Spam Tempura was Pimlico born, a child of the 60’s, at the old Westminster Hospital. In keeping with the ethos that if you remember the 60’s you weren’t there he has no idea what the first single he bought was. He did however start buying records from an early age, saving up the money he got from walking Tony Blackburn’s dog Arnold. When the pop wars raged in primary school between the families Jackson and Osmonds he came firmly down on the side of the female singer songwriter Alice Cooper. His first LP, Band on the Run by Wings (name those celebs on the cover – answers below), was purchased from that record shop at the top of Vauxhall Bridge road near Victoria Station.
Then the revolutionary war on pop started with punk and his first gig, The Jam in 1977 (where he convinced them that the Batman Theme would be a good addition to the first album) and his first 12 inch single Radar Love by those Dutch Eurovision Song entrants Golden Earring bought from the legendary Recordsville.
New Wave, Post Punk, Liverpool scene, the sound of young Scotland, C86 and Indie all followed but he got his first musical break mid 80s as the drummer from EastEnders, nailing those 7 beats five nights a week. Eventually musical differences and then nerves got the better of him with him coming in ten seconds early…viewers still do not know the father of her child.
Spam was there at Jesus and Mary Chain riot at North London Poly, orchestrating the crowd and drawing political graffiti on walls, was there when there was standing ovations mid-song at Tom Waits on his brilliant Big Time concert at Hammersmith, was there at The Redskins and The Smiths GLC gig, that fat right wings idiots (no, not Morrissey, he hadn’t reached that stage yet) tried to spoil only for the show to be stolen by a Pimlico legend (A Tallman like no other) who scaled the side of the tall building and dropped his shorts…no one was watching the Smiths and he was there when the newly founded New Order actually played ‘my old mans a dustman’ at Poole Arts Centre.
He now gets well known musicians to photograph him.