Jake Burns in conversation
with Alan Parker in 2001 on recording Hanx at Friars Aylesbury:
"Friars was a wonderful wonderful venue. I still have
incredibly fond memories of the place. It was one of those magical small
gigs in a small town yet it was run as if it was Madison Square Gardens.
Nothing ever went wrong and everything ran incredibly smoothly. They were
such nice people"
and on the Wingnuts.....
"They were such trusting
people...[we had bought some plastic masks].....we managed to convince
them we were a band from Ohio called the Wingnuts and we went on and
supported ourselves ! It was only when we started playing nonsense like
Tiger Feet that the audience realised who we were and stopped throwing
stuff at us!"
If ever a band would be
welcome at Friars today, it must be this band and we were all thankful
they came back in 2009 for a blistering sold out gig. SLF split in 1983 and
reformed five years later. Although the line up has not always been stable
- Burns the only constant, they did feature Jam hero Bruce Foxton for 15
years. Ali McMordie rejoined the band in 2006 (when we saw them and they
were on cracking form as if it was this era all over again) and are still
making people of a certain age very happy in 2010.
It was no surprise that the
Hanx album was recorded at Friars given how much they felt about the
place.
