After 50 years in the business what gets you up in the morning?
It’s in our blood. We love being on the road and the whole process. But it’s really all about those few hours on stage. We may have been doing this for 50 years but believe me, it never gets old and we never take it for granted. We are incredibly lucky and humbled by the fact that we get the opportunity to go out and play our music all over the world! …explainedChief headbanger John Gallagher (bass & vocals)
Released in June 2023 All Hell’s Breaking Loose is Raven’s latest and 15th album.
The new album has been received incredibly well, possibly the best reviews ever and the fan reaction has been equally manic!
This year the trio are preparing for a road assault on the USA and Europe. Sharing the UK bill are Girlschool, that will bring back memories from 1982 when Raven opened?
Yeah looking forward to the UK dates in February. It’s a triple headliner with Girlschool and Alcatrazz so that’s gonna be fun as we are all mates and of course we’ve toured with Girlschool a few times!
What songs are on the set list – any surprises?
We are slotting in more new songs as we go and hope to add at least one or two oldies that we’ve either rarely or never done live too.
Are there any venues/cities that you haven’t played before?
We’ll hit the usual stomping grounds of Glasgow, Newcastle, Manchester, London, Birmingham and Southampton – which I think we only did once before in 1982 which was with Girlschool!
Following that is the US tour in March through to May which will be a stormer and Japan at the end of May followed by a brace of Euro festivals!
Check the official website for albums, merch & tour dates>
“I’ve been living in Los Angeles since 2010 after marrying my LA woman, Sheila.I was born in Yorkshire but from the age of 10 grew up in Newton Aycliffe, County Durham. Then went to art college in Newcastle where I spent a good portion of my grant on seeing as many bands as I could at the City Hall”.
Richard E, Newcastle City Hall tickets.
“1979 was a great year for me. Finally getting out of small town Newton Aycliffe to live in Newcastle for a year doing a foundation course in art and design. I just dived right into the music scene and saw as many bands as I could”.
“Penetration I loved, Pauline was my punk crush! And they were local heroes who lived in a town 5 miles down the road. Roxy Music were supported by a band called The Tourists featuring a certain Dave Stewart and Annie Lennox! “
“The Jam were the only band to force security to let the kids actually dance in the aisles. They were usually very strict at the City Hall, but Weller took them on, mid set, and somehow made it happen”.
“I wish Punilux had done more. I bought Puppet Life when it came out. I included it in one of my recent radio shows, it still sounds so fresh. I also got to be at an epic concert that year that wasn’t in Newcastle. Led Zeppelin at Knebworth!”
Richard is composer/producer for award winning band Annabel (lee), which he created with his American wife, singer, lyricist and composer Sheila Ellis.
Their debut album released in 2015 on Ninja Tune Records won the UK’s Dead Albatross Music Prize, chosen from over 700 releases in the UK and Eire.
“During lockdown I had the time to record my first solo album harking back to my roots fronting a post punk, indie rock band in London in the late 80s” said Richard.
Hoochmongers press shot1990.
“I was moved to start writing my own songs again to express my discontent with world events over the past few years, encompassing rock, post punk, electronic and psychedelic influences”.
“The album features bass guitar on four tracks by David J ex- Bauhaus / Love & Rockets who became a friend after hearing a track by Annabel (lee) on LA’s independent radio station KCRW. I was also lucky enough to get David Bowie’s pianist Mike Garson to play on The Great Showing.”
Richard added “The video for my debut solo single was officially released on November 17th. Some people have said it has a Floydian vibe, and I felt myself once it was finished it made me think of George Harrison jamming with the Floyd”.
“ Jon Dalton, who you have previously interviewed on this site plays on the track and will be in my live band. I’m also producing his new album. Jon can be seen in the video playing his spacey guitar part in a very interesting way!”
Does a day go by without listening to music? It runs through yer veins. Addiction to music is a feeling everyone reading this site knows, and the person who this new post is about has it bad.
‘I’ve finally come clean and admitted to myself that I’m totally addicted to going to rock concerts. I’ve also realised that all attempts at treatment are futile, and anyway I don’t want to be cured!’ said Peter.
‘This blog is part of my treatment, creating a permanent record of gigs that I’ve been to. I try to remember as much as I can about them which is difficult as my memory is not good these days’.
‘It takes me back to the late 60s early 70s and includes concerts by Eric Clapton, The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, T Rex, Kate Bush and events such as Reading Festivals, Donnington Monsters of Rock and Live Aid. I’ve attended around 2000 gigs since 1969’explained Peter.
The music blog started in 2011 (link below), and includes great reviews and stories as well as being illustrated with a collection of Peter’s ticket stubs.
First, a bit of background to Sunderland born Peter Smith. Peter graduated in Computing and Mathematics from Sunderland University in 1978, by 1981 he completed a PhD.
He went on to hold a number of positions at the University spending 11 years as a lecturer before being made professor in 1992. Not stopping there he became Dean of Computing and Technology from 1999 until 2007.
Peter has written hundreds of academic papers and books as well as speaking at conferences worldwide. In 2012 he retired from the University and was made Emeritus Professor.
Despite a severe spinal injury in 2016, Peter continued his life’s work and being a massive music fan,alsofound time to publish numerous papers and books on music venues, classic rock and punk bands.
In July 2022 Sunderland University commemorated his contribution to academia, awarding him with an Honorary Doctorate of Technology. Is that enough for ya’?
I started listening to music in the ‘70s and going to gigs in the ‘80s – they were great times and I know how lucky we were to see fantastic bands. Who do you consider your most memorable gigs?
‘Best gigs were Live Aid in Wembley Stadium 1985, I have so many great memories of that day. Queen’s performance is often rated as the greatest live performance by any band. Freddie certainly commanded the crowd that day’.
‘U2 weren’t far behind them with Bono showing how great a front man he was. For me, however, the highlights were The Who and David Bowie, as I was, and remain, a big fan of both acts’.
‘There was Led Zeppelin at Sunderland Locarno in 1971. I remember Zeppelin came on stage quite late, and the crowd immediately rose to their feet and surged to the front, forming a terrible crush’.
‘I remember a guy trying to take a photo of Robert Plant and the bouncers waded into the crowd to get his camera. Robert intervened, and told the bouncers to leaveoff the guy to a great cheer from the crowd’.
‘I was right down the front close to the band. I could almost touch them, the atmosphere was electric’.
‘I also remember great gigs from the Sex Pistols at Whitby in 1975, David Bowie at Newcastle City Hall in ‘72, Rolling Stones at Newcastle in ‘71, The Who played Charlton football ground in 1974 and Abba at Stafford in 1979’.
On your blog you talk about seeing North East bands Geordie, Angelic Upstarts, Brass Alley, Lucas Tyson, Penetration and Tygers of Pan Tang.
There’s a review of a gig by Punishment of Luxury at the Dunelm House, Durham, what can you remember of that night?
‘This gig at Dunelm House came quite early in their career before they had released any recorded material, and was probably one of the first times I saw them.’
‘I do recall seeing Punishment of Luxury several times in 1978 including a packed gig at Newcastle University canteen, and supporting local punk heroes Penetration at the City Hall’.
‘Punilux as they were often called, were quite quirky and unique in their approach. Although their music undoubtedly grew out of punk, their spiky staccato art-rock had much more depth to it, and their performances were very theatrical, strange and in some ways scary, with use of masks and dance’.
What other North East bands have you seen?
‘Last Exit, Sting’s first band, were excellent, Penetration the best North East punk band, I found Prefab Sprout quirky and great, Lindisfarne always magnificent and now we have Sam Fender who is exciting, plus many others’.
What changes have you seen in the live music scene since attending your first gigs and now ?
‘The growth of custom-built arenas. Sadly fewer concerts are held in small venues. However, my hometown Sunderland now has its own great venue The Fire Station’.
For live reviews including Slade, Queen, Genesis, The Clash, Van Halen, Sex Pistols, The Who and zillions more check out Peter’s excellent music blog at:https://myvintagerock.com/
Part two of the interview with Lighting Tech & Stagehand Par Can.Any other venues you worked at stand out?
Madison Square Gardens – oh Lord above. I did the arena upstairs and downstairs was the Felt Forum. Both times the New York State Circus had cages in the building where they kept animals when they weren’t on the road. The smell…you could imagine!
The Manchester Belle Vue had a similar animal circus thing, I saw Peter Frampton and Parliament there and you got this faint whiff of dung. Like the person in front having really bad B.O.
Wembley Arena was easy enough to get in and out off but back in the day it had a reputation for rubber rigging. I remember putting Queen in there in 1980.
When the ‘fly swat’ lighting pods with follow spots went up and down they weren’t smooth like they should be, they bounced…up, up, up. Same when they came down…boing, boing, boing. Yeah that was rubber rigging.
Philadelphia Spectrum was bad, a lot of iconic venues you read about as a kid it’s disheartening when you find they are horrible places. It was always known as the RECTUM !
There was an arena that The Tubes were doing, might have been Minneapolis? No it was Duluth. Next door was a car museum and next to that was a freezer plant because the place was also an ice rink.
Now they used ammonia to pump under the ice rink to freeze it, it was a whole complex – America is all bigger and better apparently!
After the gig during load out warning lights started flashing, horns started screaming. Next thing everyone’s choking there had been an ammonia leak “Everybody out”.
Fire brigade made it safe but your eyes were burning, you’re choking, felt as if you were gonna throw up from your feet. Not gonna forget that one in a hurry.
Newcastle City Hall
I started at Newcastle City Hall in October 1977 and it was all the older guys who’d been there a while. Then slowly but surely, the Sheelz (South Shields) Mafia landed – Dave Ainsley, Dave Linney, Ian Rylance, Gary Lilley, Alan Armstrong and Kev Charlton who once tried on Phil Lynott’s leather pants and he couldn’t get them past his thighs.
Kev was thin himself in those days. We were rolling around in hysterics it was so funny. It showed how skinny Phil Lynott was.
Colin Rowell was the manager and it was rare for him to just leave us overnight to crack on with stuff – but he knew we’d get up to no good. Rush in 1979 comes to mind.
There was a big plastic bin full of ice cubes lying around so we took it up through the roof into the rigging points which looks onto the stage.
One of the lads was looking for us, Dave Ainsley, he was walking across Rush’s stage which was covered in a lovely white shag pile carpet, he shouted “Where are you” as the ice cubes went flying down on him… never thinking ice cubes from 45 feet up could have knocked out… or worse !
When Thin Lizzy played the City Hall me and Kev Charlton ‘acquired’ some pyro and at 6am went up in the old empty projection room on the roof.
We set alight to the pyro, a white mushroom cloud went up and started drifting towards John Dobson street. We ran downstairs when there was a bang on the stage door.
“Morning officer” we said “Never heard nothing we’ve just been asleep”. Somehow we got away with that one.
Another night Mr Plod visited again about 2am “What’s going on in there?” We’d been on the stage and turned on the City Hall organ thinking we were playing Phantom of the Opera.
Looking down on the stage from the balcony to the ‘Biggest production in the City Hall’ Van Halen 17 June 1980.
One night we found a small tunnel on the side wall panels near the seats. We all crawled along on our hands and knees to see where it went. We ended up in next door’s building – the City Baths.
So obviously we got our kit off and swam about – well what else would ya’ do? Unfortunately we must have triggered an alarm so we scurried back to the hall with our clothes under our arms!
The tunnel led to a number of turning points and they went on for a fair distance, some were blocked off by a fence. I’m sure they led all over the city. Once we ended up at a fenced off exit all the way in the Ouseburn Valley ! Took almost an hour to crawl each way !!
Back then it was great, so much fun. Nowadays after spending hours putting them together they don’t let the crews watch the show.
We didn’t do it because we were Meccano freaks, we did it because we were hanging around with the gear, the musicians, to see bands we would never dream of paying to see – Weather Report at Newcastle City Hall was one such band.
Me and Kev Charlton were sitting on the drum riser before soundcheck, Jaco Pastorius came in and sat at the drums. Thwack, thwack, leading with the left, leading with the right, giving it six nowt. We were astounded.
Then he gets up and another guy comes in on drums, believe it was Pete Henderson. Then Jaco Pastorius picks up a fretless bass and starts playing. The sounds they created were amazing. Kev and I were mesmerised.
We did follow spots for the comedian Billy Connolly and one joke had me and Kev laughing so much that we couldn’t keep the follow spot steady. Billy said “Geordies, pissed again”! The whole audience turned to look up at us.
What impact did the road have on your life today?
Until 1990 I never saw that career ending, I came back to the UK got married and had a beautiful daughter. But touring for months at a time isn’t compatible to a home life. So eventually got my hair cut and got a proper job – boy have I regretted that ever since.
How did it affect my life? It got me around a lot of the world several times, lived in America, and to this day I’ve still got an amazing amount of friends I met and worked with because of that time. Some of them, not many, are still on the road today.
For music concerts staged in small clubs or huge enormodomes a crew have to load the gear in, set it up, operate it during the show, break it down and load it all back out again then onto the next venue. And if you’re on tour, repeat that for days, weeks or months.
Newcastle born Par Can was a former stagehand at Newcastle City Hall, on The Tubes touring crew, worked for Bette Midler, Queen, The Cure, and American rock giants Van Halen with ‘the largest production ever in the City Hall’.
Sit back, relax and enjoy the show with Par Can who looks back at his time on the crew.
I guess like every local Geordie kid in the seventies I was football obsessed. Then I heard Alice Cooper’s Caught in a Dream, I’m Eighteen and other tracks from Love it to Death.
Then I started buying music paper Sounds every Wednesday, that’s where I first saw pictures of Alice Cooper – wow what the hell is this?
The Kard Bar in town sold hippie oil, pop and rock posters. With my friends we used to go on Saturday and spend our pocket money.
My parents were fine with my bedroom being covered in Alice Cooper posters, including the ceiling. It was when I put up a picture of the New York Dolls that they got worried!
I can’t say music means everything these days – but it did back then. I used to hang around the stage door at Newcastle City Hall and one day, it was a Mott the Hoople gig, helped a roadie with a piano (interview with Par Can 20 Nov 2017 link below).
I got more involved in music and hanging around the City Hall, so my mother had a word with City Hall Manager Bob Brown.
Then one day in October 1977 I turned up at 9am to work. My first ever stage crew gig paid me £7. The band on that night were Wishbone Ash. Next day was Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet band.
I blagged my way into working for a lighting company in London run by The Tubes manager, after that I ended up following the band on their first ever UK tour.
Newcastle City Hall
Did any venues stand out when on tour around the UK & USA?
Newcastle City Hall is always gonna be the venue it’s where I saw every band I wanted to see growing up, except Led Zeppelin.
But I suppose the only thing that stops Newcastle being the venue is the loading in and out. It was bad back when we did it. It isn’t much better now they have extended the stage door. Why someone doesn’t make that whole load in/out more efficient is beyond me.
There is a beautiful theatre in America, the Orpheum Theatre in Boston, to me that was like the City Hall. The only problem with that one is that the trucks had to reverse down an alley to get to the front door.
If you can imagine two blocks of buildings with the Orpheum literally being the sort of stop gap at the end of the alley. It wasn’t wide enough for two trucks so you had to reverse one at a time.
To load in you had to go through the front doors, through the foyer, turn left into the theatre and then down the space between the seats and onto a ramp leading to the stage. A bad one to load in and a pain in the arse to load out at midnight.
However, it will always be one of my absolute fave halls, ALWAYS a great atmosphere… just like the old lady or even the old Glasgow Apollo.
Par Can on stage at the Glasgow Apollo.
Edinburgh Odeon when that was still open was a lovely place. Trucks loaded in across a backyard then straight onto the stage.
The ceiling of the Odeon was studded with little bits of mirror that looked like star constellations and it had recesses in the walls with statues – a really beautiful theatre. Only 1800 capacity and perfect for The Tubes.
It had a stage door phone which was a direct line to the pub opposite; The Bucleuch Arms. You would send your order and 10 minutes later, barmaids would be carrying trays of drinks to the stage door.
Birmingham Odeon was a good one although the trucks had to reverse down a sloping alley, not ideal but the theatre itself was fabulous.
Load in was through a door onto quite a big stage. Around 2500 capacity, but another one they went and shut down.
Manchester Apollo was an easy load in load out, didn’t much care for that place, although it was right next door to a lovely pub called The Apsley Cottage.
The Tubes did a series of smaller shows towards the end of ‘81 and one of them was called Uncle Sams in Nantasket Beach in Hull Massachusettes.
The two trucks were parked back to back in front of this three storeyed cube building, the bus was on the opposite side of the street.
We got out the bus went through the doors and oh my God it was like the stairway to nowhere ! It seemed to go on and on. Every piece of gear had to go up this concrete staircase of around 100-150 steps.
The show finishes 11pm you’re tired after a long day and you’ve got to load the gear out – how the hell nobody fell down those stairs carrying amp racks and the sound desk.
Glad I was a lampie – although that was bad enough. There are lots of venues that are horrible but that Uncle Sams has got to be the worst… on second thoughts, Mr C’s Rock Palace in Lowell MA was a REAL toilet… urgh !!
One of the best was the Kabuki Theatre, San Francisco, it was directly opposite the Winterland Ballroom. The joy was it had a revolving stage.
The Tubes did two shows there in September ‘83, MTV filmed both nights. You can watch it on You Tube. You catch me when I had my long blonde hair then, wandering along the stage. Near the intro a phone rings and manager Chopper Borges shouts out “Par Can”! “What” I reply in Geordie.
The revolving stage was perfect for The Tubes. They would be on stage with backs towards the audience, combing hair putting on make-up, then Kenny Ortega the choreographer would shout ‘showtime, showtime’ and the band would line up in their business suits.
The stage would revolve and there is all the gear, as they walked onto the static lip at the front of the stage. What an amazing start to the show…any show!
At the end the stage would revolve and you would see the band starting to get undressed and a curtain would pull across the entire front of the stage. Marvellous.
Read part two packed with more stories from Par Can.
Phil Lynott, Thin Lizzy, Black Rose tour 1979 Newcastle City Hall. pic Paul White.
Phil Lynott played the cool, sexy, rock star. The hot shot gunslinger with studded wrist band and clenched fist. The Rocker. But he was dead by 36. What happened in the last few years of his life?
Thin Lizzy had been around since the early seventies releasing a number of successful singles including Whisky in the Jar, Rosalie and Waiting for an Alibi, and top 30 chart albums including Black Rose, Renegade and the imperious, Live and Dangerous.
The double album produced by Tony Visconti (Bolan/Bowie/Morrissey) in 1978 reached number 2, staying in the UK charts for over a year. Many critics label the record as one of the greatest live albums.
Although I never saw them in concert, I was in the Newcastle audience when they appeared live on Channel Four’s music show The Tube on 28th January 1983.
I remember watching a blistering version of Cold Sweat from the Thunder and Lightning album. The boys were back in town and at the top of their game. Or so I thought.
In comparison, I later watched a videotape of the show and thought the dressing room interview with Lynott was awkward and dull, he looked fragile. Was this the beginning of the slow decline for the Irish rock legend?
The TV show was only the second appearance of new guitarist John Sykes, formerly of Whitley Bay heavy metal band, Tygers of Pan Tang. His first gig was a few days earlier on BBC’s Sight & Sound concert – talk about being hoyed in at the deep end!
Lynott was more than happy with Sykes. He could see a new future for Lizzy. Cold Sweat entered the UK charts and another TV slot was scheduled for Top of the Pops.
But the band were dropped from the running order after a drunken Lynott was reported to have told the producer to ‘fuck off’ – twice.
Morale was low and cracks appeared amongst the team. Lizzy found themselves slowly falling apart through health and personal reasons. Eventually a split was announced.
1983 UK tour dates
So what was left ? The Thunder and Lightning UK tour included two dates at Newcastle City Hall, with a night at London’s Hammersmith Odeon and a reunion of past Lizzy guitarists, Brian Robertson, Gary Moore and Eric Bell.
“It was chaos” said Bell. “A mess if you listened to what was being played. It was a turning point in my life, after that I never wanted to hear those songs again. I suppose it was a good way of burying Thin Lizzy forever”.
Roadie for the band Peter Eustace explained “On the crew we all thought Phil was scared of success. Once you’ve arrived where do you go? And all you know is that these young guns are breathing down your neck”.
The future, well the ‘80s, belonged to the new chart soundz ! from the likes of Depeche Mode and Duran Duran. While a rejuvenated Queen, and soon to be Irish legends, U2, both benefited from Live Aid. Meanwhile, Lizzy struggled to play a few more dates in Ireland and Japan.
Their last UK show was headlining the Reading festival in August ‘83. The curtain came down on their final live performance in Nuremburg, Germany on 4th September, sharing a bill with Saxon, Motorhead and Whitesnake.
Fellow Irishman and Boomtown Rat songwriter Bob Geldof said “Phil couldn’t imagine a life not in leather trousers, with a limousine taking him to work every day”.
In 1984 a zoned out Lynott appeared on ITV’s Breakfast Show talking about his new band, Grand Slam, but also about his problems as a heroin addict.
He resolved to work hard, in rehearsals he drilled the band for eight hours a day earning him the nickname ‘Sergeant Rock’. Had the thunder returned?
The band toured extensively throughout the UK and what seemed like victory soon turned into disaster as no major label offered them a recording contract. The industry was backing off.
In 1985 old friend Huey Lewis – from the News – spent time with Lynott recording in a San Francisco studio, but the old swagger wasn’t there. A delicate and tired Lynott only managed a couple of vocal tracks.
Although he did manage a UK chart hit in June ‘85 with Out in the Fields when he paired up with another old friend and former Lizzy guitarist Gary Moore. Cutting out management, Lynott made a direct deal with the label and received £5,000 in cash for being on the record.
But his darkest days were ahead with long days and weeks spent at his London home in dressing gown and slippers not answering calls or seeing friends.
Live Aid pic courtesy Evening Chronicle.
Then out of the blue a charity concert was arranged to be played in front of a world-wide TV audience, it was made for the return of Thin Lizzy.
Live Aid saw The Who, Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin reforming for a one off gig. But Lynott wasn’t asked. Did fellow Irishman and organiser Bob Geldof stay away knowing of his problems?
Co-organiser, songwriter & former Lizzy touring guitarist, Midge Ure said…
”To our dying shame neither Bob nor I even thought about asking Phil to put Lizzy together for Live Aid. If he had been in a healthy state that could have been the Queen moment for them – ‘The Boys are Back in Town’ – at Wembley? Jesus, can you imagine?“
“Why didn’t we do it? Was it that psychologically we had already given Phil up as gone? It’s something that will stay with me for the rest of my life’.
There were rumours that Lynott was to play Jimi Hendrix in a biopic of the guitarists life, but nothing came of it. In the studio he was working on recording solo material.
Phil Lynott’s final public appearance was in December 1985 when he travelled to Tyne Tees TV studio in Newcastle to record a Christmas special for pop programme Razzmatazz, he performed his solo single Nineteen.
Ironically the presenter was David ‘Kid’ Jensen, the DJ who had championed the band in the early seventies. Also on the programme were Slade, who Lizzy had opened for back in the early days. Back when the fight was being won.
At home Lynott was visited by hangers on, pushers and gofers. He ended up surrounded by people, but very alone. In court on a drugs charge he was called ‘a drugs victim and a trajedy’ by his own solicitor. His close friends wondered where did he go? The musician, the poet, the man they loved.
Sadly, on 4th January 1986, Phil Lynott died of kidney, liver and heart failure. One of his close friends said “Phil didn’t die of a heart attack, he died of a lifestyle”.
Alikivi July 2023
Research:
Phil Lynott: The Rocker by Mark Putterford.
Cowboy Song: The authorised biography of Philip Lynott by Graeme Thomson.
In between YOP schemes and signing on the dole in the 1980s I remember queuing outside Newcastle’s Tyne Tees TV Studio to get free audience ticket’s for live music show The Tube.
The ground breaking programme was broadcast by Channel Four from 1982 to 1987.The 90 glorious minutes had a massive impact on my life.
Talk about pushing boundaries of what live TV can do, this show was run by a Geordie Wrecking Crew creating a bigger blast than anything coming out of London.
TV bigwigs in the South made envious glances towards the North as every Friday Newcastle Airport was chocka block full of top musiciansand celebrities.
You want exciting car crash box office TV ? it’s all here, the Geordie crew really were the ducks nuts. With the launch show planned, Sunderland punks Toy Dolls were brought in to light the fuse – tune in, turn on, blast off.
Over the past couple of years some of the production team have talked on this site about how the North East gained a reputation to produce good music shows, and how influential and important the show would become.
Chris Cowey: ‘The Tube was a real blend of old school Tyne-Tees TV expertise and young whippersnappers like me who was obsessed with music and bitten by the live music thing. I was into DJ’ing, Drama, Theatre which led to my TV break’.
‘My mentor was Producer Malcolm Gerrie, who a lot of people will remember from his Tyne-Tees days. A lot of the same gang of music fans were the nucleus of the production teams for Check It Out, Alright Now, TX45, The Tube and Razzmatazz’.
‘Tyne-Tees already did some good old entertainment shows before my time, like Geordie Scene or What Fettle, but they were obsessed about their ‘Geordieness’. The Tube wasn’t, it was all about good music because we were music obsessed.
It also had a great mix of time served TV people blended together with new people with fresh ideas, and a kind of irreverence which came out in those shows’.
Chris Phipps: ‘I was at the Tube from the start in ’82 till it’s full run to ’87. I joined as a booker and became Assistant Producer from 1985 to 1987′.
‘A band on the first show that I booked didn’t happen. The Who didn’t do it because their pa system got stuck in Mexico or somewhere. Producer Malcolm Gerrie knew Paul Weller’s father and got The Jam to do it.
In a way I’m glad that he did because The Jam playing their last TV gig ever, really said this is what The Tube is all about – that was then, this is now and off we go’.
‘After appearing Fine Young Cannibals got signed, The Proclaimers got signed and there was a time when the Tube crew went to Liverpool to film Dead or Alive. But they weren’t around, someone in a pub told them to go round the corner to another pub where there is a band rehearsing ‘You might be interested in them’. It was Frankie Goes to Hollywood’.
‘The Tube filmed the original version of their single Relax and Trevor Horn saw it. He did the deal and re-recorded and produced the single. Frankie epitomised The Tube and the ‘80s – they got what it was all about’.
Gary talks to Radio One DJ, John Peel.
Gary James: ‘I was one of the original co-presenters on The Tube from Series One, which started on Friday November 5th 1982. I applied along with 5,000 other herberts who all thought they were cool, hip and groovy enough to be TV presenters’.
‘To give the programme a bit of extra thrill they wanted to put some unknown faces alongside the two main presenters Jools Holland and Paula Yates. They certainly achieved that as few of us really knew what we were doing.
It was all live, pre-watershed national networked TV and no second chances’.
‘None of us on the presenter side, perhaps with the exception of Jools and Paula who breezed through it all without a care in the world, could have had any idea that the show would be as seminal as it was.
We certainly knew we were part of the ‘new wave’ and that we didn’t want to be all BBC and Top of the Pops-ish’.
‘The chaos on it was quite genuine and the edginess a result of the fact that for most of the time we were left to get on with what we were doing without any strict direction or guidance to be pros.
I had a good time interviewing Ringo Starr, Eartha Kitt, Tony Visconti, Mickey Finn of T.Rex, John Peel, Kajagoogoo and loads more interesting people who had a part to play in the industry’.
Colin Rowell, Chris Phipps, Michael Metcalf.
Colin Rowell: ‘It was just five years of sheer magic. There was Geoff Brown, Chris Phipps and me sharing an office in Newcastle. They, as producers, had applied for this music television show and asked me if I was interested in joining the team as stage manager’.
‘From years working at Newcastle City Hall I knew the acts, the crews, the managers and they were all glad when they knew a familiar face and voice was going to be there running the stages in the studio’.
‘First off started with two stages, ended up with four and I did the deal with ENTEC who were a big sound company. They ran Reading Festival and owned The Marquee. It was a smooth operation with them providing all the sound and crew.
The PA was flown in (hung from ceiling) off the stage making it easier for cameramen to have floor space and no big speakers in their way’.
‘One time me and Geoff Brown were sent to London to check out Grandmaster Flash. It was the first time The Tube were going to have on stage a set-up of a band playing all the scratchy stuff’.
‘We got to the venue and there was a support band on so we went to a Steak house but it was dreadful and we didn’t eat it so we went back to the venue. The support act were still on and we listened in this time. This was good stuff. It was Paul Young and the Royal Family.’
‘We got back to Newcastle and in a meeting with one of the head guy’s at The Tube, Malcolm Gerrie, I banged the table and said ‘let’s get him on’. And we did. But Malcolm and I felt Paul didn’t get a good crack of the whip first time so we invited him back on again and the rest is history’.
Michael Metcalf: ‘I worked as Personal Assistant to a lot of freelance directors, one of which was Geoff Wonfor who was the husband of Andrea Wonfor, Executive Producer on the Tube’.
‘When the Tube began I continued working with Geoff for the first few years then applied for a vacancy to become a Director and got the job for most of Series Four.
It’s important to remember that at that time we were a bunch of Geordie guys who were working with some amazing people and having the time of our lives’.
‘I remember one trip to New York we hired a helicopter to fly around the Statue of Liberty. I sat in the helicopter alongside the pilot, Geoff was in the row behind and the cameraman was strapped in but hanging out of the side of the helicopter, the door had been taken off’.
‘I had the headset to communicate with the pilot, going down the Hudson, he asked if we wanted to go under or over the bridges, I asked if we could do both, which we ended up doing.
It is hard to imagine getting away with that now but we had the time of our life. Every day the job was an adventure’.
Gary James: ‘Because it was live I only ever saw the programmes I didn’t work on. My parents told me they had recorded shows on VHS tape and did I want them? I stuck them in a box and put them in the attic’.
‘There they stayed for years until I watched them from behind the sofa for the first time. The performances blew me away. I can now finally see what everyone was going on about – but until then I genuinely had no idea’.
Chris Cowey: ‘It was really important that it came from the North-East because of the passion the swagger and total commitment. It’s not just that Geordies like showing off – although they undoubtedly do! – it’s because the history and attitude of the region can be really inspiring, creative and hugely fun. That’s how it worked so well’.
Chris Phipps: ‘You can never bring The Tube back. It’s of its time. Chris Evans on TFI Friday in the ‘90s near enough had it, the set was just like The Tube. So yeah it’s had an incredible influence’.
To read the full interviews type in the name in the white search box.
“I grew up loving history, and eventually got a PhD in the discipline. I spent about two decades in academia, and was a college professor for over a decade. All that time, my childhood love for rock music remained strong”.
In 2020, Greg released the authorized autobiography of Grammy winning record producer Ted Templeman (Van Halen, Van Morrison, Doobie Brothers, Little Feat). His latest book is ‘Van Halen Rising: How a Southern California Backyard Party Band Saved Heavy Metal’.
Van Halen toured the UK in 1978 opening for Black Sabbath did you come across any stories from that tour?
“I write about the VH/Sabbath UK tour a lot in Van Halen Rising. One of the main reasons I wrote the book and looked at Van Halen’s ‘pre-fame’ years was I wanted to know – how did Van Halen become a band good enough to blow Black Sabbath off the stage?
Those questions couldn’t be answered by focusing on 1981 or 1982. It had to be focusing on earlier years”.
Van Halen debut album released 1978.
What inspired you to write Van Halen Rising?
“I grew up a big Van Halen fan, and by the time I became a historian, I was struck by how little info was available about their early beginnings. There hadn’t been a book that had looked at those years”.
“If I wanted to learn the details of how The Detours became the Who, I could read that story in any number of books, if I wanted to learn the details of how the New Yardbirds became Led Zeppelin, a group that stormed the globe and released some of the best albums in rock history, I could read that story in any number of books”.
“But if I wanted to learn about how Van Halen, a band that recorded one of the most successful debuts in rock history, wowed stadium crowds in 1978, and became giants, I couldn’t read that story anywhere”.
Where and when did you first hear Van Halen ?
“I was 14 in 1984 and for me once I heard ‘Jump’ that was it. Then I was able to see Van Halen on the ‘1984’ album tour – a guy in my homeroom class had scalped a ticket.
I paid 50 bucks for it in ’84, but was just so desperate to go. And that was it. I became a big fan”.
“So, I saw Van Halen on a Monday night, April 2, 1984. That night, the band was just so larger than life. I’d seen a couple of concerts but the stage was so much bigger, the lights were brighter, it was louder and it was so much more energetic and just a spectacle”.
“Roth jumping off the drum riser and the other thing I remember he stood on the edge of the stage and said “F— the rest of the concert. Let’s go to the bar across the street and get drunk”.
“He was just doing whatever he wanted and I thought it was amazing. And of course Eddie’s guitar playing. You left with your ears ringing and you were so overwhelmed by the whole sensation of the band”.
Researching for the bookdid you come across any funny or surprising stories ?
“So many, but one comes to mind. There was a huge backyard party in November 1974 in Pasadena. The kids who threw the party went to high school with the Van Halen brothers and they just loved the band”.
“Their parents went off to Mexico so they threw this massive party at their home that Van Halen played at. There were hundreds of kids in attendance. It ended up that the riot police from one of the sheriff’s departments broke up the party!”
‘Van Halen Rising: How a Southern California Backyard Party Band Saved Heavy Metal’out now.
For more information contact Greg at the official website:
Music can spring unexpected surprises when it pulls you in and holds your breath.
It was the early ‘80s when I hired out albums from the local library and sampled songs from bands I’d only read about in Sounds music weekly. There were stacks of misses but big hitters like the first time hearing the sublime poetic lyrics of Leonard Cohen.
‘When I left they were sleeping, I hope you run into them soon. Don’t turn on the lights you can read their address by the moon’.
Or Pete Murphy spitting out white hot haunting claustrophobic tunes from post punk band Bauhaus ‘Yin and yang lumber punch, go taste a tart, then eat my lunch. And force my slender, thin and lean, in this solemn place of fill-wetting dreams’.
Live gig’s also brought surprises, I remember in November 1981 self-proclaimed UK Metal Gods Judas Priest were at Newcastle City Hall primed to deliver the goods.
Before the big boys played with their bigger toys the support band are usually given 40 minutes to say their piece, unfortunately some crumble in front of the headliners crowd, but word shot around ‘the openers are supposed to be canny’.
It was a cold night outside as winter closed in and in the warmth of the ‘Haal’ the lights went down and a few shouts went out.
From the balcony I looked down to see the short, stocky blond haired vocalist plant himself at the front of the stage. Udo Dirkschneider. The leader of the pack.
Sounding like they’ve brought the Panza division with them, the twin guitar attack of German metallers Accept announced their arrival in Newcastle and rock ‘n’ rolled thunder till the end. In the wings Priest looked on, sharpened their set and Rob Halford screamed for vengeance.
My ticket stub from Judas Priest & Accept, Newcastle City Hall 17 November 1981.
‘80s live music show The Tube had something and someone new and fresh every week. Big Country, The Alarm, The Cult, they all made a big, beautiful noise, and a surprise on the programme was Pat Benatar – the little American lady with a huge, huge voice.
On one show a duo delivered power from what at first looked like an unlikely source. A young skinny lad with floppy hair stood ready, at a game of football he would have been the last picked, then on walked someone who could of been a school dinner lady.
The stage was bare – with no drums, no Marshall stacks, no guitars, I was prepared for disappointment. I didn’t catch their name, with only a keyboard and microphone set up – how loud could a synth pop duo go ?
A clunky pop sound fired up, then the voice, and what a voice. Making one of her first TV appearances was Alison Moyet who went on to sell millions of albums, a bucket load of top ten UK hits, a host of singer and songwriter awards, Live Aid, and more, and more, you get the picture – not bad for a dinner lady.
I’ve got a Dolly Parton greatest hits cd on the shelf which I pick out now and then, but recently I’ve been listening to more country & western. Yep the whole pluckin’ banjo hillbilly heartbreak songs – my neighbour even looks like Willie Nelson – here’s to music springing more surprises.
The blog has featured some people who stuck a flag in the ground for the North East – Chris Phipps, Chris Cowey, David Wood, Colin Rowell, Ian Penman and Rik Walton for the pix.
The latest addition to the squad is a man who used words to create a colourful landscape and painted pictures in the minds of thousands of teenage music lovers.
London born Phil Sutcliffe, looks back on 40 years of music journalism for Sounds, Q, Mojo and The Face.
He interviewed a world of musicians including Stewart Copeland, Joni Mitchell, Nick Cave, Sheryl Crow, Eric Clapton…
Thom Yorke for Los Angeles Times and for Mojo, 15 minutes on the phone with Dolly Parton, truly that can set you up for a year or two.
Where did Sutcliffe find his love for words, and what’s his connection to the North East ?
I always wanted to be a journalist so in 1969 when I finished my A-levels and had a degree in English & American Literature from Manchester University, I applied for journo jobs and got a training course followed by an apprenticeship at Newcastle Evening Chronicle.
That was in the new training centre in an office above the Bigg Market doing just about everything – local councils, sports desk, feature writing, a spell as a columnist, the subs desk, and in court where the 15-year-old kid who pleaded guilty to burglary and asked for 153 other offences to be taken into account.
There was stints in district offices – Gateshead, Consett and North Shields – ah, the morning fishing report of how much, by weight and type of fish each boat had landed! From the outset writing heaps, hard, fast and fascinating all the time.
How did the job with Sounds come about ?
I’d always said I wanted to work freelance but it happened sooner than intended. After three years mainly on the Chronicle I did the usual thing of trying to get my second job, 175 rejections later I went freelance.
September 1974 I was 27 my first marriage had just broken up, a bit late to start writing about rock’n’pop so not much in the way of a plan, but thought maybe I could earn part of a living on one of the five weekly rock/pop papers – as ‘our man in the North East’.
While still doing a bit of local news for Newcastle papers and Radio Newcastle, plus a couple of non-musical feature items for Woman’s Hour! I wrote off to NME, Melody Maker, Sounds and Record Mirror.
With so many band tours starting in the North East you could get the first review in, and I got a sniff from Melody Maker, but really hit it off with Sounds.
Within the next year I started doing feature interviews and making a slightly more decent living – Gentle Giant might have been the first as I tended to get ecstatic about their wild prog adventures.
But my first rock interview I think was Sparks backstage at Newcastle City Hall for Radio Newcastle’s late-night programme, Bedrock.
The show was DJ’d by my friend Dick Godfrey with a strictly non-rowdy zoo of other voices – Ian Penman/Ravendale, Arthur Hills, the Out Now fanzine team, me, and other enthusiasts, all of us unpaid but enjoying ourselves meeting stars.
Also dozens of local bands from Sting’s Last Exit to Bob Smeaton’s White Heat, the veteran Junco Partners, Southbound, Gale Force Ten (with singer-saxist Joy Askew) and Wavis O’Shave.
There was a lot of local stuff about and loads of it good in what might well have been a culture – Tyneside pub rock. Very diverse, and not what Londoners called pub rock – Ducks Deluxe, Chilli Willy and such, Brit R&B-rooted – but it did happen in pubs quite a bit.
The Cooperage, The Bridge, The Gosforth – Last Exit every Weds if I recall. That one out in Heaton, Andy Hudson’s wine bar for a bit, a cellar near the Civic Centre – he played trumpet for the Grimethorpe Colliery Band when he were a lad you know, and then the more obviously culture-centred Jesmond Theatre.
We met on a Saturday lunchtime in a pub near the Tyne River and chatted and plotted, me and Dick Godfrey, promoter-musos like Chris Murtagh and Angus, er, sorry lost his surname but nice bloke with a moustache.
Even the odd sympathetic older star like Hilton Valentine from The Animals who could show us all a thing or two, though I can’t remember what. It was good.
Angelic Upstarts pic. Rik Walton.
Once in a while the Guildhall down by the Tyne River, scene of the Bedrock festival that spun off from the radio programme – all of this encouraged by a loose collective of bands and fans.
Putting the Angelic Upstarts on before Neon at the Bedrock festival proved to be a misjudgment as a huge fight ensued, a rather one-sided affair given Neon fans were student’ish and Upstarts fans were from South Shields.
I jest in retrospect, but it was a shame and in part my fault thinking in a hippie way that music brought us all together. We didn’t do that again.
However, the Upstarts – and their fans – were fine on their own territory, which is where I met them generally, starting with a gig at Jarrow Town Hall when punk had reached the North East and they’d released their single, Who Killed Liddle Towers?
Which was a drama and a campaign in itself, with police brutality played out by cop-hatted singer Mensi, going at a real pig’s head fresh from the butcher with a bloody great axe. That was a night.
Also, a double page spread in Sounds, Mensi and Mond had plenty to say for themselves and we got on, up to some point where me coming from another planet got unfeasibly less brotherly. I always liked them.
My Sounds colleague Dave McCullough didn’t though, and he invented a great word for the rolling profanity Mensi deployed – fuckverballing.
What came in between worked pretty well though, speaking for a life much harder that most rock writers knew anything about.
I did cover heavy metal/hard rock quite a lot, but missed the North East bands, but pretty sure Ian Penman did a feature.
(Penman writing as Ian Ravendale in Sounds, May 1980, featured the North East New Wave of British Heavy Metal with interviews from Mythra, Fist, Raven, White Spirit, Tygers of Pan Tang).
Penetration feature in Sounds 18/6/77
My other ‘discoveries’, as we used to say were Penetration, a quite brilliant sophistopunk band from Ferryhill, dazzling in every way with a natural star singer, Pauline Murray.
Great ideas men in Gary Chaplin and Robert Blamire, plus drummer Gary Smallman and out-there’ish guitarist Fred Purser. They almost made it.
As did the rude theatricals, Punishment Of Luxury, with their panto villain frontman Brian Rapkin and his small band of wild-witty anarchs.
Reading festival 1979 line-up with Punishment of Luxury and headliners, The Police.
Meanwhile, I loved Last Exit to bits, jazz-rock and soul and their own stuff, often saw them twice a week, and eventually got them in Sounds.
A big feature on Geordie boys trying the London move – and this despite editor Alan Lewis saying “God that singer’s awful” when I played him a cassette.
But this was just after I happened to introduce Sting to Stewart Copeland, passing through as Curved Air played the Poly in ’76 – he had a lightbulb moment all right and somehow persuaded Sting to give up the music he loved, come to London and play the music he hated – punk – until it freed him to find reggae and write, Roxanne onwards.
Stewart and Andy Summers played to their optimum pop potential, and they become the biggest band in the world for quite a while.
ALIKIVI UK : NORTH EAST CULTURE 