Cary Graves, Roger Holdstock, Colin Salmon and Mark White left Ashcroft High School, Luton in the summer of 1978. For the last year of school they all talked excitedly about forming a group, and exam results went horribly wrong.

Rehearsing mainly in Cary's garage, usually with mysterious ""fifth"" member Daize Headbanger in attendance, songs began to take shape. Mark had a homemade (not by him) left handed three string bass, Cary a no frills £20 Woolworths guitar, Colin had got a set of drums from somewhere and Roger found the cheapest microphone money could buy.

Eventually tiring of rehearsals (after the fourth, they vowed never to do that again), they hired Luton Town Hall to make their public debut. The date was April 1979 and also on the bill were other local punk groups UK Decay, The Statics, Pneumania, Cinematics and The Clips. Despite the fact there was no proper PA (""what's a PA?"" - Roger) and little advertising, the gig sold out. However there was slight damage to the toilet and a couple of egos and Luton Council promptly banned punk rock from all its venues.

The second gig was at Richmond Hill School for the Mentally Handicapped - for French Exchange students. Imagine that if you can. Mark was away ""on business"", so Cary switched to bass and Phil Imber (The Jets - Farewell to the Roxy) guested on guitar. The kids loved it and demanded two encores and autographs. The Friction never again reached those heights.

In June 1979 the boys made the short trip to Quest Studios to record ""Murder"" for inclusion on a 4 track ep of local groups. The ep ""The Voxhall Tracks"" was released in November 1979. John Peel played ""Murder"". It is now one of the rarest UK punk releases.

The Friction gigged throughout 1980 and '81 at all the usual Luton venues - Baron of Beef, Christchurch, Starlight Club, ""33"" Arts Centre, etc - including the Plastic Records audition night, but were slowly falling apart. Mark and Colin were now squatting in Camden, and Cary had moved out to the villages. The final four gigs in 1982 were all outside Luton. At the Dunstable Wheatsheaf Cary's absence meant no guitar. Instead a tape made up of sound effects was used (this was a bikers pub!). It was also the first time that the band played under the moniker ""Anarchist Formation Dance Team"", or would have done if the landlord hadn't threatened to ban them. Then onto the Bossard Hall in Leighton Buzzard to support UK Decay. By now Cary's absence was permanent, and Colin had also disappeared. Mark and Roger again used the sound effects tape but now also added a drum machine, as they did at a long forgotten pub in Dean Street, Soho. They also made a demo tape ""Fear"". One of the songs - ""Send For Q Squad"" was to be included in the Crass Bullshit Detector series, but in the end it was deemed too long.

The final gig came at the South Bank Poly at Elephant & Castle, London, in the autumn of '82. Colin was back behind the drums, and Tim Vass (later of Razorcuts) guested on some vocals.

That was it. Until now.....

	Interference Interference.....		Punk
	The Jets Noisy bloody jets.....		Punk

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