One of the first covers I ever did in a band was "Wipe Out" by the Surfaris. After playing in a couple of pizza parlours as a three piece with me playing guitar while my friend Ian and my girlfriend Leonie sang songs I'd written we thought their would be more protection in having a greater number on stage. Ian had to leave because he lived too far away. But we found a proper guitarist to help me out. His name was Ken Hamilton and he was to reappear later for the recording of the first Fiction/ Little Murders singles as bass player. On drums was Vic Bolgarow who also stuck around.
Ken was a good guitar player and he could actually play songs like "Wipe Out" so we put that in our set. We only played one set with this line up. Bayswater Youth Group Drop In Centre. We went down like a lead balloon.
Ken also let us use his garage for rehearsal. I had met Ken through church and he lived behind it. Ken's garage had no walls which kinda made it a car port. Our mad versions of "Wipe Out" and "It's All Over Now" brought complaints from the church. We didn't mind because our time was up there. What we did mind was here we were doing surf songs in the middle of winter basically in the backyard.And it was freezing. It wasn't internal fighting that killed Subway version 2. It was frozen fingers. Leonie was supposed to sing with us too but it was far too cold for her.
A few weeks after the Bayswater gig I heard the Sex Pistols and then everything changed.
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