THE
STORY
An essay by Ez Jon Erikson of
Detours
It all began in late 1984 when the Duddle brothers,
Richard (lead guitar) and Paul (drums), with fellow Saddleworth School
friends Bryn Gator (rhythm guitar) and Carl Robinson (bass) got together rehearsing as a rock band
in a barn at the Duddle's farmhouse, near Pots 'n' Pans, Greenfield under
the name Catch 23. They were unhappy with this name and were trying
to think up a suitable alternative. The band's new name came to Paul one day whilst cycling past a road sign. When he
put Diversion Ends to the rest of the band no one was
laughing.
Now they had a line up, they had strength in song writing
through Richard and Bryn, a very convenient and free rehearsal arrangement
that would not offend any neighbours because there were none, and a great
name that gave free advertising, but it soon became apparent that they
lacked a true singer to front the band.
Paul knew just the guy. Another Greenfield lad, a
singer/songwriter and brass player, who had gained a lot of experience and
respect amongst local musicians whilst with a band by the name of Emerald
Lake. A guy who's first passion was music, who found singing as natural as
breathing, whose many
influences included The Beatles, and singers such as Robert Plant, David Coverdale, Ian
Gillan, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Nat King Cole, Louis Armstrong, Cliff Richard, Elvis
Presley and Paul Young. The guy's name was Sam Johnson. An
audition was soon arranged in early 1985. Sam sang It's Not The Night by
The Cars, unaccompanied down the microphone. The reaction was a stunned
silence, followed by "****in' hell!!!" There were no hesitations. Sam was aboard.
The group were keen to use Sam's brass talents. Soon added
to the lineup were Sam's
mate Tim Scott as saxophonist, and Richard's friend from Hyde, Andy
Buckley on keyboards. Name changes soon
took place, and Carl Robinson became Carl Devene, Richard Duddle became
Richard Anthony, Andy Buckley became Andy Zeer, and Tim Scott became Rudi
de Setelle!
As Sam's brother, and probably his biggest fan, I have very
exciting memories of the Diversion Ends days. I was very lucky to be
present at many of their rehearsals and early gigs around the North of
England, and Wales, and also wrote the lyrics to the song No More A
Fool which the band performed regularly in their early days. I have of
course since recorded the song myself, for my Summers Of My Life
album, and perform it as a duet in concert with Coxx (Sam's duo with Paul
Adshead). I also co-wrote the lyrics to Time Out and Be My Lady
and the original version of Stay With Me Tonight for which Bryn had
asked Sam and I to write a second verse, so we did, but it never even
reached rehearsal stage as Bryn wrote a second verse himself. I was even
lucky enough to stand in and sing for Sam at a rehearsal once when he had
a sore throat. I'm not surprised he had throat problems in those days
though. You could not hear yourself sing in rehearsal. Finger in the ear
job!!!
For
those who frequent The Church Inn, Uppermill, you will be interested to
learn that Julian Taylor was one of the roadies Of Diversion Ends in their
early days. The band appeared with his XR3i in an article in The Mossley
and Saddleworth Reporter, as it was then known. Special reference must
also be made here to another roadie, Carl's dad Jim 'Decorum Moonlighting'
Devine, i.e. Jim Robinson. Also Richard and Paul's mum Paula, and her
boyfriend John, who both worked incredibly hard as acting managers/agents
in the early days. I should also acknowledge the sound engineer of
the early days, Nick Hield.
I truly feel that the band had the potential to become one
of England's greatest bands of the eighties and nineties. They had no
political agenda, but simply stood for a good time pop rock band, whose
music was very melodic and infectious with a unique sound, which I can
only describe from my own opinion as being something like a cross between
U2, Kiss, Spandau Ballet, Big Country and Ultravox.
The band remained
highly creative throughout their existence, writing no less than 46
original songs in a period of seven years. There are recordings in
existence for all but three of these songs, the three being Thin Line,
If You Wanna Leave Me Now and New York Nights. A demo was
recorded for the latter of these three at Robert Harper's house (Bobbie
Ball of Cannon
and Ball fame), but no member ever got a copy as far as I am aware!
The greatest memories of Diversion Ends for me are of the
early days. i.e. 1985 and in particular 1986, which was their busiest live
period by far. Although their later live and studio performances were more
polished with some brilliant songwriting by Bryn and Sam, and the group had
truly developed, their early live performances were
raw, powerful and great fun. Their very first performance was at Uppermill's Commercial Hotel on Thursday 13th June 1985,
admission only 50p. Their second performance was at the wedding reception
of our cousin Phil Harrison to Pauline, which was at The Birch Hall in Lees,
Oldham on Saturday 13th July 1985, Live Aid day
(Phil became the regular disc jockey for the band’s gigs and can be
heard at the end of a live version of Time Out in our live
recordings). Diversion
Ends also performed at Oldham’s own Live Aid event outside Queen
Elizabeth Hall on Saturday 31st August 1985, which was
unfortunately affected by heavy rain. A couple of other notable early gigs
were a Battle Of The Bands Final at Froggies nightclub in Oldham on
Thursday 22nd August 1985, and their performances at The Civic
Hall, Uppermill on Friday 6th September 1985 (our brother Jonny
made a great Union Flag backdrop that the band used at this gig), The Oldham
Coliseum Theatre on 22nd September 1985 after a play entitled Bouncers,
and The Pennine Lounge, Oldham on Friday 28th February 1986.
The band recorded a three song demo on a four track tape at
Richard and Paul’s mum’s house, setting up a portastudio in a bedroom,
but although it was good for a home recording, they were unable to capture
the excitement of their live sound. An article and photo on the demo
appeared in the Oldham newspaper The Advertiser.
Soon Diversion Ends were appearing at many pubs, clubs and
theatres around the North of England, in particular the Manchester area,
and also in Wales. One highly enjoyable and wild outing was to a gig they
played at a nightclub in Oswestry, arranged by our eldest brother Michael (nicknamed
Badger).
Richard and Andy left the band after a relatively short
period of time, so Rudi and Bryn took turns on the keyboards. Some of the
direction seemed to be lost with Richard's departure, and with hindsight
the band should have replaced him, as he was a very strong guitarist and
songwriter. However, they opted for Bryn to be sole guitarist, and
although he was (and still is) an excellent guitarist, this put a lot more
pressure on him, but he rose to the challenge admirably. During the fall of
1986, they set
about recording an eight song demo at Cresta, Moorside, which was owned by
Ian Fenn (Bill Haley imitator of Stars In Their Eyes fame),
completing it in the Spring of 1987.
Diversion Ends’ inclusion in a Saddleworth Festival in
May 1987 was an exciting achievement for the lads although unsatisfying,
as unfortunately controversy broke out when they were forced to cancel on the
day of the gig, Wednesday 27th May, due to sound regulations at
Uppermill’s Civic Hall. They had managed to bypass this problem on their
previous visit, which made a mockery of the cancellation imposed on them. There was a lot of coverage in the press for weeks to
follow.
Soon, Rudi left the band and my very good mate, fellow
singer/songwriter and Detours member Julian Flindle replaced him on
keyboards. The saxophone was dropped, as the band moved more to an AOR
sound. The final personnel change came when Andy Marston replaced Paul on
drums, as Paul decided to become the singer of his own band Twenty Twenty
and later formed Kane with his brother Richard. Diversion Ends' rehearsals
temporarily moved to Greenfield's Satellite Club, and then to a barn in
Denshaw. The band were then very lucky to have a professional sound
engineer on board in Andy's brother, Steve.
Diversion Ends unfortunately played a lot less gigs from
this point on, as they were busy writing new songs and recording demos for
record companies following interest from Manchester record producer Geoff
Gill (of Blue Mink fame). Geoff had written a song entitled Heartbreaker for Pat
Benatar,
so the lads felt they were heading in the right direction. With a
recording contract under negotiation, Diversion Ends recorded
several tracks at Pennine Studio and Barclay James Harvest's studio in Oldham.
They also backed up Smokie on their Boulevard Of
Broken Dreams tour during 1990.
The reason the band failed to breakthrough to the big time
is because, as many bands do, they naively placed their trust in the hands
of the wrong people, and within the group there lacked
business direction. Also due to frequent changes in the line up, they
regularly had to rebuild their unity and their sound. Sadly the band
finally broke up in March 1992. There was no animosity between them. They
had all grown up and now needed to live their adult lives outside of the
band, with the responsibilities it brings. From the final line up only Sam and Julian continued to seriously pursue their musical
ambitions and formed the acoustic rock trio Detours with myself. Rudi and Bryn attended some
early Detours concerts, and I bumped into Richard, Paul,
Carl and Andy on occasions.
I
set this Diversion Ends website up as a tribute to mark the 20th anniversary of the formation of the
band. It embraces as much info as I could get my hands on - every photo I could
find, any ticket stub, poster, newspaper clipping etc. When I formed the
band Detours with Sam and Ju, we were only getting together to acoustically perform
several Diversion Ends songs for our Badger's birthday. Whilst refreshing
our memories of the songs, and working out arrangements, I personally had
the pleasure of compiling all of our collections of Diversion Ends
recordings onto a digital source, focusing on all of their studio demos,
many of the available live soundboard recordings, and two audience bootleg
recordings of early gigs (thanks to my mate Phil West for one of them) which
include many songs for which no demos were ever recorded. Although the
dialogue in between songs is not the band’s most entertaining (“this
next one….”) the live recordings capture the atmosphere and energy of
their early live performances. Also included in our collection are many
rough recordings of their rehearsals over the years. The sound quality for these
ranges from pretty good to very, very poor indeed, but are essential as a
document and reference point. These recordings
are all from a period prior to the digital quality that bands of the
present now enjoy. Most of the live soundboard recordings existed on only
one channel, with certain instrumentation missing. The sound levels were
poor and inconsistent, but I made every effort to bring them to an
acceptable condition, so that they can be enjoyed. It is certainly true to
say that Diversion Ends were very poor at documenting their work, but I
have always tried to act as the archivist and historian! Sam and Ju agree
that my own collection is an excellent representation of a potentially
great rock band. To me it is an audible feast.
Over
the years I often thought how much I would love to see the
guys get together for a reunion. Well, I managed it! Thursday 16th June 2005, at The
Railway, Greenfield. I reunited seven of the nine members of Diversion Ends
for a social evening of reminiscing and drinks, with a view to a possible 21st
Anniversary Reunion Concert for 2006. What a great evening! Check out THE REUNION photos. Thanks to Paul Adshead
and our Jonny for those. We would be grateful for
any further photos of the night, please.
Next up, the five members keen to be included in a reunited
line-up moving forward (Sam, Carl, Rudi, Bryn and Andy M) joined me and our Jonny for a night out in Manchester on
Friday 7th October to plan the rehearsals, and to see Blue Thatcher live in
concert at The Late Room.
Carl and Bryn agreed to perform on the opening song of
Detours' third album A Dark Storm. The song, written by myself, is entitled
Together and is a song about old friends reuniting to achieve their dreams and create some
memories! Unfortunately Bryn was too ill to make the recording session.
Then I invited the lads to join
Detours at our
2005 Christmas
Acoustic Concert at Player's Theatre to perform some songs acoustically. This
would be the official reunion acoustic performance, kick starting the new
line up. Rehearsals began in
Carl's kitchen on Tuesday October 18th, and so began the reunion. A second
chance for the lads to share something truly special together. Long may
the music and their rekindled friendships continue. 2006 will see the band
begin rehearsing for full
electric concert performances, and there is the possibility of a future one-off guest performance from
two other original members, Richard and Paul Duddle.
Diversion Ends
and Detours
would love to develop this website, and to
make it as accurate as possible. If you have any material at all that you feel would benefit
the site, we would be grateful if you would please contact us. We promise
that we would only copy the material for inclusion on this site, and would
return it immediately afterwards.
Many thanks,
EJE
Ez Jon Erikson, Detours
November
2005
