The Mad Arabs

The Mad Arabs were Ali (vocals) Mike (guitar) Adam (guitar) Steve (bass) Dave (drums) odd songs about type writers etc
The Mad arabs were to be found leaving the Stracey rd area of town with drums amps etc all in the back of a black cab (until adam got his blue bedford van) to travel to the basement of the freewheel book shop (now long gone) where they could be found bashing out their tunes through the night with visits to the 24hr garage for chocolate and crisps meeting the odd stoned Norwich youth looking for munchies!!
The Mad Arabs being one of the Norwich bedsit bands started life from the instrumentless D.S.I.D who moved on to a short lived Jazz incarnation called Cricket Whites which melted away from the world due to way too much laughter as well as Ali looking at Mike and Dave in a very odd way as they giggled their way through the bands one and only musical master piece!!
Before the Mad Arabs Mike, Steve, Adam and Dave were in Choked on a Worm where they did a lot of on the job training with the band trying to work out what Dave was going to do next.... Speed up, slow down, reverse the down beat or just wander off into another time signature all together all through total lack of ability rather than any skill. Soon Mike's song writing talent starting to emerge and Ali wanting to 'join in' with the musical fun the Mad Arabs took shape with at first Mike, Ali and Dave. A three piece soon became 4 when Steve joined and one of their first gigs was played in some awful pub cellar in full Arab dress/ fancy dress. With the sound a little thin Adam joined and provided his brand of The Damnned, Clash, Jimmy and Daniel Ash style feed back (at the request of Dave). With the chaps becoming almost good they ventured back to the Freewheel book shop cellar to record their one and only master piece tape (6 tracks i think) 'The Phallasies of Nature' with the help of Derrick a chap well involved with the then bedsit music scene. With the huge amount of interest in the band which followed (maybe 30-50 people at the Norwich arts centre (Way aye cocker club or something like that) the band fell apart with the 3 black cats emerging shortly to become The Black Cats and then Dave moving on to join The Elephants but thats another story....