PULSE - music and more, with Simon Donohue

A FILM-MAKER with a son in chart-topping band The Verve has turned to East Lancashire talent for musical backing.

Ambient-acoustic collective The Bond, who hail from Blackburn and beyond, are taking a breather from promoting their imminent debut album to pen a track for Pete Tong's film Gobsmacked.

The group are also allowing the Skelmersdale writer, producer and film-maker to use their Blackburn studio in the film process.

Pete, in his forties, has battled for two years to realise his dream of making the very British feature film, which focuses on different characters who embark on an extremely fraught bus journey.

He hopes to one day work with his son Simon, a member of the new Verve line-up that stormed straight into the charts at number two with Bitter Sweet Symphony, but first wants to achieve a similar kind of success.

"One of The Bond heard a broadcast on the radio and said 'this sounds wonderful, can we put some music in'," said Pete, who has sold his house and almost every possession to fund the film. Enthusiastic and brave are two words which aren't quite strong enough to describe Pete's commitment to his debut cinematic venture.

He has begged and borrowed but not quite stolen equipment and has the backing of organisations like Mersey Television and the giant Sony corporation.

His quest has twice taken him to the Cannes Film Festival, where he was brave enough to seek help from some of the world's biggest film companies.

"I first went to Cannes 12 months ago and pitched it to everybody," Pete added. "When I returned this year some remembered me. They were perhaps surprised that I had actually nearly finished the film."

Pete has spent most of his career as a writer, turning to film-making when no-one would accept his scripts because of vast waiting lists of others which were seen as equally good.

His film will also provide an acting debut of sorts for The Bond, who will be providing the sound of an imaginary Britpop band called The Flakeys.

Pete said: "The music will play in a section where a girl on the bus dreams of meeting The Flakeys in New York."

Gobsmacked could be premiered at the Edinburgh Festival of Film and Television later this year.

The Bond's debut album is set for release in August.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.