The lost band from Quadrophenia ... the return of Cross Section

Josh Phillips's band from earlier days

'Calling all you Mods!.' Pucka are releasing this brand-new 2015 recording, just 37 years after Cross Section recorded it originally. It's available on iTunes from 13 June 2015 ... click here ... organ solos on both tracks :-)

Left to right: Dene O'Neill, drums; Josh Phillips, keyboard; [Roger Daltrey]; Phil Kitto, guitar/vox; Vince Martyn, guitar/vox; Lawrence Merton, bass

Why Mr Daltrey? The band was featured in Quadrophenia and the new release revisits songs that were on the original soundtrack. Full story below ...

In 1978, when the film Quadrophenia, based on The Who’s 1973 studio album of the same name, was made, Josh Phillips’s then band responded to a Melody Maker advert for a young band was to portray a mid-1960s’ outfit playing in a club in London.

Cross Section, still at school, and playing mostly pubs and clubs, auditioned along with many other hopefuls chosen out of hundreds of applicants. As the shortlist got shorter, they found themselves playing live to a couple of members of The Who at the Electric Ballroom. Roger Daltrey asked them “Would you cut your hair?”

They did.

They went up to London again to The Who’s Ramport Studios and recorded Hi-Heel Sneakers and Dimples, then of course to the film set and on to a brief appearance in the movie itself.

35 years on, through social networks, the band made contact again. Dene has been a pro drummer in Norway for 25 years; Phil plays guitar and sings in Tenerife where he’s lived for 25 years; Vince is a sea captain; Lawrence is a horticultural contractor in Kent. Josh has been playing professionally since he was 19, as readers of this page have good reason to know!

In February 2015 Cross Section got together: the chemistry was still there; in May, after an hour’s run-through, they re-recorded their two Quadrophenia songs … which we’ll hear live at Ewhurst the same day (13 June 2015) as they’re release on iTunes.

Procol dates in 2015 | Ewhurst index