About the Dodgems

Buy the Dodgems CD | More Dodgems | Science Fiction | Scrapbook | Dodgems mp3's can be found on the jukebox

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

More Dodgems

Gary Turner | March 2003
Hi, spotty little friends of mine. It's Gary Turner, Dodgems lead vocals and bass. I started the Dodgems in 1978. We actually began as Jet-Slag with Doug Potter (guitar and vocals), Charlie Zuber (drums) and Dave Owen (lead guitar and vocals). I was bass and vocals.

Dave, it turned out, was more into west coast American stuff, so the Dodgems were born as a three-piece, Doug and I wrote our own material and I became lead vocalist. We advertised in the Argus for a keyboard player and happily met Paul. The rest you know, except about 1990 I discovered we were a cult in New York. I was mega-suprised.

It was great recording with Chas Charles (Blockheads), but a band is a band and losing Charlie Zuber was the end for the Dodgems. The Pirahnas finished about the same time, so I joined Bob Grover (Boring Bob) in recreating the Piranhas. The new line up was Bob (guitar and vocals), me on bass, Mike Roberts (guitar), Dominic Dring (Sax), Jeff Ansell (drums), Colin Spicer (keyboards) and Mike Lance (percussion for a while). We gigged around for a few years and then got allergic to penicillin. Bob is now into building web sites. I'm making digital art, my website is here.

Mike Roberts went on to be sound-engineer for Luke Creswell (Stomp and ex-Pookiesnakenburger), along with Paul and Johnny from the Piranhas and Nick Dwyer of Nicky and the Dots. Jeff is still drumming and driving taxis. I don't know what Dom or Colin are doing but Mike Lance is opening a bar in Spain. Life moves on! I wonder if anyone knows what happened to our great fan, Sniks? Gary
PS: It has to be said I'm not punkdaddy anymore. I'm punk granddaddy!

Charlie Zuber | Nov 2009
Charlie Zuber here. See the thing is I never meant to emigrate - or leave the Dodgems, it's just that Fiji was the closest job I could get after Maggie Thatcher got rid of my job as a graphic designer at Sussex University. What can a poor boy do?

However, I still play drums sometimes, and this photo is taken in my studio in Tasmania. Pearl Export kit with Zildjian cymbals and most importantly, the Tee shirt brought back for me this year by Doug Potter, Dodgems guitarist, from Sun Studios USA. 

So if anyone out there knows where the fuck Tasmania is, and wants to come and stay for a night in heritage listed church, check out our studio website at least!




Charlie Z in his Church Studio Franklin, Tasmania

Paul Birchall
I stumbled across this site and it brought back lots of interesting memories. I played keyboards with the Dodgems on two singles and the John Peel session we did. Good to here that Jonnie Condom's still in town. My favorite artist of the time was Dick Damage. Has he still got that white coat?

Doug Potter | May 19, 2001
I wrote, played, sung in the Dodgems during the great times with Piranhas, Nicky & the Dots etc. Anyone interested in the Lost Dodgems Tapes, with Blockhead Charlie Charles on drums, recorded for Criminal Records, not issued as company went bust? Also check Black Box Recorder version of Lord Lucan on USA version of England Made Me CD.





Dodgems in Worthing and inset, Doug Potter

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The Dodgems Anthology CD on sale now exclusively at punkbrighton

The Dodgems: Anthology 1978–1980
Two-and-a-half years after stumbling across quarter-inch reel to reel master tapes of the 1978 and 1979 sessions at the home of Attrix Records co-founder Julie Blair, we can finally announce to the world: here it is!

After nearly thirty years languishing in the archives and almost three years in preparation, The Dodgems: Anthology 1978–1980 is now available for purchase exclusively at punkbrighton.co.uk.

What you get for your money:
17 tracks, 11 of which are previously unreleased and digitally remastered by Stuart Jones, the full version of Vaultage 78 favourite I Don’t Care, including a verse nobody but the group and a handful of others has ever heard.

Plus an alternative version of Lord Lucan as a bonus track (again, unheard until now). All wrapped in a full-colour 3 x gatefold CD sleeve with superb original artwork by Dodgems drummer Charlie Zuber and extensive liner notes from Stuart.

If you'd like to buy this CD:
send us an email and we'll reply with our postal address to send your cheque/postal order for £12.00 (GBP) which includes postage & packing.

17 tracks for basically a tenner! Not bad, eh?
Oh, and there's some nice bits of Peel after that...


Dodgems Science Fiction


Take a look at this short vid put tgether by former Dodgems's gutarist Doug Potter to go with the old single release of Science Fiction.

Featuring an intro from the late, great Margrave of the Marshes, John Peel, who gives a great plug for the opening of the Attrix Shop in Sidney Street in 1979




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Dodgems Scrapbook





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This site is dedicated to the memory of Rick Blair
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