Canterbury Tales

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In 1969-1971 I played with a band named Canterbury Tales.

Canterbury Tales consisted of

  • Mark Dean Ellen on drums
  • Bernie Hagley on Bass and Sax 
  • Nigel Gilchrist on Hammond organ & bass
  • John Wheels Guitar.

Later when Bernie left to go to the States with "Tranquility" we recruited a new Bass player. He was Trevor Horne who went on to form Buggles and made a couple of hits with gender bending bands.(Frankie Came >From Liverpool).But he never touched me, as far as I can remember.He did give me some some funny blue pills as I recall one time, which made me have fantastic pornographic dreams which I can still recall vividly.

We were resident Fri. & Sat. St. Mildreds Hotel, Westgate (now flattened).and Sunday nights the Queen's Hotel Cliftonville. (also flattened) We played the Coach & Horses Canterbury Wednesdays, That was if we could beat contenders Mickey Finn to the gig, no probs. we had a Transit & they had an old Commer.
 Neros in Ramsgate was another venue. A gig in Folkestone was good for nubile groupies.(Forgot the name of that one). Good times they tell me.

Bernie & I are now in Vanity Fare, Nigel is running a music hire company in L.A.,  John is running a Taxi Company in Perth W.Australia & I am having fantastic flashbacks.

Mark Dean Ellen 

 

canterbury tales

 

Comments

1
Marlene
3 years ago
My word, this is an old post !!! I was Trevor Horn's girlfriend during his short stint with the Canterbury Tales (I believe he was the cause of their demise ??!!) Bizarrely he never mentions this era in any of his career history at any point. Any of you guys know why? As I recall the Transit was a blast and always broke down ? I remember you all going on the "Grand Norwegian Tour" ? Still have airmail letters and postcards from Trevor, you were only gone about a fortnight ! ?
I was also local to that area and remember all those venues.
How did we ever get this old ??
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1
Marlene
2 years ago
Hi John
I remember you (vaguely)
I have always found it strange how Trevor never mentioned the band ever in his history synopsis.
I started seeing him when he lived in Wyndham Avenue in Cliftonville, then spent many happy hours in Morrison Bell House in Birchington.
I did however find one article where he mentioned the "Tales"
Sadly, he got the grand tour wrong !!! He said you went to Denmark, not Norway !!
I would imagine he's pretty big for his boots these days. He was a nice guy when I knew him( A sentiment it would appear not shared by Mark Ellen)
It's really good to hear from you. You've been a bit of a globetrotter since those days then ??!!
I myself have lived in Spain for nine and a half years.
All the best, hope you get back to your place in Thailand shortly.
Take care, stay safe and healthy ( as we can in our 70s)
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john wheals
2 years ago
Hi marlene, thought I would enlighten you re. trevors movements in the early 70"s as you have pointed out there seems to be a gap.  When the "Tales split Mark organized us to join a crap band called the "Nights" w  ho I had worked with previously. I told him NO WAY but as we were out of work musos decided to give it a go to keep solvent for a while. After the first gig told Trevor I had had enough and was leaving, up to him if he wanted to stay.  During the next few months I decided to get my own band together as I written quite a lot of material, one even co written by Trevor!  One day Trevor came to my home in London and told me ho could not "hack" the "Nights" anymore and joined a band and went off to tour Denmark. As with the Norway tour, he came back broke, I have not heard from him since.  I recorded my material and the band did a few gigs then my recording manager said that 'LET IT RIDE" (by Hard Horse as the band was known in Holland) was creeping up the charts there. We went off to Holland and played on tv (top pops) then the song shot up to number 1.   Give it a play, it is on line still and you will also see a few different album covers shown, one cover shows the full band, see if you recognize anybody!!!  still reckon it was a better song than "video killed the radio star"!  Never saw the other "Tales" much after that except Nigel , who I have kept in contact with. Went to San Francisco in 2005 for a get together , he mentioned that he had met Trevor there earlier when he was managing "Franky goes to Hollywood".  Hope this clears up the gaps for you re. the Trevor Horn saga.      All the best      John.
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Marlene
1 year ago
Hey John, how are you?
Did you move to your ultimate home destination in Thailand  last year?
We are still in sunny Spain.
It would be good to hear from you.
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