Bad Girl City: 1990-1991
L-R Back row: Matthew Deal, Simon Mann, Colin Underhill. Front row: Kieron Shannon, Steve Underhill
Following the summer of 1990 performing at the Edinburgh Festival with Matthew Deal, we returned home to ponder on what to do. Before long, Matt asked me if I'd like to join with him in starting a band with a pair of guitar playing brothers - Steve and Colin Underhill. Add vocalist Keiron Shannon to the mix and Bad Girl City is born, named after a Zodiac Mindwarp lyric.
Where ARDIA was a covers only band, BGC saw us writing for the first time. Steve was the main songwriter and Keiron the main lyricist, but we all contributed, my first co-write being the up-tempo rocker, Drag Me Down.
Starting out with a couple of pub gigs, we soon entered the Thieves Kitchen Battle Of The Bands. We won our first heat, putting us into the semi-finals. Between our previous gigs and the heat, we started to create quite a buzz.
The semi-finals brought out a large crowd to see us secure a place in the finals, there to fight funk band The Government in front of a panel of judges who counted among their number an ex-member of Ultravox.
For the final, the pub was full to bursting. The bands set up at one end of the bar and the only way to get from there to the gents at the other end was to leave via the load-in doors and walk down the street to the main entrance - it still took a while to fight our way through. Both bands' sets went down brilliantly, but sadly we came a close second.
The band only played one more gig as Keiron was spotted and poached by another band. It didn't last long, but BGC was fun.
