NORTH EAST WRITERS

ZAMYATIN: THE RUSSIA – TYNESIDE CONNECTION. Making the video.

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Diary entry 12th December 2016: Reading a post by Leslie Hurst on the Orwell Society blog, a possible link between Russian Yevgeny Zamyatin, author George Orwell and his wife Eileen O’Shaughnessy.

Zamyatin was an author, he also supervised the building of icebreakers for the Russian Navy in Tyneside shipyards in 1916. Looked into this and found Zamyatin an interesting character and worth following up. 

Monday morning jumped on a metro to Newcastle City Library to check out Zamyatin’s link to Tyneside. Got the lift up to the local history section on the 6th floor asked the library assistant if they had any material about him. She came back from the archive with three pieces of information, dates and index number.

There was a local biography note, a page from Alan Myers book ‘Myers Literary Guide to the North East’ and a date of an article in the Journal from September 19th, 1988. These were all photocopied. 

Within 20 minutes I had found what I was looking for. Normally in local history there is a bit searching, photocopy runs out of paper, the microfiche is difficult to thread and it’s running slow etc., but no it all went very smoothly.

Then went out into the town with grey skies and a spit of rain. Over the road I caught sight of some graffiti. I had my small Canon camera with me so nipped over and took a few pics.

The slogans were on the back of a muti storey car park with small slits for windows. Brutal architecture. Very East European. Amongst the slogans was a red hammer and sickle ! Went straight to Waterstones and bought a copy of Zamyatins novel ‘We’.

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While working on this blog during 2017 I put aside the Zamyatin project until I had more time. Then in May this year started to fully research and write the script. 

Diary entry 4th June 2018: Got on the metro to Jesmond and found the address where Zamyatin was living when he worked on Tyneside. As I went to knock on the door the owner walked up the path. That was fortunate. Introduced myself and told her what I was there for.

We talked for 10 minutes about Zamyatin then exchanged contacts. Took photos outside the house and the blue plaque on the wall. Then walked about 5 mins to St Andrews Cemetery to see the headstone of Eileen, Orwell’s wife. The grave is in good nick with flowers planted nearby. Did Eileen have any contact with Zamyatin ?

A short script was put together using A Soviet Heretic by D.J.Richards. The narration was recorded at The Customs Space studio in South Shields.

Tyneside actor’s Iain Cunningham with Jonathan Cash adding the voice of Zamyatin. Again, as on many projects North East musician John Clavering captured the mood.

Gary Alikivi   July 2018.

WRITING ON THE WALL – in conversation with North East music journalist, broadcaster & producer Ian Ravendale

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Ian Penman has been a television and radio presenter, researcher, producer and journalist for more than 30 years, generally writing as Ian Ravendale to avoid confusion with the Ian Penman formerly of the NME.

He returned to music journalism (and Ian Ravendale) seven years ago writing for Classic Rock, Classic Pop, Vintage Rock, AOR, Vive Le Rock, Iron Fist, Blues Matters, American Songwriter, The Word and many more.

Ian has interviewed literally thousands of musicians from multi-millionaire rockstars to local indie bands on the dole…

‘I worked in television for Border, Tyne Tees, Channel 4 and also ran River City Productions an independent production company based in Gateshead.

In addition to making lots of local programmes I also worked on national music shows including Get Fresh, Bliss and (to a lesser extent) The Tube. The Tube was shot at Tyne Tees Television’s Studio 5 on City Road in Newcastle. The site is now a Travel Lodge!

It was interesting going to the canteen on recording day for shows like shows like Razzmatazz and The Tube and seeing who was in. I remember standing behind Phil Everly as he got his cod and chips!’ 

‘The music programmes I worked on were mainly produced by Border Television in Carlisle. I spent a lot of time there in the 1980’s. At Tyne Tees I worked mainly in the Arts and Entertainment department. Anything different or off the wall it would usually be me doing it.

We produced a program about rock poetry, presented by Mark Mywurdz, who at the time was a Tube regular. For some reason Mark wanted to present the program just wearing a raincoat. Nothing underneath!

After we finished recording the show one of the camera men came up and congratulated me; ‘That was the biggest load of rubbish I’ve seen in my life!’  I did a lot of alternative stuff. Some was challenging but none was rubbish!’

Talking about alternative stuff, can you remember Wavis O’Shave ?

‘He had a number of names – Wavis, Fofffo Spearjig, Rod Stewart, Pans Person. When I was writing for Sounds he saw me as a way in as the paper liked the off-beat stuff. He was a great self publicist. And still is!

He once told me about getting £1,000 out of the News of the World for a tip-off about a forthcoming witches coven scheduled for Witton Gilbert-or wherever Wavis said it was!’ 

What can you remember about working on Get Fresh ? (kids 1986-88  morning weekend TV show produced by the regional ITV companies taking it in turns for Saturday and Border producing all the Sunday editions).

‘For Get Fresh and Bliss, Border’s 1985 summer replacement for The Tube, most of the guests came up to Carlisle the night before so I’d take them out. People like Rat Scabies and Captain Sensible from The Damned.

We’d go into the music pubs and clubs around Carlisle and people would love seeing them there. Rat got up a few times to play with some of the local bands. When I met him I said ‘What do I call you?’ (His real name is Chris Miller). (Adopts cockney accent) ‘Just call me Rat’. So I did. Nice guy.

At the time he was really hoping to get the drum job with The Who, as Keith Moon had recently died. Didn’t happen, unfortunately.’

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‘Bliss was presented by Muriel Grey and produced in Carlisle by Janet Street-Porter. We featured live bands, got them to play for half an hour, used two songs on the weekly show, then repackage the 30 minutes for a Bliss In Concert special.

There wasn’t that much going on in Carlisle at the time, so we had no problem getting local kids in as the audience.

One week we didn’t have a live band and I’d got an advance copy of the famous animated video for Take On Me by A-Ha, who at that point were totally unknown.

Graham K Smith, the other music researcher and I thought it was really good so I rang their record company to see if A-Ha were available and importantly if they could play live. A resounding ‘Yes, they can do it’ was the answer.

Bliss was aimed at a teenage audience so A-ha would have fitted in perfectly. Janet-Street Porter comes in and looks at the video and goes (adopts cockney accent) ‘Oh no, that’s art school stuff, it’s boring. Draggy!’ 

Border TV could have had half an hour of A-Ha playing live in concert for the first time in the UK. But no. The band she booked instead were King Kurt, a well-past their sell-by date punk band.

So up they come in their ratty old bus with dogs on pieces of string and a stage act that consisted of throwing slop at each other. We – or rather Janet – turned down what became one of the biggest bands of the eighties’.

When you were reviewing gigs in the early 1980’s for Sounds were there any bands that surprised you or were disappointed with ?

‘It took me a while to ‘get’ punk. I was never into the boring British blues bands and prog acts which still show-up on the BBC’s compilations of 70’s rock. With the exception of The Sensational Alex Harvey Band who I liked.

When punk came along it started to make more sense. I was also into what is now classed as Americana. Along with more-left field bands like Sparks and Be-Bop Deluxe.’

I’m reading the book ’No Sleep till Canvey Island -The Great Pub Rock Revolution’ the book mentions the early careers of Joe Strummer, Nick Lowe and Elvis Costello…

’There were bands that were like a doorway between punk and the boring rock bands and Brinsley Schwarz, with Nick Lowe were one of them. I saw them play Backhouse Park, here in Sunderland. Dr Feelgood were another.

I saw The Damned support Marc Bolan at Newcastle City Hall and it was a short, sharp, shock. And I thought; ‘OK. What was that…?’

Phil Sutcliffe, my predecessor at Sounds did an interview with The Damned for Radio Newcastle’s Bedrock show that we both worked on. It was 30 seconds long and finished off with someone shouting ‘Oi! Who put duh lights out’!

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The big article you wrote for Sounds in May 1980 featured local metal bands Mythra, Fist, Raven, Tygers of Pan Tang and White Spirit. How did that come about ?

‘I was freelancing at Sounds, writing articles and reviewing gigs, some of which were of local bands. I was also working on the Bedrock program and one of my co-presenters was Tom Noble who was managing the Tygers.

I’d already written individual articles about the Tygers, Fist and Raven and Geoff Barton, the assistant editor at Sounds asked me to source a few more bands for a 4,000 word article. The North East New Wave of British Heavy Metal was born!’

NWOBHM had Iron Maiden in London, Saxon in Barnsley and Def Leppard in Sheffield….

‘Yes. As a reviewer I went as far as Redcar. A lot of the local bands I reviewed were from here in Sunderland, Newcastle and South Shields.

Sounds also had a guy called ‘Des Moines’, a pseudonym for a writer from Leeds called Nigel Burnham who is now an agricultural journalist and Mick Middles, based in Manchester. Between the three of us we had the north covered.

One time the Tygers of Pan Tang were supporting Saxon and I’d gone along. I’d previously written a review of Saxon which included something along the lines of ‘in six month’s time they’ll be back playing social clubs’.

At the gig Tygers guitarist Robb Weir came up and said, ‘Biffs lookin’ for you!’. Fortunately, he didn’t find me. Not yet anyway.’

Was there any conflict between watching a band that you weren’t a fan of and writing something positive about them ?

‘Geoff never said to me, ‘We’ve got a big metal readership here can you go easy on them?’ He never wanted me to do that. But I found metal bands easy to take the piss out of – and I did.

This stimulated very angry letters like ‘How dare Ian Ravendale slag off Ozzy. I’ve seen him and he was great’. I remember my opening line of a review I did of Ozzy, ‘What I want to know is how is Ozzy Osbourne so cabaret’.

I interviewed him a few times for Bedrock but my interviewees tended not to click onto the fact that ‘Bedrock’s Ian Penman’ was also sharp-tongued Sounds scribe Ian Ravendale.

One time a few years after the Sounds ‘cabaret’ comment I was working at Tyne Tees and on the Friday Ozzy was playing The Tube. The Arts and Entertainment office was next door and I saw him in the corridor looking lost.

So I went up to him and said ‘Hi Ozzy, The Tube office is just over there’. He thanked me and then said ’I’ve met you before haven’t I’. He still remembered me from the radio interviews we’d done’.

How did you get interested in writing ?

‘As a teenager I was a huge music fan and also into American comics. I wrote for a few comic fanzines then published some of my own which occasionally still turn up on Ebay. That gave me an insight into writing for public consumption’. 

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The Bedrock team with Ian sitting on the right.

What about radio? You were involved in Bedrock for nearly ten years…

‘Dick Godfrey was producing a program called Bedrock for BBC Radio Newcastle which featured interviews from national and gave local bands exposure which was otherwise very hard for them to get at the time.

I had always been interested in the nuts and bolts of the music industry and how it all worked and listened to programs like Radio 1’s Scene And Heard.

Dick had a feature called Top Track where each week a different listener would come in and play his favourite track and talk about it. ‘Some Of Shellys Blues’ by Michael Nesmith was my choice. This went down well with Dick so I asked if he’d be interested in me contributing features. ‘Yes but there’s no cash involved’.

Nesmith was soon going to be playing in the UK and I was going along to the gig so I asked Dick if Bedrock be interested in me trying to get an interview with him. ‘Definitely’ replied Dick.

So I phoned a record label I’d heard Michael was about to sign to and they gave me his hotel number. As ‘Ian Penman from BBC Radio Newcastle’ I arranged an interview, which I did a couple days later in London, the day after the gig. That was my start in radio’. 

How did you start with Sounds?

‘Phil Sutcliffe, who was the North East correspondent for Sounds, was a friend of Dick Godfrey and also worked on Bedrock. When Phil moved to London he recommended me to Geoff Barton, Sound’s reviews editor, to be his replacement.

Phil wrote a lot about the Angelic Upstarts, he liked the music but also had a sympathetic ear to what they were doing. He wrote the first articles about them. Same for Penetration, Neon and Punishment of Luxury.

I’d also been involved in the music fanzine Out Now which Tom Noble had produced, so I was becoming pretty proficient at interviewing and writing reviews.

I was out at gigs four nights a week and was known enough to be able to walk straight into Newcastle City Hall via the stage door. This put me in touch with Tyne Tees TV and when a researcher vacancy came up, I applied for that, got it and carried on at Sounds for a short while.

I also wrote a few pieces for Kerrang, which Geoff Barton had moved across from Sounds to edit. I wrote the first article on Venom. Yes, I’m responsible for Black Metal (laughs).

Then as now, my attitude was regardless of whether I liked the music or not if I could write something positive about local bands, and it was entertaining. I’ll do that.

If you write something negative about a local band, you could do them major harm. Also, a person in Aberdeen doesn’t want to know whether a band from South Shields are crap. Why would they?’

For the work that you were doing how important do you think research is?

’Some writers think of an idea then write a piece in support of that. I don’t do that. For me it’s about the facts and information presented in an interesting way. Opinions and personal taste are what they are. Maybe you like a band that I don’t. That’s fine.  But facts stand.

I do my absolute level best to write as accurately as possible. It’s really important for me to do that. Sometimes information comes from two or three sources. And if the information is contradictory, I’ll say that’. 

Any memorable incidents in your career ?

’I interviewed Debbie Harry at Newcastle City Hall when Blondie had just broken big. We were in one of the really small dressing rooms. It was tiny. The record rep said ‘Ok Ian you got seven minutes’.

He introduced me to Debbie who was standing with her back to me. She was leaning on a shelf writing stuff down. I said ‘Writing out the song lyrics ?’ She replied ‘Yeah, well I don’t really know them from the new album yet’. It felt a bit awkward.

I literally spent the next three minutes just watching her writing with her back to me, stunning in her jumble sale collection of clothes. Eventually she sat down and off we went.

All of this was fairly new to her, she had just been playing CBGB’s (small club in New York) and now it was to gigs with 2,000 fans like the City Hall. She was trying to get used to all this Debbie-fever that was going on around her.

By minute seven we were finally getting somewhere, and she was opening up when the record rep walked in ‘Right Ian. Times up!’

I did actually interview the solo Debbie on the phone for Get Fresh nine years later and she was much more forthcoming.  (The  City Hall interview is on Rocks Back pages if you fancy a listen. RB is a pay site but there’s lots and lots of great stuff up there).

For more information contact : http://ianravendale.blogspot.com

Interview by Gary Alikivi July 2018.

WESTOE ROSE – making the documentary about South Shields Historian & Photographer Amy Flagg

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Amy Flagg is fondly remembered as the lady in a hat and trench coat, who quietly went about photographing buildings and recording history of the town she loved. But who was Amy ?

By the Second World War both her parents had died, plus the town she loved was falling apart from the German air raids. Her life was crumbling around her. When the bombs dropped, she captured the scars with her camera.

This is a story of courage and determination of a very unique woman who captured some of the most devastating images of South Shields in the 20th century.

Just some of the script from my documentary about South Shields photographer and local historian Amy Flagg. I came across her photo’s a few years ago when I was part of a group who volunteered to digitize the photographic collection held in South Tyneside Library.

They were excellent photographs especially her record of the Second World War bomb damage in South Shields. A brave woman.

In my research I found that Amy had a darkroom so was able to print her own photograph’s. I know the magic that can happen there as I had my own set up during the early ’90s. My darkroom was in a cupboard under the stairs where I’d print the black and white images.

Before I had the home set up, I went on a short course in photography and darkroom techniques at a local community centre. If I was investing time and money, I wanted to know my way around a darkroom first.

I’d go out with a roll of film and shoot some photo’s, develop them into a roll of negatives then put them into the enlarger and exposed the photographic paper to the light shining through the negative. Then put the paper through the tray of chemicals.

The image started to come through – it was like magic. I knew I had to do more of this, and I did.

In June 2016 the time was right to make a short documentary about the life of Amy Flagg. Using archive information, Amys local history diary entries (pic above) and photographs from South Shields Library I put a script together.

North East playwrite Tom Kelly provided the narration, local journalist and writer, Janis Blower, added the voice of Amy. We  recorded the voice overs at The Customs Space studio in South Shields.

As with many documentaries I’ve made, North East musician John Clavering captured the mood with some great music.

On March 8th, 2017 ‘Westoe Rose’ was screened at The Word in South Shields on International Woman’s Day.

Watch the documentary ‘Westoe Rose’ and to check out some of my other films go to You Tube and subscribe to my channel.

Gary Alikivi    June 2018.

SECRETS & LIES – making a documentary based on the the life of Baron Avro Manhattan.

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I came across Avro Manhattan in Summer 2012 in the Local Studies Department of South Shields Library. At the time I was researching South Shields born Eileen O’Shaughnessy, wife of 1984 author George Orwell.

The library have a couple of large cabinets, inside are files with photographs and cuttings from local newspapers of notable people and events on Tyneside. All in alphabetical order. I flicked through to the O’s but landed in the letter M’s and came across a name which was unusual for Tyneside.

Sounding like a ’70s rock star, Baron Avro Manhattan was born in Italy in 1914, he was an author and artist. In the articles they reported he met Picasso, had homes in London and Spain, and a plot of land in the Bahamas. In his will he left over half a million pounds. Impressive story for someone who ended their days in a terraced house in South Shields.

A week later I was in a charity shop when I came across a small book ‘Poems by Manhatten’. At the entrance of South Shields library there was a small plinth about 5ft tall with a bust of Manhattan on top. I started to tap his head a couple of times for luck.

After completing the Wildflower film about Eileen O’Shaughnessy (available on the Alikivi you tube channel) I started research at the end of his life, records show he is buried in the Blackhill cemetery in Shotley Bridge. His wife’s parents lived in the town which is 30 miles from South Shields.

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Article from The Shields Gazette, June 2015.

There was more information on various websites but a lot more digging was needed, I talked to his former neighbours and friends. Stories I heard about him were getting bizarre – who was he? I put a request in local newspaper The Shields Gazette and received a few calls in response.

The story was on their website and a woman from Germany called Gunda Kraepelin got in touch. She sent over photos of Avro when he was a young artist in Italy. She also told stories about him when he was young as her mother knew him well.

A visit to London was arranged as I got in touch with an art dealer from Sussex who has an extensive collection of his framed artwork. Then another response from somebody closer to home.

A woman had bought the South Shields house that he died in. Inside were carpets, curtains, old bits of furniture and in a spare room upstairs was a box of artwork, books, letters and photographs – full of personal stuff. Lucky she had kept hold of it and now handed it over to me – it was a goldmine of information about Avro’s life.

After months of research and writing the script, I was ready to record and make a documentary. North East actors Jonathan Cash with his wife Helen were going to be the voices of Avro and his wife Anne. We recorded the narration and musician’s John Clavering and Dom Santos added music and sound.

In The Customs Space studio in South Shields, I was sitting with the sound engineer Martin Trollope and Helen Cash in the control room. In the studio Jonathan was sitting next to a microphone with a copy of the script.

After reading all the material on Avro, writing the story and looking at his photo’s I imagined what he might sound like. I was looking down at the script when Martin said ok let’s go for it. Jonathan read the first sentence and immediately I turned to Helen and said, ‘Avro’s in the room’. 

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Leaving plenty of space and time when working on a project allows more information to be collected – a positive aspect of not having to work to a deadline. I did receive a couple more leads but nothing that would add to the film.

Then in 2018 I shared this intriguing story. The search isn’t over to find out all the secrets and lies surrounding Avro Manhattan.

Watch ‘Secrets & Lies’ here and check out some of my other films on You Tube and subscribe to the channel. 

Gary Alikivi    July 2018.

NEAT BITES – Making Records in Wallsend

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Neat Records were based in Wallsend, North East England. The label was established in the late ’70s by Dave Woods, who was the owner of Impulse Studios.

It was notable for releases by Venom, Raven and Blitzkreig who are acknowledged as major influences on American bands Metallica, Megadeth and Anthrax.

Songwriter and producer Steve Thompson helped set up Neat and produced the initial recordings…

‘One day Dave Woods came in and said there’s a band who are making a bit of noise out there why not get them in and sell a few records? So, in came Tygers of Pan Tang to cut three tracks.

Incidentally it was to be the third single I’d produced for NEAT. Now we know it is known as the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, and the tide was coming in that very evening haha’. 

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ROBB WEIR (Tygers of Pan Tang) ‘In 1979 we recorded, Don’t Touch Me There. It had a release number 003 so we were in at the beginning of the Neat Record label story. We were the first heavy metal band to be recorded in the studio. So, I’m very proud of the Tygers giving the Neat label a direction.

Impulse studios took a chance and pressed 1,000 copies, that was a lot for a small independent label. Don’t Touch Me There was reviewed in Sounds newspaper which made a massive difference, so the next pressing was 4,000 !

Then studio owner Dave Woods was approached by MCA record company, they wanted us! So Dave did a deal, essentially selling the Tygers to them. So MCA pressed around 50,000 copies of the single!’

BRIAN ROSS (Blitzkreig) ‘I remember the first time in Impulse Studio was great we made it feel like our second home.

It came highly recommended as Tyne Tees TV used it to record their jingles there and we recorded a jingle Hot n Heavy Express which Alan Robson used on his radio show. It went well so we extended it into a single. NEAT put it out on a compilation EP.

Now this studio was the label to be on, and I mean in the country not just the North East, I’ve recorded many tracks there as Satan, Avenger and Blitzkreig. It’s a shame it’s not there now’. 

ANTONY BRAY (Venom) ‘Conrad was tape operator at NEAT doing a few days here and there and he bugged the owner Dave Woods about getting spare time in the studio for the band. He kept asking him ‘can my band come in on the weekend ?

Woodsy got so sick of him he just said ok, just do it, but pay for the tape. So we recorded a three track EP and we thought it might get a little review somewhere.

I was still working at Reyrolles factory then and one morning I wandered in, and someone had a copy of the Sounds. Couldn’t believe it, there’s a two page spread about our EP, f’ing hell look at this.

When Woodsy saw it he thought, I hate the band, think they are bloody awful – but kerching!’

KEITH NICHOLL (Impulse studio engineer) ‘With Raven, their playing was always intensive but there were loads of stories and quite a few laughs. I think they simply wanted to do a better album than the first and then again, the third. Any band would. Can’t remember if there was an official tour but they did loads of gigs. Good live band’.

HARRY HILL (Fist) ‘The first single we put out was Name, Rank and Serial Number and You Never Get Me Up in One of Those on the b side. We done a lot of rehearsal and prep work, so we were tight, ready to record.

When we done Name, Rank we were on Northern Life TV. The cameras came down filmed in the studio that was 1980. Strangely the only piece of vinyl I have is our single The Wanderer. We started putting it in our set so yeah, went in and recorded it.

Status Quo released a version a couple of months after us but honestly thought our version was better haha’.

GARY YOUNG (Avenger) ’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’.

DAVY LITTLE (Axis) ‘I remember Fist guitarist Keith Satchfield was in when we were recording. He was always track suited up. Getting fit and going on runs in preparation for a tour.

I had met him a few times when I was younger, I used to go and see Warbeck and Axe. Always thought he was a cool musician and writer. Plus, a nice fella.

We were very inexperienced and new nothing about studios. He gave us advice on how to set up amps. Was very supportive I never forgot that.

Also, when we were in there a very young moody boy was working there. Making tea, helping get kit in. Always drawing. Asked to see some of his drawings. All dark, tombstones, skulls, flying demons…nice kid tho’ said he didn’t think we were very heavy metal. I agreed.

He said, “one day I am going to have the heaviest band ever”. I met Chronos years later in a club in Newcastle when he was fronting the mighty Venom. A nice lad’.

STEVE WALLACE (Shotgun Brides) ‘There was a kid called Richard Denton who grew up in the same area as us and he was working A&R at Impulse records in Wallsend. He persuaded the owner Dave Woods to take us on.

We went into Impulse Studio and recorded the track Restless, that was engineered and produced by Kev Ridley in 1987. The b side of the single was Eighteen.

We recorded the song bit by bit, tracking it up. Unlike a few other bands it wasn’t recorded by playing all the way through and off you go add a couple of overdubs, no it was fully tracked. It eventually ended up on a NEAT compilation album’.

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MICHAEL MAUGHAN (Phasslayne) ‘In the summer of ’85 Phasslayne were approached by Neat Records. Dave Woods was the main man there.

What happened was we recorded a demo at Desert Sounds in Felling which they really liked so the label asked us to record a live no dubs demo in their studio in Wallsend. On hearing that Dave Woods signed us to do an album.

But just before we got our record deal our singer left and everyone looked at me so that’s how I ended up doing the vocals. I think Keith Nichol was the engineer. For guitars I used my Strat and Maurice Bates from Mythra loaned me his Les Paul. We called the album Cut it Up, it’s on vinyl’.

KEV CHARLTON (Hellanbach) ‘We got a deal with NEAT records to record our first album. That was the best time. After rehearsing for months getting the new songs together, we recorded the album which is a very proud moment in my life. Now Hear This came out in ’83 and was produced by Keith Nichol.

I remember getting the first copy of the album, taking it into work thinking this might be me leaving the shipyards. It was one of the weirdest times of my life because it came out to amazing five-star reviews and some of the big bands weren’t even getting five stars.

I remember sitting in the toilets of Wallsend shipyard reading the reviews in Kerrang and Sounds, thinking this will be the last time I’ll be in the shipyard. But it wasn’t !’ 

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To read a comprehensive story of NEAT records get a hold of the book Neat and Tidy by John Tucker.

It examines the history of the label, its bands and their releases including interviews with many key players in the Neat Records’ story such as label boss David Wood, producer Steve Thompson, Raven’s John Gallagher and Jeff ‘Mantas’ Dunn from Venom.

https://www.johntuckeronline.co.uk/neat-and-tidy-the-story-of-neat-records.html

Interviews by Gary Alikivi     2018.

Recommended:

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

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

John Gallagher, RAVEN: Staring into the Fire, 3rd May 2017.

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

Steve Thompson (NEAT Producer) Godfather of NWOBHM, 27th June 2017.

Richard Laws TYGERS OF PAN TANG: Tyger Bay 24th August 2017.

Robb Weir TYGERS OF PAN TANG: Doctor Rock  2017

1980: The Year Metal was Forged on Tyneside, 11th February 2018.

Guardian Studio: Defender of the North 3rd May 2018.

MARK MY WORDS with Ettrick Scott from Jazz Riot

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‘I’m loathe to describe myself as a poet because I’ve studied the form in depth – Keats, Wordsworth, Shelley etc that’s your poets. Me ? I’m just a rhyming gobshite mate.

I went to Northumbria University in my 40’s and did a creative writing degree and I started studying and writing poetry. Something just clicked and ended up with me starting Jazz Riot.

Who are Staggerin’ Jon Lee on Lap pedal steel from Byker and I’m not entirely sure where guitarist Stevie G lives these days – near Killingworth somewhere, maybe? and me, I’m a talker based in Ovingham, Northumberland.’

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

’Around early ’89. The first proper band was The Legendary Harley Dread. Three quarters of this combo were sales assistants from Newcastles Grott Guitars. We were influenced by the Stooges, Doors, Stranglers and in my case Guns n Roses.

I’m fascinated by hedonism. Appetite for Destruction was an amazing album. I read an article about them once which said that had Dionysus – the Greek God of wine, ritual madness and theatre – been at large in Los Angeles in the mid ‘80s, he would have been a member of GNR. I totally agree with that.

They went all bloated and shite after Appetite mind, but that’s what inevitably happens when you throw millions of dollars at drug addicts and alcoholics. 

I’d estimate that around 90% of our gigs were at The Broken Doll and the Riverside in Newcastle. Our first gig was at the Doll supporting Mega City Four.

I tried to conquer my nerves beforehand by getting absolutely lathered on Southern Comfort. The end result being that I went all Iggy Pop for the gig and can’t remember anything about it.

The rest of the band were peeved at the clip I was in but also impressed that I managed to sing all the right words.

We also played there with Penetration’s Pauline Murray. The only other name act we gigged with was ex-Hawkwind guitarist Huw Lloyd Langton. Both at the Doll and the Kasbah in Sunderland.

Looking back we were incompetent and awful. But being in a band with your mates in your early twenties is like being pirates innit ? We wore tight leather trousers, abused substances, pulled some lasses and got paid, sometimes’.

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Who were your influences in music ?

‘I’m a writer. I’m all about words, my primary influence has to be my dad. I’m the offspring of an Art teacher mother and an English lecturer father.

So, I’m basically an arty little twat who likes words a lot. Sadly, the art gene passed me by. I can’t even draw a decent stick man. But the English bit got me big time.

My parents split up when I was 10-month-old and all of my early memories of my dad involve being in a car with him spouting assorted lyrics and folk songs at me.

The first rhyme I can remember committing to memory I was maybe 5 or 6, was by Leonard Cohen and it’s one I still love to this day. ‘I lit a thin green candle to make you jealous of me. But the room just filled up with mosquitoes, they’d heard that my body was free’.

To me that’s a perfect rhyming couplet; it’s unsettling, there’s a sadness there, and it’s quite funny in a dark sort of way. Whenever I meet someone who peddles the tired myth that L.Cohen Esq. makes music to slash your wrists to, I know I’m most likely talking to someone who hasn’t listened to him much and is just recycling an opinion.

I find his writing immensely touching and funny as fuck, loaded with humanity and dry as a bone humour.

The second couplet I can remember learning is from Time by David Bowie; ’Time, she flexes like a whore/Falls wanking to the floor’. Which is maybe not the sort of thing one should be reciting to a child still at infant school.

But here, that’s my old man for you. He rarely modifies his patter based on the age of the person he’s talking to’.

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How did you get involved in music ?

‘I always wanted to be the singer in a band because, to my mind at least, the singer is the one who writes all the lyrics – or he should anyway.

The one defining incident that made me want to be in a band was this; Aged 14 me and two other kids were jamming in our school music block one lunchtime – guitar, drums, me singing. The music room had a tiny window which looked onto an area where all the hard kids gathered to smoke.

Me and the hard kids did not get along at all. I was bullied a bit at school, not a severe kicking type, but a fair bit of hassle because I was different. Different in a way that’s hard to quantify but I suppose ‘arty little twat’ goes some way to explain my school years.

Anyway our playing quickly attracted the attention of the hard lads and they didn’t like it one little bit. They started screaming abuse and flicking the v’s at the window, and then began spitting on it.

After 10 minutes the window was completely covered in hockle. Y’knaa I’d be the first to admit I’m a bit of a wind-up merchant and as soon as I saw the possibility to piss people off – I can remember clear as day thinking ‘Oh aye, I’m fuckin’ having this’.

What were your experiences of recording

‘We recorded one three track demo at Newcastle Arts Centre, I can’t remember us sending it out to anyone. Just Say Yes, Heads Gone Crazy and Flesh Starts Creeping – yes we had live fast die young lifestyles then.

We started recording and drinking at 9.30am. We were mortal by the afternoon. I fell over the mixing desk. The bassist couldn’t nail down his parts.

The engineer sent us to the pub to stop distracting him any further. Years later I found that the engineer took over bass and stood in for him’.

Did you record any TV appearances or film any music videos ?

‘There used to be a video knocking about of us onstage and backstage at the Riverside supporting Mega City Four. We all lost our copies and it’s a real shame because I don’t think there’s any footage of the Riverside backstage area. It would be interesting to see again. Anybody got it ?’

Have you any stories from playing gigs ?

‘My favourite involves the two gigs we done with Hawkwinds Huw Lloyd Langton. A man who had possibly taken one acid trip too many, bless him.

After we supported him at the Broken Doll in Newcastle, we had a good crack on with him, got on really well.

Then we played with him again in Sunderland about three months later. We got chatting after the gig, but it quickly became apparent that he didn’t have the first clue who we were and no memory whatsoever of having met us before. Drugs man – just say no kids’.

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

‘It amuses me that I sang in bands for a few years and got pretty much nowhere. But as soon as I started talking instead I got a bit of recognition. I added music to my words because what I understand is rock n roll and I believe experiences should be shared.

I love coming off stage and hanging out with the same people that played the gig and getting the same buzz of it. I can’t perform at those spoken words nights. I don’t understand that world at all. That’s a very lonely place to be.

If you’re going to die on your arse on stage, it might as well be with your mates next to you.

To date we’ve opened for John Cooper Clarke, Penetration, TV Smith, Field Music and loads more. We played the International Psychology Conference in Liverpool last year.

This year we’re on a real strange festival bill with John Cleese, Gary Lineker, Pussy Riot and Hugh Grant – thinking about it – that line up get’s funnier every time.

When I went to University, I couldn’t have dreamt that this is where it would lead. If it all stopped tomorrow, I can honestly say I’ve had the very best of times in Jazz Riot’.

Interview by Gary Alikivi   June 2018.

Recommended:

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

Simon Donald, VIZ: The Toon Show, 1st September 2017.

Steve Straughan, UK SUBS: Beauty & the Bollocks, 1st October 2017.

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

METAL ON THE MENU – The Making of Cult NWOBHM album Roksnax in Guardian Studio

/ Alikivi

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South Shields is a small town on the North East coast of England. During the 1970’s the main employment was heavy industry. Shipbuilding and coal kept the workers thirsty.

Pubs and clubs were doing a roaring trade with entertainment from local rock bands. Heavy riffs and pounding drums were echoes from the pits and shipyards.

By 1980 the New Wave of British Heavy Metal had rolled in. The sound waves crossed the Atlantic and landed in a garage in San Francisco. Metallica were born and went on to become one of the biggest bands on the planet.

Not far from that garage lived a young Nick Vrankovich. Nick is now at Buried by Time and Dust Records who have re-released Roksnax, one of the albums that helped kick start the New Wave of British Heavy Metal.

Originally released in 1980 by Guardian Records, the compilation album was produced by Terry Gavaghan.

He recorded three North East bands at his studio in Durham. Teesside based Samurai, and from my hometown South Shields, Hollow Ground and Saracen. The main players behind the re-release take up the story…

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Nick Vrankovich

Nick Vrankovich (Buried By Time and Dust Records): ‘One night not long ago, I was sitting drinking some Newcastle Brown and spinning some of the compilation albums I had from the NWOBHM time, Lead Weight, HM Heroes, Metal for Muthas, all packed with songs that meant so much to us.

Then I played Roksnax and I was quickly reminded of two things. One was that all twelve songs are incredible. When you talk of the magic of heavy metal or the mysticism of the NWOBHM surely, they must be referring to releases like this.

The second was how obscure this one was compared to the others. I made a clear decision that night to contact the bands to see if we could make this masterpiece available again.

When I got in touch with the guy’s I found the willingness, generosity and honesty incredible. Even though I’m now over 50, these tracks mean as much to me as the day I first held the album all those years ago’.

‘By the end of 1980 I was 13-year-old and not yet aware of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. I was into Kiss, Van Halen and shortly after Black Sabbath would change things for me in a big way.

By the end of 1981 I discovered the Record Exchange in Walnut Creek, California which is about thirty minutes outside San Francisco.

The second I entered the record store an obsession would be born. The store was heavily stocked with all the latest imports and cutting-edge heavy metal from the UK and Europe.

The extreme appearance and imagery of bands like Venom, Mercyful Fate, Angel Witch and countless others was something that fired my imagination and created an obsession that continues to this day.

The fact that the music was so fantastic and really heavy only added fuel to the fire’.

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‘The Record Exchange is where I first remember seeing the album Roksnax. It was an import which meant the price was $9.99 which was a huge sum of money for me.

I remember looking at the photos on the back, it all looked so old and obscure. I was unsure what it would sound like. I had not heard of any of the bands on the record and of course it was next to impossible to find out about them unless they had a record deal. Sadly, this time I never bought the lp’.

‘The release disappeared into obscurity and was forgotten about until one day my brother scored a copy of the single Warlord by Hollow Ground.

Needless to say we were overwhelmed with how great it was and amongst other NWOBHM singles, it was right up there with Mythra and Witchfinder General.

We knew there were extra tracks from Hollow Ground on the Roksnax album, so we hunted down a copy. We eventually found one and heard the instant magic from the Hollow Ground tracks.

We were equally crushed by the Saracen and Samurai tracks. The speed of Saracen with the killer Dawson guitar riffs and soaring vocals from Lou Taylor was not only trailblazing but still raises the hair on my arms to this day.

Samurai was undoubtedly the most obscure band of the three, but their heroic sound was also incredible’.

Martin Metcalf (Hollow Ground): ‘I remember the buzz of being involved in Roksnax. The whole experience of being in Guardian Studio’s during November 1980 was magical.

We met up with producer Terrry Gavaghan and talked through the idea of a compilation LP with a couple of other bands from the North East. Our mates from Shields, Saracen were also on the record.

We were in the studios for two days and slept overnight there. The studio was basically two terraced houses knocked into one. I still remember the brown cork tiles in the studio and having to Sellotape the headphones on my head when recording.

The great memories of honing the songs and bringing them together with my friends, still burns brightly. The fine tuning and adjustments as we worked on them was a great feeling of coming together as a band, a unit.

We used two of the songs from our EP Flying High and Rock On and added Fight with the Devil and The Holy One to make our four tracks for the Roksnax album’.

Steve Dawson (Saracen): ’Right from the start of the band the other members wanted to get in the studio, but I thought we should of developed our sound a bit more, let it breathe a bit, walk before we run so to speak.

But we booked some time in Guardian Studios where Mythra had recorded their Death and Destiny single. The owner Terry Gavaghan proposed the Roksnax album to us where he would put us on a compilation album.

It was basically a live album with some overdubs’.

Geoff Nixon (Samurai): ‘I have very fond memories of that time. We were convinced that we had an excellent line up, we felt as though we had something special.

We were made so many promises by Terry Gavaghan at Guardian, we believed everything he said. He signed us to a five-year publishing deal, as young lads we were flattered about the whole project’.

Martin Metcalf (Hollow Ground): ’Its real music made by real musicians. You can’t replicate it with machines. Sparking off each other while recording the tracks will stay with us forever. It’s what being in a band is all about…and we loved it.

We were so proud of the music that we produced, and still are! It stands the test of time and the whole album is a perfect snapshot of the vitality of the NWOBHM movement’,

Lou Taylor (Saracen): ’Now it’s not the world’s number one album but everyone involved in this album agreed that it is a wonderful feeling and something special about getting your name on a piece of vinyl.

Terry was true to his word and got the album in the shops. I bought six of them straight away ha ha’.

Geoff Nixon (Samurai): ‘But we actually split just after the album, sometimes you get one shot at fulfilling a dream don’t you. Many years later I found that the album had been on sale around the world, but I don’t think it ever sold in Britain.

Looking back, we had a lot of fun and of course we always have the album’.

Lou Taylor (Saracen): ‘Just being prominent enough to be invited to be part of something which we had no concept of how much impact on the British music scene the emerging talent in this genre actually had ! NWOBHM say what ??

Guardian Studios were in -famous enough already due to releases from acts in the region so this opportunity seemed too good to pass up!

Martin Metcalf (Hollow Ground): ’Lars Ulrich from Metallica bought a copy of the Roksnax LP in Los Angeles and that lead to our track Fight with the Devil being played in a Metallica documentary. This was the documentary about the making of their Black Album.

The scene is Lars Ulrich driving to the studio in his Porsche listening to Fight with the Devil. The film was released in 1992 and if I remember correctly, we’re on the credits between Black Sabbath and Madonna!

It led to me and Glenn our vocalist being invited to gigs on the Black Album tour. We had access all areas and were in the famous Snake Pit. It was brilliant’.

Lou Taylor (Saracen): ’Over a series of trips to a sleepy country village including one session which soaked up guitarist Steve’s 21st Birthday – a sacrifice of serious proportions ha!

The long days and nights, the scary stories, the ghostly appearances, the owner eating sandwiches… Roksnax? The narrow deadlines, the even narrower drum booth, the raw uncertainty of the mixes – still.

But all tempered with the undeniable thrill of the coming eventuality: four guys making their dreams come true, putting their music on vinyl for the very first time and still to be heard worldwide today…priceless !

Interviews Alikivi 2017.

Recommended:

Pyromaniax – Bombs, Flashes and Burnt Eyebrows 12th December 2017.

Have You Heard This One ? -10 best stories from this years interviews 18th December 2017.

1980 – The Year Metal was Forged on Tyneside, 11th February 2018.

1980 – THE YEAR METAL FORGED ON TYNESIDE

/ Alikivi

It’s one year on from the start of this blog, with over 18,000 readers, 150,000 words, 115 posts and more to come. But enough of the stats – this post rewinds the clock back to 1980.

Today skipping through Spotify or You Tube people have the choice to listen to different styles of music. Billions of songs at your fingertips. But there was a time when music lovers more than likely listened to only one genre – creating different tribes.

The ’70s brought in hard rock bands Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Motorhead and the hairy rock tribe followed. Disco filled dancefloors with Donna Summer, ‘Le Freak’ by Chic, a real Saturday Night Fever.

But the dancefloor was ripped up by the Disco Sucks movement in America.

One night in ’79 at a baseball game in Chicago, rock radio DJ Steve Dahl took to the field with his anti-disco army and blew up thousands of disco records. A publicity stunt he thought would bring in an extra 5,000 people to the game – it brought 70,000.

Where they a tribe of fire starters, or was it the 98cents entry fee if you had a disco record under your arm ready to burn? The disco tribe never recovered.

By ’78 the Sex Pistols had played their last gig in San Francisco and at the start of ’79 Sid Vicious died in New York. By the end of the year The Clash had called out to London. Was the punk tribe dying out ? What did 1980 hold for the tribes ?

Post punk, Ska and Two Tone were heard around the country – they were all three-minute heroes. But a new tribe were gathering pace – one that followed the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. The movement started in the late ’70s in the UK and reached international attention by the early ’80s.

The DIY attitude led to self-produced recordings and new independent labels setting up. The movement spawned many bands with Iron Maiden and Def Leppard becoming international stars. Bands from the North East were also delivering the goods.

Newcastle had chief headbangers Raven, on the coast in Whitley Bay were Tygers of Pan Tang, and across the river Tyne in my hometown South Shields – Fist, Mythra, Hellanbach, Hollow Ground and Saracen were all recorded on vinyl by the early ’80s.

Neat records were based in Wallsend and close by in Durham, was Guardian Records. Venues like Sunderland Mecca, Newcastle Mayfair and the City Hall had regular visits from rock/metal bands and the tribe followed. 1980 was the year metal was forged on Tyneside.

January
Canadian rock band Rush released their 5th album Permanent Waves and UFO released their 8th album No Place To Run.

On 17th & 18th Newcastle City Hall saw a concert by UFO with support from Girl. Over at the Mayfair AC/DC had Diamond Head opening on the 25th, and at Newcastle University Def Leppard were on the 26th supported by Witchfynde.

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February
This month will be remembered for the passing of Bon Scott, lead singer of AC/DC. He was only 33 when he died on the 19th. On the same night Rainbow played Newcastle City Hall. They also played on the 20th with support on both nights fom Samson.

The City Hall also had a visit from Uriah Heep with support from Girlschool on the 6th.

Newcastle Mayfair promoted Heavy Metal Fridays with Tygers of Pan Tang plus Southbound and Axe on the 15th with Saxon plus Crypt and Mythra on the 22nd. Def Leppard played on the 29th with support from Witchfynde.

March
Three rock/metal albums were in the shop’s this month – On Through the Night the debut from Def Leppard. Van Halen’s 3rd Woman and Children First and Scorpions release their 7th album Animal Magnetism.

Newcastle City Hall saw Gillan on the 6th. April Wine with support from Angelwitch on the 10th and Judas Priest with openers Iron Maiden on the 20th. On the 21st both bands play the Mayfair which has an 18+ entry.

The City Hall also saw Pat Travers supported by Diamond Head on the 30th. Over at The Castle Leazes Havelock Hall were Tygers of Pan Tang with openers Magnum on the 4th.

April
AC/DC found a replacement for the recently deceased Bon Scott, bringing in Geordie vocalist Brian Johnson. This month they enter the recording studio to work on the new album.

In this month 3 albums of note were released. The debut from Iron Maiden, Judas Priest 6th album British Steel, and Heaven and Hell from Black Sabbath. Their first with vocalist Ronnie James Dio.

Sammy Hagar with openers Riot played at Newcastle City Hall on the 12th. Def Leppard plus Magnum and Tygers of Pan Tang on the 20th then Saxon on the 21st.

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May
Saxon released Wheels of Steel their 2nd album. Whitesnake release their 3rd album, Ready n Willing and Kiss release their 8th, Unmasked.

Newcastle City Hall saw visits from Thin Lizzy on the 1st & 2nd. Scorpions with openers Tygers of Pan Tang on the 13th, Black Sabbath with support from Shakin’ Street on the 18th & 19th. Over at Newcastle Mayfair were Iron Maiden and openers Praying Mantis on the 16th. Also on the 23rd were Fist, White Spirit and Raven.

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Mythra, Fist and Tygers of Pan Tang in the Sounds charts in May 1980.

June
This month’s studio albums you could choose from I’m a Rebel – Accept, Danger Zone – Sammy Hagar, Demolition – Girlschool, Metal Rendez-vous – Krokus, Head On – Samson, Scream Dream – Ted Nugent or Tomcattin – Blackfoot.

Newcastle City Hall saw visits from Rush supported by Quartz on the 12th. Whitesnake with support from GForce on the 13th & 14th. Van Halen with openers Lucifers Friend on the 17th. Sunderland Mayfair had Iron Maiden and Praying Mantis on the 11th. Then Fist on the 20th.

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July
AC/DC release Back in Black the new album with Brian Johnson.

At Newcastle Mayfair was Trespass on the 18th and an all dayer at Bingley Hall in Stafford on the 26th – The Heavy Metal Barndance. Headliners Motorhead were joined by Girlschool, Angelwitch, Saxon, Vardis, Mythra and White Spirit.

August
This month saw the debut album Wild Cat released by Tygers of Pan Tang. Also records by the Michael Schenker Group and Stand Up and Fight from Quartz.

Newcastle Mayfair saw Ted Nugent supported by Wild Horses on the 7th. Fist plus Raven on the 15th with Diamond Head and openers Quartz on the 29th.
South Shields Legion welcomed hometown band Fist on the 14th.

16th of the month saw the first Monsters of Rock festival held at Donnington Raceway in Derbyshire with Rainbow, Judas Priest, Scorpions, April Wine, Saxon, Riot and Touch.

Reading festival on the 22nd-24th had headliners Rory Gallagher, UFO and Whitesnake with Gillan, Iron Maiden, Samson, Def Leppard, Ozzy Ozbourne, Angelwitch, Budgie, Samson and Tygers of Pan Tang.

September
Sadly, the Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham dies aged only 32.

The debut from Ozzy Osbourne was released this month while Strong Arm of the Law, the 3rd studio album by Saxon and their 2nd this year was released.

Newcastle Mayfair had Angelwitch on the 5th, Tygers of Pan Tang with support from Taurus and radio DJ Alan Robson on the 12th and over at Newcastle City Hall were Ozzy Osbourne plus support band Budgie on the 17th.

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October
Released this month were the 3rd album by Gillan – Glory Road and Chinatown the 10th album from Thin Lizzy.

A full month of gigs at Newcastle Mayfair. Gillan with openers White Spirit and Quartz on the 1st. Scorpions supported by Blackfoot on the 10th for over 18 fans. UFO supported by Fist 15th & 16th. Ozzy Osbourne 17th with Budgie and Raven. Motorhead with support from Weapon on the 29th & 30th. AC/DC plus Starfighters on the 31st.

At Newcastle City Hall were Michael Schenker Group supported by Dedringer on the 2nd. Scorpions plus Blackfoot 7th & 8th. Over at Sunderland Mayfair UFO and Fist on the 21st and Ozzy Osbourne the 28th.

November
This month saw the release of Ace of Spades the 4th album from Motorhead, a double from Whitesnake – Live…In the Heart of the City and the debut from Fist, Turn the Hell On. There was also Roksnax on Guardian Records.

A compilation album produced at Guardian Studios in Durham, UK. The album features 4 songs each from South Shields bands Hollow Ground and Saracen and Teesside based Samurai.

Newcastle City Hall had visits from AC/DC supported by Starfighters on the 4th & 5th. Triumph with openers Praying Mantis the 12th and Iron Maiden on the 25th with support from A11Z.

December
Concerts at the Newcastle City Hall this month by Girlschool on the 5th with support from Angelwitch, also on the 16th Saxon with support from Limelight.

Led Zeppelin release a press release about the break-up of the band due to the death of drummer John Bonham.

Unfortunately, a sad end to a frantic year, but what did the 80’s have in store for the tribe ? Again from the North East there was a little band forming.

They had kept an eye on what was happening and now it was their time to strike. Venom were gathering their own tribe, but that’s a story for another day.

Gary Alikivi  2017.

Information from discogs and various websites. Thanks to everyone who supplied information, ticket stubs etc.

Recommended:

MYTHRA Still Burning 13th February 2017.

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.

When Heavy Metal Hit the Accelerator 6th May 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.

THE TOON SHOW – interview with Simon Donald, co-founder of VIZ

/ Alikivi

Was any subject off limits or was it all out there for ridicule ? ‘For VIZ, if it worked we used it. It was all about gut instinct’.

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Simon set up the magazine with his brother Chris in 1979 at their home in Newcastle, North East UK.  

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What was the inspiration behind VIZ ? Had you seen or heard something that made you say ‘I want to do that’ ?

‘I loved comics from an early age. I started wanting to be a comic artist when I was about eight or nine and by the age of eleven I started writing to Marvel to ask how I should go about it.

My entire family were comedy lovers, we spent hours as kids listening to Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan and Stan Freberg, then me and my brothers started to watch Monty Python. The whole family loved Laurel and Hardy and Morecombe and Wise.

When we were teenagers my brother Chris and I were introduced to comics for adults by a school friend called Jim Brownlow, he also introduced us to Derek and Clive by Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, all of these things came together with Chris’ yearning to make a magazine.

A comic for grown-ups with surreal and outrageous humour and swearing. We also threw into the mix, without really thinking about it, a good dose of British working class reality’.

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What type of music did you listen to when you were young ?

‘As a small child I listened to the radio and the Dansette with my Mam and heard all her favourites like Nat King Cole, Paul Robeson, The Seekers, and Frank Sinatra.

It was The Seekers that struck a chord with me and I got The Seekers Live at the Talk of the Town for Christmas 1970.

Shortly afterwards I was given a neighbour’s entire Beatles singles collection and that was me hooked. It was the Beatles all the way for the next few years.

The first band I ever saw was the Junco Partners at the Peoples Theatre in 1976, followed shortly afterwards by Woody Woodmansys U-Boat at the City Hall, they were support to Uriah Heap, but the less said about that the better’.

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‘As punk rock landed I was thirteen so of course it was ‘mine’, The Clash, The Jam, The Sex Pistols and in particular The Ramones were my big things at that time, along with Alice Cooper and The Who.

As the New Wave faded I rejected New Romance for the tosh that it was and got into The Faces and then The Small Faces and a whole load of mod stuff from there.

I’ve always had an eclectic collection, there’s everything from disco to heavy rock in there’.

Simon-Donald

Is working on projects different today than when you were young, do idea’s come quickly or is it a longer process?

‘I think ideas come thicker and faster when you’re younger but for me they don’t stop coming, they just get less sporadic and more focussed.

I always thought it would be difficult to write a new comedy show every year but I actually really enjoy it and having produced so much work so regularly for Viz, it’s not the impossible challenge it could be.

That said sometimes ideas can take years to come to fruition, there’s an idea there but I don’t know how to use it, then one day, out of the blue, I’ll put two and two together and that night I’ll be trying it on stage’.

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When did you realise that VIZ was becoming popular, had you seen a copy somewhere unusual ?

‘There was a time when it was unusual to see the comic anywhere outside of Newcastle. Seeing it in the window of Rough Trade Records in West London in the spring of 1981 always stays with me.

It was still rarity in London five years later and I remember at a street market I took a photo of my brother Steve finding it on a comics stall.

Two years after that the newspaper seller at Kings Cross Station had devoted his entire stall to the latest issue going on sale. It was unbelievable stuff’.

Did you realise the impact that VIZ would have on the North East and when was the distribution widened from pubs in Newcastle to nationwide newsagents?

‘We distributed the comic ourselves via pubs, local independent shops of all types, national independent record stores and student union bookshops from 1979 until 1985, at that time we signed a publishing deal with Virgin Vision and they began national distribution, it started quite slowly but within three years we’d pretty much taken over the world of British magazines.

The contract was later moved to John Brown Publishing, he had been in charge at Virgin and set up his own company on the back of our success. Quite stunning looking back’.

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Are there any comedians/artists/entertainers that you like to watch or listen to today ?

‘There are some tremendous entertainers in the north east right now, a couple of my favourites who are always worth watching are Gavin Webster and Seymour Mace (pic. below). They never fail to make me cry laughing.

Two of my personal favourites nationally are Stewart Lee and Daniel Kitson, they are the sort of acts that never fail to impress me with the brilliant structure and thoughtfulness of their material, yet never fail to produce joyfully funny moments throughout their work. It’s clever but it’s all about getting laughs’.

Gavin Webster
Seymour Mace

Bringing your story up to date what are you up to now. I see you are working with Tyne Idols how’s that going ?

‘I’m currently touring two shows, a stand-up show called Satiscraptory and a character show called Barry Twyford Isn’t Meant. I also do the Tyne Idols bus tour gigs, which are an absolute hoot.

There are two types, one is a story of Viz sort of thing in which with Alex Collier, another of the ex Viz editors, we take you around all the places important in the story of Viz, telling all the funniest anecdotes from our time on the comic.

We stop at Viz-related pubs and you can take your own refreshments on the bus, its fantastic fun’.

character_tour_web

‘The other is my character tour, in which I appear as a drunken historian called John Gruntle, plus a couple of other outrageous Geordie characters; Barry Twyford and Bingo from Benton’.

For more info contact http://www.simondonald.com for VIZ contact their official website at viz.co.uk

Interview by Gary Alikivi June 2017.

IT’S ONLY ROCK ‘N’ ROLL – blog hits 5,000 views.

/ Alikivi

It’s all about the story isn’t it. For over a decade of making documentaries and releasing them on DVD, in February this year I decided to try a different media.

The original idea was to transcribe the interviews from my music documentary ‘We Sold Our Soul for Rock n Roll’ (available via You Tube). The stories still sounded fresh and funny even though I heard them many times during editing. But where do they go from here ? I’d read a few blogs and thought they would be a good outlet for the stories, how do I put one together?

I got in touch with a friend who wrote a blog and he talked about using a WordPress template. It didn’t sound too difficult so I checked it out. 

The interviews filmed for the music documentary were a good start, they just needed updating. Then I got in touch with more musicians, recording their stories via email or meeting up and recording our conversation with a dictaphone.

The initial idea was to interview North East based musicians but social media makes it easier to contact bands from across the UK, Europe and USA. Managers and European PR agencies have also been in touch to arrange interviews.

The blog mainly covers rock, punk and NWOBHM. Although the scope has widened lately, but if the story is good – it’s in. The latest feature, Vinyl Junkies, interviews musicians, actors and writers who talk about their favourite 7 records that shaped their world.

So here we are, 5,300 views in 6 month on a blog which I thought would be read by a handful of people. Starting with 300 a month in February it has grown to 1,500 in July. Special thanks to everyone who has shared their stories…they just keep on coming.

Listed below are all the blogs from the past 6 month. To make it easier to find an interview you can now check on the month or put the musician or band name into the white search bar.

February:
Vince High & Maurice Bates (Mythra) Brian Ross (Satan, Blitzkreig) Lou Taylor (pt 1 Satan, Blind Fury).

March:
Lou Taylor (pt 2 Satan, Blind Fury) Mond Cowie (Angelic Upstarts) Micky McCrystal (Tygers of Pan Tang) Bernie Torme (Gillan)

April:
Steve Dawson (Saracen, The Animals) John Gallagher (Raven) Paul Mcnamara (Salem) Dave Dawson (Warrior) Lee Payne (Cloven Hoof) Paul Di’Anno (Iron Maiden, Battlezone) John Roach (Mythra) Harry Hill (Fist).

May:
Danny Hynes (Weapon UK) Chris Bradley (Savage) Rick Bouwman (Martyr) Maurice Bates (Mythra) Neil Wil Kinson (Spartan Warrior) Kev Riddles (Tytan) Andy Boulton (Tokyo Blade) Steve Dawson (Oliver/Dawson Saxon).

June:
The Butchers of Bolinbroke (Angelic Upstarts) Neil Newton (Angelic Upstarts) Wavis O’Shave (Alternative), Terry & Gerry (Ska/punk), Mick Maughan (Phasslayne, Cirkus) Trevor Short (Dealer) Martin Metcalf (Hollow Ground) Trevor Sewell (Blues) Kev Charlton (Hellanbach, Bessie & the Zinc Buckets) Steve Thompson (Bullfrog, Neat records) Mark Duffy (Millenium).

July:
Ian Dick (Soldier) Jeff Baddley (Troyen) Lee & Chris Wright (Crashed Out) Stevie James (Grudge, Warwound) Martin Popoff (Vinyl Junkies) Bernie Torme (Desperado) Will Binks (Vinyl Junkies) Thunderstick (Samson) Blast Recording Studio (Newcastle, UK) Let the Music do the Talking (Tyneside musicians) Antony Bray (Venom Inc).