The Little Pigs 1990 - 2014
1987 to 1989 were barren years in the Cookie music diary, quite frankly they were bloody horrible, a real low point in my life, it was evident that I needed music back in my life so in October 1989 I put the band together again, basically we picked up where we left off with me on bass and vocals, Darren on drums and Anton on guitar.
We took the name ‘The Little Pigs’ (don’t ask, for it is somewhat tenuous and rather vulgar) and were soon playing gigs in and around Nottingham and Derby; there are pictures adorning this page that prove as much. The first gig was at The Red Lion in Heanor, January 1990 (class!)
In terms of musical preference Richard was closely aligned with me and Darren and this allowed us to start writing and playing songs in a style that we all loved.
I guess the band that had the most influence on us collectively was The Jam. I greatly admired Paul Weller’s songwriting and had always loved Bruce Foxton’s bass playing, Darren too was influenced by the drumming style of Rick Buckler. Imagine, if you can, typical Jam type songs with a sprinkling of reggae and ska and that’s kind of where we aimed with The Little Pigs!
We put time to regular practice and soon got sharp, writing new songs and working on covers that we liked, ‘Down in the Tubestation’ by The Jam was an early favourite and we played it right up until we split in 2014. We were out and about playing live.
To give a little context music that was popular at the time was a kind of soft heavy metal (Bon Jovi, Motley Crue, Guns and Roses etc) and many of our local musical peers played the same, The Little Pigs stuck out like a sore thumb………result!
Around March 1990 Anton departed, chasing the lights of the softer side of heavy rock, and after a short auditioning process was replaced by the inimitable Richard Terry.
It’s a fact that you can’t get enough good people in your life and Richard is one such, he is a very lovely and endearing man, and thankfully he remains a good friend and a significant part of my life.
The thing me and Darren most liked about him, other than the fact that being relatively new to the ‘playing in a band concept’ he was totally free from the baggage of ego, was his lovely sunburst Rickenbacker guitar!
We recorded our first demo in the autumn of 1990, at a studio in Beeston, Nottingham, three original songs (Let It Start Again, Harder Than It is and Happy Man). I remember the engineer introduced himself as ‘Joe King’.
In 1991 we were back in the same studio to record four more originals (Never Understand, Everybody Wants Her, News and Good Girls Like Bastards)
All songs got released on a ‘cassette’ titled ‘Full English Breakfast’ (you’ll have to google ‘cassette’ pop pickers), and it's probably worth about 50p on EBay these days.
When I listen back to these songs now I still enjoy their naïve eagerness, the lyrics are a little clichéd but I was yet to locate any confidence in that department although I was quite happy with the song title ‘Good Girls Like Bastards’
28.08.21 To be continued