Slowly, Seymour recovers and we start to gig again. We have by this time, and for reasons that I don't fully understand even now, acquired a manager. His name is Rob Atkins and he seems like a nice bloke. He has two step-daughters called Sharon and Tracey, which affords me no small amusement. They go out with two of the group. He has another step daughter called Beverley. She goes out with me. This relationship is spectacularly shag free, much to my chagrin, but which at time was becoming somewhat of a pattern in my life. He manages to get a producer from EMI to come and see us. We, as usual, stink the place up, but because EMI is still mortally embarrassed by the whole Sex Pistols fiasco, they agree to put us in the studio and see what comes of the enterprise as long as we record some material that they will prepare for us as well as our own stuff. The warning bells should have been ringing at that point, but dear reader, we are just poor naive lads from the country. What do we know of such things? We know only of the simple pleasures of life, like farming, or sitting on an air hose. We knew one thing though, the chap from EMI was certainly a hippie of the first order, and introduced The Shapes to their first taste of the dear old Bolivian marching powder. Suffused with this fine pharmaceutical, we all said "Yes !". Mind you, at that point, we would have said yes to having electrodes attached to our genitals and being flogged senseless with a knotted rope. In retrospect, I think this may have been preferable to what followed.

We are told that we will be changing our name to The Racket and recording a song called "My Hero". We listen to a demo recorded for our listening pleasure. It is, not to put too fine a point on it, complete shite of the first order. It is sung in a sort of strange nasal mockney, a la Ben Elton, replete with Rottenesque sneers and pretend bad playing. We listen appalled, but perhaps we can make something of it when we re-record it. Then we are told that this is actually the finished product, and that all we are required to do is to mime it on Top Of The Pops and other TV appearances. We are to be a front band it appears, for a scam by some old hippies on EMI's roster to cash in. We will sacrifice our dignity for some small consideration. Basically, we've been had. It's all too much for Nick Hadley, and he decamps, never to be seen again, so it wasn't all bad I suppose. He continues to play, surprisingly enough, linking up with Wishbone Ash at some point, so he must have been happy. The Shapes now continue as a four piece, with Nigel Greenway as the remaining guitarist.

It's a funny old time for The Shapes. We are thoroughly "handled" by our manager and the selection of people foisted on us by the producer at EMI. Suddenly, there is a change in plan. The whole nonsensical Racket/My Hero nonsense is dropped and we shall be allowed to continue to be known as The Shapes. That's the good news. The bad news is that we will still have to record complete arse written by someone else as well as our own songs. I rationalize this by reminding myself that this seemed to work out for The Sweet. However, The Sweet had the writing team of Nicky Chinn/Mike Chapman, and we have a fellow called Nick Brind of little known EMI tax loss Joe Public. A seemingly nice chap, but a pathological liar where money and plans for my future are concerned. At this time, Tom Robinson was enjoying some success with a song called 2,4,6,8 Motorway, a song about the rigors of such a non new wave activity as truck driving. The Shapes, courtesy of a piece of doggerel written by the aforementioned Mr.Brind, are forced into Bird Sound studios with a forked vermin stick to record a tune entitled "Truck Drivin' Man". It is an appalling piece of derivative crap, and are all thoroughly ashamed of it, with the notable exception of our guitarist who I secretly suspect of being satisfied that he was recording a "real" song for once, and none of this punk nonsense thank you very much. We also have to record a song for Mr. Brind call "Stick It PSU' ,a supposedly punk song about the delights of taking up the cable locker. Mr. Brind takes the lead vocal on this to surprising silence from Seymour, who wanders outside to improve his voice by chain smoking Player's No 6. He's clearly not as daft as he looks. We are allowed to record "Chatterbox", a song of our own. It is completely ruined by Mr.Brind's insistence on doing backing vocals a la Chas and Dave. The production is quite simply the worst I have ever heard, and the whole affair sounds like it has been recorded underwater. Seymour and I leave totally disillusioned, whilst the others seem quite happy with their days work. The pictures taken at the time show just what a delighful experience it all has been. The only good thing about it is that I have finally managed to purchase a fine Fender Jazz bass, and a Marshall bass stack, so the days of resounding "bonk" noises are at an end. What is also drawing to an end is The Shapes Mark II, but not before the world rights itself somewhat.

One good thing comes from all of this though. Under the watchful eye of our handlers, we are actually getting to be very proficient. Being forced to rehearse correctly and stopped from fighting incessantly has produced a rather efficient little unit. Our rehearsal space leaves a little to be desired though, as it is in the Commonwealth Club of Leamington Spa, which is a drinking repository for the Indian community. They are less than pleased to be sharing their space with us, and it is not unusual to find one's equipment covered in the remains of cold curry. I take my guitar home with me as a result. The amplifier dries off on it's own eventually, although we do get followed by packs of wild dogs whenever we leave the house. One other thing that comes out of this is that is becomes clear that dear little Charlie, who has hung on in there so far, really isn't up to the next step at this time, and so in our first act of cut throated behavior, we fire him and hire instead the lovely Dave Gee. Also clearly a hippie, but we can soon sort that out. He was a good drummer and we desperately need one at this point. Charlie goes on to become a fine drummer in his own right, and does sterling service in many local bands. We start to gig again, and surprisingly start to go over well, as we have mastered the art of playing the same song simultaneously. We have also mastered the art of song writing a little better, and because by this time, the EMI chaps have got bored with us and forgotten about us, I write a couple of fine songs. We record one of them "College Girls", at Woodbine, and things come together. It is fast, well played, tight as a duck's arse and for the time, commercial as all get out. As we are wrapping it all up, who should turn up but Nick Brind. He's been alerted to the whole affair by our guitarist. Seymour and I are totally gobsmacked at this, but Mr. Brind seems genuinely impressed by what we did all on our own, and he disappears with the guitarist. Something about this strikes me as odd, so I make sure that I have the master tapes with me when we decamp from the studio when all is done.

Sure enough, it appears that dear Nigel and Mr.Brind have conspired to give Mr.Brind the song "College Girls" and ditch us. It's the end for The Shapes Mark II immediately. Nigel decamps forthwith to find his fortune, and is never seen nor heard of again. Mr.Brind has a nervous breakdown and is not seen again, so there is a plus side to all this, and The Shapes are now years ahead of their time as a drum and bass combo. Our manager Rob also takes his cue and leaves, but as part of our negotiated settlement, we can still use his van to get around to gigs in. It's been 18 months of hard miserable work, and we are back where we started, older, wiser, with no record out and only half a band, and certainly no money or management. We had to make the decision to either continue or to knock it on the head and go back in defeat to our day jobs. The thought of the silent satisfaction of our coworkers was enough to convince us to try again, only this time under our own terms. The trusty Honda was sold, as it was pretty much the only asset that we had, and armed with this cash, we set out to find some new Shapes, record a record, get it out, and get Dave Gee a damn haircut and some straight trousers. The last of these tasks was to prove the hardest to accomplish.