Barry Jones | Bio | Music | Video | Discography | London Cowboys on MySpace
Steve Dior and I first got together as a band we called The Quickspurts, obviously a punk type name but it was '76, we didn't really do much apart from practice in my basement. A few people passed thru such as Chrissie Hynde, Keith Levene, a few different drummers, but no gigs. I had a few songs that we were able to rehearse, and Steve, although playing bass at the time to improve his understanding and feel, was pushing to play guitar and learning really quickly, very enthusiastic and determined. Then came the Roxy club which was supposed to give us a permanent rehearsal space and the opportunity to gig whenever. Of course neither happened, the club was all consuming and basically swallowed up all my spare time so in the end we never even got to rehearse there.
1976 rolled into '77 lot of things happened quickly, we got rid of Chrissie, (Steve had switched to guitar) I got out of the club business, and while I went off on a European tour as The Boys driver, Jerry Nolan had quit the Heartbreakers, and started dating Steve's sister though not necessarily in that order, but it was an event that gave Steve the chance to play him our songs which were very much in the N.Y./Heartbreakers vein, (very rock n roll as apposed to punk).
So when I got back from tour Steve told me Jerry wanted to form a band with us, and had set up a recording session through the label the Heartbreakers were signed to, Track Records. At first I couldn't believe it, then I'm blown away, this is a real drummer not a guy sitting behind the kit trying to catch up, but pushing the beat, rock solid bass drum, with swing! and of course one of the legendary N.Y.Dolls! We practiced and arranged four songs, and within a couple of weeks we were in the studio, somewhere off the Strand.
Our first recordings were to become staple in our set over the next few years and were very typical LC rock n roll (although we were years from that name)... As best we can recall the songs were "A Bigger Splash" (title stolen from a Hockney painting), written about the rise and fall of the Dolls on the NY scene, it was probably the strongest The recordings turned out pretty good, I remember we were all pumped, especially Jerry, who was determined to show Johnny (Thunders) that he could do just fine without him. He took the tapes up to Track, I think it was Chris Stamp who really dug them, the person running Track was Mafalder, she was in charge of the Johnny deal and was our contact. Well she offered us a deal on the strength of them! All was going swimmingly until...
Barry Jones
