Bob Andrews (guitarist)

Robert Ian Andrews (born 17 June 1959, Fulham, London)^[1][2] is an English pop music guitarist, and former member of the bands Generation X, and Empire.

Early life

Andrews was born in Fulham in 1959, the son of a mother who was a secretary, and a West London cobbler father.^[3] He began to play the guitar at the age of 10, being musically influenced particularly by the work of the British blues rock guitarists Paul Kossoff^[4] and Rory Gallagher,^[5] and in his youth also rode in junior Motorcycle Speedway competitions in West London.^[6] On leaving school at 16, he spent a year as an assistant gardener at Kensington Palace.^[7]

Generation X

In late 1976 Andrews was playing lead guitar, his preferred instrument being the Fender stratocaster,^[8] with an amateur rocker band entitled Paradox.^[9] Whilst performing at a gig at the Fulham Arts Centre he was talent-spotted by the punk-rocker Billy Idol, who was at that time looking for a guitar player to complete the line-up of a new band that he had just formed that would be named Generation X.^[10] Andrews was recruited to be its lead guitarist, in the process freeing Idol from the band's guitar role which he held at that moment to become its frontman/singer.^[11] Andrews was subsequently christened with the punk pseudonym "Derwood" by the band, a name invented on the spur of the moment by a friend of his whilst under interrogation from Tony James, the band's strategist, about school nicknames that Andrews had in search of a punk stage-name, to avoid James discovering and using the name "Dobbin", which Andrews' prominent front teeth in his school years had attracted.^[12] After less than a week in the new band and a handful of rehearsals, Andrews took the stage with it for its first gig at the Central London College of Art & Design on 10 December 1976.^[13]

The band subsequently signed a recording contract with Chrysalis Records, and released its first single, "Your Generation",^[14] in September 1977, which went to #36 in the United Kingdom's Singles Chart. Andrews remained with the band through their two long-players, the self-titled Generation X (1978), which reached #29 in the U.K. Albums Chart, followed by Valley of the Dolls (1979).^[14]

After two propitious opening years, with a hectic touring schedule and several record releases increasingly impacting the charts, the release of the Valley of the Dolls long-player at the start of 1979, although being marked simultaneously by their highest chart hit with the single "King Rocker" achieving #11 in the U.K. Singles Chart, initiated the beginning of a deterioration in the success of the band's commercial output, and differences began to surface within it between Andrews and Billy Idol and the bass player Tony James as to its future musical direction. The disagreement about direction was augmented by Idol and James' refusal to allow Andrews to contribute to their songwriting partnership, and an increasing personal antipathy that had developed in Andrews towards Idol.^[15] In May 1979 Andrews warned them that he was increasingly feeling like leaving Generation X, which was avoided by focusing on the band's first international tour in Japan mid-year, but on returning to England, during the recording sessions for the band's abortive third long-player (which would be released retrospectively 20 years later under the title Sweet Revenge) internal disputes came to a head, and Andrews quit the band just before Christmas.^[16][17] He would be joined by the band's drummer Mark Laff a month later, who Idol and James asked to leave over another disagreement.

Empire

In early 1980, Andrews and Laff recorded as session musicians on Jimmy Pursey's first solo long-player Imagination Camouflage (1980),^[18] before in mid-1980 Andrews and Laff with the bassist Simon Bernal formed the three man Post-punk band Empire, with Andrews as the act's lead vocalist.^[19][20] Empire commercially released via the new label Dinosaur Discs, backed by a record shop of the same name at No.17 Barons Court Road in West Kensington, the song Hot Seat (1981), with a B-side entitled All These Things,^[21] which failed to enter the UK Singles Chart. A long-player entitled Expensive Sound (1981), recorded without a producer at Alvic Studios in Barons Court, also failed to enter the UK Album Chart.^[22] The band played a handful of gigs around London before Bernal left. After an unstable line-up and some more gigging in 1981-1982, Laff left the act in February 1983 in frustration with its lack of apparent commercial development.^[23]

In early 1983 Andrews renamed the act New Empire after recruiting the vocalist Babel Wallace, Mike Gregovich (one of the sound engineers at Alvic Studios who had recorded the band's 'Expensive Sound' L.P.) playing bass, and Crispin Taylor on the drums. The new line-up released a white label 12" titled "Inside You", and toured in the U.K. in 1983 as a support act to John Miles and Roman Holliday, and also in Spain, where it found some unanticipated and mysteriously caused popularity with well attended shows. However, without a record label's support New Empire's increasingly adverse financial circumstances led to Andrews ending it in February 1984 at a gig at the Thames Hall in Slough, Berkshire, Andrews signaling the defeat by wrecking his amp with his guitar in the band's final performance. (A retrospective long-player of New Empire material would be released in the United States 24 years later entitled Expansive Sound (2009)).^[24]

Despite its lack of commercial success Empire was an influential band in the development of the Emo music genre in the United States,^[25][26] and an acknowledged key influence via songs such as Him or Me (1981) on the development of the sound of The Stone Roses from the Manchester scene of the late 1980's.^[27]

The Expensive Sound L.P. was commercially re-issued in the United Kingdom in 1986. In the United States it was re-issued in 2003 by the label Poorly Packaged Products as a double long-player containing seven previously unreleased studio recordings by the band and live performance material, and in 2014 a limited run collector's edition of the original record and sleeve artwork was released by Drastic Plastic Records.^[28]

Westworld

In 1986 Andrews formed a Retro-1950's Americana style "Beatbox Rock'n'Roll"/Rockabilly band called Westworld,^[29] with the singer Elizabeth Westwood. It had an early hit with its debut single Sonic Boom Boy, which reached #11 in the UK Singles Chart in February 1987,^[30] which was subsequently commercially used as a backing music track by Sony for one of its television product advertising campaigns.^[29]

Between 1987-1988 the band commercially released in the United Kingdom via R.C.A. five singles, all of which entered the top 80 of the UK Singles chart, and a long-player entitled Where the Action is (1987), which reached #49 in the UK Albums Chart.^[31] Three more singles were released in 1989-1992, but they failed to enter the UK Singles Charts, and two long-players released in the United States also failed to chart, and the act broke up in 1992, Andrews departing from England to live in the United States, where he continued to work with Elizabeth Westwood as singer, forming an act named Moondogg with the sound artist Martin Lee Stephenson in 1994.^[32]

Speedtwinn

In 1996 Andrews, having returned to London from living in the United States, joined a provisional-band consisting of Glenn Matlock, "Rat Scabies" and Gary Twinn called Dead Horse, but the act failed to develop beyond some rehearsals and a demo recording session after Matlock abandoned it to join the reformation of the Sex Pistols. From this line-up Andrews and the vocalist Gary Twinn formed a hybrid British-American alternative country act entitled Speedtwinn, which they relocated to Joshua Tree, California in 1998, combining British rock music from the 1970's with American country music.^[33] After gigging in small venues in the area, and recording music videos of cover songs ranging from T-Rex to Johnny Cash, they wrote and commercially released in the United States a self-produced long-player entitled California (2003), which failed to enter the U.S. Charts. Speedtwinn disbanded soon afterwards.^[34][35]

Solo works - Tone Poet

In 2007 Andrews released a solo rock music long-player entitled Tone Poet (2007).^[36] He subsequently recorded and released Cover Yer Arse (2010), a compilation long-player of cover songs.^[37] In 2013 he released a downloadable song "Sleeping Beauty" from Tone Poet Vol. I.

In 2013 Andrews switched from the electric guitar to playing the lap steel guitar,^[38] and subsequently released an American blues long-player entitled Tone Poet, Vol. II (2014),^[39] and toured the British Isles performing music from it in 2015, with 'Sean & Zander' as co-headliners. He also released a song entitled "Winter Pt 1," which was part of an unreleased long-player entitled Mojave Full Circle. He released two more American blues long-players in 2016-2018, entitled Tone Poet Vol. 3 (2016), and Tone Poet Vol.4 (2018).^[40]

Reunions

On 20 September 1993 Andrews performed in a late-1970's Generation X line-up reunion at the Astoria Theatre in London's West End.

In 2006 Andrews and Laff re-recorded the Empire single Hot Seat for the 25th anniversary of the release of Expensive Sound L.P., which was commercially released on the Expansive Sound Volume II (2009) compilation.^[41] In 2011 Andrews played again with New Empire's ex-singer Babel Wallace for the recording of a song called Bed Head for Wallace's solo long-player entitled Good Things Can Happen.^[42]

Influence

Andrews has been cited as an influence by the pop guitarists Johnny Marr of The Smiths, and John Squire of The Stone Roses,^[43] and his song back-catalogue has been covered a diverse range of bands, including the U.S. Bombs and the L.A. Guns.

Personal life

Andrews relocated from England to Cave Creek, Arizona, United States of America in 1992. He subsequently moved to Los Angeles, where he dropped out of professional music for a period and worked as a motorcycle courier in the mid-late 1990s, during which time he married Stephanie in Hollywood.^[44] In the early 2000s he moved to California's High Desert region.^[45][46]

Discography

References

External links

• Moondogg official site
• Bob "Derwood" Andrews – Discogs.com
• Bob "Derwood" Andrews' Myspace page
• Moondogg MySpace page
• Empire - Expensive Sound