Live At The Three Choices, Southam, December 1997

Recorded live at the Three Choices bar, Southam, Warwickshire, Thursday 11th December 1997. The Three Choices was a great little place and I used to go in there quite a bit when I lived in my home town of Southam, although I had moved to Leamington back in the May of 1997. Always warm and welcoming and a little bit different to the usual 90s pubs. A good fit for someone like me who was in their early 30s and who wasn’t really a ‘pub person’. Remember talking to the manager one evening, I have forgotten his name, so long ago. Told him I dabbled in music and he asked me if I could do something live. I did say that my music wasn’t poppy or commercial, but he wasn’t too bothered. So, a couple of musician acquaintances and I rocked up one cold, wet Thursday evening in December ‘97 and recorded this. We never did another gig together, which is a shame. In fact, I haven't seen or spoken to Evan or Pete since that night. Because we only met once or twice a week in Leamington, we just practiced a bunch of tracks I’d already written, which we worked on for a couple of months during the autumn of 1997. There were plans to write and record as a trio and do more gigs, but, unfortunately, it never came to fruition. I do remember our band name was to be LV-426, the name of the planet featured in Aliens. We were a real ramshackle outfit. Battered guitars, half-working synths and a vocoder as none of us were prepared to "sing" in the traditional sense. I ended up doing the vocoded vocals. We were in one corner, more or less standing on top of one another. It was a Thursday, so heading towards the weekend and being just a couple of weeks before Christmas there was a healthy crowd in, with an upbeat happy vibe. I don't think anyone really paid any attention to us, though there were some polite applause. We were asked for Christmas songs, but we politely declined as weren't that kind of band. We weren’t really any kind of band! A friend of a friend, Andy, had a Tascam 564 MiniDisc recorder, a dull grey thing and I had a Tascam PortaOne. He recorded the event on both. This recording is taken from the MD. Quality was very good, although unfortunately a few tracks were too distorted to include. This was the first time the name Cathode Ghosts was used; and the last for a while. I became Torchomatic and then Cinematique for the next couple of decades, before reverting back to Cathode Ghosts during lockdown. Evan - guitar, synths, electronic percussion Pete - bass guitar, guitar, synths Simon - synths, guitar, tapes, vocoder Recorded by: Andy All tracks written by: Simon Thanks to Evan, Pete and Andy. For Oscar, as always Sleeve design, typography and photography by Simon. October 2025. Available on vinyl and CD: https://elasticstage.com/cathodeghosts/releases/live-at-the-three-choices-southam-december-1997-album