THE ENTERTAINER – All the world’s a stage for Kev Charlton

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Today Kev Charlton is known for being a member of North East rockabilly band Bessie and the Zinc Buckets. But in the early 1980’s he played bass for heavy metal band Hellanbach

‘Some of the shows we done around that time were great, the Newcastle Mayfair, Sunderland Mecca. We played with Raven, who were our stablemates at NEAT, they were going great guns.

People were going crazy for Hellanbach, we were caught in a whirlwind’.

Where did it all start? 

‘First off I listened to bands like Atomic Rooster and Emerson Lake and Palmer then through a neighbour I got into playing bass. Started a band with a few mates and we rehearsed in a garage.

Also a big influence was seeing bands at Newcastle City Hall, I have plec’s from Michael Anthony, Edward Van Halen, Geezer Butler and Tony Iommi when Van Halen supported Black Sabbath. Love collecting stuff like that I have a book full of ticket stub’s’.

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‘Then a natural progression from that was to work as one of the stagehands at the City Hall and earn a bit money. What happened was a friend of ours Mick Laheaney, who worked for The Tubes and The Rolling Stones, introduced us to a guy called Colin Rowell who was stage manager at Newcastle City Hall.

So for years we worked at the Hall loading in the sound and light gear and meeting bands like Rush, Judas Priest and Motorhead. I remember we set up eight articulated lorries worth of equipment for Van Halen, all for the princely sum of £8 !’

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‘Then I got the gig working on the backline for Davey Urwin and Kieth Satchfield’s band, they were called Axe at the time, then they turned into Fist. One of my favourite bands.

That’s where it started for me really. That stuff still get’s to me I love to see bands it’s something that’s in yer blood, ya just can’t give it up. I can’t get enough of it’.

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Where were your first gigs ? 

‘We called our first band Oblisque and arranged a gig at Talbot Road Youth Club in South Shields. The word got round especially with the kids in the youth club it was like, wow they are in a band.

The gig went well but that band fizzled out, it didn’t get out of first gear, but it turned into a band that changed my life, that was Hellanbach’.

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‘We started rehearsing then had our first gig at St Hilda’s Youth Club. We started getting everything together, rehearsals, flyers, everything was going ok, until it got to the night of the gig and there was a queue all the way around the market it looked to us.

Then the nerves kicked in, but when we started playing I knew we had something. I can’t put my finger on it but it was something special and drove a lot of people crazy.

Basically, I got hooked from then, it’s something that’s in yer blood, yer can’t give it up. I can’t get enough of it’.

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What was your experience of recording ? 

‘Hellanbach really hit the ground running because in 1980 we put a four track EP together for Guardian records in Durham, the studio was owned by Terry Gavaghan.

We recorded Light of the World, Out to Get You, Nobodys Fool and Lets Get this Show on the Road. But we didn’t realise that what your playing isn’t in your hands of what goes down on record. That was the job of Terry Gavaghan’.

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‘Then we went down to take some photos for the cover, it was on a bridge near the Burn beside Brockley Whins, the photo’s still look good today!

The whole thing was a great experience the feeling of listening to the playback thinking that’s your music, your songs, it’s an incredible feeling. In the end we called the EP Out to Get You, put it out and it sold like hotcakes’.

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With the sales of the E.P. did you feel that the band were getting somewhere ? 

‘I really felt that the band were firing on all cylinders, off the back of the EP we got a deal with NEAT records to record our first album at Impulse Studio in Wallsend. That was the best time.’

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‘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’.

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‘It really was one of the weirdest times of my life because it came out to amazing five star reviews some of the big bands weren’t even getting five stars.

I remember sitting in the toilets of Wallsend shipyard slipway 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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Where did you go with Hellanbach then ?

‘In 1984 we recorded another album The Big H which I’m really proud of. Our line up then was me, Barry Hopper on drums, Davey Patton on guitar and Jimmy Brash upfront.

But looking back I’m so disappointed that we didn’t gig enough and we listened to the wrong people. It all went pear shaped with bad management and signing wrong deals, it just fell to bits.

We should have been touring the States but instead I went back to the shipyards’.

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What are you up to now and are you still involved in music ?  

‘I’m still playing, making a living and having a great time. We still rock n roll like we did when we were 16 year old kids in a garage trying to play our first song. Which I don’t think was Smoke on the Water haha.

One thing I’m proud about is that I kept my Aria guitar, which I recorded the two Hellanbach albums on, a nice bass but doesn’t suit the rockabilly stuff that I play now. But still love it, basically it’s still my love and I set out to play music till the day I die’.

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Interview by Gary Alikivi taken from the documentary We Sold Our Soul for Rock n Roll available to watch on You Tube.

Recommended:

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

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

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

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

Richard ‘Rocky’ Laws, TYGERS OF PAN TANG: Tyger Bay, 24th August 2017.

Robb Weir, Doctor Rock, TYGERS OF PAN TANG: 5th November 2017.

STILL GOT THE BLUES – with guitarist Trevor Sewell

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This Friday June 23rd, is the the launch of ‘Calling Nashville’ the new album from Trevor Sewell.

If you don’t know him check this for an impressive record in the music biz; Winner of 9 major awards in the U.S.A , 4 times nominated in the British Blues Awards, his debut album ‘Calling Your Name’ spent a staggering 7 weeks at number one on the American Blues Scene Chart.

His second album ‘Independence’ went on to win multiple awards and firmly establish him as a real force to be reckoned with.

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Sewell’s music has not only been recorded recently by several American artists but also featured on numerous major compilations alongside legendary artists such as Robert Johnson, B.B King and Howlin’ Wolf.

The years have seen Trevor Sewell continue to go from strength to strength…

‘We have the new album coming out which features some amazing guests in the shape of the wonderful Janis Ian who is herself a multi platinum selling artist and Grammy winner. Also Tracy Nelson from the legendary Mother Earth and produced by American producer Geoff Wilbourn’.

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Rewind the tape Trevor and tell me where did it all begin and how did you get involved in playing music ? 

‘The people that influenced me in the early days and really got me started playing were Jimi Hendrix, Freddie King and John Mayall with Eric Clapton and the Bluesbreakers.

I have a very eclectic taste in music but it was these guys that really made me want to pick up a guitar and make a go of it.

My brother brought a guitar home along with the John Mayall album and I was hooked before the intro of All Your Love had completed. I just thought how can I get a guitar, it was an amazing moment for sure’.

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Where did you rehearse and when did you start playing gigs? 

‘Like most bands we started off rehearsing in each others houses and church halls, anywhere we could really. The first one I ever did was when I was 13, it was at a Drill Hall in Heaton, Newcastle in front of about 400 people.

But since then I’ve played pretty much every sized venue from the very smallest to 20,000 plus’.

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What were your experiences of recording ? 

‘I spent a lot of 1983 working in the major London Studios which taught me a lot and gave me a taste for recording and over the next decade or so I worked hard to learn how to do it myself and build my own studio enabling me to record my albums at home.

Although I recently did one at Capitol Studios in Hollywood and have just returned from Nashville where I’ve recorded the new album’.

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Have you any stories from playing gigs ? 

‘I remember touring in Norway with The Monroes who were signed to EMI Norway and had a number one album at that time. The Monroes were themselves Norwegian and wanted to take the show to places where major bands didn’t usually play so over six or seven weeks we played pretty much everywhere in Norway and it is such a beautiful country.

It was amazing driving through the mountains in the Arctic circle and then getting a small plane into Hammerfest, the most Northerly town in the world, it was a fantastic experience.

I also love playing in America we have had our last two album launches in Los Angeles it’s a fantastic place’.

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What are your plans for the rest of 2017 ? 

‘We played at the pre-Grammy Soiree earlier this year and we are planning to go back to the U.S for the Grammys next February. I’m also lucky in that I get to play on other people’s albums sometimes particularly in the U.S.

I really do think I am a very lucky person as even after all this time I still love playing’.

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Tickets are still available from http://www.thecluny.com for the launch for the new album ’Calling Nashville’ on Friday 23rd June at The Cluny in Newcastle with special guests (from Lindisfarne) Rod Clements with Ian Thomson plus Les Young of the Wall to Wall Blues Show.

Interview by Gary Alikivi April 2017.

Recommended:

Bernie Torme, The Dentist, 21st March 2017.

Steve Dawson (ANIMALS) Long Live Rock n Roll, 2nd April 2017.

Robb Weir (TYGERS OF PAN TANG) Doctor Rock, 21st June 2017.

John Verity, (ARGENT) Blue to his Soul, 7th November 2017.

HUNGRY FOR ROCK – with Hollow Ground/Geordie/Fist guitarist Martin Metcalf.

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Martin is guitarist for NWOBHM band Hollow Ground who formed in South Shields in 1978. He also played in Geordie, Powerhouse, Fist and Sabbatica.

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What were your earliest memories of music and your biggest influences?

‘I first listened to glam rock bands like TRex, Slade and Bowie with my first guitar hero being Mick Ronson. Then got into heavier sounds like Alice Cooper and progressed to bands like Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. That was the catalyst of wanting to play music.

I got my first Satellite Les Paul Copy guitar and Sound City Amp and started rehearsing in Tyne Dock Youth Club in South Shields’.

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When were your first gigs ? 

‘We played a few pubs around South Shields around ’78-’79 and then later some more local gigs with Fist and Hellanbach.

We also played in clubs with a more commercial set doing cover versions under the name Horizon. This financed our first time in a studio, recording at NEAT records’.

What was your experience of recording ?

‘My first one was at NEAT’s Impulse Studios in Wallsend basically a live recording of most songs from the Hollow Ground set. I think it was Keith Nicholl who produced the demo and the tape operator was a guy called Conrad Lant aka Chronos, who later became the bassist in Venom.

We were just young lads then, sort of finding our feet in the studio. That one cost £50 and was recorded totally live’.

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‘One night we went to Newcastle Mayfair to watch our mates Fist who were on the bill with Raven. Steve Thompson who was producer then at NEAT records pulled me to one side and said theres a deal at NEAT if I wanted it. I liked the idea but told him we had just sorted something out with Guardian.

We went down to the studio in Durham and recorded 4 tracks Flying High, Warlord, Rock On and Don’t Chase The Dragon. It cost around £500’.

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What was the story behind Roksnax the compilation LP that Hollow Ground appeared on? 

‘What happened was 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.

So we went down to Guardian and recorded a further two songs – The Holy One and Fight With the Devil. Our mates from South Shields, Saracen were also going to be on the record’.
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‘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 smell of the brown cork tiles in the studio and having to sellotape the headphones on my head when recording as they kept falling off!

In hindsight maybe NEAT would have turned out better for us in the long run. Although a good thing was that Lars Ulrich from Metallica bought a copy of the Roksnax LP in Los Angeles and that led to our track Fight With the Devil being played in the Metallica documentary A Year And A Half In The Life Of Metallica’.

What caused the break up of Hollow Ground ? 

‘Hollow Ground lasted until our singer Glenn Coates went for an audition for Fist. The writing was on the wall because they already had a following and a record deal with NEAT plus they had recently toured with UFO.

Glenn got the job and in the end there was no hard feelings about it, all the lads in Fist were and still are good friends’.

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Where did your career go after that ? 

‘Around 1984 I had a five year stint with Geordie, who changed their name to Powerhouse following an album release. We played gigs and recorded the album (Powerhouse) at Redwood Studios in London for Mausoleum records’.

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‘Redwood Studio was owned by the Monty Python guys Michael Palin, Terry Gilliam and Beatles’ guitarist George Harrison and the studio was run by a guy named Andre Jaquemin.

In 1980 he had set up some studio work for Geordie vocalist Brian Johnson, at the time he was on the brink of leaving Geordie and joining AC/DC. Small world eh’.

What are you up to now are you still involved in music ? 

‘I’m still working in music, just not as much on stage. We do a few Hollow Ground gigs at Metal Festivals in Europe and I still play, but nowadays I mostly work behind the mixing desk engineering live sound’.

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‘I do loads of gigs for North East bands in fact I’m booked up for pretty much the rest of the year. So yeah, I enjoy that and get just as much a thrill out of it as I do when playing on stage’.

Alikivi  12th January 2017.

ALL ABOARD -Getting the band back on the right track with Dealer frontman Trevor Short

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Formed in 1979 New Wave of British Heavy Metal band Dealer are from Cirencester, in the South of England. Vocalist and rhythm guitarist Trevor Short got in touch…

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‘We had quite an entourage back then, to accommodate everyone and our gear we got a massive 28 seater ex US Airforce bus, and our first proper gig was at a pub in our home town, we ran it all from one plug socket – lights, PA and the back line haha!’…

but where did it all begin ?

‘I was in the church choir as a kid and when I was 15, a local band were looking for a singer and asked if I was interested. We all had similar influences, basically anything metal from the late 70’s and 80’s like AC/DC, Budgie, Diamond Head and Scorpions’.

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‘Originally we were called Lone Wolf  but had to change the name as Paul Di’Annio, who was sacked from Iron Maiden, formed a new band called Lone Wolf. We looked into fighting to keep the name but eventually gave up and that’s where Dealer started’.

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

‘We played all pubs and clubs up and down the country with memorable gigs in Swindon, then over to Oxford and into Cardiff. Then a couple of gigs where we supported Gary Moore and the mighty Motorhead at Chippenham Golddiggers.

The whole experience will stay with me forever. Motorhead and their crew could not have been more helpful. We spent most of the evening in their dressing room having been dragged in by Lemmy ‘Help yourself to beer and food guys’.

When it was time for us to go on, Lemmy and Philthy stood in the wings and watched our whole set. It was a sell out gig and everyone was up for it. We actually got an encore but we didn’t think we would be allowed to do one more and started to leave the stage.

Lemmy was having none of it and insisted we go back out for our encore. He was a very kind and generous man. The crew worked their asses of for us too. Nothing was too much trouble’.

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‘All in stark contrast to the Gary Moore gig. The man himself was quite friendly, he seemed almost shy but their management not quite so. We had to wait outside while the band sound checked. Then we were bundled on and off and pretty much made aware of our place. Good gig though’.
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What were your experiences of recording ?  

‘Tudor Studios in Swindon was our first time in a proper studio that was around 1980. I remember we recorded three songs but amazingly with all the archive material we collected there is no recording of this session, not a tape or receipt so I cannot even tell you how much it cost !

We have one track Strip Jack Naked which has survived from the second session we recorded at a studio in Reading. Again we haven’t got much info on the name of that studio but I can remember we were struggling to find a place with a producer who understood heavy metal’.

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‘In 1982 we wanted to record an album’s worth of songs, but this would of cost a fortune so we converted our rehearsal space into a studio. We got all the necessary gear, a recording desk, quarter inch reel to reel and plenty of mics. Then went for it, totally live! The end product we called Boogie, Booze & Birds and put it out on cassette’.

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‘Not long after, we met a guy who owned a studio in Cardiff, we found that he really knew his stuff. He was a real saviour for our recorded output so for the next few years, Studio 2 was our real go to place. The result was our deal with Ebony Records’.

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‘Our next recording was at Ebony Studio in Hull. It was a pretty hectic time because we only had one week to record and mix. But we knuckled down and came out with the First Strike album, that was released in 1986 on the Ebony label’.

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Have you any funny stories from playing gigs ?

‘I mentioned that we got a massive ex US Airforce bus, well that was a V12 Chevy that was very slow and very thirsty! We added our name on the destination board at the front of the bus, we thought this was great but proved not to be one of our better ideas as the police would stop us on a regular basis.

We had just done a gig in Guildford when we were stopped and hauled back to the police station. We were strip searched and held for over five hours…finally we were let go’.

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‘The bus wasn’t the most reliable as it would regularly break down and to get going again we’d have to push it. I remember supporting Spider in Newbury, we were late after breaking down again.

We pushed the bus into the venue’s car park and all the people in the queue were watching us. It was like a scene out of the TV spoof documentary Bad News’.

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Have Dealer been active lately and is there any future plans for band?  

‘In January 2010 we played a ‘one last gig for old times sake’ gig in our hometown of Cirencester. To our surprise that gig was quite a success and I have to say it kinda stirred up the juices again.

Also ONR, a Greek record label, released an album of our demo’s which was later released by German label High Roller Records’.

‘By 2011 of all places to gig, we were asked to tour Russia ! A ten day tour was set up and that was an absolute blast. Our album First Strike was also remastered and released there. More festivals followed including the Heavy Metal Maniacs in Holland’.

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Then Dealer was put on hold after the tragic death of original bassist Pete Gentil. This was absolutely devastating. After a year of contemplation Dealer returned with new bass player Tom Bull to play gigs in the UK, we went back to Holland again and also got on the Lechlade Festival bill supporting Status Quo’.

‘Things were starting to look up again when Steve our lead guitarist developed a problem with his hand meaning Ash Doulton, was brought in to fill on guitar duties. This year with gigs ready for Europe, USA and India we are ready to keep the Dealer train rolling’.

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Dealer full line up:
Trevor Short: lead vocals & rhythm guitar
Rupert Irving: drums & backing vocals
Tom Bull: bass & backing vocals
Ash Doulton: lead guitar & backing vocals

Interview by Gary Alikivi  2017.

THE SHOW MUST GO ON interview with guitarist Mick Maughan

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Mick looks back on his time when over 30 years ago he recorded at NEAT records for NWOBHM band Phasslayne

‘Tracks included Run for Guns, Who’s Losing Now and Minute Man we called the album Cut it Up’

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He also brings his story up to date

‘I’ve play all around the world, last year I played at the Sydney Opera house. I do summer seasons every year in Greece and in the winter move over to Switzerland and Austria. I’ve taught guitar, played on cruises, in football stadiums, done loads of session work and live backing of other artists’.

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‘I’m a self taught musician. Music is in my blood you know and I come from a very musical family. My father played piano and his mother was a music teacher. On my mothers side all of her brothers played guitar so it was a natural progression that I would do the same.

My first guitar was an SG copy which I got around ’79. The guitars I play now are mainly Strats and Les Pauls but I’ve got a great little Tele that I like too. Acoustics I play are Maton, Martin and Takamine.

Gear wise I’ve got a couple of Fender amps, a Bassbreaker and Blues Junior 111, a Bogner Alchemist and a Line 6 DT25. I’ve used amp modelling a lot until recently. I’ve also started using analog pedals again’.

Who were your influences ? 

‘My influences range from Steely Dan, Queen to Stevie Wonder and of course The Beatles. Then heavier stuff like Deep Purple, Van Halen, Gary Moore and UFO, I soaked up all these different sounds, loved it’.

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Where did you rehearse and when did you start playing gigs? 

‘My first band used to rehearse in The North Eastern pub in Jarrow around ’81 and my first gig was at the PHAB club on Bede Burn Road in Jarrow. That was with Ian McElwee who later formed a band called Zig Zag with Ginger from The Wildhearts.

Around the same time I formed NWOBHM band Phasslayne. We rehearsed upstairs in the Dougie Vaults in South Shields and I remember our bassist borrowing his dads car and making multiple trips with Marshall cabs and drums, those were the days !

Amp wise in those days, I played through 2 x 100 Marshalls and 4 x 4×12’s. Also used a distortion pedal and WEM Copycat cry baby wah and a chorus. The line up had Barry Hopper on drums but Ian Matttimore stepped in when we started gigging, Paul Gago on bass throughout until the band split’.

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‘In the recent version he has been replaced by Brian Morton (pic. above) as I believe Paul has not played bass for many years now. Kev Wilkinson was the original singer who was on the first demo in 1983. He left to join glam/punk band Sweet Trash who were based in Newcastle.

Mustn’t forget to mention Maurice Bates from Mythra who is a very good friend of ours and was Phasslayne manager, he helped us with decisions and advice from the very beginning’.

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What venues did you play ?  

‘Phasslayne played the usual places around Tyneside, the Mayfair and Trillions in Newcastle. The Mecca in Sunderland and in South Shields we played St Hilda’s youth club and The British Legion social club.

We could never afford the necessary equipment required for big shows as we were basically kids so we used to hire PA systems. For all those gigs we drove in a van with no insurance, no tax or m.o.t and the steering was goosed, but it still got us to the gig. In the end we scrapped it for a tenner’.

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What were your experiences of recording ? 

‘In the summer of 1985 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 Kev Wilkinson 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. But in the end Phasslayne weren’t getting any support from NEAT plus more lucrative jobs were being offered. So that was the end of that really, and I moved on’.

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Have you any stories from playing gigs ? 

‘I have a few yes, one was where we had a gig booked in South Shields which had been booked for a few month and we weren’t going to cancel even though we had lost our singer. So I took over. I wasn’t sure of all the words to the songs but we got thru it somehow.

We didn’t audition for another singer so I remained on vocals, also drummer Ian Mattimore left and we brought in Andrew Stidolph to replace him’.

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‘Around ’84 or ’85 we entered a Battle of the Bands competition at Buddy’s nightclub in South Shields. All I remember of that gig was we played three songs and came second. I can’t remember the bands name who won but they changed it to The Playboys. Was it Villa La Something or other ?’

What are you doing now and what are your plans for the future ?

’Still keeping very busy. I play on the new Cirkus album and recorded most of the guitars in Greece and there’s also a Bouzouki featured on one of the songs played by one of my Greek friends who is one of the top players there.

The guitars on that album are my Fender Strat, a Gibson Les Paul and a Maton Acoustic. The band have arranged a deal where it will be released on the 17th June so really looking forward to that’.

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‘Phasslayne is an on going project, we were asked to perform at Brofest 3 in Newcastle a couple of years ago and we are now currently writing a new album. Always keeping busy you know, forever on the look out for new projects, it’s in my blood’.

Interview by Gary Alikivi.  2017.

FELT NOWT -The world according to Wavis O’Shave

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Who was Wavis ? An exclusive interview with the reclusive character and his biographer Gary Craig.

Gary: ‘As a kid I’d been to Wavis O’Shave gigs at the Bolingbroke Hall and St Aidens Church Hall in South Shields. He used to have some strange sort of admission fees, like slices of bread or boiled eggs.

It had to be a hard boiled egg cos he wouldn’t let you in with a soft boiled egg. If the entry fee was a white slice of bread but if you brought a brown one you were caught with a forgery’.

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‘When he was making the album Anna Fords Bum we decided to go down to ITN in London and try and meet up with the TV newsreader Anna Ford.

Amazingly enough we had only stood around for an hour when Anna Ford herself just walked straight out onto the steps of ITN.

She was approached by a man with an 18 inch polystyrene nose attached to his face. She stood there, waited while he got down on one knee and proposed marriage, we took a couple of photographs and it made the national newspapers.

After that I think he managed to get a bit more famous, he used to get on The Tube and establish one or two characters’.

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Wavis: Wavis had many adventures. I remember driving through London in the Wavis mobile. Someone sprayed a massive nose along the length of the car. You could see we were out of the area because of the licence plate on the car.

Gary Craig: We got ourselves a bit lost and headed down a dead end. We realised there was a car following us, I thought it was just going to come past so I was waving them on.

Wavis: All of a sudden it was screeching of tyres. Turned out to be the Flying Squad. It was just like Reagan and Carter on the telly. When I used to leave the area I used to have masks and stuff like that in the boot, this time I also had a baseball bat wrapped in Christmas wrapping paper. They asked me to get out and started to search under the seats and opened up the boot.

Gary Craig: They started to look at all the things in there and said sticks and masks son you could get 15 years for this. But Wavis and another lad who were in the backseat donned the 18 inch polystyrene conks, stuck there heads outside the back window and said ‘can you tell me what’s wrong officer’.

At this stage I think he decided we were pretty much crazy and there was no point of trying to pursue enquiries.

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The Tube in the early 1980’s was a music programme broadcast live from a studio in Newcastle. I was lucky enough to be in the audience for a few shows.

The early series featured Wavis O’Shave but it was in the Summer of 1982 when we witnessed the birth of one of Wavis’ best known creation’s, The Hard.

Wavis: ‘I’d filmed two 45-minute VHS movies, The Hard and Enter the Hard, where with a bit of camera trickery The Hard challenged and fought Bruce Lee.

These films were quickly made available to Wavis fans on the Whiteleas Council Estate, South Shields. Video copies fired around the estate and a Hard mania was born’.

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‘I was asked by Tyne Tees TV who were making a music programme for Channel 4, if I would like to contribute as I had been on their Check it Out show as Hootsi Tabernacle.

Hootsi was a spoof about an American Cult leader of Nebbism who had bought Marsden Rock and was having it transported bit by bit over to the States by helicopter’.

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‘Researcher Nigel Sheldrake loved The Hard videos and wanted him on the show.

Somewhat lazily I was hoping they could simply use the footage from my own VHS movies but of course the quality would be far better if we re-shot some with professional cameras, so I conceded to redoing some in my own humble back yard in Stoddart Street, South Shields’.

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‘The brand new TV station Channel 4 and The Tube was planned to air in November 1982 so we did the shoot sometime in September.

I was designated a sizeable film crew including the cameraman who couldn’t stop laughing, nobody knew what I was going to say or do next, so it took a few takes until he and his wobbling camera settled down.

Director Geoff Wonfor took an unashamed back seat, left me to it really, and told all the crew to do whatever I asked them to. And they did. It took about three hours and obviously not all of the sketches made it to the screen’.

‘The origin of the famous stripy jumper worn by the Hard was that I spotted it hanging up at a friend’s house. He was much taller than me so in order to make it fit I was inspired to have to pad myself out quite a bit, hence the exaggerated muscles.

I guess it may have reminded me a bit of Dennis the Menace’s jumper. The Dennis the Menace Fan Club is the only thing I have ever joined in my life. When The Tube first aired The Hard’s national debut was on the second or third episode’.

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‘On another occasion, I was given the luxury and rarity of a full day to film on location in Newcastle.

As the day wore on the crew got progressively drunk on the free beer, the disastrous result being that much of the footage was unusable, and so Lord Lobsang Coalseamwig, The Hard’s toff cousin, with top hat, tails, monocle and Doc Martens with his posh phrase ’I felt no thing’ never made it onto the Mid Summer Tube Special.

This was despite it been advertised the previous week. That was naughty of them because it was probably the best thing I had ever done.

Part of the jollity that day was when word got back to Director Geoff Wonfor that I said I was going to throw myself off the Tyne Bridge instead of the prepared Hard dummy but not to tell him.

When he found out he pinned me up to a wall and said if I did he’d kill me! I’d have thought the drop would have done that’.

‘The immortal catch phrase ‘Felt Nowt’ came naturally, although we suspect the Hard actually did feel the lot.

Two weeks after he made his debut on the show The Tube crew were sent to film something in a Manchester nightclub and all the bouncers were wearing homemade ‘Felt Nowt’ T-Shirts! The Hard was here to stay.

But these days, The Hard resides at a secret location, frozen solid in a state of cryogenic suspended animation in order to avail himself for historical study by future generations, as the worlds hardest person ever.

Premature defrostment is only an option should he be called upon to save the world if ever under threat from an incoming asteroid, whereby NASA have booked him to head butt it away’.

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‘I, Mr Wavis O’Shave true to my origin, remain an enigma even to myself, projecting multiple aspects and facets of my being hither and thither under numerous names and identities, some of which are known only to a few.

One of me being a successful author, broadcaster and occasional film maker of all things deeply profound….’

Interview by Gary Alikivi 2017.

Recommended:

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

ALL THE YOUNG PUNKS – The early day’s with ex Upstart’s guitarist Neil Newton.

/ Alikivi

Neil Newton is a musician based in the North East of England. For 11 years he was guitarist for Angelic Upstarts.

Here he looks back on his career and where it all began…

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‘It all started off with Wizard and The Sweet, my earliest memory as a kid is seeing Roy Wood’s geet mad hair and makeup and the music just hooked me even though, at 5 years old, I didn’t understand why it appealed but I didn’t care, those songs and images were fucking great’.

‘A few years later punk came along and that was it, I had already been primed for punk by listening to the Glam Rock bands and the impact on me was massive.

I loved the energy, the anger and lyrics being spat out like venom, fucking incredible and punk still does that to this day, it still makes the hairs on my arms and neck stand on end’.

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‘Punk music did so much more than influence me musically though, it shaped my whole attitude to the world in general and it was a local punk band who brought everything into focus about just what it was that punks were angry about.

The Sex Pistols were writing about Anarchy in the UK but the Angelic Upstarts were writing about events and issues that were happening in my hometown. I loved punk because of the Pistols, Damned, Clash et al but I understood punk because of the Upstarts’.

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‘One other major influence at that time was my dad. He heard me learning and practicing some punk songs on my first ever guitar which I still have. He gave me one of his Eddie Cochran records and said ‘Here, learn that’.

So I did and said to him ‘Here dad, that record’s just like the Pistols’ my dad’s reply was ‘check the date it was recorded you stupid bastard’.

1950’s! Fuck me, that seemed prehistoric to me at the time and there was me thinking music only started with Glam then Punk…Wrong!. I scored for all my dad’s old vinyl though, Chuck Berry, Eddie C, Buddy Holly etc…Mint!’

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How did you get involved in playing music ?

‘The Boy’s Brigade. I started as a bugler but always wanted to be a drummer, so when I got the chance I took a drum and started rehearsing with it at home. Well, when I say at home I mean my dad’s shed.

My mam hate’s noise, always has and even to this day she has her telly’s volume on something like minus 24! So I’d get hoyed out into the shed. It was cosy as fuck. I can still smell the creosote, Jeyes fluid from Lindgrens, old tins of gubbins and my sneaky tabs – loosies, remember them?

Our neighbours must’ve been either stone deaf, extremely tolerant or best mates with Ted Moult and got a great deal on double glazing, because the noises coming out of that shed must’ve been bloody torturous!’

Where did you rehearse and when did you start playing gigs?

‘I played my first gig before I had ever rehearsed! I was still at school maybe 14 or 15 year old and I was approached by a 6th former. He’d heard I’d played guitar and would I help his band out by playing bass, as they had a gig coming up.

I agreed and asked him when the gig was, thinking it might be in a few months time and the lad said ‘Oh it’s tonight’! Ehhhh ! Don’t worry, he said, ‘do you know the bass line for Satisfaction by the Stones?’ Aye? Right, well just play that for every song.

A few hours later I was upstairs in the Marsden Inn drinking pints of lager and belting out Satisfaction like there was no tomorra’.

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What venues did you play ?

‘In the early days I played a few pubs in South Shields, upstairs in The Cyprus, The Commando but because I supported Newcastle United, I would spend more time in Newcastle than down Shields.

I discovered great bars like The Farmers, Jewish Mother, Egypt Cottage, Barley Mow and the best bar ever for live music in Newcastle…The Broken Doll.

Mega City Four gigs upstairs in The Doll, smashed off your tits on Slalom D, those were magic times Gary, magic times’.

What were your experiences of recording ?

‘Mostly positive and I’m not talking about the actual written material, because that usually takes care of itself either by being written and well rehearsed before you go in, or jammed out spontaneously to give it an extra edginess on the day.

Like most things, the greatest experiences are when you learn the most and I fell double lucky by having Steve Mack as producer for a band I was in at the time called The Sunflowers’.

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‘Steve’s from Seattle but in the early ’90s he had a studio called Bang Bang in Hackney. Steve was also the front-man for That Petrol Emotion who were formed by John and Damian O’Neill and were signed to Virgin.

Steve was a brilliant producer and he showed me how to properly arrange songs to get maximum impact, he explained about dynamics, he was a fucking genius and my biggest song writing mentor’.

Have you any stories from playing gigs ?

‘Haha, oh aye shitloads but a lot of them I can’t repeat. Ok then here’s a couple’.

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‘ The first involves a band I was in called Speedster and we were asked to play an all-day music festival at Newbiggin Bank House Social Club. How they even got onto us in the first place is still a mystery but contact us they did and asked if we would play.

As soon as the bloke said ‘Social Club’ I immediately asked him if he knew that we were a punk band, that we played all original material and no, we wouldn’t ‘play something wa knaa’! He replied that he was happy with that and that he wanted, as he put it to ‘put summat on for everyone son, a bit of variety’.

Well you can’t say fairer than that I suppose so we agreed to play even though, to be truthful, we still had reservations.
Anyway, the day of the festival arrives and we travel up in our drummer’s van.

We arrive and get shown through to the dressing room by the Concert Chairman, who introduced us to some bloke and his barely teenage son.

‘See this lad here’ ? says the CC pointing to the young lad, ‘he can play The Shadows on his guitar, give him a listen and tell iz what you think’ !

Now I don’t know if the CC had mistook us for Tony Hatch or Mickie Most but we stood in uncomfortable silence as this young kid gave us back to back versions of  Apache and FBI’.

No disrespect to the young kid but it was cringingly embarrassing to see his dad and the CC with a proper chuff on about this young lad, who probably felt as uncomfortable playing for us, as we felt watching him.

A pushy parent is one thing but a pushy parent and a concert chairman, the poor kid must’ve been going through hell.

Whilst all this had been going on an old bloke had been popping in and out of the dressing room. We assumed that he was club staff, or one of the dreaded ‘committee men’, so we didn’t really pay him that much attention….more on him later!

We asked if we could see where we were playing and were escorted outside and onto a concrete flagged patio, with two small speakers for the vocals…and that was it.

I remember it was a sunny, warm day so we buggered off into Newbiggin and got ourselves a slab or two of lager, it was Oranjeboom lager and how the fuck I can remember that I’ll never know but there you are.

We went back to the club and just sat in the sun drinking our cans and waiting for our patio erm stage time.

In fairness we had a great view of the seafront and it was a beautiful day but we began to dread what would happen when we got up, as the audience was comprised mostly of old people and staunch clubmen types – sorry for the generalisation.

Nonetheless, as more of the Oranjeboom began to go down, the less we gave a fuck….except our drummer, who wasn’t drinking because he had the van and was dreading it more and more the nearer it got to our stage time.

Finally we got up to play our set which was approx 50mins long. Not today though, our drummer just wanted to get on and off as quick as he could and set a band personal best time of just over 30 mins, by playing the set at 200mph!

There was problems with the weedy little PA as our backline just roared over it. When we finished, you would’ve thought the audience had been twatted with a wet Turbot, they just sat there, stunned and bemused.

We got off and went back to the dressing room and were met by the bloke who had booked us, he paid and thanked us and seemed happy enough so we thought fair enough, a little surreal but fair do’s.

Then we noticed the little old fella from earlier, except now he wasn’t wearing old gadgie gear, he was squeezed into an Elvis Presley, Vegas bloated years jumpsuit.

I did spot a custom addition though, the proper Elvis caper has something like American Eagles sewn on it and encrusted with jewels, this fella had Magpies sewn on instead of Eagles and glitter that he’d glued on.

We thought he was fucking mint and couldn’t wait to see him get up and strut his stuff, so we went up and parked our arses where we could get a good view.

Hey man, when he came on everyone gave him a big cheer and he was over the bit glad with himself. He started belting out Elvis songs and you know the crack, it’s just owld fella chanting and wobbly vibrato innit.

Then he fired up with a real classic (You’re the) Devil in Disguise. A track I quite like as it happens, but this fella sang his own version.

I suppose the Magpies on his shirt should’ve been a big enough clue but the owld fella was clearly a proud North-East working class fella and when he got to the chorus he roared out ‘You’re Mike Neville in Disguise’ !

It probably doesn’t sound all that funny a story in and of itself but the experience of it was fucking hilarious’.

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‘Second story, I can’t give names for this one but it involved some after show shenanigans at a hotel in Blackpool. One of whose guests included a certain diminutive Scottish lady, who likes dressing up as a schoolboy.

The surreal level went off the scale with that one, especially when the after show shenanigans moved from the bar and upstairs to a hotel room. True story’.

What are you doing now and what are your plans for the future ?

‘I’ve just left the Angelic Upstarts after being with them for the last 11 years and having written and released two albums.

I’ve got my University finals coming up for an MSc so I need to focus 100% on them for the next few months but after that I’ll be heading straight back into music again, although probably not with the Upstarts.

I’ve got plans for what I’m going to do music wise and should be able to reveal those towards the end of the year’.

Interview by Gary Alikivi March 2017.

Recommended:

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

Angelic Upstarts, The Butchers of Bolingbroke: Gigs, Pigs & Prisons, June 1st 2017.

Neil Newton, Vinyl Junkies, 12th September 2017.

THE BUTCHERS OF BOLINGBROKE – Pigs, Gigs and Prisons with Angelic Upstarts

/ Alikivi

1983

In 1977 three big events happened in the small seaside town of South Shields in the North East of England.

The boxer Muhammed Ali had his wedding blessed in the town’s mosque, on her Silver Jubilee the Queen visited the town and while ‘God Save the Queen’ by The Sex Pistols was blasting out of the radio, three friends from a working class housing estate started a punk band.

It took them on a journey they could only dream of…

Mensi: The nucleus of the band really was me, Dekka and Mond

Mond: We had known each other since we were kids, we used to hang around the shops at Brockley Whins.

Decca: They said here Decca we’re forming a band and you’re going to be the drummer. I wasn’t doing too much then, so I thought it would be a bit practice.

Mond: Initially we used to rehearse in Percy Hudson youth club in Biddick Hall and I remember our first gig was there, we done a show for the kids.

Decca: Yeh and we only knew six songs, so we played them same six songs three times!

Mond: We found you can hire the Bolingbroke Hall in South Shields for about £10 or something like that, and we had a big enough following by then, we used to get about 300 people in.

Decca: We used to play there regular, the admissions were a bag of coal or 50p, well there was coal wagons turned up !

Mensi: We gave the coal to the pensioners.

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At one gig a special guest was brought on stage and fans in the crowd Graham Slesser and Steven Wilson remember it well…
Graham: The first time I went to see the Angelic Upstarts was at the Bolingbroke Hall when I was 14. There was a pigs head and everybody would run to it, fling it and kick it about.

Steven: First ever concert. First ever punk gig. Unbelievable, walked in, paid me money, it was wall to wall, heaving. I just have this vivid memory of a pigs head being held aloft, and I was transfixed.

Mensi: I think he made his first appearance at the Bolingbroke Hall with a police helmet on !

Mond: But at those gigs people started to sit up and take an interest.

Decca: I think that’s when we all started to take it serious you know, when we all got our heads together and started writing. I mean Mensi was a prolific song writer.

Mensi: My lyrics are mainly the easiest lyrics to write cause I just write about what’s happening around us.

Decca: He came out with the Murder of Liddle Towers, the song that made us famous.

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Mensi: When I wrote Liddle Towers it was more a sense of injustice that basically someone could be kicked to death. I don’t think I’m ashamed of anything I’ve wrote.

Although in hindsight, being a lyricist and songwriter you can write a song about something that’s in your mind for just that moment.

Another thing is being in a band sometimes you think you have great power to change the world, write a song that’ll change the world, full of ideals when you are young.

How did the Upstarts get their name about on a national stage ?
Mond: The journalist Phil Sutcliffe came to see us and gave us our first big write up in the Sounds, it was a centre page spread.

Mensi: We got big helps in our early days. Number one would have been John Peel, he actually played Liddle Towers when nobody else would because I believe it got banned. Then Phil Sutcliffe who actually championed the band. Then Garry Bushell.

Mond: Garry was working for the Sounds at the time and he saw the write up that Phil Sutcliffe did. He was into punk so he came up to see us.

There was something in the Sounds every week about us, if it wasn’t a single review it was an album review or a gig review.If there wasn’t any new records out we used to just phone him up and give him stories, we used to just make them up.

At one time the Sounds used to be called the Upstarts weekly because there was something about the Upstarts in every week without fail.

And that was all down to Garry Bushell. Bless him. One time we played in Acklington Prison and we actually sneaked Garry in, we pretended he was one of the roadies.

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Mensi: A lot of people thought it was a made up publicity stunt but it really happened. Yes we went in there. The prison Chaplain booked us as he thought we were a Gospel band.

Mond: We sneaked Bushell in with a camera, I mean if he got caught he would of ended up stopping in there.

Mensi: It wasn’t just a couple of songs we done a full set, we played Police Oppression and Liddle Towers that went down a storm didn’t it.

Mond: That got us some great press if nothing else. There was hell on, it was in all the Sunday papers. How could such an anti Police band be allowed to play inside a prison.

I seem to remember an MP from Tynemouth called Neville Trotter, he stood up in the Houses of Parliament and asked questions like how was this allowed to happen. Neville Trotter and a pig’s head, you couldn’t write it could you.

Decca: The rest is history after that… next you know your on Top of the Pops.

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Pop music has an air of glamour and in the 70’s shows like Top of the Pops paraded the latest stars in front of a huge TV audience of teenagers looking to spend their pocket money on the latest single.

At its height the BBC show was pulling in audience figures of 15 million. In the Summer of ’79 the Angelic Upstarts were booked for the show. The glamour bubble was about to be burst…

Mensi: We should of got on Top of the Pops with I’m an Upstart because it got to number 31 and stayed in the chart a few weeks but they wouldn’t have us on at first. But we were on once. It was like, nothing. There was no atmosphere.

Mond: I remember we did Teenage Warning it went in around number 29 on the chart. It was a horrible cold studio with four stages in it. There was only 20-30 people there. It was like playing a big warehouse, it was horrible really, not a nice experience.

Mensi: The only good thing was I sang live, they wanted us to mime but I wouldn’t so that was something.

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What did punk do for the band ?
Mond: Punk was a great platform it enabled us to get a deal with EMI, another one with Polydor and one with WEA. So yeh it enabled you to get a foot on the ladder.

Mensi: It was a way out for what I consider to be working class kids. You didn’t have to be a student in art school, you didn’t have to be prolific at music you could just bang a dustbin lid and you were away mate.

Decca: The first time I went to America, the kids in New York were into skinheads and that but in L.A. where I lived for a little while it was more like a fashion with them. But here in the UK it was a real movement.

Mond: I never thought I would be with EMI and do an album in Abbey Road studios where The Beatles used to use. We were in studio 2 the one that they recorded in.

Decca: Imagine how I felt you end up drinking with Hollywood movie stars like Marty Feldman who I loved and adored.

Mond: When I was in the shipyards putting lights up on type 42 Destroyers and you told me I was going to do an album in Abbey Road I would of just laughed. I’m an alright guitarist not a great guitarist but I couldn’t see it happening.

Decca: Yeh looking back I’ve been a lucky man.

Mond: But that’s what punk did it made peoples dreams come true.

Interviews from the documentary ’The Butchers of Bolinbroke’ (2013) available on You Tube.
Interview by Gary Alikivi  2013.

Recommended:

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

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

MEN AT WORK – with Steve Dawson from Oliver/Dawson Saxon

/ Alikivi

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747, Wheels of Steel, Heavy Metal Thunder, Never Surrender, And The Bands Played On are just some of the Heavy Metal anthems recorded by Saxon during the late 1970’s and early ’80’s.

After the band split up, original members Graham Oliver and Steve Dawson formed their own version of Saxon. Here Steve talks about those early days and how he is still enjoying the music biz.

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‘Looking back on my career so far I’d say my proudest moment was the first time going on Top of the Pops with Wheels of Steel and my mother finally accepting that I had got a proper job!’

Who were your influences and what got you playing music, was there a defining moment of hearing a song or watching a band when you said ‘I want to do that’ ?
‘What started it all off for me was listening to The Beatles – Day Tripper and Last Train to Clarksville by The Monkeys’.

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The New Wave of British Heavy Metal, what was the feeling betwwen Saxon and Iron Maiden who were leading the charge, and did you realise how influential the movement was on bands like Metallica ? 

‘Of course we did many shows with Iron Maiden, loved them all. And bands like Vardis, Samson and the Tygers were around then.

We didn’t think too much about the future, we were just going for it you know, to be honest we were just happy to make it to the next week !

As far as Metallica goes I remember first time coming across them when they supported us at the Whiskey A Go Go in Los Angeles.

It wasn’t until much later that we heard Metallica were heavily influenced by Saxon, the drummer Lars Ulrich came out and said that. It’s nice of him to acknowledge our influence but we didn’t know about it really we were just playing the music we loved’.

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Have you any memories of the day’s when Saxon played on the bill of the Monsters of Rock festival in 1980 & 1982 ?

 ‘First time in 1980 we were playing with so many of our hero’s. We were listening to records like Killing Machine by Judas Priest and Long Live Rock n Roll from Rainbow and here we are on the same bill!

We just hoped we got through the set without making any mistakes. At that time it was the biggest crowd that we’ve ever played, so you could say we were a bit nervous’ !

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‘In 1982 Gillan were on after us then Status Quo were headlining. Anvil and a few other bands had been on before us but it was over very quickly and at the end we got a good fee for playing, so that turned out to be a good day’s work’.

Is there a commaraderie between musicians when you are on tour ?

‘We are all in it together, and we are just musicians at work having a great time. Unfortunately there are some arseholes in the music biz so it’s best to keep away from them as much as you can.

You never stop learning in this job and we are forever grateful that we can earn a living doing what we love’.

Does your experience of the early Saxon days help you enjoy performing now ?
‘You know life on the road is one big adventure and like all musicians we have stories from the road.

When we are together we can talk for hours about the laughter, the tears and the heady nights so this is a nice lead into telling you Graham and I have a new book coming out, called Saxon Drugs and Rock & Roll, the Real Spinal Tap.

It’ll be packed with lot’s of stories of life on the road, so that’s one to definitely check out soon on Tomahawk Press’.

(The 1984 mockumentary Spinal Tap was based on Saxon, plus a few other bands have claimed an influence on the film which follows a fictional British Heavy Metal band on tour. The writer Harry Shearer went on tour with Saxon and took notes which formed the basis of the script for the film.)

What has music given you ? ‘Music has given me a good job that I love, lots of great times, and more sex than I could have wished for. Oh and a failed marriage’.

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What are Oliver/Dawson Saxon planning for the rest of the year ? 

‘Later this year we are recording a new album, we have a few idea’s for that already. It’ll be produced by the band and Paul O’Neill in his Wigan studio. We are keeping the same team together who recorded Motorbiker in 2012 because that went really well.

We’ve also got load’s of shows this summer around the UK and a few festivals in Europe like Stormcrusher in Germany, British Steel Festival in France and November we’re in Holland. It’s hard work but we love it’ !

With that Steve is off to work to put another rock n roll shift in.

All tour dates and information available on the official website http://www.odsrock.co.uk

Interview by Gary Alikivi April 2017.

UNDER THE BLADE – Against all odd’s with Tokyo Blade

/ Alikivi

Andy Boulton, Lead Guitarist for NWOBHM band Tokyo Blade talks about the high’s and lows of being in the music biz…

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‘Our first big break came when we did two big festivals in Holland and Belgium with Metallica, then our second big break came when we supported Mamas Boys throughout Europe. We were received in an unbelievably positive way and in a heartbeat we were back out on our own headlining tour, that was really incredible.

There we were all in our early 20’s with a big flash tour bus and an arctic truck full of gear playing sold out shows of 3-4000 capacity venues all over Europe which continued almost non-stop for three years.

Then it was the USA tour and back home to film Live in London, a one hour show from the Camden Palace and a live session for BBC Radio One’s Friday Rock show with Tommy Vance.

It was all travel, birds, booze and rock ‘n’ roll so we wouldn’t want that for a lifestyle in your mid 20s !’

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That being the high, what was the low ?

‘At the risk of being overdramatic and sounding like a pompous arse the cost has been very high both financially and personally and on more than one occasion I’ve questioned why the fuck I still continue to play guitar with Tokyo Blade !

I think the biggest tragedy in our heyday was Vic Wright leaving the band to live in America just after our first US tour. We were on the verge of signing a major deal with WEA when he left and we never really recovered from that.

Plus the fact that we were screwed for an awful lot of money forced Blade to fall apart’.

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Let’s go back to the beginning Andy. How did you get involved in playing music was there a defining moment when you said ‘I want to do that’? 

‘I think if you’re a real musician then it’s in you somewhere. Your soul or spirit, it’s there from birth. My mother was a fantastic pianist and had an amazing ear. She could listen to something once and then play it perfectly, it’s definitely from her that I got my gift for music.

I guess that something triggers inside you it must be DNA I guess, that sort of inner feeling to play music.

If I had to name one defining moment that moment would be when I was about 12 year old. I was at a friends house and his elder brother had just bought the second Queen album, he put on the first track of the second side Ogre Battle and that was it for me, my journey to the dark side was underway!

I started digging out my sisters albums she had Schools Out by Alice Cooper, Led Zeppelin II and of course the almighty Led Zeppelin IV.

I just soaked up everything I could. I begged my mother for a guitar and being a musician herself she understood and bought me one as soon as she could afford it. And I started with a red Jedson a sort of Telecaster’.

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

‘We started in the way that most bands start, at school with friends just playing youth clubs. As the band got better we started playing pubs, just local stuff at first.

As time progressed we all knew that what we wanted to do was to play rock and metal but we desperately needed decent equipment, so we decided that playing working men’s club’s was where the money was.

This meant we had to play a load of material that we didn’t like, including country and western ! But we worked our asses off and saved some money to record a demo, we gave a copy to Tommy Vance who played it on the Friday Rock Show, and from there we gigged all over the country’.

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‘We did two big festivals in Holland and Belgium one was the Aardschock around ’84 on the bill were Metallica and Venom. We were really surprised by the number of Blade fans there and the amazing reaction from the crowd.

Then our first big break came with the support for Irish band Mamas Boys throughout Europe. There were more tours and albums that followed and Tokyo Blade became a well respected part of the NWOBHM genre.’

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What were your experiences of recording ? 

‘A fucking nightmare in short, everything we ever did was with no real money. We signed to an awful record company who eventually took every penny we made.

The first album we done was at Wickham Studios and was recorded and mixed in four days. We slept on the studio floor and lived on chip butties.

The second album Night of the Blade was little difference other than we had two weeks to record and mix it, real luxury ! We slept in a rough Bed & Breakfast it was a working man’s dosshouse really, with bedbugs and really greasy breakfasts, yep the whole 9 yards’.

(The album got a USA release in 1984 under the title Midnight Rendezvous). 

‘We financed the third album ourselves, Black Hearts & Jaded Spades and had a slightly better time of it and successive albums have been recorded under more or less similar circumstances’.

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‘We had a call one day from our agency, there was a proposal from London Weekend Television who wanted to film one of our gigs and would we mind playing at the Camden Palace and have it recorded for broadcast?

Oh there’s a fair bit of money in it for you as well. Where do we sign ? The whole thing turned out great, a huge part of the Tokyo Blade history’.
(It’s worth checking out the concert Live in London filmed in 1985 also recorded for the show were Girlschool, Rock Goddess & Warlock. Also the newly released box set CD ‘Knights of the Blade’ received a favourable review by Philip Wilding in May 2017 edition of Classic Rock magazine ’sounding like a fledgling Def Leppard some songs could of bought them their own tour bus).

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Have you any funny stories from playing gigs ?  

‘Millions my friend far too many to tell but if I had to pick one it would be the tour with Mamas Boys and what follows is 100% fact and perfectly illustrates the luck or rather lack of it that Tokyo Blade has endured throughout its entire history’.

The 1983 European support tour with Mamas Boys had been set up and dates arranged and confirmed. The problem was our record company had persuaded us that our vocalist was not good enough as a front man and we must find a new singer.

So we searched but had no luck. Our manager was going to pull the tour when a few days before we were due to leave a demo tape arrived at his office, we listened and it sounded promising. The singers name was Vic Wright.

So we called him up and asked him when he could come for an audition. The catch being that he lived in Bradford 300 miles away and had no car. The audition would be the sound check for the first show of the tour !

He eventually made it to my house in Salisbury. How, I’m not sure ! I handed him a Sony Walkman with a cassette of the songs and some of the lyrics. We sat there all night and left my home at five a.m next day for the ferry’.

What sort of budget did you have for the tour ? 

‘We had no money for hotels or food, and only a small amount for diesel. 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.’

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What type of transport did you have ?

‘A large Fiat Daily, it had to be large enough to carry five band members, four road crew and all our gear. To be honest there wasn’t enough room to scratch your bollocks plus with no money for hotels we were going to have to sleep in the fucking thing…yes all 9 of us!’

We eventually got on the road down to Calais where the charming French Customs Officers searched the 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.

To look on the bright side we had youth, enthusiasm and testosterone on our side so unanimously we thought ‘we’ll be ok, we’re gonna get through the next 14 days of this tour somehow’. We headed for the first venue’.

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What happened when you arrived for the first gig ? 

‘When we arrived we were allowed to do one song for a soundcheck and luckily for us our new vocalist Vic Wright sang fine. So with half a ton of gaffa tape one of our road crew stuck his lyrics sheets all over the stage.

The gig itself ? We went down an absolute storm, the entire place erupted from the moment we hit the stage until we left ! We couldn’t believe it we knew this was going to be hard but it was going to be made a helluva lot easier playing shows like this every night.

After the show the crew had piled all the gear into the van and we drove to the next venue in a better mood’.

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‘We arrived very early in the morning and parked in some woods nearby to try and sleep. I’ve always been lucky in as much as I can sleep on a tight rope.

Having said that sharing the front of an extremely cramped Fiat Daily van with nine very sweaty guys is not conducive for a good nights shut eye.

It was at this point that our drummer Steve Pierce smugly announced that he had brought a tent for him and our bassist Andy Wrighton to share. It was pissing down with rain though.

Apparently during the night the tent leaked, a lot, and while Steve was having sweet dreams of steak and chips in a four poster bed, poor old Andy decided he couldn’t take anymore and being soaking wet, extremely tired and pissed off decided to go for a walk. A nice little woodland stroll.

Meanwhile the rest of us who had slept sitting upright in the van began to stir and decided to leave for the venue in the hope that there would be showers inside so we could at least get rid of some of the previous night’s sweat.

We all crawled out of the van to discover one very damp drummer and zero bass players.

The only conclusion we could reach was that poor old Andy couldn’t take any more and had decided to just go home.

So we all piled back into the van and decided to drive about hoping to find him, meanwhile he had returned from his woodland walk to discover no tent, no drummer, no van, no band !’

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‘To say the poor bloke was in a state of extreme panic would be an understatement, he was left standing damp, cold and very much alone in the middle of the woods somewhere in Northern France with no money, no fags and no idea of how he was going to get anywhere. Remember these were the days before mobile phones.

Meanwhile we scoured the nearby area to no avail so unanimously decided to return to the woods where we found a very distressed but a very much relieved bassist.

It turned out to be a very emotional reunion and Andy’s vocabulary was now confined to expletives clearly designed to upset our more sensitive little personalities. He hadn’t taken our departure from the woods in good spirit, to say the least’.

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With no money for food how did you feed yourselves ?

‘Our roadie Cliff was very adept at stealing things and for the next three days he stole all the food he could get from various shops. This led to some very interesting meals, strawberries and bread, crisps and jam, apples and ham, those meals stick in my mind.

After about three days our luck turned and Mamas Boys came to learn of our wild style of existence if you ever read this boys although I’ve said it 1 million times ‘thank you from the bottom of my heart’, Pat, John and the late and much missed Tommy (RIP brother).

Not only did they allow John and I to sleep on their tour bus but also their catering ladies gave us the left over food they had cooked. All the bunks on the tour bus were taken so John and I slept in the seats at the front but it was a damn site more comfortable than the van.

And so we completed the tour and returned home to good old Blighty in high spirits like conquering warrior heroes.

Successive tours saw us in our own tour buses and artic lorries carrying all the gear. Total luxury and as a result of that tour we always treated our support bands the same way we’d been treated by Mamas Boys’.

What are you doing now and did this experience put you off music ? 

‘Trust me when I say I am incredibly proud of what Tokyo Blade has achieved over the years because everything we’ve done has been against overwhelming odds. It’s all helped to turn us in to the tough, determined and tight band we are today.

Although the music business chewed us up and spat us out, my band of brothers and myself battle on, still making new music still touring and still doing what we’ve always done to the best standard we can.

As I’ve said in more than one interview for me personally Tokyo Blade captures the spirit of the underdog, our spirit lies with the working class and the downtrodden or dogged persistence against all odds – means we are still out there doing what we do best. I make no apologies for Tokyo Blade and I’m fucking proud of what we’ve achieved’.

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‘As of today with our original vocalist Alan Marsh back on board I think we are the only New Wave of British Heavy Metal band still going with an original line-up and the new album to be recorded this year plus more tours to come. Unless I die I’ll crack on with that!

Life is not a rehearsal, you get one crack at it so why waste it being unhappy? What ever life chucks at you just duck so it hits some other fucker and laugh your arse off, all the hard times make for the best stories and memories and that’s all we have left at the end of the day isn’t it?’

‘Let’s face facts we were hardly the darlings of the UK music press who slagged us off at every available opportunity and continue to do so, but thanks to all our fans worldwide last year alone we headlined two British metal festivals, several in Europe plus a tour of Chile, Brazil and Ecuador.

Apart from anything else music is my raison d’être. If anyone is to blame for my persistence with it blame Brian May for ever recording Ogre Battle oh and my late Mother’s DNA of course! God bless you all.

Tour dates and information is available on the official website at Tokyoblade.com

Interview by Gary Alikivi 2017.

Recommended:

SALEM: To Hull and Back, 6th April 2017.

CLOVEN HOOF: Shine On, 20th April 2017.

WEAPON UK: All Fired Up, 6th May 2017.

SAVAGE: The Mansfield Four, 8th May 2017.

TYTAN: Back in the Ring, 25th May 2017.

CLOVEN HOOF, On the Hoof, 21st August 2017.

SATAN’S EMPIRE: The Devil Rides Out, 4th October 2017.