Shepherds Bush, December 1978. In a pub sit John Burke, his younger brother and their friend Martin Wilson, discussing the current music scene when they decide that they could probably do better than most they were hearing. So began the story of the Directions, a band from the same area that had spawned 60's Mod heroes The Who and just like the Goldhawk Roads' most famous sons had done as The High Numbers, The Directions would go on to record a single highly sought after by Mod collectors. Fast forward to May 2005 and I'm sat with John and Martin to find out the full story.

"So what were your influences?! I asked Martin. "I was into the Jam, thought they were great." John adds " I was into Bowie, Ziggy Stardust and even the early stuff from the London Boys era. I saw the Jam at the Nashville in '77 and they blew me away. What punk taught us was that anyone could give do it so we thought why not give it a go"

And give it a go they did. Martin and the two brothers began to rehearse straight away spending every Monday, Wednesday and Friday evening in a local studio in Churchfield Road, Acton, a ritual that they would keep to throughout the bands career. After auditioning a few drummers, Steve Martinez got the job in April '79. "We knew as soon as he walked in. We'd had all sorts turn up, including one with a Bobby Charlton haircut!" said Martin.

They took the name The Directions from one of their own songs they rehearsed. John remembers "Our friend Mark Thomas suggested the name to my brother and he thought it was a good name. We only done two covers, Back In My Arms Again and Till The End Of The Day, though we did rehearse All Or nothing in the early days. My brother was writing songs and he'd turn up with pages of lyric. When you hear the first version of Threes Bands Tonite that we done, I can't fit the words in, there were so many of them."

In June, armed with a clutch of songs, they played their first gig at local venue The Trafalgar. Martin remembers John having a bad case of nerves the week before and quitting the band after an argument. Nevertheless the gig went ahead and John was down at the front dancing away. "My brother got me up on stage for the encore and I sang Johnny Was A Bad Boy. It was back to normal after that!" adds John.

After a few weeks at The Trafalgar, they moved onto The Greyhound in Fulham Palace road where they were soon picked up by Steve Budd who asked them to record a single for his label Tortch. " The manger of The Greyhound, Duncan, really liked us and would give us any cancellations as we were local. We'd often play support on the Tuesday and headline there on the Friday." states Martin.

With regular gigs lined up and a growing following culled from the Shepherds Bush, Notting hill and Acton areas of west London, they were then offered a slot at the Global Village in Charring Cross alongside The Teenbeats from Hastings and Essex band The Sta-Prest. It was to turn into an eventful night and one that spawned one of the most sought after singles of the Mod revival. " It was a big thing for us" starts Martin. "We were playing these small venues to 200 people and then here we were in this massive hall. We just wanted to go on and play." The PA hadn't turned up and with The Directions due to go on last, it began to look likely that they wouldn't go on at all. Interviewed in issue 10 of Jamming fanzine during 1980, the band claimed that they could have played with the amps that were available. Martin:- "To be fair to The Teenbeats, they were only worried about how they would sound, whereas The Sta-Prest were more concerned about getting paid. They felt that they should have been given extra." According to the Jamming interview, when the PA did arrive, The Sta-Prest played for 45 minutes, took another 15 minutes to clear their stuff before The Teenbeats played a 40 minute set. "We never played with The Sta-Prest again" said John, "Huggy from The Teenbeats was fine with it, my abiding memory is of him dancing away to it in the Greyhound when we first played it. I mumbled the words as I didn't want to hurt his feelings. We played about 5 gigs with them afterwards."

The band soon went into the studio to record their single for Tortch Records, Three Bands Tonite backed with On The Train. John:- That was the new song so we recorded that. A week later we'd have recorded something else. I had a bad cold that day and I sing through my nose anyway!" The single, released in December '79 received some airplay via John Peel who stated after one airing that The Teenbeats and The Sta-Prest should come on and have their say. !I wish they had had done!" laughed John. What about On The Train I ask? "If there was one track I could leave off that would be the one." replies Martin.

2000 copies of the single were pressed in an eye catching sleeve, though 800 copies were ruined when the managers office got flooded. "John was throwing them out the back of a car like Frisbees!" laughs Martin. "We'd drop the song from the live set by the time it came out." added John.

In the meantime, the band continued gigging with increasing regularity on the London circuit, Clapham's 101 Club, The Nashville, Canning Town's famed Bridge House, The Thomas A'Beckett and the Rock Garden playing alongside bands such as The Crooks, The Chevrons, Billy Braggs first band Riff Raff and Hull based Mod group The Odds.

"The Odds came down and supported us and we were due to go return the favour by playing with them in Leeds. We were 9 miles outside Leeds when the van broke down!" states Martin. By now, they had also recruited a keyboard player, Mick Simmonds, a classically trained musician from Chesterfield. John:- " A lot of our early fans didn't like the new sound. I think the original idea was to have a keyboard a bit like Elvis Costello had at the time, you know, just in the background, but it just took over."

Martin continues " He had a Hammond Leslie set up, at the time we thought it was the bollocks!" Mick gave the band a broader and very distinctive sound as can be heard on It May Be Too Late and Weekend Dancers, two tracks that surfaced on Eddie Pillers mid-eighties compilation The Beat Generation and The Angry Young Men. Weekend dancers had become the fans anthem. Martin:- "We had a great following, one of them, Peter Carter asked me if Johns brother would write a song for them and he came up with that. They'd invade the stage when we played it, they could be boisterous but nothing serious ever happened."

Renowned Mod DJ Toski was one of the regular followers and remembers them fondly:- "They were a great live band. There was a big group of us from the Bush that used to follow them everywhere, made up of Mods, skinheads and local soul boys. They were great days."

I ask John if they felt comfortable with the Mod tag? "Yeah. We didn't pay much attention to it really, we done our own thing. We didn't get any of the press like the other bands. We were in it but not right in the middle of it. We were there at the start of the Mod thing and we still there at the end of it."

1980 saw them continue rehearsing three nights a week at Churchfield Road and gigging constantly around London, now at venues such as the Marquee in Wardour Street. What money they were earning went into recording in the hope of landing a deal with Polydor or Chiswick, both of whom were showing an interest. weekend dancers or It May Be Too Late were the obvious choices for a follow up single but alas it wasn't to be. There were rumours of Mickey Most offering a publishing deal, but neither John or Martin were aware of it.

August saw a rare review of the band in the New Music News when they opened up for The Piranhas at the opening night of the Global Village in Richmond on the 7th August. A 700 capacity crowd saw a band that were described as being "enthusiastic, energetic, not technically brilliant but original and entertaining."

With no sign of a deal appearing, the usual cracks began to show between the band and management. Early in 1981, the band returned to the Global Village for a gig with Pin Point which turned out to be Martins last gig. The sound was badly mixed and their friend Mark Thomas signalled for the band to cut it short after only 2 numbers. Martin was sacked shortly after and briefly replaced by Crispin Cole, the son of Minder star George Cole. " I think we only played a couple of gigs with Crispin and he played on the last session we recorded. Then I got the sack and only came back when the band got a publishing deal, but really there wasn't much point without a record deal to go with it. We should have stopped after Martin went." said John.

One of the gigs they did play with Crispin was in Grimsby, supporting The Q-Tips at The Pink Pussycat. Back in London we done some recordings in Chas Chandlers studios in Portland Place, Some Boys and Heart Of The City but he wasn't interested in the end." adds John. It leaves the question as to whether they would do all again if given the chance? "Definitely, if I could go back and do it all again, I would. It was great fun. It was my one chance and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I'd never have done it if it wasn't for my brother and Martin." replied John. Martin agreed, " I'd be a lot wiser about it though! There were lots of great memories, especially playing live. That was the great buzz."

It wasn't quite the end of The Directions, in 1983 the nucleus of the band re-emerged as Big Sound Authority, minus John, but that as they say is another story. Mick Simmonds went on to work with Joan Armatrading, Fish and Van Morison whilst Steve Martinez is in the building trade.