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Pressgang Gallery Pages 2. 1. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Early days

A publicity photo for the Pressgang offering for the Cooking Vinyl compilation album "The Cutting Edge" It was of course.."Flanders" which got us played in belgium a lot. That was back in 1986 I think. L-R Jonathan Kirby (drums) Sprog who had just taken over on Bass from Damian , Gabriel King (keyboards). A guitarist called Andy Venn played on the recording but he also played with a band called the Gathering. He managed to juggle a support tour with Erasure and play with them in London and PG at a Mean Fiddler showcase on the same night. Damian has never driven so fast through London!	Gabrielle and Jonathan at a Reading gig in 1987/8. Gabrielle left the band shortly afterwards to be replaced by George. He had turned up to see us play but got the wrong week. By the next week he was playing the gig!	This was a publicity photo for the first single, "Watch the Wall". Sprog and Damian as smuggler and policeman. Reading seemed to be full of police sirens that day!
Sprog and George complete with the keyboards that had fallen off the stage! (ST)	Publicity photo for the ROGUES! album. (1988) We got accused of wearing stick on moustaches and dodgy leather trousers! The first of many fire images, thanks to Matthew Mawford for the photo.	Damian and Jonathan in Berlin for the first time in '89. Saw a poster for one Clive product..the very same person who used to play our Pressgang Club. So we serenaded him on his arrival and of course he got us up for "Shoddy Body" He stayed out in Berlin and we saw him for years, are you still there Clive? All the best!
Sprog takes over the show from two local radio DJs and gets things going. This wasn't ever going to be your usual type of folk band! He used to play 6 string bass with an incredible machine gun sound. Sadly we never got the Shergold guitars sponsorship!	Shortly after ROGUES! came out, Ian Munt took over on bass which co-incided with the beginnings of our travels to Cornwall and the far north of England. Sadly there weren't many gigs in between. (ST)	Publicity photo for the Whip Jamboree line-up. George, Damian, Ian, Jonathan. The famous tunics that certainly got us noticed! And no...the moustache was not stuck on!
Happier times at 21 South Street, Reading, a gig for Neil Richards who helped to build up many Reading bands. Spot the red tunics and absence of an accordion. But things were about to change as we set off on our first continental tour that summer. Ian and Jonathan had decided to leave which left George and Damian without a band. But did that stop them? (ST)	NO! The birth of the 2 Butchers which took to the streets and became stalwarts of any benefit concert and lots of warm up spots for acts such as the House of Love and Tori Amos. But then we were asked to play a festival at Dunkerque so we pressganged our first drum and bass team. (ST)	Steve (bass) from Jo Jo Namoza and Steve Cruikshank (drums) ex RDF and Dub Warriors) filled quite a few of the gigs over the next year or so This is a photo of Steve playing probably the smallest drum kit ever at WOMAD! But his band Dub Warriors was really taking off at that time so he had to leave. George and Damian were running the local music magazine I LOVE U and Damian reviewed a tape by the Colour Mary who had an excellent bass and drum partnership. But they were a loud indie band, would they want to play gigs for a punk folk band? (ST)