Speedball
formed in 1979, from the ashes of Idiot, and were one of the best of the
'79 Mod Bands. They only lasted for about a year, but in that time released
the excellent 'No Survivors' single. The band were comprised of Robin
Beulo on Vocals and Guitar, Guy Pratt on Bass and Dave Dyke on Drums,
and were managed by Roger Allen, Editor of The Surrey Vomet.
Taking a few Idiot songs with them as well as writing new ones, they had
a great repertoire of songs including their traditional opening number
'Don't You Know Love By Now?', 'Ging Gang Gooley', 'Is Somebody There?',
'60's Girl', 'Round and Round', 'Billy Gets What Billy Wants', 'Boys and
Girls' (an older song which was eventually dropped), and the classic 'No
Survivors'. They also did a cover of 'First Time' by The Boys.
Speaking
to Jamming fanzine in 1979, the band spoke about some of the songs - Rob:
"('Don't You Know Love') is not actually a love song as such, it's
about a bloke trying to go out with a girl just for her, and not trying
to have sex. But eventually he does." 'Is Somebody There ?', which
Rob said was "Just a sort of prayer - most of the songs are about
being mixed up." Also " 'No Survivors' is about the hypocrisy
behind all the newspapers". As for 'First Time', Dave said "The
one cover we do is 'First Time' by The Boys, because they're the most
underrated punk band around, they should be in the Top 10 every week."
In that same year, the band released a single - 'No Survivors' c/w 'Is
Somebody There?' on local Record Shop Record World's / Dirty Dick's 'No
Pap' label. It was distributed by Rough Trade and did pretty well, and
is certainly a key single of its era. Many local Mods could be seen around
this time with 'Speedball' on the back of their parkas, and things looked
promising for the band. Unfortunately after only a relatively short time
together, by about 1980 they imploded and called it a day.
Robin moved to Australia and Guy has continued as a 'gun for hire' Bassist,
playing with everyone from Bryan Ferry to Pink Floyd! Sadly Dave Dyke
died from cancer in 2007. Detour Records collated all the bands existant
recordings and released them on a CD titled 'Maximum Speed' in 2009.
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