Covid virus measures have prevented new face to face interviews so only a few are conducted by email or phone. Contacts and recommendations from previous interviewees have also helped to bring out some good stories.
Also, there are features where I dig up stories about North East photographers like Downey, Cleet and Flagg. Plus, musicians who are no longer with us but have left their mark, Chas Chandler, Jack Brymer and Kathy Stobbart.
Chandler, I knew about but was interested to find out more. I hadn’t heard of Stobbart and Brymer but linking Stobbarts career together and seeing Jack Brymer in The Beatles ‘Day in the Life’, video were great finds.
This month will feature HYHTO posts, basically ‘a best of’ compilation from the blog. So, here’s some stories from musicians to tide us over till the next new one’s ping my email.
First up is drummer Harry Hill from an interview back in March 2019…..
I remember playing Sunderland Locarno with Fist. That was a great Friday night gig. We played it a couple of times after that and done a few other venues in Sunderland.
There was the Boilermakers Club and the Old 29 pub which was only a very long thin shaped bar. We never got much reaction and nobody clapped cos there was nowhere to put their drinks (laughs).
One Friday night we played the Newcastle Mayfair (2,000 capacity) with a 10,000-watt pa that we’d hired. We asked the sound man when the p.a. had to go back, and he said not till Monday. Champion we thought, so we booked a gig for Saturday afternoon in the Old 29 pub.
We knew there’d be a reaction this time. As we blasted out the p.a. in this little pub the audience were pinned against the back wall (laughs).
Full interview:
In March this year Arthur Ramm (Beckett) sent in a few stories, this was one of them….
We used to play regularly at nightclubs in the North East. The stage area was usually upstairs and extra help was appreciated. At one particular nightclub as the band were setting up the gear on stage, a friend of the band wandered into the restaurant kitchen and noticed some uncooked beef steaks on a plate.
He realized there were no staff present in the kitchen and removed some from the plate and hid them inside his coat. In the dressing room he revealed the steaks to the band, and they told him to return them to the kitchen immediately.
He decided otherwise and wrapped the steaks up in paper towels. Well, the band used to use Vox AC30 amplification, which were designed with an open compartment in the back of the cabinets. The culprit decided to hide the steaks in the backs of the amplifiers so that he could retrieve them after the gig.
However, during the performance when the amplifiers started to get hot, the band members on stage could smell the aroma of cooking meat. Thinking this was coming from the kitchen, they thought nothing of it.
All was revealed when the amplifiers were put back in the van. The consequences for the band would have been quite severe if found out!
He was never invited to any gig again. Who got the steaks? We don’t know. It put a new meaning to the expression ‘The band was cooking’!
Full interview:
Sam Blew (Ultravox/Ya Ya) got in touch in May this year….
One of my favourite road stories was myself and Vinny Burns getting a bit merry after a gig, we went back to watch Asia who were headlining, they had lots of dry ice, so we took it upon ourselves to crawl across the stage under the dry ice without being seen.
It was all going well until we ended up behind Geoff Downs (the keyboard player) and couldn’t see where we were going but we managed to get back across the stage without being seen.
When Ya Ya was in LA to shoot a video with Nigel Dick, who also filmed Toto and Guns n Roses, we agreed to meet him at our hotel to have a chat.
Ray the guitarist fancied a dip in the hot tub on the roof, we put a whole bottle of shampoo in the hot tub, we switched on the jacuzzi, and he got in just for a laugh.
Nigel pulled up and looked up at the roof, all you could see was foam sliding down the side of the building. He said you could see it about a mile away.
Full interview:
In September last year I spoke with Alan Fish (White Heat)….
When we recorded at Townhouse Studio in Shepherds Bush it was the Virgin residential studio and there was another band there. It was the time just after Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne was getting Blizzard of Oz together.
Ozzy came in the studio to listen to one of our sessions ‘I love you guys you’re great’. He was with Sharon his girlfriend and manager, she was delighted that Ozzy had found someone to play with, not musically just to get him out of her hair (laughs).
We used to go out for a few drinks together, there were no airs or graces he just liked a good drink and a laugh.
We’d go back to the residential and he’d be in the best suite, Sharon would be there and order in a Chinese meal cos she recognised we were skint and starving so they looked after us quite well. We used to distract them so we could pinch their booze out of the cupboard.
One morning Ozzy came into the studio and said in his Brummie accent ‘Ere lads we must have had a good session last night cos there’s no booze left in me cupboard’.
Full interview:
On the same day I met Ray Laidlaw (Lindisfarne) in Tyneside Cinema Café, Newcastle….
Lindisfarne had a break from 1973-76, we had a few successful one-off gigs then made a new album in ’78. The opening night on the tour was Leeds University where The Who recorded their album Live at Leeds.
We broke their attendance record that night. Two weeks later the fire brigade told the University ‘With the number of fire escapes you’ve got, you got to cut the capacity by 400’. So our record will never be beaten (laughs).
Anyway, the opening night we had some pyrotechnics, we went a bit showbiz like, and they would go off at the end of the show – balloons and confetti cannons. The big ending you know.
At that point the soundman was to mute every channel – and he forgot. So the sound went down every microphone, the monitors were like tissue paper, the speakers blew out as did the windows behind the stage. We weren’t invited back.
Full interview:
https://garyalikivi.com/2019/09/03/running-man-in-conversation-with-lindisfarne-drummer-ray-laidlaw/
At the end of July this year Derek Buckham (Tokyo Rose) got in touch….
Me and some friends – Micky Duncan, Mary Downing and Micky Fenwick – took on Hire Purchase agreements to buy equipment for a band called Alcatraz. It was seven nights a week supporting the Bingo in working man’s clubs.
One night in Hartlepool the Concert Chairman knocked over an amplifier and didn’t apologise. The bass player Mick Fenwick said ‘Don’t worry I’ve dealt with it’.
The Concert Chairman used a Bingo machine, it was a big plastic see through box and inside were ping pong balls with the numbers on, when he switched it on the balls were blown to the top by air and he would pick one out.
Well, I looked over and could see them floating about in the box – Mick had filled the Bingo machine with beer! The Concert Chairman turned on the machine in front of the audience – I’ve never heard a club laugh so much.
In the end we were paid off and banned from Hartlepool.
Late ‘70s I recorded a track called Hang Jack about the Yorkshire Ripper who at the time was terrorising the country. The track was played in clubs throughout the country and one day the Police turned up at my house.
I was interviewed and had to give a handwriting sample. My parents were also interviewed asking if I was ever away from home. Yes, they said, ‘He plays in a band and if he was responsible, we would be the first to tell you’.
Full interview:
https://garyalikivi.com/2020/08/03/turning-japanese-with-tokyo-rose-songwriter-derek-buckham/
Interviews by Alikivi.
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