OUR Spotlight feature is where the Andover Advertiser takes a look at acts based in and around Andover.

We will profile music artists and bands alike.

Our next band is Skidmarx, who are celebrating a whopping 40 years together with a free show at White Hart, Whitchurch on Saturday, May 20.

Band name: The Skidmarx

Music style/genre: 1970s punk rock and New Wave

Band Motto: Pete said: “We have no motto but usually when we get introduced “live, from where Skidmarx at the Testbourne Rocks Music Festival in 2007 the pool table used to be…. The Skidmarx.”

Band member info: Vocals – Martyn Page, aka Paggy, 60, of Whitchurch.

Lead guitar and vocals – Alan Cook, aka Cookie, 60, used to live in Whitchurch and now lives in Andover.

Bass guitar and vocals – Simon Machon, aka Mach, 50, of Whitchurch.

Drums – Pete Hansen, 52, born and bred in Andover but now lives in Sherborne Dorset.

Rhythm guitar and vocals – Tony Ashfield, aka Asher, 65, of Whitchurch.

Skidmarx performed their first gig to a packed pub, the White Hart, Whitchurch, on New Year’s Eve 1977.

The three piece band performed a six song set list several times over to an enthusiastic bin liner clad audience.

Forty years on, now with five members, the band said they are still going strong.

Apart from Martyn, who joined straight from the church choir, all the band have had wider exposure in the local music scene performing with the likes of Swoop, Rhythm Method, Palestine, String Breakers, The Others, Dream Overkill.

Pete, who started playing with the band in 1983, was friends with lead guitarist, Cookie, who asked him if he was interested in a one off gig as original drummer no longer had a drum kit.

He said: “I’ve been stuck with them ever since.

“Some highlights include playing to a dodgy crowd at the Tricorn Centre Portsmouth in 1978, surviving a riot at The (Walled) Meadow Club at around the same time, performing to over a 1,000 people at Whitchurch Live Aid in 1985, enthralling a packed Welly (RIP) Andover in the mid 1990s, headlining the 2007 Testbourne Rocks event, again back in Whitchurch, and more recently helping friends celebrate 50th and 60th birthdays with the music of their youth.”

“We’re about to embark on a ‘World Tour of North Hampshire’ to celebrate 40 years performing classic punk covers.

“So if you like your Damned, Clash, Stiff Little Fingers, Jam, Undertones, Sex Pistols, Buzzcocks you had best check us out starting back at the White Hart on Saturday, May 20.”

Are you in a band or are you a music artist based around Andover?

Do you have some exciting news? Email frances.birkett@ andoveradvertiser.co.uk.