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About Mr Bonx
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Shopping dressed as batman... cool!
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Music from every room was a large part of my chosen career path, our house in south London boomed to different styles and volumes as Stefan Grapelli/ Django Rienhardt and the hot club de France danced from Dad’s stereo downstairs, mum bounced around the kitchen with showaddywaddy’s under "the moon of love" jumping from the speakers: upstairs a more dark and sinister mood beckoned as Alice Cooper, E.L.P, Pink Floyd and heavy rock crashed out from the bedrooms.
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Look at the conk on that.....
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One room was filled with drum kits, guitars and masses of cables, microphone stands and girls, another was full of deep complex posters on the walls and hundreds of books on science and electronics. So a perfect
Way to start any career then.
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First pro gig. The Sussex EG. Age 15
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When my parents moved to Sunny East Grinstead in Sussex Brother Steve went off to Leicester University to study physics: He now works for www.ksc.nasa.gov in Florida. EG is a nice town but at weekends I lurked back to the vibe to hang at the large loud and cool venues. I started gigging myself around London and the south coast, that band then turned into "Karma" and I went on to win a silver cup at the Southampton Jazz festival for best contempary musician. Still only 19 the band played regularly at jazz, rock, punk and bikers clubs and at one gig at the Brighton corn exchange
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Guitar session work, wot a laff…
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www.brighton-dome.org.uk in front of 1.500 people we went down so well we did 9 encores.
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Early PUMP. With Chris and Alex.
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In 1990 I decided to form my own band "pump" to play the songs that I had written over the years, a loud blend of funky rock and being the mid 90's the www.redhotchillipeppers.com were the front runners of this “new music”.
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With the Bullfrogs. Ravenswood.
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Pump 2...with Howie and Nutty Boy
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Also at the time I was working as a session musician in London for New World Music in Islington, playing in a 7 piece blues cover band "the
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Goodbye Johnny. Aaah bless 'em.
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Bullfrogs" and worked with legendary Producer Colin Thurston (Duran Duran, power station, Bowie amongst many others) at the old roundhouse studios in Camden. www.roundhouse.co.org
The song we worked on was a slow Ballard called "Goodbye Johnny": a gentle and moving tune in which Colin captured the mood, the fear and the excitement of the story of the Evacuees of world war two.
www.bbc.co.uk/war/wwtwo/evacuees The song was packaged and polished and I spent most of the summer '95 in London going from BBC building to studio to record company to radio to promote the song. The lyrics were published by Anchor Books in a war anthology and the song was played on both BBC radio Kent and Southern counties, I also did three hour long interviews at Guilford, Chatham and Brighton.
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Pump 3. With Robin guy and Alex
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Pump took an exciting new turn of events when we got a new drummer. This was to lift the band to a new level as his powerful performance and dynamic personality boosted the music and energy. Robin guy certainly gave a performance to remember…www.sacktrick.com/robinguy
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Rob, Alex and Mr. B....
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We gigged regularly at Plumpton Agricultural collage in Sussex where me and bass man Alex Coutts wore our green wellies and flat caps, and drove
Around on kiddies tractors and JCB's, while Rob battered and bashed his kit almost to pieces.
Sadly Rob was only with us for 18 months when he left to join www.rachelstamp.co.uk but he remains a true friend and is defiantly the best drummer in this country, if not the world. The gigs continued with original drummer Chris James and I put in motion the plans to start my own label, to record the songs written and played over the last 6 years.
Red Seal Records LTD was born in 1998 at a trusted mate’s house in sunny Dormansland.
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The Rough with the Smooth. 2000. |
One highlight was a gig put on by East Grinstead council at their premises called East Court in 1999. The 80 ft stage was built out the back of the mansion house, 8 local bands were lined up and 1500 tickets were hungrily snapped up, we were booked to play the last set and an astonishing 3000 people turned up, when we hit the stage there was just a sea of people, other notable bands included the Twelve Sullivan’s and Gin House. And it didn't
Rain…
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With the Bullfrogs at Dorset Arms. |
On the celebrations to mark the year 2000 the Bullfrogs played in an old aircraft hanger at the Ashdown forest in Sussex, again we didn’t play until about 2.00am which by then the 700 strong crowds were so drunk people were falling all over the stage…great fun though.
The Rough with the Smooth was finished and the next album,
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Nevermind the Ballads.2003 |
Nevermind the Ballads was complete by 2004. I have now finished the first draught of my spooky new book, available to read on-line and two more albums have been written……..
Too Much Information. (Loud and scary rock and roll)
Tricks of the trade. (Funky and rocky, with some jazzy stuff)
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At the BBC, Talking about D.A book. |
As usual, the inspiration behind most of the new 24 songs are those lovely, complicated, sexy, half-mad creatures commonly known as women.
As for summer 2006, I’m putting together a new band, playing old and new pump songs and plan to hit the road next year for some good times, loud rock and roll and to continue where it all began….back in 1996/7.
See you at a gig sometime…
All the best
Mr B. xxx.
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