The Controls (2)

Controls were formed in 1978 from the remnants of three bands - the Grunties (the Fleet & Farnborough area's first punk band to play a gig), Keine Namen (Fleet-based one gig wonders) and The Fastnets (local Grammar school kids). Ex-Grunties Melvyn Crawford (gtr) and Kerry Kirk (drums) originally wanted to audition Keine Namen’s Tim Naylor as a replacement singer when original vocalist - Tim Freeman (later of Frazier Chorus) - left due to ‘musical’ differences. Various hybrids of the Grunties and Keine Namen rehearsed over a few weeks around Xmas ’78 with the lineout stabilising around Melvyn who also took on vocal duties, Kerry on drums and Tim on bass and a bit of shouting. Keine Namen drummer Dave took on the manager’s mantle. Meanwhile, The Fastnets guitarist Jon Monks took on duties engineering the band’s sound and documenting various recordings, eventually joining the band as second guitarist. In January 1980 Controls debut EP on Stupid Rabbit Tapes was released - ‘Sock it to ‘em Dave’. Controls unwitting pioneering approach to releasing indie cassettes of their material got the band noticed and a short mention in Sounds resulted in around 500 sales of this 4 track cassette featuring ‘So Soon I Forget’, ‘Secrets’, ‘Nobodies Daughter’ and ‘Invited Few’, as well as numerous fanzine pieces and distribution offers. A second release on the Stupid Rabbit Tapes, the 'Don't Adjust The Controls' album came out in the summer of 1980 and sold around 100 copies. The band played numerous gigs including the punk, mod and new wave season at the Tumbledown Dick in Farnborough, a double-header with The Mental that degenerated in what the local newspaper later declared was 'The Crondall Village Hall Riot" and a Beatle-esque performance on the roof of the cafeteria at Aldershot Lido's fiftieth anniversary event. Personnel changes in the summer saw a different line up gigging in the Autumn and Winter of 1980 with Jim Rump on lead vocals and Mick Pendleton on lead guitar joining the Naylor/Kirk rhythm section. This line up released the Late Night Love Songs album and was bootlegged on the Happy Sound of Eating live release tape. The band also played a very well attended gig at The Wooden Bridge in Guildford. Both line-ups of Controls appeared on X-Cassettes releases in 1981 - 'Anything Could Happen in the Next Half House' (X-002), 'Bits' (X-002) and 'Dance' (a Controls compilation).