The History of The World According to Us
Ok, not exactly us... more like me (Michael all on his own).
BEFORE Some Ambulants
Early-70s - It was the Pleistocene age. Dave Blackburn and Andy Faunch met at school in the UK. They formed several bands as they learned their instruments and how to cobble together songs. They stared with Aerial, Mouse & Benju, followed by their seminal rock trio Twin Llama Band. Andy also found he wanted to explore ‘other types of music’, so formed the punky and semi-jokey Clit Clark and the Sick with some other pals (song titles the likes of: The Bike’s Alright, I Only Eat Vegetarians, Too Much Glue). They were teenage boys growing up in mid-70s England, and were all that came with that. The only reason Andy wanted to play was in order to write songs, and guitar worked better than a tennis racket. And it was easier than piano.
They were both immensely invested in music, mostly of the progressive sort, but they had their quirky moments of comedic interludes along the way (thanks mostly to Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart: “If I’d spelled it Bee-fart, would anyone have listened?” - Don Van Vliet).
Fall ’78 - 19 year old American weirdo, and verified (at the time) Peter Frampton lookalike Michael McClure went to England on a UC education abroad program to study theater at the closest university I could find on the map to Stratford-upon-Avon (home of the Royal Shakespeare Company, no less). This was the University of Warwick in Coventry. Right in the center of the West Midlands. Ostensibly I was there to study theater, but instead fell in with a sordid crowd of English progressive rock musicians in my early days of residence there: I met Dave and two Andys (Faunch and Stone) while milling about at the initial gathering of the year of the University’s Jazz and Modern Music Society. These lads were nice to me, but secretly made fun of my luxurious and luscious long American hair and my upside down (yes, upside down) brass YES belt buckle. I had procured that flashy gewgaw of a buckle from a gift shop at the Inland Center Mall in San Berdoo the previous summer (brass belt buckles of all sorts were all the rage that year, along with those pictures of
furry streams and waterfalls that seemed to be cropping up everywhere at that time). I have long since forgiven those guys their transgressions (but, they were right to laugh at the time—Come on… upside down???).
I started hanging out with these fellow college students, listening to hours and hours of music and doing… stuff… while lounging around in various dorm rooms at Warwick. I had brought an acoustic guitar to England, which might be a problem to some, but I just filled it with newspaper to dampen the reverberation, plugged the sound hole, and got on with it.
Left-handed Michael and left-handed Andy Stone hit it off first and began playing together, but Andy was already playing in a band called Late Transport, so he was already spoken for. Andy Faunch and I played a few times together, and hit it off stylistically as well, so we decided to form a band (that's what you do, right?…). The Body Electric was the band, and picked up remaining members Laurie (on keys), Steve Martin (bass) and crazy Dave Lapthorn (drums) from around the dorms on campus. The Body Electric played several pub gigs around town, and even a few big shows (okay, maybe just the one) at Benes Hall at Warwick. We were the pillars of success! For college kids anyways.
The Body Electric, performance pics Fall 1978
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