The debut album by BUSHART, the new band of John Lever, has been finally released. It´s called Yesterday is History. BUSHART will be playing live in October, the 10th at the Manchester Academy. For further details, please see the note below by John Lever himself which can be also found on the Chameleons Official Web Site.
On that note, John also mentions he is not able to join the Gig the reunited SUN & MOON is playing at The Ritz
Wednesday, 14th May 2008: YESTERDAY is HISTORY IS HERE!!
YES ITS FINALLY HERE!
IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO ORDER A COPY OF MY NEW ALBUM
SIMPLY LOGON TO WWW.MYSPACE.COM/CLUBCHAMELEON OR WWW.MYSPACE.COM/BUSHARTMUSIC AND CLICK ON THE BUY NOW BUTTON, IT WILL TAKE YOU THROUGH THE PAYMENT PROCESS, EASY! ALSO BUSHART`S DEBUT GIG WILL BE AT MCR ACADEMY 3 (HOP & GRAPE) ON FRIDAY 10TH OF OCTOBER, TICKETS ARE GOING TO BE £5 FROM PICCADILLY BOX OFFICE AND MCR ACADEMY, ALSO YOU WILL BE ABLE TO BUY TICKETS VIA THE MYSPACE SITES FROM THIS WEEK, THE TICKETS WILL BE £5 +£1.50 P+P!!
ALSO ON A MORE SERIOUS NOTE, AS SOME OF YOU MAY KNOW I WAS ASKED TO DO THE MCR V CANCER GIG AT THE RITZ WITH THE SUN AND THE MOON, BUT I HAVE TO DECLINE THE OFFER, DOWN TO BAND POLITICS I SUPPOSE, BUT AS A RESULT CAN`T DO THE GIG, MANY APOLOGIES TO THE PEOPLE WHO WERE LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS, BUT IT REALLY IS A NO GO, APOLOGIES ONCE AGAIN!
JOHN.X
To listen to some songs of the debut album by BUSHART, please visit the BUSHART MySpace Site
The 25th Anniversary Remastered Edition of Script Of the Bridge, which includes in a 2nd Disc a Live Performance in Bremen 1983, has been finally released on April 2008 by Blue Apple Music. 
Fantastic news for all the SUN & MOON fans. April 2008 sees the reunion of three of the four original members for a set of acoustic gigs. Mark Burgess, Andy Clegg & Andy Whitaker join hands again and the magic will surely flow...
Dates and Venues:
- 20 April with a short set at The Legendary Manchester Busker 20th Anniversary night (1)
-14 May at the Retro Bar in Manchester
-16 The LGM Music Venue, Earlestown (between Manchester and Liverpool)
After the second demise of The Chameleons in 2003, Mark Burgess joins efforts again with his old friend Yves Altana.
Hope to see you on the road somewhere, in the meantime, take care.”
Mark Burgess November 1, 2005, Hamburg Germany..
Guaranteed not a bootleg, but a genuine, unplayed CD obtained direct from the band.
Dave Fielding, one of the guitarrists of The Chameleons, has recently created a new band called Coconut Dog Fuck.
In November 1979 Andy Whitaker and Andy Clegg who were friends from school, decided to get together and record improvisations in song form with verse, chorus etc. Guitar parts vocal melodies and lyrics were all improvised and recorded live on to a tape deck with no overdubs etc. The ideas were the length a typical song and were given titles and an album title. They would treat the improvisations as a finished product and would enjoy listening to them later, as if it was a new album by a new band. Gradually other instruments would be used, drum machine, keyboards, and bass.
In 1983, Dave Booth a friend of Andy Whit would join on guitar. It was at this time that they decided to give themselves a band name. Andy W came up with the name Music for Aborigines and began to choose a selection of songs from the improvised albums to play live.
They played a few local gigs using a drum machine then decided to look for a venue in Manchester for which they could sell tickets and create a live venue for bands. They discovered The Star and Garter and the venue is still hosting live music today. Their first gig at the Star and Garter was very successful. It was at this gig that Chameleons drummer John Lever who had been friends with both Andy's, advertised the gig on a Chameleons radio interview and Mark, Reg and Dave had all agreed they would help out, by collecting the tickets on the door.
In 1986 a mutual school friend of both Andy's Col Smith joined MFA on keyboards. Their next gig would be at a local pub for charity and John Lever would join on drums. As John was officially with the Chameleons, MFA needed a permanent drummer and Mike Simms who was the drummer for Manchester band BFG (who supported New Order) became MFA drummer. After many gigs, some being supported by Eskimos and Egypt and with the Chameleons at Middleton Civic Hall the band decided to go in the studio to record some demos. "When You Were A Child" and "Ragbone Man" were the first demos to be recorded in Didsbury M/C and were used to get a record deal.
Later, Col, Dave and Mike departed from the band and John Lever introduced the 2 Andys to guitarist Aky who was a member of a local punk band The Hoax that featured Mike Joyce of The Smiths on drums. Then they decided to go in suite 16 studios owned by Peter Hook of New Order where Script of the Bridge was recorded. They chose more songs to record from the improvised albums and purposely wrote new material with the intention of releasing a 3 track 12 inch single. They asked John Lever to play drums for them. Due to Aky only just joining, he only played guitar on "Sitting on a Biscuit" and came up with the idea for "The End of Tracey Smith". The 2 Andy's played all of Col and Dave's parts, initially written for the songs. The 10 songs were recorded in 2 days and 3 of the songs were chosen for the single. The majority of the songs were taken and reworked from the improvised albums created by Andy W, Andy C, Dave Booth and Col Smith.A 12" single was released. Chris Cundy (a local artist and friend of the band) created the artwork. Chris also became the creator of the visuals the band used in their live sets.
Sadly for MFA, John rejoined the Chameleons. Later when the Chameleons eventually disbanded Mark and John approached Andy W and Andy C to form The Sun and the Moon, which Aky also would be involved with. The track "Faith" would become a regular live feature in the SATM concerts and many ideas that were created through the improvisation albums became SATM album tracks.
(Thanks a lot for this biography to Andy Clegg)
Dave Fielding, one of the guitarrists of The Chameleons, releases a limited EP under the name of DF118. The EP is called Dragonfly´s and Butterfly´s and this is the track list:
Very bad news for this Easter: The internal frictions among some members of the band, far from being solved have been growing up since the Athens Show, a Show that at first was going to be a Chameleons Show and it ended being a Mark Burgess solo gig . It seems due to different points of view in the evolution of the band and perhaps to misunderstandings and a lack of communication during the last months, Dave Fielding has taken the decission to give up the band, as he himself has estated in the official forum on April , the 18th of 2003. Acording to his words, the same resolution has been taken by Reg and John, altough they have not yet confirmed this nor deny. It is clear The Chameleons is not able to survive if any of its members is not in, so today we can assure The Chameleons have split up (again).