The Bishops have their following, not least in these quarters. Like a few other music writers, yours truly voted their "Train Train" a top single of 1976.

A typically sweaty night at Hammersmith's Red Cow pub will find a packed house willing on the Bishops as they thrash their way through a potent mix of hogfat R&B with a little rock 'n' roll on the side. When she reviewed them on a 100 Club bill with punk band Sham 69, NME's punk correspondent Julie Birchill was impressed enough to say that she might well have been a follower had they been in her age group.

Oddly, the Bishops (who take their name from a New York motorcycle gang) were once touted as new wave.

"The thing that's irritating" ruminates the American in the band, Johnny Guitar, "is to watch all the persons change. Trends form and things go zap! overnight. Normals sprouting safety pins and razor blades and all. It's cool, it's neat. The beginning of it was a bad time for us. We were the first ones to be called punk bands two summers ago, the Hot Rods, the 101ers, and us. But then when the Pistols and all these others came out, all of a sudden because we weren't really like that, I mean because we'd just been doing what we'd been doing and the idea of what it all was changed, people were going "aahh, they're not a punk band they can't be cool...fucking play rhythm and blues - know how to play their guitars...'."

Because truly enough, the Count Bishops, although they are a potent and exciting club band, have too many roots in '50s and '60s music to belong to a movement which is generally disowning all that went before.

The Bishops feature three Englishmen, one Maltese-born Australian and an American.

Guitarist Zenon De Fleur, in the true manner of Bishops hybrid, boasts Shepherds Bush upbringing with Grammar School in Kensington and Imperial College, London.

Bass player Steve Lewins crossed the tracks from Hertfordshire to Lambeth and once worked in advertising.

Drummer Paul Balbi was raised in Sydney, Australia, where he played in a band called Buffalo, and also in Buffalo was lead singer Dave Tice whose pre-Antipodean days were spent in Lincolnshire and Lewisham.

Johnny Guitar comes from Maryland "The most northern part of The South".

Between them, their musical tastes take in Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Beatles, Stones, Muddy Waters, avant guarde jazz, Traffic and Frank Zappa.

But take what they actually play on stage and it comes down to that distinctive brand of speedy British R&B with, in their case, a touch of tense rockabilly guitar. This last is most interesting since it is unusual to find a band who venture so obviously between black and white music.

Johnny Guitar owns up to being the shitkicker. "I rip off Scotty Moore as well as Keith Richard. It depends on who you steal from. I'm basically from The South and I've always liked Hank Williams and George Jones, the old country stuff, not the slickly produced stuff. Like old Buck Owens I really love. I grew up in the most cosmopolitan county - it's the one where all the senators and shitkickers are - but you drive half an hour and all of a sudden it's 'hey, yahoo! plunka plunka plunk'."

THE COUNT BISHOPS were formed by Zenon and a New Yorker named Mike Spenser who has since left, out of the remnants of a Shepherds Bush band, Chrome.

Over from New York came Mike's mate Johnny Guitar, over from Australia came Paul while Steve Lewins made the shortest trip of all from Hatfield.

They played, according to the story, "rugged R&B". Ted Carroll and Roger Armstrong had already put in time watching Chrome and with the new, improved line-up and to new name, they decided that the Count Bishops were ready to record, signing them up on the small independent Chiswick label.

The "Speedball EP" resulted, four tracks of hard 'n' fast R&B standards. When Mike Spenser left soon afterwards the Bishops were left with a real gap. "We made a big bloomer actually, not having a front man for abut a year. We advertised and got every arsehole under the sun. We auditioned over 100 singers."

Spenser was, in Ted Carroll's words: "difficult to work with. He had great energy but he was inconsistent . He gets drunk and sometimes he blows it; he goes over the top."

They were a four piece when they made the "Train Train" single with Zen doing vocals. It wasn't until last Christmas that they procured singer Dave Tice. Paul Balbi went home to Australia and found Tice working with his old band Buffalo. When he came back from his vacation he had persuaded Tice to come with him.

Then came another single "Baby You're Wrong" with Dave having his first recorded outing and now the album, The Count Bishops.

At this moments the Bishops have a strong club following but the word has not yet surfaced from the underground about their records. "Train Train" was at one time top of the Time Out alternative charts. For a band that in April 1976 played the European Punk Festival at Mont de Marsant in France alongside The Damned and Eddie and the Hot Rods they must indeed be feeling miffed at the way things have turned out.

This month, however, they chance their arms on tour playing to the heaven hordes who will flock to see metal monsters Motorhead (also on Chiswick now). Are they worried?

Apparently not. The chance to tour on any show is a chance to make up for wasted time. Let's just politely say that the show will be an interesting package of contrasts. And take cover.

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