As 1979 progressed we dropped the name ‘Control’ and toyed with other ideas but nothing stuck. Dr. J started directing the making of a bass cab for Graham, taller and deeper than Justin’s cab and made out of thick blockboard we salvaged from a roadside skip. He constructed a kind of flue inside it which carried the sound back from the two large speakers, upwards, and out of an upper opening. The inside was lined with reclaimed carpet underlay and he wanted, for sonic reasons none of us understood, to ground it with a paving slab but we managed to persuade him not to. We attached caster wheels to the bottom of it and hoped we wouldn’t have to carry it up, or down, flights stairs too often. Playing live was still quite a distant concept.
Meanwhile some important albums were coming out - first was ‘Three imaginary boys’ by ‘The Cure’ then ‘Unknown pleasures’ by ‘Joy Division’ and ‘Join hands’ by the ‘Siouxsie and the Banshees’. We’d followed The Banshees from the beginning through their Peel sessions and were lucky enough to see them live in 1978 at The Malvern Winter gardens, probably the the most exciting performance I’ve ever witnessed. Their show at the same venue in September 1979 was also fascinating as they were supported by The Cure who played a marvellous 30 minute set before their singer and guitarist, Robert Smith, joined the Banshees on stage to cover for their guitarist, John Mckay, who had unexpectedly quit the band, along with the drummer, on the eve of the tour.
I wouldn’t say any of those bands were singular influences though. The thought of covering another bands song never crossed our minds and we weren’t drawn towards playing a specific style - in fact there wasn’t a specific style or sound at that time. The emerging bands were vaguely referred to as ‘new wave’ but mostly it was punk bands moving on and finding their own way, and despite the fact that we were totally insignificant and hadn’t played out of Justin’s bedroom, we felt a part of that.
Songs started coming together : ‘Search light’, ‘Hit man’, ‘Methuselah complex’, ‘Dreamt’ - and one we couldn’t find a title for at first; it had the most basic of all the lyrics and started - ‘ Green is the sea, - And also the trees - Blue is the sky - And blue were your eyes’ - and at the end of the song I repeated the line ’And also the trees’. I shouted it… ‘AND ALSO THE TREES!’ … and again - AND ALSO THE TREES!. And sometime later we decided it wouldn't be a bad name for the song.