The blog has hit over 30,000 views, a great way to mark that milestone is with two features in the local newspaper.

In April, the blog included an interview with two founder members of Beckett, Les Tones and Arthur Ramm.

During their time Beckett had played countless gigs around the North East with stand out support slots with Rod Stewart and the Faces. They also notched up dates with Captain Beefheart, Alex Harvey and Slade.

Signed with major labels Warner Bros and CBS, released a single and self-titled album. They also found time to appear on BBC TV music show the Old Grey Whistle Test, and a slot at the Reading Festival.

On Monday June 4th journalist Peter French wrote an article and featured the interview in The Shields Gazette newspaper and on its website – with part two of the story published on June 5th.

Gary Alikivi   June 2018.

David worked for more than thirty years teaching Art & Design in a local college. He has exhibited his work in this country and abroad.

His new exhibition is at The Customs House, South Shields where he took time out and talked about his influences…

‘Very early on in reception class at school we got bits of paper and plasticene and we had to make something for the flower show in South Shields. I made a small dog and ended up with second prize in my age group and got half a crown ha ha.

Art continued through junior school, the seniors at St Josephs in Hebburn and of course being influenced by living next to the sea. In art school I had a step up in learning, where you do something for a while then suddenly you notice that what you are producing starts to look better. It can be an enormous difference and through teaching you can see it in others’. 

How did the mural on Commercial Road in South Shields come about ?

’I went to an interview to be part of the newly formed South Tyneside Community Arts group. I talked about painting murals around the town and the guy interviewing said that sounds great, we’ll employ you to paint a few.

So I got involved with the YTS scheme and was put in charge of some 16–17-year-olds. Then a guy in South Tyneside Planning Department said we’ve got this wall in Commercial Road do you fancy taking that on’.

‘Some of the young people were interested in art, but one left to be a fireman, one joined the RAF, above all they had commitment. Some enrolled-on art courses, that’s when the college asked me to do some part time teaching. That snowballed, but I was still painting and doing my own stuff’. 

What is your latest project and exhibition ?

‘The last two years of my degree I’ve just painted the sea, nothing else. Just the water and sky nothing around the edges. Waves upon waves. Then abstraction became part of what I was doing because the clouds are fairly abstract themselves.

I liked the fact you can look at a picture of Marsden rock and it’ll never change from one day to another, but clouds constantly change, and you see different shapes in them. The changes can happen pretty fast.

Watercolour artists get out there and make the swift changes of colour and light. Plus working outside is quite exciting – something I’ve done quite a lot when I was at Fine Art college. Then bringing it inside to draw big canvases. 

It’s all about the process, these paintings around us are all provisional, they are on their way to somewhere else – the next page in the sketch book. This art is all about the things you can’t freeze.

Within the abstract stuff I try to put in the history of the making. The layering of it. That history begins to have a depth. You can’t put a name on it.

There are maybe some pictures in this room which I can say are complete, they have gone their journey. I don’t want to make any changes to them, but the next one can add something to that’.

Has there been a time when you haven’t painted ?

‘When I don’t paint it feels a bit weird, then something pops in yer head, get quite excited about it and where the next layer is going to go. I really like that. I like making images I suppose.

But when I worked teaching at the college things would sit and gestate at certain times of the year. You might jot down ideas, do drawings, take photographs but then something would bubble, a crack of light in a cloud and you’d work on it.

But there’s never been a time when I’ve said I’m not going to do this anymore – think that would feel very weird’.

Interview by Gary Alikivi  May 2018.

Sea, Sky and River: Fixing the line about its edge. 

Exhibition in The Upper Fusion Gallery, The Customs House, South Shields until 31 August 2018.

Thanks to Julia Northam & Fietscher Fotos, South Shields for the mural photographs.

On the blog in February, Roksnaps featured photos of bands playing live in Newcastle over 30 years ago.

The rare pics were by music fans Ian Coult, Tony Maddison and John Edward Spence – their memories of gigs from the 70’s and early 80’s. Photo’s which capture the atmosphere and excitement at Newcastle Mayfair and City Hall.

On Friday May 18th journalist Dave Morton wrote an article and featured the photos in The Chronicle newspaper and on its website.

The blog is coming up to 30,000 views, so a great way to mark that milestone is with a double page in the local newspaper.

Gary Alikivi May 2018.

Recommended:

Roksnaps #1 18th February 2018.

Roksnaps #2 22nd February 2018.

Roksnaps #3 27th February 2018.

Roksnaps #4  4th April 2018.

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

The love for vinyl has always been there and many stories are attached to it. There is whispers in some quarters that vinyl is back, and they are getting louder.

Not in the same numbers that it was in the pre-cd day’s of the 70’s and 80’s, but the records are up on display shelves of record shop’s.

There is hundred’s of reasons why we like a certain song. Vinyl Junkies is looking for the stories behind them.

Jon Dalton has lived in the USA for 20 years as a professional musician. In his early days in England he played in heavy rock band Gold, who were formed in 1979 in Bristol….

‘I moved out to the US in 1999, I have Native American roots so it was like coming home. I also wanted to move my jazz career along. It seems that was a good call.

I got signed to Innervision Records in 2003 and they released my first CD with them The Gift, and it did very well.

For the last several decades I’ve been mostly known as a jazz musician, but that wasn’t always the case. I didn’t start really listening to and consequently end up playing jazz until my late twenties but I was involved in music for many years before that’.

‘Because this piece is about vinyl, I’ve chosen to focus on the period in my life when almost everything we heard was on that medium. For me that would be around 1976 to about 1983.

After that I was on tour a lot so I tended to buy cassettes or, later, CDs. They were much more portable and by then I was buying a lot of music to learn it for work so that previous period was, perhaps, the period I enjoyed actually listening to music the most. Here’s a list of my seven favourite albums from that time’.

1, Steve Hillage: Fish Rising (1975): Starting in the late 1970s, every year the City of Bristol, UK would put on a music festival at an old stately park near the Centre known as the Ashton Court Festival.

It was a hugely popular event eventually drawing tens of thousands. It was also a strictly daytime affair with no overnight camping allowed unless you were a vendor or part of the stage crew.

Of course, being me, I completely ignored all that. I generally crashed under the stage in my sleeping bag. I probably knew a lot of the sound guys so I doubt they cared either.

Anyhow one year, maybe 77 or 79, I was at Ashton Court on a Friday the day before the festival was due to start. That night I went out in a daze looking for a party to crash in the vendor’s section. It was probably around midnight.

All of a sudden, I heard this strangely hypnotic music which stopped me in my tracks. The more I listened the more I reasoned this was likely one of the most cosmic things I’d ever witness and when you’re 17 under a black starlit sky next to a crazy caravan, that’s a moment.

I knocked on the door and a glorious hippy lady invited me in for a drink and a chat. We sat in the candlelight and she told me I was listening to Steve Hillage’s “Fish Rising”. A Rubicon night.

I was already a big Hillage fan but more his later works like ‘L’ and ‘Motivation Radio’. This was something else though: more raw, more psychedelic.

Brilliant guitar riffs, swirling synth solos, tight grooves, wide soundscapes. My all time favourite track is ‘Aftaglid’ a meandering sprawl in space.

The mid section (they’ve all got names but I’m not that good at remembering) has an echoey acoustic guitar part with Miquette Giraudy’s pointy space whispers followed by a tabla grooved delve into the beyond. That’s what I heard outside the caravan.

Don’t buy or even listen to the “extended” version. The original Fish Rising ends on exactly the right note.

2, Yes: ‘Relayer’ (1974): I first heard Yes when I was 10 or 11 years old. I loved the way that none of it made any sense and yet somehow it all made sense.

There was a tone and colour in their music and yet there was also a strange sense of angularity; listen to ‘Long Distance Runaround’ from ‘Fragile’ and you’ll know what a mean.

This album brought the “weird” side of Yes to a whole new level. A lot of Yes fans hate this album but I think it’s one of the best things they ever did. The music is often loud, angry and aggressive.

Maybe they were trying to dump some of the bloat of ‘Topographic Oceans’ but this cuts through like a knife.

Yes pulled in Patrick Moraz on keyboards on this one and while they were some fine musicians, he was obviously giving them a run for their money.

‘Sound Chaser’ is my favourite track. Steve Howe’s Fender Telecaster grinds and spits and yearns. Patrick Moraz’s jazz-synth playout burns on fire.

I saw Yes on this tour. It was the first big gig I ever went to. I went with my Auntie because nobody else would go with me. We both loved it!

“And to know that tempo will continue.”

Yes Mr. Anderson.

3, Gong: ‘You’ (1974): I mentioned Steve Hillage before but you can’t really discuss this era Hillage without telling of the Mothership, the immaculate Gong.

Well, as a young lad, I was a tribal member and I’m not exactly sure if I’ve grown out of it, even since.

Gong, brainchild of Australian space anarchist Daevid Allen (R.I.P.) combined jazz, space, rock and eyebrow raising mirth into a potent package. It probably wasn’t their plan but Gong the anarchists ended up having, pretty much, their own virtual kingdom on the 1970s UK free festival circuit.

The early ’70s are often said to be some of Gong’s best years. They recorded the essential ‘Trilogy’ of albums: ‘Flying Teapot’, ‘Angel’s Egg’ and ‘You’.

I’ve always thought of them as one but I know I have to keep the list short so I’m going with: ‘You’. The band were playing really tight on this one.

‘Master Builder’ is in some ways the musical peak in the trilogy. Based on a simple descending run which tweaks the blues scale to make it sound more space-bound and mystical, it keeps tripping over the beat in a way that makes you feel you are constantly falling forward.

Toward the end it reaches for a sense of community and gets it in the form of Daevid Allen’s deep chants wrapped in Steve Hillage’s twistily psychotic guitar.

Hillage later released a version of this tune under the title: ‘Activation / Glorious Om Riff’ on his 1978 release ‘Green’.

I’ve mentioned Gong related things quite a lot but you have to realize that they weren’t just some some silly hippy band from the 1970s (well, they were). Their influence permeates widely.

The free festival circuit morphed over the 1980s into the 1990s into rave culture. This in turn begat Electronic Dance Music. When I listen to a lot of EDM, including Steve Hillage’s own ‘System 7′ and particularly the trancey end of that spectrum,

I can often hear Gong’s echoes in the sequenced synth lines and eastern flavored melodies. The major difference being that the music is served over a heavy, electronic, 4/4 dance beat rather than a grooving, real life, bass and drums.

There’s another sphere of meditational Electronica where, once again, you hear those Gong sounds but this time the beats are completely removed and we’re left with just the floaty, spatial stuff.

They even made a dent in the pop world. Listen to producer William Orbit’s treatment of Madonna’s 1998 single ‘Ray Of Light’. You could have knocked me sideways when I first heard that one.

For a minute I thought she’d hired the old crew as her backing band. I’m thinking Mr. Orbit probably has a few of the Pot Head Pixies’ finest releases stuffed away somewhere in his listening locker.

Famous lines from “You” include: “Cops at the door………..no cops at the door!”

4, AC/DC: ‘Highway To Hell’ (1979): So, late on a Friday or Saturday night you’d all come back from the pub or club. The venue kept changing but the purpose was always the same. Some metal lovers just can’t help themselves.

Wherever we ended up, I used to like to sit on the kitchen counter next to the fridge and it was always bright fluorescent lights or no lights and a toaster. As soon as the AC/DC came on, everybody was cool. All the barriers went down.

There’s a lot of betrayal and anger in this music but the ultimate lesson is that it can always be cured or, at least: suffered, by the sweet sound of a blues guitar. AC/DC made you feel like a criminal but; that, that was somehow normal.

Bon Scott’s voice hits like a finely tuned weapon. His beautiful primal screaming sounds like he’s getting ready to eat you while, brother cooks, Angus and Malcolm (R.I.P.) Young slice you right up with their guitars. And none of this is rocket science.

AC/DC themselves never claimed to be anything more than a “rock ‘n’ roll” band! Highlights include the beginning and end of the record and everything else in between.

“It was one of those nights when you turn down the lights”.

Now, what on Earth is he talking about?

5, Ozzie Osbourne: ‘Bark At The Moon’ (1983): I first heard Black Sabbath when I was about 12. I remember lying on a chilly bed in my Nan’s prefab, must have been 1974, listening to their first, self-named, album. War Pigs and Iron Man were my usual songs from the crypt before breakfast.

Fast forward to the early ’80s and somebody recommended I listen to this gem. This is a concept album. The concept is to make a record that sounds like a bad horror movie.

This really holds water. Ozzie Osbourne as a poignant intellectual “I’m just a rock and roll rebel….” probably isn’t what you or he expected but he can’t hide it, he’s thought about this from every angle.

“I’ll make you wish that you had never been born”. When Ozzie says that, for a chilling moment you realize that he might actually mean it. How do these people keep going? The energy resources are beyond human.

Although this was the first album to feature with Jake E. Lee on guitar, massive kudos has to go to guitarist Randy Rhodes (once again RIP). He wasn’t just an amazing player in his own right but a dedicated worker who obviously sweated how to make his boss’s dreams come alive, or should that be become un-dead?

He utilized flattened or ‘diminished’ notes to dark and cinematic effect. Sure, Death-Metal players have honed that down to a fine art now but RR was the first, at least as far as I’m aware.

I was always looking forward to where he’d go next. Then he got killed in a plane crash. I was beside myself.

It’s not a flawless offering, there’s a couple of duffers which I think arise from trying too hard to make this a ‘production’ record but when the group are genuinely reaching, such as in the preposterous ‘Centre of Eternity’ you get the feeling that the abyss is, at least, intrigued.

6, Rush: ‘Hemispheres’ (1978): I didn’t start as a huge Rush fan. I’d heard them at friend’s houses but I couldn’t figure out exactly where to place them.

Their Rickenbacker bass sounds and strange Moog synthesizer twirlings reminded me a little of Yes but they were much more of a straight-ahead heavy rock band in other areas.

That all changed when bassist Paul Summerill joined our band Gold in 1980 or so. Paul was a strong Rush fan and he also played a Rickenbacker bass just like Geddy Lee and the late, great Chris Squire.

Paul introduced me to the catalogue and once I’d gotten a chance to appreciate their development through albums like Fly by Night and the classic 2112 I really got a taste for who they were in their own right. Theirs was a clever, thought-provoking metal that started to appeal to the prog nerd in me.

I’m actually listening to Hemispheres for the first time in about 35 years as I write this. It’s all there. Geddy Lee’s piercing vocals, Alex Lifesons chorusy guitar and Neil Pearts precise drumming.

I remember, as an 18 year old kid, learning the guitar parts for the entire side one of this record (which is all one track). I can’t think for the life of me why I did this. I’ve never played it live even once.

Probably one of those ‘I’ve started so I’ll finish’ ventures. Still, I’m sure I picked up some useful tips which crept into my own playing later on.

Favourite tracks are the aforementioned Hemispheres, a mini fantasy novel set to music, and also The Trees from side two, a simple song form that rocks around just nicely.

Of all the bands I went to see live, I probably saw Rush more than any of the others. They toured a lot, the tickets were pretty reasonable, and each of their albums was sufficiently different to make you want go back for more.

This was a very cleanly produced album, just made for late night headphone listening. If I remember rightly, my copy of Hemispheres was on red vinyl. I don’t know what happened to it. I probably gave it away.

7, Nova: Wings of Love (1977): While I was mostly known as a rock guitarist back when all this vinyl listening was going on, I did lead a secret double life as a jazz/rock musician even playing for a while in the band Climax.

This was a decade or so before I started on the path to being, or at least trying to be, a full-on jazz musician.

Jazz fusion was a pretty big phenomenon in the late 1970s. The two biggest forces were probably Return to Forever and The Mahavishnu Orchestra. I tended to tip towards Mahavishnu, probably because it was guitar led?

I don’t know for sure on that one but I can say that Apocalypse by them is probably my all-time favourite fusion album but….I had it on 8 track cartridge so strictly speaking I can’t feature it here.

Now this album: Wings of Love I did have on vinyl, and it got played a lot. It’s actually much more approachable than a lot of fusion records. Some of the tunes have danceable, almost disco like grooves.

That’s not to say that guitarist Corrado Rustici isn’t overlaying them with ridiculously amazing guitar solos, just that you can shake your booty while he does it. Check out You Are Light for a taster.

As an interesting aside, Mr. Rustici often played a fretless guitar; listen to Marshall Dillon.  Killer bass-line too. I was amazed when I first heard about this.

Fretless basses were starting to make inroads into fusion due to the tremendous influence of Jaco Pastorius but I’d never heard of anyone playing fretless guitar.

I was sufficiently moved to take an old guitar and pull all the frets out with pliers, filling in the slots with plastic wood and sanding the whole thing flat.

The conversion itself worked out brilliantly but whenever I played it, it sounded like a drunken person snapping elastic bands. Oh! Well.

This is largely a superb record, populated with world class and sincerely spiritual musicians reaching for the stars. If it has a fault, it can get a bit ‘drippy’ devotional in places.

A lot of jazz fusion players of the era were deeply into eastern philosophy and Guru Sri Chinmoy was a leader in that movement.

That said, when you listen to Beauty Dream Beauty Flame with its evocative Italian mandolin backdrops and stunning guitar, flute and piano interludes, you have to conclude that, maybe, they did open a window into another dimension of the sublime.

Recommended:

Jon Dalton, California Dreaming, 18th October 2017.

VINYL JUNKIES:

Will Binks July 7th 2017

Martin Popoff July 12th 2017

John Heston August 3rd 2017

Neil Armstrong August 11th 2017

Colin Smoult August 29th 2017

Neil Newton September 12th 2017

Tony Higgins October 11th 2017

Vince High December 11th 2017.

Intro by Gary Alikivi.

Andy Rowe used to be a member of NWOBHM band Firebird, who had ex-Deep Purple frontman Ian Gillan as a fan…

’In 1979 we spent the day in Ian Gillans studio where we recorded a single with Gillan as producer’.

Andy looked back on his time in music and also brings the story up to date…

‘We are a Melodic Prog band called The Room, and are based west of London in Reading, Berkshire. We wanted to create a band that played very accessible progressive rock.

Martin (vocals) had played in Neo Prog band Grey Lady Down (GLD) and favoured the prog side and I clearly came from a song based background.

From that blend we have created something that a reviewer once called weird…. In a good way…. He couldn’t pigeonhole us! We write damn good songs with great melodies and hooks that are not simplistic in their construction’.

When did you start playing and who were your influences ?

’I started playing music at the age of about 15 when my mum bought me a 6-string guitar for Christmas. I had been taking piano and violin lessons at school and they recognised that music was probably the one thing I was really interested in.

I formed a band in 1977 with a very close friend in the village we lived in and we played our first ever show on 7/7/77!

We didn’t have any backline and there was a guy in the village we knew had contacts. He fixed it and off the van rolled a load of Marshall gear sprayed Koss. The guy had been the manager of Paul Kossoff (Free). What a start to a rock and roll journey for me.

My influences changed as I grew up. As a kid I loved the glam rock scene of Slade and The Sweet. It was great seeing The Sweet opening for Mr Blackmore this year.

You forget what a great rock band they were. As the ’70s moved on I got into more classic rock with Purple and the Sabs and then into the edges of punk with bands like Eddie and the Hot Rods, then the amazing NWOBHM.

I worked as a roadie for a sound company and did a few tours with the likes of April Wine, Samson and Sledgehammer. As time moved on I found myself falling in love with the Doobies, Steve Miller and The Eagles. So I guess overall I have a very very eclectic set of influences’.

What is your experience of recording/studio work ?

’Following the first school band I joined a band in Reading called Firebird. We played around the pubs and clubs in the Reading area and were lucky enough to get the opportunity to spend the day at Ian Gillans studio Kingsway Recorders where we recorded a single released in 1979 with Gillan as producer.

That was an amazing experience and was at the time when he rediscovered success with the Mr Universe album.

We did really well with the single making the Sounds rock charts. Ian Gillan even came to see us playing a show at a youth club on the outskirts of Reading. That was surreal.

The band lasted a couple of years as the two guitarists were not really in love with the NWOBHM label that had been given to us’.

‘I then joined a band in London, Prime Cut with the drummer from ’70s prog band The Nice. We were starting to make a real name for ourselves and I am sure that we were very close to a deal but I then decided to take time away from the business and enjoy family life.

I restarted my career about 2008 when I started playing in a covers band in and around Reading. Then in 2010 I joined Martin Wilson and we started The Room.

The full line up is Martin Wilson (vocals) Steve Anderson (guitar, keys and backing vocals) Steve Checkley (keyboards and backing vocals) Chris York (drums and backing vocals) and me on bass guitar and backing vocals. I am endorsed by Overwater Bass Guitars and Elites Strings’.

What is in the future for The Room ?

’So far we have recorded two studio albums Open Fire released in 2012 on Melodic Revolution Records and Beyond The Gates of Bedlam in 2015 on Bad Elephant Music. Both albums were recorded at Platform Studios in Reading with producer and engineer Damon Sawyer.

In 2017 we released a live DVD of a show that we played at The Robin 2 in Bilston in the West Midlands. We have played some 50 or 60 shows in the last seven years and are very much a live act. We love the thrill of that live environment.

We have opened for bands such as Focus, Wishbone Ash, Inglorious, Lifesigns, Soft Machine etc and play HRH AOR in March 2018. We are now starting to write our next studio album due for release in Autumn 2018’.

Interview by Gary Alikivi November 2017.

The saying goes ‘Don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story’. But some stories don’t need any embillishment, if it makes you laugh or even smile its job done. ‘

Have You Heard This One’ is 10 stories that have appeared on this blog since starting in February 2017.

First up is Lou Taylor (Blind Fury, Rock the Knight part one February 26th) ‘When we were rehearsing in London Bridge Studios we were visited by the boys from Metallica and went on a couple of binges with them.

One night our guitarist Russ Tippins went out drinking in London with their guitarist James Hetfield. We received a phone call from the police saying can you come and collect them because they are locked up in West End Central police station.

They had been playing guitar on top of the canopy of Piccadilly Theatre’.

Mond Cowie (ex-Angelic Upstarts, Angels of the North March 12th) ‘In 1981 we went on our first American tour. We got there a few days early to acclimatize and The Clash were staying in the same hotel so we used to meet them every night for the happy hour.

Happy hours are class in America you don’t just get nuts and crisps you get chicken wings and pizzas and all sorts. We used to starve ourselves all day just waiting for the happy hour.

It was a great laugh with them and I remember Joe Strummer saying ‘we’re coming to your gig tonight do you mind if I bring Iggy Pop?’ We said ‘Aye go on then’ haha.

The gig was in New York but I can’t remember if it was Radio City or Civic Hall but we walked on stage, the lights blazed on and Mensi screamed “We’re the Angelic Upstarts, We’re from England, 1,2,3,4” then just as I strummed my guitar there was an almighty bang, it all went dark then nothing!

There was a huge power cut. They couldn’t get it sorted out quickly so we jumped off stage and went to the bar at the back where The Clash were standing and I ordered a Jack and Coke and said to Iggy Pop “It’ll be sorted in a minute, this sort of thing happens to us all the time”.

Neil Wilkinson (Spartan Warrior, Chain Reaction May 21st) ’I remember in 1984 things were really looking up for the band, we had a record deal, and the night we were due to record our second album we had a gig in our hometown at Sunderland Mayfair.

The bands future couldn’t look any brighter. We turned up at the gig, sound checked, and went backstage to get ready.

For stage wear I used to have these tight red spandex pants, looked good I thought. I remember the intro tape playing while I was standing at the side of the stage waiting to go on. You know ready to fuckin’ rock.

The stage bouncer stood next to me, slowly looked me up and down and said ‘what are you playing tonight like ? Fucking Swan Lake’..What can I say ? totally burned on that one’.

Andy Boulton (Tokyo Blade, Under the Blade May 26th) ‘The 1983 European support tour with Mamas Boys had been set up and dates arranged and confirmed.

But we had no money for hotels or food, and only a small amount for diesel. We slept in the van.

The money that we were to receive from the shows would only just cover our diesel to the next show, so our saving grace was to be two boxes of Tokyo Blade T-shirts which our manager said we would need to sell in order to get cash for food.

We eventually got on the road down to Calais where the charming French Customs Officers searched the van finding two cardboard boxes full of T-shirts.

This being pre-EU days we had no license to sell anything in Europe. Oh how we laughed as they deprived us of the T-shirts and they also added a lovely little fine which took care of most of our diesel money.

Anyway we still had all our duty free fags, until that is when we decided to stop and cheer ourselves up with a beer and in the very short time it takes to down one small beer some friend of humanity decided to smash the van window and nick all our duty free and my Sony Walkman which our new singer had conveniently left for them on the front seat’.

Lee Wright (Crashed Out, Guns, Maggotts & Street Punk July 6th) ‘There’s always funny stories when traveling abroad with the band, trouble is it’s always a blur because of the alcohol!

I remember on one of our first trip’s abroad we decided to go by ferry. We got absolutely plastered on the way over and one of the lads passed out drunk on the floor.

Someone decided to pour a carton full of boiled rice down the back of his underpants while he slept. It wasn’t hot by the way.

Anyway, morning came and we forgot about the various antics that had went on the previous night. As we left our cabin we joined the queue of people near the exit waiting to leave the ferry, when suddenly our mate starting screaming and grabbing at his arse.

He was dancing round as if he was on fire, pulling rice out of his pants, he thought he had maggots coming out of his arse. With the added hangover he was really panicking, you should have seen the look on his face. I can still remember it now haha’.

Ged Wolf (Atomkraft, Running with the Pack August 14th) ‘The London Marquee stage was so small I had to arrange the drums with Slayers 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 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 (bass) 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 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 !’.

Danny McCormack (The Main Grains, Death or Glory September 8th) ‘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 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’.

We shot off and soon the taxi was quickly surrounded by them. The deal was done and we returned to The Chelsea.

We laid the drugs out on the bed and looking through them – we managed to score some salt and some pencil shavings… they must have seen us coming’

Gary Young (Avenger, Young Blood September 17th) ‘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. It was broad daylight when our Dutch friends found us’.

Robb Weir (Tygers of Pan Tang, Doctor Rock November 5th 2017) talking about playing on live UK TV show The Tube… ‘Yes it was Christmas ’82. I remember the crew had just loaded our backline of 18 4×12’s, stacked three high in cages, onto the stage in the tv studio.

We were in our dressing room and in the distance heard our track Gangland, what’s going on here we thought, it was getting louder and louder.

Then all of a sudden our dressing room door burst open and standing in the doorway was this huge, blonde, bare chested monster. We were all shocked. He had a big cassette player on his shoulder playing at full volume…

’You guy’s fuckin’ rock I love you guy’s’. He turned around and walked back out.

We looked at each other… ‘Wasn’t that Dee Snider of Twisted Sister?’ I’ll never forget that.

We talked with the band afterwards and they were fantastic, really brilliant. I got what they were all about, the dressing up and make up you know. Dee was really clever writing those songs, you know the big shouty anthems’.

Bodo Schopf (Pendulum of Fortune, Bodo Swings December 2018) ‘One story I have to tell, because I love the British humour. We were with Michael Schenker Group on tour with Def Leppard, their drummer Rick Allen, who had only one arm left after his car accident asked me if I would go out with him having a beer.

So we went to a pub and drank more than one beer. Rick stared constantly at my jacket, on it I had a drummer made from foam material with a safety pin attaching it to the jacket. It was a gift from a fan.

Rick said ‘Bodo there is something wrong with your jacket’. I looked at my jacket and asked what is wrong.

Rick said ‘Can I have a closer look at the little drummer on your jacket ? I replied ‘yes why not’.

So he tore the drummer’s arm off and said with a grin… ‘Now it`s right’.

Thanks to everyone who has shared their stories and read the blog this year have a Happy Christmas and a successfull 2018.

Gary Alikivi

On their world tours American rock band Kiss would go to huge lengths to put on an explosive show. But not when I saw them at Newcastle City Hall in October ’83.

The band had unmasked and cut back. Apart from fire ’n’ blood spurted out by Gene Simmons, there were no stage effects. The full circus hadn’t turned up.

The late ’70s and early ’80s saw bands on this blog putting on a show. To add atmosphere there would be dry ice and smoke, and for dramatic effect, explosions at the beginning/end of a song.

But they didn’t all go to plan. Here’s 10 stories about bombs that didn’t stick to the script and smoke machines with a mind of their own.

Dave Dawson (Warrior, The Hunger April 12th) ‘One time our manager Ken Booth hired someone to do some flash bombs. We thought yes this will look good.

But when they went off, they blew me forward, all the gear turned off and ripped a gash in the ceiling. It made the local papers, but that might have been the only time we were in them like !

Danny Hynes (Weapon UK, All Fired Up May 6th) ‘Now we liked having a few explosions going off during our set you know, flashes, smoke bombs the whole lot.

Well we just got on stage in Newquay, first few bars of our opener and a pyro went off between my legs…I almost became Danielle haha.

Once we were playing a gig in Stoke and the stage was very low, I walked towards it through the dry ice, tripped and went head first into the drum kit… Happy daze!

Paul Macnamara (Salem, To Hull and Back April 6th) ‘We used to experiment with pyrotechnics, thinking back, if the Health and Safety Executive had known we would have been in a lot of bother.

I remember one gig we played in Sheffield there was so much smoke from the flash bomb it just hung around on stage so we couldn’t see anything at all!

Our ‘flash bombs’ comprised an old camera flash bulb wired to the mains electric, then flash powder poured on top and as we made our dramatic entrance to the Hall of the Mountain King one of our faithful roadies would throw the switch and BOOOM!! The crowd didn’t expect a mini nuclear mushroom cloud!

Duncan Binnie (Mandora, Let the Music Do the Talking July 25th) ‘During summer ’87 we’re playing an outdoor gig at the Amphitheatre down South Shields seafront at one of the biggest crowds that’s been down there.

Council wouldn’t give us any lights so it was an absolute disaster ‘cos halfway through the gig it was dark. But we had the fireworks and the stage was pretty good at that point.

We had a few unpaid roadies one of them was called Joe and its unbelievable what effort he’s putting in for nowt.

Well during a song he’s crawled onstage sorting a drum out or something when one of our explosions went off and the poor guy gets blown up.

I remember seeing him afterwards and he was standing there, his coat was all burnt, the whole top of it was fringed up and he had no eyebrows left’.
Watch the full interview and footage (start at 50mins) in the music documentary ’We Sold Our Soul for Rock n Roll’ on You Tube.

Maurice Bates (Mythra, Just A Mo’ May 12) ‘We once played the Old 29 in Sunderland and our friend Lou Taylor was the lighting guru. To his mothers dismay he made all the lighting rigs for our shows in his garage and bedroom.

On this particular gig he let off a smoke bomb which gave off so much smoke the pub had to be emptied. Another time I managed to get hold of an aircraft landing spotlight. When it was turned on and pointed at the audience it was so powerful it blinded everyone in the room, it was like looking into the sun haha’.

Richard Laws (Tygers of Pan Tang original bassist) ‘My hand is bandaged in these photos because we used to keep our pyrotechnics in a cool box and they had leaked and the box had a load of magnesium powder at the bottom.

I thought it would be fun to put a match to it and it nearly blew my hand off ! I had second degree burns and it was agony!

When it happened you can imagine I disappeared in an enormous flash and cloud of smoke and when I came to my senses my hand had swollen to twice its normal size.

It was so painful I had to keep my hand in a bucket of water until I got to the doctor and got the bandages on. Luckily, even though it was quite a serious burn I could still hold a pick.

They were old pyros from when we did the clubs which we would put on tables at the front of the stage. There was a theatrical shop in Newcastle where you could buy the cartridges and the electric firing mechanism.

When I first got them, I set them off in the back garden to see what they were like, and they were pretty spectacular.

I remember a few times at gigs people sitting at the tables we put them on and despite being warned, refusing to move until the bombs went off – then they moved pretty quick!

By the time the 1980 UK tour started I was still bandaged but I could at least play’.

Howard Baker, Warbeck/Nightwalker (Howard’s Way, August 17th) ‘We had some pyro to put on a bit of a show. We used to put the bombs in two small wastepaper bins, but at one gig we forgot them so went outside in the backlane and got a big bin.

We put both bombs in there and set it up behind 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, haha.

Another time 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 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.

The concert chairman was up in arms. There was so much smoke we couldn’t see a thing, our eyes started streaming. They rang the fire brigade who eventually found the bin and hoyed it outside.

But the worst thing was the smoke was orange. The concert room was covered in orange stains, all over the chairs, everywhere. Ended up we never got paid for that gig, just a massive cleaning bill’.

Glenn S. Howes, Blitzkreig/Fist/Saracen roadie (Metal Health, December 1st) ‘Working for Saracen at the Legion Club in South Shields in the early 80’s I was put on smoke machine duty.

Saracen are on stage rocking away. I pushed the button to put a little smoke on stage however Les the bass player kept shouting more, more ! I was only a bairn at the time so I did as I was told.

Before you knew it the whole concert room was full of stage smoke. You couldn’t see the band at all. We had to open all the doors and windows to get rid of it. I got a right royal telling off from the vocalist Louie Taylor. Les never told him it was his fault’.

Ged Wolf, Atomkraft/Venom drum roadie (Running with the Pack, August 14th) ‘The first gig in New York, USA 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 haha.

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 in all my life it was 24 hours non stop.

I was that tired I was asleep under the drum riser when Metallica were playing. It was the only place I could stretch out haha’.

Tony Bray, Venom (Hebburn or Hell, July 28th) ‘We were putting all the money back into Venom, buying the pyro, all the stage effects.

We got our drumriser built for us in the shipyards, the whole scissor lift, it was just one big thing it never came apart. It was huge, they couldn’t get it out of the doors haha.

But when we started out we played a gig at a heavy metal disco at the Quay club in Hebburn. Eric Cook (later Venom manager) ran the disco and he arranged to put Venom on.

We bought our stage effects from Sound & Lights store in Newcastle where former Blind Fury vocalist Louie Taylor was working. He ended up doing some pyro for us, we were big on that haha.

Louie was all about the safety aspect and I was all about let’s chuck some more powder in and see what happens. Well that gig we fused the building, lights went off right through the whole club, the bingo mafia downstairs went mad haha’.

Interviews by Gary Alikivi 2017.

The love for vinyl has always been there and many stories are attached to your favourite records. There are whispers in some quarters that vinyl is back, and they are getting louder.

Not in the same numbers that it was in the pre-cd day’s of the 70’s and 80’s, but the records are up on display in record shop’s.

There is hundred’s of reasons why we like a certain song. Vinyl Junkies is looking for the stories behind them.

Vince High is lead singer with North East UK heavy metal band Mythra. They are one of the original New Wave of British Heavy Metal bands and have been cited as an early influence by Lars Ulrich of Metallica.

They formed in the second half of the 1970’s and released their legendary ‘Death & Destiny EP’ in 1979.  

After reforming in 2014 Mythra are still active on the current international Metal scene. In October 2017 they made their triumphant first appearance in the United States at California’s ‘Frost & Fire III’ Festival. 

Introductions over, here are 7 songs that shaped Vince’s world.

1.  ‘Black Night’ by Deep Purple was one of the first singles I ever bought. Probably my first encounter with Heavy Rock. Some of my mates’ older brothers used to play their records when we were hanging around and I can remember loving this single and ‘Strange Kind Of Woman’ too.

I think it was the guitar riffs and the energy that moved me. Purple were the first band I ever saw live at Newcastle City Hall in February 1973.  Life changing experience for sure and sparked a lifelong love of Hard Rock and Heavy Metal.

2. ‘Paranoid‘ by Black Sabbath is another big single for me.  The guitar riff and the vocal effects sounded amazing at the time of release and still do. It was one of the first songs I ever sang when me and my mates put our first band together. It’s a classic!

3.  I used to buy second hand records from a shop just off Frederick Street in South Shields when I was a kid in the early 1970’s.  I think it was called The Handy Shop but I might be wrong as it was so long ago haha.

I remember buying a sampler album called ‘The Age Of Atlantic’ which had, amongst other tracks, ‘Communication Breakdown’ from Led Zeppelin. That prompted me to buy Zeppelin 1 which remains one of my favourite albums of all time.

4.  ‘Radar Love’ by Dutch band Golden Earring is another single I absolutely loved at the time it was released and still do.  I saw them at Newcastle City Hall around 1974 and they were amazing.

Bought the album ‘Moontan’ which, once again, remains one of my favourites to this day.  I think that was probably their only big record in the UK.  However, those guys are still going strong, still playing live and still sounding great!

5.  Wishbone Ash had a massive album ‘Argus‘ which me and my mates went crazy for as kids.  More melodic than the band’s mentioned above but wow those twin lead guitars were amazing.

‘Blowin’ Free’ is regarded as the classic track which every club band copied at the time but the whole album is superb.

6.  Also liked a bit of Progressive Rock as a kid and I remember the album ‘Fragile’ by Yes. Me and my classmates at school used to swap albums and I remember swapping my ‘Tarkus’ by ELP for ‘Fragile’.

So many great tracks including ‘Roundabout’ which I absolutely love. Yes were a supergroup…all amazing musicians.

7.  I started buying American imports when I went to Newcastle on Saturday afternoons with my girlfriend around the mid 70’s.  They were a little bit more expensive but worth it.

I remember going to the Mayfair on a Friday night and the DJ playing ‘Carry On Wayward Son’ by Kansas.  I had to have the album ‘Leftoverture’. It’s sheer class from start to finish.

Intro Gary Alikivi November 2017.

Recommended:

Mythra: Still Burning, 13th February 2017.

John Roach, Still Got the Fire, 27th April 2017.

Maurice Bates, Just A Mo’, 12th May 2017.

VINYL JUNKIES:

Will Binks July 7th 2017 – Martin Popoff July 12th 2017

John Heston August 3rd 2017 – Neil Armstrong August 11th 2017 

Colin Smoult  August 29th 2017 -– Neil Newton September 12th 2017 

Tony Higgins October 11th 2017.