Jump The Gun & Wishful Thinking

When the Skeeter band ended I made a few attempts with Ig and Smelly from Silent Witness to get a new band started but after one rather lacklustre rehearsal it just never happened. Meantime I'd gotten hold of a PC loaded with Voyetra Sequencer and had I did later approach Smelly with the idea of forming a band around the PC which would play the drums and other backing instruments. He turned me down though stating that he'd only play with a real drummer which was fair enough but a sort of prejudice of sorts that I was to encounter several times later on.

Then in about 1992 and just as Martin the Drummer whom I played with in Silent Witness had called me to play with Tempting Fate, Tat gave me a ring and asked me if I wanted to replace their drummer with my PC based band idea. So I became their keyboard player and song sequencist (I'd never call myself a drum-machine programmer, there's a lot more to it than that). The first song I programmed and performed to an audience was Tina Turner's The Best. Ok, not much of an accolade but in the words of Mr Cocker 'it had to start somewhere so it started there.'. Yes I know he was on about porking some posh tart but you know what I mean.

The Jump The Gun line-up at the time was Tat on lead guitar, Terry Corns (aka 'Ocky') on bass and lead vocals and Tye on lead vocals and rhythm guitar. Now as I understand it Ocky was opposed to using a computer to play to, he wanted a 'real' drummer (that prejudice again). He actually didn't turn up to my audition (I say 'audition' but this amounted to me playing tapes of my work to the other guys at my house). Anyway I passed and Ocky's initial fears were soon overcome. In-fact it worked so well that after one year Jump The Gun won the North Staffs Entertainment Federation award for Group of the Year category. So there.

This format worked and worked well for about three years. We'd been doing a few ELO (Electric Light Orchestra) numbers and had been toying with the idea of becoming an ELO tribute. But Tat was averse to this idea and he decided that he wanted his weekends back with his young family (for which I don't blame him). We didn't replace him. Me and Tye shared the lead guitar roll - both badly, he wasn't a lead player and my keyboards, a Korg M1 didn't have any convincing lead guitar sounds in it. I did the lead in Mr. Blue Sky.

And so we became a 'trio', changed the name to 'Wishful Thinking' and marketed ourselves as an ELO tribute. This carried on until the end of 1996 and then Tye left. Initially that was going to be it for me and Ocky too but at the last minute (New Years Eve 1996 was going to be out last ever gig) we decided to enlist the vocal talents of Neil Craddock (Site 'n' Sound) to replace Tye.

As well as his excellent vocal abilities Neil was also quite a good guitar player (considering his main instrument was the bass!) and with him we again quickly established a reputation as a band of quality with good harmony vocals and once again we were awarded the North Staffs Entertainment Federation best group category. As it is however I don't really think much of these 'awards' ceremonies! The idea is that a lot of agents and club owners attend the awards night but the whole event is often just a free gig for the hosting venue with as far as I know no work ever coming from them. I never saw one agent at any of these events. With the notable exception of the presence of a few of our loyal followers (Brian & Wendy, Emma and Co) these events were usually dull dull dull!

The ELO tribute thing was also often hindered by the narrow mindedness of some club's committee's and their members. We'd often turn up at new venues and find we'd not been billed as an ELO tribute at all (just the band name underlined typically with 'pop trio from brum') and customers would come up to us after the gig and say 'you played too much ELO'. The dumbest thing I ever heard was this same comment at a venue where we had been billed as an ELO tribute. What was he expecting from an ELO tribute? Some Cliff Richard perhaps? Motorhead's rendition of When The Saints Go Marching In? Dickhead!

Here are some videos of the JUMP THE GUN's 1993 NSEF Awards Presentation performance:-

And here's one or two audio clips I think recorded by slapping a couple of Tandy PZMs on the stage with a tape deck - not much cop but one of the very few I have...

Occasionally me and Ocky failed to see eye to eye on a variety of subjects. We often quarrelled. In fact it was the continuous friction between me and him that lead to the eventual fracturing of the 'trio' Wishful Thinking.

Terry announced his departure and Wishful Thinking bit the dust on New Years Eve in 2002. Me and Neil then carried on with a much altered set and became the duo Xenon (which sadly is no more as of January 2006) as well as both of us being part of the Journey tribute 'The Essential Journey' (Still going albeit limping along).

25th August, 2007 - Private Gig (Terry's Garden Party)

Well after nearly 5 years Neil and myself were approached by Terry who was putting together a big soiree in his back garden (which takes up about two thirds of Staffordshire!) involving his old band 'Penny Farthing' (who perform number 1's of the sixties) doing a 1 hour spot, then followed by Terry performing an original piece he wrote with a young lady called [forgot] on guitar and then old Wishful Thinking also performing a one hour spot.