JJ (26)

JJ was the drummer with Bristol’s most dysfunctional punk band, The Primates. The band was formed by Johnny in 1976 after his previous band Good Question had fallen apart after punk-provoked arguments over ‘ a change of direction. Johnny had loved the anarchy and out-there performances of punk and seased the opportunity to start a new band recruiting Jon Shennan, who he met via a mutual friend, and then wild man of rock’n’roll, drummer JJ. The three just seemed to click with Jon Shennan’s angelic voice, Johnny’s rock’n’roll-to-the-max attitude and a lazy confidence with JJ’s brilliantly loose drumming. The band’s first gig was supporting Subway Sect, at Barton Hill Youth Club. It was here that Johnny met Bernie Rhodes, manager of The Clash, who would subsequently go on to manage Johnny as well as Jo Boxers, who also formed out of Bristol’s late ‘70’s punk scene. Bernie Rhodes had already suggested that The Primates should think about moving to London and had dangled the glamorous suggestion that the band could rehearse at Clash HQ in London’s Camden Lock. With Jon Shennan about to begin a degree course at London Bedford College in Regents Park, the guys saw this as a perfect opportunity to up sticks to London, partly with the ambition to ‘make it’, but more so to keep the band together. So the first weeks of Jon’s illustrious academic career were aided and abetted by Johnny, JJ and notorious pal Ben Hunt all sharing Jon’s college room. Not a charming proposition, really, and cue here many dark tales of unspeakable poverty, cheerful hedonism and general degeneracy in a room for one shared by four. The Primates managed little from that point on, some London connections got made, Bernie Rhodes remained a friend and various gigs were played,support slots, mostly, to bands like Generation X. But all too soon, the abject poverty and slow progress of band promotion got the better of all concerned and Johnny and JJ returned to Bristol at the end of 1977 and The Primates were no more. Life went on for all three of our heroes and both Johnny and Jon played in many later bands, initially Bristol-connected and then farther afield. And JJ, turned himself into a genuine party legend, sadly now not a living one, and he is missed…