Continental Plumbing Meets Foxhunting, And All In Leather...

I had meant to publish these in some kind of chronological order but that's now gone out of the window.  So we now jump back to the tail end of 1988...

Now it has been said that many a strange thing happens in a Belgian toilet (that has been said, hasn't it ?) but, on the evening of Monday November 14th 1988, I think at least one resident of Gent may have thought things had a got a little too strange. The occasion was the first show proper of The Wonder Stuff's first European tour. They had previously appeared at a couple of European festivals but now we were into a run of 12 shows starting in Belgium and dipping in and out of France, Austria, Switzerland and Germany, or that was the plan. The first show was at a very lavishly appointed venue called the Vooruit in Gent, Belgium where the band would be supporting the (in my opinion) very wonderful Julian Cope.

It was here I finally got to meet the bizarrely monikered Baron Beat Moll Troy who had been unable to work on the "Groovers on Manoeuvres" tour as he was working with Cope. Strange fellow, dressed head to toe in black combat gear but with long red hair held out of his face with brightly coloured plastic clothes pegs.

All went well as I recall and we were all packed up in time for me to be able to watch Cope's show. He was toward the end of his black leather and that microphone stand period and, let's be honest, Copey has never really been "all there" as it were. So...I was having a fine old time watching the show when I saw Mr Cope disappear from the stage. As it was during the song "Reynard The Fox", and he had a radio microphone and there is a fairly lengthy ad-lib/spoken bit I presumed he'd jumped down into "the pit" (that being the space between the stage and the barrier for those not in the know) to entertain the front row and I decided to go relieve myself of some of the Belgian beer I'd drunk.

On my way to the Gents in a corridor near the stage I came across Beat Moll frantically searching around for something.

"Have you seen Julian" he asked me
"No" I replied "but I can still hear him singing so he can't be far away"
How strange, I thought, as I continued on my way and entered the Gents, how do you "lose" your singer ?

But OOOOOOH what a sight greeted me on entering the male facilities ! Trapped wild eyed in the corner, desperately looking for a way out of his current predicament, was a rather distressed looking Belgian fellow, facing the urinal with "tackle in hand" you might say. And the cause of his wild eyed desperation and distress ? One fully be-leathered Julian Cope dancing around him in the corner with microphone in hand, bellowing the closing phrases of "Reynard The Fox" at our somewhat dazed Belgian..."AND...AND...AND...HE SPILLED HIS GUTS ALL OVER THE STAGE" before turning rather smartly on his motorbike boot clad heels and sprinting back in the general direction of the stage.

That tour staggered on for another 5 shows (including a very amusing stop over for a night off in Austria) before coming to a crashing halt in Frankfurt when we all decided to go home and cancel the remaining 5 gigs (sorry Europe).

Adventures in Car Removal...

September 18th 1991, a Wednesday as I recall (you lying git, you just looked it up on the internet!) and we were in the City of Brotherly Love, or Philadelphia, for the first show proper on The Wonder Stuff's "Never Goin' Back To Memphis" US tour for a show at the Theatre Of The Living Arts.

We'd been in the US for a few days having already played a festival gig in Phoenix, Arizona with, among others, Richard Thompson and Crowded House. It was blazingly hot in Phoenix (when we'd arrived the evening before and the doors opened on the air conditioned terminal building to let us out to our waiting cars I swear you could feel the hairs up your nose sizzling it was that hot outside) and maybe this contributed to the fractious atmosphere the next day at the festival site. I felt kinda sorry for (the legendary) Richard Thompson as he tried to play a solo set with myself and Mr Smith crawling in and around his feet trying to set up The Wonder Stuff's backline as everything was running late. I didn't feel at all sorry for Crowded House's tour manager as I watched The Wonder Stuff's Manager, Les Johnson, threaten him with all kinds of physical harm as it was his band that had caused the late running and mine and Mr Smith's overly close proximity to folk rock royalty, but that's another story.

As I previously noted, the tour was to kick off properly in Philadelphia. Myself, Mr Smith and Jez Webb were looking after the band onstage, Sean "Swag" Martin was our Tour Manager, Carl "Trunky" Burnett was on lights (although whether he had picked up his elephantine soubriquet at this point is moot), Martin "Old Bill" Bunn was looking after monitors and I would think Simon Efemey may well have been our front of house sound engineer. Support band for the tour, apart from a couple of shows, were the excellent Milltown Brothers and we were set for a 5 week jaunt around the US. The Theatre of the Living Arts was a great venue to start at. A proper theatre venue used to touring bands and all set up to receive us.

The load in, set up, show, everything went well...and then it was time for the load out. We were all travelling by bus, I don't recall specifically but it was probably a Silver Eagle tour bus, something very similar to this...

...and all the bands equipment was being driven about in what is known in the US as a Ryder Post Truck, something very similar to this...

The back of a post truck has a tail lift for loading stuff on and off it. If you are unfamiliar with a tail lift it's something very similar to this...

  

...as you can appreciate you need some space behind your vehicle to drop down the tail and load on to your truck. 

Both of our vehicles were parked up at the front of the theatre so after finishing the show, packing everything up and heading out front to open up the truck you can imagine we were not best pleased to find that someone had parked their car about a foot from the back of the truck meaning we couldn't drop the tail down. After a little head scratching we thought maybe it was someone who had been at the show and would be back soon, so if we went and pushed all the equipment up to the front doors of the theatre by then all would be clear.

So that's what we did, and when we'd finished, that car was still there.

We hung around for a while waiting for the owner to arrive, chatting with fans, chatting with Jez's American friend Dennis who had come to the show and was helping us with the load out. The band came out and returned to the bus and then the theatre staff wanted to lock up for the night. We pushed all the equipment out onto the street so they could close up and still the car was there, a foot from the back of the truck. What to do ?

Then someone piped up "We could bounce the car". Who said it I know not but at the time it seemed like a reasonable idea. There were four of us, if you bounce a car up and down on it's suspension you can move it, and that's what we started to do, pressing down on each corner of said car until we had enough bounce going that we could shift the car a few inches. If you keep doing that long enough you can move a stationary car, and we did. Eventually we had shifted the car enough so that we could lower the tail lift, load the truck and get moving...or so we thought.

Now this is where events took a tricky turn...

 

If you refer to the handy map just above, you can see the position of the Theatre of the Livng Arts (marked with an A) on South Street; you can see that I have marked another street in red, this is a very long street called 4th Street. All the while we had been scratching our heads and subsequently bouncing the car out of our way and loading the truck, sitting, watching from what I have no doubt any native Philadelphian would refer to as the corner of 4th and South had been a patrol car containing an officer of the PPD, the Philadelphia Police Department or the PhillyPolice as they now refer to themselves online.

Anyway, the first we knew of it was the flash of blue light, the "Wooo" sound from his siren that you only generally hear on episodes of US cop shows and the screech as he pulled up next to us. And then began a very strange 72 hours...

Said officer was not pleased at all about what he had witnessed us doing. Even though there was no damage to the offending (in our view) car and it's contents he called for back up and myself, Jez and Jez's friend Dennis were arrested, handcuffed and shipped off to a police station somewhat reminiscent of the one in Assualt On Precinct 13. Once there we were booked in and locked up in an open cell after having our shoe laces confiscated in case we decided to hang ourselves.

It was at this point that an officer came to see us and shared with us the news that the car owner had been found and was claiming the car had been broken into and a laptop computer had been stolen so they would be keeping us a while longer. Another officer came to take our details. Now this guy was a sight to see. He was a generously proportioned fellow clad in those tight Canadian Mountie type trousers, he had thoughtfully removed his PPD issue shirt to display his white vest underneath. Oh and he, of course, was still wearing his firearm. He began asking stuff as expected, name, date of birth, height, weight...and this is where things came to a shuddering halt. I of course answered something along the lines of 11 stone 10 pounds. He responded, in what could only be described as a laconic drawl:

"Son...you're in America now, we measure weight in pounds"

The upshot being that he wanted my weight in pounds. 

Now I'm fairly sure that at the age of about 10 years I was fully conversant with my 14 times table. But at 2am or thereabouts, in a Philadelphian jail cell, being confronted by an overweight police officer wearing a sweaty wife-beater and a gun the answer to 11 x 14 plus 10 wasn't the thing my brain was most focussed on.

The night carried on sort of like that, them periodically dropping by to scare the shit out of us in one way or another, until at around 6am we were told OK, you can go. No explanation, no sorry for accusing you of all kinds of stuff you haven't done, just steered out of the front door into one of Philadelphia's less than desirable residential areas. Fortunately The Wonder Stuff's manager, Les Johnson, was awaiting our release outside with a cab to whisk us to a train station for a train back to New York where that evening we were due to play the Marquee and we, of course, arrived back in NYC just in time to load in !

And then a whole other type of weirdness began...

As you already know we were being supported on this tour by the Milltown Brothers so we were surprised to find that another band had been added to the bill. It transpired that the promoter had booked another gig in another venue for the band Pylon (contemporaries of REM from Athens, Georgia). This show had not sold well so the promoter had added them to the bill at the Marquee. They came with a full on "friends of REM, we were expecting to headline" attitude, which didn't help matters.

Anyway, we compromised, fitted them in and the bill would now run the Milltown's, Pylon then TWS. We arrived back at the venue later that night in time to do the changeover expecting Pylon to be almost at the end of their set. They hadn't even bloody gone on yet ! Les went up to them and as only he can expressed the need for them to get on stage...NOW! They did, and then proceeded to play for what seemed like, and may well have been, a couple of hours. Oh and had I mentioned that maybe the reason that their own show hadn't sold so well was that they were bloody awful ?

They finally finished, we did the changeover and The Wonder Stuff took to the stage. It was by now around 2am. Miles' opening line to the audience went something like "I'd like to thank the worst band I've heard in my entire life for keeping me waiting until 2am. They call us The Wonder Stuff..." and into the first song.

Bizarrely it seemed the audience had quite taken to Pylon and not to Miles' opening statement which made for quite a fractious show. The audience got quite irate when they refused to do an encore and began throwing bottles and glasses at the stage. This made me get quite irate and I commented down one of the still open microphones that "New York, you f*cked it". Cue yet more bottles and glasses but my head was in a strange place having been awake for the thick end of 48 hours.

The venue was eventually cleared and we got on with the job of loading out. Part way though this we heard a loud bang coming from what we thought was outside. Les and I rushed out as we thought someone may have run into our post truck, but no, all outside was quiet. On re-entering the venue we immediately saw the cause of the loud bang.

Along one side and the back of the Marquee was a balcony. It was by now after 3am. The club owner obviously wanted to go home. In order to hurry us up he had retrieved from his office a handgun and decided to let off a few rounds over our heads into the opposite wall. When you looked up at that wall you could see by the myriad bullet holes there that it was something he had done before. And then we heard him comment "Right, I'm off to get my Uzi". Rest assured, we hurried up outta there !

Les, Mr Smith and yours truly jumped into the post truck and on our way back to our NYC hotel we decided we didn't want to stay in New York and that we would rush into the hotel, grab our luggage and escape to the relative quiet of New Jersey, Asbury Park to be precise, where later that night we would be playing at the famed Fast Lane club.

Now I like Jersey. I have family who used to live there and a whole bunch of friends we made through touring. I was looking forward to getting away from the big city and it's related woes of the past couple of days to somewhere a little less stressful and Asbury Park seemed like the perfect place to be right then. 

By the time we loaded out, got back to the hotel, collected our things and started heading out of town I would imagine it was around 5am. It's an hour or so to drive to Asbury Park from NYC so I'm thinking we pulled up outside our hotel there around 6.30am. Les, once again in the way only Les can, managed to get us checked in to our hotel rooms and off I went to get some well earned sleep.

You would think after being awake for in excess of 48 hours that sleep would come down almost immediately. Did it hell! The sun was streaming in through the drawn curtains and I just could not rest. After about an hour I got up, left the hotel and crossed the street to a small diner looking for gallons of coffee and an all American breakfast.I spent the rest of the day wandering around Asbury Park, up and down the boardwalk, in and out of shops until load in time at the Fast Lane. And off we went again, 3rd gig in a row with no sleep inbetween, running on coffee and cigarettes (that was all...honest). 

When the time came for changeover after the Milltown Brothers set, Mr Smith found me fast asleep across 3 chairs in the dressing room next to the stage. I think I had an out of body experience during that show. It was like watching someone else doing my job, very weird.

They've pulled the Fast Lane down now. You can see a picture of it being demolished  here, the stage was just about where that big hole in the wall is.I hope you weren't expecting a moral to this story (don't mess with other peoples vehicles, keep your mouth shut in the big city) cos there isn't one. I just thought you might be interested...

(Some cursory investigation has revealed that the timeline alluded to in this article is complete B*ll*cks ! Hey but it makes a good story. As I've said before, this is my blog, if you want historical accuracy, start yer own)

The Slugger Don't Like Us...We Don't Care

And so the call came..."you know how to tune a guitar, come and stand at the side of the stage at our next Londodn gig and look like a roadie" was pretty much it.

The London gig in question was at the ULU (University of London Union) on the 5th November 1987, Bonfire night. There may have been a support band, I don't recall. What I do recall is that just before that date there had been some terrorist activity in the UK and every time a firework went off that day in London I jumped out of my skin.

The Wonder Stuff (for it is they we are concerned with) were doing quite well for themsleves. They had released their 2nd independant single, "Unbearable", in September '87 and were gigging incessantly up and down the country. During the last year they had done gigs with PWEI, New Order, Then Jerico, The Go-Betweens and The Shamen and in December were going off on their first UK tour opening for Big Country.

The gig at the ULU was something of a showcase for record companies. There was quite a buzz around the band and a number of major label A&R men were coming to check them out. Hence they wanted it all to look good and having me standing at the side of the stage made it look like they had a roadie and all was well.

We arrived at the venue, loaded in the gear and the band all promptly buggered off, leaving me with a pile of amps drums and guitars to put together. I managed something but it all got sorted out when they came back and the gig went ahead without a hitch as I recall.

This was my brief introduction to life as a roadie or the backline crew or stage tech or whatever job description you want to use, I always used roadie. Due to the uncountable gigs I'd been to since that first time out with SLADE I'd noticed the roadies. They shouted "1 - 2 - 1 - 2" (Obscure roadie joke alert: why do sound engineers only count to 2 ? Cos on 3 you lift !) down microphones during changeovers (a changeover is the bit between the support band going off and the main band coming on BTW). They were usually large, lank haired, bearded men wearing moth eaten band t-shirts and sporting large bunches of keys hanging from the belt that was visibly struggling to keep their jeans where they should be. I don't honestly think I'd ever considered it as a career choice.

But career choice it became...

A mere 25 days after the birth of my son I packed my bag and buggered off on tour for the first of many times. I needed a job, my inarguably better half agreed I should try this out and so, I joined The Wonder Stuff in a minibus loaded with 4 musicians, a tour manager, a sound engineer and me plus all their equipment and baggage to be the support band on Zodiac Mindwarp & The Love Reactions "Tattooed Beat Messiah" UK Tour. En route to the first gig (Leicester University) I was regaled with tales from the Big Country tour and how great that had been and how much help Big Country and crew had been to these first time tourers. So I was kind of expecting the same from Zod's lot.

Oh how wrong you can be. Mr Mannings band had two crew on stage looking after them, Gimpo and Smiffy. When we walked into the venue at Leicester University we were immediately spotted by Smiffy. He was a big man, replete with goatee beard, bandana and, the one thing you couldn't help but notice, an aluminium baseball bat. He came stomping across the hall toward us:

"Who are you ?" he grunted in our general direction
"Errrr...we're The Wonder Stuff" someone answered
"Oh...the support band. Well, I'm Smiffy and this..." he swung the baseball bat up onto his shoulder "...is The Slugger and we don't like you"

And with that he span around and stomped back to wherever he had been going in the first place. Welcome to the road indeed !

I did later learn a great lesson from this encounter. The man who in the not too distant future taught me the basics of everything I now know as far as being a roadie is concerned, former Clash roadie Digby Cleaver about whom there will be more later, once gave me this great piece of advice "never forget that the support bands of today will be the headliners of tomorrow and we'll always need a gig".

A few years later a not so gainfully employed Smiffy met The Wonder Stuff's lead singer and asked for a gig. He was denied the opportunity with a response something like "Smiffy, if you'd treated us anything like human beings on that tour we did with the Love Reaction, you'd have had a gig years ago". I took Digby's advice and went on to work for many of The Wonder Stuff's support bands.

Vinyl Adventures #18

Some recent purchases...

Delores Hall - Good Lovin' Man


Doris Willingham - You Can't Do That


The Belles - Don't Pretend


Jimmy Ruffin - I Will Never Let You Get Away


Wally Cox - This Man


The Magic Tones - Together We Shall Overcome


Julien Covey & The Machine - A Little Bit Hurt


Johnny Johnson & The Bandwagon - Breaking Down The Walls Of Heartache



Earl Jackson - Soul self Satisfaction

Vinyl Adventures #17

Another double header...

December 2012 has seen the passing of 2 great soulmen.

On December 2nd Howard Tate passed away at the age of 72. Born in Macon Georgia in 1939, as a teenager he began performing in a gospel group that also featured the great Garnet Mimms. He recorded R&B sides for Mercury and Cameo Records in the ealy 60's and also performed with the organist Bill Doggett.

Garnet Mimms introduced Tate to the legendary producer Jerry Ragovoy and between 1966 and 1968 the two of them produced some outstanding soul/blues recordings for Verve Records including "Ain't Nobody Home", "Look At Granny Run Run" and "Stop" all of which reached the Billboard R&B Top 20.


After more recordings for Turntable, Epic and his own label, Tate retired from the music business in the early 1970's and began selling insurance in Philadelphia. Tragedy struck when he lost his daughter in a house fire and as a result he started drinking heavily and became addicted to drugs, ending up homeless. By the mid 1990's he had cleaned up and was counselling drug users and preaching. Around this time his 1967 album "Get It While You Can" was reissued on CD and in the sleeve notes Jerry Ragovoy wrote that Tate was probably dead.

In 2001 a chance meeting between Tate and a member of Harold Melvin's Blue Notes in a grocery store let everyone know he was very much alive and in 2003 Howard Tate and Jerry Ragovoy worked together again to produce the comeback album "Rediscovered". Over the ensuing years Howard Tate had a second career, making further albums and touring regularly.


So in tribute I give you Howard Tate's 1967 recording for Verve "Baby, I Love You"...enjoy



Just 4 days later on December 6th came the news that Dobie Gray had also left us. If you don't know Dobie's name I'm willing to bet you've heard his 1973 hit single "Drift Away" before.

Born either Lawrence Darrow Brown or Leonard Victor Ainsworth (a name under which he later recorded) in 1940, his family were share croppers in Texas and he developed a love of gospel music through his grandfather who was a Baptist minister. In 1960 Lawrence/Leonard moved to Los Angeles where he recorded for a number of local labels under various names, including Leonard Ainsworth, Larry Curtis and Larry Dennis. Sonny Bono recommended him to Stripe Records and it was they who suggested the name change to "Dobie Gray" (a nod to the then popular sitcom "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis"). During the early 1960's the newly renamed Dobie Gray issued a clutch of singles on Stripe and more on Real Fine, Cordak and Jak before he turned up at Charger Records.


Dobie's first single for Charger gave him his first worldwide hit. In 1964 "The "In" Crowd" reached number 13 in the US Pop charts and 25 in the UK.
His legendary position with UK soul fans was, however, cemented by his 5th release for Charger. "Out On The Floor", released in 1966, is Northern Soul encapsulated on a 7" single. It was a complete flop when first released but has become revered over the years due to it's popularity on the Northern Soul dancefloor. When re-released in the UK in 1975 it reached number 42 in the charts and in 2000 former Wigan Casino DJ Kev Roberts placed it at number 2 in his list of the all time greatest 500 Northern Soul records, second only to Frank Wilson's "Do I Love You (Indeed I Do)".


So we bid farewell to Dobie Gray, one of the greats of Northern Soul, by bringing you "See You At The "Go-Go""...I'll see you where the girl's are...

Vinyl Adventures #16

OK, so I'm sure Mr William 'Smokey' Robinson needs absolutely no introduction...does he ?

Singer, songwriter, record producer, record company executive, known as "Mr Motown", he was probably second in importance at Motown Records only to Berry Gordy Jr himself.

Bob Dylan described him as "America's greatest living poet".

The list of songs he has written is, frankly, quite astonishing, "My Guy" for Mary Wells; "The Way You Do the Things You Do", "My Girl" and "Get Ready" for The Temptations; "When I'm Gone" for Brenda Holloway; "Ain't That Peculiar" and "I'll Be Doggone" for Marvin Gaye, not to mention the many classics for his own group The Miracles, "Tears Of A Clown", "Tracks Of My Tears", "I Second That Emotion", "Shop Around" and "You've Really Got A Hold On Me" (later covered by The Beatles).

Born William Robinson Jr. on February 19, 1940, at the age of 6 his Uncle gave him the nickname "Smokey Joe". In African American culture "smokey" is used to decscribe dark skinned black people. Young William was very light skinned and his Uncle told him "I'm doing this so you won't ever forget that you're black". In his teens "Smokey Joe" was shortened to "Smokey" and the name stuck.

In August 1958 Smokey, who was already playing Detroit venues with his group The Matadors, met Berry Gordy Jr and co-wrote the song "Got A Job". The Matadors changed their name to The Miracles and recorded the song with Gordy for End Records in November 1958. The Miracles also recorded for Chess Records and in 1959 Robinson suggested to Gordy that he start his own label. This saw the birth of Tamla Records.

The Miracles were amongst the first signings to the new label and in 1960 their 4th single for the new label, "Shop Around", became Tamla's first number one hit on the R&B singles chart and companies first million-selling single when it reached number 1 on the Cash Box Pop Chart. During their career The Miracles achieved 17 US Pop top 20 singles.


"Whole Lot Of Shaking' In My Heart (Since I Met You)" wasn't written by Smokey Robinson and didn't make the US Pop top 20, it peaked at 46 and missed out on the UK chart completely. The song was written by Motown staff writer Frank Wilson, of "Do I Love You (Indeed I Do)" fame.

It's a 100mph slice of prime Motown soul featuring an urgent horn section and the Funk Brothers creating dance floor dynamite on the backing track. The vocal performance by all of the Miracles is fabulous but check out Smokey's almost scat like vocalising on the word "I" at around 2 mins 14 seconds, that's a masterful singer at work.

I've just had a copy of this record given to me (yes GIVEN!) and it'll definitely be getting an outing at our next soul night on 14th January. Until then please enjoy The Miracles and "Whole Lot Of Shaking' In My Heart (Since I Met You)"...

Vinyl Adventures #15

This is one I bought back in October but didn't get around to writing about and I think it deserves it.

Erma Vernice Franklin was born in Shelby, Mississippi on March 13, 1938. 4 years later her sister Aretha came into the world. Together with their sister Carolyn they sang at New Bethel Baptist Church in Detroit where their father, the Reverend C. L. Franklin, was pastor.

In the late 1950's Erma was approached by Berry Gordy and his songwriting partner Billy Davis who were interested in making her the first artist for their new record label. She travelled to Chicago with Gordy and Davis to meet with Phil Chess of Chess Records trying to arrange a distribution deal for their fledgling label. Erma's father persuaded her to complete her education telling her that she could always sing after she graduated. She was later to learn that three songs Gordy and Davis had intended for her to sing were recorded by others, most notably "I Get The Sweetest Feeling" recorded by Jackie Wilson. She did eventually record the song, releasing it in 1970.

After Erma finished college The Rev. Franklin took her and Aretha to audition for Columbia Records. Aretha signed with Columbia and Erma with their subsidiary label Epic. The label issued 7 singles and an album on Erma between 1961 and 1963. At the end of her contract she spent 5 years as the featured vocalist with The Lloyd Price Orchestra.

In 1967 Erma signed with Shout Records and that year released what is probably her best known recording, the original version of "Piece of My Heart", which earned her a Grammy nomination for best new artist in 1968.

Following the sudden death of Shout label owner and songwriter, Bert Berns, Erma moved to the Brunswick label where her debut single in 1969 was "Gotta Find Me A Lover (24 Hours A Day)".


I first heard this at a very sparsely attended charity allnighter and it grabbed me immediately. That driving guitar gives it the feeling of a rock single as much as a soul groove. But whatever, it's a fantastic record that sends me dashing for the dancefloor whenever I hear it.

Erma Franklin sadly passed away in 2002, but she left behind some great music (the b-side of "Gotta Find Me A Lover..." is well worth a listen too). But right now sit back and enjoy the driving "Gotta Find Me A Lover (24 Hours A Day)" from the "The Queen Of Soul's" big sister, Erma Franklin...

Vinyl Adventures #14

Patti Drew was born in North Carolina in 1944 and spent time living in Nashville. She began singing in church with her sisters Lorraine and Erma where they were spotted by their mothers employer, a Capitol Records promoter, who signed them to the label as The Drew-Vels. In 1963 they released the single "Tell Him" which was a local hit and flirted around the bottom end of the Billboard national charts.

Patti signed as a solo artist to Quill Records in 1966 and shortly after moved back to Capitol. She released a total of 3 albums and a handful of singles before leaving the music business in 1971.


"Stop And Listen" was released as a single in 1967. It has a laid back groove but builds to a crescendo of vocals and horns during the chorus. Listen out especially for the bass player, who is laying down some serious moves in there, and a fantastic baritone sax honking away in the background.

People, give it up for Miss Patti Drew and "Stop And Listen"

Vinyl Adventures #12

No, not the hairy middle of the road-ers from the mid 70's (see here) but this Guys & Dolls are a (possibly) Chicago based group about whom very little is known.



The track in question is again the b-side and starts out with strident strings supported by a more than keen drummer who after a lightning fast roll proceeds to go mental on his bass drum for the entire remaining 2 minutes and 51 seconds (he must have been shattered by the end of this session) supported by a great female lead and intertwining group vocals. Well worth £10.

I present you with Guys & Dolls and "Heartaches"...

Me & My Friends

Back in June we were invited to my friend Ian's 40th birthday party and Ian asked if I would play a few songs. I did and here they are...

Coz I Luv You
Safety Pin Stuck In My Heart
The Ballad Of Me And My Friends
Tainted Love
Down In The Tubestation At Midnight

Thanks to Dave for his rhythmic accompaniment and Deb & Sally for vocal assistance.

Vinyl Adventures #11

This one will be very short

A big thank you and a link to "Derek's Daily 45" for bringing this one to my attention. My copy arrived last week.


Take a listen to Johnny Sayles with "Somebody's Changing (My Sweet Baby's Mind)"

Vinyl Adventures #10

OK, so we've figured out that Northern Soul is based primarily around the playing of Black American soul records and that added to that, many records by artists neither black nor American have been played under the banner of Northern Soul. Well here's a double header demonstrating a kind of US/UK crossover.

Madeline Bell was born in Newark, New Jersey. She arrived in the UK in 1962 as part of the vocal group, The Bradford Singers, appearing in the gospel show Black Nativity. It was in the UK that her career took off. She became an in demand session singer, most famously singing backing vocals on many Dusty Springfield recordings.

Between 1963 and 1969 Madeline released a string of singles on UK labels, most notably Philips, without ever having that one big hit. Her version of Evie Sands "Picture Me Gone" was released in October 1967 b/w "Go Ahead On" (Dusty Springfield sings backing voacals on Madeline's version of "Go Ahead On" after Madeline sang backing vocals on Dusty's version released as the b-side to her single "All I See Is You" in 1966).

The version I have here is the US Philips release which was the b-side to Madeline's take on "I'm Gonna Make You Love Me" which reached number 30 in the US charts in 1968.


Although never a hit in the UK "Picture Me Gone" found an appreciative home on Northern Soul dancefloors. Me, I've loved it since I first heard it, never tiring of it. That little solo guitar part at about 2 mins 26 seconds sends you hurtling into the last 30 seconds perfectly.

Boys and girls I give you Madeline Bell and "Picture Me Gone". Great song, great performance, great record...so why wasn't it a hit ?



Now, after a US artist that came to the UK to make a name for herself before having a hit in the US, how about a US EP track that had to come to the UK to find fame and a release on a single of it's very own.

Willie Mitchell was born in 1928 in Ashland, Mississippi. By the time he was in high school he had moved to Memphis, Tennessee. He'd been playing the trumpet from a young age and at high school featured in local big bands. By the 1960's Willie was working at Hi Records where he was involved in engineering, producing (the likes of Al Green), scouting talent and eventually running the label...oh and he made a few records too!


"The Champion (Part 1)" was originally released on a 6 track EP titled "That Driving Beat". It started to pick up plays at Northern clubs in the early 70's and became so popular that it was issued as a 7" single in it's own right by Decca, on the London label in 1976, with "The Champion (Part 2)" on the flip side, naturally.

Mitchell's records are famed for their stomping bass drum sound (usually supplied by drummer Al Jackson of Booker T & The MG's fame). Some Northern Soul records are often described as "Stompers".

If you ever needed to know what a "Stomper" sounds like just lend an ear to Willie Mitchell and "The Champion (Part 1)"...bangin'

Vinyl Adventures #9

The world of Northern Soul is a rare old beast. Yes it's a style of music based mainly on the playing of rare, black American soul records, primarily from the 1960's. But...if a record has "the sound" it get's played. This has resulted in some very strange things being played on the scene, such as "Theme From Joe 90", Muriel Day's "Nine Times Out Of Ten" (the b-side to an Irish Eurovision Song Contest entry, and yes, you're right, it's awful) and more than one record by Tom Jones (yes that's Jones the Voice from that hotbed of Soul & R'n'B, Pontypridd in South Wales) including this one:


I've often said that if "It's Not Unusual" hadn't been a major hit it would have fit right in on the Northern dance floor (have a listen to The Dells version). Well in the mid 60's Tom was knocking out covers of US soul tunes and R'n'B flavoured dancers to great effect. Check out his take on Ben E Kings "I Can't Break The News To Myself" or "Dr Love".

"Stop Breaking My Heart" was originally released in 1966, and was a complete flop. This copy I have is a 1970 issue of his cover of Shirley Bassey's 1963 hit "I Who Have Nothing" (which was also originally recorded by Ben E King) with "Stop Breaking My Heart" tucked away on the b-side.

Written by Tom's manager, Gordon Mills (who also wrote "It's Not Unusual") and produced for Gordon Mills Productions, right from the intro this is a huge sounding record that gallops along at a fair old pace. I particularly like the slightly disinterested sounding backing vocalists droning "don't you break my heart" between filing their nails and chewing gum (or so it sounds to me).

So with thanks to Dave, for pointing out all this Jonesy goodness to me, please enjoy Tom Jones and "Stop Breaking My Heart"...hotdamn

Part 4 - Let's Play Life...

As I mentioned in Part 3 - Flowers In The Dustbin, I started to play the guitar in 1977 mainly due to my discovery of Punk Rock and the offering of such sage advice from the likes of Alternative TV’s Mark Perry who said you only needed to know 3 chords and you could form a band.

The only problem with that was that you needed other people to form a band other than the "one man" type favoured three years earlier by Leo Sayer.

Fortunately my brother had an inkling to play the drums and my recollection tells me that at Xmas 1977 I received an electric guitar and small practice amp and my brother a snare drum and hi-hat and we promptly set to learning to play some of the songs we now knew should be simple to play cos, as people kept telling us, "them punk rockers can't play".

Well I beg to differ !

What I did discover was you really didn't need to learn the 3 chords previously demonstrated, you just needed to learn one chord shape, this one


If you are not, nor ever have been, a guitar player that diagram may look as indecipherable to you as a page full of a random foreign language. Hopefully, dear reader, you are a fan of the Ramones so I shall let Johnny demonstrate


That being a picture of the mighty Johnny Ramone playing the above diagrammed chord, commonly known as a barre chord.

The beauty of the barre chord is that if you move it up and down the fret board of a guitar the same shape becomes a different chord at each position. So at the first fret it is an F, at the 3rd fret a G, at the 5th an A and so on and so forth until you reach the dusty end of the neck. So you have a myriad of chords at your disposal all from learning to play one shape.

The down side of the barre chord is that for the inexperienced guitarist they are bloody difficult and excrutiatingly painful to play in equal measure. As you can see you are required to stretch one finger across the whole neck and hold down all the strings while at the same time using your remaining 3 available fingers to make the chord. Add to this using your thumb at the back of the neck to clamp down that stretched index digit and shifting that shape up and down the neck at a speed dictated by the punk rock we chose to play...well it bloody hurt and you had to persevere to make it sound anywhere close to acceptable. It may go some way to explaining why I have, in the ensuing years, avoided the use of barre chords whenever possible!

But persevere I did and my brother and I would wait for our parents to go out, set up the amp and drum kit-lite in the living room and thrash our way through such hits of the day as the Tom Robinson Bands "Up Against the Wall" and the Angelic Upstarts "Police Oppression". I'm certain at times it sounded bloody awful (oh those poor neighbours) but we were having a great time.

The next logical steps are two-fold; find the remaining members to make up a full band and then, write some of your own songs. We found a bass player who also played the saxophone and, calling ourselves "A Moment", we set to learning to play together. We played a few gigs at local church halls and at my 18th birthday party. But most importantly we started to write our own songs. I don't remember if it was the first one I/we wrote but a song called "Everything You Need" was born. I can't remember the words anymore but I can still play most of it.

(Actually I've just had a go and I can still play all of it. Now I wonder where the lyrics are ??? Oh yeah, we recorded it. I've just been up into my loft and retrieved a reel of tape containing the very first recordings we made. It's 30 years old, dated March 1981. Two songs are on this reel, "Happy Fields Of Thought" and "Everything You Need". I guess I need to get on to some people and try and get these songs digitised somehow. Watch this space)

Music became pretty much my reason for doing everything. Listening to it, making it, anything so long as it was music related. We went to endless gigs and dreamt about being as big as the bands we went to see. Hanging out and talking about how great your band was was almost as important as your band actually being great.

I don't remember when or how A Moment finished but by 1983 I was in another band called Pop Da Freak. I'd given up playing the guitar and just concentrated on being the singer. We dressed in leather and frills, wore make up and had vertical haircuts (well most of us did). We made a racket inspired by Joy Division, Magazine, Iggy Pop and the Velvet Underground (or so we thought) and there's an example of it right here.

Pop Da Freak - Play Life For Keeps by russh29

I've always been really proud of that song. The lyrics were based on a book called "Ringolevio" by Emmett Grogan which if you have any interest in the 60's counter culture is a book you should seek out and read.

Pop Da Freak would have folded in late 1986 and by 1987 I'd formed yet another new band, The Libertines (got there waaaay before ya Doherty). What we were doing back then would have been described as sounding very C86, what came to pick up the all encompassing description "Indie", whatever the hell that is. We had a fine old time. We picked up supports with some well known bands, played some big shows and I finally got to do something I'd dreamed about doing since back when my first single was either "Skweeze Me Pleeze Me", "The Wanderer" or "Solid Gold Easy Action" (don't know what I'm babbling on about ? Have a look here) I GOT TO MAKE A SINGLE OF MY OWN !!!

The Libertines "Smith Is A Liar"



It was recorded at The Workshop studio in Redditch near Birmingham, with co-production duties handled by my brother, who had ditched the drums in favour of the guitar and was by then making records of his own on a major label and heading for "pop star" status. "Smith Is A Liar" didn't sell many copies (I still have boxes of them around the house if anybody still wants to buy one) and I never got to hear it on the radio but I had finally made a record of my very own.

Despite it's abject failure we did some gigs to try and promote it and even made plans to release a second single, which would have been this

The Libertines "Wolf!"

The Libertines - Wolf! by russh29

But by now I needed a little more security in my life. I was about to become a Dad and I needed a job. I'd done a few gigs pretending to be a roadie for my brothers band and they were about to embark on their first major support tour of the UK. They asked me to go with them as the roadie and offered me what was then a handsome sum to do it. So I told my fellow Libertines that was it and, 25 days after the birth of my son, embarked on my first tour as a roadie, something that would occupy me for the next 8 years. But that story is for another time...

Vinyl Adventures #8

I've just had my first charity shop find !

I had to go into our little town to get some essentials (butter, mayonnaise, ketchup, digestives. Yeah! Essentials!) and decided to have a look in a couple of the local charity shops. Nothing in the first but in the second there were two boxes of singles. Unfortunately someone was at them before me and he seemed to know what he was looking for. He'd already pulled out a picture sleeved copy of the Sex Pistols "God Save The Queen" (see my recent post) and a record on the Blue Beat label but I couldn't see what that was.

He eventually moved on and I got to flicking through the first box. Not much in there but when I got to the second box this was right at the front


Yeah OK so it's not exactly gonna earn me enough to retire on but it was only 50p and in very fine condition.

R Dean Taylor moved from his native Toronto to Detroit in the early 60's and was hired by Motown as a songwriter and recording artist for their subsidiary label V.I.P. He released "There's A Ghost In My House" on V.I.P. in 1967. Co-written by Taylor and the legendary Motown writing team of "Holland-Dozier-Holland" and produced by Brian Holland and Lamont Dozier it was a commercial flop, allegedly because Motown chose not to promote it well enough.

The single was picked up on in the early 70's by the Northern Soul scene and became so popular that Motown re-released it and R Dean found himself with a #3 UK chart hit in 1974.

So enjoy Mr R Dean Taylor and "There's A Ghost in My House"



P.S I found a copy of Gary Lewis & The Playboys "My Hearts Symphony" in the same box but I decided to keep that to myself...D'OH!

Vinyl Adventures #7

You may recall that in Vinyl Adventures #5 I told you "I'm really not a lover of white guys trying to play "the Blues"". So what do we have here ?


The Skyliners were an (all white) Doo Wop group formed in 1958 in Pittsburgh and released their first single "Since I Don't Have You" in December of that year. It reached #12 in the US charts.

By May 1965 when "Everything Is Fine" was released the original group had disbanded and leader Jimmy Beaumont had transformed himself into something of an impressive soul singer. So yes, what we have here is an example of a white guy singing (rhythm &) blues...but hey! this is my Blog and if I can't contradict myself here then where can I ?

Again this is a B-side (the A-side being "The Loser"). It's a beautiful mid-tempo floater of a record kicking off with with a vocal intro over strummed guitar chords before it settles into being a laid back dancer replete with handclaps and fabulous close harmonies from the rest of The Skyliners. I can't remember where I first heard this (maybe at The Station Hotel nights in the 90's) but I've loved it since that first time and it's a thrill to get hold of such a great copy of it.

So all of you settle back and let The Skyliners "Everything Is Fine" brighten your day...cool!

Vinyl Adventures #6

It's something of a mystery that some Northern Soul nights are known as "Oldies" nights. This from a scene where the majority of the records played are from the 1960's. What is meant by this term "Oldies" is records that have been played at events for many years and have become very well known, even to people who don't follow Northern Soul.

A few years ago DJ Kev Roverts compiled a book, "The Northern Soul Top 500", which collected together what he described as the "definitive chart of the 500 top sounds that put northern soul on the map". You can view a list of the 500 here. These are the records you will likely hear at an "Oldies" night.

At number 95 in that list you'll find Spyder Turner's "I Can’t Make It Anymore", a well loved Northern Soul Oldie. But Spyder made many other great records, including this one


"You're Good Enough For Me" was the B-side to Spyder's debut single for MGM Records, a take on the Ben E King classic "Stand By Me". Spyder was none too happy with his version of "Stand By Me" telling Blues & Soul magazine that MGM "felt it was good enough. I didn't agree. I didn't like it but I wanted a record deal so I went on ahead and did a B-side for them."

And oh what a B-side! Spyder and his girly backing singers are to be heard chirping and stomping away while the band lays down a groove that just doesn't give up. The sum of all those parts results in a sublime dancer that fortunately was discovered languishing on the B-side by a group of soul crazed dancers and DJ's in the north of 1970's England.

Spyder Turner is still regularly playing live shows, writing and making records and does some acting too. I love "I Can’t Make It Anymore" but I'd much rather hear something like this played out than another played to death Oldie.

So give it up for Spyder Turner and "You're Good Enough For Me"...Yeah!

Vinyl Adventures #5

I don't know why but until recently I had always assumed that Arthur Alexander was white. Maybe it was because I had first come across his name in tandem with that of Mose Allison, who is white (I'm really not a lover of white guys trying to play "the Blues", although in Mose' defence his style is more Jazz). Maybe it was because the only music I knew by Arthur Alexander were insipid covers of "Anna Go To Him" by The Beatles and "You Better Move On" by the Rolling Stones. I've never been much of a fan of either of those groups. I'd much rather get my '60's kicks from the Small Faces, The Kinks or The Who.

I'm not much of a fan of Elvis Presley either, never have been. I can appreciate the importance of what he did at Sun Records but I'd much rather get my shots of '50's rock 'n' roll from Jerry Lee or Eddie Cochran or Little Richard.

So I'm therefore pleased to have recently discovered that Arthur Alexander was Afro-American, otherwise we might now be talking about a record featuring two of my least favourite things; a white "blues" artist performing, what became, an Elvis Presley hit.

As it is what we have is Arthur's 1972 original version of a song that Mr Presley took to #2 in the US a few months later. Legend has it that "The King" didn't much care for the song and was uncomfortable performing it even though it gave him his last US top 10 hit.


Arthur's version however thunders along. This is another record I came across thanks to the (sadly now defunct) Makin' Trax Blog that highlighted records that have, in the past, been played on the Northern/Rare Soul scene that might be ripe for revival and the copy I've bought is a white label promo with the same song on both sides (mono and stereo mixes) in practically mint condition. It's very "southern soul" in arrangement and style and I'm not sure how it's going to go down when presented to the dancers. Oh well I guess I'll find out at Telford Soul Club on November 12th.

In the meantime let me know what you think of of Mr Arthur Alexanders hunk-a-hunk-a "Burnin' Love"...enjoy!

Part 3 - Flowers In The Dustbin

The 27th May 1977 is a date that should be writ large in mine, and many of my friends, memories, but even I had to do a bit of research to find out that that was the date upon which a record was released that can still have a very deep effect upon my mood to this day.

To continue our somewhat disjointed story...I’d progressed through singles and Glam Rock to actually going to gigs and the final piece of my musical education was waiting to be discovered. Where did I find out more about the music I liked, what was being released and when, who was playing gigs and where ? The answers to all my questions were to be found each week inside the approximately 60 pages of newspaper print, that would usually end up all over your hands and clothes. We’re talking the music press, the inkies as they came to be known.

At the time we are talking about, that being late 1976 or early 1977, Sounds, Melody Maker and the New Musical Express, or NME, were the papers that covered all things music, serious music that is, not pop which was taken care of by the likes of Jackie and other teen girl magazines which no self respecting glam rocker would be seen reading. Sounds was very heavy rock oriented and Melody Maker quite studious. NME was a bit out of my league when I was 14, I didn’t understand most of what was written in there, very literary.

I latched onto Sounds, not because I particularly like heavy rock but because it seemed the easiest of the inkies to understand. I started buying Sounds each week, scouring the news items and gig listings for any Slade related info. I don’t recall that I was reading the features, but I was learning about lots of bands and artists from the news items, ad’s and reviews. Inevitably some names began to stick out more than others and I began to read about bands with names like the Sex Pistols, The Damned, The Jam, The Clash, The Adverts and others who seemed to be causing quite a stir, being commented about as much negatively as positively and being described as Punk Rock.

From what I could make out from the items in Sounds, these bands played loud, basic, noisy rock music, maybe were not very proficient musicians but were attracting young audiences who were maybe somewhat disillusioned with the current music available on the airwaves of Britain’s only national music radio station...wunnerful Radio 1.

BBC4 recently began repeating Top Of The Pops from 1976. They still hold full archives of the shows from then forward and are showing them in full every Wednesday evening. It really is astonishing what crap was charting in 1976. If you’re feeling real brave try some of this rubbish:

Paul Nicholas - Reggae Like It Used To Be
Harpo - Movie Star
Rubettes - You’re The Reason Why
Slik - Requiem
Sheer Elegance - Life Is Too Short Girl

Is it any wonder Punk Rock happened ???

I did see a 1976 TOTP recently that opened with the Heavy Metal Kids performing their new single (at the time) “She’s No Angel”. It didn’t chart, I didn’t discover the Heavy Metal Kids until some time in late 1977 thanks to a Radio 1 In Concert broadcast which I only recorded for the performance by the support band, The Vibrators, but how I wish I’d seen that TOTP performance in 1976, it would have been a shining beacon in a sea of 1976’s pop trash.

I remember the summer of 1976, it was a bloody scorcher, day after day of endless sunshine and heat and hour after hour of The Real Things “You To Me Are Everything” and Wings “Silly”bloody”Love Songs” on the radio, and I’m sure me thinking that there must be something better than this to listen to. Unbeknownst to me that “something better” was simmering away in pubs and clubs in London in readiness for revealing itself to me in the spring of 1977.

So back to our narrative; there I was scouring Sounds for any Slade based news I could find and becoming more and more aware of these new bands that were popping up in the news and reviews pages. By May and into June 1977 the occasional mentions had developed into something of a firestorm mainly centred around the group known as the Sex Pistols.

All of 1977 saw the UK “celebrating” Queen Elizabeth II’s Silver Jubilee, 25 years on the throne, and the Jubilee Days of June 6th-9th saw a series of events in and around London with many people holding street parties on 7th June. Also on the 7th June the Sex Pistols held a party, on a boat sailing up and down the Thames, on which they performed, their new single. The boat was hauled over by police and many people on board were arrested. The boat episode was reported in the music press and the national press the next week. Fantastic publicity for their newly released single “God Save The Queen”, which had been unleashed upon the world on 27th May. Publicity enough for me to finally decide “OK let’s go and buy this Punk Rock record and see what all the fuss is about”.

So on my next trip into Birmingham, most likely on a Saturday, most likely to HMV on New Street, or Virgin on Bull Street, or maybe Inferno in Dale End, I don’t remember, but I do know I bought a copy of the Sex Pistols “God Save The Queen” along with The Stranglers “Peaches” b/w “Go Buddy Go” combination. When we got those records home, we played them, obviously, and the first time I played “God Save The Queen”....listen, I’ve written this up on here before, you can find out what happened here and for those of you too lazy to click the link I copy and paste here:

“We dropped the needle on the groove and...it felt like I was physically hurled across the room and pinned against the opposite wall for 3 minutes and 20 seconds. When it had finished I think I was in shock. It was like nothing I had ever heard before.

Did I really just hear that ?
People don't make records that sound like that.
Do they ?
They do ?

So I played it again....and again...and again...you get the picture...just to reassure myself that I had heard it right. And I think I knew then that some things were never going to seem quite the same ever again.”



And astonishingly, that record still gives me a rush when I hear it to this day. Steve Jones opening guitar blast can instantly transport me back to that point in time when I first heard it and felt slightly awed, slightly frightened, slightly exhilarated and realised that things had just changed in a big way.

I never did become much of a fan of The Stranglers but the Sex Pistols 4 singles and 1 album are constant companions even now. I started buying other Punk Rock records by The Jam (who replaced Slade as my musical obsession), The Clash (I was lucky enough to meet Joe Strummer shortly before he passed away. A meeting that left a lasting impression on me), The Adverts (TV Smith’s music has stuck by me all these years and I can now count him amongst my acqauintances), X-Ray Spex, The Damned, The Ruts, Generation X and Siouxsie & The Banshees. I started to play the guitar because Alternative TV’s Mark Perry said you only needed to know 3 chords and you could form a band. Eventually I made a record of my own...but that tale is for another day...