I had the idea of a book about The Dentists in 1994 when the band was still a going concern and had been around for about ten years. I basically wanted to compile all the important material and facts in one place and document our existence, primarily for my own satisfaction and for anyone else who might be interested. As the band was still going there was also the possibility of using it as a promotional device too.

My idea was that it would be like a scrapbook, cut and paste job with original material, pictures, press cuttings etc. that would tell its own story without any central narrative.

As the backbone of the project I compiled a "gigography", a list of every gig the band had done. This wasn't as difficult as you might imagine. I kept a fairly detailed personal journal up to the end of 1986 and a more basic but intermittent diary after that. I had also hoarded old gig flyers, posters tickets and other assorted memorabilia to draw on. Anyway, after a blaze of initial enthusiasm I just never got the project off the ground, and within a year the Dentists had split anyway.

Over the years I'd always harboured the idea of resurrecting the idea or something similar and had talked about it with my fellow former bandmates. As the internet developed I realised that the concept I had in mind would make much more sense as a website than a book. At the beginning of 2004 I decided that it was time to get serious if I was going to do this thing at all. The unsorted boxes were still all sitting there, the tapes, the photos, the flyers. All crying out, in my eyes, to be properly sorted and documented once and for all.

As before, my primary motivation in doing this is for my own satisfaction. Even if no-one else set eyes on it, it would be worth doing. However I expect it will be of interest to a few others; not least the other former Dentists. I hope it will be a good slice of family history for my children, grand children and subsequent descendants. In addition I imagine there would be about ten or twenty Dentist fans in the world who are sufficiently interested in consuming this level of detail. I know a couple of them! And maybe it offers some kind of insight for the future historian interested in the minutiae of the life of a struggling indie band of the 80s and 90s, such as is probably not documented elsewhere.

Bob Collins (former Dentists guitarist)