From Brighton, UK - New Wave/Punk

Charlie Zuber • drums
Gary Turner • bass, vocals
Doug Potter • guitar, vocals
Paul Birchall • keyboards

Vaultage 78 Review:
The Dodgems have been together for about a year. They all have demanding full-time jobs. Doug is a social worker, Gary a sculptor and Charlie a designer at Sussex University.

They still manage to rehearse twice a week and are keen to broaden their horizons with some gigs out of town. Drummer Charlie Zuber: "We have been called political and we do have strong opinions about things. But you have to keep the message fairly simple because the music’s so loud!"

Their best song is Lord Lucan is Missing. "That is about how irrelevant most of the news is to our lives - it really doesnt matter whether Lord Lucan is missing or not".


Gary Turner
After the Dodgems finished I worked with Bob Grover in the re-formed Piranhas until about 1985, then I went back to art. I've retired from teaching and thanks to a broken back, stopped making sculpture. However I was painting and drawing for some time and exhibiting annually and am now working digitally printing my images onto canvas and still showing annually during the festival.

Musically (for fun) I've just written a new song with my son, Caspian (who is an excellent musician) and am recording it using email to contact the other members of the band and get their tracks to add to what I've done. It might work, it might just be fun.

punkdaddy's footnote: I added some guitar to Gary's track and love the concept of a song's individual tracks converted to mp3 and done entirely by email. I then mixed the final version.


Doug Potter | Post–Dodgems
The Dodgems hit the buffers following the departure of drummer Charlie Zuber (to Fiji), and the collapse of their record label, Criminal Records, in 1981 – leaving the Dodgems’ ‘Lost Tapes’, recorded for Criminal with Charlie Charles of the Blockheads depping for the absent Charlie Z - unreleased. I left Brighton in 1988 for a job with the NHS in East Yorkshire, where I still live.

The biggest post–Dodgems surprise is that the band is still remembered and after years of being missing, the reincarnation of Lord Lucan - in recordings and performances of Lord Lucan is Missing by Black Box Recorder and in 2005 a 12” vinyl of 5 international DJ remixes released by 12 Apostles under the title Lord Lucan is Still Missing. Most surreal moment: going to see Black Box Recorder at the Cockpit, Leeds and watching Luke Haines et al performing our old Dodgems song, to much acclaim by the crowd. Doug
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