After 500 posts and over 370,000 views, WordPress (who run this blog) have sent their congratulations to the North East culture site after completing its seventh year, aye seven years, can’t believe how quickly time has gone.
From the first post in February 2017, the free site – without any ads, pop ups or clickbait – has gone from strength to strength picking up views not only here in the UK but worldwide, including USA, Japan, Brazil, Sweden, Ireland, Australia and European countries Spain, Italy, France and Germany.
First up were metal bands Fist, Mythra, Raven, Satan, Venom and Tygers of Pan Tang followed by music memories from bands including Beckett, Angelic Upstarts, White Heat, Lindisfarne, Lorraine Crosby, Wildhearts, Dance Class, Kane Gang and Southbound.
Searching the site, you’ll find interviews with authors and photographers, there’s also stories from recording studios Guardian and Impulse.
As well as theatre producer Leah Bell and TV actress Lesley Saint-John, by far the most popular post at 15,000, there are stories from roadies, radio presenters and TV production teams.
During the 2020 covid lockdowns people looked for something new to read so their views added to the regular readers, resulting in monthly numbers of 7,000 with a high of 9,700.
Now the site gets a steady monthly count of 4-5,000, I must say a big thanks to everyone who reads the posts – much appreciated.
How long will it last? Well, the phone’s still ringing and stories keep dropping in my inbox, so I’ll keep gaan until the juice runs out.
North East prog popsters Amateur Ornithologist release new album Hide on 19th January 2024, with the single Time To Talk out on Friday 12th Jan.
Amateur Ornithologist are a weird pop group. Starting as Daniel Clifford’s solo project, AO has grown to perform as anything from a five-piece to an octet. Due to their adventurous approach to densely-layered, harmony-filled pop the band have earned comparisons to Talking Heads, The Beach Boys and local heroes Field Music
Fusing pop, orchestral, jazz and rock influences to create a grand melodic sound, the band have found a home for their unique musical expressions.
The band have featured on the cover of NARC Magazine, sold-out live shows, BBC Introducing, Amazing Radio, Radio Wigwam and a host of radio stations.
Hide reveals ten adventurous songs they’ve crafted creating an album that’s “widescreen” and “richly melodic” (NARC Magazine) with “lush and varied instrumentation” (Dirge).
First single, If It Looks Like Magic, is a slice of gothic post-punk about the Cottingley Fairies and received airplay from BBC Introducing and Amazing Radio. Follow-up The Word is Love deals with deceivingly simple matters of the heart to an acoustic Latin backdrop. Third single Time To Talk (12th Jan) charts the difficulties of modern communication, reflected in sharp key and time changes, jerky rhythms and squealing sax.
Hide also features collaborations with musicians from across the North East scene. A Hidden Path, Hide and When They Fall feature cello by Marianne Kell (Belle Skies) and violins by Patrick Lawrence (Detroit Tourist Board). Drums were recorded by youngster Harrison Mitchell (The Strands), with rhythm guitar, percussion and backing vocals by regular collaborator Georgia Foster Adams.
AO’s successful crowdfunding campaign saw the band offer handmade crochet birds and avian Lino-prints in return for the money needed to make and release Hide.
In his South Shields studio, Harbourmaster co-produced the album with lead songwriter Daniel Clifford during summer 2023. Gravel footsteps, handclaps and percussion were recorded for a number of tracks by Crowdfunder supporters, who were treated to cups of tea and biscuits with the band as they worked.
Amateur Ornithologist release Hide on 19th January across all major digital platforms, and on limited edition cassette and CD from the AO Bandcamp. They play a sold out show at The Globe, Newcastle, on the same day with Marc Bird and This Little Bird.
AO line up > Daniel Clifford – vocals, Liam Slack – keys & vocals, Maddie Smyth – viola & vocals, Chris Perriman – bass, Louis Young – guitar, Rob Bailey – saxophones, Theo Nolan – drums, Giovanni Onofri – guitar.
Link to interview in May 2021 with songwriter Daniel Clifford talking about the release of the debut album by Amateur Ornithologist >
The site has over 350,000 hits on a blog which when it first went live in 2017 I thought would be read by half a dozen people a day. To mark the occasion here’s snippets from the first few posts which gave the site a solid start and built to around 1,000 reads per week.
If you’ve read the blog a big thanks for your support – much appreciated. If you haven’t, why not give it a go there’s hundreds of great interviews featured, you might be surprised.
“The kids were hungry for this noise, anger, excitement and a do it yourself attitude. It was definitely getting to me, getting in my blood, this raw and visceral sound was becoming addictive. The term New Wave of British Heavy Metal had been coined by then, and yeah it really was a new wave and you’ve gotta go with it… and we did” Brian Ross.
“We jumped on a ferry to do some gigs in Holland. We took this thing around Europe and by then the whole British Heavy Metal scene was red hot so it was one mad scene of gig here, gig there, some stories you can’t tell. When you’ve played the Royal Standard in Walthamstow in front of fifty people and they aren’t interested, then you get out here where they are running after your car, sign my booby and all that, that’s gonna turn anybodys head…and it did” Lou Taylor.
“I remember Joe Strummer saying we’re coming to your gig tonight do you mind if I bring Iggy Pop? We said ‘aye go on then’. The gig was in New York we walked on stage, the lights blazed on and Mensi screamed “We’re the Angelic Upstarts, We’re from England, 1,2,3,4” as I strummed my guitar there was an almighty bang, it all went dark then nothing. There was a huge power cut. They couldn’t get it sorted out so we jumped off stage and went to the bar at the back where The Clash were standing and I ordered a Jack and Coke and said to Iggy Pop “It’ll be sorted in a minute, this sort of thing happens to us all the time” Mond Cowie.
“Creative process for me is always different, some are instant, some are like pulling teeth and it goes on for years, literally. You never can tell. Just have to have a good memory really. Lately I’ve been able to do a single album, a double album and now a triple album. Mind you I’m not planning to buy a yacht or anything on the proceeds!”Bernie Torme
“I remember Bordello doing a showcase for CBS. We really went for it, putting our heart and soul into it you know. A guy called Dave Novek came along to have a look at us, we really laid it on in a good studio. But we found out that we ‘weren’t quite what they were looking for’. A couple of weeks later he signed Sigue Sigue Sputnik!’ Go figure!” Steve Dawson
“I remember getting a call around 1981 from NEAT records owner Dave Woods he asked me if NEAT could include our song ‘Flying High’ on a compilation they were producing called ‘Lead Weight’. Well of course I said yes when he listed the other bands who were going to be on – Fist, Venom, Raven just those three names were enough, they were THE Heavy Metal bands from the North East and to be in their company was fantastic for Warrior. Yes really proud of that” Dave Dawson.
“1983 saw Cloven Hoof touring throughout the length and breadth of the UK, earning ourselves a sizable underground cult following. In the summer of that year the band recorded a four-track session for the Tommy Vance Friday Rock Show on Radio One and on the strength of the bands popularity Tyneside based NEAT Records signed us to record our first album. Things were starting to happen for the band, we were really in the mix” Lee Payne.
Check the About page above for a full list of features and interviews.
The Crack is a free culture magazine and website providing a valuable service to the North East. Reviews of books, film, stage and music are packed into each monthly edition.
To find out more about the people behind the magazine I got in touch with one of the writers, Rob Meddes.
‘Reading takes up a lot of my spare time now. I review between two and three new novels each month for The Crack. I also love old films, particularly black and white film noirs made between the 1940s and mid-1950s – The Maltese Falcon, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Double Indemnity’.
‘I never set out to be a writer, but stumbled into it through luck more than anything else. I was born in Newcastle and lived here all my life. I’m now 57. I didn’t go to university but on leaving school I did a Youth Training Scheme on computer programming’.
‘I got a job as a programmer but the company I worked for went bust – hopefully not because of my efforts. Then got a job as a civil servant, working at the big site at Longbenton for around four years. I became frustrated at having to do the same thing every day so thought I’d leave and go back to college. The aim? To become an artist’.
‘I did ‘A’ level art and then the Art Foundation course. I was accepted on the Fine Art course at Northumbria University but figured I didn’t want to do another three or more years of that because I really needed a job’.
‘I wrote to loads of different companies to ask if they would take me on, maybe in an admin capacity. The one company that got back to me was The Crack. I did a bit of everything at first – including selling adverts – before moving more onto the writing side of things. That was in 1994 and I’ve been here ever since’.
What changes have you seen since you started at The Crack?
‘What has actually changed most for me is how the magazine is put together. When I started there was no internet, certainly not in our office. Every image in the magazine had to be physically scanned in. Now they’re all digital’.
Have you seem many cultural changes in Newcastle since joining the team?
It’s Gateshead not Newcastle that has seen some of the most compelling big ticket items – Baltic, Sage Gateshead, Angel of the North, The Millennium Bridge. But Tyneside as a whole seems to have become more of a destination for people outside the area who want to sample cultural life in the region’.
What can you see for the cultural future of Tyneside?
‘After 13 years of Tory backed austerity, particularly for the arts, many of our cultural icons are struggling. We’ve already seen The Side Gallery close and The Tyneside Cinema has started to crowdfund. And they’re just the tip of the iceberg’.
‘But often in straightened times, art – in its myriad forms – manages to find a way to bubble to the fore. What hasn’t changed is people’s capacity to get out of the house and go and see stuff, whatever that stuff might be’.
The Fauves are fronted by vocalist Mick Smith, Allen Hughes on guitar, drummer Bob Rowland & bassist Bri Smith.
Their new album is not exactly a snoozefest. Throughout are overtones of French alt. rock band Trust and twisty riffs alike to New York’s King of the punks, Ramones – make no mistake The Fauves are on the hunt.
We’re quite busy at the moment. This is our fourth album really, but we count it as our third because most of the songs on the second album Back Off World were redone with Micks vocals, he gave the songs a bit more aggression than the original version explained bassist Bri Smith.
Universal themes of money, war, drugs and love are delivered with seething anger and frustration.
Resistance 22 is obviously a pro-Ukrainian song, No Escape describes the first stages of war in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, while Sanctuary is about wanting to retreat to a quieter world explained frontman Mick Smith.
Who else is in the firing line?
We have a track about the so called social warriors, the compassionate narcissistic types in Shower of Fanatics – while the track Tax me when I’m Dead is about the lazy work shy being financed at the expense of the workers.
Mental health and the darker side of life is examined on Looking in the Mirror and Inject the Poison… That’s about someone overcoming drug addiction while Chemical Curfew is about the overuse of medication and alcohol to keep us in line.
Poverty of Thought is a song about judging and being judged and Sleeping Rough is someone who seeks love on the street because there’s no love at home.
‘You cannot sleep tonight, there’s a face right up close, try to close your eyes again, want to shake off this old ghost’
Among the chaos and debris of life The Fauves retain a sense of humour in the track Where’s Bob.
That’s about a man who will go to any lengths to get the right sound for his band – even killing several soundmen!
For Resistance 22 the band entered Garage Studios in South Shields and again employed the services of Kyle Martin.
Kyle is great, he engineered the album, we’ve recorded all our albums there and it’s also a great place to rehearse. Kyle knows our style of music and knows what sound we like.
He also throws a few ideas in as well. It’s a great little studio, ideal for us and it’s got all the facilities we need added Bri Smith.
We also did a gig at the Bunker in Sunderland in March where it was recorded live. The recording was that good we decided to release it as a live album which will be released soon. It also has a bonus track on, a new version of Slightest Push an old song from years back.
This summer The Fauves are looking to get back on the road to promote their new album.
We are going to break the new songs in gently, maybe introduce three or four songs at a time, we’ve already played a few of them live explained Bri.
We have a few gigs lined up over the coming months, The Black Bull punk festival 30th June, The Underground in Bradford 8th July, Angels Place Sunderland 22nd July, Trillians Newcastle 23rd July then we’ve got the big one on August 6th at The Rebellion four day festival in Blackpool. Really looking forward to that one.
The Winter Gardens stage Rebellion from 3-6 August, bands include The Damned, New Model Army, Big Country, UK Subs, Exploited, The Only Ones and many more. The literary stage features an interview with South Shields born Wildheart, Danny McCormack.
That’s followed by The Punk and Ska Festival in Redcar 7th September, other gigs are being lined up for later in the year at Manchester and other Northern areas.
The new album on CD released on 1st July 2023 costs £10.00 + £2.00 postage in UK and a free exclusive badge until stocks last.
The CD will be available at all gigs from 30th June.
For details including merchandise, contact Phil on thunderbirdsport885@hotmail.co.uk or
Phil Rowland on Facebook Messenger.
From July 1st 2023 the album will be available on all usual online platforms including BandCamp, Spotify, iTunes, Amazon Music, Deezer and many others.
Alikivi June 2023
Check out Ground Zero for more about The Fauves via South Shields punks Angelic Upstarts.
It’s been nearly ten years since John Orton wrote ‘The Five Stone Steps, A Tale of a policeman’s life in 1920s South Shields.(Link below to interview with John in 2018).
I caught up with him recently and asked about his development as a writer over the last decade.
As a young boy I loved hearing my Nan’s tales of Auld Sheelz – you couldn’t shut Gertie up once she got started. When I was given a dog eared copy of Sergeant Tom Gordon’s Memories, which told as much about the folk of Shields in the 20s and 30s as about the job of the polis, it just inspired me to write.
The Five Stone Steps was well received, particularly in Shields with tales of the polis on night-watch having their little pot of whisky tied to the back door of pubs, back street bookies, and the unlucky prisoners turning up in court with black eyes and broken ribs – ‘an unfortunate accident when he accidentally fell down the five stone steps which led into the cells.’
I started writing a sequel and needed a last chapter set during the Second World War and the blitz on South Shields. First I discovered Amy Flagg’s photographs of the ruins after the raids which are held in South Tyneside Libraries photographic archive https://southtynesidehistory.co.uk/
1930s Holborn, South Shields. pic courtesy of South Tyneside Libraries.
Then I read about the Police Auxiliary Messengers (PAMS) – when phone lines were down during an air raid, lads of 16 and over would be sent out on bikes to deliver urgent messages with bombs flying round their ears.
Mossy Hamed tells the story of the ‘Blitz PAMS’. He’s a lad of mixed race – Arab Da’ and South Shields Ma’ – who rides his grocery delivery bike with his six marras as they live through the first years of the blitz.
Mossy falls for one of the other lads, Jackie – but this is not a modern day story! Jackie is really a girl who was turned away by the Polis for being a lass so dressed as a lad and got the job.
I really enjoyed writing Blitz PAMs and got straight into my next book ‘A Chill Wind off the Tyne’ whichis about life on the riverside pubs and streets of Holborn, a neighbourhood of South Shields next to the shipyards.
The book highlights the struggle for work of Yemeni and British seamen, the miners strike in ‘26, the burning down of the Casino on the sea front, and the police raid on the pitch and toss schools at Trow Rocks.
After a good break from writing, having the odd bottle of Newcastle Brown and watching the grass grow, I happened upon a press report of Scottish prisoners captured at the battle of Dunbar in 1650.
The survivors of the brutal death march from Dunbar to Durham were sold off as indentured servants, mainly to the colonies, but I was startled to read that forty were sent to work in the salt pans of Shields.
This set me off again and ‘He Wears a Blue Bonnet’ tells of the experiences of six highland Scots who discover life in Shields under Cromwell’s Commonwealth.
It’s been described as ‘a rattling yarn that takes on the life of poor Tyneside fishers, fish wives, keel-men and panners. A salty tale – love in the sand dunes, sweat in the salt houses and dodging the press gang.’
To check out books by John Orton they are available from The Word, South Shields. They can also be bought on Amazon as paperback or Kindle.
Peter is employed by Gateshead Council teaching one to one lessons withpupils who don’t go to school.
He also goes into primary schools to teach aspects of local and regional history.
It’s a great feeling when a kid you have helped returns to school. One of the mothers got in touch saying two years after I stopped teaching her daughter to say that she had gone on to do A levels at Gateshead College.
From his North East history research, Peter has collected many stories and compiled them together for a new book – Radical Roots – the Human RightsHistory in the North East.
There are many interesting, positive stories of how people struggled for their own rights and fought for the rights of others too.
On the front cover is a picture of the Earl Grey monument in Newcastle city centre….
The writing on it is not about tea! It signifies people getting more rights to vote and the abolition of slavery because North East people have always campaigned for their own rights and worked for people across the world to get their human rights.
The fight against slavery was strong, for example in 1792 down at Newcastle Guildhall there was a petition of 3,000 signatures against slavery, which was quite a large percentage of the people living in Newcastle at the time.
We can protest about what is happening thousands of miles away or about our neighbours having to use a food bank. I don’t see a division there, it’s about human dignity and decency, where ever the person lives and whoever they are.
We can’t just fight for the rights of one group and not the other, it’s about everybody having the same rights.
My mum brought me up right, she taught me about Human Rights and in Newcastle there is an Amnesty book shop that I helped set up on Westgate Road in 2002.
We talk about women’s rights but how many Northumberland kids are taken to see the suffragette Emily Davison’s grave in Morpeth? I think it should be mandatory to learn about our history.
Kids are taught art and music from around the world which is great don’t get me wrong, but if they don’t know culture and history from their own area first, how can they relate art and music from around the world to everyday life?
In Radical Roots there are stories I think we should all know, and I’m still learning about our North East history.
We teach pupils about the Holocaust, Anne Frank and what she wrote in her diaries. But we don’t teach about the connection to the Durham Light Infantry and their role in the Relief of the Belsen camp.
I went to Hartlepool and interviewed the son of a DLI soldier whose father was there at the time of the relief and just after Anne Frank’s passing.
During the First World War, footballer and munitions factory worker Bella Reay played for Blyth Spartans, her story also features in the book.
(Bella Reay features in a play by South Shields playwright Ed Waugh, post 3rd December 2021).
I also took the presentation to a school in Cramlington. The teacher linked in the work by the Pitmen Painters, who aren’t in the National Curriculum, but linked them to the work by the artist L.S. Lowry – who is in the National Curriculum, which I thought was great that they saw the connection.
Also featured in the book is the Yemeni community in South Shields and the riot that happened in August 1930, and we discover why it happened. It also mentions over a number of years the eventual assimilation of the Yeminis into South Shields, some through inter-marriages.
I have worked with the Roma community on Tyneside. There are around 6,000 in Newcastle. If you’re a community coming into a place you have to have something to offer, rightly so, and it’s usually through their music or food.
Look at the Chinese or Indian. Bringing something goes down well because they don’t have the language.
The Irish came over to Tyneside as early as the 1850s after the famine. Jarrow has a big population of Irish. I think the Roma can look at what the Irish did with their music, while keeping their own identity.
Some of the Roma musicians that we have on Tyneside today are amazing. Perhaps one day there will be a Roma centre on Tyneside like the Irish Centre in Newcastle.
When I do a presentation about the Roma in schools, I finish with a power point picture of TV entertainers Ant and Dec. I ask people how many of you would describe them as Irish superstars? No hands. Then I ask how many would describe them as Geordie superstars? All hands go up!
But both their surnames and background are Irish and who is to say that kids from Newcastle in thirty to forty year time with a Roma background won’t be doing the same on TV?
Now I’m working in schools talking about the North East mining heritage which I think is important to remember. It is important to remember the community spirit and the great innovations, but we’ve got to keep fossil fuels in the ground now and work towards green energy and get the kids to understand that.
Hopefully we can get them to stand up in the future and shout for the North East to get more green investment, after all 20,000 County Durham miners lost their lives providing energy in the past.
It’s quite moving talking about the mining heritage, and in County Durham it’s all documented about 8 or 9 year old kids losing their life down the pit and that brings it home to kids of the same age.
I’ll also be at the Durham Miners Gala talking about this, that there was a lot to be proud of, but certainly not pointing the finger saying you caused all the problems of Climate Change.
Although we know now we need to develop green energy, without coal in the past we might still be stuck with the same lifestyles as the 18th century.
To contact Peter and buy copies of Radical Roots – the Human RightsHistory in the North East
South Shields-based playwright Ed Waugh is appealing for anyone to contact him if they have any information on the Cramlington Train Wreckers.
Ed, whose latest play was the hugely successful Wor Bella, said
“The story is one of high dramatic tension and has become an important part of British history, although largely forgotten”.
“The event happened on March 10, seven days into the 1926 General Strike when striking miners uncoupled a rail on the mainline Edinburgh to London railway” explained Ed.
“The intention was to derail a blackleg coal train they felt was undermining the strike. Unfortunately for the perpetrators, they derailed a passenger train.”
With 281passengers onboard, the volunteer driver had been warned of trouble and slowed down, meaning when the engine and five carriages were derailed, no-one was killed.
“The only injury was minor, most people were treated for shock and bruises” said Ed.
“Were the Cramlington Train Wreckers terrorists or workers trying to defend their livelihoods, family and community against an economic onslaught that took place after the General Strike ended?”
Bob Harbottle, one of the train wreckers. Bob was 21 when he was imprisoned, sentenced to eight years. Bob arrived home in Cramlington on December 23, 1929 – three and a half years into an eight-year sentence. Info & pic courtesy of Samantha Armstrong.
In the magistrate courts eight Cramlington miners were each sentenced for up to eight years, but were released early due to pressure from the trade union rank and file, politicians and the judiciary itself who saw the original sentences as too harsh.
Ed continued “The leader of the wreckers was Bill Muckle who was born in Westoe in December 1900. His father looked after the pit ponies. They lived here until 1902 when they moved to Cramlington.I’d be interested to know if older generation Muckles worked at Westoe”.
A crane lifting the Merry Hampton engine back on track. Photo courtesy of Brian Godfrey.
Such is the interest in the subject, Ed and historian Marie Dooley will address more than 120 people at a public meeting on March 30. Top North East actor/folk singer Jamie Brown will perform songs and recite from Ed’s new play.
The Cramlington Train Wreckers’ meet at The Hub, Manor Walks Shopping Centre, Cramlington, Thursday, March 30, at 2pm and 6.30pm.Info and tickets only £2 via Eventbrite.
For more information contact Ed at the official website: ww.wisecrackproductions.co.uk
The first post of 2023 looks at TV and Film productions using South Shields locations. The latest being TV cop drama series Vera, starring Brenda Blethyn with her fake Geordie accent. Gateshead born Jill Halfpenny shudda’ been a shoo-in for that role.
And not forgetting an episode of Inspector George Gently with Martin Shaw filmed in the Rose & Crown pub at Holborn docks. Back in the ‘90s Catherine Cookson films were shot along the riverside and scenes from an episode of Spender starring Jimmy Nail were set up on the South pier.
Rewind further to the 1970’s and BBC TV series When the Boat Comes In, created by local Shields lad James Mitchell, they used The Customs House building at the Mill Dam as a backdrop.
But I remember in 1982 when a convoy of film trucks landed in South Shields. To be precise, Devonshire and Porchester Street in the Tyne Dock area of the town, and there was not one, but two projects filmed there. Those days I lived just two minutes away so took the chance to see the action.
There was BBC TV series Machine Gunners and a film called Ascendancy starring Julie Covington, who alongside Rula Lenska, had featured in popular ITV series, Rock Follies.
In March 2021 I interviewed Punishment of Luxury vocalist & actor Brian Rapkin, where he talked about his music and acting career on North East productions. So I recently got in touch and asked him about it…
‘Yes it was 1982 when I had a part as a Polish officer in Machine Gunners for the BBC. I was acting in a speaking part for the first time ever, and I remember being very nervous and excited.’
Brian was in demand during the ‘90s, as well as the aforementioned Catherine Cookson films, he worked in Newcastle on the TV series Byker Grove with Jill Halfpenny and Ant and Dec ‘They were just kids then’. He also featured in Spender starring Amanda Redman and Jimmy Nail ‘Mr Nail knew the actors were on tenterhooks so he chivied the crew along, that helped my nerves’.
I remember a few nights nipping over to Porchy watching Ascendency being filmed. I have a hazy memory of huge lights shining on a scene where a family were dragged out of a house in pyjamas and nighties and put up against the wall by armed soldiers. I haven’t been able to find any copies of the film to check the scene, or if it made the final cut.
Unfortunately I was still at school so a bit busy during the day, but straight after the bell I went to Porchy to see what was happening in Machine Gunners. I remember where one scene a milkman with his horse and cart was delivering bottles, and shouting at a group of kids ‘Where you going now’. Funny what sticks isn’t it?
Other locations in South Shields were used in the Gunners, one of them was Westoe School. I can’t remember exact details – wey it was over 40 years ago – but at the time of filming half the houses in Porchy were empty, and not long after the crew left, the street was knocked down. Devonshire is still there today.
The previous post featured South Shields born Will Binks, who at 16 started a successful North East punk fanzine, in this second part he talks about his passion for photography.
Will can often be seen ‘doon the frunt’ at North East punk gigs so if you see him give him a shout.
Will in action at a gig in The Black Bull, Gateshead 28 July 2022 pic. Pete Turner.
After the fanzine and short-lived tape label I was ready for something new, and even as a child I always had a passing interest in photography.
When did you start taking photos, was it with North East punk band The Fiend back in the 1980s?
When I was eighteen years old, in 1984, I got a Pentax SLR camera and flash from Alan Brown’s shop on Frederick Street in South Shields. I took it to gigs and yes I did do a photoshoot with the lads from The Fiend.
(The Fiend featured on the blog in January 2021)
The Fiend in rehearsal rooms 7th September 1984.
However, it was a bulky camera, with film, batteries and developing not cheap at all. I was at the age where I wanted to socialise and enjoy a drink with friends, so I often left the Pentax at home and took out my parents’ Kodak Disc camera. It was pocket-sized and you just pointed and clicked.
Great I thought at the time, but in retrospect a mistake. The quality of photos was to put it bluntly, terrible. I wish I persevered with the Pentax. Isn’t hindsight a wonderful thing?
The Fiend at The Station, Gateshead 14th December 1984.
What was the atmosphere like at punk gigs?
To be truthful, it was scary sometimes but mostly it was okay, although I know folk who suffered violence. There were times when you could sense trepidation in the air, and you just knew what was gonna happen.
Thankfully, I sidestepped any trouble but I definitely had a few lucky escapes.
There seemed to be a lot of that irrational tribalism between different areas. I never did understand folk wanting to assault someone just because they were from another town or city. I’m pleased to say that nowadays it is much, much better.
For you what is the difference between taking photos on film back then, and digital now?
Back in the day, I was restricted by how much film I could afford to buy and having the cash to get those films developed. It wasn’t particularly cheap. Photography was, and still is, an expensive hobby.
The good thing was once I had taken my pics and had the film developed that was that. You had your images and there was no post editing back then.
Nowadays, your time is split between taking pictures then spending hours, if not days, at home editing your images to your own specifications. It is very time consuming but I thoroughly enjoy it.
I’ve always said I take pictures for my own gratification. If anyone expresses a liking for any, then I’m pleased, but I should stress that it’s not the reason behind why I do what I do. I am non-commercial. I am not motivated at all by financial gain.
Sunrise 12th September 2016.
Hard to say, I know, but what is your best pic?
A very difficult question. Regarding my live music photography, it changes constantly. Here’s one I took of a sunrise from back in 2016, something that I always enjoy witnessing.
Greg Graffin, Bad Religion, Newcastle University, 5th June 2022.
Where can people see your pics ?
I’ve had some of my images used in books and by bands on their record or CD sleeves. All I ask for in return is that I am credited, and that I get a copy of the product once released. I don’t think I can be much fairer than that.
All my pics are public and viewable in full resolution on my Flickr page. I invite everyone to follow the link and check out the many albums of pictures there. Hope you enjoy what you see.
ALIKIVI UK : NORTH EAST CULTURE 