Every gig I've Ever Seen #41. Ten Pole Tudor.

Tenpole Tudor. Dingwalls 1984

Eddie Tenpole Tudor had auditioned for the Pistols, been in their film “Great Rock’n’Roll Swindle”, had hits such as “Swords of a Thousand Men” and been on TOTP dressed as a leather jacketed Knight of old. Apparently he was a superb athlete at public school too. Mad crazed eyes and a cartoon vocal delivery. Very ragged and a real boys thing.

I think we went for the tenuous Pistols connection. Years later I saw a girlfriend of mine snogging him at a very mashed party. Her flatmate knew him and we used to see him at gigs and Camden pubs. Like John Otway his appeal was as an English eccentric. But he did do TOTP.

Years later I saw him support Greaseball, a mate’s band at the King’s Head, Fulham. It was a free gig and it was just a few locals and band friends. He was playing solo and two 30-something businessmen at the bar suddenly realised who it was and went excitedly down the front to jump around and sing along. It was quite sweet although Tenpole looked a bit sheepish. It wasn’t the coolest spectacle on the planet.

Last time I saw him was in 2009 at the funeral of the girlfriend he’d snogged all those years ago. He looked as shell-shocked as I felt on that occasion.

Every gig I've Ever Seen #40. The Meteors.

The Meteors. Dingwalls. Camden. 1985.

Rockabilly was a large subcult throughout the early 80s. US High School jackets, Levis, white socks, check shirts, tattoos, brothel creepers. An alternative to New Romantic stupidity and High Street shoulder pads. The Meteors were the kings of the scene. Cartoon characters. “Teenagers From Outer Space”.  “Earwigs In my Brain”. Good, jokey knockabout stuff. Stand up bass for that authentic 50s slap. Semi acoustic Gretschs twanging with a whammy bar.

Dingwalls was an ideal venue to see this in. Big, sweaty, raucous crowd but friendly. Huge blokes with spider web tattoos swigging Snakebite. Spoke to a black guy who had a Cramps tattoo. Not a common sight. Moshpit full of mad chicken dancing. Fun but a one-joke band.

Every gig I've Ever Seen #39. The Smiths.

Jobs For a Change Festival. Jubilee Gardens, London 1984.

Right in the heart of the GLC, across the Thames from Thatcher’s Parliament, a day of music and speechifying. 3 million unemployed. Bad. USAF Cruise missles. Bad. Nuclear Bombs. Bad. Miners Strike. Bad. Red Ken spoke as usual. Nerdy but down to earth. Missed the Red Skins and heard there’d been a riot with 200 skinheads storming the stage. Broken glass still on the floor. Hank Wangford there doing his songs about jogging with Jesus down Life’s long highway. First time I saw Billy Bragg or rather craned to peer into a jammed tent. The Smiths were starting to get big and this was a big gig. All eyes on them. Morrissey all floppy quiff with the ear piece and gladioli sticking out his back pocket. Not the full PA loudness and apart from a few riffs it didn’t do it for me. The lyrics make funny reading but it didn’t Rawk. Call me shallow. There’s always been something end-of-the-pier about our Stephen. Catholic demons too. A camp Nick Cave. Mari Wilson was uplifting with her beehive and doo-wop girls. Like the Darts only less panto.

Every gig I've Ever Seen #37 and 38. Elvis Costello.

Elvis Costello & The Attractions Edinburgh Playhouse 1984

Went with Craig and Andrea. Up in the balcony. The Pogues supported and went down well. Shane McGowan. Some great lyrics but that voice. I’ve tried. It hurts. The Pogues were really rough and ready, banging their heads with tin plates. Moighty craic from pissed Camden.

Elvis with the Attractions. Great band. I remember Steve Nieve’s keyboards being really clear and rocking. Amazing musician. Elvis didn’t vamp so much this time or get carried away vocally like he did in Glasgow.

A curiously empty feeling about the whole thing really. I can live quite happily  without ever hearing an Elvis Costello song  again.

 

Elvis Costello Edinburgh Playhouse 1984

Elvis played solo 2 weeks later. T-Bone Burnett was support. He was great. Easy-picking guitar. Southern US drawl. Country rock. I bought his album. He went on to play with Dylan and won an Oscar for work on “Oh Brother! Where Art Thou?”

Elvis doing Unplugged before Unplugged. Stripped of the bombast  of a band he let the lyrics and tunes breathe. Ballads like “Alison” really worked shorn of clutter. Low-key but effective. His voice still bothers me though…

Every gig I've Ever Seen #35. Elvis Costello.

Elvis Costello Glasgow 1983

By 1983 Elvis was the indie King of sharp song-writing. Emerging from Punk he evolved into a Top 20 act but with schmartz, jah? I’ve tried, I’ve really tried but ultimately, after all this time, I’m not an Elvis Costello fan. The first 3 albums are great fun but it’s his voice. The fact he ended up doing “She” on the “Notting Hill” film soundtrack confounds me.

Anyway, great old ballroom at the far end of Sauciehall Street in the centre of Glasgow. The Attractions are a great band and the crowd were up for it. Glasgow audiences used to chant “Here we go, here we go, here we go!” before bands came on stage. Not like their jaded seen-it-all London brethren.

Elvis was wearing a shiny pink/purple mohair suit and doing his crooner impersonation. The fast ones were tight and rockin’. “Pump It Up, “Oliver’s Army”, “Mystery Dance”, “Radio Radio”. The ballads all seemed to end in extended vamps with Elvis dragging out the words in Tony Bennett style. Emoting. Wringing the songs out. And it got tedious. Even “Ship Building” a great song about the Falklands War was bludgeoned my Elvis’ vocal workout. Which was a real shame as that song is part of the REAL soundtrack to the Eighties, not “Rio” by Duran Duran. 

A minor Legend and obviously a very clever man but…

Every gig I've Ever Seen #34. Bo Diddley.

Bo Diddley. Glasgow Arches. 1984

There was a minibus going to Glasgow. Me and flat-mates Craig and Andrea had gotten involved in the University Music Society. I got voted as President. Not bad out of about, ooh, 7 people. We joined so that we could arrange tickets and transport for ourselves, if truth be told. Nobody ever played Stirling as there was no point: stuck halfway between Glasgow and Edinburgh any touring bands would just play those two before going off to Aberdeen. For that reason the Student Union was pretty useless. So, the best way for us to get to gigs and back was with transport, paid for out of student funding. We’d see a gig we’d like advertised, vote on buying a dozen tickets and book the mini-van. We were supposed to help musicians with facilities but I never got involved in that.

So, Bo Diddley. Again. At the time one of my courses was Popular Music in the 20th Century. Stirling used the 2-semesters-a-year system with a Major subject and add-on units to build up a degree. I also did a term of Fine art in The Twentieth Century. All these courses were later scrapped – useless liberal Arts costing money, who needs ‘em? Thank God, the Tories were there to sort out such nonsense! Anyway, the Music course was great. One of the lecturers was Otto Krayoli, a wonderful man who’d fled Hungary in 1956 when the Russian tanks rolled in and wrote what became a standard text; ”An Introduction To Music”. Others were old Blues fans who saw Big Bill Broonzy in 1956. Occassionally, a student would give a guest talk. I gave mine on Chuck Berry. The night of the gig I had to turn in an essay the next day entitled, I kid ye not; “Can White Men Sing The Blues?”  

 

So, we were up for some Bo. The Arches was literally that. A small vaulted basement. So small that Bo and band had to climb the same spiral staircase to get in as the audience. The band came on first and warmed the crowd up. Suddenly, Bo was on the stairs ready to go on. People were smiling, shaking his hand. Bo Diddley! Standing next to us! The music wasn’t particularly loud so I told him about my essay. “Can they?” “Sure. If they get their shit together” That was the opening quote of my essay. I wrote it overnight when I got back to Stirling. Got an A+. 

 

Bo had a beige, 70s looking suit with wide lapels. In fact it was a beige, 70s suit and looked a bit acrylic. John Lee Hooker once said that white boys didn’t know how to play the blues, “coz they don’t know what it is to wear nylon socks!” It was a really intimate crowd and Glaswegians are great. If they like you. They liked Bo. The set wasn’t as hard-hitting as the Lyceum show I’d seen. A lot more robotics and games with the guitar. It was an act. I knew this because I’d seen it and that seemed to rob the spontaneity from it. Strange feeling. When he played it fast though, it was mesmerising. His hands like pistons, fluid movement, hammering out the timeless beat. A Legend but working hard for it.

Every gig I've Ever Seen #33. Dr John.

Dr John. Clapham Common Bandstand. 1984

Free gig on Clapham Common. The stage was the Victorian bandstand. The GLC was still in existence then so I imagine they paid for it, probably in the belief that allowing free access to Culture of all kinds would improve people’s lives. How quaint. Good thing the Tories stamped that sort of nonsense out. That evening I was due to fly to Mykonos with brother Ewan, having spent the summer vacation working for SunMed, who specialised in Greek holidays, and earned a free holiday for two. So, in quite a good mood all told.

The support acts, Diz & the Doormen and Balham Alligators, were pub-rockers always appearing in London at venues like the Half Moon, Putney. Some of them probably still are. Gigs were long affairs back then, especially when you got there early to see support acts. Don’t bother nowadays.

About 5 O’clock the band started and there was Dr John with his feathers, bag of ju-ju (huh?) and big cane walking up to the bandstand. I knew he was a cult figure from the Sixties, creating the persona of The Night Tripper and had appeared in the film, “The Last Waltz”. And that was it really. It was all ‘Nawlins funky stew and sugar-po-nah-nah. Bit too smooth in parts. He did some beautiful solo piano which I recognized from an LP I’d bought. Boogie-woogie and some slower blues. Amazing sound. It was “muso” but good! We were near the front but couldn’t quite see his fingers on the keys. Shame. 

Before catching the plane we had time to have some food with my old skool mate, Bill, who lived around the corner. Nice one. 

Every gig I've Ever Seen #32. The Cure.

The Cure Edinburgh 1984

The Playhouse was a lovely old theatre. Flatmate Craig had worked there as a night security man before coming to Stirling. We bought a dozen Cure tickets for the Music Society, which we were running, but nobody wanted them. So, I ended up going. I liked the early singles but things like the “Pornography” album was horrible Gothic dirge.

Possibly the most boring live band ever. Nothing but dry-ice, green and purple lights and motionless black-clad figures. They did “10.15”, “A Forest” and “Killing An Arab”, which were fine. But these songs were 6 years old. And at that age 6 years is a lifetime. They carried on having hits with great videos by Tim Pope but I felt their day had been and gone. “Better live, prefer their old stuff” was a common phrase amongst us hip Kidz, ‘cept the Cure weren’t better live.

Every gig I've Ever Seen #31. The Gun Club.

Gun Club Edinburgh Oct 1984

I bought the first Gun Club album based on an NME review. Found a copy in Boots, Andover, same time as the first Cramps album, also bought based on an NME review. Must have had a groovy record buyer at Boots who read the same reviews. Loved both albums. The Gun Club sounded ancient but bang up to date. Savage blues shouting and fierce guitar. The finest psychobilly. “Sex Beat” is a classic. Jeffrey Lee Pierce was the main man. Shock of long dyed blond hair. Other than a few photos we didn’t know what the band looked like.

And here they were playing a naff night club in Edinburgh.

The Hoochie Coochie Club was small, low ceilinged, red velvet, chrome tables with big bouncers in tuxedos and dicky bows. Pay your money at the door and in. Mix of psychobillies, students, Goths and rockers. Band came on late and the audience were baying for it. The stage was about a foot tall with silver tinsel at the back, like a stripper revue. Which it probably was. Tiny, loud, rough sounding PA.  Crowd surged forward. Bouncers pushing everyone back. Gig stopped. No violence as such, just bouncers worried about the band being swamped.

Patricia Morrison was on bass. An Amazon of a woman with red lips, back combed fright wig, leather and studs. Glamorous but hard. Her and Poison Ivy of the Cramps were strong women in a male world. They looked sexy in a 50s B-Movie way but they weren’t there for fluff. They could play. In that sense they’re probably important as feminist Icons. It was OK to feel turned on by them, without the usual “objectification of women” guilt. They were cool.

Jeffrey Lee was cool personified. Ultimately drugs killed him but, then, he was still young and reasonably beautiful. The authentic whiff of the Swamp about him. Dirty slide guitar. Howled lyrics. Big rockabilly beat but demented. Crowd really behind them. Big attack guitar solos mere inches from people’s sweating faces. “Fire On The Mountain” was dynamic, a huge stop-start riff of a song. This was proper hard, heavy Rock. The Pixies learnt a lot from them. American guitars, drenched in the sound of that Continent. From Robert Johnson to Punk. The Smiths? Wimps.

A great band and the missing link between Gene Vincent and The White Stripes. Keef says he wants written on his gravestone: “He passed it on”. Jeffrey Lee did. Legends in my book.

Every gig I've Ever Seen #30. Jazz Butcher.

The Jazz Butcher. ICA London Dec 1984

The ICA on The Mall, Buck House at the end of the road, right at the heart of The Empire. It didn’t seem possible to have malarkey like live music in such close proximity to Brenda. A week of gigs at the ICA. The Jesus & Mary Chain played and famously had a riot the night before this gig. The Pogues played the night after. We went see the Jazz Butcher. The “Scandal In Bohemia” album was a great blast of sunny humourous pop, akin to Jonathan Richman and the Woodentops but sarkier. It had a great cover by Savage Pencil, one of the UK’s top music cartoonists along with Ray Lowry. Songs like “Southern Mark Smith” and “Real Men From Leeds” were caustic but catchy. Lines like,”he wore trousers made entirely out of the skins of dead Jim Morrisons” were daft but in a Robyn Hitchcock, wry sort of way. Even the name was a piss-take.

  The ICA was then old skool Arts establishment. Now it’s all theme nights in the bar, DJs, proper restaurant. A night out, like going to a posh pub. Then, small dark venue. It reminded me of the theatre at my old College.

Not that many people there. The Jazz Butcher came on and it was very muted. The sound mix and the songs were not light or jolly. There were gags but a lot darker than the album. It reminded me of the Barracudas, whose first album was frothy pop and then they got serious. Well, if was good enough for the Beatles…

Microdisney were great to watch. The guitarist had a Fender painted the same as James Burton’s, Elvis’ guitarist, all purple and fuschia swirlyness. The singer was called Cathal, who wore a cord jacket with a book in the pocket and looked like A Poet. A stamping, neck-vein throbbing, Irishman Poet. He was hilarious but also quite intimidating. The guitar playing was country tinged while Cathal ranted. Uncle Greg grew up in Derry and got his persona instantly. Microdisney mutated into Fatima Mansions later, named after a grotty estate in Dublin, and had songs like “Ciao Ceausescu” after the death of the Romanian dictator and “Only Losers Take the Bus” after Thatcher’s famous line. Angry, shouty Catholic fun. Righteous spleen. Both bands were typical NME fodder really. Few good tunes, good live shows but out of step with the mainstream. John Peel territory: small but perfectly formed.

The older I get the more bands seem like books. Everyone’s got one in them. To make a Number 1 record is every schoolkid’s dream. To be adored. So, if you have a chance of recording and playing live with a band then you’ve done it. You’ve written a book! Like a book, it can’t be unwritten. Time captured in music and word. To be able to do it really well is special. These guys were an entertaining read.