Late happy new year greetings Figgis watchers, hope you all had a great Christmas.

First of all, sincere thanks to all who downloaded our Christmas song Home for Christmas. We've had quite a bit of feedback some of which we'd like to share with you.
" Love the song, great to dance to " Molly Ward
" Get enough plays it could become a classic " Tom Green
" Heard it on local radio Wycombe Sound, I like it " Alex J
" Played it at our office party several times " Lucy Morgan
" Had to spend Christmas away from home working this year,
the song said it all for me , thanks Debbie Ross

If you didn't get to hear it, find it on itunes click here

As we mentioned last time, the run up to Christmas was very hectic and Home for Christmas was our first itunes venture. Oh for the benefit of hindsight, but we have learned so much and now realise there was so much more we could have done to promote Home for Christmas to a wider audience. Sadly we didn't make No 1, far from it but the good news is Christmas comes around every year so we can make sure we benefit from our experience in plenty of time for next Christmas, in fact we've already started on promotion, but more on that later in the year.

As for this month were featuring Figgis friend ace bassist John Hammond.

John began his musical career in the Wembley area and was involved with a couple of rock and roll legends in the late 50's. He played with Screaming Lord Sutch as one of the Savages. As we all know, Screaming Lord Sutch was a larger than life figure, culminating in later life heading up the Raving Monster Looney Party.

As John recalls, Sutch never missed an opportunity where publicity was concerned, the more outrageous the better and at that time full use was made of a stuffed crocodile as can be seen in the attached picture.

John also stood in with Johnny Kidd and the Pirates of Shaking all Over fame.

After Sutch John joined up with local Harrow legends The Beachcombers who were later joined by drummer Keith Moon who went on from there to form The Who.

John moved around quite a bit over the next few years keeping his hand in with a number of bands until in the early nineties he moved into the Wycombe area and in 2005 he met up with Billy Figgis and played for a couple of years in a Figgis outfit called Chapter Six who went on to record as Uncle Figgis and Friends.

Enjoy the music Billy Figgis