September 20 1971. Deep Purple’s Fireball was at the top of the UK album chart; while Who’s Next, Carole King’s Tapestry and James Taylor’s Sweet Baby James were all in the top 10.

These were heady days for music, with new genres being spawned and new British bands on the brink of conquering the world, but for one British band it was the end of the road - Gravesend's Kinky Machine had formed just a few months earlier in the spring of that year, yet after burning bright through the summer months, September 20 was to be their farewell performance, at The Woodville Halls.

Until now - because 50 years later the band, with members now flung far and wide across the UK and the world, have reformed online to reawaken the spirit of those vibrant times.

Singer Keith Peacock, 67, explained the new song T Bar Blues was an homage to the Gravesend of those days, in particular the Tele T Bar, now Parrock Grill, in Parrock Street, where the band and the wider social scene around it was formed.

"We were all people that use to meet in the Tele T Bar," explained Keith. "It was a rather unspectacular cafe, around 1970-71, and it had this wonderful old Logie Baird invention - a television.

"In those days betting shops couldn't show horse racing and there was a betting shop next door, so every time there was a race these guys would come running in to watch there money being lost. We didn't gamble - we couldn't afford to. We were all huddled around one cup of tea."

Beyond the cup of tea and the TV, entertainment came in the form of a juke box that played All Right Now and Layla alternately until unplugged - but the group of like minded young musicians, mostly from Gravesend Grammar School, had inspiration aplenty and were pooling their resources for their own five minutes of fame.

Video: Kinky Machine perform together again after 50 years

"We were all very musical, and about 17 and 18 years old," added Keith. "We had been inspired by big bands with two drummers - ludicrous from an economic point of view because we all made about 50p from it.

"We played seven or eight gigs - Dartford College was one, there was a legendary concert at Fort Gardens, and we had the final concert in Woodville Halls in September 1971, so it was 50 years ago exactly. But it was less about the band and more about the connections to our Zeitgeist and the time with this whole group of friends. It was a great time."

Great though it was, it was short-lived as the band members moved on to different careers and parts of the world. Guitarist Geoff Whitehorn would stay in Gravesend and the world of music becoming one of the most respected guitarists in the UK, playing with likes of Bad Company, Jethro Tull, Kevin Ayers, Elkie Brooks, and The Who, to name a few, and joining Procol Harum on a full-time basis.

But other members would travel different routes, Keith going on to run a design and production company in London for many years and moving to North Norfolk and others going further still - Dr John "Polly" Perkins would end up in California working as a nuclear physicist for the US government, and Brian Wood would end up in Sydney, Australia.

And when the world went into lockdown it was the drive and energy of Brian - the most distant of the disconnected band members - that would bring them all back together after so many years apart.

Keith added: "One of the silver linings of the Covid thing is that people have reconnected and with the wonderful inventions of Zoom and Teams we started connecting with other old Gravesend chums. Some of them do Facebook but I don't so I didn't have that connection.

"For all these guys it's been absolutely brilliant. When it was going badly here in the UK and less badly in Australia, when we thought the world was going to disappear into a plughole, it was fantastic thing to distract us."

After weekly meetings, the idea naturally came to record a new song, written by Keith and Geoff; and the video-editing skills of bass player Roger Blackman came to the fore as the band decided to put their performance on YouTube.

Watching the video for Tele T Bar also offers a chance for long-standing Gravesend folk to take a trip down memory lane - referencing pubs past and present such as the still-standing Windmill, and long-gone Borough Shades.

Sadly not all the former members could be part of the reunion, as drummer Adrian Sheppard passed away several years ago, but an animated version of the sticksman nevertheless stars in the video.

"He was very important part of that social group and of Kinky Machine so we wanted him involved," explained Keith. "It's been a lovely thing to do - definitely a silver lining from Covid.

"It's connected with a lot of other people, and it's helped rebuild that connection that we'd all lost. It's been a way to repair that."

And with another song in the pipeline, perhaps Kinky Machine's cylinders are just beginning to fire again.

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