To finish our Tamworth trilogy in this blog, our Mark Mortimer on bass trilogy, let’s have a look to Bash Out the Odd. As mentioned on the last post, after some changes in the lineup of Space Seeds the band changed their name to Bash Out the Odd. Their sound also changed, especially with a heavy section of brass, even with trombones and cornets! The sound was more sixties inspired, very mod-ish. Much more upbeat too. According to the Tamworth Bands page there were three phases of this band, three versions, the first from 1988-89, the second from 89-90 and the last 90-90. So let’s go one by one to understand it better. And if anyone has any more of their recordings, please share!

First version (1988-1989)

The band during this period is Mark Brindley on lead vocals/guitar, Julian Amos on lead guitar and backing vocals, Mark Mortimer on bass, Stuart Pickett on bass, Alan Hodgetts on keyboards, Martin Cooper on trumpet, Mark Allison on trumpet and cornet and Bryan Hurdly on bass trombone and euphonium. During this time the Tamworth Herald publishes the news about a video being recorded for three of Bash Out the Odd songs, in a full scale video session. Wonder if these were recorded at all, if so, will they ever pop up on Youtube? That would be ace. Anyways, a month later the band starts to stumble for the first time as Julian Amos leaves the band. It is also during this time that there is talk that Lazy Recordings were going to sign the band to their roster. Mark remembers: “The company that managed chart-hitting indie stars The Primitives and Kingsbury’s indie/punk/garage band Birdland were really into Bash Out The Odd and on several occasions came to see us live in London (and in Tamworth would you believe!?) and were interested in signing us but it never quite happened. We had several labels courting us for a while too and things seemed to be “happening” for the band but for one reason or another it never QUITE got there which is a great shame as there was great potential and as the band developed Mark Brindley started writing songs to go with the ones I wrote and we had some good tunes under our belts.”

They had one demo recorded during this time including the songs “Love Walks Away”. “Heavenly Angel”, “Mother Sea” and “Bug”. You can listen to the first one on the Tamworth Bands jukebox. Also here you can read more about the recordings of this demo as well as many memories and anecdotes about how the band started or even about the songs.

Second version (1989-1990)

Now the band has Pete Woodward on lead guitar and backing vocals, and John Bates on keyboards. Mark Mortimer remembers: “The second version of Bash Out The Odd took on a more powerful, harder sound. The classical horns remained and continued to sound brilliant but Julian Amos simply vanished one day without warning (he moved to live in Oswestry to work as a private investigator without telling ANYONE!!). He was replaced by a loud-mouthed and opinionated guitarist from Solihull called Pete Woodward whose presence in the band often led to a lot of friction which sometimes even boiled over into violent confrontation!! Nevertheless, he was a strong, powerful, rockin’ guitarist and this led the group into a much tougher-sound. Alan Hodgetts quit the group and moved to Coventry where he worked on BBC Radio and Mark (Brindley) roped in his old mucker John Bates on keyboards. We were keen for him to use his sampler and this meant, from my own point of view, we could bring in more exotic and 60s-influenced ideas like sitars and Middle Eastern string sounds etc!! Fun! During one period of time Stuart Pickett sadly quit the group and we struggled on without him with Mark Brindley’s uncle (whose name I have forgotten now!) stepping in to help out – he hadn’t played drums since his youth in the swinging 60s and this made it a challenging time really. During this period we recorded another demo – “Laughing House” and we used programmed drums to get the effect we wanted. We also had a bearded, older drummer from Birmingham for a couple of months whose name I have now forgotten who reminded me of Jet Black of The Stranglers!! Thankfully, Stuart returned to the band after a while and we continued to play quite a large number of gigs, travelling down to London on a couple of occasions to play infamous indie rock venue The Bull & Gate in Kentish Town and also the Greyhound in Fulham which – of course – was an important venue in the pub rock-dominated mid 70s and was also one of the early venues a lot of the punk bands played.“

They recorded one demo tape including the songs “Laughing House” and “September Honey”. According to the version 2 page of Tamworth Bands there was also a tape including live recordings of a gig at the Fulham Greyhound. Wonder which songs were included there! I’ve included here on the blog for download the great “Laughing House”, which Mark says it “was a frantic but catchy powerhouse of a tune driven by this pounding heavy drum track and the thrashy guitars. The horns were pristine and powerful. Mark (Brindley) wrote the odd lyrics that included references to “eskimo rolls” over the music that I had written.”

Third version (1990)

The third, and final version of the band. Alan Hodgetts had came back to pick up the keyboards as in version 1 but there was a new guitarist in the band: Paul Whitehead. He is not very well remembered according to this page: “Pete Woodward was either sacked or left the band (I can’t quite remember which) due to the clash of personalities and he was replaced by a guy from Coventry called Paul (none of us can remember his surname) who played guitar and also a guitar synth (something I wasn’t very fond of!!). He was a very insular chap, kept himself to himself and the contrast with Pete Woodward could not have been more vivid!!”

There was only one song recorded during this period: “Rainy Day Sunshine”. It was recorded not at Expresso Bongo like all the other prior recordings, but at The Reptile House in Lichfield. This song was supposed to come out on an album of original material from bands that used that rehearsal space. It seems this album release never happened. Seems luck was never on the side of them. By the end of 1990 the band decided to call it a day. They would later resurface as The Strangeloves…

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Listen
Bash Out the Odd – Laughing House