Biography
Dogsflesh were formed in Redcar on Teesside, by guitarist Rob Moore during May 1982, where he recruited fellow members, Perky on Drums, Jim on bass and Marty on vocals.
The band played only a handful of gigs together around the Teesside area, the most namely of which was a support slot to GBH at Middlesbrough’s Rock Garden. The band also recorded a three track demo in November 1982, with tracks called Never Give In, Mad Dog & Destroy.
Perky was replaced on the drums by John Lavender in January 1983 and the
band played the Swan Hotel Ballroom supporting the UK Subs in March of that
year.
The next changes came, when Rob moved to Stockton and replaced Jim and Marty with Tim Whitfield on Bass and John McQuade on vocals.
The band practiced relentlessly recording new material, which was heavily influenced by the likes of Discharge, GBH, The English Dogs, Motorhead and Iron Maiden. They began playing local gigs around the Teeside, area and built up a massive fan base of both punks and skinheads with their anthem aptly named ‘Mad Punks & Psycho Skins’.
Their reputation was growing, with the media and fanzines reporting on them, giving glowing reports on both their music, image and their following.
In June of 1984 the band were asked to contribute two tracks on the Teesbeat label, for a compilation album called the ‘New Bowery’. They recorded tracks called Soldier Boy and Fight the System, which turned out to be very disappointing as the engineer took all of the raw power from their music and cutting riffs and made them sound more like Duran Duran than the thrashy punk band that they were.
The band put this disappointment behind them and continued writing new material and playing gigs on both their home turf and further away where they were not as widely known, supporting bands like The Angelic Upstarts in Newcastle,The Anti Nowhere League at the Taboo Club in Scarborough, GBH & Discharge at the Trent Bridge Rowing Club in Nottingham, The English Dogs at Adam and Eve’s in Leeds and, for the first time with The Exploited at the City Hall in Carlisle where they were also very well recieved.
In the September of 1984 the band felt that they needed to improve their standard and quality of music and recruited Nigel Johnson (Nigsy) formerly of another Teesside based punk band called The Filth as lead guitarist.
With metallic riffs, punk image and vocals, the band had once again stepped up a league and were also attracting a lot of heavy metal fans at their gigs, along with their loyal followers of punks and skins.
The band recorded a four track demo at Offbeat Studio’s in Leeds in February 1985 with tracks called Fast Living Boy, Out My Head, Bloody Road to Death and their anthem Mad Punks And Psycho Skins.
Further gigs followed supporting bands like Discharge, UK Subs, The English Dogs and The Exploited at The Beer Keller in Leeds where Wattie was so impressed with the bands music and image, that he took them on the remaining fourteen gigs of the tour. Further support tours followed during the summer of that year where they did a twelve date tour with Broken Bones (Formerly Discharge) and also a ten date tour with GBH.
The band split up soon after with Nigsy quitting the band wanting to develop another project and a different style of music and soon after John Lavender also quit.
After 20 years apart the 4 main members, Rob Moore (Guitar), Tim Whitfield
(Bass), John McQuade (Vocals) and John Lavender (Drums) are back together,
playing the same old thrashy punk anthems.
The reason for the reunion, was that after seeing their old mates, Broken Bones & GBH, in Leeds, they realised that there was still a niche and market for their particular brand of music, and also the demand from some of their original followers and the promise of ready made gigs, the band are back with new songs like Yesterdays News, A Killers Eyes, March Or Die and The Threat Remains and are ready once again to re-invent themselves to a whole new audience.
