THE SHIELDS GAZETTE

THE BAND PLAY ON – in conversation with Tyneside musician Tony Bengtsson

/ Alikivi

Music is a massive part of our lives. Not only do we want to listen to it, but read about it and talk about it. Tony Bengtsson is no different.

‘Music was around the house when I was growing up. My Dad was a rock n roll fan of the ‘60s, we had the sound of Creedence Clearwater Revival in common. My Mam was a massive Elvis fan and encouraged us to listen to music’.

‘My Mam worked in a news agents shop in South Shields where they had a stack of old jukebox 45’s for sale. One of them was Wages Day by Deacon Blue which I loved. I played it many times – still got it now, although it has a little chip in the record’.

‘One day I walked past Music Maker shop in South Shields with all its instruments and speakers displayed in the window and saw a set of harmonicas. I was around 13 when my parents bought me them. I was just trying to make sounds out of them, plus my Nana had a small Casio keyboard that I played little tunes on, I liked experimenting’.

When he was younger Tony had his eye on being a journalist so he went down to local newspaper, The Shields Gazette.

‘One of their top journalists, Janis Blower, looked after me when I was there on work experience. She got me searching through the microfiche with its old stories from the Gazette, the history of South Shields was all there. Loved it’.

‘I love studying local and family history, my ancestor came over from Helsingborg in Sweden around 1850. He was a merchant seaman who lived in Orange Street, South Shields. My grandfather passed on a family tree which I’ve updated with recent family additions’.

After leaving school and enrolling on a Music Production course at Newcastle College, then slogging away for hours in a factory, Tony saved up enough dosh for a set of drums.

‘I made a good living playing in club bands for a while. There was a Bryan Adams tribute and a punk band called Sound of the Suburbs. Then I played in original band Poker Face who played 80s melodic pop rock around Durham’.

Listening to a wide range of sounds and improving on his songwriting Tony made the move from the back of the stage to upfront – drums to guitar.

‘The UK had such a diverse range of music from different parts of the country, there was Liverpool, there was Manchester, and here on the Tyne we had the blues with bands like The Animals. Unashamedly I’m a bit of a country and western fan and love the Scottish/Irish folk sound, that’s why I like the acoustic music we play’.

A decision to play cover gigs helped finance Tony’s musical career. He also has the small matter of a wedding coming up in October so every little helps.

‘Yeah, at the minute I’m doing a lot of cover gigs cos that’s where the money is and this is my full-time job. At a booking I do two 45- minute sets with a break in between’.

‘Recently I played a wine bar where they talked all through the first half, so if the gig’s going bad like that, I have a shorter break between sets and get on with the second one. But the good gigs are when you get to talk to people beforehand and after’.

‘Having work organised by an agent is great, he just phones me up ‘Can you do this gig’. That’s it, I don’t have to organise anything just make sure I turn up on time’.

‘With the original band I have to decide a lot like where we are playing and how much for, organising transport if it’s outside the North East. There’s a lot of extra logistics and admin to do that people don’t see’.

The single Sometimes a Man from 2020.

‘I started writing my own songs around 2006, I’ve a recent song called These Wars which is anti-war and highlights the problems we have today. Why are we spending money on wars when people at home are struggling to eat, heat and get a job?’

‘If you do have a job like the nurses, who after all they’d done for us during covid, when they decided to strike hoping for a pay rise, they got attacked by the media for being greedy. It’s an unfair situation’.

For a hard-working full-time creative professional isn’t the saying ‘do what you love and you never work a day?’

‘Yep! I also gig with the original band. This August we supported Martin Stephenson & the Daintees at Falloden Hall near Alnwick – that was brilliant. It was a lovely sunny day, we played in a court yard with hay bales, a little festival vibe, and I sold out on cd’s’.

‘It can be hard to keep the band all together in one place.  There is violinist and guitarist Niles Kreger who is living here but is originally from Connecticut, USA, and there’s Liam Fender (Sam’s brother) on keys who has his own band so there’s other stuff going on, we’re all busy’.

‘We’ve played a couple of gigs outside the North East – in London and Manchester but would love to play in Ireland. My partners family live in Waterford so when we visit them I take my guitar cos there’s plenty of places to play every day. Live music is in their culture – I love Ireland’.

‘You know I consider myself an introvert, I like staying at home but once I’m out there I love it. I’d be worried if I didn’t get nervous or anxious butterflies before a gig’.

‘I’m now at the stage where if anything goes wrong like a speaker going off well that just happens, can’t do anything about it, just sort it out and play on’.

Gig dates until December 2024 >
https://www.insangel.co.uk/bands/tony-bengtsson 

For further information contact > Facebook > Tony Bengtsson Music

Alikivi   September 2024

SHEILA from SHIELDS #2 – Exhibition at South Shields Museum & Art Gallery

/ Alikivi

An exhibition is being held in South Shields to celebrate the 81 years of inspirational art and animation of Sheila Graber. Invited to the exhibition was former pupil Allyson Stewart.

‘Sheila was my art teacher at the Grammar school and when I first went into the class I was thinking I don’t know what I’m doing here.

I can’t draw, I can’t paint, but over a period of weeks I think it was the way Sheila was teaching us without it feeling like she was teaching us’.

‘And I began to realise it wasn’t about how well you can paint it’s more about how you can be creative. When I started to learn about perspective that’s when it kicked in for me, I suddenly realised I could draw street scenes and buildings that actually looked like a building’.

‘That was quite a revelation and since then I’ve done a few bits and pieces that have been done with pen and ink, that’s my favourite medium. I can’t paint I’m useless with a paint brush, but with pen and ink it just feels right to me’.

‘But then I joined Sheila’s Cine Animation group and that was great, something completely different at the time at the Grammar school it was pretty radical. And I thoroughly enjoyed it.

That taught me all about timing, getting things right and putting them in the right order, keeping accurate records. I gather that the animation film that I made is now on You Tube thanks to Sheila – so hopefully I can live that down’.

‘First person that taught me that anything was possible was a teacher called Stan Coates at Stanhope Juniors.  The last thing he ever said to me when I left school was I expect to see your name in writing someday young lady. And then nothing ever fired me up until Sheila was teaching me.

And she taught me you haven’t got to be a brilliant painter, you haven’t got to be a great designer, you haven’t got to know how to structure a painting, it’s all about how you feel and how you can interpret it’.

‘And that was a revelation to me and I think that’s what rekindled the spark that you don’t have to paint you can write. You can find a creative outlet some other way, and that was really helpful for me.

Now I’m back into doing the writing, loving every minute, so thanks to Stan and thanks to Sheila I’m loving every minute, I’m living the life and love it’.

Also invited to the exhibition was writer and retired Shields Gazette journalist, Janis Blower, who started off with a piece of poetry by James Henry Lee Hunt.

Abou Ben Adhem may his tribe increase, awoke one night from a deep dream of peace.

And saw within the moonlight in his room, making it rich and like a lily in bloom,

An angel writing in a book of gold.

‘I have a love of angels as they are depicted in art and stained glass, and also in one of the loves of my creativity – which has been sewing. The angels started with my oldest sister Pam, who we lost in 2019 unfortunately.

As a child I used to share a bed with her in the attic bedroom. I was frightened of the dark so to comfort me she would sing songs and recite poems that she’d learned at school’.

‘One of the poems was Abuben Adden and that image of the angel writing in his book of gold really seized my imagination. The words seemed to come off the page already burnished and glowing and that struck me as the writer I’ve become – the power of words’.

‘Angels has become a favourite motif too stitch, I’ve had a lifelong love of sewing and embroidery going all the way back to the days when I first made a tea tray cloth at Ocean Road school when I was aged about 8 or 9 which I still have to this day.

It was the start of a lifelong love of sewing, embroidery and cross stich which has been a great comfort at times over the years’.

‘I’ve known Sheila for many years because she actually taught me art when I was a pupil at South Shields Girl’s Grammar School. I remember very vividly her enthusiasm and her belief that anybody could be creative.

I’m not sure that I believed it at the time, but I’ve come to realise that it’s true, and it’s something you pick up from this wonderful exhibition that she has of her life and art.

The message being that there is creativity in everybody if you know where to look for it’.

The exhibition runs from 17 May – 30 October 2021

Interviews by Alikivi  2021