Mark Laff
| Mark Laff | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Mark Red Laffoley |
| Born |
19 May 1958 Barnet, London, England |
| Genres | Punk rock, post-punk, rock 'n' roll, rockabilly, rock |
| Occupation(s) | Pop musician |
| Instruments | Drums |
| Years active | 1976–2007 |
| Associated acts | Subway Sect, Generation X, Empire, Twenty Flight Rockers |
Mark Laff (born Mark Red Laffoley, 19 May 1958) is a retired English pop music drummer, and former member of several rock bands, including Generation X.
Mark Red Laffoley was born on 19 May 1958 at Barnet General Hospital, in Barnet, London, England.
Laff began playing drums as a teenager, being influenced by England's 1960's Mod fashion and music movement and the work of Keith Moon. After a failed audition for The Clash (he was one of two drummers to get a call back), Mark Laff's first major drumming role was with Subway Sect, sharing the bill with the Sex Pistols, The Clash, and Siouxsie and the Banshees for the Anarchy and White Riot tours. He left the band soon afterwards.
In April 1977 Laff was recruited for his superior technical proficiency, despite being only 17 years of age, as a replacement drummer into the upcoming punk rock band Generation X, a few months before it signed to Chrysalis Records and released its first single, Your Generation. Laff was Generation X's drummer through its two albums, the self-titled Generation X (1978), followed by Valley of the Dolls (1979); which saw the band amidst a heavy performance schedule across Great Britain gaining momentum, drawing recognition and increasingly impacting the British pop music charts with its releases. However, after the relative commercial failure of the Valley of the Dolls long-player, internal disagreements about the band's musical direction and personality clashes within it came to a head in late 1979 during the recording of its abortive third long-player (which would be released retrospectively 20 years later under the title Sweet Revenge). Lead guitarist Bob "Derwood" Andrews quit the band in December 1979, followed by Laff in January 1980, when he was asked to leave after a disagreement with the act's frontman/singer Billy Idol and bass player Tony James over song-writing credits for the band's recorded work. With Laff and Andrew's departure Generation X essentially came to an end; a re-branded act with a replacement guitarist and drummer subsequently launched by Idol and James went on to fail commercially, and was gone by mid-1981.
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