Mayhew, Deg, Daisy (Micks wife), X, Mick Jones, Fatchner (kneeling), roadie, Tj... leaning on a Porsche of course!
Tony James , Mick Jones and Janet
Street-Porter (Then Tjs girlfriend)
consider Tjs brick like mobile..
Its the future calling..
The Ultravixens... so fanatical
about detail the road crew had
to be... Girls... Jessica, Adele, Ace
and Amazon Woman...
Chris Kavannah and ray Mayhew...
the Human Beatboxes lay down the
4x4 at the Electric cinema...
people why are we fighting?
CHAPTER 4: The Name Game
Fachtna comes up with it again
Still no name and he calls to say i should come and read this article he's found in the Herald Tribune about this Russian street gang...SIGUE SIGUE SPUTNIK..TJ calls everyone excited..brings home the piece torn out ..i still have it..somehow it captures the essence of the band..the idea of this fagin like group of money launderers in Moscow is soo right..Actually Fachtna never got the credit he deserves as one of the true mentors of Sputnik...the name makes a great story every time its printed.. like all great names.. so different.. even the Sputnik connection is great.. mans first object in space ..like some kind of man made god....years later I'm on a plane and a guy sits talking to me..turns out HE wrote the article! fate..and of course he now wants to know about my interest in Marc Rich, cos the journo had read about me in Time magazine.. the wheel turns!.. later still we find that Sputnik is the name of a Manila motorcycle gang who when they kill people cut a notch in their arm..shit these are tough guys.. respect..
The logo is designed by TJ to look vaguely Suicide meets East Blok...
an irony that shows later when the gang that explodes terror bombs in Belgium is also using this design but with CCC thru the star.."are u worried asks a Belgium Journo while I'm staying there ..that they might think ill of you , especially as Sputnik seems so ..capitalist!"...oh shit...but its all part of the magic isn't it..where u mix up cultures, beliefs and Rock n Roll..Showbiz and Terror..makes a great story....yea we were scared..
Mick Jones, TJs best friend then plays a new very important part in the story..for TJs birthday he gets him a PRO1 synth..u can link it simply to the 808 to have a rudimentary sequencer..at a time where TJ is getting frustrated.."we've got no songs..this is hopeless, you've gotta come up with ideas ...or its over" says tony...TJ leaves X and dirty with the flat keys and a set of lyric ideas, sketches..and goes to America for a week with Mick J to see the Clash on tour with the Who..when he comes back X and Dirty Deg have recorded 3 songs..and they're brilliant.. a complete new sound..kinda manic donna summer in dub, from the limitations of the 808 and the pro 1 and the way the Akai porta studio was wired up gave us the sputnik sound! The songs LOVE MISSILE F1-11, She's MY MAN and TEENAGE THUNDER are the very same versions available on the Jungle album FIRST GENERATION exactly as X and Deg mixed them that day on a 4 track and recorded on to our old tape recorder. while I was in the USA with Mick....its funny cos they couldn't get the words F111 into Shoot it up so we called it that anyway..it was a better title..she's my man was actually the more definitive track.....to play in the Dub effects live we needed a girl,, Yana , Martins partner in YA YA gets the job cos..she's there..later learns to play keyboards, and ACE the Japanese girl who works in the shop becomes onstage roadie..a job she is totally unsuited to as she has 2 " nails..everybodys in now..Amazon woman, or Amo becomes tour manager, with no experience except she had worked as a PA to an accountant..that was the start of the Ultravixens..another style idea to enhance the movie idea..rule 3..only have tall women as crew, so Jessica became the offstage sound mixer..qualification? tall, wild, experience..owning a record collection that was right, but it was all these unconventional elements that make the band special...
We sit around for weeks playing the demos in the shop at ear splitting volume, looking like stars and wearing our own T SHIRTS.that we sat up for hours stitching together to sell in the shop so we could afford to gig...these featured pictures of transsexuals and all our influences, very like the early pistols shirts...we actually printed the FUCK shirts ourselves, each one printed with different colours, it was our art, everyone special, individual... god the care we put into everything..it was my fanaticism, everything had to be special, exactly so... like making the band stay up till 3 in the morning the night before the first gig just to paint the flight cases red with the sss logo in Japanese along the side so we would look like a futuristic army arriving...!
Meanwhile we continued to rehearse continually in maida vale, refining that sputnik groove
Before we've even played a gig...as fate would have it Billy Idol comes in one day when we are out and buys a shirt without realising!!! Sputnik is on Idols back before he knows it!
We can finally recreate the sound we want live. Mick Jones calls from America on tour with the Clash to say he's seen a new Roland guitar synthesizer that will trigger a synth module so I could get the synthesised bass sound ..its all timing again... And on his return to London Mick arrives with a present... he's bought the guitar for me.. how can I ever thank Mick for how he helped us in those days?.. Tj paints ELVIS 1990 on the guitar and a space bass is created..everyone thought that the sequencer bass was on tape cos they couldn't believe that anyone could play it but i did..its that guitar that triggers the synth basses..and its sooo hard to play..u have to hit every note perfectly and play 10 milli seconds ahead of the beat...but it meant we were completely live and could improvise..no gig would ever be the same...ever...