*One of only two Lanky Bands to have played at London's world famous..  Marquee Club. Friday 11 December 1964 The other:*Little Free Rock *DAVID JOHN & THE MOOD The Falcons: Sound Five: Purple Haze: Little Free Rock: Little Fat Black Pussycats Preston #   Peter Illingworth: Lead Guitar. Malcolm Fred Isherwood: Drums. David 'Miffy' Smith -David John: Lead Vocal. Rick Greenwood: Six-string Bass Guitar.   # Rick Greenwood and Malcolm Fred Isherwood on drums.. The first version of David John & the Mood who were evolving from The Falcons..     # David John - Malcolm Fred Isherwood - John Brierley - Peter Illingworth - Pete Atkinson   "Rick played on the first single, Pretty Thing but was replaced soon afterwards by John Brierley - from The Midnighters - Rob Dekka - electric piano, was replaced by Pete Atkinson on rhythm guitar before the recording so they played on the record."     # Picture taken in Wales by Des O'Reilly from The Puppets at John Brierleys' parents house in Harlech.   #   # The Cavern Club Wall of Fame - Mathew Street, Liverpool   #   Records released by both Decca and Parlophone - the latter a Joe Meek production - made little impact chart-wise but are part of a collection of well made 45 singles of their time. 1963: The Original: 'David John & The Mood'.    David John Smith: Vocal. Peter Illingworth: Guitar-Vocal. Robb Deka: Piano-Vocal. Rick Greenwood: Six-String Bass. Fred Isherwood: Drums. After six months - Rick was replaced by John Brierly on Bass, and Robb by Pete Atkinson on Guitar. Robb Shenton: October 2010   #   "A leading singer of the regular group at my Catacombs Club in Preston was David John & The Mood. David Smith's nickname is 'Miffy'. The breaking-of-ice or putting it another way - the gaining of acceptance in strange new cities and their music venues always caused havoc to start with. I was even reminded quite recently by Miffy of the time when I was on the door trying my best to deter a nasty gang of drunken skinheads from getting in.     At that time I had a police-trained Alsatian dog called Rex. Well this gang were not at all deterred by his barking or my threats of setting him free, for they retaliated by throwing a tail broken cat at him, which led to his chase of the cat, leaving me to try to fight off the gang alone. It was then that Miffy answered my screams for help by opening the club door just enough to pass me my requested hammer and saw. Now armed to the teeth so to speak, I evened up the odds by slashing and battering the legs of my attacker's sending them limping off into the night.       Miffy became quite famous in the music biz and even aspired to being in The Rolling Stones back-up group at many northern venues including my CubiKlub in Rochdale where DJ &TM filled in for their non-appearance. That was a disastrous night. The 'Stones' let me down badly when only Mick Jagger and Brian Jones arrived to do their £350 contracted stuff. The rest of then didn't show up at all.      All tickets were paid for in advance ofthe show and I had to pay it all back. That's when I went broke and went off to London. Incidentally I'm still waiting for their return booking as promised by Mick to play that gig at a later date. Read about it in Bill Wyman's book 'Stone Alone'." Clive Kelly: March 2011   * David John: Lead Vocal. Fred Mal Isherwood: Drums. John Brierley: Bass Guitar - Vocal. Peter Atkinson: Rhythm Guitar - Vocal. Peter Illingworth: Lead Guitar - Vocal.   *Extract from Manfred Kuhlmann's book: Sound With The Pound.   #   #     # #Pics by Peter Illingworth   "In 1967 I was a founder member; keyboard - vocals of a North London band called ‘The Third Eye. In the summer of 1967 we played at many Summer Festivals. Also in 1967 we played The Marquee Club in Wardour Street - June 17, July 7, July 31, October 12.      David John & The Mood’ and their incarnation Little Free Rock are noted to be the only ‘Lany Beat Preston bands’ to play The Marquee Club. DJ&TM on 11 December 1964 and Little Free Rock thereafter. Peter Illingworth was the only member of each band. But as you noted Bill, scouse band - the excellent ‘The Clayton Squares’ - played many gigs in 1966 at The Marquee. The Remo Four, also from Liverpool, played The Marquee -supporting Long John Baldry – Friday 15 Sept 1967, then supported Traffic again at the Marquee Tuesday 14 November. I don’t know if this was the original northern outfit that formerly backed Johnny Sandon." Robb Shenton: June 2011    #   #  #   #   #     #     #   #   #   #   #   # Record release flyer..   Record review..     #     #(c)Peter Illingworth: Sptember 2011     http://www.davidjohnandthemood.com/

 

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