K9’s

Iain “Sprogg” Aird – bass and vocals, Kev Drain – drums
The K9’s were our local ’77 punk heroes in Reading (although as I recall they all actually came from Crowthorne). Rick Dellar on vocals, Greg Muden on guitar and vocals, Iain “Sprogg” Aird on bass and vocals and Kev Drain on drums. They were in a very similar vein to The Damned both musically (they frequently used to include a cover of New Rose in their set), and in their gloriously chaotic live performances: they regularly used to come on stage wearing all sorts of strange costumes (policemen, nurses, ballerinas, holidaymakers….) and frequently ended up playing the encores stark bollock naked!
They originally started out as Rick Rodent And The Sewer Rats back in ’76 and used to be regulars at Bones Club in Reading until it closed. After that they only gigged sporadically until mid ’78 when they split up.


They reformed in ’79 which was when they recorded the single K9 Hassle / Idi Amin / Sweeney Todd which they released themselves on their own Dog Breath label. They initially rejected a recording contract offered to them by the local record shop, Quicksilver, but subsequently were forced to agree to sign up for 2 singles because they needed someone to sponsor them on tour as they’d been offered a support slot by The Damned. Unfortunately no money was forthcoming from Quicksilver so they had to abandon the tour and, feeling understandably annoyed and despondent, they decided to call it a day again.
In the meantime, the K9’s had recorded four tracks – Sewer Rats, Speeding, their own slightly rewritten version of Leader Of The Pack retitled Dose Of The Clap, and The Weekend Starts Here. These were going to be released as an EP, tentatively entitled The K9’s Four Skins – but these tracks were left unfinished when they split up.
Sprogg later mixed down a couple of these tracks, The Weekend Starts Here and Dose Of The Clap, as me and my mate Captain Callous were hoping to release them as a free flexi-disc with the ‘zine we used to produce (Grinding Halt) but the pressing plant refused to produce them because of the highly questionable lyrical content!


Meanwhile, Sprogg had started playing guitar in a new punk / oi! / thrash outfit called Zerox; Greg joined another leading local band called General Accident for a while; Kev played for quite a few local groups, notably Between Pictures, and Rick just seemed to disappear off the face of the earth for a while.
The K9’s original line-up reformed yet again in 1980 but had to masquerade as an R ‘n’ B band under the name Gene Creamer And The Bunkbeds (!) because The K9’s reputation for wild live performances had preceded them, and they found they had already been banned in advance from just about every venue in the Thames Valley! Greg, Sprogg and Kev. later played together in another band called The Geisha Girls.

.… and where are they now?
Well, Greg is now the manager of the Purple Turtle bar chain (along with Danny, who was Kev’s replacement in The Geisha Girls); Rick and Kev are still living in Crowthorne and I believe still have a band together which plays occasionally, although I haven’t seen them for a couple of years; and as for Sprogg…. well….
Mr. Aird was / is an absolutely superb bass player and has played with any number of bands over the years – perhaps most notably Nik Turner’s Inner City Unit – and in just about every identifiable style known to man (as well as a couple that I’m pretty sure he just made up himself on the spur of the moment). He was even asked to audition for The Damned once (after Algy left and before they recruited Paul Gray). I’m absolutely convinced that he could have had an extremely successful career as a professional musician, except for a couple of small but unfortunate details – he is almost certainly certifiably insane and is without any doubt whatsoever the single most disorganised and unreliable little tosspot it has ever been my enormous pleasure to know….. (If you’re out there anywhere reading this Sproggy, please call your old Hungarian friend Christopher Bollock!)
Stewart Osborne – (The Accountant Formerly Known As Eddie Snide) – May 2001
Punk77 says
One single on Dog Breath Records (1979) Idi Amin / Sweeney Todd. Jokey style punk…Sconeheads style chunky punk but complete with swear words and politically incorrect humour. Funny as hell…’Tell Idi I’m In ..Tell Idi I’m Out’… you get the picture. ‘Sweeney Todd, Sweeny Todd…He’s a f***ing old Sod !!’…. and so on
Punk77
TalkPunk
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