David (Bishop) Bailey
(Dave sadly passed away7 August 2006)

Les (Fat Bear) Graham
By the way, if anyone knows where this guitar is (a sawn off Fender Precision Bass),
please let me know, as it was stolen in 1977 somewhere in the Stuttgart area


     Richard Henry (Cheese) Hampson (Cheese sadly passed away 29 September 2017)


John Barry (Jabe) Smith


THE  "OFFICIAL"  I DRIVE  HOMEPAGE

I Drive were (was) one of the last bands (at that time still called "Some Other Guys") to leave their Manchester (Salford / Altringham) home town and head for Germany in the late sixties (Valentines Day 1967) doing the "so called" Starclub scene, although our "Star Club" was the "Haus der Musik" in Wuppertal-Elberfeld where we proceeded to have a great time (noch ein Bier Bitte!!!) even though we didn't speak a word of german. From then on, things just kept getting better and better  (apart from the bloody van breaking down on the way to Hannover,  which was the real reason that we stayed in Germany) and finally, after doing the American Army Club scene for a while (during which time, Eric the Bass player met the girl of his dreams and decided to quit the band!), where we made a good name for ourselves, we decided to give the German Club scene a serious try and immediately had good reactions from places like the "Blow Up" in Munich, "Gruenspan" in Hamburg and the "P.N Club" in Munich where we played alongside groups like "The Remo Four"  "Nectar"  "Nazareth" and "The Skorpions" (later Scorpions).   Without really knowing how or why, we slowly but surely became a part of the German "Progressive Rock scene" (although we never really did lose the "soulful touch") playing at all kinds of Gigs and Open Air festivals alongside people like "Klaus Doldinger" Brian Auger's Night train" "Tony Sheridan" "Amon Duul", "Can", "Phallus Dei", "Golden Earring"," Ihre Kinder"," Titanic"," Wind"," Twenty Sixty six", "Geronimo" and many many others. Apart from doing countless numbers of "one night stands" throughout Europe, we also did a large amount of Monthly Gigs in places like: Muelltonne (Hannover), Gruenspan (Hamburg), Colosseum (Regensburg),  P.N. Club (Munich), Blow Up (Munich), Expresso (Straubing), Maxime's (Schweinfurt), Camera (Fuerth), K52 (Frankfurt) and many other Clubs and Dance Halls in places like:, Kaiserslautern  Hof, Kitzingen, Mannheim, Zweibruecken etc.  These "long term gigs" were the one's which gave us a really large Fan following.   It was strange "but nice" to see that people were travelling  from city to city to see us play .  In 1971 (after losing our singer "Geff Harrison to Twenty Sixty Six) we recorded an LP in the Bavaria Tonstudios in Munich which was then released in 1972 by the Hamburg record Company "Metronome" under the title of  "I Drive".  This was to remain our only recording with this group (apart from a private pressing of a song called Classic Rigby), although Cheese & myself did do a couple of singles in Spain in 1973, and Cheese later went on to do quite a lot of recording with the Group "Helter Skelter" and then even later with his present project "Russ'n'Cheese".   The last Gig which we played with the original members of "I DRIVE" (Geff came back for a brief stay)  was in Munich in the "Crash" in the Lindwurmstrasse. We played the Gig, drank a couple of beer's too many, had an argument and split !!. and that was it !!!.  Everyone went their own way, Dave to Hamburg, John to Kiel, Geff to Mannheim and Cheese and myself went to Regensburg where we hung around for a while before moving on to Spain where we played for a German pop Singer "Thomas Hock" who had just had a big hit with the Spanish version of "The Train to Nowhere" and desperately needed some musicians to back him up on tour.

JUST IN CASE YOU CAN'T REMEMBER
HERE ARE THE NAMES:

CHEESE, LES, DAVE, JOHN, GEFF

If  I'me not mistaken, then this picture was taken in:
THE EXPRESSO BAR, STRAUBING
Wow!! what a place to play
(about 1968?)

MORE MEMORIES

Thanks to:
Barbara "Tommy" Haimerl
George Lekai ,Edeltraud Gerstbrein,
Barbara Mitko
,  Mike Lydiate & Dave Bishop Bailey
for the pictures.

_______________________________________

Click on the picture for CD information:

Les

I borrowed the Mouse from Cheese