David Lee, one of the many drummers that the notorious High Wycombe Punks 'The Xtraverts' had thinks backs through his early days of being recruited and mounds of gob and spit that he had to endure!!
It all started at 'Wellesbourne School', High Wycombe when during 1978 a Mark Chapman joined our class. Mark had I believe been requested to leave his previous school and moved to Wellesbourne!
Mark was very different with peroxide hair and always looking for an angle! We became friends and expressed an interest in Punk music. Mark new I was a drummer and mentioned he was learning the Bass. He asked if I would be interested in joining a band called the Xtraverts or at least auditioning. I agreed although I wasn’t into the image thing which I guess was a little disappointing for the rest of the guys. I had my audition and met Steve Westwood and Nigel Martin. The audition was held in someone’s front room, not sure if it was Steve’s or Mark’s. Anyway here I was playing in a punk band, a little different for me as I was into Deep Purple and that kind of thing. I thrashed out a number of tunes and I was in! Not sure what happened to the previous drummer but I think he joined another band.
Now I was in “The Band” it was great fun I certainly felt part of something. Clearly the band were very popular in High Wycombe. I remember loads of graffiti all over the Bus Station and how the groupies hung out in the Bus Station café.
I did a number of gigs with the band all locally including probably our finest hour when the Xtraverts supported The Lurkers at High Wycombe town hall. The local support was fantastic. I had just bought a new Ludwig vistalite kit from the states looked great and sounded big! My first gig with the kit was supporting the Lurkers.
We had a sound check and all seemed well, I met the Lurkers drummer Esso who admired my new shiny kit. We went on and then all hell let loose – The sound completely died. The fans thought it was the Lurkers sound engineers, all you could hear was my acoustic drumming! What had happened was - the evil sound limiter. The council were having a meeting and cut the sound. Not Good. Meanwhile, we eventually rectified the problem and the sound came back on. We blew the place away the fans went mental pogoing and spitting in appreciation. In fact the fans booed the Lurkers off the stage wanting the Xtraverts back on. The Lurkers were very upset!
Now as I wasn’t a true punk not into the dyed hair, safety pins, tattoos etc all I could see was my new black Ludwig vistalite kit caked in SNOT! Loved the band but I also loved my new kit!! That was the last gig and I left the band.
Haven’t seen the guys since. It was a brilliant time and would love to know what the other guys/gals are up to.
David Lee April 2006