Not only is Nick Simper alive and well, but his rumoured new project with the working title "Quatermass II" sounds pretty damn stunning.
Comprising Nick on bass, Mick Underwood on drums, Bernie Tormé on guitar and Pete Taylor of the "Pirates" and "Cactus" on, I think, vocals. Simper and Underwood met at the RPM Christmas party, got together with the others, "knocked about a bit", it clicked so they wrote some stuff, recorded half a dozen songs at Tormes studio and they're now looking for a record deal. Apparently Torme makes Blackmore look "slow"! There are no plans yet to gig with this lineup. Should kick butt IMHO.
As far as "The Good Old Boys" goes, they have a regular Sunday night spot at the "Anglers Retreat" in West Drayton, London. This lineup includes Peter Parks (Fandango), Simon Bishop, Alan Barrett and Richard Underwood (The Strawbs). Occasionally others sit in, but they're always "pros".
We talked about the Forum (Inglewood) gigs and this is where Clapton took umbrage at Purple blowing Cream away every night so cut short their supporting role. After the first night even Ginger and Jack wouldn't socialise despite being contemporaries so far from home. So, even then Clapton was overrated. There exists some great MkI footage, but it needs specialist attention to get to transferred to a sensible format. Nick was a tad peeved that so little of MkI exists on film.
They were on TV "all the time", the Frost show, Merve Griffin (a Johhny Carson type?), but if these show were taped they were recycled after transmission or chewed up by the BBC in the eighties.
The Warhorse stuff was deleted by Vertigo and picked up by Magnum who pressed some "crappy" vinyl and CDs. Some outfit in Germany has apparently done a better job, but there are no royalties in it for the band.
We talked about a few other bits and pieces, like Johnny Kidd and how nothing much really survives desipte his constant TV appearances, about Blackmore having hit a few bum notes on the Hefner sessions having had "one too many" and so on.
All Nick's stuff is published by the Feldman's subsidiary of EMI, and he is contactable there.
All in all, he sounds very excited by the new stuff they're doing: they just need to find a record company that will look at "anyone over 24". I tried to reassure him that we were doing our best for artists over 24 too :-)
Dave