The Prisoners at King's Hall Herne Bay, Saturday 28th February 2026

Band reunions can be hit and miss affairs – some acts resist the temptation all together in the hope of not tarnishing a legendary reputation such as The Clash, The Smiths and Talking Heads, for example. Some bands you think have reunited have never actually gone away, they just evolve over the years – dealing with various bust-ups, court cases, serious illnesses, and of course untimely deaths along the way by replacing key members. Kind of like a football team, you still support them despite them selling your star striker, sacking a favourite manager and dropping down to the lower leagues, occasionally to rise again like a phoenix. The Stranglers were totally reinvigorated when they reverted to the traditional four-piece and moved Baz Warne up front and are now selling out huge venues like the Royal Albert Hall again. The Undertones with Paul McLoone now fully grown into his role as frontman, are probably playing more gigs now than they have in years. Then at the other end of the spectrum are some bands who are more like Trigger’s broom and really should know better, somehow continuing without any original members in the line-up at all. Some misjudge it completely and get in totally inappropriate replacements so that you wonder who is actually advising them. There are some bands who tread the cabaret circuit, happy to get together for the occasional festival, play the hits and collect a big pay cheque. 

 

Then there’s the rare case where some reunions really work, such as Pixies – which hit to a completely new generation of kids and some like Wire, who still produce superb new and vital music. So, what happens when it’s one of your really ‘special’ favourite bands, and it’s no secret that The Prisoners are one of mine. Thankfully, like The Soundtrack of Our Lives, another act who mean so much to me that the announcement of a reunion a few years ago stirred up mixed emotions. On one hand it’s ‘please god, let it be good, don’t tarnish the many happy memories, don’t let yourselves down’ and on the other, there’s the excitement that you’d get to see them play again. Thankfully in both cases, neither band let me down in the end. Of course, The Prisoners did get back together for some shows and a so-so single “Shine On Me” in 1997, but that didn’t last long, it was over pretty soon. Once it was clear The Prisoners reunion wasn’t a long term prospect, Graham and Allan followed up on the Prime Movers with the superb Solarflares, a three-piece that  eventually reverted to the classic Prisoners style line-up by adding Parsley on the organ. Then Graham recruited The Woggles’ rhythm section for Graham Day & The Gaolers and released two brilliant albums with material that matched the quality of The Prisoners. After a hiatus, the news was out that Graham had got the three-piece Solarflares line-up back under the guise of Graham Day & The Forefathers - “we’re basically a tribute band to ourselves” he told me in our Retrosonic Podcast special. There was no talk of new material – just a set of stripped back versions of classics from the back catalogue – The Prisoners, Solarflares, Gaolers and Prime Movers. They went down a storm and released a raw, live in the studio album of choice cuts called “Good Things”. 

 

Fed up with the pressures of fronting a band, Graham then started The Senior Service where he could indulge in his love of Barry Gray’s wonderful themes to Gerry Anderson TV shows such as Thunderbirds and Fireball XL5 and John Barry and Ennio Morricone’s evocative Spaghetti Western and Spy movie theme tunes. Of course, this aspect was nothing new, The Prisoners and Solarflares in particular would often include at least one or two instrumentals on their albums and in their live shows. Graham seems to have a love/hate relationship with both singing and fronting a band and with the Hammond organ. He sometimes needs a break from both. He once told me his dream was to just play guitar in one of those groovy bands you saw in a 1960’s hippie exploitation movie, where assorted spaced out kids dance away under psychedelic liquid lights. Either that or just playing guitar in The Woggles, his favourite band, would have been cool. The opportunity for this wish did occur, although in rather sad circumstances, when The Woggles guitarist Jeff Walls passed away in 2019 and they needed a replacement. So, Graham ended up touring the States, Europe, the UK (you can see a feature on The Woggles brilliant 100 Club gig here) and even Japan, where Graham, that icon of cool, was enjoying himself so much that he even performed in fancy dress costumes such as lederhosen or karate monkey suits! But the pull of The Prisoners was strong, and circumstances conspired to facilitate the latest and long-awaited reunion. The Prisoners had that something special, that all important chemistry and a hugely dedicated fanbase, as shown in the brilliant book “A Taste of Ink! The Prisoners Sentenced By Their Fans”. Plus, they had James Taylor on the Hammond organ. James had gone onto forge a respected career in Jazz, Soul and Funk with The James Taylor Quartet and it didn’t seem likely that he would be interested in revisiting The Prisoners given his success. Wrong! The news filtered through that the original line-up was getting back together, initially incognito at a friend’s party at the Billabong Club in Rochester in 2021. 

 

Then came the announcement of a show at the Royal Function Rooms in Rochester (check out our feature here), in early December 2022 to celebrate the 40th anniversary of their debut album “A Taste of Pink”. Due to the demand, it ended up as a four-night stand from November 30th – 3rd December 2022 and it was also live streamed on-line. It was emotional, it couldn’t end there could it? Thankfully no, there were shows in Herne Bay in December 2023 and the fantastic news of a brand new album, “Morning Star” followed by a gig in May 2024 at the legendary Roundhouse in London’s Chalk Farm (read all about it here), actually the band’s biggest show to date. But “Morning Star” was superb, the sound of a band having fun, embracing their influences, although sometimes sailing a bit close to the wind in the shades of The Who, Ramones, Small Faces and Hendrix, which coloured the songs, but who cared. The quality of the songs was what mattered and there were some that easily stood up to the classics, in particular “Winter In June” and “Something Better”. Everyone was on top form, with James Taylor in particular shining out with some superb Hammond. Then came the feeling that was it, all over again. In some ways it would have been a fitting way to draw a line under it all, to go out on a high, but it seemed a fire had been lit. This year came the announcement of a new single “Autumn Skies” and live shows at King’s Hall in Herne Bay, an impressive Edwardian Pavillion on the sea front where they would celebrate three albums over three nights. On the Friday night it would be 1983’s “The Wisermiserdemelza” (and my entry point to the band back in the day), Saturday would be the classic “The Last Fourfathers” from 1985 and then Sunday it would be 1986’s “In From The Cold”, where they would be joined by the James Taylor Quartet’s sometime Brass section. 

The venue was great, and in some ways better than the Roundhouse, where the sound can sometimes get a bit lost in that cavernous building. It was packed out on the Saturday night, sadly the only night I could attend and there were so many eager, happy and familiar faces in attendance, many of whom I’d got to know through my Retro Man Blog  gigs with Graham Day & The Forefathers and The Solarflares. Kicking off proceedings were Lord Rochester, featuring Russ Wilkins, formerly of The Milkshakes, Saskia Holling on bass and vocals and Lois Tozer from The Embrooks on drums and maracas. Their Bo Diddley influenced rhythms went down really well and they were the perfect opening act. My personal favourite was the Crampsian rumble of “Transcontinental” and the insanely catchy “Chicken Salt” and Russ closed the set by announcing “This is for the Mods… and the Punks” and they launched into a cracking version of “What’cha Gonna Do About It”. Next up the always reliable Masonics, aided and abetted by Ludella Black, entertained the crowd and played my favourite track “Silently By Night”, so I was happy. DJ Wendy May was spinning some mighty fine tunes, putting everyone in an even better mood and you could feel the atmosphere start to build.

 

 

Then The Prisoners took to the stage, looking great and starting strongly with “I Am The Fisherman”, the crowd went mental, you can’t get much better than this. They play a good chunk of “The Last Fourfathers” including “The Drowning” and “Take You For a Ride”, ending the section with a powerful version of “Night of The Nazgul”, one of their best instrumentals. Then we get “This Road is Too Long” and “Save Me” from the current album and in between there’s the new single “Autumn Skies” before a nice surprise from their debut album, “Til The Morning Light”. They then flit between the “Last Fourfathers” and “Morning Star” albums including a great version of “Whenever I’m Gone” and I see that Eddie Piller, who released the single on his Countdown label back in 1986, is in the crowd. The James Taylor written and sung  “Go To Him” is a highlight as it channels the way the Ramones took those Phil Spector, Shangri-La’s melodies and married them with fast Rock ‘n’ Roll, plus it has a classic “Blitzkrieg Bop” style call and response section of “just go, just go, just go with him!” Considering Johnny Symons isn’t regularly playing like his bandmates, his drumming is superb throughout and Allan’s impressive bass riffs and backing vocals complement Graham perfectly, who is in mighty fine voice. When he’s not singing, Graham stalks the front of the stage, guitar pointing out to the adoring crowd. There’s a really nice chemistry fizzing between all four of them, from Allan with his deadpan between song banter to James’s cheerleading and encouraging the crowd to sing along, they look like they are having as much fun as we are. They always did carry a reputation for being ‘surly’ and ‘difficult’, but it’s certainly not been evident at any of the reunion shows. After all, all four members spent a long time afterwards signing the new single  and chatting to fans at the impressive merch table stocked by our favourite record label Spinout Nuggets and Sound Is Colour clothing.

Someone posted a nice photo in The Prisoners forum from one of the Herne Bay nights of Allan and Graham smiling at each other, one wag commented “must be A.I.” and Allan himself replied “Fake News!” The set draws to a close with the Prisoners very own Garage Rock classic “Melanie” and then “Reaching My Head” the song which started it all for me and quite obviously The Charlatans too as they nicked the bassline and made a career out of it. A stunningly emotional “Thinking Of You (Broken Pieces)” nearly has me welling up, something in my eye! Then “I Drink The Ocean” segues into a fantastic version of Deep Purple’s “Hush” and sadly, that’s it, all over. An absolutely momentous night, we got twenty three superb songs from a band that despite starting over forty years ago, strangely seem to be at the top of their game. Maybe it’s the impressive back catalogue, the lessons that have been learned, of getting older and wanting to do things right. Maybe it’s the huge wave of respect and affection that the crowd shows towards the band, that special bond, I don’t know what it is but all I do know is that I don’t want it to end, again. I’m hopeful that there will be more to come from The Prisoners in the future so let’s hope it becomes more permanent so that we can finally stop labelling it all as just another reunion.

 

You can read all about how I first got into the band and my experiences of putting on shows for the Forefathers, Solarflares and Senior Service, in my feature on The Prisoners Roundhouse gig here. Our thoroughly entertaining Forefathers Retrosonic Podcast with Graham, Allan and Wolf Howard is still available in our archive here. You can listen to them discussing and playing a pick of their favourite songs from all aspects of their musical careers. 

Retrosonic Podcast · Graham Day & The Forefathers

 

Unfortunately, the brilliant book “A Taste of Ink!” is now sold out, but if you are interested, then please contact them here and register your interest as I’m sure they will consider a re-print if there is a big enough demand. However, don’t despair if you did miss out on “A Taste of Ink!” as a new book has just been announced. “Graham Day - 45 Years of Music”, originally a limited edition book in Italian by Antonio Bacciocchi and Luca Frazzi, has now been translated, expanded and revised by Thomas Buch and Les O’Hare and will be available to order on 20th March. Please check out their Facebook page here for details on how to get hold of this promising looking book.

 

For more videos from the gig, please head on over to our Retro Man Blog YouTube channel and subscribe for free here. All Photos and Videos copyright Retro Man Blog 2026.

The Prisoners: Your Stories and Memories Needed for New Book on the Medway Garage Psych Legends (feature includes rare Paul Slattery photos)

The Prisoners at The Hope & Anchor - Copyright Paul Slattery

A new book on Medway Garage Psych legends The Prisoners is currently being planned by an Anglo-German collective of fans and they are asking for your memories and contributions. They would like to hear what the band means to you, when you saw them, what records you bought and any memorabilia or photos you would like to share. The book has had the official blessing of the band and here's a few words from bassist Allan Crockford in support: 

"I thought I'd bring this to your attention, if anyone's missed it. My sister Elinor is teaming up with a couple of friends and fans in Germany to put together a book about the Prisoners. It will be from the perspective of fans of the band (and maybe people who hated us - that would be an interesting perspective!) who came to the gigs and bought the records. They want your stories and memories of the band and the times. Me, Graham, James and Johnny have given it our gracious blessing and look forward (with some trepidation) to reading your stories. At least we finally might find out what happened..."

The Prisoners at The Hope & Anchor - Copyright Paul Slattery

As regular readers to Retro Man Blog will know, The Prisoners and all their many and varied spin-offs are a huge inspiration on what we do so we'll also be keeping a close eye on the progress of the book. You can send in your contributions to be considered for publication via email to Atasteofpink9@gmail.com

Don't forget our thoroughly entertaining Graham Day & The Forefathers Retrosonic Podcast special with Graham Day, Allan Crockford & Wolf Howard on the complete story of The Prisoners, The Solarflares, The Prime Movers and all their other projects and bands over the years.

Retrosonic Podcast · Graham Day & The Forefathers

 

Photos of The Prisoners at The Hope & Anchor, London March 24th 1983 copyright Paul Slattery.

The Senior Service - Debut Single Launch Party and First Live Appearance from Graham Day's Latest Venture at The Half Moon Putney on Saturday January 30th 2016

Retro Man Blog and Damaged Goods Records present the launch party for the debut single by The Senior Service at The Half Moon Putney on Saturday January 30th. The band will be making their first ever live appearance along with very special guests French Boutik and Of Arrowe Hill. Advance Tickets are only £11.00 and are available directly from The Half Moon here or £13.00 on the door. Our last two gigs with Graham Day sold out way in advance so we would recommend booking up quickly to avoid missing out on this exciting new chapter in Graham's musical career.

THE SENIOR SERVICE

 The Senior Service are the latest band to burst forth from the little clutch of towns known collectively as the Medway. However, they are no newcomers (as their name may suggest), for they have been in some of the biggest bands to have come from that area including The Prisoners, The James Taylor Quartet, The Mighty Caesars, Billy Childish & The CTMF, The Masonics, The Buff Medways and The SolarFlares amongst others. The Senior Service line-up consists of Jon Barker on the Hammond organ, Graham Day on the guitar, Darryl Hartley on the bass guitar and Wolf Howard on drums and percussion, close friends throughout they have always been into film themes and instrumental music. Amongst their influences are John Barry, Barry Grey, Booker T and the MG’s, Ennio Morricone and The Small Faces. “We got together to play instrumental covers because I happened to have bought a Hammond organ” says Jon, “but we dropped that idea before we played a note and quickly moved onto our own stuff.”

With a new single "Depth Charge" to be released on Damaged Goods records in January and an album to follow soon after, the recordings have an organic feel to them that only close, like-minded friends can achieve, so it feels like the time is just right for a fresh batch of exciting tunes played on antique instruments by young-minded lovers of Sixties instrumentals!

FRENCH BOUTIK
With touches of classic Motown, Burt Bacharach and Serge Gainsbourg, and of course those great French Sixties Yé-yé records, the Paris based French Boutik blend all of these influences together perfectly with their own up-to-date Modernist Pop twist.

OF ARROWE HILL
Formed in London at the end of the 1990s by Singer Songwriter Adam Easterbrook, Of Arrowe Hill are an English Hauntological rock group with an eclectic musical output spanning psychedelia, acid folk, country blues and lo-fi. In the current line-up Adam is joined by the rhythm section of Ian O’Sullivan and Jason Hobart, both ex-members of The Aardvarks.

You can read an exclusive interview with Graham Day about The Senior Service in our Blog feature here. Don't forget our special edition Retrosonic Podcast with The Forefathers where Graham, Wolf and Allan Crockford talk about their illustrious musical careers from The Prisoners and The Daggermen to their involvement with such Medway luminaries as James Taylor Quartet, Billy Childish and many more.

Advance Tickets for the launch party can be ordered on-line from The Half Moon here. "Depth Charge" can be pre-ordered from Damaged Goods here. Don't forget to check out Damaged Goods store where you will find a great selection of releases from Graham Day and Billy Childish.

Graham Day: Exclusive Interview with The ex-Prisoners, Solarflares & Gaolers Frontman about his latest Project...The Senior Service

In our Retrosonic Podcast special with The Forefathers, Graham Day mentioned that he had always wanted to record an instrumental album. When The Prisoners split Allan Crockford and James Taylor went on to form The James Taylor Quartet, (“a kind of Punked-up Booker T” according to Allan), leaving a rueful Graham to reflect. “I remember being quite jealous at the time, I thought the James Taylor Quartet were brilliant at the start. I love instrumentals; I always wanted to be in an instrumental band so I didn't have to sing”.

In the Podcast Graham also expressed, not only an admiration for the work of well known names such as John Barry and Ennio Morricone, but also for composers like Barry Gray (“Thunderbirds”) and Lalo Schifrin (“Bullit”). In fact The Prisoners even tackled Gray’s “Joe 90” theme tune. Throughout his career, in particular with The Prisoners, The SolarFlares and The Gaolers, Graham had written and recorded many notable instrumentals such as “Sitar Spangled Banner”, “Night of The Nazgul”, “Girl In A Briefcase”, “Lunar Girl” and “Apollo a Go-Go”. Ian from Damaged Goods Records even picked out “South Avenue” from The Gaolers “Soundtrack To The Daily Grind” album as one of his favourite songs in our Damaged Goods Retrosonic Podcast special. 

So, now we have the next chapter in Graham’s musical career and the fulfilment of that long held ambition. The Senior Service.

Jonathan P. Barker - The Hammond Organ & The Piano

Q: Please tell us about the other members of The Senior Service, their musical background and how you got together for this new project.

GD: Jon Barker on Hammond. Jon was in the Daggermen, who used to support the Prisoners a lot in the mid 80s. He played bass in the Buff Medways and in the Gaolers. So, a bass player by trade, and a damned good songwriter, but he’s always fancied playing the Hammond so he bought one and decided to form an instrumental band. Darryl Hartley. Most people won’t have heard much from Darryl but he’s been in several low-key bands over the years. Darryl is a guitarist normally, but has moved to the bass for this outfit. He also brings a fantastic songwriting talent to the mix. Wolf Howard has played drums in the Daggermen, Prime Movers, SolarFlares, The Buff Medways and all of Billy Childish’s bands since then, and is also in the Forefathers. The band is Jon’s fault. He bought the Hammond and wanted a band to fit around it so asked us all to join in. The original idea was just to muck about at Jon’s house but it quickly turned into a monster and has produced some of the best material we’ve ever written between us.

Graham N. Day - The Guitar

Q: You have a new single “Depth Charge” coming out in January on Damaged Good Records and an album to follow, what is the album title and when is it due to be released?

GD: I don’t think we’ve got a title for the album yet! It’s bad enough trying to come up with a band name (which we’ve changed 3 times already) or a song title…. We’ve only got 2 songs left to record then it’ll be in the lap of the production Gods as to when it comes out. I would imagine early Spring.

Q: Are the songs on the album all original or will it feature any cover versions? Are there any particular tunes that you would like to have a go at covering?

GD: All the songs are original (or as original as they can be given the limited amount of notes and combinations thereof that already exist). Let’s say, to our knowledge they are all original. With 3 songwriters in the band there’s no room or desire to record any covers, what’s the point?

Q: Are the original songs all new and written specifically for the Senior Service or are they ideas that you have had kicking around for a while that maybe didn’t fit in with previous line-ups?

GD: I think Darryl’s and Jon’s are new. I’ve got six tracks on the album (if “Depth Charge” gets on it), two of which I wrote a few years ago for an intended Gaolers album, but the others are brand new.

Q: Did your interest in cinematic instrumentals first come from a love of movies or was it from hearing the music as a separate entity?

GD: It’s definitely the music I love as a separate thing. For instance the album “No Strings Attached” by Barry Gray is one of my favourite albums, but I’m not particularly into puppets!!

Darryl R. Hartley - The Bass

Q: Tell us some of your favourite movie scores and composers?

GD: My favourite composers are John Barry and Ennio Morricone, but I’ve always loved the bit in a 60s film where they walk into a club and an anonymous band is playing the most groovy tune ever, like “30-60-90” in “Get Carter”. That’s what I’ve always wanted to do, just be in a faceless band in a party scene. I love “Adagio for Strings” in “Platoon” as well but that kind of genius is a bit ambitious for my limited talents.

Q: Have you ever fancied writing a score to a “real” movie such as The Len Price 3 did recently for “Pubmonkey”? Have any opportunities arisen for this over the years?

GD: No, not really. My thing is more along the lines of catchy theme tunes rather than full on orchestral scores. One day when I’ve got some time on my hands I’d like to have a go at writing more orchestral stuff but I’m really not into samples and synths and don’t have an orchestra to hand so it might be a bit tricky…

Q: You’ve mentioned you were influenced by composers such as Barry Gray who wrote some classic TV themes such as “Joe 90” and “Thunderbirds”. What was it about these that captured your imagination?

GD: I love a lot of 60s theme tunes. There’s something about that catchy hook squeezed into a couple of minutes of sheer pointless pleasure, you can’t beat it. The thing is, singing in a band has a lot of drawbacks. For one you never know if it’s going to work. You can’t just plug it in or hit it like the other instruments. Sometimes, particularly if you’re on tour it gets a bit croaky, or you can’t hear it ‘cos the monitors are shit, or if I get run down or have a cold it might go completely. Also, particularly as you get older it becomes a massive physical effort to sing. Having played drums, bass and guitar in different bands over the years I can say categorically that singing is by far the most exhausting. A couple of times on tour with the Gaolers in packed small clubs, boiling hot with stage lights burning your face off I’ve felt like I was close to having a heart attack. Once I had to come off stage and go outside and lay on the pavement just to get my breath, stop the room spinning and cool off. The other thing is you have to write lyrics, and that’s something I really struggle with. Apart from the last Gaolers album where I hit a streak of funny stories, what the hell are you supposed to sing about? So I’m much happier writing and playing instrumentals; they mean nothing, they can be whatever you want them to be and the most difficult thing to write is the poxy title of the thing.

Wolf D. Howard - The Drums

Q: I must admit to having my own play-list compilation of all your instrumentals and it works really well as an “album” on its own. Was there ever an option to release an official “instrumental only” anthology from your various line-ups?

GD: Yes I’ve wanted to do an instrumental compilation for years. Damaged Goods wanted to do it a few years ago, I put the tracklist together but the problem was most of the Prisoners and SolarFlares tracks are owned by Big-Beat. They were up for licensing them but it was too much money for Damaged Good to be viable. I did consider re-recording them but decided there was no point.

Q: I know you said that there were some songs that didn’t work live with The Forefathers because you didn’t have the organ, so will you be re-visiting any of the back catalogue? What can the audience expect at a Senior Service live show?

GD: Good question. We are a tiny bit concerned that an all instrumental set might be a bit boring for the audience and were considering chucking a few songs into the set live. But we’d rather stick to our guns, be ourselves and stick to instrumentals; the audience will know what to expect and can make their own words up if they want to sing along. We’ll keep the set relatively short...We haven’t really worked out a live set yet, but there are at least 3 tracks on the album that won’t work live. I think there may be a couple of Prisoners instrumentals up for discussion, as well as a few covers, but let’s wait and see...

We are extremely pleased to announce that the next Retro Man Blog Night at The Half Moon in Putney will in fact be the launch party for The Senior Service's debut single "Depth Charge" on Saturday January 30th. This will be in conjunction with Damaged Goods Records and also on the bill will be very special guests French Boutik and Of Arrowe Hill. Please keep a check on The Senior Service official Facebook page, the Damaged Goods Records web-site or, of course here on the Retro Man Blog, and we will announce details of tickets as soon as possible.