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The Vaultage Punk Collection
Released 1978

The Vaultage Punk Collection featuring Elvis is Dead by Peter and the Test Tube Babies

The Pirhanas Jilly
The Pirhanas Virginity
The Pirhanas Tension
Nicky & The Dots Girls Get Nervous
Nicky & The Dots Wrong Street
The Dodgems Lord Lucan Is Missing

Peter & The Test Tube Babies Elvis Is Dead 
The Vandells Bank Holiday 
The Golonski Brothers Bloody 
The Lillettes Nervous Wreck 
The Lillettes Hey Operator 
Woody & The Splinters I Want You To be My Girl 
The Chefs Sweetie 
The Chefs Thrush 
The Pirhanas Happy Families 
The Chefs 24 Hours 
The Chefs Let's Make U 
The Exclusives Sinking Gondola 
The Reward System Extradition 

Peter's comments

It seems incredible now but what I am about to tell you about our inclusion on this album is all true.

We basically started the band in the summer of 1978. I had been managing a band that Del and Trapper were in called The Cornflakes, but pretty soon Del got sacked. Before long we started writing songs together. I believe our first ever collaboration was 'The Queen Gives Good Blowjobs'. Del also had some other songs that he'd written but which the rest of The Cornflakes deemed unacceptable. They fitted in with what me and him wanted to do perfectly. 

We weren't really serious about getting a full band together but when Trapper also got the sack and joined us we began to think about getting a drummer. Enter Trevor Rutherford. 

The four of us were all mates at Tideway School, Newhaven, and as luck would have it Trevor's dad also had a factory on an industrial estate where he let us practice. Up until then me, Del and Trapper had rehearsed in my mum and dad's garage in Peacehaven.

So what happened is this - Trevor auditioned on the Sunday, on the Tuesday we played our first ever gig and at that gig we were approached to record a track for a new Brighton compilation LP. On the Friday we went to somebody's house whose front room doubled as a recording studio. We recorded two songs. 'Elvis is dead' and 'Maniac'. So within one week we had formed as a proper band, played our first gig and recorded our first album tracks. The record company, Attrix, didn't like 'Maniac' but loved 'Elvis'.

There were a few meetings over the following weeks between all the bands who were by now all playing gigs together and had become best mates. Despite being the new boys on the scene and definitely being the youngest we were accepted into the fold. I think the more established bands like The Piranhas wanted to help us.

Nearly all the bands on the compilation used to rehearse and store their gear in a vault under a place called The Resource Centre in central Brighton and it's from this that the name came. Pretty soon we had moved out of the factory in Newhaven and were also rehearsing there.

The album came out in late 1978, quickly sold out it's first and second pressings and came to the attention of John Peel. A lot of the bands on the compilation, including us, were invited up to London to record John Peel sessions for his radio show and the rest, as they say, is history.

If you want to get a copy of the album in it's original format forget it. They are now collectors items. However I believe Captain Oi Records reissued it on CD a few years ago.


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