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I listened to no new music between 1984 and 1987. Instead, an obsession with 60s soul and R&B led me down the path of dusty record stores, car boot sales and charity shops in an attempt to find some musical thrills. I made an exception for the Prisoners. The Medway-based garage rock four-piece were one of the most exciting live acts I have ever seen – in those days, as a callow youth, they were mind-blowing. A devastatingly good rhythm section consisting of Johnny Symons on drums, James Taylor on organ and Allan Crockford on bass, were fronted by guitarist-vocalist Graham Day, whose voice gave them a soulful edge and who wrote songs that were truly memorable.

The group had formed at school and made their debut album “A Taste Of Pink” as a document to their early days together, at a point when Taylor was supposed to be heading North to start university. It had a raw sound influenced by the Kinks, the Beatles, the Who and the Small Faces, but its inception was fuelled by the DIY ethos of punk. The sleeve was put together around Graham’s kitchen table and they took the resultant pressing to Rough Trade to see if they would distribute it. Taylor didn’t stay on at university, John Peel picked up on the album and the Prisoners suddenly found themselves with gigs in London.

Their presence in the capital saw them sign to Ace Records’ Big Beat label, where they recorded their second album, “The Wisermiserdemelza”, and the “Electric Fit” EP. This period saw the band record many of their best-loved songs, including ‘Last Thing On My Mind’, ‘Hurricane’ and ‘Melanie’, honing their influences and creating their distinctive sound.

A side effect of being with Ace was Graham’s access to the company’s latest Northern Soul LPs, which inspired him to write a new set of songs for their next album. That release, “The Last Fourfathers”, is probably their most satisfying recording. The group worked with Russell Wilkins of the Milkshakes and Graham’s vocals were captured to perfection on numbers such as ‘Nobody Wants My Love’, ‘The More I Teach You’ and ‘Take You For A Ride’, whilst on the electrifying ‘I Am A Fisherman’ you could properly hear Alan’s harmonies for the first time. Our CD version of the album contains a recording of the live highlight ‘Hush’, the Joe South song the Prisoners made their own, only to have their arrangement appropriated by the Charlatans on their hit ‘The One I Know’ and by Kula Shaker for their cover of ‘Hush’.

The group could never quite bring themselves to want success enough, but in 1986 they made one final attempt by signing to the Stiff Records subsidiary, Countdown, run by future Acid Jazz Records owner Ed Piller. The band didn’t like what producer Troy Tate was trying to turn them into and were on the verge of falling apart. The record that emerged, “In From The Cold”, contained impressive songs and performances, but the group advised their fans not to buy it. Stiff Records collapsed into bankruptcy at about the same time.

There was just enough time left for a swipe at the music industry with ‘Pop Star Party’, which was then partially wiped and lost, before the Prisoners called it a day. In the years since, all except Johnny have kept up a presence in music, making many great records in a variety of settings, whilst they have reformed intermittently to make triumphant returns to the stage. I am thrilled to have seen them at their peak. Big Beat have reissued their whole catalogue, with plenty of bonus material. If you don’t own every piece of music by the band, you’re losing out.

Fatback have dates in the UK both in both November and December this year. Here's where you need to be:

14th November (Thursday) - JAZZ CAFÉ, London, United Kingdom
15th November (Friday) - JAZZ CAFÉ, London, United Kingdom
16th November (Saturday) - BUTLIN'S LEISURE RESORT, Skegness, United Kingdom
30th December (Monday) - RONNIE SCOTT'S, London, United Kingdom
31st December (Tuesday) - RONNIE SCOTT'S, London, United Kingdom
1st January 2020 (Wednesday) - RONNIE SCOTT'S, London, United Kingdom

Back in the 60s when the sound of the British Invasion swept the USA, young Americans from coast to coast grew their hair long, affected the English (via Italy) dress sense (with a touch of Ivy League) and had a rave up. In many cases they took it that bit further out and in the process they invented the garage sound.

Though not known for extremes, the Northwest city of Seattle produced some of the furthest out sounds and spawned the wildest of the wild in the shape of the Sonics.

Some 20 years on and Mickey and the Milkshakes with Billy Childish brought it back home in the wake of the UK’s Punk Rock explosion in the unlikely setting of the Medway in the Thames Delta, just southof London in an unfashionable way. The Milkshakes in turn inspired another bunch of bored teens in Seattle and 10 years later Mudhoney, Nirvana et al were all the rage, but that’s another story.

But the disaffected youth of Seattle were not the only ones to go into their garages and emergefuelled up. In Los Angeles, Sunset Strip had a riot of its own and deep in the heart of Texas they risked life and limb to be longhairs in the land of the longhorns.

And so at the dawn of hippiedom America raged and all those years later in the middle of Thatcherism the London-based garage bands snarled in the UK.

If you go to the Media Space at London’s Science Museum between now and 27^th July you can experience the remarkable sound of the 27 feet long Exponential Horn built in 1929 by R. P. G. Denman, then the museum’s curator. The man behind the restoration is Aleksander Kolkowski, who Damned fans will recognise as the violin player on the alternative version of ‘Anti-Pope’ currently featured on ‘The Chiswick Singles: And Another Thing’. But this is a minor part of his extensive CV and since those heady youthful days Aleks has moved relentlessly into the past whilst creating the most contemporary of music using archaic instruments and recorders long abandoned by others to produce original and at times challenging music. The Exponential Horn fits into this picture perfectly and delivers a unique and spectacular sound impossible to reproduce using more contemporary equipment.