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Andy Robins

Born Southampton, Hampshire, UK in 1960. Influenced by late 70's bands such as Magazine, Ultravox! & Simple Minds. Joined Product 109 (Bournemouth - Paul Trippier- Vocals, Matin Kitcher - Bass, Simon Warne- Guitar, Kris Yates- Drums, Andy Robins - Keyboards/Synth). Product 109 (1978) soon changed their name to Program (1978-1979) and proceeded to create a name for themselves in the south of England. After an interesting fight on stage at the Joiners Arms in Southampton, the band split, but reformed as Lovers and Other Strangers (1979-1981) with Martin Kitcher now as vocalist, and Patrick Tedd on guitar. The band spilt in 1981 due to musical differences and Andy left Southampton for Sheffield. During these first few years of the 80's Andy made a vague living "doing" the working men's club circuit in the north of England in such bands as Toys for Girls, Geisha and Freddie's Beano (a comic act who, incidentally toured with Tina Turner in 1983 as the warm up). At that time Andy was sharing a house with James Fry who asked if he would like to be involved in the band he was forming with Gordon King and Tony Ogden - This band was The World of Twist (Mk1 1983-1985). It was during this period that Andy discovered the pull of Hi NRG dance music and decided to leave The World of Twist. A year later in 1986 Andy met Les Cockell, a well known DJ in Manchester, who having heard about Andy asked him to collaborate on a new version of Mysura's The Flasher. However, once the track had been recorded and mixed it was decided to add another track to the release - this was Space's Magic Fly, and due to time constraints was recorded live from Andy's MIDI set up, with a few additional overdubs to tidy the track up. After playing the track to Ian Levine (who was releasing the record on his Saturday label) it was decided that Magic Fly was the choice for the main release and The Flasher was relegated to the B side (as an aside, The Flasher was used as the music for one of the competitors on BBC's Come Dancing!!!). In 1990 Andy met up with Mike "Big Bird" Coppock and together produced a series of very successful releases for Loading Bay Records, but in 1997 due to work constraints, Andy gave up the music business to concentrate on his IT career.