At present, The Rumpy Pumpy Lovesticks (or The Lovesticks for short) consist of four people: Joseph Nash, Xan Eardley, David Murphy and David Hailey. There are also two honorary members, Xavier Moonchild (who is not strictly speaking a Lovestick), and Michelle Laybourn.

In addition to this core group, there have been several "guest appearances" during the annual St. Celia's Day Jams: Jeff Holmes, Alex Smith and Douglas Gargin.

What follows is a brief history of Lovestickdom, in my own words, and from my own (somewhat poor) memory. At a later date I shall get some of the other Lovesticks to point out all my (inevitable) mistakes. For more information on a particular band member, or a particular St. C's, click on the relevent links as you go along.

In 1990 I began to hang around the music room at school - not from any misguided belief in my musical prowess, but because it had the same computer as I did (an Atari ST), and I needed somewhere to print out the project report for my "Elements Of Engineering Design" course.

I was just one of several people who spent their free time in the music room, and amongst the others was Alex Eardley, also known as Xan, a friend of mine from a few years previously (owing largely (though not entirely) to the fact that he could be readily parted with his money by the mere mention of the words "tuck shop"), but whom I hadn't really seen much of since he left my class and joined another.

I let it slip to Alex that I had written some songs, and that much of the reason that I had bought my ST in the first place was because of an urge to one day record these masterpieces. As Alex pointed out, the school already posessed the necessary equipment to make my dream a reality, and since my previous plan had been to eventually buy myself a cheap "portakeyboard", the chance to use the school's Korg M1 (an expensive keyboard (then, at least)) was too good an opportunity to be missed.

The only problem was that I couldn't play a musical instrument.

Xan, however, came to my rescue, by listening to me singing the tunes, then attempting to play them himself. More often than not he would get the right notes and key, but get the chords or melody in the wrong order, and at these points I would take over and play exactly the notes I had just seen him use, but rearranged into the order I wanted.

I had also become quite comfortable with Notator, the sequencer that the school used on the ST, so via a combination of the above method, and cutting, pasting and transposing using the sequencer, we had soon finished my first song, "A UFO Called Charlie". No-one said it was a good song!

Since all this usage and abusage of the music room took place outside normal lessons, there was only limited time available, and several groups of people all clamouring for the same equipment. Often it would be usable on a "first come, first served" basis, so it was quite common for people to hang around whilst you were composing, hoping to jump on as soon as you had finished. Two such people were David Murphy and Joseph Nash.

I found Dave to be a very funny bloke - far funnier than he ever thought he was! He had a very dry sense of humour, which took a little geting used to, but which was well worth it in the end. Joseph, on the other hand, was a pratt. I didn't really like him much at all.

In November I was in the library during a spare moment, when the music room was in use, reading a magazine. I can't remember what it was exactly - my usual library fare at that time was "New Scientist", but I have a feeling that it was an electronics magazine. Whichever it was, it had an article, or an editorial, about music. In this piece it mentioned that the 22nd November was Saint Celia's Day, and that Saint Celia was the patron saint of music. An idea began to grow in my mind.

The following day, I approached Xan with the idea for a jam in honour of St. Celia. He was enthusiastic, so we suggested it to Joe and Dave - no matter how much of a pratt I thought Joe was, he was an excellent musician, and would be very useful to have in the jam. They also liked the idea, so we approached Mr. Brown, the music teacher. He gave us the go ahead to use his office during lunchtime on St. Celia's day, and so the first of the St. Celias Day Jams was born.

During the next few weeks lots of arrangements had to be made. We had never done anything like this before, so we had to carefully calculate what equipment would be available, where it would plug in to, and what we would have to bring ourselves. During all this, Joseph surprised me by being very helpful in the organisational aspects. Over those weeks I became more used to him, and by the end of it all I actually quite liked the bloke. He wasn't such a pratt after all.

About a week before the jam itself, I was in the queue for my "Elements Of Engineering Design" lesson (we weren't allowed in the workshop without a teacher), and was telling some people about the forthcoming jam. Amongst them was Jeff Holmes, who mentioned that he played guitar - so I asked him if he wanted to join in. He said yes.

There was just one more person who was to join us for the actual event - the now legendary Charles Clarke. Charles was suffering from a gosling complex - i.e. he had arrived at school one morning, and seen the four of us arranging St. C's. Since we were the first humans he'd seen that day, he must have thought we were his mother, and spent the rest of the year following us around. In truth that is probably a very unfair statement - it just seemed like that at the time!

Charles real excuse for hanging round the music room was his involvement with the schools barbershop quartet. He did, however, have a real knack for "hovering". You know the sort of person - they don't actually do anything (apart from get in the way), but hang around nevertheless, just playing with all the controls on equipment that you'd just spent five minutes setting up. Charles found out about St. C's, and despite our best efforts to prevent him getting into Mr. Brown's room (it had a latching door, which could only be opened via a key, or from the inside. We had developed a "secret" knock - known as the "Doogie Knock" for historical reasons - so that we could only let in people who weren't Charles) he managed it (by following Mr. Brown in, as I recall - hardly a sporting method, is it!).

So it was that on the 22nd November, 1990, the Conference In Bournemouth" - the first thing to come into Xav's head at the time (Xav has a very strange mind like that).

The jam generally went well - the musical results were ... erm ...unique (Xav saw to that!), but everyone enjoyed themselves (largely on account of having a guitarist who knew when to shut up!) - so we did it again the following day! This time there was just the original four, and we had longer than just one lunchtime in which to play. The why's and wherefore's of this are explained more fully if you go to the section called "Doing Wheelies". In case you were wondering, that was the name given to the second jam.

The jams had been recorded on four track cassette, so before they could be listened to on a normal stereo, they needed to be mixed down. The responsibility for this was given to Joe, whilst Xav created a cassette inlay card using the then fairly powerful desktop publisher "Timeworks" on his ST. By todays standards, "Timeworks" is positively archaic, so the final quality of the inlay card was nothing to shout about (particularly since it was printed on the school's dot matrix printer). Nevertheless, it did result in a cassette which received limited distribution (i.e. amongst the band), which is more than can be said for subsequent St. C's - although I am planning to fix that situation.

Owing to the fun we had on those two days, the four of us decided to play together more often, so the band was "officially" formed. Our plan had been to change the name of the band for each recording, simply keeping the prefix of "Xavier Moonchild and..." so that any "fans" we might acquire would still be able to follow the fortunes of the band. We retrospectively named the bands for the two jams, then tried to come up with a name to be used for the next recording. Off the top of his head, Xav suggested "The Rumpy Pumpy Lovesticks" - it has since been claimed that the proliferation of hair on Xav's skull might be contributing to an overheating effect, resulting in his tendency for bizarre suggestions "off the top of his head".

For various reasons the name stuck. It never got changed - except for each years St. Celia's Day Jam, and has now developed into two shortened forms, for use where the full version would require too much explaination. These are "Xav & The Lovesticks", and just "The Lovesticks". The latter can variously mean just the Rumpy Pumpy Lovesticks (Joe, Dave, Xan and now another Dave), or the whole shebang (i.e. honorary lovesticks, too) - just to confuse you.

Throughout the rest of 1990, and into '91 The Lovesticks rehearsed fairly regularly. Xav, being the most non-musical person, took it upon himself to learn to play an instrument. After his dalliance with the flageolet, he finally settled on the harmonica. He also became the "singer", by virtue of being the principal lyricist, the best of a bad lot(?), and the only one not doing anything more useful.

In the meantime, Dave, being a well qualified and very talented piano/keyboard player, took it upon himself to learn to play the drums. Xan, being a well qualified and talented flautist, took absolutely nothing, but did teach himself to play the mandolin. Joe just stuck to keyboards - but we managed to prise him off.

You may recall that before the days of the band, Joe and Dave used to hang around the music room together. The reason for this, far from being anything sordid, was that they were composing an album together. The actual writing of this took place between October 1990 and June 1991, and the final masterpiece was released on a cassette called "Frontiers". The name of their duo is "Federal Bureau" (another one courtesy of "the top of Xav's head").

At the end of the 1990/91 academic year Xav and Xan sat for their A-levels, with somewhat limited degrees of success. Nevertheless Xan was accepted for his place at Lampeter University (in Wales, a small suburb of England), and Xav was accepted for an apprenticeship (though with some provisos). As part of his training Xav had to take a two year course in electronic engineering, leading to an HNC. On this course he met another trainee engineer, by the name of David Hailey, who happened to play the guitar.

Eventually that time of year came round again, and in order for everyone to make it, this years St. C's was pushed back to the 23rd November (a Saturday). This year there were two "special guests", David Hailey, and a friend of Joe's called Alex Smith. Even the Xan managed to return from Wales, and so the band became known as "And Then Some" (i.e. "Xav & The Lovesticks And Then Some").

Since the jam had to be at a weekend (Xav & DH worked, and Xan had to get back from Lampy), we were unable to comandeer the music room at the Grammar School, so we ended up in the next best place - Joe's Bedroom! Owing to the fact that Joe lives in a place called "Monks Risborough", the second annual St. Celia's Day Jam became known as "No Sleep 'Til Risboro'".

In the year that followed we had a bizarre bout of "mass insanity" and, despite his worthy winning of the 1991 Golden Flageolet Award (an award for bad playing), we asked Dave Hailey to join the group. He said yes, and we've never looked forward since.

When we had recovered from this bout of temporary insanity we began to wonder what exactly we had done. Most of us got over it after some heavy counselling, but Dave Murphy seemed to be more deeply scarred than the rest of us. It came as little surprise, therefore, when he announced that he was leaving, to join the Foreign Legion. He never actually made it that far, though, and ended up spending the following year in France. To this day, he still claims that it was for academic reasons, but we know the truth.

For the third annual St. Celia's Day Jam we were able to return once more to the "official" date for St. C's, so it took place on Sunday 22nd November, 1992. Again the location was Joe's bedroom, but since our drummer was in foreign parts there was considerably more space than the previous year. In order to compensate for this we had an additional keyboard player, in the form of Douglas Gargin (a friend of Joe's), and replaced the previous years bassist, Alex Smith, with the multitalented and arguably better looking Michelle Laybourn.

In honour of DM, Joe programmed his synthesiser to play all Dave's classic drum breaks (I could barely tell the difference), and we named the jam "Boeuf" (French for a jam, apparently!).

(Un)fortunately Xan was unable to make it to the 1992 jam, however he did play his part in the St. Celian ideal by recording a cassette single around this time (the lyric sheet in mine is dated 22/11/92) under the name "The Condition". The cassette was called "Forget It".

Next comes a disaster year in the St. C's history books. After (almost) single handedly arranging the previous St. C's, Xav decided to have a break, and left everything in the culpable hands of Joe - who promptly forgot to arrange anything.

Fearing that the year would pass without a jam of any sort, Michelle and Xav got together on Saturday 18th December, 1993, for a sort of "mini jam". Of course, a jam consisting of only one musician and a Moonchild was virtually destined for failure, but they did surprisingly well under the circumstances. This jam was called "St. Seasons Greetings".

Despite this mini jam, Xav still had an urge to play with the whole band, so taking the bull by the horns (don't try this at home, kids) he arranged a full jam for Sunday 2nd January, 1994. This took place at Michelle's house (her bedroom is considerably larger than Joe's) and featured a full complement of Lovesticks, though no special guests (Michelle had been given Honorary Lovestickdom by this point). Dave's return was also hailed by a new drum kit. The jam was called "Better Late Than Never" (I wonder why?), and the band was called "The Wimbledon Commoners".

Strictly speaking, these two jams were both to celebrate the same St. Celia's Day, so are classed together as the fourth annual St. Celia's Day Jam. This meant that the 1994 St. Celia's Day had yet to be celebrated. Xav therefore made all the arrangements, carefully giving everybody over four months notice, for Joe to then go and arrange a party on the designated day. The band played at this party, but there was no recording made, so whilst it can be argued that St. Celia's Day 1994 was celebrated, there was no official St. Celia's Day Jam.

1995 once again saw a change to the date of the jam - by several months! Owing to other commitments by the band members (and nothing to do with their abject apathy, honest!) we were forced to arrange this St. C's at short notice, resulting in it being held at Michelle's house on the evening of Thursday 10th August. Joseph was unable to make it (since at the time he was on a years work placement in Basingstoke) and there were no special guests, so the band name was "The Lovesticks Less One" (Originality: zero points) and the jam was called "Almost Unplugged" due to the more acoustic nature of the event (i.e. it wasn't as loud as usual!).

Now for another tragic year in Lovestick history. Despite several attempts to motivate people, we completely failed to hold a St. C's Jam in 1996. Blub.

As if that wasn't bad enough, 1997 looked to be going the same way - until Xav did something about it. With the year drawing to a close, he made a last ditch attempt to arrange a jam... Joe couldn't make it (Graduating, or something), but Alex could (it was, after all, taking place at his adopted home). Dave Hailey had vanished off the face of the earth, but Dave Murphy definitely wanted to come along, if only for a few songs. What's more, Alex had invited a couple of friends, and DM was dragging along the bassist from his other band. Things were looking up.

Until the day itself, that is. Despite all the promises, the final total was 3 people - Xav, Alex, and Alex's wife Todd. Nevertheless, we pressed on. Way back in 1995 Xav had purchased a guitar (against all advice and good sense), and on the day before the jam he went to London to purchase an ADAT (8 Track digital recorder). After a couple of years of practice, Xav had become disturbingly good on the guitar - okay, so maybe he couldn't play an Asus9 on request, but he had become quite an accomplished strummer in his own inimitable style, and on his own compositions. The addition of good quality microphones, and CD quality recording equipment resulted in a tape which, believe it or not, actually sounds quite good (for a "live" recording). Unfortunately, it's also a bit short.

The next step is to mix down this recording - which will be eased by the fact that Alex has treated Todd to a minidisc recorder for her birthday. Then tapes will be run off and sent to the missing Lovesticks in the hope of persuading them that this improved sound quality justifies their return to the fold for a kind of "follow up jam" early in 1998. The plan is that between the two jams (which will both be considered to be the 1997 effort) we will have enough material for a very limited run of CDs.

There are huge gaps in the information above - usually where I couldn't recall the dates of major events. Once I have conferred with a few other people, I hope to make amends, and include details about the rise, fall, and subsequent complete failure to re-rise of "The Bertillons", or about Joe's other cassette, "Phases" by "Space, Time, Chaos" amongst other things - so keep coming back.