In which author/writer Malcolm Wyatt jealously guards his own corner of web hyperspace, regular feature-interviews, reviews and rants involving big names from across the world of music, comedy, literature, film, TV, the arts, and sport.
Seeing Sunbirds: From left – Chris, Phil C, Laura, Marc, Dave, Phil B. Photo: Michael Porter
Three and a quarter years after I first discussed Sunbirds with co-frontman Dave Hemingway (linked here), on the build-up to the release of debut long player, Cool to be Kind, I finally got to catch them live. And it was worth the wait.
Not as if there were too many chances to see them in that first couple of years. Initially more a studio project, that suited the band fine in the wake of the pandemic. Besides, former Housemartins and Beautiful South singer Dave Hemingway was in no great hurry back then to return to the road.
Having called time on post-PD Heaton and Jacqui Abbott outfit The South in 2015 after six years back with ex-bandmate Alison Wheeler and co., Dave, aka Hammy, felt somewhat frustrated that his passion for recording new music was not seen as the priority across the board, despite praise for 2012 LP Sweet Refrains.
So, with guitarist Phil Barton – who had a hand in writing seven songs on Sweet Refrains and remains on board with The South to this day – a new band was formed, the pair joined by violinist/vocalist Laura Wilcockson and drummer Marc Parnell, leading to that cracking 2020 Sunbirds first LP.
However, it was clear by the time of my chat with Phil last August (linked here) that they were keen to play live, and this time last year they were about to head out on their first short tour as an expanded six-piece band, with guitarist/keyboard player Chris Offen and bass player Jerry Jobson.
Audience reactions certainly vindicated what they felt they had. And here we are in late 2023, now with Phil Chapman in Jerry’s role, and a fair few more dates in the bag, this latest Lancashire outing to be followed by seven more live shows before the year is out, the diary already fairly full from early February 2024.
What’s more, there’s a new record in the pipeline, A Life Worth Living marking what they see as ‘another step in the continuing evolution of the band’s sound’. The jury remains out on when it will see its release (the main issue is ‘the old green manalishi’ according to Phil), but the belief in those new songs certainly came through at the Conti, with just seven of the cuts from the first record aired in a 20-song set.
They started with the rolling blues of the debut LP’s ‘Big Moneymaker’, that blend of Hammy and Laura’s vocals, searing guitars and shuffling bass and drums setting Sunbirds’ stall out nicely. But the next four numbers at The Continental were new to me. A brave move. In the circumstances you might have expected a little bum-shuffling from this seated, sold-our audience (the first time I’ve attended a seated show at the Conti, other than a July 2021 tables and chairs set-up for Martin Stephenson on my first post-pandemic live outing). However, that perceived increase in confidence is with good reason, I’d venture.
I get the impression the songwriting doesn’t fall so heavily on Phil now. He had a hand in all but one of the songs on that first LP – to great effect – but it seems there’s a far more across the board band approach now, Chris and Laura (erm) instrumental in their contributions with a pen and a stave.
Dave’s vocals were a little muffled where I was stood at the back, but it worked all the same, and I get the impression he’s happier with the focus elsewhere, Laura leading from the middle, so to speak… relishing the opportunity of co-fronting such a tight, professional band.
On the guitar front, Phil and Chris switched between lead and rhythm duties, bringing out the best in each other, pushing that little bit further, as heard on the Teenage Fanclub meets Long Ryders-like ‘And We Can’, given a further twist by Laura’s violin.
‘Every Road’ had a proper late ‘80s feel. Think The Bible. It could have been a Boo Hewerdine number for these ears. In fact, at times I feel this is a band that collectively fits into a past scene I once lived and breathed, where indie pop found fresh influences by delving backwards, not least rediscovering ‘60s country rock. And in this case, the more understated studio take was neatly transferred to a live set-up.
Further new song ‘Bring It Back’ was then followed by ‘Hey’, Laura out front on a number showing a perhaps even more radio friendly approach. It certainly showcases her fine voice alongside her accomplished musician tag – a big vocal but somehow subtly used on a big old, lighter-waving ballad that should work well on the festival circuit come next summer. Expect a bigger name to have a huge hit with this. I’ll always prefer the original though. It also gave Phil and Chris a chance to noodle somewhat on those guitars, another key factor all night.
‘The Black Sea’ was one of the first LP’s less commercial highlights for me, and they certainly give a good fist of replicating its power live, Hammy lost in the emotion of the moment. That was followed by ‘Maybe It’s Me’, the next new number, then the first album’s ‘Holiday Monday’. Sort of Mamas and Papas done Tom Petty style (not least that guitar break partway through). I see an accompanying ‘60s style surf promo video, the band driving al convertible along a beach road. Mind you, that East Yorkshire coast might be a bit nippy at this time of year.
Aptly, ‘Ride’, another addition to the set, was next, before a return to Cool to be Kind for Phil’s beautifully crafted ‘When I’m Gone’, a love letter to his daughter, delivered with plenty of heart from Hammy. I mentioned The Bible earlier, and there’s something of ‘Honey Be Good’ here, with Laura’s backing vocal a nice touch.
Two more new songs followed, ‘Right Place’ and the Chris-led ‘Who Knew?’ followed by a moment of nostalgia, The Beautiful South’s No.1 single, ‘A Little Time’. That takes me back, that song all over the radio ahead of my impending departure for my 1990/91 world travels, a sense of potential guilt at going away reflected in that Heaton/Rotheray hit, Laura in Briana Corrigan’s role here.
Gearing up for a big finish, two more first LP cuts followed, the Beautiful South-like ‘Hatred Lies in the Ruins of Love’ followed by the ever-sparkling, celebratory ‘Gene Kelly’, their biggest pop moment yet. If ever a single deserved to be a hit…
Talking of 45s, recent Heritage Chart hit ‘Make Up Your Mind’ was introduced with a slight twist by Phil on guitar, us wondering if we were about to get Bryan Adams’ ‘Summer of ‘69’. In fact, maybe this is their most commercial moment so far, Laura in full Belinda Carlisle mode. US college radio of old would have loved this. Hopefully it still will.
Then came ‘Done and Dusted’, a true bluesy number ending with a rousing instrumental breakdown, Chris and Phil in their element with a twin-guitar assault, Thin Lizzy style. Get off your knees, indeed. Meanwhile, Laura and Hammy danced like recently introduced friends of friends in a nightclub, a six-string bromance unfolding alongside, the two of them seemingly unsure quite where to look.
It was Marc that put the song to bed, having not put a drumstick wrong all night in a solid performance alongside new bass-playing rhythm pal, Phil C, who also seemed to be having a ball, and before we knew it the band launched into Nick Lowe classic ‘(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding’, which never fails to hit the spot (49 years after it was written), not least when half of the world is up in flames, in this case an apt as can be reminder of the unfolding horrors in Gaza.
On returning, Sunbirds were briefly a five-piece, Marc taking the air while Hammy returned to his old seat at the back, reprising his role as singing drummer on ‘Build’, 36 years after it became The Housemartins’ final top-20 hit, Dave’s voice seemingly the clearest it had been all night. Another unexpected highlight.
And then back came Marc, with Dave leading out front on the finale, his hymn to Hull, the band’s first single, ‘Meet You on the Northside’ providing a grand send-off on a top night out. And here’s to plenty more of those in the company of Sunbirds.
For the latest from Sunbirds, head to their Nectar Records website, or check them out via Bandcamp. You can also keep in touch with the band via Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
All the above photographs appear here courtesy of Michael Porter Photography, with a link to Michael’s website here. You can also keep in touch via Facebook and Instagram.
It’s odd to think there were merely 11 and a quarter years between the release of Beginnings, the debut LP from the classic fourpiece that became Slade, and the band’s show-stealing 1980 Reading Festival performance, credited with relaunching their career when they most needed it, paving the way for the final assault of a glittering live and recording career, reminding the wider music world they were truly a force to be reckoned with.
Almost four times that amount of time has passed since, yet love remains for this iconic Black Country outfit, new generations now properly discovering Slade for themselves, while others who for some reason or other misread them at the time (perhaps it was those spellings) are finally realising their talent.
I say that as I gaze at the latest product celebrating these particular snapshots in history, BMG’s repackaging of the Ambrose Slade record and the label’s reissue of recordings from a direction-changing live performance from Dave, Don, Jim and Nod on Sunday, 31st August 1980, when the phrase ‘phoenix from the ashes’ didn’t even cum near to nailing it.
Let’s start at the Beginnings, a band not long since rebranded after taking shape as The ‘N Betweens looking to find their feet with what proved something of a mixed bag of an album, one most of us reading this were not old enough to have appreciated back then (writes a fella who’d only just had his second New Year’s Day when they started recording that debut long player) but now like to pretend we saw the merits of from the start.
As it was, the band’s instrumental call to arms on opening track ‘Genesis’, the LP’s sole single – which the majority of us got to know in its second coming (with words) as ‘Know You Are’ – sees us invested from the start. Those aircraft-like sound effects and that driving bass – eight years later arguably half-inched by Greg Lake for ELP’s take on ‘Fanfare for the Common Man’ – setting us up nicely for what we’re about to receive.
I used the term ‘mixed bag’, and that’s certainly the case, these 12 tracks – recorded at Stanhope Place, London W2, close to Hyde Park, with engineer Roger Wake, the band having reluctantly took its moniker from separate names A&R boss Jack Baverstock’s secretary gave her handbag and powder compact, apparently – seemingly providing more a shop window display of what they were capable of rather than a statement album.
One of the striking points for me now, 54 years down the line, is Noddy’s more nasal delivery, this treasured frontman possibly stricken by a cold during the recording process. But if it was good enough for John Lennon on The Beatles’ debut LP six years earlier… More relevant is that our Neville seems to bathe in ’60s elements at times, still finding his place, while the climax of ‘Everybody’s Next One’ (the first of two Steppenwolf covers – in fact, it was the B-side of their stab at ‘Born to be Wild’, released on the same day a year earlier) sounds more Who-like for these ears, an influence I never previously considered but one that also makes sense.
As for ‘Knocking Nails into my House’ (originally by The Idle Race), that has more of a Marriott and Lane feel, alongside a little of the ingenuity of future chart rival Roy Wood (perhaps unsurprising seeing as it was penned by sometime bandmate and fellow Brummie, Jeff Lynne). Yep, half Small Faces, half The Move, I’d say – not a bad place to be… but it’s not quite Slade, still grappling away in a bid to unearth their true calling and identity. What’s more, maybe it’s that building theme, but I get a bit of Bernard Cribbins in Nod’s oration. Not quite but almost, ‘Right,’ said Fred, ‘Have to take the wall down. That there wall is gonna have to go.’
Word has it that the ‘N Betweens implosion came as half of the band wanted to cling on to a more bluesy direction, while the others – Dave and Don – saw future salvation in embracing the beat era, selling that vision to new boys Nod and Jim. But ‘Roach Daddy’ – like ‘Genesis’ and ‘Mad Dog Cole’, seeing all four band members given a credit – suggests they couldn’t unlearn what they’d plugged away at on that circuit. Besides, The Beatles were arguably heading that same way.
‘Ain’t Got No Heart’, borrowed from Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, is another product of its time, and that’s fine by me, more Ambrose Psych than the band we’d get to properly discover. I see sequinned shirts and ridiculous moustaches, but Nod’s vocal delivery is almost punky.
‘Pity the Mother’, the only number with that soon to be classic Holder/Lea credit, takes that previous theme and stance a little further. There’s more than a little Led Zep there, I feel, that marriage of delicate blues licks and ‘eavy metal. And you could just about sit down and scratch your beard to it rather than stomp your feet and clap your hands. But it’s Jim’s violin that provides an unexpected twist. Within two years the nation would be knocked out by a similar approach on ‘Coz I Luv You’, but this must have had an impact on an earlier audience. And long before Dave Arbus did his thing on ‘Baba O’Riley’ for what was initially intended as The Who’s Lifehouse project.
Talking of the ‘Oo, it’s interesting to note that Beginnings landed 10 days before Tommy, and in the same month The Beatles were fannying around with Get Back (albeit with that never seeing the light of day for another year, as Let It Be).
Side two’s instrumental opener ‘Mad Dog Cole’ is more of a blues stomper, including searing guitar lines and scat vocal noodling. It’s as if the band are giving us a little freeform jazzy r & b while their working men’s club audience settle down after the meat raffle, the venue’s MC and club sec out back in a ciggie smoke-filled room, working out how much they can get away with paying their upstart visitors.
We’re then properly away again with one of my favourite moments, ‘Fly Me High’, the Moody Blues number. I interviewed Justin Hayward, its author, five years ago and couldn’t quite get my head round the fact that he was unaware at the time of that cover, which landed three years after it was a single, the first Justin recorded with the band after replacing Denny Laine.
As for Marvin Gaye’s ‘If This World Were Mine’, that’s a surprise package in light of what Slade became. Nod’s nasal vocal aside, I see it as more of a late Jam or early Style Council B-side. And while – surprisingly considering the power of his voice – it seems our Neville over-stretches in places, we at least get traces of that soul influence they took on board from the start.
‘Martha My Dear’ was a brave move, but again Jim’s violin adds Slade’s stamp to proceedings, stopping it becoming just another Beatles cover. Incidentally, is that the first time the band made that observation, ‘Look wot you dun’? Don’s drum pattern is interesting too, as if he’s still working his way through the style book, taking mental notes.
Then we have Steppenwolf’s ‘Born to be Wild’, the only song that appears on both records, a track that was perhaps already slaying audiences, as heard at Piccadilly’s Command Studios in October ’71 and tearing up venues for many more moons to come. And it’s no less dynamic here.
Finally, we’re away with another cover, Ted Nugent and the Amboy Dukes’ ‘Journey to the Centre of Your Mind’, the band well and truly back in the land of late ‘60s psychedelic rock on a song that would sit comfortably on a Monkees LP, as if it were an offcut from Head, released six months earlier.
While the 2006 Salvo CD reissue (coupled with Play It Loud) concluded on ‘Wild Winds Are Blowing’ – the first release of their skinhead era – BMG opt for its Powell/Holder/Lea-penned B-side, ‘One Way Hotel’, perhaps Slade’s first proper story song. Why they chose that, I’m unsure, but I’m not complaining, and maybe it’s just a nod (so to speak) to what came next, that song revisited for the next LP, Baverstock’s secretary’s handbag binned by then, Chas Chandler’s involvement taking the band upwards and onwards, the first LP as Slade landing a year and a half later, the group ever closer to what they became.
As it was, Beginnings not so much bombed as got lost, failing to dent either the UK or US (where it was rebranded Ballsy and given a revised track-listing and far worse cover art) charts. In fact, it says something that while I know full well that the wonderful ‘Pouk Hill’ – written about the photoshoot for the front sleeve of the debut LP – fits perfectly on that next record, it’s that fine ditty I hear when I see Beginnings, its lyrical theme suggesting they learned a hell of a lot from the experience of this ’69 Fontana debut, taking those lessons on board, the golden years not so far, far away.
I’m not sure if, as Peter Jones reckons on the original sleeve notes, ‘I voluntarily and totally flipped’ on first hearing Beginnings, but I agree to an extent with Record Mirror’s review of the ‘Genesis’ single, describing the accompanying LP as a ‘fine debut’ from a band of ‘very substantial talent’. And as Dave Ling puts it on his sleeve notes this time, ‘For Slade, the Gud times were just around the corner.’
It seems odd to jump from there to late August 1980, but while, my oh my, times ‘adn’t ‘alf changed by then, there is at least one key factor linking Beginnings and Alive! At Reading – Slade’s determination to prove themselves and bounce back, be that emerging out of the shadows as the ’60s gave rise to the ‘70s, or out of the doldrums – or at least the wilderness – after those halcyon chartbusting years on their UK return after an ultimately fruitless US assault.
It’s not quite as simple as that, but you catch my drift. Anyone who caught the band in the intervening years knew how powerful they remained. If anything, they even upped their game. And Reading wasn’t the first time they proved the detractors wrong. Take for example, Lincoln Festival in late May ’72. There too, some of those who attended knew only too well what a phenomenal live band Slade were, rather than just gifted crafters of great singles.
I might as well get the criticism out of the way regarding this second BMG repackage, mentioning the use of live shots from a later Monsters of Rock set at Knebworth and a 1973 Danish shot on the rear. And this isn’t the complete live set, which also included ‘Dizzy Mama’, ‘My Baby Left Me’, ‘Everyday’ and ‘Gudbuy t Jane’. But the spirit’s definitely there, and kudos needs be paid to the BBC’s Friday Rock Show bods who recorded it for Tommy Vance’s show in the first place.
As late, late replacements for Ozzy Osbourne at Richfield Avenue, delivering a sensational performance to around 80,000 punters, few knew they were going to be performing until shortly before their Sunday set, but they provided the highlight of the festival and that audience response ultimately led to Slade enjoying a renaissance. They certainly come out with guns blazing on ‘Take Me Bak ‘Ome’ – originally released three years to the month after Beginnings – and it’s as refreshingly vital eight and a half years after it became their second No.1. If anything, this four and three-quarter minute version carries a finale that’s almost Sex Pistols-like, Nod’s call and response panto ensures the heavy brigade were on their side too. You can almost hear the masses turn round and swarm back from the camping fields towards the main stage.
‘Is it loud enough for everybody?’ asks Noddy. ‘No!’ comes the resounding response. ‘No? Charlie! It ain’t loud enough! Get it up! Full poke! Think mi ears are going a bit!’ Whether sound man Charlie Newham needed to do anything of the sort is unlikely, but they soon had the crowd in their pocket.
And it wasn’t just nostalgia, fairly new songs like the incendiary ‘When I’m Dancin’, I Ain’t Fightin’’ and ‘Wheels Ain’t Coming Down’, from that May’s Six of the Best EP (although the latter appeared first on the previous October’s Return to Base), showing the great unwashed just what they might have been missing… a core of Slade diehards amongst them with every right to scream, ‘Didn’t I tell you?’
The band’s eardrum-blasting six-minute-plus rock’n’roll medley follows, while Nod leads the crowd on a brief ‘chorus of ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ before a stonking ‘Mama Weer All Crazee Now’ takes us back to late ’72, the chances of the crowd hearing what’s being said to them back at work that following week already nil.
‘Get Down and Get With It’ is next, Nod’s ‘Well, alright everybody…’ a further call to arms, feet, hands and boots, Dave, Don, Jim and the Rock ‘n’ Roll Preacher ‘(‘I’ve seen the light!’) at the very top of their game, the years having rocked and rolled away… to the surprise of absolutely none of those who had stuck by the band through the thin as much as the thick. A glorious noize.
And I feel rather emotional hearing Nod announce to those ‘rocking and rolling and ripping it up in Reading tonight’ that ‘we’ve got to go now’ before that final ‘alright!’ Some 43 years on, there’s still a sense that nobody quite wants to the party to end.
Where could they go from there? Turns out that they could just about go anywhere. Almost back to No.1, in fact. In the meantime, for the encore Noddy led a crowd rendition of ‘Merry Xmas Everybody’ on this last day of August (maybe not that surprising seeing as they recorded it seven years earlier amid a late summer NYC heatwave) before ‘Cum on Feel the Noize’ and ‘Born to Be Wild’ brought the house down. A thundering conclusion, and what a blast. If I were there, I reckon I’d have just turned round and left at that point, tears in my eyes.
For several eyewitness accounts of Slade’s momentous Reading Festival 1980 appearance and plenty more memories regarding their amazing journey down the decades, check out Wild! Wild! Wild! A People’s History of Slade (Spenwood Books, via the publisher’s link), which also includes forewords by Suzi Quatro and Sweet’s Andy Scott. You can also track down a copy via Amazon, have a word with your local bookseller, or try before you buy at your local library.
BMG’s 2023 reissues of Beginnings by Ambrose Slade and Alive! At Reading by Slade are available now on limited edition vinyl (for the first time) and deluxe CD.Representing pivotal moments in Slade’s career, Beginnings is pressed on transparent yellow and orange splatter vinyl, with Alive! At Reading on orange and black splatter vinyl. The Beginnings CD is housed in a deluxe mediabook, while Alive! At Reading is available as a CD digipack.
And to order other releases in BMG’s series of limited-edition Slade vinyl reissues and deluxe CDs, includingSladest, Slayed?, Old New Borrowed and Blue, Slade in Flame, Slade Alive!,Nobody’s Fools, and The Amazing Kamikaze Syndrome, visit https://slade.lnk.to/OfficialStore. Also available is theAll the World is a Stage 5CD live boxset viahttps://slade.lnk.to/alltheworldPR
Galloway Roots: Folk artist Calum Gilligan, partway through his Autumn 2023 tour
It says something that on my first visit to the Lancashire music venue perhaps furthest from the coast that we were treated to plenty of stirring songs from the sea.
But even the part of my opening paragraph citing the Red Rose county is contentious, this acoustic-based venue in the Pendle Hills slap-bang in the middle of a market town that formed part of the West Riding of Yorkshire until 1974. I know that’s nearly 50 years now, but identity counts.
In this case, the artistes were from far further afield, all associated in their formative years with the Galloway Hills of South-West Scotland, even if the siblings at either end of the bill are these days based in Liverpool (where their close friend joining them was born), all three ensconced in but maybe not exclusive to the contemporary folk scene.
I knew Caitlin’s material best, her exquisite vocal having first made an impression on me some years ago (in fact, there’s an early 2015 feature/interview with her former musical partner Lee Parry on these pages, the pair performing as Finch and the Moon back then, having met as students in Manchester). And all the acts, while happy reinterpreting other artistes’ works or creating their own takes on traditional folk songs, are very much singer-songwriters in their own right.
Caitlin’s opening number, ‘Wild Heather’, set the tone for a quality evening, with the feel of a lost Nick Drake classic there, Zoë later revealing that Calum almost had no support acts, the girls not so long before trapped inside the green room, a little DIY ingenuity required from the opener, so to speak, who next launched into traditional Scottish folk tune ‘Henry Martin’. Or as she put it, a song about ‘what happens when you mess with pirates.’
If you know the location, you’ll already have a vivid picture of this intimate setting, a wonderful relatively compact 60-capacity cellar room festooned with great photographs of a variety of happening performers from the past seven decades or so, in a happening venue where so many big names have played down the years, despite its modest size. And the sound was spot on all night, even if Zoë reckons she heard chants of ‘Shots! Shots! Shots!’ from the Irish bar above us as Caitlin delivered the poignant ‘Woman of the Hills’, the title track of her forthcoming EP, another Galloway-inspired number, carrying something of the spirit of Mike Scott and The Waterboys for me, that and next selection, ‘A Letter to Myself’, baring something of Cailin’s soul, the latter penned while she cat-sat in Wales, apparently.
Wondrous Voice: Caitlin Gilligan, sharing the bill with her brother and close friend Zoe Bestel
Caitlin has a more recent Cornish link too, and when she sings about sailing boats you’re left in no doubt as to her hands-on (deck) knowledge, the next choice of song recorded on a 1930s Scottish herring trawler she was helping restore and lived on, moored in the idyllic Helford estuary.
‘A Whisper of Light’, her 2021 single, is another self-penned number that brings Nick Drake to mind, that wondrous voice so arresting, not least on the lines, ‘I was never much a dancer till I heard your voice; I was never much a writer till I had no choice.’ Meanwhile, next number ‘Fly Me to the Sun’, she revealed, is her oldest song but only newly recorded, destined for the new EP, her interwoven call of the cuckoo somehow complemented by an errant punter’s sneeze late on.
Caitlin swapped guitar for ‘squeezy box’ on a poignant retelling of ‘Our Captain Cried All Hands’, afforded something of a This Mortal Coil feel. And then we had our first taste of Zoë for a finale, their vocal blend giving an added quality to Leonard Cohen’s ‘Suzanne’. Such sweet harmonies. Perfection.
What also worked was the fact (despite that lineage and so much common ground) that all three acts are so different in their deliveries, Zoë – armed solely with trusty baritone ukulele – setting her stall out after an introductory nod to Tim Hardin on ‘If I Were a Carpenter’ (it probably tells you more about my less-folky background that I’ll think of Levi Stubbs’ take on that number first, as I would for Rod Stewart’s version of ‘Reason to Believe’) on the rather deep but surprisingly delicate ‘Porcelain Tapestry’.
She announced, ‘You can’t be a folk singer without some sad love songs’ after that, then gave us a somewhat seasonal ‘Witchy’, before her anti-war statement, ‘Eye for an Eye’, written for another conflict but particularly resonant in the light of (or darkness of) the horrors unfolding in Gaza again.
I’ll not attempt to over-analyse the difference between the voices, but while Zoë’s is seemingly more fragile on first impressions, both opening acts project crystal clear qualities, and with each I’m pleased to say there’s a more off the wall element that possibly goes with Zoë’s self-style ‘nu folk’ label. Actually, with the middle act I hear elements of Mitski too, albeit with less showy performance vibes. Maybe even The Sundays’ Harriet Wheeler. Can’t be sure though.
Ukelele Troubadour: Zoe Bestel, out and about with the Gilligan siblings this autumn
Discussion followed regarding her instrument of choice, a voice out front suggesting she never knew a ukulele could sound so good, a tongue-in-cheek discourse following on how George Formby has proved to be the bane of Zoë’s life while describing her instrument of choice.
A similarly heartfelt and pensive ‘Utopia’ – seek it out online, I implore you – took us back to lockdown days and Zoë’s half-hour’s exercise from a Glasgow tenement block, this Dumfries and Galloway-raised lass feeling somewhat hemmed in, sharing limited outdoor space with all and sundry.
I’ll mention Kate Bush too, another artist that comes to mind here and there, Zoë’s first post-lockdown song, ‘Sad Song’, seeing her guard back down, its rather low-key sentiment (and I’m all for that, by the way) somewhat offset and lightened by an in-key moby phone ringtone from a no doubt embarrassed punter, before she ended with a fine ditty ‘about murderous mermaids’, which led into a gloriously other-worldly melody which apparently had its roots in a now-forgotten Swedish folk song, which for me suggested elements of Paul Giovanni and Magnet’s The Wicker Man soundtrack.
Then along came Calum, our evening’s MC of sorts, and the third performer to weave a little of the magic of the solitude of the Galloway Hills into his set, starting with two numbers from last year’s highly commendable Footsteps on the Broken Road album, which I’ve been listening to in the car ever since. ‘Oh, It Begins’ is arguably something of a Scottish take on ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’ (well, there is a John Denver quality to his vocal at times), but one I identify far more with, while the similarly atmospheric ‘Winds-a-Wailing’ took us back on to those choppy waters surrounding this island.
Trad folk with a Calum spin followed, ‘Flash Company’ setting us up for another ode to Glasgow, in this case his own ‘Otago Fox’, from five-track 2018 EP, Maybe Half a Lifetime, then Norma Watterson’s ‘When I First Came to Caledonia’, Calum swapping guitar for bouzouki now (something he’s clearly got an affinity for, although he sees himself as a novice on that front), as was the case with his (ship) master’s take on traditional seafaring tale, ‘Lowlands of Holland’.
And then Caitlin returned to add brooding, atmospheric harmonium as the siblings gave us ‘Galloway no More’, the pair then harmonising with natural aplomb on Scottish trad folk number ‘The Bothy Lads’ before Zoë joined them, our talented but never showy trio concluding with a Caitlin-led ‘The Factory Girl’. Quite the ending, and I’d happily seek out all three again at the earliest opportunity.
Calum Gilligan’s Autumn tour, remaining dates: ReadiFolk, Reading (Sunday, November 5th); British Music Experience, Liverpool, with Robin Adams (Thursday, November 11th); Corn Exchange, Faringdon, Oxfordshire, with Katie Grace Harris (Friday, November 17th); Live Rooms, Chester, supporting Tankus the Henge (Saturday, November 18th); Bothy Folk Club, Southport (Sunday, November 26th); St George’s Bristol (Friday, December 1st). For more about Calum, his live dates and releases, head here.
For live shows, releases and all the latest from Zoë Bestel, head here. And for more information on Caitlin Gilligan, including her forthcoming shows and releases, visit her website here.
Oh Please Academy: The Undertones in live action in Manchester. Photo: Kevin Mottram
You may well know how it is – weekend traffic on a second trip into Manchester in four nights taking its toll. For Haircut One Hundred on Wednesday, we let the train take the strain, but there’s always that worry about cancellations on a creaking network, Government underfunding truly telling. Besides, I had a willing driving team on this occasion, saving that last-minute schlep up Oxford Road to get to the venue.
We hadn’t planned on dodgy temporary traffic lights though, and then there was the moment we saw the huge queue and wondered when we’d get in. Thankfully it was Ellie Goulding doing the family entertainment there. We were next door, getting in just in time for the majority of Neville Staple’s nothing less than celebratory ska party, his 16-legged groove machine perfectly setting the scene for an end of tour happening. I’d have loved to catch The Rezillos – 45 years after their initial dates with The Undertones – or the Tom Robinson Band, also putting in special guest showings on this nine-date tour, but no one was short changed.
They’d set out on ‘The Lunatics (Have Taken Over the Asylum)’ – co-written with Lynval Golding and the much-missed Terry Hall – as we entered the Academy 2, and it all seemed rather apt… as relevant today as when first aired by the Fun Boy Three late in ’81, the year of Positive Touch and my first ‘Tones sighting, aged 13. Roddy Byers’ ‘Concrete Jungle’ also sounded on-trend as the Original Rudeboy and his Rudegirl, Sugary, strutted their stuff to the mighty accompaniment of brass, bass, guitar, keyboards and drums.
My favourite moments were blistering takes on Toots and the Maytals’ ‘Monkey Man’ and The Pioneers’ ‘Long Shot Kick de Bucket’. The sound was a bit lost where we were for ‘Ghost Town’, but both that and ever-wondrous Specials debut LP opener ‘A Message to You, Rudy’ took me right back, before a nostalgic foray into Symarip’s ‘Skinhead Moonstomp’ saw them out in style. A little bit of Cov come to Cottonopolis. Carry on, Nev, 68 years young. We still need you to brighten our nights.
As per the same pairing’s appearance up the other end of Oxford Road at the Ritz in May 2019 (with my review here), this was an inspired choice of bill, and as per then there was to be a reappearance for two of the band, but I’ll get on to that. There’s not much I can write about The Undertones live that I haven’t before, yet from the moment those first chords rung out I was transported and totally invested, and in this instance ‘Emergency Cases’ launched us into a memorable night, side B track two of the ‘Teenage Kicks’ EP that first grabbed the attention this time in 1978 there in all its glory, followed in this instance by ‘Family Entertainment’, always such a blast, before true contender for best single ever, ‘You Got My Number (Why Don’t You Use It!)’. They could have played country takes on the third and fourth LP’s numbers then ended with those three numbers, and I’d have been more than happy. But no, there were still – I reckon – 30 stonking more songs to follow, and everyone a Maserati, as Monty Python’s Graham Chapman’s bus conductor put it.
‘The Love Parade’ remains as fresh as in 1982. In fact, better live. I just wish I still had that original t-shirt of the cover. ‘Jimmy Jimmy’ never fails to get a venue moving, ‘Tearproof’ has so many great lines, and ‘Thrill Me’ is somehow now 20 years young and also remains just as sharp.
Rude Health: Mickey Bradley with Neville Staple and Original Rude Boy: From Borstal to The Specials
Then Neville’s brass boys added sax and trombone to ‘It’s Going to Happen’, 42 years after I first heard that given added blow at Guildford Civic Hall on my first of at least 18 Undertones shows (which pales in comparison to the 120 one punter down the front has got to, Paul McLoone suggesting that’s more than the band have actually played). Also from that third LP there was ’Crisis of Mine’, never sounding better to these ears (still ringing as I write this – I think that’s the loudest I’ve heard the band in many moons).
Marking the main celebratory aspect of the night, they then whipped through the other three tracks from that iconic debut extended play, ‘Teenage Kicks’, ‘True Confessions’ and ‘Smarter Than You’. Unconfined joy. We then sprang forward 29 years to John O’Neill’s title track of most recent studio LP, ‘Dig Yourself Deep’, ‘Nine Times out of Ten’ following in all its glam rock wonder before Get What You Need’s ‘Oh Please’, one of Mickey Bradley’s finest moments. And we were still only halfway through as ‘I Gotta Getta’ gave rise to ‘Girls That Don’t Talk’ and inspirational punk rock classic ‘Male Model’.
Seeing as we were in Manchester, ‘Here Comes the Rain’ was a given (it was actually dry until we made our way back to the car at chucking out, chucking down time), which neatly exists alongside ‘Here Comes the Summer’ in these days of climate emergency. A heartfelt tribute followed to one of Manchester’s favourite sons (and of course Ashington, England, and the world’s), the peerless Bobby Charlton, whose (flawless) passing was announced that afternoon, aged 86, adding a poignant element to ‘When Saturday Comes’, that respectful nod followed not long after by Damian O’Neill lauding the talented Blackpool-born, Hyde-based cartoonist Tony Husband, set to be there that night but having checked out this week, rather suddenly at the age of 73. So sad.
The show goes on, of course. It’s how they roll, and we had ‘Girls Don’t Like It’ and ‘(She’s a) Runaround’ before a gear change with John’s beyond reproach moments of reflective genius, ‘Julie Ocean’ and ‘Wednesday Week’. And from there, ‘Listening In’ and ‘Get Over You’ took us to a much-needed breather, two more classic nuggets of punk rock gold.
Those who have caught this band this past quarter-century will know and cherish the easy conversation between Mickey and Paul (with occasional bouts of giggling from the latter), with this occasion no exception, my favourite between-songs moment when Damian went down to sort out a guitar malfunction and Mickey suggested he’d dropped 50p, a deadpan mention of how he’d dropped his own plectrum earlier following, with John, to his right, remaining tight-lipped (I know, That Petrol Emotion fans, that was a Ciaran McLaughlin song), concentrating on getting through the next few songs before he could finally relax. As for Billy Doherty, it was a similar story, saving his own one-liners for those wonderful drum patterns, and probably ready to rail against some messed-up line or other that most of were either oblivious to or just not bothered by.
When they returned, ‘Hypnotised’, ‘I Know a Girl’ and ‘Jump Boys’ put the tin hat on it all. Come to think of it, Mickey suggested, amidst inevitable shouted requests, they were actually going through in alphabetical order. Either way, we got ‘Mars Bars’ too at some stage (I can’t recall when), ‘There Goes Norman’ and ‘My Perfect Cousin’ providing the last hurrahs on another wondrous night with Derry’s Finest. And I loved every single minute… but you probably guessed that.
For this website’s recent feature/interview with Billy Doherty, and links back to past Undertones-related interviews, features and live reviews, head here. And for this website’s March 2019 feature/interview with Neville Staple, head here.For the latest from The Undertones, try here. And for the latest from Neville Staple, try here.
‘Then you suddenly smiled, you took me by surprise.’
There were miles of smiles on the sprung dancefloor of the Ritz on Whitworth Street West, Manchester, when Haircut One Hundred came to town on Wednesday night, these early ‘80s pop-funk and soul masters peeling back the years for a cracking set built around wondrous early ’82 bestselling debut LP Pelican West, with a few added surprises and two new songs thrown in.
A note of commendation before I get stuck in for dynamic five-piece pop support act Barbara, built around Henry and John Tydeman, the latter’s Harry Styles meets Mika demeanour and the Brighton brothers’ tank tops perhaps a nod to what was to come. The name suggests they’ve lived next door to me at some point since the mid-90s, but that’s not the actual case. Musically, they were spot on, with plenty of pop craft, professionalism (I suspect one of those rock schools was involved) and, well, let’s face it, confidence, reminding me somewhat of The Feeling, and heard recently on Mortimer and Whitehouse: Gone Fishing, no less. Check them out. I reckon they’ll go far.
And then, exactly 42 years beyond their own first memorable single, ‘Favourite Shirts (Boy Meets Girl)’, Nick Heyward (lead vocals, guitar), Graham Jones (guitar) and Les Nemes (bass) were on top form throughout, a recent health episode for drummer Blair Cunningham ruling him out, but with deputising drummer, Andy Treacey, and percussionist, Sian Monaghan, both fantastic, as were brass trio, Gareth Lumbers (sax), Sam Ewens (trumpet) and Dave Horden (trombone). ‘Bring on the trumpet brigade,’ indeed.
Yes, we missed Blair, but three of his former bandmates did him and the band proud. Nick and Graham did a lot of the talking and seemed to love every minute. As for Les, he told us early on, ‘I know I look miserable, but I’m just concentrating,’ suggesting he was having a grand old time on the inside. And there was no doubting that either.
There was also the band’s take on Nick’s ‘Blue Hat for a Blue Day’, a sign of maybe what could have been if the Haircuts’ union lasted a little longer (for the record, I love the main man’s North of a Miracle, and also have a soft spot for Paint and Paint, the Nick-less Haircuts’ follow-up record, so I’m well and truly happy sat upon that fence). As for those new songs, Graham told me, ‘The Unloving Plum’ was the pop and ‘Soul Bird’ the funky one.’ And I enjoyed them both, the former having hit written all over it for this punter, in a Lightning Seeds-like way.
Talking of pop, Nick had the presence of mind to see the quality in Harry Styles’ ‘As It Was’, the hit song the band covered for Ken Bruce’s BBC Radio 2 Piano Room show at Maida Vale in February, here an integral, inspired part of the encore.
Other moments of note? Well, just nine nights after the tour kicked off at Limelight in Belfast (followed by shows in Dublin, Newcastle and Edinburgh) they didn’t put a foot wrong all night, far as I was concerned, and ‘Nobody’s Fool’, not my favourite Haircuts’ single, sounded far better live than I remembered it. But I guess most of the smiles in my case came as a result of the aired album tracks I hoped would be in there… and didn’t disappoint. Step up scene-setting opener ‘Baked Beans’ and the glorious ‘Milk Film’, the latter bringing to mind, as Nick concurred, countryside summer drives in a Triumph Herald… and what’s not to love there.
‘Glad that I live am I, glad that the sky is blue. Glad for the country lanes, glad for the fall of dew.’
Then there was ‘Snow Girl’, ‘Lemon Fire Brigade’, ‘Love’s Got Me in Triangles’, ‘Kingsize (You’re My Little Steam Whistle)’, and two tracks apparently previously never played live, ‘Marine Boy’ and the track quoted at the top of this review, ‘Surprise Me Again’, which summed it all up so well. What glorious fare. I and many more were in their element.
As for those wondrous big hits, I was surprised how fresh ‘Love Plus One’ – arguably the song I’ve heard too much on the radio down the years – sounded. The same goes for ‘Fantastic Day’, which proved such a blast of unadulterated, celebratory joy, with rousing singalongs and huge smiles to the fore, aft and wherever you looked and listened. And while I’m not a big one for repeated live tracks, the night’s second outing for ‘Favourite Shirts (Boy Meets Girl)’ – a 12″ take that went, as Nick promised, ‘like the clappers’ – worked wonderfully.
Just one notable omission, far as I could tell, and I was reminded of that as my fellow attendee and I struggled back across the road through rainy, blustery Babet-powered storm swirls to nearby Oxford Road station – ‘Calling Captain Autumn’. However, I gather, ‘the opening has Blair’s signature drum intro, which is hard to emulate! So it’s his…’ And I can’t argue with that either.
These boys certainly crafted classic pop songs and added a soulful quality that was so of its time, but one that certainly stands that longevity test too. All power to their collective guitar-chugging elbows. There are lots more dates to come, and I can’t recommend a better soulful pop-tinged night out right now. This was instant nostalgia, but so much more than that.
All live shots courtesy/copyright of Rob Kerford at Sonic PR.
To gaze back at this website’s December 2022 feature./interview with Haircut One Hundred’s Graham Jones, head here. And for a WriteWyattUK feature/interview starring Nick Heyward, from July 2017, head here.
For all the latest from Haircut 100, head here. And for more about Barbara, try this link.
Paul Cookson was at home in Nottinghamshire when I called his number on the lead-up to the publication of Wild! Wild! Wild! A People’s History of Slade, taking a breather between back-to-back school visits and social engagements, planning his next Pies, Peas and Performances event.
This Lancashire-born poet and performer, based in Retford ‘with his wife, two children, a dog and several ukuleles’, has visited thousands of schools since 1989, performing to hundreds of thousands of pupils and staff. And he was certainly on fine form when we swapped notes, discussing our mutual love of the Black Country’s Finest, football, pies, peas, performances, poetry, and much more.
Gaze at his impressive CV and you’ll see he’s also featured as poet in residence at the National Football Museum and Literacy Time Plus magazine, was the poet for the Everton Collection at Liverpool Library, a poetry ambassador for United Learning, and remains Slade’s poet laureate. and yes, you read that last bit right.
Down the years, he’s also stood in for John Cooper Clarke (who said of Paul, ‘if it’s laughter you’re after, you could do worse’) at Sheffield’s Off the Shelf Festival, and for Andrew Motion at Warwick University Arts Centre with the European Chamber Orchestra.
And among Paul’s poems, chances are that you may recall ‘Let no-one steal your dreams’, latterly adopted by numerous schools for mission statements, school mottos and leavers’ poem, my interviewee having amassed vast experience leading workshops with all age groups and abilities. In fact, as I was updating this interview, he’d just spent a week in schools in Eccles, Greater Manchester, working alongside illustrator/author Liz Million.
His work has taken him all over the world, including visits to Argentina, China, Malaysia, Singapore and Uganda as well as mainland Europe. He’s also appeared on the BBC’s Match of the Day, Radio 5 Live, Radio 2, World Service and CBBC, as well as Sky Sports and Talksport Radio, and in his beloved Everton FC’s matchday programme. And as part of the National Year of Reading, he was nominated as a National Reading Hero, receiving his award at No.10 Downing Street.
For his National Football Museum role, Paul wrote a set of commemorative poems for England’s 1966 World Cup winning team, going on to meet six of that legendary squad to present his works. As for his club affiliations, he’s written poems celebrating a variety of his Everton heroes – including Brian Labone (read by teammate Ian Callaghan at his funeral), Dixie Dean, Howard Kendall, Neville Southall, Alex Young, Joe Royle (who returned the compliment with the words, ‘Paul Cookson is my favourite poet’) and Graeme Sharp – and performed them at official events, with Duncan McKenzie using one in his autobiography.
But how did that National Football Museum post – going back to its days at the home of Preston North End FC – initially come along for Paul (seen above with his copy of the author’s Wild! Wild! Wild! A People’s History of Slade), brought up just eight miles south-west of Deepdale in the village setting of Walmer Bridge?
“Years ago, I did a book of football poems for Macmillan, and visiting the museum I asked if I could do a free book launch. They said yes, and education officer, Peter Evans – now retired, an ex-teacher – said he’d book me and pay me next time. I said, ‘Do you want to make it a regular thing?’ And it carried on when it moved to Manchester. I’m not used quite so extensively, but I’m still involved.”
That book Paul mentions was Give Us a Goal, sharing its name with a 1978 Slade single. Not their best song, but one that certainly sticks in my memory, not least its accompanying promo video, shot at Brighton and Hove Albion’s former Goldstone Ground home.
So how about that prestigious ‘poet laureate for Slade’ role for Paul, born in 1961 – was he a fan from an impressionable age?
“Yeah, I was aware of ‘Gudbuy t’ Jane’ and ‘Mama Weer All Crazee Now’, but at 12, I was just interested in football. In fact, the first Top of the Pops I watched was in 1970, when England were at No.1 with ‘Back Home’… and I hated it because they were on last – I didn’t want to watch the other stuff!
“I was there with my dad, we got the tape recorder out so we could record it, and I didn’t realise – with the microphone pointing at the screen – it would pick up everything else. When we listened back, they’re singing and I’m saying, ‘There’s Nobby… Bobby Charlton… Martin Peters… Bobby Moore…,’ so I had my own commentary on it as well.
“It was ’73 when I got into music, really. ‘Cum on Feel the Noize’ was the first song I liked… from the first band I liked.”
These days, Paul also features alongside good friend Les Glover, from not so far off Warrington, in Don Powell’s Occasional Flames, the pair having appeared on stage before the Slade drummer joined bandmate Jim Lea at a spoken word event at Wolverhampton Art Gallery last year.
In fact, as I was going to press, I was reminded that they’re about to bring out a new 12-track Christmas record, Never Mind the Baubles, 50 years after the release of another festive ditty you may recall… one Don refers to merely as ’that song’ these days.
But we didn’t get on to that. With good reason. Much of this interview came together in March, when I was writing, researching and editing Wild! Wild! Wild! A People’s History of Slade, for Spenwood Books, for which Paul made some cracking contributions, part of which is featured here.
Back to Wolverhampton Art Gallery, though.
“We did a poem with spoken verses and a sung chorus before they came on stage. Les is the same age, so we grew up watching Slade… then suddenly we’re supporting half of them! Don’s got loads of projects on, including his Danish band, Don and the Dreamers, and the Don Powell Band, with Steve Whalley now involved, the singer for a while in Slade II.”
For the few of you that didn’t know, Slade II was Dave Hill and Don Powell’s live band after the classic four-piece split in 1992, later rebranded simply as Slade, Steve Whalley involved until 2005 and Don until 2020.
“I only saw them once in those years, but it was great seeing Don drumming again. And Steve’s got a good voice. But if Noddy ain’t singing… err…
“But have you seen Slady, the all-female tribute band? They’re brilliant! Great musicians, and Danie – or Gobby Holder, as she likes to be called – has a real presence about her… and a little menace as well! There’s an element of sexism with Slade, of course… but not with her around.”
Paul also wrote a poem for Jim Lea’s legendary show leading a three-piece band at The Robin 2 in Bilston, in deepest Slade country, in 2002, performing it on stage as part of the warm-up.
And then he adds…
“I was also the last person to introduce them on stage. Me and a guy called Phil Gaston. There was a Slade convention for the 25th anniversary at Walsall Town Hall in 1991, and we shared compere duties. They came on, borrowing instruments, and did ‘Johnny B. Goode’. That was the last time they ever played together.”
Double Act: Paul Cookson in Eccles, Greater Manchester, working alongside illustrator/author Liz Million
That must have been an honour for a childhood fan, thinking back to those seminal Top of the Pops appearances.
“Yes, and being in Walmer Bridge, growing up … when you’re 12 or 13 and from a Methodist church family, none of us took the bus into town to gigs until we were 16 or 17. We’d be playing football and stuff like that. So the only time we were aware of them was on Top of the Pops, or Crackerjack, or Runaround, or Supersonic, or Lift Off with Ayshea. Or as guests on The Bay City Rollers’ show, with the Arrows, or whatever. Because there was nothing on telly, you’d watch every music programme.
“The thing is, people today think we all dressed like them on Top of the Pops, but we were in browns and yellows. You couldn’t afford the clothing. I had a brown tank top with four stripes, which I thought was very glam, but I looked more like a liquorice allsort… and the fat one that you don’t like eating!”
Paul had to wait a little longer before he could catch Slade alive… in 1979.
“I saw them at a big disco place at Liverpool. Oscar’s. The stage wasn’t even 3ft high. A glitterball disco. They hadn’t yet come back into fashion. ‘We’ll Bring the House Down’ hadn’t come out, and they hadn’t done Reading {Festival}, but some of those songs they played at Reading [August 1980} they played that night, and there were loads of skinheads there, because they always had that following. The girl I was with had this handbag and they were sat around it, so I was a bit nervous, but then they were real gentlemen and said, ‘Here y’are, love!’ and handed it back.
“I remember them playing ‘Wheels Ain’t Coming Down’. There was loads of dry ice, then they suddenly stopped, as there were two skinheads knocking seven bells out of each other. Noddy said, ‘Will you effin’ stop your effin’ fighting! We’re have to have effin’ fun, for eff’s sake!’ So these two guys stopped, and he said, ‘Right, we’ll effin’ carry on! One-two-three …’ Ha!
”That was my first time. I was at college at Edge Hill in Ormskirk, and they played Liverpool once or twice over the next couple of years. And I once missed Noddy going into a record shop in Ormskirk, when that EP, ‘Six of the Best’ came out {1980}.
“I remember walking into Ormskirk, and on the way back I looked in the record shop, having gone a different way into town, and it said, ‘Noddy Holder,’ written on cardboard, ‘appearing at 10 o’clock today.’ And it was 12 o’clock, and he’d gone!
“I thought that might be my last chance, but I’ve met him several times since… most recently with a marrow!”
Well, I couldn’t not ask him more about that, could I?
“Matt and Dave from Preston band The Hellfire Preachers do a Beatles show, and {Noddy’s wife) Suzan did a show with us last year to publicise her Beatles book, Matt and Dave doing a show afterwards. She did her piece, then we had the pies, then it was their show, and it was great fun. Then she emailed me, said, ‘That was one of the nicest audiences, will you have us back?’ So we crowbarred that in, being late notice during half term. Hallowe’en, I think.
“When she came back, she came to set up and said, ‘Hiya Paul, hope it’s okay, I’ve brought a friend with me.’ And Nod walks in, says, ‘Hello, my man, how’re you doing?’ It was brilliant, and she was on great form. We had an American singer-songwriter, Brooks Williams, a blues guitarist, giving us the history of rock ’n’ roll, from Appalachian blues and so on, him and Nod talking backstage in this church hall about Big Mama Thornton and so on, bonding over that.
“We’d had a church fair that day and had two marrows among the prizes. So I’ve a photo of me and Noddy Holder, him holding a marrow! I also had my ukulele, so when someone said about having a photo with Noddy and the marrow, I said that sounded like a George Formby song, started playing the ukulele, and he started referencing the marrow. So yes, I’ve got a seven-second clip of me and Noddy duetting, me on ukulele and him holding a marrow, giggling!”
Regular social media visitors may have spotted Paul’s daily poems on Facebook, and the day after, he ‘wrote a George Formby-esque song’ called ‘Hello, Mrs Holder, have you seen me marrow?’
“That was then performed by Henry Priestman from The Christians, Les Glover and me at Pies and Peas. It was through Henry that I got to know Les. There’s another Slade connection that goes back even further. I know Miles Hunt, and his then-partner, Erica {Nockalls}, a violin player, is from a little place called Roote in Doncaster. They did a couple of gigs at the village hall there, one of which we had a Pies and Peas do in the pub afterwards, walking there from the hall.
“Miles of course is a big Slade fan and was very impressed that I knew the reference of ‘Size of a Cow’ related to the Arabian Nights from Banana Splits. His brother Russ was also there, another big Slade fan, their uncle, Bill Hunt, having been in Wizzard. And you’ll have to ask Miles this, but apparently Dave Hill once asked him to be the lead singer of Slade.
“His brother, Russ knew I played ukulele, and he knows Henry, sending me a clip of Henry playing ukulele in a school. So Henry and I messaged each other, started talking, and met at a Miles Hunt gig in Liverpool. I gave him a lift home, we kept in touch, and ended up working in a school in Hull, where he’s from. In fact, the other guy involved was Stan Cullimore, from The Housemartins. I’ve known him for years, and there’s a school in Hull that had the three of us in – a poet and two ex-pop stars! Great fun. And it was through Henry that I met Les, who started coming to Pies and Peas.”
Holder Tune: No marrow on this occasion for Paul Cookson. Not yet, Noddy
As for the Don Powell connection…
“I emailed Don, said, ‘Would you come over?’ He did, and it was like This is Your Life. There were 130 people there, and he told lots of stories. Les did a couple of songs, and Don said, ‘Look, lads, that was really enjoyable, can I come back and do another one?’ So about a year later he came back. In the meantime, me and Les had written a couple of nostalgic ‘70s-based songs that referred to Slade, and we said, ‘If we record these, will you drum on them?’ We were thinking he’d say, ’Thanks for asking, lads, but it’s alright,’ but instead he said, ‘Of course I will!’
“He came over the day before my daughter went to university… so I was in trouble for that! We had two songs and borrowed a drum kit in this little studio, the size of a kitchen in Retford, played through them twice, and he nailed them straight away. It was midday, and he said, ‘Anything else?’ Les said, ‘We’ve got a couple of demos,’ and he said, ‘Well, let’s do them!’
“By about three o’clock, I said, ‘Bloody hell, that’s half an album … shall we do an album?’ Whereas the second one, the session for ‘Just My Cup of Tea’ was more fully formed, and Don wrote some of the lyrics. Before Noddy started writing lyrics, he wrote loads.”
He certainly did, some great ones too.
“We actually did a booklet of his lyrics for the first event, and I think he only uses the word ‘baby’ once…”
As opposed to three times at the start of Nod and Jim’s ‘Skweeze Me, Pleeze Me’.
“They’re not very rock ’n’ roll, or at least they’re not obvious rock ‘n’ roll lyrics. Anyway, he sent me this file over, and I thought they’d be verses and chorus style, but it was probably a hundred sheets of paper, some with phone numbers on, some with three lines on, and I just sat at my big dining room table, got them all out and started putting them all together, two or three songs coming together. There was one, ‘Rhythm of the Road’, about being on tour, but there were others I put together from different pieces, and added a few other bits.”
This is after all a poet who rewrote ‘Merry Xmas Everybody’ for a Christmas book, under the pseudonym Neville Ambrose Xavier, including the line, ‘May sleigh daydreams be filled with hope, it’s Christmas.’
Yob Culture: Occasional Flame Paul Cookson, waiting for Don, with strings attached
My introduction to Paul came from friends of this website The Amber List, their frontman, Mick Shepherd, having known the Lancashire born and bred poet and performer from past school visits, the pair bonding over music and football, going on to write songs together, Mick’s band appearing at Paul’s social events.
As a published poet with more than 60 titles for adults and children, Paul’s sold more than three-quarters of a million books (bestseller The Works shifting 200,000-plus copies alone), his poems appearing in more than 200 other publications. And he’s in many more as an editor.
Among the broadcasters and peers that have sung his praises are Simon Mayo (‘Everyday should have a Paul Cookson moment – keep him by your bedside for emergencies’), Mike Harding (‘Paul manages to capture that misty world of childhood in a way that nobody has succeeded yet and walks us through that door and into that garden many of us had forgotten’), Ian McMillan (‘Simple, direct and poetic. Caring, compassionate and funny’), and Mark Radcliffe (‘Wordsmithery of the highest order and wittiest bent’).
It’s not all about the big names, though, and on his website, Paul mentions Tarleton High School teacher, Mrs Graham, among his inspirations. And it turns out she’s not the only one who saw his talent early.
“I remember her lessons at secondary school being enjoyable, including writing stories. My mates had competitions to see who could write the longest or goriest.
“Also, I went to Little Hoole Primary School, Walmer Bridge, when they found out I was an ex-pupil, and was there for two days. At the end of the first day, I got an email saying, ‘Are you the Paul that was in my class in 1970?’ It was from my teacher, Mrs. Burton. She came in the next day, and we’re friends on Facebook now.
“She’ll go on my page, saying, ‘Great poem, Paul, I’m really proud of you.’ And I’m thinking, ‘I’m 61 and still getting marks off the teacher!’ She also sent me a poem I wrote when I was 10, from a scrapbook she kept of pupils’ work.”
From Walmer Bridge and Tarleton, Paul went on to Hutton Grammar School, where sixth-form concerts made an impression.
“Monty Python sketches and daft stuff. The first time I performed. I remember doing a poem about our deputy head, who would use words like ‘convivial’, the first time I got laughs with a poem. He was big on geography and geology. I remember the first line, ‘I wandered lonely as a cloud, cumulonimbus to be exact.’
Write Here: Paul Cookson, all set to sign your copy of this WriteWyattUK interview
From there, he studied for a social sciences degree at Edge Hill, planning to become a social worker. But then…
“Two weeks before I was due to leave, with a place to do a Certificate of Qualification in Social Work in Manchester, deferred for a year, I was asked, ‘Have you thought about teaching? I think you’d be rather good at it.”
Accordingly, he switched directions, his PGCE course seeing him stay on two more years, teaching ultimately leading to performance poetry and getting published, his latest works a two-parter, The Man Who Launched a Thousand Poems, out earlier this year.
The father of two had just had delivery of volume one when we spoke, volume two appearing soon after, a joint launch following at the end of April at St Saviour’s Community Centre in his adopted hometown of Retford, where he also launched I’ll Be Bernie, You Be Elton, Volumes 1 and 2, a double-CD of songs co-written with a host of names, including the aforementioned Don Powell, Miles Hunt, Henry Priestman, Les Glover, Stan Cullimore, Brooks Williams, and Mick Shepherd, the launch night featuring Les, Mick’s band, The Amber List, and fellow contributors Helen Turner, Darren Poyzer, and Sam Hill.
And why did he eave Lancashire for Nottinghamshire? Was it down to romance?
“Someone gave me a teaching job, so it was finance, not romance! Ha! When I was applying for jobs, I still had a girlfriend in the North-West. This was the only place I applied to outside the North-West, and they gave me the job. And for what I do now, in terms of travelling around different schools, within a couple of hours you’re in most areas of the country.”
Paul Cookson is among 300-plus contributors to Wild! Wild! Wild! A People’s History of Slade (Spenwood Books, 2023), available now from the publisher via this link, and also from Amazon, your local bookseller, and also via your local library.
Paul is set to visit The Venue, Penwortham, Lancashire this Friday, October 13th (7pm), joining forces with close friend and fellow bestselling poet Stewart Henderson for Broadly Speaking. He’s then set to return to the same location on Saturday, October 28th, hosting an event featuring aforementioned author Suzan Holder and recent Slade Fans Convention attendees, The Hellfire Preachers. For ticket details and information regarding both shows and others, not least Paul’s Pies, Peas and Performances, head to his Facebook page via this link.
For more about Paul, his many publications, and further details of I’ll Be Bernie, You Be Elton, head here.And for details of how to track down Don Powell’s Occasional Flames’ Never Mind the Baubles LP, head here.
Friendly Fire: Gobby Holder, in like a shot from my gun with her copy of Wild! Wild! Wild!
The majority of this interview came together as I threw myself deeper and deeper into writing, researching and editing Wild! Wild! Wild! A People’s History of Slade. And while this scribe rarely warms to covers and tribute bands (although there are exceptions), I felt the need to help spread the word about an inspired twist on that often rather tired notion – an all-female take on Slade, one clearly blessed with talent and creativity. Besides, as lead singer Danie Cox, aka Gobby Holder, told Adam Smith, for the Shropshire Star in 2022, ‘We are the female Slade, not a tribute act.’
First, a little background, London-based South Wales singer-songwriter Danie inspired to get the band together after catching Dave Hill’s Slade live at a festival in 2019. Danie, who cut her performing teeth out front with glam and punk outfit The Featherz, told the aforementioned Adam Smith, “I phoned my friend, Jem and asked if she’d give it a go, but I didn’t think it would be any more than playing ‘Cum on Feel the Noize’ down the pub. But after our first gig and social media, the demand for us was insane. There is so much love for Slade, it is unbelievable.”
From humble beginnings, Slady soon came into their own, the band going on to meet and get to know all four members of the original band and play the Slade fan convention in Wolverhampton en route, the band managed by Dave Kemp – the man credited with keeping Slade alive by restarting the fan club back in the late ‘70s wilderness years – in those early days, up until he passed away in early December 2020. This year alone, their recent itinerary including a rousing full-band appearance at Blackpool’s Rebellion Festival, and – last weekend – an acoustic set from the pared-down version of the band at Slade’s old Black Country local, The Trumpet in Bilston, a fundraiser to help keep the place running after a recent burglary.
Much of the interview that follows found its way into the book, but there’s more besides, and I felt it deserved its own space. As it’s a three-way affair, so to speak, I’ve marked it as such, the questions and responses marked up accordingly between myself (MW), Danie (DC), and Wendy Solomon, aka Jem Lea (WS). And now I’m done with the pre-amble, other than to say the words came together in late April, and there’s a brief update at the end from last weekend, followed by ticket links for Sunday’s 7pm headline appearance by Slady at a special event – with tickets FREE and more details here – at the Boogaloo on Archway Road, Highgate, an official London launch for Wild! Wild! Wild! A People’s History of Slade. If you can make it, we’d love to see you. Be there… be Nobody’s Fools.
MW: You’re clearly far, far away too young to have caught Slade alive in all their pomp. Let’s face it, I count myself very lucky that I saw them at the tender age of 15 (Hammersmith Odeon, Xmas ’82). What were your first memories of Slade? Was it ‘that record’, as Don would say? And was it on the radio, the telly, or played at home? Were your folks Slade fans?
DC: ‘My first memories of Slade were when I was a kid and trying to count how many choruses of ‘that song’ till the ‘IT’S CHRISTMAAAASSSSSS!’ part, just so I could perfect it. It wasn’t until I was about 14 and watching TOTP2 on BBC 2 back in the mid-2000s that I saw them doing ‘Cum on Feel the Noize’, just when I was getting into Bowie, and Alice Cooper, and Buzzcocks. And I just loved that sexy rugged rock ‘n’ roll, almost punky approach to glam, where it wasn’t about make-up but about dressing like farmer clowns, and metallic nuns, and screaming about having a good time.’
WS: ‘Same for me really! I think the Xmas song is kind of so ingrained into popular culture that it is almost impossible to grow up in this country and not be aware of Noddy Holder and Slade. It wasn’t until much later that I even realised they were a serious band! I think that is the real double-edged sword of a hit like that – young people still very much have those misconceptions about Slade. Being a child of the late Eighties I kind of missed the gritty rock ‘n’ roll years and only caught the tail end with the big hair and studded belts! My folks were definitely not into hard rock ‘n’ roll, they were more Sixties kids into The Beatles and Peter, Paul and Mary! I was very much into post-punk stuff like Buzzcocks and The Undertones. It’s been a pleasure getting to know them though, for sure! I just wish it had been sooner.’
Slady Alive: Jem Lea, Gobby Holder, Donna Powell and Davina Hill give it their all in concert
MW: I’m not a fan of tribute bands (there, I’ve said it) – too many venues offer little but that option these days – but I make a few exceptions … first having caught Bjorn Again way back (25 years ago next month, it turns out), enjoying first and foremost the comedy value of the bitching couples in the band between songs; having since been intrigued enough to catch Clash tribute act London Calling; and interviewing a member of The Bootleg Beatles (although I like to tell people The Beatles were actually a tribute act that ripped off The Rutles). But I love what I’ve heard of Slady, not least your spin on (occasionally) rather ‘of their time’ lyrics from a different era (e.g. your subtle rewording in ‘Skweeze Me, Pleeze Me’). Was that foremost in your mind when you came up with the concept, and why did you think this idea might work (because it clearly does)?
DC: ‘‘Skweeze Me, Pleeze Me’ is a great song and Slade hardly ever played it live, so we make sure we play it every set in its full glory, without glorifying a right to rape really. The lyrics were meant to be funny, I guess, but they’re not the greatest from Nod and Jim. I can’t sing, ‘And I thought you might like to know, when a girl’s meaning, ‘Yes’, she says, ‘No’.’ That’s just gross.’
WS: ‘I agree. It’s all too easy to just say, ‘Well, it’s of its time’ and let it go, but it’s definitely not something we could shrug off. In terms of being a tribute, we like to think we are more than just a copycat band. We are 100% authentic but we also have our own personalities and banter, which comes through in our stage shows. I like to think we keep the passion of the music but rather than just going through the motions and trying to replicate something, we have our own identities stamped firmly on it, with big ‘ol bovver boots. We are a band in our own right who play Slade songs, rather than just a tribute – if you know what I mean!
‘It was Danie that came up with the idea and approached me. Being less clued up about Slade, I agreed, not really knowing what I was letting myself in for in terms of learning the Jim Lea basslines! It was a bit of fun initially, but we quickly realised that people loved the concept and really got behind us, which encouraged us to go further with it. We were lucky enough to get a good response from the majority of long-term Slade fans, with only very minor hostility from the ones who felt threatened or lacked imagination, so it felt like a stamp of approval.’
MW: Did your love and understanding of the original band grow as a result of your Slady experience? Did you truly appreciate the Holder/Lea partnership before? They were clearly great performers, but there’s plenty of songwriting genius there too.
DC: ‘I think, since learning the songs, I can really appreciate that despite how simple the chords are, they are structured together so differently and have their own style. It’s really cool and also so much fun to learn.’
WS: ‘Again, I agree. I had no idea of the total genius of Jim Lea. The diversity within the material is astounding too, from pure sweaty headbangers to melodic and tender love songs with a bit of cabaret sprinkled on top. It’s been a challenge, but I have loved every minute.’
Nobody’s Foal: Jem and Gobby in full flow at The Trumpet, Bilston, with David Woodcock a little horse
MW: If my sources are right, you’ve been at this for five years now. I’ve heard positive words from Don, and endorsements from Nod’s Suzan. Have you had a chance to speak to all the band, and if so, what have they told you?
DC: ‘Yes, met and spoke to them all. Noddy said it’s just like looking in the mirror! Dave Hill has told us some songs we should throw into our set. Don Powell is a good friend, and Jim Lea and his brother, Frank stay in touch. I was honoured to be asked to perform at Don and Jim’s Q&A at Wolverhampton Art Gallery in August 2022. That was a memory I will always cherish.’
MW: What else would you class as your highlights along that five-year journey?
DC: ‘Meeting Noddy Holder outside Pret a Manger in Soho in 2021, dressed as his female counterpart, when he was promoting a Xmas sandwich in July, talking to him. He gave me a sandwich and I couldn’t eat it cos I’m Vegan, but I have it framed on my mantlepiece, like an award. It’s a bit mouldy now!’
WS: ‘Being at that Q&A and watching Danie perform was a really proud moment. Spoiling it all with my kazoo playing is something that will always make me laugh! Chatting with Don and Jim in the green room afterwards and literally horsing around down the pub later with Don. There are too many brilliant gigs to name really, every one of them memorable! Supporting The Rezillos was a great experience, as I am a bit of a fan of theirs. Playing Blackpool’s Empress Ballroom at Rebellion this year too is total ‘bucket list’ stuff. There are just so many highlights.’
MW: While this book includes plenty of snippets from my past interviews with Don, Dave and Jim (and Nod too, thanks to permission of a good friend), there are also plenty of tales from musicians inspired to get on a stage after seeing or hearing Slade at key points, and the fans who loved them then, in some cases keeping the faith, carrying on right to the end in ’92 (and often beyond, supporting Dave and Don’s ventures, etc.). I’m guessing you too get to feel the noize and warmth out there from fans. And perhaps in the way Slade had to win over their critics here and there (Lincoln Festival ’72 and Reading ‘80 spring to mind), I guess you’ve also had to overcome doubters on a nightly basis.
DC: ‘We do this entirely for the fans. That and the fun of it all. It’s really a truly special feeling being onstage in front of hundreds of people who have all come together in one room to celebrate their love of Slade. Seeing men and women of all ages, screaming out those songs, some even crying. Knowing that I’ve brought a special memory to people’s lives, as a vessel of the Slade experience. We don’t get critics at all really. We get the odd sexist comment or envious swipes, but that’s expected. We can’t make everyone as happy as we are.’
WS: ‘I agree it’s really special. It’s often about nostalgia for the fans, just capturing an essence of their youth through the songs, the atmosphere, the friends in the crowd. It’s pretty emotional at times and there is a real sense of poignancy underneath the joyous craziness of it all. The doubters are few and far between… and very lonely and sad…’
Slady’s Man: David Woodcock, aka Our Friend Stan, gets some serious noizy reading in
MW: What’s the dream for Slady from here? What happens next?
DC: ‘I’d really love to bring Slady to Europe, America and Australia. We’re really in big demand. I’d also love us to record more singles. Maybe even an album. And I’d also like us to perform on TV, like, on The One Show at Christmas or something.’
WS: ‘What she said!’
MW: Have you got favourite songs from the Slade catalogue? And if so, for what reasons?
DC: ‘’Nobody’s Fool’ is probably my ultimate favourite Slade song. I love that entire Nobody’s Fools album. It’s such a shame Slade didn’t really crack America. It’s a bit like Robbie Williams too. I really think Americans who are fans of Slade are really special people for ‘getting’ it all.’
WS: ‘I love playing ‘Nobody’s Fool’ too, but also enjoy the riotous three-chord bangers – but then I also love the intricacies of ‘Far, Far Away’, ‘She Did It to Me’ and ‘Wonderin’ Y’, etc. Real goosebumps stuff! There is so much variety, you can never tire of it.’
MW: And in summary, what else can you say in praise of Slade?
DC: ‘I love that the new-found family I have found is all the Slade fans we meet. We really do have so much fun in Slady.’
WS: ‘Not just a band but a way of life for the Slade family we have come to know over the last few years. It’s all about good times and good music, and keeping the noize alive.’
Bar None: Slady with their manager and mentor, the late Dave Kemp, back in 2020
Platform Bootnote: Seeing as a few months have gone by since this interview, I got in touch with Danie for an update last Friday, as – along with Wendy and David Woodcock, aka Slady’s Our Friend Stan – she made her way up to Wolverhampton ahead of a fundraiser for The Trumpet in Bilston, Slade’s old local and the location for many a Slade function down the decades.
And it appears that Danie has branched out of late, now rehearsing with a ‘60s soul and r&b covers band too, her bandmates including guitarist Andrew Hackett, of The Rockingbirds’ fame, who I last saw playing with Edwyn Collins’ band, and a key player in the late switch of the Wild! Wild! Wild! book launch move to the Boogaloo on Archway Road, Highgate, London N6, where he hosts and DJs the weekly Gospel Brunch show (also a free event).
There’s another project too, she revealed, Last Night in Soho, involving a ‘walking tour of ‘60s Soho which ends up in a bar,’ where Danie and the aforementioned David Woodcock will perform songs from the film of the same name, and other key ‘60s London songs. So is music a full-time venture for Danie now, or is there a day job running alongside?
“Yeah, I’m a dog trainer and a dog behaviour therapist. I’m self-employed, but I’ve been so busy with that I was kind of losing the time to do the music. I’ve been doing this for about eight years now, so it’s about time I started doing something different.
“Despite being involved with music and everything I’ve been involved in since I came to London, I never felt good enough. Even when I used to peacock myself on stage quite a lot with my glam band, The Featherz, I was using this kind of pretence… I just didn’t have the confidence to really take myself seriously. But I think with Slady, it’s kind of been that affair you have with someone to make you feel your self-worth again.”
Do these recent changes mean a rethink regarding Slady?
“Oh no, Slady will come first and foremost!”
Glad to hear that, and just a reminder here that this weekend coming, Danie is set to open the show at the Dublin Castle in Camden, doing a set of acoustic Slade songs as her alter-ego, Gobby Holder, before threatening to use distraction techniques on myself during my Q&A with Tony Bug Bear.
“I’ll sit at the back with a peashooter and keep blowing it whilst you’re trying to get through. I’ll bring my flasher’s mac!”
Ah, hell. Just what I need.
“And then we’ll come on with the full Slady shebang! It’s going to be fun.”
Jem and Jim, Don, Gobby and Frank Lea at Wolverhampton Art Gallery, August 2022. Photo: Alan Doyle
Tickets for Sunday, October 15th’s replacement Wild! Wild! Wild! A People’s History of Slade event, involving a headline set by Slady’s Gobby Holder and Jem Lea, and a Q&A session with music writer Malcolm Wyatt, are FREE, with more detail via this link, with a chance to buy a hardback copy of the book on the night.
You can also order the book direct from Spenwood Books via this link, or from Amazon, or through your local bookseller, asking about ordering it there. The same goes for the UK library network if you’d prefer to try before you buy.
For more about Slady, including their festive dates in 2023, head here. You can also keep in touch with Gobby and co. via Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
Stepping Up: Billy Doherty in customary ‘sit at the back’ position with (l to r) Paul, Damian, Mickey and John
The Undertones are on the road again, 45 years after their first shows outside Ireland on the back of iconic debut EP, ‘Teenage Kicks’, with the second of three weekend jaunts this month coming up.
An initial three-dayer last weekend with special guests The Rezillos is followed by another this weekend with the Tom Robinson Band, before a further trio of dates a fortnight later with the Neville Staple Band.
The legendary Northern Irish five-piece’s latest nine-date sojourn comes 49 years after brothers John and Vinny O’Neill joined forces with fellow Derry schoolboy and budding guitarist Mickey Bradley, to the accompaniment of close friend Billy Doherty on bongos.
That following year, 1975, Billy managed to recruit 14-year-old classmate, second cousin (according to Mickey’s excellent Teenage Kicks: My Life as an Undertone (Omnibus Press, 2016), ‘Feargal’s aunt was Billy’s Granny Sharkey.’) and gifted singer Feargal Sharkey, and soon the band had – on tick – their own amps, electric guitars, and even a set of drums. And by early 1976 – younger brother Damian O’Neill having replaced Vinny as he looked to concentrate on his O-levels – they’d played their first show at the scout hall where Feargal, now an aerial installer by day, was a scout leader.
By the summer of ’78, alongside regular Derry dates, they’d played as far afield as Portrush – including supports with The Stranglers and XTC – and Dublin, before Terri Hooley, for the Belfast-based Good Vibrations record shop and label (having been badgered by a mutual friend into listening to their first demo tape), invited them to play a Battle of the Bands benefit alongside Rudi, The Outcasts, The Idiots, and Ruefrex at Queen’s University’s Students Union, then the following day record four songs at Wizard Studios for that first EP.
It was of course a copy of that record sent to John Peel that famously led to the legendary BBC Radio 1 DJ playing it, then again twice in a row one night on his show. And the rest is history, as the cliché goes. Peel’s widow Sheila Ravenscroft writes in the Margrave of the Marshes memoir (Bantam Press, 2005) she finished on his behalf, ‘It was on 12 September of that year that he played all four tracks from The Undertones’ True Confessions EP’ before remarking, ‘Isn’t that the most wonderful record you’ve ever heard?’’ Over the next fortnight, she adds, ‘John played ‘Teenage Kicks’ four times on air; for the rest of his life, it was the song that could be relied upon to give him a filip after a day of uninspiring new records.’
Sheila also reminds us that Peel ‘stumped up the cash for The Undertones to record a session in a Belfast studio, which he then broadcast on 16 October.’ That session was recorded 15 days earlier at Studio 1, Downtown Radio, and then they put down another four songs for him at the BBC’s Maida Vale studios in West London (recorded on 22nd January and first broadcast on 5th February 1979), by which time Sire Records – alerted by the debut record – had long since been in the picture, snapping the band up after seeing their final appearance at The Casbah in late September, a deal agreed in London on 2nd October, a momentous month that ended with the band’s Top of the Pops debut, the day before my 11th birthday, ‘Teenage Kicks’ spending three weeks in the UK Top-40 while ‘Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta’s ‘Summer Nights’ topped the pile. No accounting for taste.
Of course, there’s also that tale about Peelie pulling over to the side of the road on hearing a daytime colleague play ‘Teenage Kicks’ on his show, ‘so thrilled that he burst into tears,’ as Sheila puts it. Peel told The Guardian in 2001 he was ‘stuck in traffic on the M6 near Stoke-on-Trent on my way to the football,’ when he ‘heard Peter Powell play my copy of the EP on Radio 1.’ He added, ‘I had written, ‘Peter. This is the one’ on the inner sleeve. To my alarm, I found myself weeping uncontrollably and I still can’t play ‘Teenage Kicks’ without segueing another track in afterwards to give myself time to regain composure.’
Momentous Debut: The first Undertones EP, from late 1978, led to a rapid emergence case
There were no tears – far as I could tell – from Billy Doherty when I called him on the lead-up to these latest dates, although he did pull over his car to talk to me. But it was genuinely good to hear his voice, after a few recent health wobbles for Billy. I was unsure how open he’d be regarding that, but my enquiry as to how he was feeling was enough to stoke the conversation.
“Well, that’s a tricky one. I haven’t been touring for the past month, because I’m getting treated for suspected colorectal cancer. Thankfully, all the tests that are going through have been clear, but there’s a couple more I have to do. They found a growth on my colon. They think it’s okay, but they’re just doing a biopsy on it, then I have a CT colonography to be done for the next few weeks. But thankfully everything’s coming back clear, which is good.”
Is all that involving a bit of travelling?
“Well, because it was in England, and I was very ill, I had to go to a local hospital. But they couldn’t find me on the system. It was a wee bit complicated. But it got examined, and the doctor said, ‘I suspect you have cancer.’ He gave me a red line referral, which meant I had to come home, and I’ve just gone through the system, very quick, and I’m dealing with the treatment, and as I say, everything’s been clear.”
Thank God for the NHS, eh. You’ve certainly been through it a fair bit in recent years.
“Well, I’ve had a heart attack and a stroke. They talk about the waiting list on the National Health Service, but I’ve been very, very fortunate to get treated very quickly and treated very, very well. From my experience, I couldn’t fault the Health Service one bit. It’s exceptionally good.
“So, hopefully I can get back touring now, we’ve got dates in October, and that’s what I want to do. I want to get stuck into the shows, and I can’t wait to get doing them.”
Without being too biological, isn’t it a bit uncomfortable back on that drum stool?
“That’s actually a good point. I was thinking exactly the same, as you’re kind of squatting, putting pressure on your tummy, but the fact that it’s coming back clear and they’re giving me medication to ease the pain, which has worked, I’m pretty confident it’ll be okay.
“It’s only the good that die young, anyway! Ha ha!”
Good point, well made, and we’re both here to tell the tales. And The Undertones have a super-sub on the bench, whenever he’s needed.
“Yeah, and it’s not Malcolm McDonald!”
I always think of Liverpool’s David Fairclough in that respect, rather than SuperMac.
“Ah, I never thought of that. It’s a guy called Kevin Sharkey, anyway. No relation to Feargal. He’s been very, very good. It’s been a real challenge for Kevin. He had to step in at the last minute. But it seems he’s coped quite well, and the guys kept on touring, which was great.”
I was there when Kevin sat in for Billy at Manchester’s Academy 2 in Spring 2022 (with my review here), his temporary replacement going on to play in Liverpool the following night too.
“Yeah, it was in Newcastle where I got really ill. That’s when I was taken to hospital.
“I had a heart attack and a stroke back in 2017, then I was back, but for whatever reason my blood pressure really spiked, and got alarmingly high. So they had to call the paramedics and I was taken to hospital. That was a year ago. But this episode happened recently, around April this time, in Malmo.
“I got very, very ill, couldn’t do the show. The next day I was fine though, and I was quite lucky that when I got ill that I had no shows, and when I was clear I could do the shows. But last month, that’s when I got really ill. That’s when alarm bells really started ringing.
“It got a bit complicated when I had to go to hospital, because my address is in Northern Ireland, and the guy checking me in couldn’t understand that was part of the United Kingdom. I couldn’t remember my national health service number, they couldn’t find me on the system, and that meant I couldn’t get treated. But it kind of worked out well in the end.”
Never mind ‘smart boy Kevin’, aka, ‘My Perfect Cousin’, how about ‘SuperSub Kevin’? Have you known him for a long time?
“Yeah, and drummers are like a band of brothers. That’s the thing. I’m exaggerating, but drummers tend to be the more social group. We all kind of gather together and we’re all quite supportive. Whereas guitar players may not have the same kind of traits. Kevin’s a very nice follow, and Damian knows Kevin…”
Attacking Flare: The Undertones putting their best feet forward back in the day, taking the Derry air
He’s featured on some of his records, hasn’t he.
“Yes, and John as well.”
Of course, he wasn’t the first Undertones super-sub. For one, there was a certain Ciaran McLaughlin, way before his days with That Petrol Emotion and The Everlasting Yeah.
“Oh, that’s going well back. That’s going back to 1980. I was cycling home, and I got knocked down by a car. I was getting married at the time. So Ciaran stepped in for a few French dates.”
One of which was recorded for French TV, so I’ve seen footage of him playing with The Undertones. Maybe it was his dress rehearsal for future employment.
“Yeah, Ciaran’s a very, very good drummer, as is That Petrol Emotion. They’re all terrific.”
This autumn marks some key 45th anniversaries, one being the first Undertones shows across the water, in England and Cardiff, supporting Sire labelmates The Rezillos. And that’s kind of pertinent seeing as the first of these tour dates feature The Rezillos. Do you remember much about those late 1978 dates?
“I actually do, and it’s probably not to do with music. At the time, we had to share the dressing room with The Rezillos. I must have been maybe 19, and I had never in my life seen a woman undress, but there’s Fay Fife, who sings ‘Top of the Pops’. I was kind of a wee bit stunned – there’s this lady undressing in front of me. Of course, you look initially, because it’s so peculiar, but then you realise and think, ‘I better look elsewhere.’ I actually left the dressing room. So that’s my kind of memory of The Rezillos.”
That’s brilliant. Have you shared that memory with her since?
“Not at all! No way. I’d be embarrassed! I’m really old school. I would think that very forward, and I’d never know what she might say!
Post Sharkey: The 21st Century take on The Undertones. From the left: Billy, John, Paul, Mickey, Damian
“Funnily enough, do you know who was chatting me up? This is a true story. Sire Records and Real Records shared the same building, in Floral Street in London. There was a flight of stairs, we were on the second floor, and Real Records the first floor. I came down the stairs and there was Chrissie Hynde from The Pretenders. We’re chatting away and she was really… well, I love to exaggerate, but I thought Chrissie Hynde was chatting me up, and I started to feel a wee bit uncomfortable. But we actually got on quite well. She was talking about T Rex and ‘Get It On’.
“In The Undertones, we were big fans of glam rock – T Rex, David Bowie, and all that. So we’re engaged in conversation, but then the conversation changed slightly… ha ha! She was asking more personal things, like how you feel about travelling and stuff. And she was really quite surprised because me, being more of a homebird, she couldn’t really kind of grasp the fact that I would prefer to be – which I still am even now – at home rather than touring.”
That’s always the impression I got, not least from Mickey’s book. You were a band of homebirds in comparison to most, maybe you in particular.
“Well, I was bad, but John was even worse – he was on another planet, really extreme. But I would say there was – particularly with me, John, and maybe to some point Mickey – always a reluctance to do it. But unfortunately, I left it too late to realise – and this is going back to 1981 – it is a business.
“Actually, that’s an interesting story. Because when the band got a record deal and we signed to EMI, I decided I was leaving the band. I went over to England, but didn’t go to the signing of the record deal with EMI – which was a really, really good deal. Then I realised I’d made a dreadful mistake, phoned the hotel where the signing was being done to try to speak to my manager, and said to Andy {Ferguson}, ‘I want back in the band.’ He was livid. He said, ‘Billy, do you realise we’re signing a contract here? You’ve left the band, now you want to get back in?’ It got really silly. Anyway, thankfully they allowed me back in again, and the rest is history.
“Unfortunately, I found the whole kind of rock ‘n’ roll thing… I don’t sit well with it. I find it very uncomfortable. I realised you’ve got to tour and all that, and thankfully – now we’ve got bus passes and some of us are drawing down on the pension – we are exceptionally lucky that we get great support at shows. And I’m really humbled by it. It’s terrific.”
It’s a two-way street, mind. I think it’s your whole demeanour as a band, and I get the impression from a past conversation with John, in recent years, that he’s enjoying it far more now than he did first time around. Is that the case with you as well?
“Ha! That’s probably because it’s taken him 40 years to learn the guitar properly! I think that’s the reason why he’s enjoying it!
“I think that’s probably the reason for us all. We’re actually more comfortable with our musicianship, so to speak. We are not very confident in that regard. We tend to in some respects err on the negative side and we under-play it. I know it sounds dreadful and I don’t mean to be boastful, but you know, we are quite good, and sometimes I think we now realise that. Sometimes when we get on stage, it’s like a big diesel train. We’re unstoppable, we just keep going.
Five Alive: Billy, Paul, John, Damian and Mickey’s nervous first day as door-to-door salesmen
“That drive and that passion and commitment, I think still comes across. We’ve never lost that and never taken it for granted. When we come off, even back in the really early days, every time we do a show we’ll come off and are always critical. But it’s constructive criticism. We’ll say, ‘Look, you played this too fast,’ or ‘You played this too slow’, or ‘You came in at the wrong place.’ And we can all handle that. We all see it as being supportive to each other. And that’s terrific.
“That consciousness, or whatever you want to call it, has remained with us from day one. Even when we do a show now, and come off and say, ‘That wasn’t a great show,’ because of this or that, we’ll deal with it and it’s sorted, and taken on board. And there’s never a row, never an argument about it. So the next day we do a show, we’ve taken that on board.
“We’ll probably end up making the same mistake, but we are aware of it! And we are very, very supportive of each other. Which is terrific. It must be dreadful to be in any employment where you’re constantly under pressure. We don’t have that. It’s above board and it’s constructive. And we support each other in that regard.”
I didn’t get to see you in the early days, catching you first on the Positive Touch tour at Guildford Civic Hall on 21st June 1981, when I was barely 13 and a half. But I was there at the end of the first coming in 1983, at the Civic Hall again (26th March) then The Lyceum (29th May) and Crystal Palace FC (9th July). And now, somehow, you’re barely a year away from having Paul McLoone out front for 25 years.
“I never thought about it like that. That’s interesting.”
Particularly when you bear in mind it was barely five years together as a proper touring act, first time around. And now you’ve done it for five times as much as that.
“Yeah, that’s interesting. Unfortunately, when we got the opportunity to reform, Feargal wasn’t keen on it. We actually got John Peel to try and persuade him, and that actually made things worse. Feargal dug in even further.”
It’s worked so well with Paul McLoone though, and you had a previous link, being involved with his previous band, The Carrellines.
“That’s correct. That’s how I knew Paul, and that’s how Paul became involved in the band. It’s a long story, but I was one of the street performers for the Galway Arts Festival, and that’s how I got my introduction to the Saw Doctors, and they asked if I’d come up on stage and play with them. We did a couple of songs, maybe ‘Teenage Kicks’ and ‘Jimmy Jimmy’, and it went down exceptionally well. I then I managed to persuade Mickey to come on board as well and we ended up doing some of the bigger shows, like a New Year’s Eve show at The Point in Dublin, sold out, a huge thing.
Lobster Love: Mickey and Billy tuck in for a second Undertones LP, snapped by Damian in downtown Manhattan
“I then managed to persuade John and Damian during the summer, must have been 1990 maybe, to come down and play with me and Mickey. And that show went down exceptionally well. I then went on down to Dublin, and at an REM concert, a guy called Denis Desmond – a promoter who runs MCD, that does Springsteen, U2, REM… – who I vaguely knew heard the band had reformed, came over and asked me about it. I said, ‘That’s right, Denis, but we don’t have a singer.’ And his exact words were, ‘Why don’t you get a young buck to sing, then head off on a tour of America?’ I said, ‘But we don’t have Feargal,’ and he said, ‘They don’t care. Get a singer!’ And that’s how it came about. I said to John, Mickey and Damian, ‘Look, there’s a guy I know, Paul McLoone, he’s in The Carrellines, why don’t we try him out?’ That’s what happened, and Paul’s been with us ever since.”
And he was a natural from the start.
“He’s a real frontman, and singers are like that. That’s what they do. I don’t know where he gets his energy from! He’s a bloody dynamo, just keeps going. I don’t know how he does it. Smokes and drinks, which he shouldn’t do, gets up on the stage, and I don’t know how he does it. He’ll probably die on stage, do a Tommy Cooper at some stage!”
Which of the band will drag him back behind the curtain, I wonder.
“That’s exactly right… with an arrow on his head.”
With that rather morbid thought in mind, we move on, me telling Billy how I was struggling to work out the initial release date of ‘Teenage Kicks’. It entered the charts just after mid-October, but that was with Sire Records’ backing. Does he recall the actual date it came out on Good Vibrations?
“That’s a good question. I think it may be right now. The person to check on that is Mickey. He’s the historian. Maybe September. But when we got Top of the Pops with ‘Teenage Kicks’, it was so peculiar. Feargal was still working at Radio Rentals, and I vaguely remember walking – it may have been myself, John and Mickey – walking from our house up the town, into Radio Rentals, saying, ‘Feargal, we’ve got Top of the Pops, we’re flying over tomorrow.’ And because it was such a big deal, my auntie’s bought me pyjamas. I have every kind of pyjama. I’ve got striped pyjamas, those stupid draylon pyjamas… I must have got at least half a dozen brand new pyjamas for going away. Ha ha!”
That doting love seems to have carried on too, and while Billy has no children of his own – ‘one of my biggest regrets’ – he has nieces and nephews ‘who I absolutely adore, and I treat them as I would my own kids.’
Back to June 1978 though, when they were at Wizard Studios recording the ‘Teenage Kicks’ EP, was that whole environment new to them, or had they done the occasional demo here and there?
“Well, we did the odd demo at Magee College, so it wasn’t too daunting, because we had more control. It really wasn’t until we went on to record the LP properly. I found that very difficult, because nothing really prepares you for that. There’s a lot of things you have to deal with. You know, just tuning your drum kit, getting your drum kit set up, having microphones surround it… It’s such a strange environment, so different to playing live. A whole different approach.
Drum Major: Billy Doherty, loving life with The Undertones in 2016… as he is seven years on (Photo: BBC)
“And there’s no school you can go to, to prep you for it. You’ve just got to do it. And to be honest, I don’t particularly like the first LP. It’s too processed, and doesn’t really capture the way we were. We are very raw. I think we’re more butch when we play live, and that doesn’t really come across on the first record. It doesn’t come across on any of the LPs. I was never happy with the recording. You make a comparison between records or LPs you like and us, and it doesn’t necessarily sound the way I thought it should.”
That’s interesting, because while I saw you first time around, I only caught the back end of the first coming, so I felt I’d never get to hear so many of those songs from the first two LPs and early singles live, so it was such a thrill to be at the Mean Fiddler in June 2000 and beyond, when you were delving deep into that amazing back-catalogue. And that’s made me think, perhaps you should have a crack at releasing a live album.
“Well, there’s talk about that. In fact, we’ve recorded tracks from various shows and are in the process of compiling a live LP.”
Ah, nice one.
“The thing is, I’d always have to keep comparing it to Get Your Ya-Yas Out! by the Rolling Stones.”
Ah, I gather that was a big influence right from the start.
“Ah, huge! We literally tried to learn every track on that. You know, that’s the thing about The Undertones – everything that we did, we did with a passion and conviction, purely for the music. It’s not the attitude or the clothes or the gimmickry. It’s, ‘Right, let’s knuckle down, let’s figure this one out.’ And we actually take it a stage further. Say for instance, Charlie Watts. I would go back and… not do my research, because that sounds like you’re compelled to do it, and we did it willingly… I’d look at Charlie Watts, ask, ‘Why did he drum that way?’ and ‘Where did they get that sound?’ Then I’d look out records that he liked. So, we kind of look at the whole holistic approach. I think all of us did that.
“John, Mickey and Damian – and Paul does this as well – really do their research. And I don’t like to. I know I’m kind of contradicting myself, but I tend to look at why people did particular things, while they’d read everything about a particular person – good points and bad points. I don’t like the bad points. I really don’t want to know. I want to keep it very Walt Disney. I don’t want to know anything bad about Marc Bolan or Charlie Watts or anybody. I just want to listen to the music, because that gives me a great lift, it gives me inspiration, and a kind of purpose and direction. And I don’t want that spoiled by somebody saying, ‘In actual fact, he was really like…’ this or that.”
Well, you’ve given me a perfect excuse to talk about Slade. As you were struggling with your health at the time, I missed out on speaking to you about the band while working on my book, but Damian – who did contribute – told me you were the biggest Slade fan in The Undertones.
“Oh, well, I lifted a lot of Don Powell’s riffs. In fact, why are there no drummers like that anymore? There’s a guy called Neal Wilkinson. I met him maybe five months ago, and he drums with Paul McCartney, a level way beyond me. He’s actually drumming for the new Mission Impossible film. But we were talking about glam rock and that style of music and why there’s no kind of ‘riffy’ drummers. Even though my drumming may appear very strict, there are a lot of wee licks and a lot of nods to particular styles of drumming. Neal was saying, ‘When you go in the studio, the engineer wants you to keep it very simple, four on the floor, and basically keep it like that. And I’m generalising but they want to keep it to some extent fairly basic. There are loads of records with a lot of complicated patterns, but they kind of overcomplicate it.
Watts Up: Charlie Watts on the front cover of what proved a truly influential LP for The Undertones
“But people like Charlie Watts kind of make it approachable, that’s what I like about him. It was manageable, and you think, ‘I could maybe have a crack at that.’ That’s why I like Don Powell, and these are unbelievable drummers. The drummer of Mud {Dave Mount} as well, and guys like Mick Tucker of Sweet. These are the kind of guys I loved. I just love the sound, love the playing, and I ask, ‘Why did they come up with that, and what made them do this?’
“Ainsley Dunbar, who drummed on ‘Sorrow’ for David Bowie, does this little thing, and I lifted that kind of style and put it into ‘Wednesday Week’. The same too for ‘My Perfect Cousin’. I know it’s not like ‘Ballroom Blitz’ but I thought, ‘Why don’t I try and do a pattern where it’s on the snare drum,’ kind of like Mick Tucker too. And there’s a mixture of Don Powell and Jerry Nolan, the drummer of the New York Dolls, for ‘Get Over You’. That’s the kind of guys I look to for inspiration.
“And interestingly enough, Noddy Holder wanted to produce The Undertones back in the day.”
Really? I didn’t know that. That’s not come out before, I don’t think.
“Yeah, he came to one of the shows, said he was interested in working with the band. I don’t know why we didn’t do it, but we should have. He would have been perfect.”
Was that in the early Sire days?
“Ah yeah, that’s going back, maybe shortly after The Rezillos tour.”
I know Noddy and Jim Lea ended up producing Girlschool and a few more rocky bands.
“Well, it would have fitted, because Feargal has that kind of wobbly apex, Noddy Holder voice anyway. And we’re very guitar-oriented. A lot of Slade stuff sounds very similar to the New York Dolls. Maybe I’m wrong, but…”
Glam Influence: Don Powell and his bandmates were another key early influence on the early Undertones
It only struck me after the event – following a chat with Rob Kerford at Sonic PR – that Billy may have said ‘warbly apex’ there, but I listened back and it certainly sounded like ‘wobbly’… and both work. Meanwhile, I can add some gravitas re Billy’s thoughts from an interview I did in 2018 with Jim Lea, who said when he first heard ‘Teenage Kicks’, he thought it sounded very much like he remembered The ‘N Betweens when he went to see them ahead of joining that band, who in time became Slade.
Jim said, “They were really fantastic, and… the backing sounded like The Undertones. I always felt when ‘Teenage Kicks’ came on the radio, it sounded like the early ‘N Betweens. It was really pushed forward … it’s difficult to explain, but it was exciting, and the sound was really great.”
We could have talked glam rock and Slade all day, but I was conscious that Billy was sat in a layby somewhere, so I moved on. Is there still a day job or has he left all that behind now?
“I’m retired. One of the good things about Covid is that it allowed me to work from home, and that kind of eased me into thinking about this. So it wasn’t like I was working right up until Friday then left work with no job. I could organise my time better, and then came to the conclusion because of my ill health, ‘What’s the point of working for a couple of years, go out and enjoy,’ and that’s what I decided to do. And thankfully, I could manage and afford to retire.”
It also helped that The Undertones sold their back-catalogue around then, as Billy also acknowledged. And are there dates in the diary for 2024, or are you doing this one tour at a time now, seeing how it goes?
“Oh no, there’s dates coming up for next year? I think we’re going to be concentrating probably more on Europe, around Germany and France perhaps. So yeah, I think as long as we’re above ground I think we’ll keep going! And as long as the guys will have me there, I want to keep going as well!”
I couldn’t see them carrying on without you behind them. The odd date here and there, yes, but…
“It must have been hard on the fellas, you know. I feel for them, and it’s a lot of pressure for Mickey. He’s kind of like the Glenn Miller of the band. He keeps everyone in check. Particularly me. Sometimes you’d be thinking what you’re going to have for your tea when you’re doing a song. Your mind kind of wanders. So Mickey’s my barometer. He keeps me kind of right.
“The only downside about Mickey is that during a soundcheck he’ll just play the guitar nice and easily, but if you see him playing live, my God, it’s like night and day. He really thunders into it. And he speeds up as well. He’s just so excited. And I’m kind of thinking, ‘Mickey, slow down!’”
Special Tones: The Neville Staple Band and The Undertones, together during their 2019 UK jaunt
I’ve seen that look in your eyes up there on the stage. ‘For God’s sake, wait for me, fellas!’
“Well, I can go quicker than them if I wanted to. Without question!”
I’m sure you can. And I know you’ve been beating the drum, so to speak, with Northern Ireland’s Chest, Heart and Stroke charity, raising awareness. Doing that little bit that you can really, yeah?
“Of course, yeah. Well, Mickey does a similar thing. He had bowel cancer. But it’s funny you say that. There’s a consultant here in Derry, a guy called Aaron Peace. He phoned me today to ask if I’d be interested in taking part in something. Because you have to go through cardio rehab, and because medical science is getting better and better, I forget the name of the protein, but they found this particular thing in blood samples and are making comparisons which suggests people who generally exercise more tend to remain younger – trying to work out why certain people age very quickly and some don’t.
“The thing is, I sit on a committee now, dealing with professors and people totally removed from me, but what they’re trying to do through research is find this particular gene that all of us have, and you can tap into this particular gene that can predict your likelihood of getting ill and gives you a lot of information about you. Say, for instance, you took ill and went to hospital, you’re going to get bombarded with every medication. That’s what they do – hit them hard. But with this particular stance, they’re saying it’s a waste of resources, medicines, hospital resources and staff, when – for instance – they could look at your record and say, ‘Well, this particular medicine won’t work.’ So they target you specifically.
“It’s real Star Trek science fiction, but it does make sense, and what they’re trying to do – sorry I’m going off on a tangent here, when you want to talk about music! – is target a particular individual and treat them accordingly. And they can, to some extent, predict when that particular person is going to have an episode like, say, a heart attack, or their chances of getting cancer. It’s phenomenal. Technology is incredible.”
Away from your Undertones commitments, are you still sitting in with your ceilidh band now and again?
“No, that’s too difficult. Those guys are full time, and I can’t really that in. I love working with the guys, but again I’m out of my depth. These guys are proper players. The guy that plays flute, Ciaran, he’s an all-Ireland champion, twice. And Robert is a classically trained violin player. They really know their stuff.”
Before I know it, Billy’s ‘head’s ticking over here’ and he’s off on a fresh tangent, directing me towards a documentary on Netflix about ancient species, going back 300,000 years or so, and how this species buried their dead deep down in caves, and they’ve discovered etchings on the walls, comparing them to far later civilisation, with my interviewee now in full flow, in awe, fascinated by that ancient history.
I agree with him that it’s amazing, marvelling at how this prehistoric age even predated The Undertones’ first live show at St Mary’s Scout Hall, Beechwood Crescent, Derry, in February 1976.
“Ha! That wasn’t quite 250,000 years ago. Sometimes it can feel like it though! We are getting into that era. When we were young teens, and I’m going back to the ‘70s, those in their 40s were born back in the Thirties. And sometimes I’ll make that same comparison now – can you imagine a kid now, at 20, looking back 40 years? What would their take on it be?”
That’s something that always amazes me. We like to put things in boxes, and I tend to think of punk rock and that ‘ground zero’ back to basics era, but it came together barely six years after The Beatles split. So it would be the equivalent of kids today writing off something that happened in 2017 as ancient history. And yet The Undertones’ ‘rookie’ young singer has now been with you for 24 years.
“Of course, but – unlike the press and media – we’ve never pigeon-holed ourselves or categorised ourselves. We just do music that we like doing. When you talk about an audience, you’ve got to differentiate between that and the public. When you go to a show you’re playing to the public, and some shows that you go to, you’re playing to an audience, and in that respect an audience is really tuned into what we do.
“Of 100% at the show, maybe 70% of the public just want to check you out, and maybe the other 30% is your audience – they get the message. And thankfully, that core element has stayed with us, no matter where we go. Maybe there’s 10 of them, maybe 30 or 100, or 1,000. Regardless, we still have that, and that’s great.”
Well, my eldest daughter, now 23, came along last time I saw you, at Lytham’s Lowther Pavilion this time last year, and she loved it, knowing far more songs than she realised she would, from ’78 to ’83 and again from ‘Thrill Me’ onwards. I’ve clearly subjected her to your music down the years, and she was looking at me now and again, as if to say, ‘I know this one as well!’
“Oh well, bring her along again!”
For this website’s October 2016 feature/interview with Billy Doherty, head here. And for a look back at the last time The Undertones and the Neville Staple Band played in Manchester, in 2019, head here.
The Undertones’ Autumn 2023 tour kicked off in Brighton, Bristol and Cardiff last weekend, with support from The Rezillos, with further three-date stints coming next with two other special guest outfits.
Remaining dates:London, Camden Electric Ballroom (with the Tom Robinson Band, October 5th); Cambridge Junction (with the Tom Robinson Band, October 6th); Leamington Assembly (with the Tom Robinson Band, October 7th); Leeds Stylus (with special guests the Neville Staple Band, October 19th); Newcastle Boiler Shop (with special guests the Neville Staple Band, October 20th); Manchester Academy (with special guests the Neville Staple Band, October 21st).
There’s an autumnal chill in the air right now, but while the summer’s gone, I’m yet to tire of an album that’s provided a key part of my soundtrack these past couple of months, returning time and again to the latest long player from Vinny Peculiar, a 10-track trip of rare beauty, perhaps even (whisper it) his finest record to date.
From the moment the chanting and lilting piano leads us into ‘Death of the Counterculture’, the opening track of How I Learned to Love the Freaks, we’re tuned in and turned on to a sonic masterclass in cultural history, Vinny style, taking us back to the age of Aquarius and the era and aura of the hippies and flower-powered outsiders. And along the way our spirit guide – real name, Alan Wilkes – provides us with his somewhat unique brand of further education, signing us in for temporary membership of the VP Counterculture Club, with no dropping out required.
As soon as I opened the padded envelope and slipped the enclosed disc into my car stereo CD player, I was sold on Vinny’s 13th studio album. And the fact that I was Manchester-bound that first morning seemed to fit the vibe perfectly, bearing in mind that this Worcestershire-born and bred songsmith spent many key years there, a spell including his Parlour Flames project a decade ago involving former Oasis henchman Paul ‘Bonehead’ Arthurs, and further happenings alongside former Smiths Craig Gannon, Mike Joyce, and the not long since sadly departed Andy Rourke.
Inspired by hippy culture, the Summer of Love and the socio-political awakenings of the late Sixties, How I Learned to Love the Freaks is deemed ‘part tribute to an emerging free-thinking youth culture, the risks they took, values they espoused, sacrifices made, as well as the failings and ultimate implosion culminating in that Death of the Counterculture.’
And after the scene-setting, subtly tumultuous opening of that opening number, the rolling bones of the blues properly kick in and we’re ‘Going to San Francisco’, tracking a young man’s awakening and pilgrimage to the Haight and beyond, your scribe already fully invested, heading out on a Greyhound bus for what I can only assume is a VP confessional, delivered in Dylan-esque style (‘Highway ‘68 Revisited’, maybe?), with hints of ‘The Jean Genie’ thrown in, Alan letting himself go.
‘Met my girlfriend at the station, there were other pilgrims there, smoked a refer on the sidewalk, met a kid with purple hair. Someone gave me a poncho, David Crosby style, but I left it on the bus and it made my girlfriend smile.
‘And then came the acid and it took me by surprise, my watch it started melting, there were rainbows in my eyes.’
Maybe that observation regarding ownership of the lyrics is part respectful nod to Vinny. He’s such a great songwriter that even if he’s talking in the third person, I’m easily convinced these could be first-hand stories. They’re certainly put over with panache and believability.
And yet while this LP hints at so much, from The Beatles and Bowie to The Kinks and Mott the Hoople, for some reason I’m back to that line in ‘(Get a) Grip (On Yourself)’ where High Cornwell suggests, ‘The worse crime that I ever did was playing rock ‘n roll.’ I somehow can’t believe Alan could be guilty of anything bar a little experimentation for real life experiences’ sake. Besides, ‘the money’s no good’ in this game.
Maybe that’s where we’re at with him today though, long in the tooth realisation leading to subsequent contentment, having juggled work and family commitments with leisure pleasure to get where he’s at – as opposed to the perceived frustration of The Stranglers’ frontman in ’77. If there really were incidents which ‘got out of hand, man’ en route, he clearly rode those waves and moved on, wiser for the experience.
While I’m not sure it’s his voice, lyrically, throughout, or if he’s just the everyman in the songs – playing roles here and there – it’s clear that his sentiments and observations are heartfelt and he’s on top of his game, living his best songwriting life, sharp verse complemented by quality musicianship, the main man (vocals, guitars, bass, keys, harmonica) joined here by bandmates Dave Draper (bass, synth, guitar), Rob Steadman (electric piano) and daughter Leah Wilkes (backing vocals) for an LP put down at the Old Cider Press, Pershore. And doesn’t that sound idyllic?
It’s unlikely you’ve got this far without knowing about Alan and his alter-ego, but I’ll add a little autobiographical detail (linking below past my past VP feature/interviews on this website), our hero growing up in Worcestershire, training as a nurse before signing to Manchester cult label Ugly Man Records (former home to Elbow), where he started out on that road to those 13 studio albums of ‘literate autobiographical pop music’ over a 25-year career which has seen him on the road in various permutations of bands, solo and duo shows in the UK, Ireland, mainland Europe, and the US.
Anyway, where was I? Ah, yeah, track three, a gear change required for the more wistful ‘Peace and Love’, as our Alan ‘considers protest, apathy and mistrust’ on a song carrying shades of Grant McLennan, not least those gorgeous chord changes.
‘I met her at the rally, they were tearing down a statue. She said you’re either for me or I’m against you.
‘And we talked about injustice and the future of the planet, then she sat outside Pete’s Café, wrote a poem all about it.’
That vibe continues with ‘Headshop’, Alan going all Ray Davies on us in another beautifully evocative tale from the past. And as for that middle-eight…
‘I knew the owner, Geraldine. We had a thing when we were 17. Sometimes I wonder what might have been, if you know what I mean. It was a really cool scene, man.’
Sublime.
If there was a tick-list of hippy themes tackled in the making of this record, kudos for Alan for subtly working on that premise with style. The concept is never in your face, ‘Ashram Curtains’ another fine example, a little lead guitar noodling perfectly placed in a deep tale of self-discovery and home truths.
And soon we’re replenished and back on the bus, looking for the next ‘out there’ experience, the more acerbic, riff-laden ‘Hippie Kids’ surely a hit in a better world. Think of T-Rex’s ‘20th Century Boy’ dragged into the new millennium, Alan making his Marc upon us.
‘On a spaceship to the moon. Good trip, bad trip, any trip will do. Waiting for the show to go on, you put a sunflower in the barrel of a gun.’
The title track was the one that properly caught me out, first listen. It’s a sad tale, a poignant one, and certainly colourful, involving a confessional admission of youthful guilt following a rather harrowing incident. It’s by turns about being easily led by the crowd in the heat of the moment, bullying and ignorance, but ultimately acceptance and understanding, and speaks best for itself in the format it’s delivered, somehow uplifting in its final message. And again, that deft lyrical touch makes you realise what an artisan we have in Alan.
It took me a while longer to understand the similarly reflective, Seventies era Fleetwood Mac-like ‘Peter and the Rainbow’, but again I guess it’s a keystone here, and expresses more about the killing of the hippy dream than hundreds of pages of dry discourses on the subject.
‘And we closed in on Mother Earth, and we gave thanks for all we were worth. But the very best of our intentions never suited those high-faluting conventions.’
It’s a theme deftly continued with ‘All Property is Theft’, before Alan’s look at the personal impact of those cultural shifts and its impact on subsequent generations neatly comes full circle with closing number ‘Flower Power’, where he seems to convey a hint of regret that the dream is over, on a track described by the man himself as ‘both celebration and reminder of what can be achieved and how easily it all slips away.’
‘Went to war against the state; read Albert Camus and William Blake. Started teaching at the college; radical visions, alternative knowledge.’
All in all, Alan describes How I Learned to Love the Freaks as ‘a guitar-based Grateful Dead-inspired, Jefferson Airplane-revisited, Chocolate Watchband-approved kind of record.’ And despite all those references I pointed to instead, I’m not arguing with any of that. In short, it’s a triumph, and one that deserves further recognition. It should be the subject of future cultural study material on the one hand, but it’s also just a rather wonderful 10-song opus, as strong in a musical sense as it is lyrically.
For this website’s January 2022 feature/interview with Vinny Peculiar, head here. And for WriteWyattUK’s previous feature/interview with Vinny Peculiar, from late 2019, head here.
How I Learned to Love the Freaks is out now via Shadrack & Duxbury Records, with more detail via Vinny Peculiar’s Bandcamp page. you can also follow vinny Peculiar via Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, and his own website.Meanwhile, Vinny Peculiar is back on the road in October and November, with full details here.
Dreampop Warrior: Keeley in action at Aatma, Manchester. Photo by Dermot de Faoite
Talk about nights that will stick long in the memory. My memory anyway. I’m pretty sure a few of the clientele present saw their photo streams the next day and wondered what the hell that was all about. But the rest of us will readily recall the evening we blissed out in Manchester with the rather Special K and co.
This was my first visit to Aatma, aka Studio Bee, hidden away down the back streets of the Northern Quarter, and it was a great location to catch three bands that clearly know how to put on a performance, an impressive young London band hopefully on their way up followed by a more seasoned North-West outfit who supplied much of the audience, then quality headliners that rose to the challenge and certainly made their mark.
Aatma is somewhat tucked away, and while Google Maps got me there, a subsequent battle to find a parking space then relocate afresh the red-bricked upstairs room I sought took some doing for this out-of-towner. Thankfully, a rock-hard doorman from a neighbouring pub was good enough to lead me down a dark alleyway then point out the next staircase on the right. I know, heart in mouth for a moment. The things we do for our fix of quality live music, eh.
As for the venue itself, if the English translation of the Hindu word points to ‘spirit, soul, appetite, mind,’ it’s fair to say all four qualities were showcased on the night.
I only caught the tail-end of the opening set by Vincent Christ – they also featured at the band’s Camden date a week earlier – but saw and heard enough to realise clear potential. First impressions, sonically? A young Jim Kerr fronting The Cure around the time of their first two LPs, the sound all-encompassing, their frontman having the intense presence needed to make that leap, his commanding, Sisters of Mercy-esque hoarse tones and the deep throb of the bass catching you out, the track ‘Midnight to Midnight’ just one that grabs you by the collar of your long, dark overcoat.
Four Play: Vincent Christ were on fine form at Aatma, Manchester. Photo: Dermot de Faoite
Apparently, the usual live set-up involves Vincent at the heart of a five-piece. They were a guitarist short on Friday, but pulled it off, none the less powerful for these ears.
They were certainly a hard act to follow for Def Robot, but again there was a quality there drawing your attention, frontman Paul Taylor (also adding keyboard here and there) proving quite the entertainer. His white shirt/dark waistcoat/goatee beard/not much on top look met with rock ‘n’ roll attitude brought modern-day Ian Anderson to mind, but sound-wise there was an added wonkiness early on that made me wonder if Meatloaf had paired up with Stump at one point.
Actually, they suggest elements of Pixies (which I definitely get – check out the anthemic ‘What is my Thing?’), The Fall (fair enough judging my latest LP closer, ‘Sucker for Science’), Fugazi, The Clash, Joy Division and Talking Heads, which if nothing else suggests we’re talking a wide church of influences. Check out the most recent of a mountain of records, Existential Boredom, to find out for yourself.
Paul certainly worked the crowd, and final song, ‘Gordon from Gordon’ seemed to be a tribute of sorts to Jilted John’s nemesis. Probably not, but I was in Manchester, so that sprang to mind. For a taster of what you missed, head to the mighty ‘Shadows’ via their Bandcamp band. Additionally, it was good to hear Paul not only praise the openers’ set but then stick around to give it some on the dancefloor for Keeley’s set, albeit seemingly doubling for venue safety officer at times.
Def Jamming: Paul Taylor out front with Def Robot at Aatma, Manchester. Photo by Dermot de Faoite
This was my first Keeley live show, and I certainly clicked lucky, her band becoming a four-piece on this occasion… and a hell of a four-piece at that. I should explain that, like Pip Blom (and indeed Vincent Christ), the name of the artist is the name of the group. There have been changes of personnel and a few rethinks over a relatively short stint of live performances – this one of just a handful of shows outside London and Ireland, and their first in Manchester, their mini-tour on the back of a few US dates – and on this occasion Keeley (guitar and vocals) was joined by fellow Dublin resident Marty ‘Mani’ Canavan on keyboards, over for the final two dates, plus London-based fellow dependables, Lukey Mitchell (bass) and Tom Fenner (drums). And I’ll admit here that I hadn’t clocked until I looked Tom up after the event – recognising his name – that he featured on so many great Microdisney and High Llamas records that I love. Respect due.
While touring in support of the sparkling Alan Maguire-produced Floating Above Everything Else LP on a tour that as well as that pre-mentioned London date also involved dates in Glasgow and Bristol and would end the following night in Leeds, this was a set split between those tracks and what came before, a few EP tracks and B-sides used to great effect. But I guess Keeley’s (surely unique) approach to songwriting lends itself to that approach.
In case this is news to you, all her songs are written about and dedicated to the memory of Inga Maria Hauser, the tragic German tourist murdered in Northern Ireland in 1988, Inga’s killer never bought to justice, Keeley determined to keep her heart-breaking story in the public eye and finally see justice done.
The headline set opened with the sumptuous yet heart-tugging ‘Last Words’ – ‘Wonder where I’ll stay tonight,’ – from debut EP, Brave Warrior, ‘Where the Monster Lives’ and ‘Shadow on the Hills’ from the Drawn to the Flame mini-LP, then ‘Scratches on Your Face’ from the Totally Entranced EP and ‘Railway Stations’ from the flipside of ‘Arrive Alive’, before we even got to the latest Dimple Discs release.
While I have a lot of time for all those recordings, live they really came together – no mean feat – suggesting this band has been together far longer than is the case. Keeley’s home tones bring Delores O’Riordan to mind at times, and maybe Placebo’s Brian Moloko at others, with plenty more is woven into the DNA, understandably seeing as this high-achieving student of indie and beyond (and occasional DJ) wallows in so much great music.
More to the point, she seems to thrive in the company of such adept bandmates. On record, I think that dreampop, shoe-gazey label she takes on board is fair comment, but regarding stage presence she’s definitely got more to her armour.
What followed was ‘To a London Sunrise’ and a rather determined, somewhat strident ‘Never Here Always There’ from the album, then after Drawn to the Flame’s ‘Boarded Up in Belfast’ we got five more numbers from the latest record, a rousing ‘Forever’s Where You Are’ setting the tone, the band in full flow now, the gorgeous ‘Echo Everywhere’ – for me the evening’s highlight, a slow-building stone-cold classic that packs a mighty dreamy punch – and totally lush (in more ways than one, maybe) ‘Arrive Alive’ leading to more poppy breakthrough single ‘The Glitter and the Glue’ then perfect set closer ‘Shine a Light’, an inspired take on the Jason Pierce-penned 1992 Spiritualised song.
(Editor’s Postnote: Having sight a few days later of a video shot by Dermot De Faoite on the night of that rendition of ‘Echo Everywhere’, I was reminded of something that doesn’t show on the video but happened right after, a collective coming together – so to speak – of the band after that song, with much hugging and self congratulation at absolutely nailing it, in absolute triumph of what had just unfolded before us. Blissed out doesn’t even cover it. Transcendental.)
As Keeley and her band delved deeper into their trademark blissed out dream state, the audience by turns joined them or bobbed and weaved around the floor (at times I wondered if I’d ever seen sections of an audience quite as stoned outside a festival). And there was plenty of love in the room, close as we were to the edge at times, Keeley and Lukey – the pair doing all the talking – eager to share their love of all things Manchester, Marty’s ‘Johnny Fucking Marr’ t-shirt suggesting he was definitely with them. And despite Lukey’s hybrid London-Cornish accent, I swear he looked the part in those surroundings, an honorary Manc putting in a mighty shift.
There’s plenty happening behind the scenes with Keeley right now, one such project sure to increase her profile and that of her band over the coming months. On this showing I reckon she has the resolve and determination to pull that all off and move on up to that next stage. And then, those who caught this mini-tour or any of the select dates that preceded it and that are sure to follow can proudly tell you they were there at the beginning of something rather special.
Cereal Thriller: Another day, another breakfast. Tom Fenner and Keeley at Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, Glasgow
For this website’s July 2021 feature/interview with Keeley Moss, head here. For Keeley’s website, head here, and for her Bandcamp page, try this link. And to check out Vincent Christ, head here, and to catch up with Def Robot, try here.
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