DECONTROL

Decontrol came from the Portstewart/Portrush/Coleraine triangle and was the result of a couple of ex members of The Ficks, Kieran (bass guitarist) and Barry Tapster (singer) joining up with two ex members of Grip Jonathon Davis (guitarist) and Peter Kerr (drummer) - better known as Bunt and Poko, in early 1980. Both Grip and The Ficks had started in 1979 and had a gig or two under their belts by the time that they amalgamated and became The Ficks. Both bands had played a mix of their own songs and cover versions of the likes of The Damned, Ramones and The Clash. Both bands are featured elsewhere in our band archive. The new band had it's own identity though and dropped all the previous songs whilst keeping cover versions to a minimum, they tended to swap them around a bit between gigs with most of the bands’ set was made up of originals such as, ‘New Direction’, ‘Problem Page’, ‘Don't Just Sit There and ‘Days of War’. The only cover that they stuck with regularly was Slaughter and The Dogs' ‘Boston Babies’ but at various times did Ramones, Pistols, Black Sabbath and even Outcasts tunes for the crack. The band played regularly around venues on the north coast such as Beachcombers, Spuds, Kellys and every youth club they could think of that would have them and supported grown-ups such as The Mighty Shamrocks and The Outcasts on many occasions. After staying with the band for a couple of years Poko left to drum for Perfect Crime and Alan Haslam took his place. The first gig he played at was supporting The Outcasts in Spuds in Portstewart but Poko hadn't quite left yet so the two of them took a drum kit each, Colin's (R.I.P.) and Raymond's, so that Poko could keep him right as he didn't really know the songs yet. The Outcasts were good to the band and let them play support whenever they were up in the area. The arrival of Alan saw the band change their name to Decontrol after the Discharge song that was to be a regular part of their set and the introduction of cheery sounding new songs such as ‘Rivers of Fire’, ‘Genocide’ and ‘Vampire’, about the evils of bigotry. In addition to regularly playing north coast venues like Kelly's where they played one gig by candlelight after they blew the fuses, they also played in Derry with local bands Graffiti and The Rip Offs as well as The Manhattan Bar in Belfast. They never got it together to make a demo tape or release any records but that wasn't really the point, some rehearsal tapes done in the lo-fi stylee still exist but tracking them down hasn't been easy. The band just kind of evaporated about the end of '82 or so and none of the band really remembers their last gig, but it was a long time ago. Barry played drums for Girls Love Popstars for a few gigs and Bunt went on to play in Self Destruct.