User:Gerry Czerniawski/sandbox

The Touch

The Touch were a West London based mod revival band active from June 1979 to February 1981. The band emerged from the Punk, R n B and Power Pop of the period via the vibrant West London gig circuit including the Nashville, Red Cow, Greyhound and the Kensington. They were helped on their way by ex-Vibrators bass player Pat Collier who produced early demos and gave the band their first gigs supporting Collier’s new project The Boyfriends. The Touch hooked up with Valdene Records producing just one album that for reasons unknown, was released by their record company with the title ‘The Mods Lost Touch’ without track titles or any other information about the band. This lead to confusion when copies of the album turned up among enthusiasts in later years. This confusion was finally sorted when Dizzy Holmes at Detour Records and Alan May of Glory Boys Radio Show tracked down band members in early 2018, some 37 years after the album first appeared. The Touch wrote and played their own songs, with guitarist Nash as the main songsmith. That said, the one cover they did, which appears on the album is Bob Dylan's If You Gotta Go, features additional keyboards by Al Kooper, widely believed to appear as a session man on Dylan's original version of the song from 1965.

Original band members include Dave Vox (vocals), Nash (gtr/vocals), Charlie Gurney (drums) and Gerry Czerniawski (bass/ backing vocals). Gary Druitt played drums on the recording and at a few gigs. Represented by PinBall Artists The Touch played a mere 20 shows sharing bills with: The Count Bishops, The Teenbeats, Long Tall Shorty, The Pleasers, Splodgenessabounds, The Mods, The Cimarons, The Satellites and The Modettes, among others.

At present, Nash lives in the USA and over the last 10 years has performed blues around the world under the name Son Jack Jr, and released 4 critically acclaimed albums. Dave Vox is based in Devon, and remains active in the contemporary UK mod scene. Charlie Gurney is still in London and plays for Deptford punkers, The Phobics, and garage/RnB merchants, The Beatpack. Gerry Czerniawski remained in London and played bass for The Fixations, glam rockers Waving Not Drowning and garage legends Bad Karma Beckons after The Touch broke up. In 2018 the band reformed signing to Detour Records.