NORTH EAST MUSIC

FROM NEWCASTLE WITH LOVE part 3/4 with actor & musician Brian Rapkin

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Part three of Brian Rapkin’s (Brian Bond) memories of being a member of Newcastle post punk band Punishment of Luxury and recording in London studio’s.

We never lived in London but we stayed when recording or touring there. When we recorded Laughing Academy we stayed at a house in Fulham. Recording in London was brilliant.

The first single on Small Wonder we produced ourselves at Berry Street studio with an engineer but when the line-up was almost stabilised, we signed to UA and then the singles were produced by Mike Howlett, a lovely man and brilliant producer, prematurely grey with a calm outlook and a great sense of humour.

DEBUT SINGLE

The first single after we signed up was supposed to be Jellyfish, but the board at UA didn’t like it as an A-side. Tim, the A & R man, said “Look guys, I’m up against a brick wall here!”  We reluctantly agreed to Engine of Excess as the A-side.

Then we signed to Screen Gems-EMI Publishing who gave UA a bollocking about the choice of A-side. So UA re-released the single with Jellyfish as the A-side but by then it was too late to get airplay. The momentum was lost. So that side of it was frustrating. But recording the songs was still magic.

At Eden Studios in Chiswick, Lene Lovich was packing away her sax as we came in. At Wessex Studios, Public Image Ltd were silently sat on a bench facing us as we came in, giggling at our long-haired roadies as they struggled with the equipment. Joe Jackson was playing pool in the rest room. 

LONDON MARQUEE

When UA were about to sign us, Tim the A&R man saw us there and loved the gig, especially All White Jack. He was on cloud nine as we were. That was a highly charged night and a great venue full of atmosphere. It had such a history with the Rolling Stones and so many other great bands. It was an honour to be there, the crowd were superb.

STAGE DEBUT

Our first trial gig was as the Luxury Bastards at Gatsby’s, Whitley Bay ‘77. We were terrible. Our bassist, Badger, didn’t turn up but he hadn’t rehearsed with us, so it’s no surprise. It was before Jimmy, so Nev and Mal kept swapping guitar and bass for different songs, Les pounded the drums and I gurned for England, pulling faces as we died a death in dim lighting.

When the Big G started, whoosh, on came the bright lights and each with one foot on a low brass rail (except drummer Norman) they looked professional and slick. That taught us a lesson. Get sorted.

The first gig at the Blue Bell, Gateshead in 1977. We had to change into our stage gear in the toilets, avoiding puddles. We were so nervous, we hid behind amps while the first band The Carpettes played, and then raced through our songs at double the normal speed.

SOMEONE CALL THE COPS

The Guildhall 1978 with Neon and the Angelic Upstarts. We were bottom of the bill and missed the riot. During our set someone lobbed a can at the stage. We were doing a new song called World War 4 and I was wearing a dressing gown. I caught the can and put it in my pocket.

Later the Upstarts charged the stage with their fans when the headliners Neon were playing. There was carnage, blokes and girls beaten up, blood everywhere, the police came and made the rioters walk home to South Shields without their shoes.

SPITTING GAMES

Newcastle University 1978, where we were dripping from head to foot with spit, everyone gobbing at us like maniacs. Nev’s guitar, strings dripping, almost unplayable. Luckily I didn’t swallow anyone’s spit. After that gig the gobbing started to end, thankfully.

I remember headlining at the Music Machine, Camden 1978, with our name up there on the domed roof in big red letters, post-gig standing next to Lemmy from Motorhead at the bar. Members of Wire and Annie Lennox enthusing in the dressing room. Robert from Wire kept saying “You’ll make a fortune!” 

On the Friday night with The Police headlining and special guests were Motorhead.

HAZY DAY IN THE ‘DAM

We played The Milky Way (Melkweg), Amsterdam 1980. As we walked towards the entrance, we could see folk milling around, openly smoking joints. Jimmy muttered “Ah, look, they’re aal smuurr…” and his voice trailed away as the Dutch promoter welcomed us in. During the gig half the audience were lying on mattresses spread out over the vast floor. The haze of dope smoke was all around.

Then there was the heady atmosphere of Reading Festival in 1979, with John Peel introducing us after we’d been on his radio show twice. The build-up was nervy but up onstage it felt surreal and tremendous to be facing 25,000 people.

SPY IN THE CROWD

We played the Leeds Sci Fi Festival in 1979 with Public Image and other great acts like Joy Division. It took place in what was like a huge aircraft hangar but it worked so well. It was overwhelming and exciting. John Lydon had his back to the audience much of the time.

The Leeds Sci-Fi Festival in 1982 had the legendary Nico headlining and we – post Punilux band Punching Holes – were a 7-piece by then, with Richard Sharpe on synth and Jonah Sharp on percussion and sax.

I remember Berlin 1980. It was magical. Like a dream. Checkpoint Charlie then the gig. And an interview on the radio. We stayed in the legendary Hotel Steiner, but on the way out we got hopelessly lost in Potsdam, on the edge of East Berlin. It was like a scene from the Spy Who Came in from the Cold.

The dark grey cobbled streets were wet with rain. Burly Russian soldiers on motorbikes bristled with machine guns, revving up behind our minibus. We couldn’t find the route back to West Germany. We stopped to ask directions from a friendly middle-aged East German with a bushy moustache. After we got back into the van, we assumed he’d be dragged off and shot by the Stasi, or the KGB, or both. Somehow we made it back to the West.

Next up on the blog read part four of the interview with Brian when Punishment of Luxury call it a day and find out what they are up to now.

Interview by Gary Alikivi  March 2021.

FROM NEWCASTLE WITH LOVE part 2/4 – with actor & musician Brian Rapkin

/ Alikivi

In the first part of the interview Rapkin talked about his stage and TV career, in this second part he remembers his early days in music looking for a record deal with Newcastle post punk band, Punishment of Luxury.

TUNED IN

A song can have an unbelievable power – either the power to make you step inside yourself and think, or the power to galvanize you with energy and joy. I saw this when turning 19, hitch-hiking through France alone.

I stopped off in a juke-box café for a while. The Beatles’ Lady Madonna started playing and the cafe came alive – all these French guys got up and started dancing, laughing, and singing along to ‘See how zey Run’.

I was beaming with delight, so proud of The Beatles, the piano, Paul’s voice, the guitar, the sax, the harmonies, the inventiveness and the euphoric drive of that music. It was magic. Two minutes and fifteen seconds of a song could take people to a different dimension. And it did.

TURNED ON

There was an old radiogram in our house, with speakers going into another room. Being much younger than my jazz-mad brother and my pop-crazy sister, a world of music drew me in. My parents didn’t get on well, so in a strained atmosphere music was an escape into other worlds.

Mr Sandman was haunting like a nightmare, Green Door by Frankie Vaughan told us of a secret world where people partied but the singer was lonely. Coconut Woman and Island in the Sun by Harry Belafonte were rays of warmth amidst the shadowy music. Every song went deep.

I first heard Elvis’ Heartbreak Hotel at 7. It stopped us all in our tracks – the vocal reverb, his passion, the electric guitar, the theme of loneliness, the sad double bass, the quirky piano. My sister worshipped Elvis. She took me to her friend’s house to hear Hound Dog. I was mesmerised.

Elvis’ Hard-Headed Woman had a compelling manic energy as did Great Balls of Fire by Jerry Lee Lewis, and Jenny Jenny by Little Richard, the first single I bought. He ran out of breath and broke down mid-track but they still released it. He made a mistake and they kept it in! Who needs perfection?

Brian in 1967 at Warwick University.

ALL THE LONELY PEOPLE

I had piano lessons for a while but hated practising and struggled with sight-reading. At 14 I learnt to play a cheap old Spanish guitar and re-taught myself piano, writing songs that copied The Animals and Them, Dylan and even Eleanor Rigby. The Beatles, Stones and Dylan were gods, with The Kinks and The Who.

Music was an escape from difficult schooldays – my headmaster was an ex-Japanese POW and was a bizarre sadist.

STUDIO VIRGIN

At 17 I left school, worked as a brickie and saved enough to cut a disc in a studio in Surrey. I wrote and recorded it using 12-string guitar, wooden flute, Hammond organ and the engineer on bass.

It was teenage atheism Heaven’s There for Those Who Need It, but it was a first stab at recording.

At university me and my best mate wrote and performed songs. We recorded at a studio in Coventry in 1969, and made about 100 copies of an LP, Dreams of the Blue Beast, selling them at Uni for 32 shillings each in 1969.

Germaine Greer (Australian broadcaster & writer) was my Shakespeare tutor – even she bought one. 

STAR MAN & KEMP

I also rearranged Lord of the Dance, sang it and played organ in Coventry Cathedral while Annie Stainer mime danced down the aisles as a female clown Christ.

Lindsay Kemp (Bowies dance collaborator) heard my voice on her rehearsal tape and hired me as a singer in a production.

I worked again for Kemp in Flowers years later. His marriage of theatre and Mozart, 1920s songs and Pink Floyd, was so powerful.

Flowers started with Mozart’s Requiem all of us dressed as nuns in high heels, stockings and suspenders, rubbing ourselves against a pillar.

Angie Bowie came to it, recruiting dancers for Bowie’s London Rainbow gig. Not being a dancer, I didn’t get picked by her but got a peck on the cheek and a freebie to the Rainbow– it was a mind-blowing gig, making me more determined to pursue music with visuals. Kemp and Bowie showed the magic of music combined with images.

Music weekly ‘Sounds’ squashed between The Police and Def Leppard.

GATESHEAD ROCKET

In the mid-70s I met Nev and Steve in Newcastle. They joined our theatre group Mad Bongo for projects like the musical of Orwell’s 1984. Punishment of Luxury began and song-writing with Nev became a new experience.

I discovered the inspiration of sharing ideas with him. He was a talented guitarist, composer and lyricist, who could change my ideas and de-normalise them, making them crazier. I could help him shape his ideas too.

We were alchemists, turning base metal into gold. Then with a superb bassist like Jimmy we had a super-strong combination. Later we got Steve, the dynamic drummer we always wanted.

As well as the inspiration of Bowie, we wanted to write powerful songs after seeing the Sex Pistols on Top of the Pops, doing Pretty Vacant.

It was 1977 and I was visiting Nev in his flat on the 26th floor of The Rocket, a high-rise in Dunston, Gateshead. Johnny Rotten seemed to leap from the screen into the room – visually and musically he was phenomenal, it was a seminal moment. We knew what we had to do.

MAKING NOISES

The Newcastle music scene in 1977 had The Big G as the leading punk outfit and the Young Bucks with a devoted student following at the Cooperage every week. Their drummer later joined Dexies (Midnight Runners).

One band, the 45s, had their own student following at the New Darnell, Fenham. The macho keyboardist used to down a full pint with one hand while playing a solo with the other.

The Big G were much better than us for a while, then we pulled our fingers out and got their guitarist Red Helmet to join us.

SIGN OF THE TIMES

Our songs reflected our lives. Nev wrote most of Puppet Life, about fascism and people controlling our lives in relationships or in politics.

He also wrote the music for, and I did the lyrics for, a song called Pouf, which we later dropped, as people misinterpreted the song if the sound system was poor and lyrics were unclear.

As the singer I was in role as a gay-bashing bigot, whereas Nev and Jimmy were singing defiant words as oppressed gays. It trod a fine line between ironic humour and provocation.

At the Blue Bell pub in Gateshead, pointing at men in the audience and chanting ‘pouf’ was a way to get them involved but it would be wrong to do it now.

The word was maybe used more casually in the ‘70s but is now acknowledged to be grossly homophobic and that kind of role-playing, often misunderstood then, would feel clumsy and awkward now.

It was partly inspired by my teaching days when teenage lads passed me in the corridor whispering ‘pouf’ at me.  Real life was always a basis for song writing, but songs like that wouldn’t work in 2021.

LONDON CALLING

Once we discovered we could all work well together and our songs were going down well with local audiences, we wanted to take it further, play in other places and record the songs – we couldn’t afford to fund it all ourselves so we needed some money behind us to do justice to the songs and make a living out of what had become a passion.

We got our first London gig at the Elephant and Castle. With the aid of our manager Frank we played to a small bunch of people and an agent called Richard Hermitage liked us.

He booked us gigs, and we started touring more and more, getting good reviews and a better fee each time.

We had recorded Puppet Life, Blood of Love and The Demon at Impulse Studio, Wallsend at our own expense. We took the tape to London but it was the week before Christmas 1977. No-one saw us – they were all at Christmas parties – except Arnold Frollows at Virgin, who was interested.

He heard Puppet Life, then dove into a cupboard and came out with Devo’s Jocko Homo, an import single, saying Puppet Life was quite similar. 

THE DEAL

We did a gig at Spectro Arts workshop in Pilgrim Street, Newcastle. Arnold Frollows came up to the gig and it got a glowing review in Sounds. It was a start.

We were offered a standard Virgin eight album deal, but the line-up wasn’t quite stable enough, even though many bands would have leapt at the chance.

So we went to an indie, Small Wonder in Walthamstow, East London. Pete Stennett, an open, visionary guy with long hair and a woolly hat, immediately liked the songs and said yes.

We had control over the artwork and production. It was so right. We stayed at Patrik Fitzgerald’s (the Punk Poet) big house, which he kindly lent us for a couple of days.

One of the biggest highs was sitting in the Cooperage with a drink and a transistor radio, listening to John Peel play Puppet Life for the first time. A dream come true.

Read part three when Brian is recording in London studios and remembers some memorable gigs.

Interview by Alikivi  March 2021.

ROLL UP – with vocalist/guitarist Neil Thompson from The Carpettes

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Here in North East England the Wearside Bloc has given up stories from experienced musicians Ian Munro and Field Music, Sunderland punk Steve Straughan and metallers Spartan Warrior.

Now the blog has more road stories from the Houghton le Spring contingent – The Carpettes.

‘Our first North East gig was in June 1977, then we went on to headline gigs with both Angelic Upstarts and Punishment of Luxury opening’ remembers Neil.

The band first featured back in May 2020 with Thompson talking about releasing two singles on the Small Wonder label, moving down south to London in ’78, and signing a record deal with Beggars Banquet – that brought a further four singles and two albums, Thompson looks back at those days.

Just after we finished recording our first album I made a phone call to Nick Austin, one of the bosses at Beggars Banquet, he told us fantastic news – we had a residency at London’s Marquee supporting The Lurkers every Wednesday in November ‘79.

I still remember Honest John in one of the soundchecks giving me a fiver to go to the off-licence to buy him a bottle of red wine.

LEAVE THIS TO HARVEY GOLDSMITH

Our drummer Tim was from Oxford and after a few London gigs he had this idea that he’d book a couple of gigs in Oxford as he knew the venues.

The first one was in February ‘79 at The Cape of Good Hope which if I remember was upstairs in a pub, and it was terrible. Hardly anyone there and it was a disco crowd – we didn’t get an encore.

The next one he booked was in March ’79 at The Corn Dolly this was an established venue. It was just so depressing, horrible and dark. They put an ad in the NME advertising the bands and we were ‘Ta Carpets’. Only a few people scattered here and there and it was a total waste of time, again, no encore.

So I picked up the NME and thought ‘leave this to Harvey Goldsmith here’. There was an Oxford pub in the gig guide called The Oranges and Lemons and they had The Ruts on that week. Perfect, a pub that has punk bands on.

I phoned them up and got a gig straight away on Friday, 1st June 1979, our 50th gig.

On the night it was packed. Me and George were talking to people outside who had come from Sheffield to see us – we rarely played outside London in them days. We went down a storm and got an encore. I felt like telling Tim ‘leave it to me from now on mate’.

A QUICK WORD WITH DAVE

The boss of Warners UK when The Carpettes were being handled by them was none other than ‘60s pop star, Dave Dee. When I was a kid I loved Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich.

When we were on Beggars Banquet, one of the bosses, Martin Mills, the other was Nick Austin, eventually took us to the Warners office in June 1980 which was just off Berwick Street in London’s West End.

We were told there was a gym there. There was also a sauna and table tennis, all free to use – Angelic Upstart singer Mensi was always in that gym.

Now and then I used to go in the office to talk about The Carpettes to Sharon Wheeler who was press officer, but unfortunately I never saw Dave knocking about.

Fast forward 23 years to June 2003 and I’m in Camden Underworld to see the reformed Heavy Metal Kids. Dave Dee was there. He was the one that signed them to Atlantic in the ‘70s.

I watched the band and when they finished the punters were leaving but I still had a lot of my pint left and Dave Dee was standing nearby so I went over for a chat. I’d always wondered what he thought of The Carpettes and now was my chance to find out.

‘Hi Dave, I loved your band in the 60s’. ‘Aah thanks mate’ – he then goes on to talk about his band for a short while.

I tell him ‘I was in a band and we were on the Beggars Banquet label same time as Gary Numan’. So he talks about Gary Numan for a while. I’m thinking when he has a bit of a pause I’m gonna mention the Carpettes.

The next thing I hear is ‘Come on you – let’s have your drink’. I looked up and there was this big bouncer ‘Come on mate, out. We’ve got to get the club ready for the nightclub’.  ‘I’m just having a quick word with Dave here. I’ll not be long’.

‘DIDN’T YOU HEAR ME – GIVE ME YOUR GLASS AND GET OUT’. So I never found out what Dave Dee thought of the Carpettes and sadly six years later he died so I’ll never know.

IT COULDA BEEN A HIT

We nearly got in the Top 100! When we signed to Beggars Banquet they were being distributed by the mighty WEA, and they were up to some dodgy business. They had hyped The Pretenders single Brass in Pocket to number 1 – I’m not saying this record didn’t go on to sell loads but it needed WEA’s help to kickstart it.

So they got our label, Beggar’s Banquet, interested in this idea – and it was a strange one that worked sometimes. Gary Numan & Tubeway Army released their first single Down in the Park. WEA had an idea they would use this single to get the public used to the band and then whoosh – push the follow-up into the charts.

Well, it actually worked – Down in the Park wasn’t a hit but the follow-up – Are Friends Electric got to number 1. So, what happens next ? They try the same with us.

Our single is released and is a warm-up for the next one that they thought could be a hit single – the problem is that the first one didn’t take off. It was played on daytime Radio 1 but WEA didn’t want it to be a hit so it wasn’t a hit.

The next release Johnny Won’t Hurt You – this is the one that’s pushed and hyped by WEA, it creeps into the chart at number 123. But it wasn’t getting any airplay – surely they hyped the wrong one. The next week it shoots up six places to 117 and the next week it’s out the charts altogether.

So that was that as far as WEA were concerned, we’d blown our chance. The follow up – Nothing Ever Changes, was a blinder and could have been a hit, but it was no good cos even though WEA agreed to distribute it, they’d given up on us.

Read the first interview from May 2020:

FIGHT AMONGST YOURSELVES – interview with Neil Thompson from The Carpettes | ALIKIVI (garyalikivi.com)

Edited by Alikivi  March 2021.

SHINE ON – with former Procession & NEEB drummer, Mark Lloyd

/ Alikivi

The Teesside Bloc of Stockton, Middlesbrough, Billingham and Redcar have given up plenty of stories from Emma ‘Velvet Tones of Teesside’ Wilson, Mark Berry from power metallers Millennium, and songwriter & producer Steve ‘Godfather of North East NWOBHM’ Thompson.

Last month we heard from Hartlepool vocalist & guitarist Paul McCarte (link below), this post features another interview from one of the Hartlepool contingent.

I asked Procession drummer Mark Lloyd, did you think you were going to have a career and lifetime in music of going on tours, playing festivals and recording albums ?

That was the dream, and we gave it a good shot, even going self-employed as a band on a government scheme. Bad luck with vans scuppered our ability to gig, and we lost our long term rehearsal space which only enhanced the scupper. The pressure got too intense, and we imploded.

Looking back, we did achieve a lifetime in music because we are all still playing. It wasn’t what we all hoped for as idealistic twenty-somethings, but it was great fun.

GIMME THE GIG

I have no musical background or family musical connection – so I chose drums. I could hardly play and also started my apprenticeship as a goldsmith living in bedsit land. I helped out sound-checking the drums for Procession at a gig and got to know them all.

Paul McCarte (vocals/guitar) came to visit me and invited me to audition. I think I was the worst audition, but the best fit, so I was in. Happy days.

LONDON & THE HORN

In 1992 Procession went into Sarm West studios in London and recorded a session for Trevor Horn’s label ZTT – but didn’t travel up the M1 with a record deal.

The A&R man came up North to our rehearsal space and it felt like a step up the ladder was about to appear, he loved us and invited us down to London for three days recording at ZTT.

For my part, I had never played to a click, and any drummer who hasn’t will find it difficult, especially under the pressure of a chance like that in a huge studio environment.

Back then, drum machines had just become commercially available, and it was the first thing I bought and taught myself how to use and play in the aftermath.

I guess it’s like most things in life things do not always turn out how you would like, and in hindsight, he could have prepared us better for the experience.

THE BIG H

We didn’t get past the three-day interview because the recordings didn’t capture us doing our thing like we could live. Maybe if they had recorded the band live as we had in every other experience of being in a studio, the result might have been different, and we may have met the main man.

It’s not that we were opposed to being worked with – it was more like we didn’t want to be pulled apart and reworked without any foreplay.

END OF THE PROCESSION

We had no van, no rehearsal space, no money. It was like a slow-motion collapse. We tried to get funds by running a successful club night in a hotel that gave us rehearsal space. It was good but not enough to pay all our wages.

The pressure to return to jobs and get lives back on track was ultimately too great. We did manage to stay friends even though it was a painful time and continued to make music together in various guises over the years.

Subliminal Vineyards. A little festival gig with Tony Waite and Andy Wain

ALL ROADS LEAD TO GLASTO

Moving on from Procession we formed NEEB, the members were Andrew Wain from Procession on keys as the mad scientist, Peter Casson on crazy guitar, Tony Waite ‘basslord’ a fantastic bass player and studio wizard who has played in many bands since the ’70s. Completing the line-up the one and only Mark Hand on Rhodes, Moog and other vintage keyboards.

NEEB enjoyed a successful gigging period and released tunes on our record label Experiment Collective Intelligence, alongside Hartlepool band Hidden Agenda signed to Goldie’s label Metalheadz.

We played many festivals such as Glastonbury and Solfest, Scotland, we were in the Dogs in Space tent, an amazingly visual tent and a fantastic funky full-house gig. We played with our female vocalist, Vicky Jackson, and a guest singer Paul McCarte, enjoying a very colourful evening.

We also signed with a Japanese record company that sold lots of our music as downloads for phone ringtones – we like to think we were big in Japan!

LIVE, LOUD & NAKED

Touring around the country in a small van, squished like sardines, the gigs all melt into one, and the gigs you remember are mainly the ones that had a good crowd who got behind you.

Definitely, the most memorable gigs are the ones that hit that spot with the audience. The feeling it gives you on stage is far better than the gig location.

With Procession we had some fantastic responses in the Newcastle Riverside and The Arena in Middlesbrough. Later on the dream was to play Glastonbury.

I achieved that with NEEB playing on a sunny Sunday afternoon in 2000 on the Avalon Stage. A naked streaking singer being one of the highlights – yes, he was our singer, the infamous Ian ‘Ish’ Monaghan.

Master Goldsmith Mark Lloyd. Picture:Sarah Caldecott

GOLDEN FUTURE

I have just moved my successful goldsmithery business into new premises, and building a new rehearsal/studio space in the vast loft space.

My music playing now involves nights of jamming with most bandmates mentioned earlier, not necessarily under a band name. The latest NEEB incarnation, called Subliminal Vineyards, is me, Tony and Wainy with guitar from Mark Folland, a former member of Hartlepool band Brethren.

My plan with the new space is to create a music hub for us all to enjoy. It will be somewhere to jam, record the music and film live video streaming on a blue screen background – just enjoy the simple pleasure of playing music with my friends, not for money, fame or ego, purely for fun, ad infinitum.

Interview by Alikivi  March 2021.

Links to interviews with Procession vocalist/guitarist Paul McCarte:

DEAL OR NO DEAL – for North East musician Paul McCarte | ALIKIVI (garyalikivi.com)

NO REGRETS – with Paul McCarte from Hartlepool band, demon summer | ALIKIVI (garyalikivi.com)

NO REGRETS – with Paul McCarte from Hartlepool band, demon summer

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In a previous interview with Paul (link below), he talks about his former band Procession imploding after two albums, there was also a failed attempt at getting a record deal with ZTT.

I got back in touch with Paul and asked if he sees it as an opportunity missed to step up in the music business.

We were all in our early twenties, young and headstrong, and we knew that ZTT had a reputation for totally changing the sound of a band a la Frankie Goes to Hollywood. We were definitely not up for that, so we were hoping they liked us for what we were.

Their A&R guy saw the potential but seemed more interested in me than the band, and that was never going to fly with me, despite everyone in the band thinking I should go for it. I would have ended up like Seal just adding my face and voice to big ZTT produced tracks.

We were sure something else would present itself – because as one door closes another one opens. I’ve always been in it for the music rather than any kind of fame. Being creative is the whole point and we’ve made some wonderful music together since our time in Sarm West studio/ZTT.

It was their loss as we created two albums in the immediate aftermath, armed with no money in tiny studios with 100% passion and belief. The songs still sound marvellous and don’t seem to have aged.

I’ve tracked down three of the Sarm West/ZTT recordings on tape and am intending to release them on our Bandcamp when we have cleaned them up and remastered them.

After Procession called it a day, McCarte dusted himself down, and along with Nick Crozier (guitar) and Ken Napper (bass) started working on a new project together.

demon summer was born out of a desire to continue making music together. To begin with Ken Napper was just pitching in but like a moth was attracted to the bright light of what me and Nick Crozier were creating and just kept turning up and slinging his bass on.

This was fine with us as we’re all lifelong friends but at that point Ken had no desire to develop things toward a new band, although that is where me and Nick were headed.

Where did the band name originally come from ?

In 1999 we wrote some new songs as a four piece with former Procession drummer Mark Lloyd, recording them at Polaris studio in Hartlepool and this three track session saw the first use of the name demon summer.

I had a dream just before the recording session where we went to see New Order playing and got to meet them afterwards. The singer asked me if I was in a band and when I said yes he asked the name, to which my reply was demon summer. I wrote it down when I woke up, Nick liked the name so we used it on the Polaris session tracks.

After the session Mark Lloyd left to drum on his project (NEEB). Me and Nick Crozier realised changes need to happen in order to move on so I hatched a plan to get Ken Napper motivated again.

We needed a bass player and drummer so I asked a friend, Eddie Rees – who was playing bass in a local punk band if he wanted to join. He was very interested, so that part was sorted.

We arranged a meeting with Ken Napper and told him we had replaced him on bass but what we really needed was a drummer.

Ken had always been able to play drums but never had the chance so he jumped at it and committed fully to the project buying himself a drum kit. We rehearsed with the full line up of myself, Nick, Eddie and Ken, at that point we became demon summer.

Roadhouse, London advert for 15.02.04

Where were your first gigs and what venues did you play after that ?

Our first gig was on 12 December 2001 at The Studio in Hartlepool, and it was sold out as it had been a long time since we played. We had released the one EP earlier in the year so locally everyone knew about us, and our second gig was supporting Icelandic band Leaves at The Cornerhouse in Middlesbrough.

We’ve played over a hundred gigs and festivals with a lot of famous venues among them such as The Cavern in Liverpool, London venues The Borderline, Roadhouse, The Garage, Underworld, plus Carling Academy Liverpool, The Cluny Newcastle and a few Universities but probably our favourite venue has been The Empire in Middlesbrough.

Did you support any name bands ?

We played gigs with Doves, Echo & the Bunnymen, Longview, Bloc Party, The Boxer Rebellion, The Ordinary Boys, Maximo Park and toured extensively from 2002 to the end of 2005.

After that we mostly played in the local area. An odd little thing that demon summer were involved with is providing all of the music for the Morrissey documentary The Jewel in the Crown.

Are there any gigs that stand out ?

Playing The Empire was always fantastic. We were the opening band at Middlesbrough Music Live in 2004 and it was packed to the gills, also in 2005 when we played there during the tour for the single burn, it was a special night.

The Borderline in London was really full, and we got a great reception. Also, great memories of playing at the Tall Ships festival with Doves and Echo and the Bunnymen.

Did you record any of your material ?

We built our own studio called PulseArt on the top floor of my house which is where the one EP, debut album Sideshow and singles empty heart and burn were all recorded between 2001 and 2004.

Between March 12th and 17th 2004 we recorded in Liverpool’s Parr Street Studio laying down four new songs, three of which – founder, mary celeste and created were released last year as the Parr Street Session.

The session was engineered and mixed by the renowned Liverpool sound engineer Michael Hunter who has worked with some of the biggest bands out there such as Supergrass, Marillion and The Charlatans.

In 2005 we recorded the follow up single to burn which was a re-imagined poppier version of empty heart along with a song called you draw the line, all recorded at Tower Street Studio in Hartlepool.

But our record company Waterside Records folded just afterwards so we never released it. We remastered the songs and released them last year as the single empty heart two.

Between 2011 and 2015 we recorded the second demon summer album in PulseArt and this will be released later in the year preceded by the first single it’s a trap.

When did the band call it a day and why ?

Technically demon summer have not disbanded. Mark and Andy wanted to return to NEEB to work on an album so we agreed to put gigging on hold and just record the album which myself and Nick would produce with a very loose ‘We’ll talk about what to do next when it’s finished’.

What are you doing now ?

We all work on various projects. Mark and Andy have alongside their band NEEB been working under the moniker ATM and also Subliminal Vineyards with Tony Waite, Mark Hand and Mark Folland. Andy Wain (keys) also works under the alias Pixelate.

Myself, Nick and Eddie have been working on a new project since 2015 which we would have played live by now but for the pandemic.

Check the demon summer back catalogue:

www.demonsummer.bandcamp.com

Link to the first interview with Paul McCarte:

DEAL OR NO DEAL – for North East musician Paul McCarte | ALIKIVI (garyalikivi.com)

Interview by Alikivi  March 2021.

FROM NEWCASTLE WITH LOVE – part one of an interview with actor & musician Brian Rapkin.

/ Alikivi

Life in the North East started in 1973 in a basement flat in Leazes Terrace near St James Park, Newcastle. Waking up each morning to a kitchen sink full of slugs was not ideal, so I moved to Fenham sharing a flat with fellow-teacher Ged Grimes, guitarist in Hedgehog Pie.

I was teaching at John Marley Upper School where I entertained Bob Smeaton (former vocalist with Newcastle band White Heat, now music TV director, link below) and his class by reading chapters from The Exorcist.

Later in the ’70s came the North East punk scene, when I was living in Brighton Grove, Newcastle singing and writing songs as Brian Bond with Punishment of Luxury.

We had a single out on Small Wonder records then got a major deal with United Artists – an album Laughing Academy and three singles – and toured UK and Europe. EMI dropped us in 1980 and I left soon after to form Punching Holes.

In part two Brian will be talking more about his music, this post will focus on his acting career. I asked him when did you start acting ?

My brother, sister and I used to put on short plays for mum and dad when I was small living in Staines near London where I was brought up. That thrill of performing to an audience had begun.

There was no school drama even though I tried to get my English teacher to organise it. All that remained was sport, and boxing was mine.

My dad trained me and I won two cups in school, read books about it and loved Henry Cooper, Floyd Patterson, Sonny Liston and Mohammed Ali. I was obsessed. At 13 I won a bronze medal and made the school boxing team.

Training was dire in the bad winter of ‘63 – endless gym circuits, cross-country runs in the snow wearing boots and heavy backpack. I got flu and they dropped me from the team after two matches.

I lost them both, along with my killer instinct. Sometimes an illness jerks you into making changes. This one dragged me out of a rut into acting.

I was in an all-male school, so at 14 my acting debut was in Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor, along with Stephen Milligan, the Tory MP who died naked with an orange in his mouth and a plastic bag over his head.

The first paid acting job was at 20 working for Bowie’s mentor Lindsay Kemp at York Arts Centre. This was soon followed by a role in the 1970 Edinburgh Festival as the virgin Sir Galahad in Mort d’Arthur. I trained method-style for the part by remaining chaste until 21.

1971 involved acting in a different role. I found an ad in The Stage and applied to be a clown in Cottle & Austen’s Circus. The first performance in Surrey was adrenalin-packed but they didn’t like my ‘grotesque’ make-up so they toned me down and made me an auguste, a tramp clown.

It lasted three days, the ringmaster went into a sulk after I spurned his advances, so he refused to give me the training he’d promised.

Brian as a young clown in 1967 at Warwick University.

When did you sign professionally?

I signed up as an Equity actor in 1975 whilst as a variety performer singing and playing guitar and keyboards in Mad Bongo theatre group, based in the North East.

As a stage actor, the best roles were in a production about the trial of Oscar Wilde. We toured it around North arts centres and colleges. It was a disastrous opening night in Kendal but then we pulled it all together and it was much praised.

The first speaking part in film acting was in BBC’s Machine Gunners (1982) as a Polish officer.  I didn’t have to audition but chatted to Colin Cant, the director, a lovely man who gave me the part after I told him of my Polish ancestry, which was almost true.

In 1995 Brian appeared in Tyne Tees TV programme Stranger than Fiction, associate producer was Vin Arthey who features in an earlier blog. (link below)

How did you get the part ?

Dave Holly was my agent and they liked my Russian accent, the role as a 1920s Soviet intelligence officer was a dream. In a sense it was like going back centuries to revisit my family’s Russian roots as a Rapkin.

The scene involved interviewing William Fisher, the Geordie Russian spy born in Benwell, and decide his suitability as a Soviet agent. I thought smoking a cigarette would help the atmosphere and it probably did, but as a lifelong non-smoker it was hard to do.

The location of the scene was the main assembly hall in Heaton Manor School, where ten years previously I’d been a teacher.

My son was about to enrol at this school and the location was ideal – dark, polished wood everywhere, and a floor where footsteps could echo, perfect for a top-secret meeting between a spy and his handler.

What other roles did you have on TV ?

Byker Grove allegedly cost £1000 a minute to shoot, and this may be why most of my role as a sadistic supervisor – in black clothing, brandishing a long stick – ended up on the cutting-room floor. I was overseeing a group of youths doing community service and had to shout at them. We did the scene twice.

Take 1: The sound meter leapt into red and distorted, so had to be done again.

Take 2: One of my lines was marred by a slight fluff. Mathew Robinson the director said ‘Next scene!’

I asked if we could do it again. No was the answer, we gotta move on. The only line of mine that survived was ‘Oy! Back to work!’

Ant, Dec, and Jill Halfpenny, were just kids. I was watching the filming at one point and they were performing a scene. Mathew said ‘Cut! Let’s do it again but speak more slowly this time.’  Jill said ‘But that’s how real Geordies speak!’ and he said ‘Yes, but this is being networked all around the UK, from Cornwall to Scotland. Everyone in the country’s got to understand everything that you’re saying. OK? One more time. Action!’

I was a cockney detective in Spender in 1990. I was in the opening scene with Jimmy Nail and Amanda Redman in a train carriage.

Nervy, with the crew squeezed into the aisle between the seats, Mr Nail chivvied the crew along. ‘Come on everyone, the actors are on tenterhooks here.’ That helped my nerves. I was the new boy on the block.

During a move from one location to another, I missed the coach for Less Important Actors and had to share a trailer with Jimmy and Amanda. They chatted about past experiences.

She mentioned that she’d toured with the Rocky Horror Show. I tried to join in the conversation ‘I love that show. What part did you play?’  She turned towards me, stared at an empty space and forcing a smile, said ‘I’m sorry?’  There was an awkward pause.

I repeated it, this time less confidently. Jimmy Nail waded in with a put-down reply ‘What part did you play?’… ‘The lead, of course!’. End of conversation. Cue to look out of the trailer window. Tumbleweed floats by.

Playing a Maitre D in ‘The Round Tower’ by Catherine Cookson 1998.

Have you any stand out memories from filming ?

One day as an extra for a TV drama I had to get costumed up at 7am in the Rex Hotel, Whitley Bay. I wasn’t used in a scene until 4pm, so the best thing was to watch the filming and chat to others involved.

One of these was Jimmy Garbutt, a leading actor in When the Boat Comes In and one of the elders in the Superman film with Christopher Reeve and Marlon Brando.

He regaled us with tales from Superman. On the first day of filming Brando was shaking each actor’s hand saying ‘Hi, I’m Marlon Brando’ – as if they didn’t know.

When it came to shooting a scene, one of the other elders was Trevor Howard, who’d been with Brando in Mutiny on the Bounty. Howard was furious because Brando hadn’t bothered learning any of his lines and he’s had them written out in large letters, sellotaped to their set.

Doing a couple of Catherine Cookson films, The Round Tower and The Man who Cried, was challenging, and it was enjoyable to dress up and play Sir Walter Raleigh to Charlie Hardwick’s Queen Elizabeth I in CITV’s Kappatoo, elegantly laying a cloak on the puddle for her majesty to step on.

Once I was an extra in Supergran in a crowded pub scene. We had to drink from pint mugs and our glasses were filled with shandy. One of the extras, a stocky Geordie actor from Walker, took a look at his glass and barked at the Production Assistant ‘Ah’m not drinkin’ that!’  

The PA – a slim, well-groomed man from the South East of England – bellowed in a high-pitched voice: ‘Remove this man from the set, please! Take his costume, thank you!’ Great days.

What are you doing now ?

I stopped acting for a living at 35 – too precarious, always touring in vans, no money, nowhere decent to live. I got married, started a family, taught in Cairo for a while then went back to Newcastle to teach and do whatever film or TV work came along.

From 1985 I taught drama in schools for 5 years, then post-16 students in a college for 30 years. Last year I took voluntary redundancy and now there are possibilities of work linked to the acting world.

In part two soon read about Brian’s alternative career as a musician in the bands Punishment of Luxury and Punching Holes.

Interview by Alikivi  March 2021.

Interview with Bob Smeaton:

THE BOY FROM BENWELL – with Film & TV Director, Bob Smeaton | ALIKIVI (garyalikivi.com)

Interview with Vin Arthey:

RUSSIA’S GEORDIE SPY with author Vin Arthey | ALIKIVI (garyalikivi.com)

GUARDIAN RECORDING STUDIO #6: Ghost in the Machines

/ Alikivi

Guardian Sound Studios were based in a small village called Pity Me in County Durham, North East UK.

There are various theories on the origin of the unusual name of the village – a desolate area, exposed and difficult to cultivate or a place where monks sang ‘Pity me o God’ as they were chased by the Vikings.

Whatever is behind the name it was what happened in two terraced houses over 30 years ago that is the focus of this blog – they were home to a well-known recording studio.

From 1978 some of the bands who recorded in Guardian were: Neon, Deep Freeze and Mike Mason & the Little People.

A year later The Pirahna Brothers recorded a 7”. 1979 saw an E.P from Mythra and releases in 1980 from Hollow Ground, Hellanbach and a compilation album, Roksnax.

From 1982 to 85 bands including Red Alert, Toy Dolls, Prefab Sprout, Satan, Battleaxe and Spartan Warrior made singles or albums.

On this blog there is a number of musicians who have memories of recording in Guardian and there has also been stories of a ghost of a young girl who was knocked down outside the studio.

Dave Wilkinson (Spartan Warrior): We recorded at Guardian Studio in ‘83/’84. My abiding memory of recording there is that the studio was said to be haunted.

There were occasions when although we’d been booked into the studio during the daytime, the producer Terry Gavaghan, would often have us recording throughout the evening and into the early hours of the following morning.

Terry would tell us about various sightings of the ghost of a little girl and there had been occasions when peoples headphones had inexplicably flown off across the room during a take.

On one occasion we were recording a track called Witchfinder for the Steel n’ Chains album and Terry thought that it would be cool for the five of us to record a satanic chant at the opening of the track.

The control room had a large glass window next to the mixing desk and from there you could see into the room in which the band was set up to record. It was quite dark in that room and I think it was only dimly lit with a red light. 

So after a lot of the usual ghostly tales we all went around the vocal microphone while Terry remained in the control room with a lad who was helping him in the studio. We had a few runs through this chant and it was an unrehearsed shambles, but he called us back in to the control room to have a listen.

Terry set the analogue recordings running and we listened back. Then the tape machine just ground to a halt and he pointed at the digital clock which measured the length of the track and it came up as six minutes and sixty six seconds… 666.

Terry looked really worried and said you can’t have a clock showing 666 seconds and he was telling us something sinister was at work probably brought on by the satanic chant.

He said that we ought to abandon the idea before anything horrendous happened. He said the chant could bring about terrible things if blood was spilled. I think he actually said ‘all you need is blood’. 

Then the lad helping Terry got up to go into the kitchen to make us all a cup of tea and he banged his head off one of the monitors and split his head open. That was it – blood was spilled and we were all terrified.

It was almost certainly a wind up. I’m pretty sure Terry could have done something to make the clock show 666 but the lad did actually split his head open. The chant never made the album.

Read the full interview with Dave Wilkinson here:

Guardian Recording Studio stories #2 with Sunderland metal band, Spartan Warrior | ALIKIVI (garyalikivi.com)

Glenn Coates (Hollow Ground): When we were recording the tracks for a compilation album, Roksnax. We stayed overnight but if I knew what was there I wouldn’t of stayed.

One night the lads were in the kitchen making coffee and Terry Gavaghan and myself were sitting at the mixing desk in the control room of the studio.

We looked through the glass partition and seen a sort of electric blue figure that came right up to the glass in front of me, its face didn’t have any features, no face, no mouth, nothing.

Then it moved back and turned to the side revealing its shape of an old woman with a stooped shoulders and back.

I felt pretty calm watching this go on in front of us, then suddenly it floated across the room and stopped at the wall. Then it turned back and floated back across the room and through the drum booth and finally disappearing through the wall.

Terry looked at me and said ‘Did you see that’ my hair just stood on end. The whole episode lasted about a minute.

Terry has been known to set up a few pranks for other bands but how could you set that up ? I know what I saw. I’ve heard that the ghost was an old woman who tried to help the young girl that was knocked over. I don’t know if you believe things like that but I certainly saw it.

Read the full interview with Glenn Coates here:

ROCK OF AGES | ALIKIVI (garyalikivi.com)

Read more Guardian stories here:

Guardian Recording Studio stories #4 Metal on Tyne with Mythra, Saracen & Hollow Ground | ALIKIVI (garyalikivi.com)

If anyone has any information about Guardian or recorded in the studios get in touch.

Interviews by Alikivi

LUCKY MAN – part one, with North Shields actor & musician Tony Hodge.

/ Alikivi

Leaving school and taking up a job as a Chef led Tony Hodge down a path that he couldn’t imagine…

I’ve been very lucky as a chef, drummer, actor and company director plus a rocker in the famous ‘60s era of mods and rockers. Looking back they were great years, it’s been a blast. I’ve been a lucky man said 75 year old Tony.

Did you come from a musical family ?

My family weren’t musical as such, although my parents sang in the church choir and my brother plays guitar.

When I was a chef in 1961 at the Park Hotel in Tynemouth, the hotel had a resident band with a drum kit. I had an urge to play and that started a career that spanned over 30 years. Mind you many wouldn’t class my drumming as musical.

Then I went with Ray Laidlaw (Lindisfarne) to see Ginger Baker and Cream at the Club A Go-Go in Newcastle, that changed my style of playing – I became known as Animal.

Can you remember your first bands and gigs?

My first band, I was 16, we only played a few gigs then I joined Dominion Aces, then Turm with John Lawton singing, he later sang for Uriah Heep.

Next was Arctic Rainbow with Kenny Mountain (Beckett) and Micky Balls on guitar. Venues included the famous Rex Hotel, Whitley Bay and the Cellar Club in South Shields.

Then there was Tex Leon and the Tynesiders and finally The Piranha Brothers who had a huge following and never stopped filling clubs for the 10 years we played in the North East.

We had a four-part singing line up in many songs and some of a set at the Birtley Rex is on my You Tube page.

The Pirahna Brothers line up was two lead vocalists in Geordie Scott and Allen Matthews, lead guitar & vocals from both Paul Simmons & Mac Norris.

During their time they had three bass players – founder Bill French, then Paul Allen and finally Dave Wightman. On drums was Tony Hodge.

Where did The Piranha Brothers play ?

Venues were mainly social clubs as they were hundreds around then and all the agents used them. We weren’t a typical social club band though, as our act was largely made up from our own songs written by Paul Simmons our lead guitarist.

Most bands played covers as I had in the Tynesiders, but we had an act that worked in clubs and other venues.

One night we played Newcastle Mayfair with three other bands to a 3000 plus audience and The Piranhas played several open air concerts in the early ‘80s at Gypsies Green stadium in South Shields.

The most popular Piranhas venue was Heaton Buffs in Newcastle. Our Christmas concerts sold out the year previous. The original single night ended up as three nights, and we had guest bands playing along with the brilliant resident band Burlesque.

The Christmas nights were themed with ideas being thought up by our singers… ‘St Trinians’, ‘The Young Ones’, ‘WWII’ and the final one ‘The Nativity’ and Burlesque always joined in the game. I still wonder though how some of the guys always thought women’s nylons had to be included.

The guest bands never knew what to expect and one time a guest band was 747 with the late brilliant musician Dave Black. This band was really cool, all good looking and right up to date. We hired a topless dancer to come on stage mid set and serve drinks on a tray to the band.

Dave was singing in full swing and she was out of his eyesight. The rest of the band saw her and were laughing but Dave was oblivious. When she stood in front of him he was speechless – literally – and his face was a picture. The audience loved it though.

We often had many famous faces in the audience such as John Miles, Brian Johnston (Geordie) and Hylton Valentine (The Animals) so it must have had some appeal.

Pictured above is the Newcastle Mayfair competition final. The room was packed with over 3000 people. Two bands had the biggest following, that was Burlesque and us.

All bands were great on the night but the audience were very unhappy when neither won. A riot erupted with plastic glasses being thrown and Alan Hull (Lindisfarne) could not provide the prize.

Alan and Brian, the Mayfair manager, asked if anyone from the Piranhas or Burlesque could try and do something. Paul from Burlesque and I went on stage to try and calm the audience down and the anger turned to cheers.

Alan Hull presented the prize with a bowl on his head to everyone’s delight. One of the judges, Chas Chandler (The Animals), invited us to go to Abbey Road studios and record our songs which we did.

Have you any memories from those North East gigs ?

Piranhas were known for the two main singers in Geordie Scott and Alan Mathews, pulling many stunts like pretend fights and blood capsules. They had funny routines without in any way being a comic band.

This night to a packed room we counted four beats and the usual very loud intro to First Bite powered out. As always Geordie jumped up fists in the air and hit the deck, Alan started to dart around the stage.

This time however Geordie didn’t get up. This seemed ok, these guys were up for anything after all, however the intro was over and Alan wasn’t joined by Geordie. We played on but after a few more bars we realised something was wrong.

It was…Geordie had dislocated his knee and ended up being taken to hospital in an ambulance. In the true showbiz style of the show must go on, Alan and the rest of us finished the night.

Another night at the Birtley Rex. A guy called Liddle Towers had recently died in police custody in Birtley and the police were none too popular.

Liddle Towers was an amateur boxing coach who died in police custody, in 1978 South Shields punk band The Angelic Upstarts wrote a song about the incident The Murder of Liddle Towers.

This night our first set was our own material only, but second set we were finishing our final set with a couple of punk covers. A wedding party had been trouble through the night and a fight broke out.

The police were called and a young Police Constable plus an overweight Sergeant arrived. When they entered the whole club erupted against them, chairs, tables, glasses all went flying.

A roadie got cut and I ran from the dressing room to the stage yelling to the police to run to the dressing room. The guys dragged them in and the glasses hitting the doors sounded like a battlefield.

Suddenly there was silence and out of the tiny window was a wall of blue lights as far as you could see, police were everywhere.

Eventually, I ventured to the stage and the club was empty. Wrecked but empty. Never have I ever seen a club clear so fast.

Did you record any of your material ?

Yes I have a couple of singles they are in the attic collecting dust, unfortunately no turntable. I last heard one of them on You Tube as a fan must have uploaded it.

In 1979 The Piranha Brothers had a single on the Durham record label, Guardian. The song was called Too Much of Wanting You and studio owner Terry Gavaghan wrote that and Paul Simmons and Iwrote the b-side Dancing Time.

At one point Brian Johnston (Geordie/AC/DC) was a big fan. We recorded a single in his Newcastle studio Lynx, the song was called A Woman Like You. But it went to the USA and nothing happened. Chas Chandler (The Animals) got us recording in Abbey Road studio – but major fame alluded us.

Next time on the blog read the second part of Tony’s story, where he sees an opportunity to prolong his career in entertainment.

I didn’t think I could be playing drums in my 40s and 50s and I thought I would have a longer career in acting than music. It was a surprise because I never thought I would get as far as I did.

Interview by Alikivi   February 2021.

A SONG FOR EVERYONE – with ex-Southbound drummer, Mick Kelly

/ Alikivi

North East pubs and clubs were covered in a smoky haze as thick as yer ma’s pea soup, Broon Ale bottles clinked and a chorus of Geordie voices cheered along to Southbound when they hit the stage at Ashington Excelsior, Bedlington Lucifers, over to Heaton Buffs, down to Hartlepool Clippies, back up to Morpeth Comrades and dropped in at Sunderland’s Old 29 not forgetting the Boilermakers.

Glory nights in working men’s clubs that would bring a lump in yer throat and a tear in the glassy eye of the hardest riveter in the shipyard.

‘People would come early and fill the place, it made it all worthwhile’ said Mick.

‘We played a lot of gig’s and wherever we went, we went down really well’.

The Thrill of it All and All Right Now are previous interviews with Alan Burke and Mick Kelly, former members of Southbound.

They talk about their background in music, early gigs, recording in Impulse studio and how proud they are of the songs the band wrote. (links below)

Would they have been successful if they were signed up by a record company ? In a new interview I put that question to drummer Mick Kelly….

I felt if we had the right amount of backing to support us, our outcome would have been totally different. We were trying to get a record deal and we managed to get in touch with Brian Oliver from State Records. He came up to see us and tried to sort something out.

Some forty years later I got to chat with Brian Oliver via Steve Thompson (songwriter/producer). After I showed Brian a copy of the letter Southbound got from him back in the day, he got in touch…

Brian Oliver ‘Wow, seeing that letter again is like entering a time machine. I obviously heard something in the band or I wouldn’t have come up to the Gosforth Hotel.

Unfortunately, Wayne Bickerton decided which acts were signed to the record label. Sorry we weren’t able to help the band in the end‘.

We were then offered a track to record written by Steve Thompson and Gary Maughan called Front Page News, but unfortunately that never transpired.

But Southbound did write some of their songs. Our two guitarists were more than capable of writing their own material.

George Lamb on the left with Alan Burke at Newcastle Mayfair 1980.

Some of the songs that were written did have personal meanings to them and some were inspired by the sound and style of West Coast music at that time.

One of our favourite songs was Keep on Winding which made it on an RCA compilation album as we won a Battle of the Bands competition in 1982.

Keep on Winding was a direct result from playing at the Mayfair in Newcastle. In the lyric it says ‘You look around and see your friends are all beside you’.

The song Don’t Deny Me was written about a relationship that one of the band members had. Another one was inspired by an Allman Brothers track Jessica, our song was called Joanne.

In 1977 the Melody Maker music mag was running a Pop/Rock competition so we entered. We were asked to play at Dunelm House in Durham City along with at least another 20 bands. We were first of the band section to play after the solo/acoustic artists.

We set up and were waiting for the judges to return from their tea break, we asked the packed crowd if they would like a song. They said yes so we broke into one of our own numbers Love is a Strange Thing.

On hearing this the judges ran down stairs to see us getting stuck into our song. Then one of them jumped onto the stage and started leaping around like some person possessed. After the song he came across to me and said ‘That was fantastic but don’t say anything’.

The judges said we will be judged on our next three songs. The competition carried on and we left soon after to play a gig somewhere else but didn’t get to know what the result was until the next day when we played Wheatley Hill Club, Durham.

My brother, who had stayed at the competition, came and told us we had won the competition. We were absolutely ecstatic.

Southbound at Newcastle Mayfair supporting Tygers of Pan Tang Feb.1980.

As well as gigging in the North East, Southbound visited the likes of Berwick, Richmond, Dudley, Edinburgh, London, Manchester and Northampton. They knew how important stage time was….

I think many bands in the ‘70s and ‘80s playing regular gigs was a key for development and agents played a great part, which we don’t have now.

Once we got onto the working man’s club circuit around the North East playing other people’s material, it gave us an idea of what went down well and which songs didn’t.

Some support gigs had been arranged with bands like Cado Belle, George Hackett band, Alberto y lost trios Paranoias, Tyger’s of Pang Tang, Last Exit, The Junco’s, Shakin Stevens and The Sunsets.

Plus playing alongside bands on the music festivals like the Newcastle Music festival and Domefest which we played at least three times.

I remember one night when we played Newcastle Mayfair we supported Babe Ruth, not with the usual member Jenny Haan, but with a girl called Elle Hope who went on to sing the disco song Dance Yourself Dizzy in the band Liquid Gold.

We actually headlined a couple of gigs at the Mecca in Sunderland and Newcastle Mayfair, and one time with Raven at the Mayfair. At the time Raven used to fill in for us at The Gosforth which later helped them get a foot hold on the pub rock circuit.

We also had the obligatory gig at Newcastle Labour club on a Sunday morning for the female lady who removed her clothes. 

There are some photos from when we played Newcastle Mayfair on 15 February 1980, supporting Tygers Of Pang Tang. Not the best quality but they have a bit of atmosphere about them. This is when we were a four piece, personally our best time.

Southbound at Newcastle Mayfair supporting Tygers of Pan Tang Feb.1980.

Have you any road stories to share ?

We had some hilarious times on the road. One is when we were playing Catterick Garrison which was a high brow affair with food from caviar to curry and numerous amounts of liquid.

The night went on forever with a stand-up comedian, Bob Richie, a solo singer, a jazz quartet and us.

We ended up finishing the night a little worse for wear and having a Champagne breakfast. On the way back we spotted a hedgehog running round a roundabout, so we stopped, got out and tried to get it back on to the grass when the police showed up.

They asked what we were doing at 6:30 in the morning. None of us thought about getting breathalysed or arrested as the police officer just said ‘get off the roundabout and get yourselves home’. I don’t know how we managed to get home.

We played Hartlepool Quoits club, if the band played too loud the orange light flashed and the sound system would cut out the electrics on stage.

So, we hooked all our equipment into the dressing room sockets and when the orange light would flash away the committee looked puzzled why it didn’t cut out. A few other bands quickly caught on and did the same.

Not a story from the road but funny all the same – while we were recording, the studio had a 16-track recording tape machine. One band member was speaking to someone on the phone about recording, and the person on the other end of the phone asked what kind of tape machine it was.

The reply came quickly…‘It’s a Hotpoint’. In which the band member quickly said to the person on the other end of the phone. ‘They said it’s a Hotpoint’…..oops he fell for it.

I’m sure there were plenty of other occasions but they have faded beyond memory. But having said that a song or another piece of history will trigger things off.

Check the earlier interviews with Mick Kelly and Alan Burke:

ALL RIGHT NOW with Michael Kelly former drummer with North East band Southbound | ALIKIVI (garyalikivi.com)

THE THRILL OF IT ALL | ALIKIVI (garyalikivi.com)

Alikivi   February 2021.

ROCK OF AGES with Fist vocalist, Glenn Coates

/ Alikivi / 1 Comment

I was reminded of the night the New Wave of British Heavy Metal came in to South Shields. What happened was I was flicking through my records and I come across the Hollow Ground EP which was kindly given to me by Lou Taylor (Satan/Blind Fury) after I lost my copy.

I originally bought one from Second Time Around Record Shop in South Shields after watching Hollow Ground play live at Tyne Dock Youth Club in 1980 – my very first LOUD gig.

They certainly gave the place some welly and was one of the first NWOBHM gigs I went to – Hellanbach and Satan followed over the years.

Glenn Coates was vocalist that night, but later he left the rock hard granite sound of Hollow Ground, and became frontman for another South Shields plug in an’ play no frills outfit, Fist…

Yeah, we used to play so loud, one gig I jumped onto the drum riser at the very same time that the drummer hit his crash cymbal and I nearly lost my balance, I think I have tinnitus now (laughs).

I saw Fist at venues like South Shields British Legion, and Newcastle Mayfair on 4 June 1982 on the Y & T Earthshaker tour….

I remember they brought all their gear in flight cases. One of the cases was like a very tall chest, and when they opened it, it was full of cans of beer. We had a great time opening for them, good memories.

Later that year I saw Y & T again, this time opening for AC/DC in Newcastle. The Americans warmed up the City Hall enough for DC to land on stage with their huge backline.

They were fronted by ex-Geordie singer Brian Johnson. During the ‘70s & ‘80s a lot of rock/metal bands came from the North East – The Animals, Geordie, Raven and the Tygers of Pan Tang….

I remember Fist supported the Tygers at Warrington Park Hall, which is the same set up as Newcastle City Hall…said Glenn.

The Tygers were doing well at the time with arctic’s full of sound gear parked outside. But our van with all our gear decides to pack up on the M62. We eventually got to the hall just in time – we pulled up outside at 6pm with our backline in a horsebox (laughs). 

If we go back to the start, how did the job in Hollow Ground come about ?

You mentioned that Tyne Dock gig, well we have fond memories of playing there because before Hollow Ground I was in a band that used to rehearse in that youth club.

There was Brian Rickman (bass) and myself in a band with guitarist Steve Dawson (Saracen/The Animals/Geordie). That fizzled out around ’78 so Brian and me got together with Martin Metcalf (guitar) and John Lockney (drums), that was the beginning of Hollow Ground.

We also rehearsed in a backroom at the Adam & Eve pub in South Shields and all day on a Sunday in a hut in West Park. We used to give the caretaker a fiver and he’d let us in.

We’d always record our rehearsals then listen to it back during the week, then rearrange the songs.We had started to write our own stuff and went in a studio to get it down on tape.

Studio work was financed by playing covers in pubs and working men’s clubs around the North East. The first studio we went into was Impulse Studio where Neat records were based, and we recorded an hour long live demo.

It turned out quite good, I thought the vocals and drum sound was better there than at our other recording for the EP at Guardian Studio in Durham.

What was your experience of Guardian studio ?

Terry Gavaghan was owner and producer there and it was exciting to make a record at Guardian. We were still pretty naïve about it all you know – making a record to get noticed by a record company.

Then we put some tracks together for a compilation album called Roksnax. Other bands on the record were Saracen from South Shields and Samurai who I think were Newcastle based. We all contributed four tracks each.

How did joining Fist come about ?

At first Hollow Ground were like sponges taking everything in, playing gigs wherever and whenever we could, at pubs and clubs doing covers to pay for the studio time. Learning all the time, it was a great energy to write the songs and it came about quite easy and quickly.

But thing was Terry Gavaghan said EMI were interested in signing us so we were waiting for that, but really I didn’t believe it and I’ve heard he told lots of bands the same. The band had stopped playing live so with no gigs happening I wasn’t doing much.

Fist came along and asked about me joining, I took it because they had things to offer. This was around ’81 and in the summer we played the Rock on the Tyne festival at Gateshead Stadium with Rory Gallagher and a few others. U2 were on the day before us.

The night before we played in Manchester and someone had smashed the whole back window of our car. I remember being freezing cold travelling on the motorway finally getting back to the North East about four in the morning. Not the best preparation cos we had to do a soundcheck and the first band on stage at 12 noon.

With hindsight shouldn’t have played Manchester but had a good time the rest of the day playing to a very large audience at Gateshead stadium.

Did you go in the studio with Fist ?

Yes we recorded the Back With a Vengeance album and the feeling then around the band and the songs was great. There was magic in the air.

We also recorded a single on Neat records in 1982, it was an easy going pop song called The Wanderer with Too Hot on the b side. The Wanderer was just a laugh really, I don’t think we even played it live. But some people thought we had mellowed and gone poppy by releasing it, but no, it was never meant to be a serious record.

Then about a year later Status Quo recorded a version and got it in the charts. The picture on the front cover is me with my long hair – I haven’t got that now but I still think I’ve got that jacket (laughs).

When did Fist call it a day ?

We didn’t call it a day as such, it just kind of fizzled out. We were still rehearsing new stuff in Harry’s pub (Hill, drummer) as he had got into the pub game by then. But I don’t think any live dates were coming in. It’s a hard game to keep going.

But Fist played some memorable gigs. On 7 May 1984 we opened for Motorhead at Hammersmith Odeon on their No Remorse tour. It was great they had the Bomber lighting rig. I just remember seeing the first two or three rows singing along to songs we had wrote, it was such a buzz.

Afterwards we were upstairs in the Green Room drinking, Motorhead were there and Young Blood, the other band who were on. Lemmys son was also there, who is a good looking lad – all the lasses fancied him (laughs).

What are you doing now ?

Fist are still active. We’ve got Mark Jackson in on drums because unfortunately Harry Hill had to retire due to health problems. Last year we were still gigging and ready to go in the studio, but the March lockdown came so that put a stop to it.

We’ve got an albums worth of new material so when we can, Covid permitting, we will go in the studio and record the songs cos they can’t be left on the shelf.

Interview by Alikivi    February 2021.