Drug Squad

Drug Squad started life in 1975,in Surrey, under, the better name of HOT COFFIN. Geoff ‘Girl’ Eade being leader singer and Mick Farren figure. Lawrie ‘Tex Tucker’ Mills, just wanted to play guitar. Drummer was Jerry ‘Pretty Boy’ Wickings, who was amazing at 16 and from the Keith Moon school. Main songwriter was a guy called Eric Allen (bass). They never played many gigs and Eric left mid 1977 to be replaced by Tony Davidson on bass.

When punk came along they did not change and saw punks as allies. They were, what later became known as ‘proto-punks’. Lots of bands cut their hair to fit in…this lot did not…they never hid their musical roots either. Musically, their influences were Pink Fairies, Mick Farren/Deviants and Motorhead. The band was also very loud and stood their ground and got banned for mis-behaviour at The Red Deer in Croydon & White Lion in Putney. The band played Waiting for the Man, in their early days but dropped it when all these other bands started playing it!! So they attempted City Kids by the Fairies, but never live.

In late 1977 Drug Squad recorded 3 tracks for a possible single including the first version of Switchcleaner. Backed with Left Right & Centre (a song about the Lewisham NF riot). Tony saw that RAW RECORDS were offering spots on their label which was then quite hip! So they scraped together £218 and met a certain Lee Hazelwood at Pye Studios in Marble Arch…cut an acetate, handed over money and that was the last they heard!! He seemed to have disappeared …phone calls to Cambridge proved fruitless…the band got pissed off and gave up hope. One thing they discovered it was not the Lee Hazelwood but a certain Lee Wood.

In 1978/9 Drug Squad recorded the sessions that yielded the eventual single – Operation Julie / Switchcleaner – and the belated cassette album ‘Perversion St.’ which took its name from a Deviants epic.

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