Everyone’s A Winner: The Story Of A Punk Band Called London – Book Review

John Van Der Kiste – Everyone’s a Winner; The Story of a Punk Band Called London

Published by Beach Café Books 2025

As Punk approaches its 50th birthday – depending on which timeline you’re going by, of course – there’s no denying it’s outlived all the negative reactions at the time. The image is now established in popular culture and provides the subject matter for academic conferences and studies, and a steady stream of books, usually focussing on the main players like the Pistols, Clash and Damned or the US version of the story.

The ironically titled Everyone’s a Winner takes us back to the grimy sweaty gigs at places like the Nashville and the Fulham Greyhound, hours crammed in sweaty Transits for provincial gigs, and the latent undercurrent of violence never too far away at the time. The book is definitely a bit of a fan job – author John van der Kiste has even played on some of their records – and none the worse for that in capturing the feel of the time and freeing the group members from fears of being stitched up or misquoted. This all helps give depth to the London story – at times typical of many a group trying to make it but with some odd turns along the way. The group formed in 1977 from four fairly experienced musicians who were frustrated by a stagnant rock scene dominated by prog rock “dinosaurs” or mega acts like Floyd and Zeppelin while the top 20 was ruled by ersatz watered-down showbiz acts like Mud and Alvin Stardust. Frustrated muso Miles Tredinnick was working at the Robert Stigwood Organisation, one of the management heavyweights of the time. Changing his name to Riff Regan (as in The Sweeney character) he advertised in Melody Maker for like-minded “Punk musicians wanted to form a band”, leading to the recruitment of Steve Voice, Dave Wight and drummer Jon Moss – who would later have huge success and personal trauma with Culture Club. Up til then he’d been rehearsing with the Clash but resented being treated as a hired hand, the final straw being asked to carry Mick Jones’ guitar for him.

London got off to a flying start when they were taken on by big name Manager Simon Napier Bell. They had already built a reputation as a really strong live act, leading to a support slot on a big Stranglers tour, followed by signing for major label MCA. Napier Bell had decided he wanted to cash in on the punk scene before all the groups were signed up and went for London and Japan, installing them in a shared rehearsal space in Kilburn. Not the most harmonious arrangement for either group by the sound of it. Signing for a big-name manager who’d had success in the 60s with the Yardbirds and Marc Bolan should have given the group a big advantage, but it wasn’t the right match for either party. Before long Napier Bell decided to concentrate on the Bowie/Roxy obsessives from Lewisham – apparently dismissing London as foul-mouthed, ill-mannered “oiks” in one of his books, although he gives them fulsome praise in his brief foreword here.

Jon Moss’ departure to replace Rat Scabies – albeit briefly – in The Damned seems to have been the catalyst for a growing frustration in the group at their lack of success as various stand-ins and replacements didn’t work out. All the same, it was a strange decision to break up right after recording the Animal Games album, It was clearly career suicide and guaranteed that MCA wouldn’t waste any time or money promoting a “product” from a group that didn’t exist anymore. Equally, the group felt a lack of support as the token punk act on a mainstream label. This is why you won’t find anything by them on punk compilations. A CD version was released in 1997 by Punk77 Records, combining the album and their 1977 4-track ep. Original copies go for a fortune these days. MCA didn’t release the album til early 1978, by which time the original “one chord wonders” blast of punk was diversifying with the likes of PIL, Magazine and Siouxsie and the Banshees. Had they kept going a bit longer they’d have fitted in fine with the second-wave punk bands like 999, UK Subs and the Lurkers. As Riff observes now, they’d probably have been better advised to sign to a more simpatico label like Stiff. For what it’s worth, I don’t think the album cover art – a cartoon of a Godzilla lookalike toying with a miniature group? – was much help.

Once the group had folded RR reverted to being Miles Tredinnick and writing comedy scripts for Frankie Howerd and “One Foot in the Grave” among others. Continuing the Unlikely Next Career Move, Dave Wight emigrated to Australia for an academic career as a professor of international relations studies at Sydney University However in 2008 Riff decided to reform the group, with original member Steve Voice joined by Hugh O’Donnell and Colin Watterson. Having lost none of their live impact, they became a huge success at the Blackpool Rebellion events, and from there to gigs worldwide, followed by writing new material and putting out a new album, Reboot, in 2012. There’s also talk of securing the original tapes from MCA for a definitive reissue of Animal Games.

After the main narrative, there’s a section with lyrics and commentary on all their songs. It’s also an absolute treat visually, with masses of b/w and colour repro’s of posters, flyers, adverts, and tickets, all of which give the book an interest beyond just the group. There’s a nice gig list too, recalling the heyday of the punk era at places like the Nashville, the Greyhound, the Clarendon, the Hope and Anchor, mostly long gone or turned into gastropubs now but were the lifeblood of the scene at the scene.

A really impressive amount of research has gone into writing this book. It was great to be reminded of my first encounter with London, watching So It Goes, Tony Wilson giving them a typically Wilsonian intro, “If Anwar Sadat can get into Jerusalem, you can get into London”, as the track played over a grainy collage of newsreel footage. It was enough to get us buying the single the next day, along with another So It Goes tip, “City of the Damned” by Ricky and the Last Days of Earth – what happened to them, I wonder?

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Available at all good bookshops.

All words by Den Browne, you can read more on his author profile here:

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