(’82-date) Tim Howe (bass / vocals), Dave Swan (drums) and Tanya “Tarn” Ockenden (guitar / vocals).
In around ’81 Howe would often be found in the local studio, where he got make tea for The Cure and shared one of his early home recordings with Robert Smith. This interest in recording led to Howe setting up a 4-track home studio and advertising his services. In December ’82, 15 year old Ockenden recorded a few of the songs she had written at Howe’s home studio, to which he added some bass guitar: Ob-Jay-Da was born with the addition of Swan on drums.
This Dorking band released the ‘Colours Of Your Room’ demo cassette in ’83. While the track listing for this first demo in uncertain, we do know the band recorded Tim Rice & Andrew Lloyd Weber’s “Another Suitcase in Another Hall” from Evita and Men at Work’s “Plus Overkill”. The band were also playing live at the likes of Murray’s Wine Bar, Dorking and Westcott Village Hall. The band recorded video promos for “It’s so Strange” and “As If To Say” on 1 November ’83 using the multi-storey car park on Barrack Road, Aldershot, Farnham Castle and The Maltings, Farnham as locations. These were directed by Ian Lewis, who is possibly best know for the children’s TV series ‘Mona the Vampire’.
‘Colours Of Your Room’ was followed in ’84 by their ‘Over The Wall’ demo which carried eleven tracks: “Careless Situation / How The Mighty Are Fallen”, “Lost in Ideas”, “The Drum”, “Love in a Mist”, “Everything in Everybody”, “Over the Wall”, “Beautiful Morning”, “A Whirlpool”, “Lemon & Lime”, “Ozone” and “As If To Say”. Also in ’84 came the “This Is Now” demo.
If the tracks above sound familiar, the band entered Wickham Studios, Croydon in early ’85 and re-recorded the best tracks from these three demos. Twelve of those formed Ob-Jay-Da’s debut LP, “As If To Say”; which was released in ’85, shifting 1,500 copies, on the bands own Burning Ice Records [Melt 1] label. That same year they were also on the bill for the “Gig for Africa” at The Dorking Halls with the likes of Cardiacs, The Body Politic, Shoot! Dispute, and Great Garden.
The following year the band played Live-Aid Horsham, performing covers of T-Rex’s “Jeepster” and Billy Idol’s “White Wedding”. They also won the Star Discovery contest in ’86. By 1987 the band were playing regularly up in London; they also played at Woking Centre Halls to win Woking’s talent contest that year, which was judged by David Jason and others, with their performance of “Amoureuse”.
“Love Affair” was the trio’s first 7″ single, also released on Burning Ice Records [MELT 2]. This was backed by “Careless Situation” which had also been recorded in ’85 as part of the Wickham Studios sessions for ‘As If To Say”. Then in ’88 the band released their second LP, ‘Tales Of The Mystery Girl’ LP [MELT 3].
The bands second single hit the shelves in the spring of ’89 titled “Always Forever” [OJD 74], having secured distribution through EMI. Howe and Ockenden then took on a five week residency a hotel in St. Peter’s Port, Guernsey in June / July of ’89 – performing as a duo had become pretty common for the band by this point. Some time after their return “Ice”, a re-recording of the track included on the debut LP, was released as a single, backed by “Secrets” and “X” and distributed through EMI.
The band are still playing and releasing music today under the slightly different name of Objayda.
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