jump – rope
jo bartlett – vocals and guitar
danny hagan – bass
rick kellum – drums and vocals
‘…as welcome as a cold drinks dispenser in Hell, and twice as cool.’ Melody Maker
‘The best guitar POP! group in at least the last five years’ N.M.E.
We played our debut gig as jump-rope at The Marquee on 13th June 1994.
During the day of the 13th, it was the Kerrang! Awards at the Prince Charles Cinema in Leicester Square, Central London. I worked at Ultimate Records as press officer and plugger – one of our bands, Senser, were up for a couple of awards, so the band plus myself, and label bosses, Andy and Maurice all went.
I’ve never seen so much free booze in my life. Each table was practically buckling with the sheer weight of it – Jack Daniels, Jim Beam, wine, beer. As the saying goes, ‘It would be rude not to’.
Senser didn’t win anything but we consumed lots.
I somehow got myself to the Marquee just in time for soundcheck for this debut gig of ours. I vaguely remember throwing myself around the stage and getting feedback from my guitar. I think we did ok actually, we’d only had a week or so to rehearse. I did manage to leave a bag of clothes and a guitar tuner behind, but how I even got there and played a gig is remarkable.
We then went over to Bark Studio in Walthamstow, East London a few days later, the 18th and 19th June, and made our first jump-rope recordings. Two brand new songs.
‘Crowded Day’ was to be our first single.
We threw ourselves into jump-rope with enthusiasm. Delighted with the songs we had recorded at Bark , we set about organising the pressing of 1,000 7″ singles. We were getting wrap-round sleeves in clear plastic bags, like the classic early indie singles we loved.
Danny found an image of the Battle of Little Big Horn and I hand wrote the band name and song titles on top.
I was sending two song cassettes out to venues and journalists, and it was going very well.
We were offered a gig supporting a band we loved, Yo La Tengo, at The Garage in North London. We were very happy when Michael Bonner at Melody Maker gave us this review…
‘…as welcome as a cold drinks dispenser in Hell, and twice as cool.’
We had a photoshoot at the rehearsal studio in Vauxhall with Tim Paton. I had known Tim for ages and he had taken many wonderful photos for me, both of bands I was in, plus various gigs at The Buzz Club.
I’m playing a Les Paul here – a bit cheeky, someone had left it as the studio, so I thought I’d have a go. It was lovely.
I’m wearing a pair of second hand blue cords I got in Brighton, a tee shirt from Rokit in Camden and my Airwalk trainers, from Slam City Skates in Covent Garden.
I had a strip of leather I put a sliver ring on and wore round my neck. Extra pieces of the leather are round my wrist. My nose is pierced.
Here I also have a track suit top I got for £2 from Camden Market.
Weeks went by, rehearsing, throwing a frizbee at the back of the studio to clear our heads, working and getting everything ready for our debut jump-rope release. We were hanging out with our friends Pusherman who had started recording demos and were getting ready to play live.
My parents were staying in a cottage in southern Ireland for a couple of weeks, with two of my Irish aunties. We had been invited to join them for a few days. We enjoyed the fresh air and wonderful countryside, along with getting treated to a couple of pub lunches by my Mum and Dad.
Arriving back in London the following week, there were lots of messages on the ansaphone. The NME had a left a couple – they were keen to write an On piece about jump – rope, plus In The City (music convention) were offering us a slot. All very exciting!
jump-rope played a gig organised by the NME to coincide with the article they had written about us. It was supporting Guy Chadwick‘s (The House of Love) new band The Madonnas at The Water Rats / Splash Club in King’s Cross.
We got another great review! This time from the NME.
‘The best guitar POP! group in at least the last five years’
The next day me and my pal Paul were in a newsagents in Camden, flicking through a magazine, which featured Paul in a photo story, when Evan Dando (The Lemonheads) walked in. Evan had clearly had one too many sherries and immediately started talking to us. He was getting a reputation for being seen off his head in a number of circumstances and not long afterwards, I got a call from ‘Vox’ magazine, asking me what happened…..
He claimed, the ‘snot on the sleeve’ was Kurt Cobain‘s…
On 12th September, ‘Crowded Day‘ was released.
It got reviewed in ‘Melody Maker‘
I made this video for ‘Crowded Day’ in 2023 – downloading footage from London in 1994 to go with the music.
‘Crowded Day‘ got played on Gary Crowley’s BBC GLR Sunday lunch time show a few weeks in a row – very encouraging for us.
Our ‘NME’ On piece came out.
We played a gig at the Dublin Castle in Camden, supporting Tara from 5:30‘s new band, The Nubiles. (You can see us at the bottom of this advert in small writing).
A couple of days later,we drove to Manchester to play at In The City music conference. It seemed, the whole of the London music industry had decamped to attend and certainly, while we played, most of them were in the bar at the Crowne Plaza. Steve Lamacq and Jo Whiley were hosting the Evening Session together on Radio 1 and Steve had said ‘I’m looking forward to seeing this lot later’ and played ‘Crowded Day‘! Sadly though, Steve didn’t make the not crowded throng of eight people who did see us play. They had already announced the Band of the Conference before we went on, we were pretty much the last band on the last evening to play! Oh well. At least we got a little mention in the ‘Melody Maker’ round up..
We went in the studio again. Back to Bark in East London, working with the great Brian O’ Shaughnessy. We recorded ‘Burn‘ and an acoustic song, ‘Swallow Tail‘.
December came with the usual run of parties and festivities, including my birthday. I contacted a rehearsal room at London Bridge, met with them and agreed terms for me to hire it for a party. Pusherman and jump-rope were to play in different rooms (at different times) with the djs (including myself, after we played) in the other rooms. We charged £5 on the door and sold raffle tickets as drinks vouchers. There were big bins full of tinned lager (and nothing else). We were allowed to go until 4am.
I had a young guy doing the door who no one knew, so we wouldn’t constantly feel guilty about charging mates and letting them in for free. I put him in position and opened the doors, disappearing as quickly as I could. As I turned, I realised the first people coming in were Noel Gallagher and the Oasis manager, Marcus Russell. The lad on the door had been told no guest list and so charged them both! I kept going in the other direction but heard Noel say ‘that’s the first time I’ve had to pay to come into one of my own gigs’! (Marcus also managed Pusherman).
The party was wild. Drinks got spilled on guitar pedals, stopping things mid set…then carried on. Music in all of the rooms, sitting along the corridor if you fancied a break. Then the ghastly packing everything up at 4:30am and getting home. A group of us carrying on the party vibe for a couple more hours back at our flat.
We were now busy getting ‘Burn‘ ready for release. Meeting Saul Chester, the artwork guy in Shoreditch and getting the vinyl pressed. Gathering at our flat to stamp the white labels with ‘jump-rope‘.
Vocally, I was in a period of transition (from the care free days of my youth to now trying too hard) and I wasn’t there yet (plus, the lyrics to ‘Burn’ are mine, rather than Danny’s and not very good) but I loved doing all the guitar parts myself. Being in charge of what I was doing, bouncing off harmonics and layering tracks. I found it very liberating and hugely rewarding.
There was a new energy about the three of us, we were working hard and getting better, rehearsing now on Saturdays, so we could keep playing all day. I’d been tipped off about a studio in Vauxhall, run by Robs, a mate of Ray Conroy‘s (Lush‘s manager) and jump-rope seemed to be the only band ever using the place. There were a couple of rehearsal rooms plus the office (small, with a large blue, battered diary and a kettle). Robs used to just leave us to it. We’d play music for a few hours, then go and make some tea and drink it in the empty car park. The studio was one of a few industrial units and was quiet at the weekend. Sometimes we would go and throw a frisbee around on the dirty patch of grass behind the Royal Vauxhall Tavern. Then back in to play for a few more hours.
Since the age of 14, I had always been in a band. At first it was just immense fun. I played bass, then moved on to guitar. Writing songs, playing my semi acoustic. A bit later, Danny wrote the words, I did the music. Working on songs together. Singing without thinking about it. Living and rehearsing at my parents’ house in Surrey. Touring Europe with The Television Personalities, playing in London as part of the as yet un named C86 scene. Releasing a couple of 12″s. Having a bit of a local following, supporting bands I owned records by. All while still a teenager and into my early 20s. I didn’t consider the future too much, was just loving the moment, signing to a major label wasn’t on my mind.
By now though, a decade later, things were starting to get a bit desperate. I was getting older. Getting nervous we were too old to sign a record deal. People we were hanging out with or playing gigs with were signing to major labels. They were always a couple of years younger than us now too. Musically, I had wasted years since moving to London in 1989 (although was working hard and enjoying myself). Always in a band, never any real drive or creativity. Just enough to keep going, playing gigs, recording demos. Being in a band was a huge part of my identity and it had been on the back burner for too long. Time was running out and realised I had to go for it or give up. A record deal was the dream, I didn’t think beyond that. If we can sign a deal, everything will be ok. That’s what I have to do to prove myself.
I got pro active pushing jump-rope. Being a press officer and radio plugger by trade, I knew how to go about getting things moving at an early stage for a band. The 7″ single releases had been the start of this. We got mentioned in the music papers – an On piece in the NME, live reviews and singles reviews in both the NME and Melody Maker.
It was becoming a bone of contention between myself, Maurice and Andy though. My head was clearly getting deeper into jump-rope and less into Ultimate. Sometimes, if we played The Falcon across the road, I’d store my gear at the office overnight, and sometimes I’d get picked up from the office, to drive to gigs outside London. When I started to appear in the N.M.E. and Melody Maker, it was going too far. I was employed as a press officer and my band was getting in the papers. I got it. I knew the clock was ticking.
Our second single, ‘Burn’, was released on 6th February 1995.
We were Single of the Week in ‘Melody Maker‘ and drove up, straight from work, to Birmingham to support a really cool German band called 18th Dye.
I sensed the bad atmosphere I was leaving behind me, as I closed the door, walked out on to Royal College Street and into the waiting car.
Here’s ‘Burn’ – musically, you can hear our hard work paying off, the end from 2:33 onwards is particularly cool.
I’m delighted to say that John Peel played ‘Burn‘. It’s the only thing by me he ever played. Gary Crowley gave it a few spins on his Sunday afternoon show on BBC Greater London Radio (G.L.R.). We were just parking the car outside the flat the first time he played it. He read all our names out and it felt great.
I sent this press release plus a 7″ to my parents (my family used to call me Jo-Anne). My brother Sam found it in Dad’s desk, clearing stuff away after Dad had died. It’s lovely to think he had kept it all those years.
I had to make a decision . We had to make a decision. Danny was becoming unpopular at Cherry Red, where he worked too, because of the band. Lugging the guitars into the office with him if we had a gig, which was getting more frequent. We started to talk about leaving our jobs to pursue music full time. We were 2/3 of the band, so we had to both take the leap. It didn’t take long to make our minds up, we knew what we had to do. A combination of not wanting to waste another minute and self-belief drove us forward.
And we did it, we both resigned. Really insane when I look back on it now, we were both the wrong side of twenty-five.
I think Andy and Maurice were relieved. We agreed I’d work for another month or so, stay around to show who ever was replacing me the ropes.
I figured, if we put everything into jump-rope, we’d have a deal by Christmas.
We supported Quickspace Supersport at the Dublin Castle in Camden on 22 March.
Quickspace Supersport had just released their debut single on their Kitty Kitty Corporation label. They were friends with bands Sebadoh and Stereolab, both of whom they toured the UK with later that year, when they also signed to Domino.
And then, that was that. After four wonderful years at Ultimate Records, where I learned so much and worked with so many great people, I left the pub where I had my leaving drinks and headed home.
And so my life as a ‘full time musician’ A.K.A. – ‘signing on’ began.
I arranged a photo shoot for jump-rope to go with the release of ‘Burn’. An Australian lady by the name of Kim took some snaps for us in Hackney, fairly close to where we lived in Highbury.
I’m wearing my 1970’s hooker’s jacket I got from a great vintage clothes shop in Endell Street, Covent Garden and some blue plastic trousers. Round my neck, I have an Olympus Trip I had bought from a shop which sold second hand cameras and music equipment, called Blue Audio Visual on Upper Street in Islington. I’d had my hair cut shorter, dyed brown and had hair grips in.
Ironically, just as Danny and I had quit our jobs to go full time, our American drummer got a job. He started work at the National Film Theatre Cafe on the Southbank. We were able to fit rehearsals around his shifts though.
We remained as busy as we could, with gigs I organised. Playing on Monday 3 April supporting a band called Star 69, at the Splash Club, held at The Water Rats, Kings Cross. (Where I had seen Oasis the year before).
Patch, the drummer from The Sundays and friend from Fleet in Hampshire, played with Star 69. He also drummed on two singles, ‘Mama Don’t Let‘ and one more, both recorded at his Blah Street, studio in 1996 and released by Organic Records. After that, Patch returned to his duties with The Sundays, so left to record ‘Static & Silence.
We had an interview with the Melody Maker‘s, Paul Mathur, (who had made ‘Burn‘ Single of the Week in February) in a pub in Soho.
jump-rope supported Velo-Deluxe at the Garage at the other end of Highbury Fields, so a lovely local gig for us, on Friday 2 June. We knew the band Out of my Hair who were on after us, they were managed by Paul West, who also managed Senser, so it was a nice social evening.
Velo-Deluxe were a great band, formed by Blake Babies guitarist John Strohm. They released one album on Mammoth Records and toured extensively in 1995, supporting Dodgy and Del Amitri. (A couple of interesting support bands on this Garage advert – Space on 26 May and the Long Pigs on 19 June)
This is ’Skin and Bones‘ by Velo-Deluxe. Definitely Big Star and Teenage Fanclub vibes here.
One of Jess and Martin’s friends and sister of Scouse Mick, Scouse Kate was moving to Australia with Stevie B. another of their group of friends. We had only recently got to know Kate and Stevie – they were very funny and it was a shame to be saying ‘goodbye’ when we’d really only just met. There were several farewells, including a big meal at a restaurant in Clapham and a mini festival in Hope, just inside the Welsh border in Flintshire.
Someone knew the owner of a pub there with a large function room and sloping mountain garden where people could camp. Pusherman and jump-rope were invited to play, with other friends djing. Danny and I drove, giving Paul R. a lift.
The room at the back of the pub was perfect, it even had a proper stage. Once everyone had settled in, put their tents up and said their ‘hellos!’, we set up our gear, sound checked and got ready to play. Out we stepped, my guitar chimed, coloured lights hazy through the dry ice. Not much visibility, I went up to an empty microphone stand and got confused when I couldn’t hear my voice. We settled in, it started to feel really good and then, we got better again and sounded amazing. John Haskell, Pusherman’s sound man, did ours too and it was immense. We played well, really getting into it and enjoying ourselves, adding pieces and extending endings. We were elated when we came off stage.
Pusherman went on at around 10pm, heavy and blissed out. All of us out front dancing and whooping in the rave-like atmosphere.
Hope in Flintshire.
Danny and I decided to clip three years off our ages.
This proved to be particularly awkward at a party we went to in a bar called Mars on Endell Street, Covent Garden. I bumped into a guy I hadn’t seen for ages, Andy, from Camberley. We got chatting and he asked my age, without pause, I told him the new version. ‘You went to Farnborough Hill didn’t you? That means you’ll have been in the same year as my girlfriend’ who he proceeded to call over. ‘Hey Kerry, come over here’. The girl came over and although she gave me a knowing look, she didn’t blow my cover. Thank you Kerry.
I had been in touch with Derek McKillop, Lloyd Cole‘s manager a few years previously. Derek had organised the band I had at the time, Poise to demo a few tracks, which didn’t lead to anything. I posted him the latest jump-rope recordings, ‘Burn’ and ‘Crowded Day’ in July. My timing was good – Lloyd was playing a short tour at the end of September / early October to promote his ‘Love Story‘ album and we were invited to be the support. This was just what we needed and we worked hard getting the set ready.
We borrowed my parents old Rover car and were just able to squeeze us plus all our gear in there. The first gig was in Dublin at the Mean Fiddler on September 27th. For this one, we actually also managed to fit the drummer’s girlfriend in the car with us. She was pregnant, and we were pretty short of space once we were loaded up and ready to go.
We got the ferry over from Holyhead and arrived in Ireland early. Danny and I had stayed at a hotel, (not unlike the one in The Shining) on a previous trip to Dublin, just near Phoenix Park, so this is where we stayed again. Large, slightly spooky rooms at a reasonable price. We tried to have a snooze in the afternoon but I wasn’t able to – I was looking forward to the gig too much.
The band played well and then enjoyed watching Lloyd‘s set. Van Morrison was in the audience and joined us back stage with his entourage afterwards for a fairly surreal evening.
We hung out with the Irish stage crew who told us amusing and unrepeatable stories about both UB40 and The Cranberries.
The next morning we were up and off, heading back to England – the tour continued at the Warrington Parr Hall on 30th. We were able to go home to London for a day before loading up the car, this time just the three of us and head off to the venue which was not far from Liverpool. We were greeted warmly by Lloyd’s tour manager and roadies, they made us feel very welcome and were happy to offer us advice. (The tour manager, Mick Brown was in our lives a while later when he worked for The Flaming Lips who played the Green Man Festival in 2010.)
The jump-rope tour supporting Lloyd Cole, finished at the Empire in Shepherd’s Bush, London on 3 October 1995.
We were really happy with this gig. The last night and our best. Derek, Lloyd’s manager, congratulated us afterwards. Lloyd invited everyone back to the bar in his hotel, which walking distance from the venue. We stayed there drinking and chatting for a few hours, our friends Amanda and Rudy were there with us.
Then myself, Danny and Rick, headed back to our basement flat in Highbury, eking out the last few hours. Somehow a cat had got in and casually walked passed where we were sitting, startling us and jolting us into accepting the tour was over and it was time to call it a night.
Just over year since our debut jump-rope gig. The short burst of energy we created was soon swallowed up in my growing panic at still no record deal.
When we couldn’t get any more attention as jump-rope, we decided we needed another rethink and another name change. Even knocking three years off our ages Danny and I were still in our late 20’s.
Here are the complete jump – rope recordings.
In the summer of 1996, Danny and I had written a clutch of new songs and were eager to record them. We managed to save up and borrow enough money to go to Bark studio in East London, and work with our friend, the talented Brian O’Shaughnessy again. (Many of the early Creation records were recorded by Brian, including the original of ‘Loaded‘ by Primal Scream. We were regulars at his studio.)
Through our friends, Jess and Martin we met the photographer Corinne Day (credited with discovering Kate Moss). At this time Corinne was photo-documenting Martin’s band, Pusherman, along with getting paid small fortunes for photoshoots by the major record companies. Corinne took some photos of us one afternoon in our basement Highbury flat, only charging us for the film, which was incredibly generous of her.
We had a new name – Plaza, (same jump – rope line up though) the Corinne Day photos were ready to go out with the new music.
A very cool start.
Indie Through The Looking Glass 