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Biography
Potted Henry
Colin & Peter soon ventured off into Echo & The Bunnymen territory, so I left and went to college where I began to play in a few fledgling groups, culminating in the first showbusiness incarnation of James Henry, fronting a band called The Frustrations. We didn’t play any original material as I had little confidence in my own writing at that time, so instead turned out stuff like Elmore James’ “Knocking At Your Door” and Stevie Ray Vaughan’s “Texas Flood”, sporting nice black trousers. Gwyn Jones was The Frustrations’ exceptional drummer (no longer with us, I’m sad to say), Mike Galvin played sax, Howard Gay played Bass, Siobhan & Louise did backing vocals and Dave Rogers played keyboards (as he did on my first demos in Kirkby’s Amazon studios in August 1985, when our session was interrupted by someone coming in saying “Do you mind if I use this piano for a minute?”. It was XTC’s Andy Partridge). Those three collegiate years spawned many wonderful friends and times but, alas, a degree I couldn’t put to much use so, back on civvy street, I secured a dead-end day job and began touting myself around the nether reaches of Liverpool’s music scene, making lots of Adrian Belew-like noises, playing for the likes of Candy Opera (hello Mal and Hasky) and Blue Boy Fix (who?) whilst having auditions for Come In Tokio (headed by Pete Wylie’s brother Phil) and Thomas Lang. Lang it was who I, coincidentally, supported at The Revolution in Liverpool, 2004, for his “comeback” gig (he now owns the bar in Parr Street studios). Despite these bids for hometown fame and notoriety, opportunities dwindled and I began to lose motivation, realising that a major change would have to follow. My ultimate, make-or-break chance to move to London came as the 80′s wound down, although I intended to merely “give it a go” for a few months and see where it took me. I’m still there………………….