Honest John Plain

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Honest John Plain live 2010

Honest John Plain (born April 12, 1952 in Yorkshire , Leeds ; real name John Splain ) is a British musician and singer. He was best known as a founding member of The Boys .

Career

In September 1969, John Plain went to the Jacob Kramer School of Art, where he met Matt Dangerfield. The two wrote a few songs together and moved to the Maida Vale district of London together . There they played for a short time in 1975 with Casino Steel, Mick Jones (later: The Clash ), Brian James (later: The Damned ) and Tony James (later: Chelsea and Generation X in the London SS ). Plain, Steel and Dangerfield later formed the Choirboys , who shortened their band name to The Boys after a few line-up changes .

Plain also starred in an early Generation X line-up as a drummer. He also worked in a t-shirt factory, where he met Jack Black and Duncan "Kid" Reid and brought them to the boys. In addition to the four albums with the Boys and one album with the Boys offshoot The Yobs, he had several projects. In 1979 he played a single with The Rowdies and a single with The Lurkers . He wrote the hit New Guitar in Town for the latter , which ultimately led to a joint album with Pete Stride, which was also called New Guitars in Town .

After the Boys' demise, he joined The Dirty Strangers project with Keith Richards and Ron Wood , but his guitar tracks were erased from the debut album. In 1984 he joined The Mannish Boys, where Gass Wild of The Pretenders took over the vocals. They were about to make a deal with Motown until the record company noticed that none of the band members were black. Penetration Sensation wasn't released until 1985 and was only released in France. Plain then played with a few bands, but never stayed with one formation for long. Around 1990 he played some concerts with the "Tower Block Rockers" in the opening act of Die Toten Hosen .

With The Crybabys he recorded the Where Have All The Good Girls Gone album in 1991 , but this group also broke up shortly afterwards when singer Darrel Bath reanimated the band The Dogs D'Amour . They only got back together around the turn of the millennium and have since released three albums.

In 1991 The Yobs released their second album XMas 11 and appeared as the opening act at various Christmas concerts by Die Toten Hosen. Honest John Plain made a number of guest appearances on Toten Hosen publications in the 1990s. He was in the Boys cover version First Time and in the Lurkers cover New Guitar in Town on the album Auf dem Kreuzzug ins Glück , as well as in Brickfield Nights in the project Learning English Lesson One . a. Helping to translate Campino's lyrics for the best-of album Love, Peace & Money into English.

1996 Honest John Plains first solo album Honest John Plain & Friends appeared , in which the companions Campino , Darrel Bath, Vom Ritchie , John Balance from Psychic TV and Matt Dangerfield were involved. Plain had meanwhile moved to Wales and recorded the Dirty Laundry album with Ian Hunter . Plain wrote, among other things, the single Good Girls . Casino Steel and Vom Ritchie were also featured on the album, which was recorded at Abbey Road Studios . The sound carrier was initially only released in Norway, a year later it was released in the USA.

In the same year a third Yobs album was released, a year later the Boys Unplugged album Power Cut with Campino as the singer. In 1998 Plain appeared as a guest musician on the album We wait for Christkind from Die Roten Rosen, a pseudonym of the Düsseldorf band Die Toten Hosen.

In 2003 his second solo album Honest John Plain & Amigos was released , together with some friends from various punk bands from Argentina, such as Attaque 77 and Thee Corronados .

Today Honest John Plain is active both solo and with the Boys and the Crybabys.

Discography

solo

  • 1996 Honest John Plain & Friends
  • 2003 Honest John Plain & Amigos
  • 2006 Honest John Plain & The Amigos - One More And We're Staying

With The Boys / The Yobs

With The Crybabys

  • 1991 Where Have All the Good Girls Gone
  • 2000 rock on sessions
  • 2002 Daily Misery
  • 2003 What Kind of Rock N Roll

With the lurkers

  • 1979 New Guitar in Town / Little Old Wine Drinker Me (Single)
  • 1997 God's Lonely Man
  • 2000 The BBC Punk Sessions

With Pete Stride

  • 1980 Laugh at Me / Jimmy Brown (single)
  • 1980 New Guitars in Town

Other publications

  • 1979/1980 The Rowdies: She's No Angel / Had Me a Real Good Time (Single)
  • 1985 Mannish Boys: Penetration Sensation
  • 1995/1996 Ian Hunter : Dirty Laundry

Guest Posts

literature

  • Biography in the liner notes for Honest John Plain & Amigos (2003)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.punk77.co.uk/groups/boyshistory1.htm
  2. ↑ Interview ( Memento from November 21, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) with John Plain from August 23, 2000
  3. ↑ Credits of the album in the All Music Guide
personal data
SURNAME Plain, Honest John
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Splain, John (real name); Bedwetter, HJ (pseudonym); Plain, HJ (short form)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British musician
DATE OF BIRTH April 12, 1952
PLACE OF BIRTH Yorkshire , Leeds