New songs are being written whilst the group rest. The DS will be playing live again in the Autumn. Meanwhile, I'm doing some solo stuff - my latest work can be viewed at:
www.youtube.com/profile?user=simoncheetham

BBC Radio Dorset have featured The Disco Students .

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dorset/content/articles/2007/05/03/uv_simon_cheetham_disco_students_profile.shtml

I was going to record more, but I forgot how to use the machine.

Two posts in one day - this Blog is on fire. Quiet at Lake Disco Student at the moment - all part of the plan. I'm working on two new songs "Celebrity Fall Fan" and " Daddy, Please Don't Drink So Much". The plan is to add them to the set for the Bull&Gate appearance - 30.6.07.
Then - a new Disco Students record.
Just received the new Patti Smith album "Twelve" - in which Patti covers , um, 12 songs. I've been a huge fan for over 30 years - but crikey, "Everybody Wants To Rule The World" ? I presume she knows whats she's doing.

A new review from Nude Magazine.

Disco Students: I Beg to Differ (Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Records)
The Disco students were formed in Aylesbury in 1978, and despite gaining airplay on the John Peel show, their single releases were sadly neglected and the band finally split up 1982. Now recently reformed, I Beg to Differ serves as an overview of the bands career both past and present, over the course of two discs. And it’s a gem, which ranges in scope from scratchy, edgy arty, lo-fi punk/ new wave, vaguely in the style of The Cure or Wire through to fragile early-Eighties pop stylings and experimental later recordings such as “Mark What’s the Score” which samples Mark E Smith reading the football results against a squelchy synth background. And with songs such as “Tina Weymouth’s Smile” and “King of the Manchester Baggy Scene” these pop outsiders also provide a witty and wry commentary on recent pop history.
Ian Lowey
www.nudemagazine.co.uk

I'm down in Bridport escaping the cold weather. The plan was to record a couple of new songs - but I've been diverted. A couple of years ago I started to paint - using the name The Timid Proud One. There has been a cold wind blowing - so I have been involved in indoor pursuits - and I've started work on a series of food paintings. Today I have nearly completed "Dorset English Breakfast". It's not finished - when it is I'll start to put a few up on here. Until then - here's the inspiration.

Busy times here in Bridport. Working on two new songs - a cover version - the first the DS have attempted - Madonna's "Vogue" - plus a new original composition " I Wanna Purdey Haircut".

A new song - a historic document of me going to see The Fall play at The Opera House in Bournemouth last September. All of this is true.


Thrown Out Of A Fall Gig.

Timeline : september 2006
location: bournemouth, dorset, england uk
exact location: the opera house, boscombe.
In a rundown part of town
where the shops are boarded up
the shopkeepers sleep with a revolver under the pillow
to save their businesses from being de-businessed overnight
it was here at
my advanced age
here at this time of life
I was thrown out of a fall gig

burly, surly security men
dressed in black like the idiot SS
sat on the stage staring at the paying public
of whom I was one that night
blocking the view of mark and his colleagues
I took exception to their ridiculous attitude
and filmed them with my nokia mobile phone
this alerted the leader of the idiot SS
who was a woman, a younger leaner version of myra hindley
she was on me in a second, soon joined by her colleagues

I was frog marched to a tiny office , the size of a small pisser,
a desk, a cheap filing cabinet and a secondhand answerphone
it flashed, some poor fucker had left a message- it would not be heard
in they came like a flock of fucking sheep
there were eight of us in there - seven of those cunts and me
"you are a little cunt" they told me
"fucking tell me something new , you cunt" I replied
this wasn’t going as they had expected
"you’re in deep trouble" some cunt told me
" go fucking fuck yourself" I said. I’ve always prided myself on my stance regarding authority

"this is a serious matter" said their leader, the myra hindley character
" you were filming me and my fellow fools- this is an offence under the recently made up ‘don’t fuck about with bouncers’ law
"we’re not bouncers" one piped up
" we go on courses and have certificates"
I sensed a weakness here
" crikey, do you have a certificate?"
"yes he replied" I could see his chest puffing out
" so why don’t you shove that certificate up your stinking arse, you cunt"
this wasn’t going as they had expected

I was thrown out of a fall gig, like rubbish into a back street alley
in boscombe, where holidaymakers go for a gentle day out
" you’re lucky" spat myra hindley
" yeah, I fucking know that"
I re-grouped and went round the front of the opera house,
I still had my ticket so attempted a re-entry
all was going well, until - guess who - yeah fucking myra hindley turned up
she’d pre-empted my tactic - and you have to give the lesbo control freak respect for that
"no way, fuck off you little cunt"
well, my wife was still in the opera house, unaware of my situation
I had to get news to the girl - she would not be pleased - she’s not over keen on the fall , believes mes stinks of old man’s piss- she drove me to see them as a favour

enter stage left johnny clarke - free from toil post support slot and ready for a few hours liberty in boscombe,
"what’s going on here" the punk poet inquired
"john, do you recall the disco students? - we shared a stage in aylesbury in 1980?"
" I do, I’ve only been to aylesbury once in my life, twas the night I met the disco students"
under the increasingly acidic view of myra hindley, jcc & I recalled our previous association.
"this man must be returned to the auditorium" shouted john cooper-clarke
" he is a disco student"
but this cut no mustard with the idiot SS
" he broke all the rules, used a nokia mobile phone to prove we’re a bunch of cunts"
john cooper-clarke looked me in the eye
" sorry mate, I don’t carry any weight around here" and he was gone
so I had to sit on a wall, awaiting the end of the fall
then explained to my wife, the unfairness of my life.
And to cap it all - she got a speeding ticket from them speed cameras that are all the rage.

We played the Dublin Castle date on Friday night. A success. A good sized crowd - and we gave it the lot. A right racket. A new set, John the bass's debut, the introduction of the synthesiser - everything could have gone wrong - but no. Really good reaction - and a great number of well-wishers after the performance passing on compliments. The DS are back on track. I'm off down to Bridport for a couple of days with my ever increasing array of recording equipment to rattle out a couple of new songs.

There are a couple of new songs on the MySpace site - "My Wasp Synthesiser" and "Sunk On A Stormy Sea". www.myspace.com/2006discostudents
Final rehearsals this week before our live date at The Dublin Castle. I've been loading up the sampler and putting the finishing touches to the synthesiser. We'll be playing around half an hour - mostly new material - a couple of older songs. I'd like to think we can record a mini album type release with this line-up - hopefully putting it out in the Summer.

We're getting nearer the Dublin Castle date - and we rehearsed the new material last night. It sounds good. A new addition is a synthesiser - played by me. Bit of work to do, but it does give us a stronger sound.Looking forward now to the new DS taking to the stage. Here's a picture of me rehearsing.

The Rough Trade compilation is out next week. The first review has appeared. By a priest. John Davies, a Liverpudlian man of God who likes his football and music has chipped in with a bit of William Blake :
'The tygers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction' - The Disco Students: The Rough Trade Song ("Never been on no Rough Trade compilation", these old punks angrily sing; last track on this Rough Trade compilation).
www.johndavies.org
Angry old punk, me?
Too right.

First rehearsal of the new era last night - new bass player John Catlett making his DS debut. We've got a set of new material - just one song, "Mark E. Smith's Dead", surviving from the past . It went well. On another subject, Matt from BBC Dorset has been in touch and has asked the Disco Students to contribute to an audio diary project that will be broadcast in the Spring.

Word has reached DS HQ that Aurora Radio of Warsaw, Poland are playing "The Black Girlfriend " EP.

A few weeks until the Rough Trade compilation is released - and the DS contribution "The Rough Trade Song" was played on The Counter Culture Show on Resonance FM last week. The new look DS begin rehearsals next week preparing for the two London shows in February & March.

The track listing for the Rough Trade compilation - Counter Culture 2006 has been released. The Disco Students are the very last track - preceding the DS are another 23 artists including Lily Allen, Scritti Politti and Camera Obscura.

Review from Popmatters.com

When’s the last time you picked up a double-disc CD retrospective of a band that’s been around for a quarter of a century and you haven’t heard a single song from? Well, this is gonna be your first. The Disco Students is a band that, in many ways, is an awesome Joy Division knockoff with absolutely none of the budget. The band has long since been plagued with problems that would make VH1’s Behind the Music shame itself, but long-suffering leader Simon Cheetham has prevailed for 28 years, making songs with great titles and a sense of danceable fun despite budget limitations. The Disc 2 electro experiments wear thin after a while, but the gems all lie in Disc 1—prime-era Students where the Joy Division influence was so great they named one song “Love Will Blow Up in Your Face”. Sure, you can argue that some songs, like “A Boy with a Perchant for Open Neck Shirts”, wear thin (and it does, especially with Cheetham’s never-there voice), but the gems are just as numerous, like tuning into some great lost radio station run by Ariel Pink. It’s not perfect, it’s sloppy and sometimes a strain, but never before has a double-disc retrospective release been so warranted. Ladies and gentlemen: the best band you’ve never heard.

Things moving for 2007. The new look DS play two dates in the new year. The Dublin Castle, Camden on Friday 23rd February and The Betsy Trotwood on Saturday 10th March . It'll be all new material - a different sound. All good. A new line-up.

There will be a Disco Students track on the new Rough Trade compilation album - Counter Culture - The Best 0f 2006. The cd will be out in the New Year. To coincide with that the DS will be back on stage - just arranging a couple of London dates for February.

The DS are about to collaborate with Dublin based artist John Nolan.John was responsible for the cover of "I Beg To Differ" - and the DS are about to write and record some pieces to accompany some of John's new work. Exciting, eh ?

Look - I've changed the DS Blog - got a bit bored of the other style.
I've been recording new stuff - "My Astrakhan Coat" - weighing in at just under two minutes, with more of my newly aquired guitar skills.