Addilloyd - were Peter M Adamson and Peter J.Lloyd who first met in Nursery at St.Sebastian's R.C. Primary School, Salford. The duo went through School together albeit PA was a year below (only 2 months in age though) but the two were still good friends. In 1966 the duo went off to different secondary schools but around 1968 the two met up again by chance and began recording at each others houses.The early recordings such as  ' The Sun is my Friend ' and History Makers Past' were deleted by mistake but some of these early recordings remain and feature on the AddiLloyd Jukebox. The instrumentation at the time was Pete Lloyd's acoustic guitar and a classic electric Bontempi chord organ plus PA's Mum's piano and anything else that could be found such as a school recorder and harmonica. Recordings were done on one of two domestic reel to reel recorders, one was a Kander (PA's Dad's) and the other was I don't know what which belonged to Pete Lloyd until fire damaged. (Please note cover versions have been omitted from the Jukebox but are stored privately on archive CD's. for the obvious legal reasons). One classic story from this time was the one off additional members such as Rob Craig and Phil Callaghan. We were sat round one day and I alledgedly said to Phil, 'here's a recorder and book, go in the other room and learn it'. PL thought that was hilarious but ironically it probably formed the basis of PA's  music teaching many years later, and in some cases the method worked. These ad hoc members never materialised into a band and apart from the short lived addition of Pete Avery for a few recordings and Rob Giddens for a one off live gig the formative years were essentially made up of Pet Adamson And Pete Lloyd.

   Grand Wheel - Grand Wheel did one live Gig at St Dunstan's in Moston round about 1973 and it was a disaster. An Irish showband were on for a parish social and were given the support act job. They were told they could use the bands gear but when they took the stage they only gave them a vocal mic and proceeded to announce that the buffet was now open. As Grand Wheel took the stage with no amps the crowd set off for a bun fight. They couldn't even hear their own guitars so singing to their own accompaniment was impossible. In fact Adamson's 'I'm having singing lessons at The Manchester School of Music and 'I'm not singing for you lot' would have got a big laugh except no one could hear him. The Playlist that day included That'll be the day, Let it Be, and Heartache Following me and a few other songs of the time.At least it introduced them to the real world. Grand Wheel was Pete Lloyd, Pete Adamson, Pete Avery and Rob Giddens who got together as a one off. Addilloyd were talking of changing the name to Grenouille as PL had just written Frog Dance but the guy announcing misheard the name and announced them as Grand Wheel. After one Gig the band decided not to carry on so PA and PL went back to the drawing board and carried on as Grand Wheel as a duo. Using the two tape recorders the band got into primitive multi tracking by crash recording and from there produced a few acetates which are featured on the Grand Wheel Jukebox's of 'Compilations and out takes' , 'The Album' and 'Search For Identity' (Early Version). 'The Album' was the first attempt at putting songs together into a job lot and were actually recorded on one small reel as opposed to recordings being all over the place and random. Some of these tracks were very spontaneous such as the Shakespeare number.This was literally made up on the spot using words from Teach Yourself Songwriting because no new songs had been written at that point. One interesting thing about this gig was the transport. Despite being so young Pete Lloyd was the proud owner of a superb blue Anglia which got us to Moston and back in style.

Adamson, Avery, Lloyd - Pete Avery joined PA and PL for a brief spell and some of the trio recordings are included here. Pete Avery was a good finger picking folk guitarist but his own songs were better suited for the solo treatment. When the other members attempted to do a Yardbirds on 'Where do we go from Here' it marked a rapid decline of that combination. Pete Avery was cheesed off with the insensitive version of his art.The two PA's joined together for the 'Practical Life' single and Pete Avery carried 'Messages' into his solo act which included a performance at Leeds University when he supported Hedgehog Pie. (See Claim To Fame under Hedgehog Pie).The AAL recordings are part of the Grand Wheel Compilation and Out takes Jukebox. The two PA's also did a few school related ventures such as singing at Nazareth House at Christmas and both sang in the St.Peter's School Choir on many ocassions. In the mid 90's Adamson returned to Nazareth House to present a slide and song show and later became monthly resident musician from 2009 in conjunction with Green Wood who became known as the Nun Band.The other monthly musician at Nazareth House was Mr.Tom Heslop the PA's music teacher although Pete Avery took Art instead at A'Level. He famously said 'Art is what you can get away with' but whether that is original needs a good google session.

PATCH - The Messages album was really the first collection of some musical merit and listening to these many years later they are pleasantly quaint to say the least. Most compositions are by Peter M Adamson but the guitar arrangements were the genius of Pete Lloyd, who despite quite a few examples of Plagiarism (Comminication Breakdown for example) was an acomplished and creative guitarist dubbing rhythm, lead and bass plus skills as a guitar case drummer. PA on the other hand added keyboards including a deluxe version of the stylophone while both Pete's were vocalists. Messages was recorded around 1971-2 which was the examination years along with Broughton Cricket Club and St.Sebastian's Football team. .In 1998 PA was able to dub some drums with the new facilities available on computers but as this was also a technologically formative time success was not always apparent. Nevertheless, this set of recordings demonstrate some nice guitar work and some fairly decent songs which despite the aged recordings are nice to have.  Messages was recorded on a Sony TC270 recorder (bought for £110 after 5 weeks work at Hill, Son and Wallace) which had sound on sound facility and stereo capability. It also ran at 3 speeds so had ability to mimick a harpsichord or chipmunk which feature on some of the recordings in the PATCH years. Patch incidentally was Pete Lloyd's black and white dog. This Jukebox contains the original album and related recordings from that time. The new recording reel to reel machine coincided with the name change to PATCH which effectively started a new developmental phase in the music. The instruments expanded aswell into a 12 string guitar once owned by PL's brother John Lloyd. I swapped this for some Who tickets with PL and then later gave it to Jim Lowe because he had the same initials as John Lloyd and they were etched into the scratchboard.(See Jim Lowe in Claims To Fame) Jim later appeared on The Chorley Buskers album 'Off Stage'

The Search For Identity - This was the first of a few concept albums and was an attempt to portray Life's Journey with it's culmination in finding God and subsequently one's own purpose in life. It was not autobiographical as the adult themed references were merely comments of phases in the stereotypical world but the faith elements were autobiographical. The Search was recorded twice. The first version by Grand Wheel and then expanded by Patch with the addition of several new songs. A reference to The Who's Seeker riff was intentional. A song written in 2010 called 'Giving my Life back to you' would probably be seen as the last track in the search albeit 30+ years on.

The Prodigal Son - The Prodigal Son was the second recorded Musical, although written after Rock Nativity which preceded The Search. Sadly Patch never recorded the Nativity which was a shame.The musical was written based on the Biblical story with a college context. Again the concept was not autobiographical but reflected the typical life that could have happened at the time. The Musical was turned into a slide show and performed at Padgate College and was transfered to Video and DVD many years later. Several of the songs have been performed out of context in live performances. 'Sunshine of Your Love' gets a plagiaristic treatment on this one. I didn't know it at the time But PL had a clever knack of doing this to my songs.

Patchwork - This was a return to a basic album with a collection of songs. The Nick Tudor track was demonstrating the effects of studying music with it's modal approach while the album included two Salford songs one of which went on to reach the heights of GMR Radio in 1974 and Salford City Radio 2009 - I wish I could Surf in Salford City. The song was added to the Salford City Sound Archive. The last track on this album was a spoof live Concert with a stadium size audience and an off the cuff warts and all performance of the classics Monday Morning and Rock and Roll wedding done as a medley.

Impressions This was effectively the last Patch album and was linked to Patchwork in that the first album was secular and this one was sacred. The original album had impressions of famous people such as Bob Harris and Harold Wilson added by college colleague Dave Massey but the original cassette was stolen in a house burglary. The Impressions do exist on a reel tape but finding them may be impossible.

 Please note that while all songs use acceptable language there are some which contain adult themes.

The next instalment can be found here ''The Solo Years''