I was deeply saddened to hear of the passing of my dear old friend Stephen James, who I first met working for Our Price Records in the 1980s (our manager at one point was Simon Raymonde who later joined the Cocteau Twins).
Stephen and I went on to form the band Sam Sam Sam. Over the years we played some great gigs. The first was a house party in Kennington with just Stephen on guitar, me on bass and vocals, and a drum machine. We did a version of the Cure's A Forest if memory serves. One gig with our more expanded lineup (Stephen, myself, Jana Heller on guitar and vocals, Anna and Sue who sang backing vocals, and Richard Tucker on drums) at SOAS was particularly memorable as Jerry Dammers was in the crowd and speaking to him afterwards he apparently really enjoyed our set.
Anyhow, after a while we went our seperate ways. I discovered later that he had left Blighty for the USA where he lived for some time. We reunited after he got back in touch with me on his return to the UK. In 2022 he came down from Derby to have a music session here at our place - we had both developed a keen interest in synthesizers. We've been constantly in touch over these last few years as he shared my love of Captain Beefheart, Gong and Pere Ubu amongst others.
All that aside, I think what I will remember about him the most is his splendid sense of humour - so very English, and his wry smile was just so infectious!
If anyone would like to listen to some of Stephen's recent electronic music, he had this Bandcamp site:
https://redyellowred.bandcamp.com/
I'd like to raise a glass to me old mucker Stephen. You were one of the good ones.
Stephen Bradbury
17/04/2026
