NORTH EAST UK MUSIC

BEAUTY & THE BOLLOCKS – UK Subs & Hi Fi Spitfires guitarist Steve Straughan

/ Alikivi

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‘Since joining the UK Subs I am more busy than ever, which I love. The UK Subs have a 40th anniversary gig in November, a UK tour then a five week tour of Europe.

I’ve got a lot going on and always have since I first picked up a guitar after hearing Never Mind the Bollocks. Blew me away. It still does today’.

Who were your influences Steve and how did you get involved in playing music ? Was there a defining moment when you said I want to do that ?

’1970’s music was healthy at the time but nothing was opening the doors for me. Music was always there in the background like the glam rock thing, but it just wasn’t grabbing me. It was like black and white tv, nothing special.

But when punk came around it gave me that extra thing like colour tv. It just had that extra spark, that beauty. What can I say, it was incredible.

I remember watching video clips from The Great Rock n Roll Swindle, songs from the Bollocks album – that made me want to do it myself.

Also listening to The Stranglers album, Rattus Norvegicus, and a lot of other punk stuff from 1977. That whole scene was electric. I rode the wave of punk rock to get into music first, then went back to the likes of 70’s glam to appreciate it.

There was a keyhole to my musical heart and it was punk that opened it’.

‘Where I lived in Sunderland we had a healthy punk scene. Watching the likes of Red Alert at Monkwearmouth youth club was very influential. Watching lad’s from my area and who were just a little bit older made me realise that it can be done.

Being in a band back then was more like being in a gang but extended with instruments. Punk gave you the ability to tell your story and release your frustrations’.

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When did you start playing gigs and what venues did you play ?

’From the start I’ve been really busy gigging and recording. I haven’t stopped, over the years I’ve played in a number of bands.

Way back in the early 80’s my first punk band Formal Warning played youth clubs and school halls in the Fulwell and Seaburn area of Sunderland where we lived. That lasted till around ’82.

As I got older I joined Red London and toured all over Europe. I then joined a band called Holy Racket. Again toured all over Europe.

We played brilliant gigs but one great memory was supporting Rancid at the O2 Academy in Newcastle. Loved that. I’ve played guitar for the Lurkers touring around Europe with them from 2009 until 2012.

I was guitarist for a couple of years in the Angelic Upstarts we played many great gigs including a USA tour.

I formed Hi Fi Spitfires and toured a lot in the UK and abroad. One great tour was supporting TV Smiths Adverts and toured with 999 in Germany. We have supported everyone in the punk world really, like The Damned at the North East Calling gigs.

Since joining the UK Subs just over a year ago, we have played extensively in the UK, Europe and the USA. Is that enough for ya’.

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What were your experiences of recording ?  

‘Over the years I have recorded with all of those bands I’ve talked about. Best thing is I’ve kind of found my home when working with producer Fred Purser at Trinity Heights in Newcastle. Fred was once guitarist of the North East 70’s punk band Penetration.

Some of the bands who have recorded at Trinity are Angelic Upstarts, Toy Dolls, Red Alert, Red London, Holy Racket and Hi Fi Spitfires. Holy Racket recorded the album Anthems For The Doomed And Dazed there, North Rebel Radio and Subliminal Chaos all of which were released on cd.

We also recorded some material which was later released on a 7 inch single called Anoraxia.  Hi Fi Spitfires recorded the album England Screaming there which was released on cd and the album Nightraid which was released on cd and vinyl’.

‘We have always paid for everything ourselves, no record companies involved at all. If your serious about being in a band it’s obvious you have to record and release material.

It’s not cheap to do it though. To record where we do it’s £220+ per day. On top of that there is the cost of pressing on cd or vinyl. The price of vinyl is unbelievably pricey. This is why I have only managed to do the vinyl route a couple of times.

We are at the moment talking to a good friend who has agreed to put the money up to release our first album on vinyl like he did with our second’.

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Have you any funny stories from playing gigs ? 

‘I could honestly write a book. Here are just two. A long time ago I played a charity gig in Sunderland. A friend of mine asked if he could come along as he had not seen any live bands before. I remember beforehand he was a bit nervous meeting the rest of my band.

He kept asking if everything would be ok. I kept assuring him that everything would be cool and there certainly would not be any kind of trouble as it was a charity gig.

As I got ready and packed my guitars he went to the shop and got some ale just to take the edge off as he was quite nervous around new people. At this point I just thought he was having a couple of drinks.

Fast forward to the gig and just before we went onstage he told us how grateful he was for letting him come with us. About five songs in I was aware that something was going totally wrong by the people’s faces in the venue.

I turned to my side to see my once very nervous mate running round the stage and pogoing naked. The security was called and he was escorted from the building. We were told to get off the stage.

I asked why and the bouncer said, ‘shut up, get your gear off, your barred’. After the initial shock I laughed my head off all the way home. I think we gave those people something extra thanks to my mate’.

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‘Years later I agreed for the same lad to come on tour with me in Belgium with the band I was in at the time Holy Racket. He assured me all the way there that he had learned his lesson and he wouldn’t do it again.

There would be no repeat performance. I know he was very embarrassed about it.

During our performance on stage he was looking in a cupboard and found a horses head mask. He came running on the stage naked, with the horses head on and a sock fastened to his cock. I couldn’t play for laughing. I remember the audience loving it’.

‘Next stop for Hi Fi Spitfires are return recording sessions with Fred Purser at Trinity Heights, Newcastle. We are recording a five track cd called Doors To The USA. Yeah can’t wait’.

Interview by Gary Alikivi September 2017.

Recommended:

Crashed Out, Guns, Maggots and Street Punk, 6th July 2017.

Steve James, Under the Skin, 9th July 2017.

Evo, No One Gets Out Alive, 8th October 2017. 2017.

Steve Kincaide, Life of Booze, Bands & Buffoonery, 11th January 2018.

INVADER FROM THE NORTH – Spartan Warrior guitarist Neil Wilkinson

/ Alikivi

In a previous interview on this blog (Chain Reaction, May 21st) Neil said’   After Pure Overkill we thought things were starting to happen, the bloke who ran Guardian Studio asked if we wanted to do a full album, we said yeah let’s go for it’.

Based in Sunderland North East UK, Spartan Warrior recorded two albums in the 1980’s, ‘Steel ’n’ Chains’ on Guardian Records and ‘Spartan Warrior’ on Roadrunner. They also appeared on compilations ‘100% Pure Metal’ and ’Pure Overkill’.

The band are still playing live so I got back in touch with Neil and asked him how long does it take to prepare for gig’s ?

’Well the amount of preparation depends on the gig really. Gigs abroad are definitely more complex as we have to book ferries or flights and there’s usually travel to the airport or ferry terminal to take into account.

For a lot of gigs that involve the ferry travelling through Dover is usually the cheapest, which for us in the North East involves an overnight drive to get an early ferry and then drive to a gig.

There’s been times I’ve set off around 9pm on a Friday evening and drove to Dover for an early morning 6 o’clock ferry which gets us to Calais for 8am allowing for an hours time difference.

Then drove to a gig and literally gone straight on stage to play having not slept a wink. I’m certain that’s a situation that’s not unique to us’.

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‘Also if we need to hire a van it can be a lot of work – you wouldn’t think it, but it is. Also with a van comes a higher cost on the ferry. The whole thing can be a lot of work and probably way more involved than people think.

So far there’s been no problems apart from the time Dan decided to wear his bullet belt going through Heathrow airport ha ha – he actually put it through the scanner.

He was lucky to make it to the gig that time and I was sat in the airport thinking how we could busk the gig as a four piece’.

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Is there any difference from coming of stage now to when Spartan Warrior played their first gigs ?

’There’s a definite difference. These days after gigs people want to talk and meet us and even sign stuff for them which is really nice’.

What kind of ages are in the audience and do you see familiar faces ?

‘We get all ages at festivals I’ve seen old blokes – like me – and parents with babies with ear defenders on. Its quite a small scene so you do get to see a lot of familiar faces, a lot of them are now friends’.

The set list, how do you decide what goes in/out, is tempo important to the order, how do you choose the first and last songs ?

’Putting a set list together is usually a joint exercise. There’s a core of songs that we class as must do, the one’s we think people expect to hear us play.

Other than that we try and switch the set up as much as possible so that people who’ve seen us before will get to hear something different. Tempo is important and we sometimes try and run songs into each other.

Playing the gigs we do and with four albums worth of songs we usually have limited time so we try and play as many songs as we can. Both first and last song we try and choose something that will hit hard from the off.

I remember reading something that had been written about us at Headbangers Open Air festival in Germany, they said Spartan Warrior opened with Stormer, ‘and nearly ripped my head off’. Well that was job done and exactly the reaction we wanted !’

In the coming month’s Spartan Warrior have a few gig’s coming up are there any that stand out ?

‘We’ve got the Trillians gig in Newcastle in November and we are looking forward to Grimm Up North which is a charity event’.

On September 30th in Bury is the Grimm Up North Festival.

On the bill are fellow NWOBHM bands Salem, Weapon UK plus a whole host of others who are coming together to help Steve Grimmet vocalist from Grim Reaper who tragically lost his leg while on tour in South America.

‘We are really looking forward to those gig’s, not just because we are playing but we also get to catch up with loads of mates in bands who are also on the bill’.

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Interview by Gary Alikivi August 2017.

Recommended:

MYTHRA: Still Burning, 13th February 2017.

SATAN: Brian Ross, Life Sentence, 20th February 2017.

SARACEN /BLIND FURY: Lou Taylor: Rock the Knight, 26th February & 5th March 2017.

SARACEN/THE ANIMALS: Steve Dawson, Long Live Rock n Roll, 2nd April 2017.

WARRIOR: The Hunger, 12th April 2017.

FIST: Turn the Hell On, 29th April 2017.

VENOM INC: Antony Bray, Hebburn or Hell, 28th July 2017.

TYSONDOG: Back for Another Bite, 5th August 2017.

ATOMKRAFT: Running with the Pack, 14th August 2017.

SPARTAN WARRIOR: Chain Reaction, 21st May 2017.

HELLANBACH: Kev Charlton, The Entertainer, 23rd June 2017.

Vince High, Vinyl Junkies, 11th December 2017.

YOUNG BLOOD – interview with Avenger and Repulsive Vision drummer Gary Young

/ Alikivi

Based in the North East of England Gary is drummer for New Wave of British Heavy Metal band Avenger, who he has played for on and off over 30 years.

He is also a member of four piece Cumbrian death metal band Repulsive Vision who formed in 2010. Both bands have recently released albums.

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Avenger released The Slaughter Never Stops on Rocksector records in early 2016. Repulsive Vision released their debut album Look Past the Gore, and See the Art on 31st March this year on Danish metal label Mighty Music (pic below Gary standing on left)

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‘Being lucky enough to get a release from a hard working label like Mighty Music has certainly been a great step in the right direction for us. We have really been delighted with the reviews and positive feedback that the debut has recieved.

For Avenger the new album really made it special for us as for quite a few people this was their first introduction to the band’.

If we go back to when you started playing drums who were your influences and how did you get involved in playing music ?

’I started by jamming with a mate from school Dave Burn, who is now a well known and respected guitarist. He is currently lead guitarist for Paul Raymonds band. I think meeting Dave and playing my favourite tunes of the era was what started me off’.
(Nerd alert: Paul Raymond, keyboardist/guitarist began his career in the late 60’s songwriting and performing with bands Chicken Shack, Savoy Brown, UFO, Michael Schenker Group & Waysted)

‘My influences were primarily classic heavy rock bands such as Thin Lizzy, Van Halen and Judas Priest – and a good bit of punk. But my primary influence to form a band, write and perform original music was 100% NWOBHM bands in the Tyneside area during the early 80’s.

Seeing those lads get out of the North East and make such a profound impact on the scene worldwide was a huge motivation for me, and that continued after Avenger was formed.

For rehearsals we rented a room at Spectro Arts Center just off Pilgrim Street in Newcastle. A lot of bands those days used that place and it did create a feeling of community for all involved.

Curiously this community was going to last quite a few decades although we didn’t know it at the time’.

With bands like Raven, Venom, Tygers of Pan Tang, Fist, Mythra and NEAT Records all based in the North East of England.

This led to the North East New Wave of British Heavy Metal highlighted by music journalist Ian Ravendale reporting a ’Matrix of Metal Mayhem’ in the 17th May 1980 edition of Sounds.

Interviews on this blog have featured all of these bands plus Steve Thompson producer at NEAT Records.

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What venues did Avenger play in ? 

‘Early on we used to play popular music venues in and around Newcastle such as the Newton Park Hotel and Tiffanys night club. I was also lucky to get off on tour when I was pretty young and play abroad.

A stand out gig from back in the day is Avengers debut gig in Europe at Dieppenbeek Belgium in ’83. We played as headline band on a show with maybe seven other bands in what was a large sports hall a bit like The Lightfoot in Walker, here in Newcastle.

As our time came to play the crowd started chanting our name – it was unbelievable and a bit scary but once we got onstage it was great. Thanks to social media, all these years later I’m reunited with the lads who organised that show’.

What were your experiences of recording ?

’I worked in the Shipyards near my hometown but for about a year before that I worked at Impulse Studios in Wallsend which was where Neat Records were based.

Due to this I was involved in a lot of recording sessions and some of them for what are now landmark albums like Venoms – Black Metal and Ravens – Wiped Out.

I had my first experiences of recording there with my own bands and helping people out on random recording sessions. They were great times’.

Have you any stories from recording two Avenger albums Blood Sports and Killer Elite ?

‘A long time ago now this Gary! One mad story was Ian Swift (vocals) and Mick Moore (bass) doing a promo interview with Metro Radio for Blood Sports shortly after recording the album.

They mentioned on air before the interview Avenger were coming in to the station to talk live about their new album Blood Sports.

Well some Animal Rights protesters turned up on the night going mad about us being ‘pro’ Blood Sports -we were like no!! You’ve got it all wrong’.

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‘Recording Killer Elite, the most vivid memory was how much Keith Nichol the engineer mentored us during the recording. Encouraging us to try for better takes. Giving opinions on how to improve the dynamics of the songs, stuff like that.

It really brought home to me that there’s more to an engineer than tweaking knobs and sliding desk controls. An Engineer who is a musician will motivate a band and encourage the best performance within a bands ability.

Keith done that with us 110%. After that experience I’d always prefer to record with an engineer who is also a musician’.

Did you film any tv or music videos ?

‘Avenger filmed three promotional videos for Killer Elite which was unheard of back then for a band on a small indie label. Venom and their production team helped us out a lot on these shoots especially Venom drummer Tony Bray and their manager Eric Cook.

They had done quite a few videos and had a far better idea than us about presentation and all that. They loaned us a fair bit of gear and managed the pyrotechnics for the video.

Looking back they are what they are, very ’80s looking videos but even now people constantly refer to them, so over the years they have been a really useful promotional tool’.

Have you any stories from playing gigs ?

’There’s one or two stories that stick with me, funnier ones like playing with Blitzkrieg at Newcastle University and being paid in bottles of Brown Ale! We jinged down the street afterwards.

Another time playing in Holland when we were young lads. During the terrible winter of 1985 two Dutch girls asked me and one of the lads ‘do you fancy coming back to ours ?’.

Being 18 at the time we said yeah. We got a taxi and ended up in a freezing cold rat infested basement under the student hall of residence.

‘Wait here we will see if the Night Porter is about because we can’t have visitors after 23.00’ they said. We waited and waited…Ahhhh it was a set up !…they left us in the freezing basement.

This was before mobile phones. It was broad daylight when our Dutch friends found us’.

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‘Back in ’83 myself and vocalist Brian Ross were fortunate enough to be asked to play a one off show in Holland with a variety of musicians from other bands. Lads from Satan, Mercyful Fate and Deep Machine’.
(in Avenger at that time, Brian Ross has also been frontman for Satan and Blitzkreig. He features in the blog Life Sentence Feb.20th)

‘We travelled across to the continent which was the first time I’d ever flown in my life. We rehearsed a set of covers for a week then played the set to a full house the following Saturday.

It was great fun, it was also the first gig I played where we were all paid a significant fee.

Because of this one off show we managed to return and play three shows ten months later as a full band, one gig in Belgium and two in Holland.

This was Avengers first gigs outside the UK and they went really well. So much so that we were signed for three albums by NEAT the day after we returned from those gigs.

We returned to mainland Europe the following year playing more shows in Belgium and Holland. The following year 1985, the band played its first gigs in America but on return sadly the band folded’.

What are you doing now and are you still involved with music ?

’Avenger reformed in 2005 and have played abroad every year since, including our debut shows in Brazil in 2013. We really enjoyed some great gigs for the early part of the promotion of the last album.

Dates that stand out for me was the Triel Open Air just outside of Paris, Rock You to Hell Festival in Athens, Greece and sets at Brofest in our home town Newcastle upon Tyne. Not forgetting the SOS festival in Bury’.

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‘Repulsive Vision has been enjoying several prestigious supports in the last few years playing with their heroes Discharge, Benediction and Destroyer 666.

But the gig highlight for sure was performing at Las Vegas Deathfest in June on the same bill as Vader, one of my personal favourites. That was absolutely great.

Both bands have recent promo videos up on You tube for the albums and a quick search takes you straight to them for anyone who would like to check them out’.

Interview by Gary Alikivi August 2017.

Recommended:

Brian Ross SATAN/BLITZKREIG: Life Sentence, 20th February 2017.

Lou Taylor SATAN/BLIND FURY: Rock the Knight, 26th February & 5th March 2017.

Micky McCrystal, Cat Scratch Fever, March 17th 2017.

Steve Dawson SARACEN/THE ANIMALS: Long Live Rock n Roll, 2nd April 2017.

Martin Metcalfe HOLLOW GROUND: Hungry for Rock, 18th June 2017.

Steve Thompson,( NEAT Producer) Godfather of New Wave Of British Heavy Metal, 27th June 2017.

Richard ‘Rocky’ Laws, Tyger Bay, 24th August 2017.

DEATH OR GLORY – interview with Danny McCormack bassist The Main Grains/The Wildhearts

/ Alikivi

I’m with Danny at his home in Newcastle and notice a black and white photo on the sitting room wall, it’s a picture of The Garricks Head pub in South Shields… ‘Yeah my Grandma Pat used to have it’.

I remembered I had my first drink there when I was 16 year old. A pint of McKewan’s Scotch, after the first drink the froth covered the caterpillar growing on my top lip…

‘Yes, it was a great pub sadly not there now. She used to have regular lock-in’s, the punters staying behind after hours for a few more drinks.

A bloke with an accordion would be in, there was a piano player in the corner, and we’d all be singing along with them. Smokey tunes, great times and wild night’s, yes, I can remember all that’.

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When living in London Danny McCormack was a member of The Wildhearts. During their commercial peak in the nineties, they recorded four albums with their second release P.H.U.Q entering the album charts at no.6.

The band also released a bucket load of top 30 singles, and they appeared on British tv music programme Top of the Pops,

and had support slots with Manic Street Preachers, Guns n Roses and AC/DC, they also toured America and Japan.

Danny went on to form The Yo Yos and recorded one album, toured the UK, Europe and Japan then split in 2000.

Since returning North in 2003 he has re-joined and left The Wildhearts several times, played with Dog’s D’Armour and with his younger brother Chris in Three Colours Red. The Yo Yos also made a brief comeback.

Those are just edited highlight’s of his life in rock n roll. But bringing the story up to date Danny has a new band – The Main Grains.

Before meeting up I checked out some of their music and watched a video for ‘Unscrewed’. I thought it had a Ramones/End of the Century/ Phil Spector feel to it…
’Yes it’s our nod to Phil Spector in a way. The Main Grains are JJ on guitar, Ginna on drums and Ben on guitar with me on bass and vocals.

They are Yorkshire lads so they come up to Gateshead where we rehearse. When we first got together it all fit in place, the playing is tight. That’s what you want.

We record the old fashioned way, idea’s on an acoustic first, then get in a room together to rehearse. Bounce idea’s off each other. We need the spark, the energy for it to come together. This time we are doing it ourselves.

We’ve had no record company input. So never signed anything, we own our own music. We make our own decisions and plenty people are coming to the gig’s, so we are doing something right.

We will work with promoters to put together a few more gig’s but we are in control, we’ll choose when we want to record and gig’.

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Punk was a big influence in your life, can you remember where you first heard it ?

‘The jukebox man would come around to my grandma’s pub and say ‘Pat what do you want on the jukebox this week ? She said ‘All my usual’s you know the Patsy Cline stuff, but none of that punk rock music there’s far too much fucking swearing in it haha’.

My ear’s pricked up like devils horn’s. What’s punk rock ? Then I heard the Pistol’s, Damned, Clash and just loved it. They absolutely blew my mind. I used to play them at low volume so my mother couldn’t hear the swearing.

I was playing The Toy Doll’s, still love them to this day, Angelic Upstarts – there was a lot of complaints about them being on stage kicking a pig’s head around with a copper’s helmet on it.

But they were only singing the truth you know, reality, have a dose of this folks. I had a picture of them on my wall and there’s the ugly mugs of Mond and Mensi staring down at me haha. Yes I love punk’.

Did you have any hero’s in music ?

‘Nah I was never into the hero worship thing, never looked up to any of the musician’s or bands really. The only heroes out there are all the nurses, doctors and fireman. They face life and death decisions every day…that’s who real heroes are’.

When did you get your first guitar ?

‘I got my first guitar one Christmas, it was a classical. The reason I play bass is because two strings snapped and I didn’t have the heart to say to my mam that I’ve snapped the strings because A, I’ll get a clip around the lug for snapping them and B, she couldn’t afford to replace them.

I just used to play along with my records with the four strings like a bass’.

Then some mates got together, and we done my first band called Energetic Krusher. Ali was on vocals, Hairy the drummer, Louie and Nick Parsons on guitars.

Nick went on to do The Almighty. We made an album for a record label down London called Vinyl Solution. We had just split up but never told them.

Ali took us for a pint and told us about the record company interest, we all said yes of course we’ll do it. We were 15-16 year old with a record deal, it was brilliant. I remember going to school somebody video taped us in rehearsals. I was really chuffed’.

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‘We got the buzz then, first gig I ever done was amazing. It just felt exactly right. The crowd were going nut’s, we were going nut’s, it sounded tight, in time, in tune. That was at The Riverside in Newcastle.

Later I was working at King’s Music guitar shop in Sunderland it was a YTS scheme getting £27.50 a week. I remember that was my exact fare to get to London and join The Wildhearts’.

How did that come about ?

‘Ginger from The Wildhearts had heard about Energetic Krusher through his mate Panda from South Shields and he came to see us play at The George Ropery in London.

That must have stuck in his mind you know because when one of the guy’s left his band Ginger was straight on the phone to me, saying would you come down for an audition.

Well when I got there it wasn’t really an audition because I took some acid and got off with the secretary from the record company. He said ‘You’re in!’ haha.

Ginger was a few year older than me and had already been down there a few years and had been in Beki and the Bombshell’s, The Quireboys and a few other bands.

You know I was in a band with Ginger from The Quireboys, and Bam Bam from Dog’s D’Amour. At 15 year old I was down the front at a Dogs D’Amour gig then four years later I was in a band with him, it was like a dream come true’.

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Where did you stay in London, did you have any digs?

‘I was squatting in Gingers cupboard in Finchley Road. The woman used to come round for the rent and she started noticing I was there a lot. Who’s he, where’d he come from she’d say.

We were rehearsing in Jumbo Studios when we could. I was on dole money, we had nowt. We used to split and share our money to get by.

It was £15 quid with Ginger one week then next week he would give me £15 back. It was that hard when we first moved down there.

First year we were dossing around cos the band were in litigation. Ginger had signed some deals that weren’t working for us. It was all lawyer meetings, what was going on here you know. We couldn’t record it was frustrating.

But you know what it is, we didn’t give a shit, we believed in the band that much.

The songs were flying out of Ginger, he had an acoustic and played me a few tunes, what do you think of this one ? Then another and another, he used to blow me away.

Coming out with classic after classic in my book. The guy’s a genius. Nothing but admiration for him’.

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Can you remember first recording with The Wildhearts ?

‘The first album was done in Wessex Studio’s where Never Mind the Bollock’s and London Calling by The Clash were recorded, bit of Queen stuff also done there, yes it was phenomenal. It was a great place.

We done demo’s there originally and they were so good we used them for the album, we tarted the vocal up a bit. All done in a week and we had an album’.

‘The Mondo Kimbo EP was done down in Wales at Rockfield Studio, a very famous studio, a lot of bands recorded there. Around late ’92 we done a lot of small gig’s but the turning point was when we played with Pantera at The Marquee, that was a phenomenal gig.

After that we went out with Wolfsbane, Manic Street Preachers, Alice in Chains even Steve Vai. We were building a reputation as a good live band.

We were playing tight, a pretty formidable unit. A stand out gig was supporting Guns n Roses in Japan. Ended up going there seven times’.

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Did you film any TV appearances or music video’s?

‘As a job, being in a band with a plank of wood and four wires hanging around your neck doesn’t quite cut it with your parents, cos they had proper jobs.

So after we’d done Top of the Pops a few times and they’d seen me on the telly my mam and dad stopped asking if I was going to get a proper job.

We used to have a great time on the show, the crowd would go nut’s. I don’t know where they were from but there was a few Wildhearts t-shirts in the crowd.

We done it a few way’s, miming, live, sometimes just the vocal’s were live. But we never had a song where it stuck and grew. Our hardcore fan’s would buy the single’s and we would sell enough to get on the show, but never reached further in the charts’.

‘For the I Wanna Go Where the People Go video we filmed that in New York. We went there for five days to do the video and ended up living there for a couple of month.

We were in a house in Brooklyn it was great fun. For the first month we were in The Chelsea Hotel.

One night after drinking in CBGB’s we jumped in the taxi and told the driver to take us to the nearest drug dealer. ’No problem get in guy’s’. The taxi was quickly surrounded by them.

The deal was done and we returned to The Chelsea. We laid them out on the bed and looking through them we managed to score some salt and some pencil shavings haha… they must have seen us coming. We did get some spliff amongst the pencil shavings.

The drummer Ritchie put the radio on, lit some candles and we chilled out. The candle was on a wood shelf and he put something underneath so it wouldn’t burn through the shelf.

But he put a paper plate under the candle. Well of course we fell asleep and the candles burned through, fell into my bag and set his hair alight.

The fire caught hold on the old wooden floor, it was pretty big so I ran into the hallway in me under crackers looking for a fire extinguisher.

Next door and downstairs were making noises about all the smoke, now the fire brigade turned up, there was coppers running about and we were absolutely stoned.

The manager came and showed us to another room, he was very calm and said you’re in good company, the only people who’ve set fire’s in this hotel were Sid Vicious and Andy Warhol!

Eventually the record company starved us out of New York. They stopped the money going into the bank and we eventually went back to the UK to do Top of the Pops.

You know I don’t think about those times all the time, just now that you’ve asked but I can see it in my mind and thing is I’m back in touch with Ginger now’.

Where did you go after The Wildhearts ?

’After The Wildhearts I toured America with The Yo Yo’s and the first drive was three days – never complained about touring in a van in the UK again.

We went out with The Backyard Babies and The Murder City Devil’s. We done about 42 states in 5 month, that was brilliant.

We were on Sub Pop at the time and I recorded around 20 songs with them’.

(Nerd alert: Sub Pop was a USA record company working out of Seattle, famous in the 1980’s for signing bands like Nirvana, Mudhoney and Soundgarden. In 2000 The Yo Yo’s released their debut album Uppers and Downers, it was recorded in Trident Studio’s, London).

‘They gave us the backing and at first it looked like a very good deal unfortunately it didn’t work out that way – but that’s another story. Those contracts look like they are written in Latin and I wasn’t trained as a lawyer. But hey, loved my time in that band, got to travel to Japan again’.

Danny has a lot more stories and will be returning in a few month time but before the interview we talked about musicians who have suffered with depression and addictions, or others who had recently passed away.

Danny has had his own problems which are well documented elsewhere, but I felt there was no need to repeat them here…

‘What’s in the past is just that, you can’t change it. Just looking forward to playing some more rock n roll. Musicians aren’t anything special. Me, I’m just a bass player in a rock n roll band. That’s who I am’.

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The Main Grains.

Catch The Main Grains live at The New Adelphi, Hull on September 22 and at Trillians, Newcastle on September 23. They are supporting The Professionals at The Slade Rooms, Wolverhampton October 27  2017.

The Main Grains have a new single coming out on 7th November 2017 The Rain is Over, What We Gonna Do Now ? and Sock It To Me Baby.

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For more info, tour dates & downloads contact the official website maingrains.com or thru facebook or twitter.

Interview by Gary Alikivi August 2017.

Recommended:

Mond Cowie, Angels of the North, 12th March 2017.

ANGELIC UPSTARTS: The Butchers of Bolingbroke, 1st June 2017.

Neil Newton, All the Young Punks, 4th June 2017.

Wavis O’Shave, Felt Nowt, 6th June 2017.

Crashed Out, Guns, Maggots and Street Punk, 6th July 2017.

Wavis O’Shave, Method in the Madness, 5th September 2017.

Steve Staughan, Beauty & the Bollocks, 1st October 2017.

Evo, No One Gets Out Alive, 8th October 2017.

Steve Kincaide, Life of Booze, Bands & Buffoonery, 11th January 2018.

METHOD IN THE MADNESS – interview with Wavis O’Shave

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‘I’ve always enjoyed working in studios and confounding the hell out of engineers completely unaware of what was about to hit them.

And not once has it ever cost me a penny, always paid for on behalf of individuals holding out for me making them wealthy. No chance! Once I’d had my fun, I was off and as uncooperative as usual’.

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In my previous blog about Wavis O’Shave, (Felt Nowt June 6th) I asked, Who was Wavis ? By the end of the interview it still wasn’t clear. Was he a musician, author, performance artist or fraudster ? A mix of all four ?

He had produced a hatfull off records – singles and albums. Appeared on live music programme The Tube. Under the guise of numerous identities, he was never shy of promoting his latest gag.

This interview looks at the time he spent in recording studios. A time that he described as ‘unclassifiable, non-commercial, and a none hit wonder’. Carry on Wavis…

’My, and the unsuspecting engineer’s first experience, was at a 4 track studio hidden in the small village of Wrabgy in Lincolnshire.

The unlucky engineer was Andy Dransfield, now owner of luxurious Chapel Studios. Which is a converted church at South Thoresby in Lincolnshire.

He has since recorded hits there with the likes of Paul Weller, Wet Wet Wet, Shirley Bassey, and the Arctic Monkeys’.

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‘I went down there during the winter of 1979 after being signed up at only my second attempt by a small indie label called Company Records based in Lincoln.

The first near miss was from Beggars Banquet, who at the time were too busy with Gary Numan who described me as ‘unusual’ .

Travelling down, there were five of us in the car that conked out alongside the River Trent. Whilst the car was being fixed nobody could find me. I’d gone for a walk across the frozen Trent. I was almost halfway across when the ice all around me started to audibly crack.

Andy might have preferred it had, but instead we recorded the four track Denis smokes tabs (John is a Fig Roll) EP and somehow he and a couple of his worried mates survived the experience of having five unbalanced, wayward Geordies in his small converted barn. We performed like complete rookies within a studio’.

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‘Andy couldn’t believe it when I had him splice in the middle of the song Mauve Shoes are Awful, my mate Hatts dad swearing like a trooper.

It was on a demo tape we’d caught him on when he’d burst in Hatts bedroom during a take of the song. He was threatening to cut off the electricity and informing us he’d had ‘two stings alriddy’ for his pains. We spliced it in at exactly the point he’d burst in during the demo. There’s authenticity for you.

We sometimes made audible sounds instead of musical instruments and we recorded without a bass. Andy hadn’t experienced working this way before with any band.

But he did come round to appreciating that there was some uniquely original method in the apparent madness. He became a bit of fan actually, and remains so today’.

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‘In 2005 I freaked Andy out by tracking him down and paying him an unannounced visit at his Chapel Studios. I sneaked in and quietly sat alongside him in exactly the same scene as I had last left him 25 years earlier.

When he noticed a presence, I just smiled. It was as if time had stood still.

I played him my Katie Derhams Bum cd that I’d just recorded on computer, and he couldn’t believe the quality. ‘It’s very Wavis’ he said. ‘Of course, you twat, ‘cos it is!’ I replied’.

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Wavis and Danny Baker from the NME

Did you have any success with your recordings ?

’I’m told the EP in time eventually went on to sell a total of 5,000 copies after being picked up by John Peel and Danny Baker. They both gave it the thumbs up in the NME. Dunno if that was true, never saw a penny, nor cared less.

Classics like You think you’re a Woman ‘cos you don’t eat Fishcakes and Don’t Crush Bees to Death with the End of your Walking Stick entirely threw the engineer Mr Dransfield who was exceptionally patient with his guests.

He even ended up playing drums on the Anna Ford’s Bum album that we recorded there the following year. He was a glutton for punishment. The master tapes were bought off him from Newcastle Indie label Anti-Pop for £100’.

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‘In those days the Sounds had their own Alternative Chart from record store returns, and the album spent three weeks top of the chart before being knocked off by Adam Ant!

I have always been blessed with excellent session men and this was no exception. However, when the guitarist asked me how I wanted the guitar playing on She’s a Prune (meaning could he hear a demo first) I told him ‘Dead fast’ Blank looks all round’.

Did you record in any other studio’s ?

’My next actual studio raid came in 1980 and was at Terry ‘Slippers’ Gavaghan’s Guardian Studios within his terraced house at Pity Me in County Durham. Pity Terry, not me. I called him slippers ‘cos he never took ‘em off.

He was into ghosts and all that stuff and we even had a spool come flying off its reel whilst we were there. South Shields reprobate the late Danny Deen, took time out from his band The Letters and had persuaded some school teacher to stump up £300 for us to make a three track demo there. Danny provided the music and I wrote the lyrics’.

‘I’m surprised we ever got there as I seem to specialise in being picked up by conky out cars. By the time I was picked up at a roundabout, the car was filled with five people, it was falling to bits and was spewing constant black exhaust fumes.

Soon after a door came off, and we had to abandon ship when the steering wheel started lifting off. It would have done a circus clown proud. Cue ringing for two taxis.

To amuse ourselves, and my idea, we introduced ourselves as The Nancy Boy’s. We had been really naughty though and hadn’t rehearsed any of the songs so when it was time to record we found out we couldn’t reach the high notes or deal with key changes.

Terry couldn’t believe it. I was supposed to sing all three but ended up only doing the last one, It’s so Charming when we’re out Farming. A song about falling in love with a farmyard cow.

During the song a stressed Terry had absent mindedly left a microphone switched on which we didn’t realise until it was done, but we managed to get off with it’.

‘Everyone had a go at the other two but the middle one nobody could do. Cue the most absurd moment of my recording career when the engineer Terry even stepped forward to have a go at it and he couldn’t sing for toffee.

We actually had to come back another day with another £200 quid to sort it all out. Whilst we were there Trevor Horn of Buggles fame popped in. He must have wondered what became of the Nancy Boys.

If he’s bothered he can listen to a spoof radio interview with me and Danny on BBC Newcastle’s Bedrock show and the songs on YouTube under The Nancy Boys 1980 Wavis ‘O’Shave’.

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‘Next free studio for me was a nice little compact effort somewhere in Chester-le-Street where the objective was to record my Texican Raveloni – Bedside Songs for Problem Children album. The artwork drawn by VIZ Comic’s Chris Donald.

I really can’t remember more details about that one, other than the engineer, naturally, was freaked out. My keyboard player caught us all out when he scarpered after two hours to go to give somebody an hour long violin lesson.

We had a great session though, containing my craziest material ever.

The content of the album only made it to cassette before becoming a 2005 release on cd by Essex indie label Falling A. The head honcho at the label was a fan who had been born and raised in South Shields’.

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Wavis and Toyah Wilcox.

‘My friend at the time Toyah Wilcox, had her own copy and asked if she could record her fave track with me, the apocalyptic Better Get the Washing in.

Being aware of her own chart success scared me off as I was quite happy being what I preferred to be; unclassifiable, non-commercial, and a none hit wonder.

The album included You Won’t Catch Me on the 503 which is responsible for my greatest number of YouTube hits to date – 400,000 under ‘Phunny angry bus drivers’. The track was once played on Radio One for the first 20 seconds only.

The video for it was made by the 11 year old son of one of my fans! The song was the ‘B’ side of 1982 single, my last ever on vinyl, Tie Your Laces Tight released by Eccentric Records.

Now, the rumour remains that it was my mate Jools Holland who played piano on it. Did he? I’m not allowed to say, but if I did, I’ll say he might have…’

Have you any other stories from then ?

’Whilst in London in 1980 I was whisked away from spending time with Ian Dury’s Geordie Blockheads keyboardist Michael Gallagher, and guitarist John Turnbull to spring a surprise stitch up on singer Jona Lewie.

Jona had built a studio in the basement of his flat. Gate crashing in at 2.30am the whole idea of the somewhat contrived visit (manipulated by Anti-Pop connections) was to bribe Jona into allowing me free studio time.

Otherwise we would give a recorded phone call of him to the NME expressing his fears about his hair loss and premature ejaculation. It was a stitch up. Either free studio time or the NME got the tape.

Well in the end, I never got the studio, the NME never got the tape and Jona salvaged his hair’.

Wavis and Anna Ford.
Wavis and Debbie Harry.

‘I used to play footy every Sunday on the fields at the Marine & Technical College in South Shields with some regulars.

One day this lad new to the area, turned up fresh from a holiday at Butlins in Minehead. No sooner on the pitch, he was excitedly trying to tell us all about this song he’d heard at Butlins and it had been top of their charts for six weeks.

It was my You Won’t Catch Me on the 503 song! Imagine his disbelief when one of the lads casually informed him ‘He did it!’ pointing over at me. Against all the odds, as usual. That’s the world of Wavis!

Interview by Gary Alikivi 2017.

Recommended: Wavis O’Shave, Felt Nowt, 6th June 2017.

TYGER BAY – interview with Richard ‘Rocky’ Laws, Tygers of Pan Tang original bassist

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In 2016 Tygers of Pan Tang released an album of new tracks mixed by Soren Anderson, filmed video’s for the single’s ‘Only the Brave’ and ‘Glad Rags’, completed tours around Europe, including dates in North and South America – not forgetting brewing their own beer -Tyger Blood !

This year they continue to support the album with UK dates arranged for November.

But way back in the 1970’s in the small seaside town of Whitley Bay in the North East of England…

‘I think it was about 1976 when I met Robb (Weir, guitarist) and Brian (Dick, drums). I knew Brian through some other musicians I used to hang out with. Drummers were rare beasts in those days, especially one’s as good as Brian so I made sure I jammed with him as often as possible.

I met Robb when someone gave me his telephone number as he was interested in getting a band together, actually we didn’t start playing together at first. I started to roadie for his punk band first, they were called Trick’.

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Who were your first influences and how did you get involved in playing music. Was there a defining moment when you said ‘I want to do that’ ? 

‘I wanted to be in a band from a very young age. A live band played at a Christmas party for kids where my father worked. This would have been in the sixties so they were a bit like The Beatles and had red guitars which I was fascinated by.

I got a very cheap acoustic guitar as a Christmas present but didn’t know anyone who played guitar or could teach me and the few lessons I had only taught stuff I didn’t want to play.

It was only when I was given a copy of Space Ritual by Hawkwind and heard Lemmy play bass, especially Lord of Light, that I knew I wanted to play bass guitar.

So I got a cheap bass and started learning bass lines by ear. So yeah, as a bass player it was definitely Lemmy that got me playing’.

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When did you meet up with the Tygers, when did you start playing gigs and what venues did you play ?

‘When Brian and I decided we really wanted to get a band together I suggested we try jamming with Robb. It was an instant success!

We started writing songs and looked for a singer and a guy called Mark Butcher joined the band. We did about 25 shows with Mark.

After Mark left we had a bit of a hiatus then got back together and Jess Cox joined as singer and we started gigging regularly.

There was no real metal scene around Newcastle at the time. There were no regular venues for local metal bands but there was a metal audience for bigger bands who played the Newcastle Mayfair or City Hall.

There were three metal bands already playing locally when we started. There was Raven though they had not really hit on their athletic rock style at that time.

There was Axe, who eventually became Fist, and there was Fastbreeder who now would be most notable for having Andy Taylor on guitar, later he joined Duran Duran !’

‘What separated us from these bands was that they all predated punk rock whereas we were starting during the punk scene and were heavily influenced by it.

Although there was not a local metal scene apart from the three bands I mentioned, there was a thriving local music scene generally in Newcastle in the mid to late 70’s.

Many pubs had a room upstairs where bands could play and take money on the door. I can’t remember all the pubs we played but the Gosforth Hotel and the Bridge Hotel were ones we played regularly, as well as pubs further afield in and around the North East.

In fact the Tygers first ever gig was at the Coach and Eight in Durham. As well as pubs which didn’t pay very well we got a club agent so we could play the CIU working men’s clubs’.

‘Often these clubs, as well as serving the excellent Federation Ales would have rock nights where we could play, even playing our own material.

You had to play two one hour sets, so you had to have quite a lot of material and obviously you had to play some covers. We played AC/DC, Ted Nugent, Motorhead, Status Quo, ZZ Top among others.

One club we played was Sunderland Boilermakers, though playing in Sunderland was always an adventure for us Whitley Bay boys as of course they never clapped, something which Sunderland was famous for.

Though you were still expected to do an encore, which they called a false tap, on the basis that if you were still alive they must have liked it!’

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One of Tygers of Pan Tang early gig’s at Mingles Bar, Whitley Bay.

How did the record deal’s come about with NEAT and MCA ?

‘We invested in some pyrotechnics which always ensured a good reception in the clubs as they were a bit unusual. We played schools as that way you could play to kids who couldn’t get into the pubs and clubs.

It was at a show at Whitley Bay High School where we were seen by David Wood of Neat Records. His kids went there and I think having a fan base with school age kids was what helped our first single to sell.

A big help to our early progress was doing a residency every Wednesday night at Mingles nightclub in our home town of Whitley Bay. It was already a venue but I think even after we stopped playing there it carried on being a sort of Heavy Metal club.

Our biggest local gig before we had a record deal was when we headlined the Mayfair Ballroom in Newcastle. It was a bit of a disaster as we had loads of technical problems and probably because I was nervous I had got completely pissed and could barely stand up!

Still we attracted 1,500 people which was a lot for a local band and due to a misprint this got reported as 15,000 in the industry magazine Music Week and we got a record deal with MCA Records as a result!

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Did you come across other NWOBHM bands ?

’The first support we did was Iron Maiden for two nights at the Marquee in London. This was the first time we had travelled any distance to play and the first time I had ever been to London.

The venue was packed and they were amazing gigs. Maiden were unbelievably good and you could tell they were going to be big.

We did a support tour with Magnum which was our first national tour. Later they supported us on a UK tour and they weren’t very pleased about it.

We also supported Def Leppard and Saxon. Saxon were very good to us as Motorhead had been good to them in the same circumstances.

Saxon were my favourite NWOBHM band and when we toured with them we helped out in their show by doing things like operating smoke machines, dry ice generators and spotlights just for fun.

We also supported Scorpions at quite large venues and it was a steep learning curve as we were not used to big venues. They weren’t impressed by our first couple of gigs and I think we were close to being sacked off the tour but we had a storming gig in Glasgow and then everything was fine.

We learned a lot from Scorpions as they did everything very professionally’.

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What were your experiences of recording ?

‘I would be a bit hazy on dates! We first recorded at Impulse Studios in Wallsend. In fact our first session was doing three tracks for which we got cheap studio time by doing them as a competition entry for the Vitavox Live Sound Awards, this was David Wood’s idea.

This would have been in 1978 I suppose. We hadn’t really thought about the Awards competition, we even put false names on the entry form. But actually found that we had to play at the competition and won it!

We did two other sessions at Impulse one of which was just to record our live set so we just set up and played the whole set live without stopping and no overdubs.

Much of this was eventually released as the First Kill album so those tracks would be a pretty good example of what we actually sounded like at the time.

We also did a session to record the Don’t Touch Me There single with two b side tracks, which was our first single and was released on Neat. All of the Neat stuff was produced by Steve Thompson’.

(Featured in an earlier blog The Godfather of North East NWOBHM in June 2017)

‘I don’t think he had worked with a band who knew so little about music, as we couldn’t have played a scale between us!

After we got the record deal with MCA, at first this was through Neat. Well Neat wanted us to record our first album in their studio at Impulse in Wallsend, but the producer Chris Tsangarides came up to look at it and said he couldn’t work there and wanted to use his usual studio which was Morgan Studios in London.

That was where we did the Wild Cat and Spellbound albums.

We actually demoed Spellbound at Guardian Studios in Durham. The demo’s were the first time we had recorded with new singer Jon Deveril and new guitarist John Sykes both albums represented an amazing leap forward for the band.

When I first listened to the demo’s at home after the sessions, I couldn’t believe how good this line up sounded’.

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‘Recording Wildcat and Spellbound was a great experience but there was no time for self-indulgence and both albums were done in a couple of weeks. Guitar, bass and drums were recorded in a couple of takes, then guitar overdubs and vocals.

We did get to add a few extras like kettle drums and bass synth pedals, I was a big Rush fan at the time!

‘The next recording we did was with a mobile at a gig in Nottingham at the Rock City venue. For some reason which I still don’t know, John Sykes listened to it and said it was unusable and it got forgotten about until it was released some 20 years later.

I think it would have made a massive difference to our career had it been released at the time because instead we had to do the Crazy Nights album, and we weren’t ready.

We didn’t demo that album and quite a lot of it was written in the studio. It was recorded just bass and drums with a guide guitar and later guitars were added then vocals. It wasn’t a very good way to record because we had never actually heard the songs before we recorded the basic tracks as there were no lyrics, just a chord progression or riff.

Only a couple of songs were actually written properly before recording. There are virtually no overdubs and no backing vocals.

We hadn’t used Chris Tsangarides, partly as we just wanted a change but partly as he wanted a writing credit on a track on Spellbound which annoyed us.

Anyway we got in Dennis MacKay on Gary Moore’s recommendation but he was totally wrong for the band. He was doing a Stanley Clarke album in the States at the same time and was flying back and forwards.

It was also our own fault as we were partying too hard at that point and not taking the music seriously enough. Still there are some good tracks on the album.

Crazy Nights was partly recorded at Trident Studios in London which closed down straight after though I don’t think this was our fault. The vocals were done on the Virgin recording studio on a boat on the Thames!

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After the first three albums what was the band’s approach for the fourth ?

‘After the problems with Crazy Nights we decided to get serious and get a commercial producer in and this was Peter Collins. He had never done rock before but he must have liked the experience as he went on to do Rush and various other rock bands after us.

He came to a rehearsal said he couldn’t believe his first experience of hearing loud rock guitar in a confined space!

Our first recording with Peter was Love Potion No 9 while John Sykes was still in the band. Love Potion No 9 got a lot of radio play and was our biggest single. Obviously it is a cover but it doesn’t sound much like the original.

It was suggested by Peter Collin’s manager who was Pete Waterman who later became part of Stock, Aitken and Waterman of Kylie Minogue fame.

At that point John Sykes left the band to try for the job with Ozzy after Randy Rhodes died. He didn’t get the job but when he asked to come back we said no and looked for a replacement.

At first Fred Purser was just supposed to be temporary to do a French tour we had booked but we got on so well we asked him to join full time.

Fred had been in local punk band Penetration but in fact he was quite a sophisticated musician, at least compared to the rest of us’.

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‘We recorded The Cage with Peter Collins at Marquee Studios in London. We had picked some cover songs to do after the success with Love Potion and there were also some co-writes with people outside the band and Fred had a few songs so it was a different pool of songs to our usual stuff.

We still didn’t get that long to record and it was the usual couple of weeks to do most of it but Peter Collins was a real slave driver so we got a lot done.

The Cage was a commercial success and was our biggest album and we went to Japan and did a big UK tour and did supports and some headlining in Europe’.

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What festival’s did you play, what other bands were on and was there any stand out moments ?

‘Festivals in the UK in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s were not like they are now and were pretty rough and ready. I’d say they were a bit like the wild west and from the stage you looked out on thirty thousand people seemingly all throwing cans of piss at each other. It was pretty scary.

The only UK festival we played was Reading which we did twice. The first time was 1980 it was John Sykes first proper gig with the band. It was mega exciting to do though we were well down the bill and must have been playing early afternoon.

The second time we played Reading was in ’82 after The Cage was released and was scarier still as by this time we were well up the bill. In fact we had been given a very strange spot.

There were two stages but these were for the same audience and they were set apart so they could be setting up one bands gear whilst another played.

One stage was slightly smaller than the other so the top of the bill and second on the bill played the bigger stage and we had to play between them on the second stage. Therefore we were sandwiched between Blackfoot and Iron Maiden.

We knew how good Blackfoot were and were not keen on the idea of going on after them as they were a bigger band than us. We contemplated not doing it but a majority of the band wanted to do it so we went ahead.

Our agent said the secret was to start playing the moment that Blackfoot left the stage so that is what we did and it was a fantastic success’.

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‘Reading in 1982 was still a bit lawless and during the performance I did get hit by a bottle though I barely noticed it at the time and there was a large bruise afterwards.

Backstage was a bit different, before our performance we were eating strawberries and cream with Brit Ekland!

In Europe we did a few festivals and we did two in the Netherlands a week apart which left us staying in Amsterdam for a week with nothing to do but enjoy ourselves!

Festivals in Europe were different to UK festivals as they were not specific to a genre of music.

So in one festival we played with The Beat and Killing Joke, at another it was Dexy’s Midnight Runners and at a festival in Sweden we headlined one night and Simple Minds headlined the next night.

In the UK the different audiences would have killed each other but they all got on fine in the festivals in Europe’.

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The Tygers recorded a few TV appearances notably The Old Grey Whistle Test and The Tube. How did they come about and what other bands were on ?

‘There wasn’t as much opportunity to be on the TV in those days. You had to have a hit single to get on Top of the Pops and we were one spot away from that with Love Potion but never actually made it.

Our first TV was in Manchester on a show presented by Tony Wilson who went on to start the Factory label. This was on the Wild Cat tour and is on YouTube. It is the only film of us with Jess Cox and we did Euthanasia.

We did a local North East TV show but I can’t remember the name of it. It was a kind of chat show and we were the band that played in the middle. We did Don’t Stop By off Spellbound but whilst there are some photo’s there is no surviving film.

After Crazy Nights we did a TV special about Viz magazine. The show was called Something Else and was a kind of magazine show that each week did something about a particular city. The one on Newcastle centred on Viz. The two bands on were us and Angelic Upstarts who were great’.

‘The music bit was filmed in London at BBC TV Centre and we did Raised On Rock and Love Don’t Stay these are both on YouTube. Whilst we really liked Viz, they didn’t really like us and I know that Simon Donald of Viz didn’t want the Tygers on but was told he had to have us!

We then did the Old Grey Whistle Test. The other band on was someone from Wings but I can’t remember who they were.

We did Running out of Time from Crazy Nights and Love Potion No.9 which by then I think was out as a single. This was our last TV with John Sykes on guitar.

By the time we did OGWT the format had changed a bit from the early days and there was an audience of sorts but when they applied for tickets they didn’t know who was going to be playing. It was just a generic TV audience and not fans of the band.

After filming we went out for something to eat and were stopped by the police as apparently, we fitted the description of people they were looking for in connection with criminal damage. We were able to give them an alibi !’

‘Our final TV performance was The Tube in 1982. It was one of the early episodes of The Tube and we were on with Iggy Pop and Twisted Sister.

Unfortunately Iggy Pop was a total dick and a complete diva and by the time he was happy with his sound there was no time for anyone else to sound check.

It was great meeting Twisted Sister. They were a fantastic band, great performers and we felt very reserved and British in comparison. They were all absolutely enormous as well, it was like meeting a bunch of wrestlers!

I think The Tube was the last time the version of the Tygers I was in played together. We split up shortly after. We were not in a very good state of mind but the film which is on YouTube is better than I remembered it at the time.

As to who arranged the TV appearances I suppose it was our managers or the record company. I know our managers used to badger local TV to put us on as we were a local band’.

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NWOBHM, did you realise the impact that the genre of music would have ?

‘NWOBHM was quite big at the time and had pretty much an instant impact but I certainly didn’t realise that anyone would be talking about it in thirty years time.

Or that it would directly influence the future of metal by inspiring the thrash metal bands that would come after it.

The first time we heard about NWOBHM was Geoff Barton’s piece in Sounds Magazine. At that point we were doing quite well on the local scene.

There was a local indoor music event called the Bedrock Festival at the Guildhall in Newcastle and we headlined one of the nights. There were many local band’s on so I would say we were quite a big local band.

However, the problem was how to expand outside of the North East and the NWOBHM was that opportunity’.

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‘When the first article about Def Leppard and the second about Maiden was in Sounds magazine our manager sent Geoff a tape saying that we were a similar sort of band but in Newcastle rather than Sheffield or London.

The next week there was a sort of round up of heavy rock and metal bands around the country and we were in that.

Our single started selling outside the North East and we started to get national attention. I don’t know if any of this would have happened without the NWOBHM.

Obviously there was a few NWOBHM bands at the start including Maiden, Saxon, Leppard, Diamond Head and Girlschool but I think we kind of stopped thinking about being part of the NWOBHM once we got to release our second album.

I was aware of Venom of course as we knew Conrad (Cronos) quite well from before Venom and in fact I went to their first gig with Cronos.

I just didn’t understand it at all though, of course they were right and I was wrong as they went on to be probably the most influential NWOBHM band other than Maiden’.

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Can you remember when the Tygers called it a day?

‘Unfortunately in the success of our fourth album The Cage lay the seed of the bands demise. MCA records wanted to do more covers and more rocked up versions of soul classics and we didn’t want to do it.

We had a four track machine on which we demo’d some songs written by Fred but this did not change MCA’s mind and whist other companies were interested in the band they were not interested in buying us out of our deal with MCA.

However the fifth album demos were interesting as we recorded live drums and everything as we would in a studio but on the four track. We turned one of the rooms in my parents’ house into a studio and put mattresses on the walls and used the next door room as a control room.

Fred was actually a pretty good producer and now owns a studio in Newcastle. Anyway, as a result of all the frustration we split up as there seemed no way forward.

Apart from Venom I was completely unware of all of the bands who came along as the kind of second wave of NWOBHM or that NEAT had become some sort of NWOBHM label.

The Tygers thing all happened between ’78 and ’82 and then it was over and I completely lost touch with the whole scene that carried on after that’.

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Mischief or Madness, have you any funny stories from being in the band ?

‘There is a rule among bands that what goes on the road stays on the road so there is a lot I could tell you about which I am not going to tell you about. But a couple of funny things come to mind.

We were always looking for practical jokes to play on people or each other and when staying in a large hotel in France, having returned from the gig Brian and I noticed that people who wanted their breakfast in their rooms hung a cardboard notice on the outside of their doors with what they wanted for breakfast, and more importantly what time they wanted it. So we went round and changed all the times to 6am.

The next morning pandemonium ensued as half the hotel were woken for breakfast several hours before they wanted to be, including our band mates and managers who were traveling with us’.

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‘Another time whilst recording at Morgan Studios we knew our manager was coming to visit the studio so we set up pyrotechnics just inside the studio door and got reception to warn us when he was coming in.

He opened the door and found himself in total darkness and then a few seconds later a whole bank of magnesium explosions went off! He didn’t know what had hit him.

We didn’t always know when was a good time for jokes and when wasn’t. Jon Deverill was doing vocals at the studio and the rest of us were at the apartment we had rented so we decided to set up a few surprises for when he got back.

What we didn’t realise was that he would actually get back at about 4 in the morning after a particularly gruelling vocal session, was exhausted and was therefore not really in the mood to have a bucket of water on his head from the top of the door, his bed sheet folded over so he couldn’t get in properly, and the legs of his bed collapse once he was in it!’

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Current Tygers bassist Gav Gray with Richard Laws.

What are you doing now and are you still involved with music ?

‘I am involved in the music business as after the band I qualified as a lawyer and started working in the music business and have been doing that for the last 30 years or so.

I tend to represent companies rather than artists and whilst I still do a lot of record company and publishing company work, the industry has changed in the time I have worked in it. There is a lot more brand related work and merchandising.

I don’t go to many gigs these days as my days in the Tygers left me with permanent hearing damage and some gigs now are so loud it is actually painful unless I wear hearing protection.

I did go to see the current line-up of the Tygers about a year ago and it was great to see them as they were really good. It was great to see Robb again as I hadn’t seen him for 30 years though I am now in touch with some of the old band on social media and speak to Robb on the phone occasionally.

I still play music though I didn’t for many years. I only started again because at one of the places I worked someone had the idea of putting a band together for the Christmas party so I dug out my bass and we ended up doing quite a few private parties just playing covers.

Now I just play for my own amusement and guitar rather than bass, though I still have my old Rickenbacker bass from the Tygers days. At least I know some scales now!’

Interview by Gary Alikivi July 2017.

Recommended:

Micky McCrystal, Cat Scratch Fever, 17th March 2017.

Steve Thompson, Godfather of New Wave Of British Heavy Metal, 27th June 2017.

Robb Weir, Doctor Rock, 5th November 2017.

HOWARDS WAY- interview with North East musician Howard Baker

/ Alikivi / 3 Comments

‘In Warbeck we were playing Germany for seven weeks doing 4 x 45 minute sets a night, and 5 on a weekend, that’s how we learnt our trade. In ’85 we got a record deal with EMI. But that went tits up. More of that later’.

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Howard has spent most of his life in the music business from performing to owning a studio.

From early influences, gigs, experiences in recording studio’s, high’s and lows, to the present day – this interview uncovers most of the stories in his career – but some of the riskier one’s never make it in, you’ll have to go and see him he might tell you.

‘I still do a lot of gigs a year and continue to work over in Tenerife and France. Currently we are working on pulling together a show with songs from the 1960’s, not a tribute as such more of putting our own stamp on the tracks. So really looking forward to taking that out to the theatres’.

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Who were your influences ?

‘When we were young everybody liked Elvis Presley, but I was more of a rebel, I liked Little Richard. I just loved his antics, I loved Jerry Lee Lewis, Fats Domino a bit bluesy you know.

But my voice was always geared up to the likes of Coverdale and Rodgers, more rocky, that style you know, my tones were that way.

When I was in Warbeck we toured with Free and Argent. Our friends Beckett and Brass Alley were the same, you’d also have John Miles Set on the bill at the Locarno or The Mayfair. I remember playing the Mayfair and supporting Back Street Crawler. I loved that time.

I remember recording at Impulse Studio in Wallsend with Warbeck and after the session Keith Satchfield leaving his black beauty Les Paul guitar outside, it was there all night. Luckiest guy in the world because it was still there next day !’

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What venues did Warbeck play?

‘We worked through Mel Unsworth Agency then, it was not uncommon for us to do ten shows a week, clubs like Annabels, Zhivagos, Dontino’s in Hexham.

You were doing workingmen’s clubs, three half hours and finishing half past ten. Then on stage in Hexham for 12.30 or Julies up in Sunderland.

For the support work the agent was Ivan Burchill he had all the contracts for Mayfairs and City Hall’s. I remember supporting The Pink Fairies, a strange rock punky sort of band.

(Nerd Alert: While still a member of the Pink Fairies, in May 1975 Larry Wallis joined a new band, Motörhead with Lemmy and Lucas Fox. In September 1975 Fox left the band and Motörhead recruited a new drummer, Phil Taylor. Wallis recorded an album with the band, ‘On Parole’.

It remained unreleased until 1979 when Motörhead had established some reputation for themselves. In February 1976 Wallis was joined by Fast Eddie Clarke on guitar. Later in the same month Wallis left Motörhead.)

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‘The best laugh was doing the City Hall with Alvin Stardust and it was the craziest line up ever. We were a full on rock band supporting the pop star. His single out at the time was My Coo Ca Choo.

Anyway we were in the dressing room while 2,000 kids were screaming outside wanting Alvin. We were worried but he came up to us and said just do your show lads, and don’t worry the fans are screaming so loud they can’t hear what you’re playing anyway.

Afterwards he came back to us and said that was brilliant lads. Then I watched him and the way he controlled the whole show was completely different from us, we were heads down rock you know. I must admit he was really good, a great showman’.

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‘Around 1975 a guy called Roberto Donova came up North from London to see us play. He was interested in signing us. We were playing the Barmston Club in Washington and he turned up in his Rolls Royce and parked it outside.

He wandered in, heard us play five songs, bought us a round of drinks and said see ya in my studio in a couple of weeks’.

‘We had a big monitor system, four huge bins we bought off Jethro Tull. First club we played it in was so loud we blew the polystyrene tiles of the ceiling. It took a few gigs to get used to it.

We had some pyro to put on a bit of a show. We used to put the bombs in two small wastepaper bins, but one gig we forgot them so went outside in the back lane and got a big rubbish bin. We put both bombs in there and set it up behind Craigy (Alan Craig) the drummer.

End of the first set the roadies set it off and a big boom ! But they never cleaned the bin out first so there was rubbish, banana skins all sorts all over the stage’.

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‘Another pyro story was we were playing Usworth Social Club and we forgot to bring smoke flares. We liked a bit of smoke around the stage. So, we went out and bought some flares nearby. These were for boats, like distress flares.

Again, they were set up behind the drums and were set off at the end of the set just as we played Smoke on the Water.

Well at first, they didn’t look much but the smoke coming out of them just kept on coming until it filled the concert room. Our eyes were streaming, the concert chairman was up in arms, but the worst thing was the smoke was orange.

There was so much smoke we couldn’t see a thing, they rang the fire brigade who eventually found the bin and hoyed it outside.

The concert room was covered in orange stains, all over the chairs, everywhere. Ended up we never got paid just a massive cleaning bill’.

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‘Around ’78 Warbeck travelled down to London in our own transit van to support AC/DC at the Marquee. Bon Scott was thin as a rake then and Angus was just a tiny fella but you could just tell they had something about them.

A great sound with a solid rhythm section for Angus to play with. They had a real presence.

We also supported Whitesnake up at Ashington. I remember it was a November, absolutely freezing and the place was chocka block. Our dressing room was tiny with a little radiator and Coverdale’s room was all soft chairs, heaters with lobster thermadore.

I knew him from when he was in a band called Government and he said hello. I thought I need to be at that level. We got close but through bad circumstances, didn’t quite get there.

There was a lot of talent up here in the North East. Some of them should have made it bigger you know. Really good writers and great players I worked with, some wonderful performers up here’.

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‘All the Northern rock bands have worked bloody hard but a lot got ripped off. Some had a self-destruct button though, it’s part of the make-up. When we were signed suddenly, we thought we were rock stars, but we had no money.

The record company drove us from the house to the recording studio in Roll’s Royce’s. It was called RG Jones’ studio in Wimbledon.

A guy I mentioned earlier Roberto Danova, he was composer, arranger, the producer there. In the studio next door was the Average White Band recording, across the hall was Queen.

But we were missing recording sessions, the producers saying what’s going on here you know. The studio was £1,000 per day. But it was a case of self-destruct from one of the band, drinking was involved.

There was a tour with Whitesnake lined up. That should have happened. I had worked to get that far but I left in the end and opened a studio’.

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‘I had a record deal with Warner Bros in France with my band Nightwalker that was around 1990. A friend of mine called Guierc, he was a big shot in a private hospital, manager I think, but he was a rock star at night!

He was in a music shop in Paris and there were two guys talking one of them was Dominic Ruiz who amongst others, wrote songs for rock band Krokus. He was saying he could do with an English singer and my friend Gieric butted in and said I know just the guy who can help you.

Within two days I had plane tickets to fly to France. When I got there I met Dominic Ruize, he said I like your voice do you want to do some writing. All this through an interpreter because he only knew a few English words, and two of them were McEwans Scotch and Brown Ale’.

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‘We came back to my studio Baker Street in Jarrow and wrote together for five weeks, we done about fifteen songs. He went back to France and set up some recording sessions with some really top players. It was brilliant, a great experience.

It was all going well. I thought hey all the North East bands Warbeck, Brass Alley, Lucas Tyson all them bands who worked their socks off and thought we knew our stuff, but I learned a whole lot more when I went to their studio.

I worked with Vanessa Paradis, she said Howard never start a song with a letter P, because it pop’s on the mic and using an S in lyrics. Just little things like that, they were a big help’.

‘We done a video and the single was ready for release. Our producer, John Ducusse who worked out of Harrison Studio, was with Warner Bros who had just been taken over by Sony.

He had an album out, it was doing really well in Europe and he asked for another 25,000 copies of his album, they said no.

He had been with the company for years. After a big row they said John, you’re sacked and you can take your bands with you. Well we were one of his bands.

So they called us on December 23rd to say they had dropped us. I thought the call was going to be about the release of the single because they had already sent the acetates to radio stations. It’s a horrible feeling because I’d worked for years to get to that point. I was gutted’.

‘Around that time we put together a track and entered it into the Eurovision song contest. Sadly not successful but reached the final 20.

We recorded a few sessions with notable North East musicians, Ted Hunter and Shaun Taylor. I played in a band with guitarist Steve Dawson for about three years, that was Riff Raff.

I was also in Ramm with Arthur Ramm from Beckett. Then the JPM Band with a guy called Mark Taylor who went on to play with Simple Minds.

When I had the studio a few people came in and recorded bits and pieces, former Hellanbach members Kev Charlton and Davey Patton came in for a session.

The band Pariah came through here, Russ Tippins and Shaun Taylor he ended up in Nightwalker with me. Also guitarist Dale Carson who is now playing with Borderland. All really good players.

Some did go on to bigger things like Steve Robson he’s wrote stuff for Take That, One Direction, Christina Aguilera, a long list of them, now he’s head producer at Northern Sky Studio’s in London’.

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Bringing your story up to date what are you doing now ?

’I released a blues album in Summer 2015 The Paris Files recorded in a studio in Montmagny, north of the French capital. Now I record a lot in Richmond Studio in Durham then send it to producer MrHardearly in Paris who gets in good musicians.

This new album is more laid back and bluesy compared to my rock voice. That went really well.

I’m still very busy doing nearly 200 gig’s a year, we’re currently putting a new sixties show together to tour. I would like to take this opportunity to thank every one of the musician’s, producers, promoters that I’ve worked with through my career.

The likes of Eric Moutard, Kevin Twedddle at Richmond Studio, Shirly Teasdale who was with me in Riff Raff for 17 years. You know, music, I would do it all again. It’s given me a house, a lovely lifestyle, yes I would do it all again’.

Interview by Gary Alikivi  July 2017.

Recommended:

Lou Taylor SATAN/BLIND FURY: Rock the Knight, 26th February & 5th March 2017.

Steve Dawson SARACEN/THE ANIMALS: Long Live Rock n Roll, 2nd April 2017.

Harry Hill, FIST: Turn the Hell On, 29th April 2017.

Martin Metcalfe HOLLOW GROUND: Hungry for Rock, 18th June 2017.

Kev Charlton, HELLANBACH/BESSIE & THE ZINC BUCKETS: The Entertainer, 23rd June 2017.

Steve Thompson,( NEAT Producer) Godfather of New Wave Of British Heavy Metal, 27th June 2017.

RUNNING WITH THE PACK ‘We had a gang mentality, we weren’t scared of any band’ interview with drummer Ged Wolf

/ Alikivi

Blast Recording Studio in Newcastle is the venue to record another story for the blog. Since starting in February this year there has been over 50 interviews and over 6,000 views 

This time it’s Ged Wolf who has been drummer with North East heavy metal bands Tysondog and Atomkraft who gave him many fantastic memories which he has shared here – let’s get started Ged.

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Who were your influences and how did you get involved in playing music ?

’As a drummer I loved Cozy Powell, he was a hero, but what got me first into drumming was my brother. He was in a band with Tony Bray the Venom Inc drummer.

Before they became Venom they used to rehearse on a Saturday at Clegwell school in Hebburn. I’d go along there and inbetween breaks used to have a knock about on the drums. I found I was natural, never had a drum lesson in my life’.

‘Then Christmas morning when I was 13 year old my brother bought me a Premier red sparkle drum kit. The noise was a nightmare for my parents so I used to put t-shirts on my drums to dampen it down.

I got into listening to rock bands with other kids at school and in the meantime my brother started managing Venom and I ended up on the road crew.

Used to go to the rehearsals and got a background in how things worked. Ended up as back up drummer for the band when I was 15, never had to stand in but I was there in case’.

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‘My very first gig at Newcastle City Hall was watching Whitesnake, (pic.above with Cozy Powell 3rd from left) the second was Bad Company and I remember seeing Twisted Sister at Newcastle Mayfair.

You had to be over 18 to get in and I wasn’t old enough then but was with my brother and mates so snuck in with them. The Mayfair was the hallowed ground with a bar in it and surrounded by all the big boys.

It was a great sweaty gig but the very next day flew out to America with Venom to do a couple of shows. Out there they had Metallica supporting. They only done two shows at the Paramount Theatre in New York but they made a big impression.

We all lived together in one big house for about three weeks, it was the crew, Venom and Metallica. But me and the other drum tech Gordon were too young to go out drinking and watching bands with all the others so we stayed in the house and got drunk. But living with them was great, we had some real adventures’.

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‘The first gig in New York was memorable, we had made some huge bomb pots the size of footballs, you know Venom was all about the show. Well the guy in charge of the pyro was out of his head on something and he ended up loading the pots twice.

The bombs went off at the start of their first song Witching Hour, one of the bombs went down through the stage creating a big hole. The other one went up over the crowd, past the balcony and embedded into the back wall. There is a plaque there now, Venom 1983!

But the explosion blew the whole backline so for the second gig we had to get all new equipment. I’ve never had to work so hard all my life it was 24 hours non stop. I was that tired I was asleep under the drumriser when Metallica were playing. It was the only place I could stretch out’.

‘I was in the studio at NEAT records as drum tech when Venom were recording. I remember they were working on a new song Countess Bathory and Tony the drummer popped out for something to eat so I filled in on drums and played with Conrad and Jeff. I worked out the drums for the song. So when Tony got back they said Ged’s worked it out just do it like him!’

‘But I didn’t want to be a roadie all my life, I wanted to be in a band, see the lights, hear the crowd an all that. I had ambitions of my own and had all these studio and touring experiences at an early age, and was considered a pretty good drummer in the North East.

One day I saw an advert in local newspaper The Chronicle for a band wanting a drummer. Thing was I had just got the Venom drum kit as Tony Bray had got a new one built, a Viking drum kit the biggest in the North East. So mine was second biggest.

But I didn’t tell my brother I was going, I just went for the audition and didn’t tell the band my connections with NEAT and all that, kept it all quiet. I just turned up at the Coach and Horses pub in Wallsend with only a three piece drum kit – and I got the job !

I was drummer in Tysondog. They were like a Judas Priest sounding band so it was all fill’s which was fine for me. Every rehearsal after that I used to take an extra piece of kit so it ended up a twelve piece’.

‘But I wasn’t happy, I was a good six years younger than the others so as a young one I wasn’t getting listened to, but other aspects I had more experience. I was also a bit of a hot head you know.

Well we recorded an album with NEAT records and just before it was due to be released, I left the band. So that was it. They got in Rob Walker to replace me, great lad, good drummer’.

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How did the Atomkraft job come about ?

‘About six months after leaving Tysondog I was in NEAT Records and Venom bassist Chronos came up to me and said there’s a guy you should talk to. That’s when I met Tony Dolan.

He was a bass player, so we had a few jamming sessions and got to know each other. It was going well, just playing a few Motorhead songs stuff like that, just bass and drums.

He had a band called Atomkraft but wanted to update it. They used to wear jeans, t shirts and bullet belts, it was like the press photo for Ace of Spades.

We needed to freshen things up and arranged auditions for a guitarist and got 16 year old Rob Mathews in, he was from Pelaw. Tony was from Wallsend and I was from Jarrow. So at the time Atomkraft was just a three piece’.

‘We had punk influences, the metal thrash scene had that, we all loved AC/DC, I also loved Kiss but mix it all together and that’s what we were. The attitude side of it was from punk that was a big part of it’.

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‘We wrote, rehearsed and recorded at NEAT Records and came out with our first album Future Warriors in June ’85. Our very first gig was supporting Slayer at the Marquee in London which was Slayer’s debut European gig.

We all went down there with our gear, done the soundcheck and out pops the assistant manager of the Marquee asking who’s in your roadcrew? Well we had 14 people on our crew. Basically it was our friends from Newcastle who came down wanting to see the gig’.

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‘The stage was so small I had to arrange the drums with Slayer’s drummer Dave Lambardo and see what was the best way to do it. We were supporting them and he played drums facing the side of the stage which was a bit awkward but we sorted it out.

In the end he said ‘can you lend me a pair of drumsticks I haven’t got any’ ? I said yes it’s the least I can do.

Well we’re on stage but after only three songs of our set the whole backline goes off. Even though we had 14 roadies not one of them knew what they were doing.

We found it was the guitar that had gone off so me and Tony played along then after 30 seconds I just smashed my whole drum kit and threw it into the crowd. I’d just bought a new kit that was back home so I thought, fuck it, smash this one up !

We went off stage everyone is howling, funnily enough it went down great. We got some great press off it. Anyway stage is cleared and ready for Slayer to go on. Dave Lombardo says to me ‘have you got them drumsticks ?’

I’d hoyed everything into the crowd. So my drum roadie had to go out and get some back for him.

Yes that was Atomkraft’s debut gig. Then after that for about six weeks we went over to Europe with Venom and Exodus and had a great time’.

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Atomkraft only played a few gig’s in the North East. Was that a deliberate decision ?

’Yes by 1986 Atomkraft turned into a five piece and in came DC Rage from South Shields and Ian Swift on vocals. At a trial for that line up we got a 25 minute support slot with Girlschool at Newcastle University. Then we played The Riverside at Newcastle. But I was gutted at that gig because a lot of young kids couldn’t get in.

The thing was at Atomkraft we were once at the Mayfair and someone next to us was talking to his friends saying ‘that’s the band that everyone has heard of but nobody has seen’. I thought that was a great compliment. We weren’t bothered, we knew we hadn’t played Newcastle, that’s just the way it was’.

‘Sometimes it’s not about ability it’s about determination and focus to where you want to go. We had that as Atomkraft, we used to go to the Newcastle Mayfair on the Friday and Saturday nights getting drunk but always made sure we rehearsed every Saturday and Sunday, that was our focus and dedication.

Putting the groundwork in that’s how we got those tours. There’s no substitute for rehearsal’.

‘We had a gang mentality of it’s us against you, we don’t care if you like us we just went out on stage and done the best we could we weren’t scared of any band. We made sure if we played live or recorded we were rehearsed and ready to go.

We went out with some of the top American bands and if you weren’t up to it you were off the tour, but we put the groundwork in and worked really hard’.

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‘Through our hard work and the management, in the space of two years we done three major European tours with Venom. They were at 5-6,000 seaters some were 10,000. We were young kids compared to them.

There was a point in 1983 when Venom were the biggest selling independant band in the world – not too bad for some guys from Tyneside.

Venom were the big boys they brought over Metallica and Slayer for European tours. But the difference was that those bands ended up on good record labels that supported them with promotion.

Now there is two bands Venom and Venom Inc, it’s not a competition between them I’m friends with them all, it’s good what they are both doing’.

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Have you any memorable gigs ?

’A stand out gig for us was in ’87 The Longest Day at Hammersmith Odeon with Agent Steel, Nuclear Assault and Onslaught. There is a video of that and it went live on Radio One.

Another stand out gig was when we toured with Nasty Savage and we were the first British thrash band to play Poland. The security was 2,000 armed troops circling the crowd.

There was around 40,000 people there they loved the British bands. It was video’d and a live album was made which we never saw a penny from’.

‘Atomkraft’s biggest audiences were Holland and Germany. Another memorable gig was the Dynamo in Eindhoven. Testament and Onslaught were on the bill and Stryper were headlining.

For that we had the Future Warriors image which was Mad Max style. We got off the tour bus heading for the stage and went past Stryper who looked at us and said what’s going on here ! Our vocalist Swifty had injured his hand so we gaffa taped his mic to his hand.

Marshall Amps had just brought out Jubilee stacks which were silver, we had 12 either side so our image and our stage presence really stood out. The crowd were jumping, absolutely bouncing, I’ll never forget it.

That was the gig somebody threw something on stage, it was like a cannon ball with a fuse burning, everyone saying it’s a bomb !

It roll’s in front of my drum riser, everyone splits off the stage, so I do the natural thing and tell my drum roadie to go and get it. Turned out to be nothing just burnt itself out’.

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‘The headliners Stryper were a Christian band, and on that day nobody was allowed to swear, it was part of the contract. Well our singer Swifty went straight out there on stage ‘How the fuck ya doing Holland’.

But on the side of the stage Stryper just gave us the thumbs up, they loved us really’.

Was image important ?

’Yes we wanted to stand out, everybody was doing the Metallica thing, jeans, ripped t-shirts you know but the thing we had was as we progressed from a three piece to a five we sounded like Venom, a bit of Motorhead and Kiss.

We were speeding up, the guitar sound was getting crisper, we knew we had to up or game.

But we were on NEAT Records who never put money into their bands and all American bands coming over on Music for Nations were getting money thrown at them for tour buses and that. We never got one advance from NEAT Records and we were selling a lot of records’.

What has music given you ?

‘I was talking to me dad years ago and he said he joined the merchant navy and saw the world – I joined a band and saw the world. I’ve been to so many places and met so many people, some good some bad, but I would never change anything.

All those years ago learning how to play the drums in Clegwell School in Hebburn got me here today, it’s been one big adventure’.

Interview by Gary Alikivi July 2017.

Recommended:

WARRIOR: The Hunger, 12th April 2017.

VENOM INC.: Hebburn or Hell, 28th July 2017.

TYSONDOG: Back for Another Bite, 5th August 2017.

ACE OF BASS with North East musician Duncan Emmerson

/ Alikivi

‘Is there a bass player out there who didn’t want to be Lemmy? Motorhead were always my favourite band, and still are to this day. One of my proudest moments was meeting Fast Eddie’.

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Was there a defining moment when you said “I want to do that” ?

‘Blimey, there’s a question. Probably hearing Overkill and seeing my first gig, Motorhead supported by Saxon at Newcastle City Hall on December 2nd 1979. That did it for me, and for the following few years I was virtually a resident both at the City Hall and The Mayfair. I still maintain 1979-1984 were the best years in music. Ever’.

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What were your experiences of recording ?

‘I haven’t been in a proper recording studio since 1992 when I recorded with a band called Honey at Dungeon Studios in Oxford. I was living in Oxford at the time when there was quite a healthy music scene with a few bands becoming high profile on a national scale.

The likes of Ride, On A Friday who became Radiohead and The Jennifers who became Supergrass. I answered an advert in the paper for Honey and ended up doing a few support slots, usually at the famous Jericho Tavern.

In Dungeon Studio we recorded seven tracks in two days and slept under the mixing desk. We still keep in touch which is nice. Those experiences do give you a bond don’t they?

Actually, while I’m talking about them, our one claim to fame was that we supported a local band called On A Friday, who as any fool will know, changed their name to Radiohead’.

When did you start playing gigs in the North East and what venues did you play ?

‘The first local band I played in was a three piece called Requiem, the brainchild of Glenn S Howes, until recently the singer/guitarist with Fist. I was on the bass, and Sean Taylor from Satan was the drummer. We were a cover band, did gigs on the local pub circuit, bike rallies and the like. This went on for a couple of years from about 2008’.

WARRIOR BELGIUM

‘I joined Warrior in 2014 as the band had been asked to play at Brofest in Newcastle. They needed a bass player and Sean Taylor, yes him again, was drumming for the band. He got in touch and asked if I would like to do it.

We played the gig at Brofest in February 2014, and the year after that we played at Headbangers Open Air in Germany and Garage Dayz Revisited in that there London. I’m going to put this on record…thank you to Blitzkrieg for looking after us on both occasions’.

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‘Locally, we played the legendary venues of Trillians and the Penny Gill, and last year we played at Negasonic in Belgium which was a tremendous gig. Guido who runs it is such a lovely bloke.

Personally, I was delighted to meet Rock Goddess at HOA, we’d just come off stage and suddenly there’s Tracey Lamb asking me ‘What was it like mate’? Starstruck or what ?

To this day I’ve never been able to talk to musicians I grew up admiring and listening to, even those who have gone on to become good friends. I just babble like a twat!’.

GODDESS

Have you any funny stories from playing gigs ? 

‘Well, the one that springs to mind was doing a lunchtime gig with Requiem at a club in Sunderland which is notorious for two reasons.

I’m not going to mention the second reason, but for the first one, the audience, and there’s usually a healthy turnout, take great pride in ignoring the band. They’ll read their papers and play dominoes, and revel in silence after each song.

Anyway, we did our opening number, finished to deathly quiet and Glenn, as he did at every gig announces ‘Good Evening (name of venue)’ at the top of his voice. Not a thing.

Then we heard from the darkness ‘It’s lunchtime ya daft c**t’. Probably the only reaction ever, which should be a point of pride’.

‘One more semi funny tale. When Warrior played HOA we did a signing session after the set. One guy presented us with a cd by the band from Chesterfield with the same name, the album was called Let Battle Commence.

Despite the fact they were a trio, he refused to be convinced he had the wrong band and wouldn’t leave until we signed it. I think he had to be removed eventually.’

What are you doing now and are you still involved with music ?

‘I’m currently playing bass for the recently resurrected Dark Heart, who had an album out in 1984 called Shadows Of The Night on Roadrunner Records.

I joined Dark Heart after I left Warrior. The line up is myself, Alan Clark who was an original founder member on lead vocals/guitar, Nick Catterick, an outstanding lead guitarist who I’ve known for many years now, and Elliot Sneddon on drums who I played with in Warrior’.

‘How that came about was Alan Clark got in touch and asked if I’d be interested as he’d been offered an album deal and wanted to resurrect the band. He’s a great singer and I jumped at the chance to work with him.

Having Nick and Elliot on board as well was the icing on the cake. It’s nice to get the old rhythm section back together.

Dark Heart are currently recording a new album to be released later this year via the Greek label Sleaszy Rider Records. We’ve already got rough mixes of around five or six songs so it’s well under way, and I have to say it’s going to be well worth a listen.  Watch this space….’

Interview by Gary Alikivi July 2017.

Recommended:

Brian Ross SATAN/BLITZKREIG: Life Sentence, 20th February 2017.

Lou Taylor SATAN/BLIND FURY: Rock the Knight, 26th February & 5th March 2017.

Micky McCrystal, Cat Scratch Fever, March 17th 2017.

Steve Dawson SARACEN/THE ANIMALS: Long Live Rock n Roll, 2nd April 2017.

WARRIOR: The Hunger, 12th April 2017.

Harry Hill FIST: Turn the Hell On, April 29th 2017.

Martin Metcalfe HOLLOW GROUND: Hungry for Rock, 18th June 2017.

Kev Charlton HELLANBACH: The Entertainer, 23rd June 2017.

Steve Thompson,( NEAT Producer) Godfather of New Wave Of British Heavy Metal, 27th June 2017.

TYSONDOG: Back for Another Bite, 5th August 2017.

ATOMKRAFT: Running with the Pack, 14th August 2017.

Richard ‘Rocky’ Laws, Tyger Bay, 24th August 2017.

BACK FOR ANOTHER BITE – with Kev Wynn, bassist with NWOBHM band Tysondog

/ Alikivi

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Have you any funny stories from gigs ?

‘I could fill a book really ! Some of them unprintable. But one of the stupidest was when Tysondog were in Scotland and before a gig in Glasgow we were due to be interviewed by the legend that is Tom Russell on his radio Clyde Rock Show. We were trying to find the studio, no sat nav’s in them days !

We stopped in the Clydebank area and asked these young kids for direction, I noticed some of them were carrying guitars. Well years later around 1991 I’m in the Cardiff Post House hotel on business when I get talking to, well pissed really, with Wet,Wet,Wet, yes the pop band.

They had just performed at Cardiff Stadium in front of 50,000 people and after the gig the drummer Tommy Cunningham bought about a dozen bottles of champers in the hotel bar. Tommy says to me ‘Kev I hear you used to be in a band ?’ When I told him yeah Tysondog you won’t have heard of them we were a NWOBHM band from the ’80s.

Well from his reaction he nearly died. He jumped up shouting ‘No fuckin’ way man !’ ..yup …it was him and some of the other lads out of Wet, Wet, Wet, who we’d asked for directions.

They said that night they tuned in to the radio to hear us being interviewed and were telling everyone they’d met some rock stars.
Oh forgot to tell ya that after the radio interview we all jumped into our hotel swimming pool bollock naked. They had security cameras so most of the staff had a good laugh at a bunch of skinny, pissed up, hairy arsed Geordies !’

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Where did it all begin ?

‘When we were 16 year old we just played the local church halls and youth clubs. Then progressed to pubs in the Newcastle area’

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Kevin also talked about his influences…

‘Early on I liked Bowie, Queen, Sweet, T.Rex. then proper rock of Deep Purple, Sabbath and Zeppelin. That lead me to heavier stuff like Judas Priest and Saxon. I decided to get involved in playing music after watching my first concert The Sweet at the Newcastle City Hall. They were heavy as f##k !’

What were your experiences of recording ?

‘Our first demo was a live recording of a gig in a working man’s club in Ashington, Northumberland. We sent a copy to NEAT records who had just started releasing heavy metal records. They asked us to record a single there. It was our first time ever in a studio and we came out with Eat the Rich’.

(In 1983 Eat the Rich was released as a 7” single on NEAT records. The studio also released two albums by the band. Beware of the Dog in 1984 and two year later Crimes of Insanity, which included a version of School’s Out, the Alice Cooper anthem).

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What are Tysondog doing now and have you got any plans for the future ?

Yeah Tysondog released their third album Cry Havoc on Rocksector Records in 2015. In September this year we’ve got a gig at the Gaura metal festival in Brazil with Anvil.

Later that month we go to Manchester for the Grimm Up North festival with a few bands on the bill including founder members of Saxon’.

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‘Then in December it’s the big HRH NWOBHM festival in Sheffield with Satan, Raven and a few others before a few club shows in Newcastle and over to Holland.

Last gig this year is in December with Girlschool, Diamond Head, Tytan, Spartan Warrior and a few others, it’s a great line up at the Blast from the Past festival held in Belgium.

We are busy planning more European dates for 2018. Yeah that’s enough to be getting on with’.

Interview by Gary Alikivi June 2017.

Recommended:

WARRIOR: The Hunger, 12th April 2017.

VENOM INC: Hebburn or Hell, 28th July 2017.

ATOMKRAFT: Running with the Pack, 14th August 2017.