest of the cast toured our
nation’s prisons with a production of “Who’s Afraid
of Virginia Woolf”, Huttie, Oli and me sat at home working out a
score for W.B. Yeats’ “Death of Cucullain” and reading
‘the tain bo cualinge’.
It turned out to be a pretty peculiar venture. Whilst I was ostensibly
the musical director, it turned out that I was also doomed to act the
part of the ‘old man’ and the ‘street singer’
in the same costume and makeup. Anyway, we did make it all the way to
Caernarfon castle in Gilly’s bus, just not all the way back again
in time for our 2nd Strawberry Fair gig. Not in our entirety, anyway.
Though I say it myself, E.T.C. did put in a great performance at Ely folk
weekend in support of Dave Swarbrick. Since the 2nd Strawberry Fiasco,
however, I’ve not heard from Ziggy, and I daresay the same goes
for the rest of the company. It was fun while it lasted, though.
As it turns out, I wasn’t out of demand for very long. James Lord
called me at the suggestion of John Vardy to ask if I could front his
new band, and I said yes. “Perfect Circle” turned out to be
a formidable, if short-lived, alliance. We were described by the music
press as ‘Cambridge’s answer to R.E.M.’ Not in jest,
either. (Scary!) After recording a Demo album and playing the rock competition
twice, I was apparently too difficult to track down or deal with or something
and Jim seemed to lose interest. That’s what you get for trying
to merge 3 bands called “Nuke Your Parents”, “Infernal
Death”, and “the priests of vengeance”. Some time before
we left town, however, Mike Clifford did book me at the Cambridge Folk
Club to support Isaac Guillory at the Man on The Moon. I had witnessed
his mastery of music sometime before at the Folk Festival, but that night’s
rendition of ‘Sixteen Tons’ was unforgettable. As was the
man himself saying he “liked my guitar style”(!)
So, that just about brings us up to date. I should mention Kev Marley
at this point, though. He and I played together briefly after I left Perfect
Circle, and I can honestly say I’ve never met a more gifted, instinctive
improviser. He’s simply a fabulous fiddle player. So, KEV ~ if you’re
reading this ~ or even if you know where he is, then get him to CALL ME!
There’s probably a load of stuff I’ve missed out ~ Access
to Music for one ~ and I guess Captain Black at Jurnet’s and Heather
Wells go without saying, but I would definitely not be playing as much
as I am now without the help and inspiration of Caroline Martin.
So, that’s it. I hope I’ll see you at the Music House, and
I also hope Heather and I get it together to do another demo ~ soon.
Love, Peace and Bananas.
Ian Collins.