At last; this Weird Tales showcase gig that was one of the most anticipated events since it was conceived had finally arrived on a November night way down in the depths of no mans land between the Brixton and Oval underground stations. The old White Horse was the chosen venue for this night. Now renamed JAMM for reasons I never got told, it is a venue separated into two performance areas, which is just as well as the amount of bands that had agreed to perform for this special night were numerous. The bands were going to perform in both rooms, overlapping slightly throughout the night. A video link to a big screen was to be set up in the small room so punters could decide when they wanted to leave one bands performance in that room to join the start of another bands performance in the larger room. Both Zounds and The Mob were the only bands that would not overlap with other bands on the night or at least this was the plan.

I went to work at Southern Record Distribution in the morning as normal, carrying my trusty Denon double tape recorder along for the ride. I skipped lunch so that I could release the chains from my day job a little quicker. Off I wandered, undertaking the five minutes journey to Seven Sisters underground station with my Denon safely by my side. Sat down on the train and waited for the end of the Victoria line to arrive. Within forty minutes I was in the familiar area of Brixton, once an area I frequently used to go to and stay over twenty five years ago… But where the hell was Tony D? He was not in the station as planned. I ducked into the Beehive pub to search for the ‘boss’. No Tony D there either.  Knowing Tony D’s timekeeping and rather than getting an early drink and waiting, I took the brisk walk for fifteen minutes to the old White Horse pub. Met up outside the venue with early birds Mark Astronaut, Steve Corr from Idiot Strength and both Curtis and Mark from The Mob. The trip from Bristol for these band members travelling east towards London was not without incident, as there was an accident just in front of them on the M4 which needed some sort of evasive action. Gladly the transport got through unscathed as did the band members. Curtis went up for a power nap in the rooms above the pub.

I mooched around the venue waiting for the Jamm sound guy Stuart to become known to me so I could set up my Denon into the smaller performance area’s mixing desk; as this bit of kit would be recording the performances by the bands in that room. Stuart had agreed to record the bands that were performing in the larger area which was much appreciated by me. Stuart became known to me and after a quick greeting I set up the Denon ready to record when the bands started on the night in the small room. At this point I then fancied something to keep me going for the night so I wandered over the road to get a large salad and hummus in pitta bread with chips. The elusive Tony D then made contact. He rung me up from the Beehive in Brixton, having got there much later than when I had been searching around that pub. Within an incredible ten minutes or so Tony D was outside the venue even before my pitta bread was toasted nice and crispy and  to my liking in the takeaway opposite! I took a photo for old time’s sake with Curtis, Tony and Mark; thankfully the photograph was in black and white as Tony was wearing a bright orange fleece which by the standard punk rock marking system ended up in Tony D gaining negative points for his attire!

More bands had started to turn up at this stage, and I had the honour of eating my salad with hummus in pitta and chips on the stage steps of the larger room whilst not only The Mob sound checked, but also Zounds and a little bit of The Hamsters (Kill Pretty). Not a bad way to start the night. But after all that hummus and salty chips I was gagging for a drink. Thankfully cans of Strongbow cider were in plentiful supply in the room upstairs above the venue. Result.

Back in the smaller room, Idiot Strength had sound checked and The Astronauts were almost at the end of their sound check. Worrying there was still no members of Rubella Ballet to be seen and time was getting a little tight. Almost opening time. I went upstairs for another can of Strongbow cider and took some photographs while I was up there. Particularly nice were the three front men from Zounds, Astronauts and The Mob all sitting together in the same room for the first time since the very early 1980′s. This Weird Tales 2011 moment I felt had to be photographed and archived, so I took two photographs, just in case…

Still no Rubella Ballet; and from the top floor vantage point I noticed the line of punters outside was growing and spreading out onto the side streets. I mooched around a little more and got in some minutes with the wonderful Andy T who was in fine fettle, we spoke of the following nights Steve Ignorant show in Shepherds Bush amongst several other subjects of interest. A lovely guy is Andy T.

I went downstairs and saw members of Rubella Ballet were turning up. Sid, the giant drummer of the band had not been well for the weeks leading up to this Weird Tales night had needed to wait for some medication, hence the lateness of the band. He arrived hobbling through the door and across the venue on a pair of crutches and for a moment I thought the worst, but thankfully, and very courageously I thought, Sid told me he was going to battle on with the drumming as he would not want to miss this opportunity to perform at this gig. He stated it was all part of the recovery process and being positive should help him overcome the problem. On guitar for this Rubella Ballet performance would be ex Lack Of Knowledge member Tony Barber.

After another half an hour or so whilst on another search for Strongbow cider upstairs; I noticed that the crowd were still not being allowed into the venue. I went downstairs and spoke to the security guy on the door, he seemed adamant that no one should be let in until one of the management told him so, sadly for him Mick Lugworm and some others just wandered in the door that I had just exited from. This was followed by a wave of other punters who were previously standing around outside on this November night. I went back in the venue and immediately got told off, by I assume the management, for drinking one of the cans of Strongbow cider out of the designated area upstairs. I wandered off upstairs obviously shamefaced until such time that Idiot Strength were about to go onto the stage in the small room.

IDIOT STRENGTH PERFORMANCE

Idiot Strength wandered onto the stage as most of the crowd was still being checked off outside, but while this was happening outside the band performed a decent set and my Denon recorded the set with no real drama. The soundman for that side of the venue had warned me earlier in the night that the output channels on this small mixing desk which was placed precariously onto a small and high pub table in the middle of the room, were faulty and that it may cut out from time to time. Great stuff, just what I needed, being chained to my Denon tape recorder all night long just in case! Still everything was set up now so fingers crossed and hope for the best. Idiot Strength were always one of my favourite bands in the mid 1980′s and although several line up changes have occurred throughout the bands career, they can still focus and perform a very good set. The photographs were taken, the recording was captured and I relaxed a little until the next band was expected on the stage.

THE ASTRONAUTS PERFORMANCE

The Astronauts clambered onto the small stage and my finger was ready to press record once more on the tape recorder. The room was filling up a little more now and this mixing desk in the middle of the small room started to get punters knocking against it a fair bit more often than during Idiot Strength’s set. This was going to be dodgy… Every time someone passed by the mixing desk set up, or passed by people already standing there, the leads from the mixing desk to my Denon were being knocked about. This meant that I would have to keep an eye on the recording as the room filled up even more, just to make sure I could salvage any recordings if the mixing desk output cut out at all. This was not really what I wanted to do throughout any of the bands performances but whatever…

Mark Astronaut, who is the only member of the Astronauts to remember the times of the Weird Tales tours in 1979 and 1980 started the band off and they went through a mixture of old and new songs with gusto, and with a very appreciative audience. This was nice to see, if you had seen the band as many times over the last few decades as I have, this appreciation for The Astronauts was not always the case! I feel very happy for Mark and his new young band. The band seems to be performing more in the 20oo’s than they seemed to in the 1980′s. And that is an achievement. The recording of the Astronauts does, from memory, cut out once or twice, and I had to joggle the leads a bit at the back of the mixing desk to keep the recording going. Also the band suffered from some kind of weird sound desk hum during a part of the set. I do not think it was the leads I brought along or my Denon recording levels being out, but whatever. The Astronauts were great on this night down the Jamm, but I fear the cassette recording may not bring out the best of this bands performance on the night due to the glitches already mentioned, but they were really really great.

RUBELLA BALLET PERFORMANCE

Rubella Ballet were the last band that were going to perform in the small room so after this performance I did not have to worry about ever so intently watching the recording going through my Denon. The venue was full to bursting by the time Rubella Ballet had taken the stage, and my worries for my tape leads hanging from the dodgy mixing desk output into the slipstream of punters squeezing past each other were well founded. I had to attempt to quickly joggle those leads throughout large chunks of Rubella Ballet’s set just to keep the recording going so you will hear various dropouts throughout the recording. As I was also trying to archive the night with the use of my camera, I had to rely on my old friend Iain Aitch to keep an eye on the recording whilst taken some hasty photographs and running, or rather squeezing, back to that sound desk area.

Rubella Ballet performed well in what must have been a very difficult time for Zillah and Sid (and the rest of the band no doubt). I was amazed the band performed at all with all the health problems that Sid had leading up to this gig, health problems that Sid and Zillah are both concerned with. The health of Sid will always be more important than performing the music of their longstanding band. But as Sid had stated earlier, this performance was going to be part of the recovery process.

A lovely dedication to the memory of the late Raymond at the beginning of the band’s set was a very nice touch. From there the band played well, although again I fear that the cassette tape will not capture this special performance, again due to the glitches mentioned before. Other than the early line up of Blyth Power, I think that gigs involving Rubella Ballet have been my most numerrous in quantity throughout the 1980s. Seen them many many times and this performance again was very special for the enthusiam shown from the crowd and also Sid attacking the drums right through the pain barrier.

I must now remind the browsers to this blog who may not have been at the Weird Tales event, that the small performance room and the larger performance room were both operating with bands performing in both areas around the same time. Although Zounds and The Mob should be the only bands on in either of the rooms towards the end of the night. Because of the dodgy output connection from the mixing desk to my Denon in the small room; I would have to be based almost exclusively in that room, on that exact spot to keep an eye on all the bands recordings throughout the night. This meant that I could only go into the large room to take photographs quickly and then go back to the small room to check my trusty Denon still had the recordings going through it.

Andy T’s set I witnessed for only a very short time as The Astronauts were performing so had to check on the recording for the above reasons. Unfortunately for me, Andy’s set was not recorded due to an oversight on the night. I apologise to you Andy, next time yeah?

THE HAMSTERS (KILL PRETTY) PERFORMANCE

The Hamsters (Kill Pretty) who were another band on the original Weird Tales tours in 1979 and 1980 went and performed around the same time as Rubella Ballet were performing in the other room so again due to that dodgy mixing desk output I did not witness too much of the set, just went in to take some photographs for archiving and stayed for a few minutes, but listening to these excellent recordings courtesy of Stuart the sound guy for the large room, it seems that I missed a right treat.

All the larger room recordings from The Hamsters (Kill Pretty), Zounds and The Mob were done via the sound desk mix alongside separate stage and ceiling based microphones. Stuart also remixed all these band’s performances a few days after the event so what you get is pretty near a full on (dare I say professional) sound with no glitches within the WAVs which were then converted at 320 to mp3′s by me. With these recordings from the larger room you could go along and release a CD box set of the evening! But if you do please credit Kill Your Pet Puppy!

About now I should mention specifically to Mick Slaughter and Gary D.I.R.T that I apologise for not being able to chat properly during the night as the time you had got my attention I was between rooms and I was rushing back to check the Denon recordings. I gave my spare ticket to Palmer to give to Deno from D.I.R.T who was ticketless outside so maybe that is what Gary was going to talk to me about, not sure… On nights like these I always seem to be ‘working’ (recording, sorting slideshows, photographing) when I really want to catch up with people from decades ago.

J.C, Tinsel, Angie, Ruth Hagar, Sean Forbes, Dan MacIntyre, Palmer, Iain Aitch, Chris Low, Miles Rat and Jim Wafford along with Gary from D.I.R.T and Mick Slaughter are all among the folk I would have loved to spend a few more minutes with but I remained in a recording and photography frenzy for most of the night. Also Dominic, John Turner, Andy Tuck and Tim Soars deserve a mention also. I hope to be more relaxed and talkative at any of the future gigs!

ZOUNDS PERFORMANCE

Weird Tales veterans Zounds were already on stage as I was removing my Denon tape recorder from the mixing desk to place somewhere safe after Rubella Ballet had completed their set. By the time I got through the doorway to the larger room the place was packed. Too packed. I somehow steadily made my way to the stage to take some photographs of the band (and also of Des and Jaz from Virus who were down the front). I made my way to the right side of the stage as it looked a little more relaxed there than down the front. I chatted to one of the Jamm security guys to ask him to open the large double doors near the stage side. He coldly refused. I explained to him that no other bands were performing next door so opening the doors should not be a problem, and that it would get people that were still trying to get in a  fair bit easier than through that one other entrance at the back of the hall. He coldly refused again. I found out the next day that the air conditioning had failed in the large room around this time and that later on in the night, one or two people had collapsed due to heat exhaustion. I am surprised I did not join the casualties as only having a hummus and salad in pitta bread with chips for the whole day on top of several Strongbow ciders is not a great idea when you add heat. On top of all that I had my Crombie overcoat on all night long! Some days previously on the The Mob / All The Madmen Facebook page someone had written on a post that he had a cassette tape given to him from Ted Chippington, of Max Flying Pig singing with The Mob back in 1980 and mentioned that he would give it to ‘Penguin down the Jamm on Friday night’ or words similar to that. I wrote back saying ‘yes please, and I will be wearing my Crombie overcoat’ or words similar to that.

No one came to me with a tape and I had that Crombie overcoat on all night just in case he did spot me later on… Even at the end of the night no luck with any rare Mob material to place up on KYPP! Next time I need to meet someone blind I will go for the more traditional newspaper under arm and a red carnation in my lapel!

Zounds were great and this recording captures the band well. Steve Lake was his usual cynical self between some of the songs that the band performed but that’s not a complaint, I always liked that from Zounds. A really dry humour bordering on sarcasm. An excellent performance and well worth a listen.

THE MOB PERFORMANCE

The Mob; the stage was set for their long awaited official reunion London show. There was a gig in Hoxton in the summer which was an invite only affair for some lucky Mob followers from the old days and for Jamie Hince’s group tagging along for his stag night which included Mick Jones from The Clash and Bobby Gillispie from Primal Scream. One hundred and fifty places were up for grabs at the free gig at the Macbeth in Hoxton, but this Brixton Jamm comeback gig had almost four hundred punters attending. An important gig for sure. It was also the last performance of the year for the band, a year which had a total of five one off and very special performances that kicked off at the Bristol Fleece in April.

I took my vantage point at the back of the stage near to Curtis’s bass amp to take some photographs. Due to the heat and so little room to move on the venue floor I more or less stayed there for the remainder of the night. The band started with a spectacular version of ‘Looking For You’ originally penned by the Entire Cosmos. Entire Cosmos was a band that had the original Weird Tales tour organiser J.B as vocalist. Josef Porta of Zounds and The Mob played drums for the Entire Cosmos at one point or another. The band recorded a fairly small amount of material during the bands career and it was always recorded at the Streetlevel studio and engineered by Grant Showbiz who was sadly not at the gig although I understand a couple of original Weird Tales veterans, Androids Of Mu members were! J.B himself was meant to have shown up at this event. Did he at all? Anyone?

The Mob went on to perform the tracks that everybody wanted to hear and of course went down a storm with the punters grasping for breath in the room. The only problem from my side of things occurred when someone decided to either stage dive or to tamper deliberately with the ceiling based projector that had been running my slideshow behind all the bands that performed in the large room, all night long. Halfway through the set this projector was somehow knocked and ended up pointing toward the ceiling rather than the white projector screen situated behind Graham, the drummer of The Mob. There was nothing that myself or Stuart the sound guy could do at this point of the night with this situation so obviously had to let it go. A bit of a shame but never mind. Other than that the performance was strong and the crowd seemed to revel in the Mob’s return to the big smoke. The band were tight and focused. A massive success on the stage, and a relief to see the night though with the minimum of problems.

After the Mob’s performance I mingled for some time with Tony D and Mick Lugworm, also met up again with Huntington Street squat veterans Hugh and Andrea along with Linda. I spent a little time with Miles (ex Naplam Death) and Chris (ex Apostles), two people that had not seen each other since 1983 and who both met up at this gig unexpectedly. This situation was repeated many times throughout the whole night by many different individuals that had taken the time to come out for this occasion. So many folk in the venue had not seen so many other folk that were in attendance for many decades. From these folk there were smiles all around, and above all there was a strong feeling of love. It was great to see J.C come over from Spain to attend this gig. J.C who drummed in the south African punk band Riot Squad was the person that opened up the door to me for the very first time at 96 Brougham Road, then the base for All The Madmen records. Over the passing decades the rest, you could say, is history.

It was almost time for me to try and scrape Tony D away from the venue to share a well-earned and very long cab ride home, first riding east and then to north London. I placed my Denon into its large hessian bag and placed the cassette tapes safely into my Crombie overcoat. Myself and Tony D gave our regards to any of the band members and old friends that were still in the venue, and along with Andrea, now performing with The Pukes, jumped into a Brixton cab to take us all home to Leytonstone and then to the out reaches of Enfield.

Already looking forward to Bristol Fleece in February where The Mob will perform alongside the newly reunited Hagar The Womb, that will be fun fun fun. Can’t wait.

A special thank you must go to Stuart the sound guy who was on the night and indeed after the night, very helpful. Thanks for all the effort you put into getting me the audio from the larger room so I could get it onto this post on KYPP. Cheers for everything Stuart.

TEXT AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY MICKEY PENGUIN

This post is dedicated with love from all at KYPP to Louise ex Puppy Collective member who was at this Weird Tales gig in spirit but unfortunately not in person…

…and also Chris Low ex Political Asylum and Apostles who was most certainly at the gig in person.

Both Louise and Chris celebrate birthdays this week. Happy Birthday to the both of you.

Physical / Friends / Zerox / Boil in the Bag Man / Christian Dior / Song For Ruth Ellis

It Doesn’t Matter / Cleopatra / B-Side Baby / Bathroom Function / Rubber People / Red Scab

Many thanks to Bradley Hall for lending KYPP this early Adam And The Ants vinyl bootleg for uploading onto this site. Bradley is a regular browser and is mentioned on several other posts on KYPP. He is pictured above in the photo booth with fellow Ants supporter Terry Smith.

Both Bradley and Terry were in a north London based band called Defex. Way back in 1978 one of the young band members managed to scrawl the band’s name onto the old Roxy club entrance in Covent Garden. This graffiti was quickly spoilt by some young upstarts who where in a band called Crass. Crass seemingly went on their own stencil style graffiti mission around the west end of London afterwards and almost covered over this legendary north London bands name! Crass were obviously adept at some old fashioned paste and poster action as well as being able to handle spray cans and stencils in the darkness. Crass? What ever happened to that band? Defex I hope to upload some material onto KYPP at some point soon…

As an impressionable and eager fifteen year old, Bradley first witnessed Adam And The Ants with Jordan screaming into the microphone alongside Adam, at the Rochester Castle in Stoke Newington around April 1978. After getting that taster in Stoke Newington he made a mental note of seeing the band as many times as he could throughout the next couple of years. Bradley went on to follow Adam And The Ants on dates throughout the Young Parisian and Zerox tours, enjoying performances on intense away days to venues far and wide around the UK. Bradley also wore his footwear down around the same period following tours by Martian Dance and The Monochrome Set, two bands that most other Ant people supported fiercely at the time. When I want to hear about the early Ants period, I end up going to two people for information, Tony D and Bradley Hall!

Anyway this early bootleg of Adam And The Ants was pressed up in a poster fold around sleeve and was limited to only five hundred copies. It contains the recordings that comprised both the Decca and Croydon sessions arguably some of the best material the band never released. The band at the time comprised of Adam Ant, Matthew Ashman, Andy Warren and Dave Barbe. The actual vinyl label itself has the names of the songs written in a vague code presumably so that the pressing plant didn’t know that the record was illegal.

Fizzy Cool = Physical

Sono un Amico = Friends

Macchina Dell’eros = Zerox

L’Uomo da Bollire Nella Busta = Boil in the Bag Man

C.D. = Christian Dior

Canzone per Ruth = Song For Ruth Ellis

Non C’E Problema! = It Doesn’t Matter

Patric Leo = Cleopatra

Seconda Facciata Baby = B-Side Baby

Gente di Gomma = Bathroom Function

Bathroom Function = Rubber People

Scabrosso = Red Scab

Adam Ant has announced an intimate gig to be performed at the Proud gallery and venue based at The Horse Hospital, Chalk Farm Road Camden Town NW1 on 6th March. Adam Ant will take to the stage in a special one-night charity performance to launch Proud Galleries’ photographic exhibition ‘Adam Ant – Dandy in the Underworld’. This exhibition runs from 7th March until 29th April 2012 and includes photographs from Chris Duffy, Gerard McNamara, Jill Furmanovski and Janette Beckman amongst others.

A limited number of tickets are being released for this exclusive performance, with 100% of the proceeds going to Adam Ant’s chosen charity DebRa, a national charity working on behalf of individuals and families affected by Epidermolysis Bullosa (EB). 

If you feel you would like to support this gig then HERE is the site to purchase tickets. Tony D and myself went to an intimate Adam Ant gig at a small venue underneath Stamford Bridge in Chelsea last year and it was a fine fine night out indeed… The next day Tottenham went up in flames.

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL THE KILL YOUR PET PUPPY BROWERS; THE FIRST DAY OF 2012 SEES A VERY SPECIAL POST FOR THE SITE; JUST A LITTLE PERSONAL HISTORY WHICH IN A SMALL PART HAS MY LITTLE BROTHER ROB INVOLVED. COINCIDING (NEARLY) WITH HIS BIRTHDAY AND THE TWENTY NINE YEAR OLD CASSETTE RECORDING THAT HE GAVE TO ME AT THIS POINT IN 2010.

THIS POST HAS BEEN A YEAR IN THE MAKING!

I SHOULD THINK THIS POST HAS LIMITED APPEAL TO ANYONE OUTSIDE THE IMMEDIATE SCENE OF THOSE TIMES IN HODDESDON / HERTFORD / WARE BUT I DO HOPE OTHER BROWSERS WILL ENJOY SOME OF THIS POST. GO ON GIVE THIS RARE RECORD AND EVEN RARER CASSETTE TAPE A LISTEN; YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO.

THANKS TO TIM EX NECRO FOR THE EFFORT SHOWN WITH THE ESSAY.

Onslaught – State Control

Onslaught – No More / First Strike

Necro – Practice / Demo 1983 – Side One

Necro – Practice / Demo 1983 – Side Two

One person’s summation and brief and incomplete history of a band called Necro and the punk / alternative scene in Hertford and Ware in the early 1980’s.

The 1970’s had promised so much and spectacularly failed to deliver, government was pushed around and about  by union power who in turn were governed by left wing agitators who should have been fighting the rise of the right wing movement instead of battering a notionally left wing government. Out of the boredom and frustration of the black, white and grey colours of England, punk rock blew everything apart, or so the myth goes. By 1980 the Sex Pistols had dissolved into a dead circus horse being flogged around the arena of the music business, The Clash whilst playing top rock n roll had moved stateside and seemed less and less relevant, The Damned were little more than a damned good night down the venues the band were performing in. These bands belonged to our older brothers and sisters, our older uncles and aunties. Whilst we loved the poses and the music, it offered little more to us than the fallen labour government offered to the union members and workers  who had blindly supported it… In short punk was dead and buried.

But out of the darkness and the grey, out of the sneers and gobbing a new set of groups jumped off the stages, into the record shop racks and through to the front pages of the music press. The Ruts, the UK Subs, Crisis, the Newtown Neurotics, the Angelic Upstarts, Theatre Of Hate and most importantly, dressed in black military uniforms and boots, rattling like a machine gun and shouting to us, about us,  came the huge alternative musical,  political and art movement that was spearheaded by Crass. Although Johnny Rotten had screamed ‘get off your arse’ here was something, a movement that seemed to mean it. Our year zero had arrived for us.

Necro, were a group of school friends with similar interests in music who spent most of their time sitting around each other’s bedrooms listening to records we had bought with pocket and paper-round money and cooking up ways to form a band. Andy’s older brother played bass and mine played guitar so we could talk a bit about the practical side of music. Andy, after much saving, bought a Les Paul copy guitar, covered it in CND stickers and paid an acquaintance  to build an amp with built in fuzzbox (don’t forget, purchasing  instruments back in the early 1980’s was much more expensive than they are now). I eventually saved the money to buy a small drum kit (thanks to £100 left to me by my gran). The band, a band, in theory, had been formed. During Saturday afternoons in the autumn of 1981 the curtains were drawn in my parents backroom as they ‘went shopping’ for the afternoon, bless them. The amps were fired up, drums were attacked mercilessly. It was glorious, out of time, out of tune and chaotic… Friends came around with various instruments and then left. My inept drumming was matched by Andy’s belief that all you needed to know was open E and then bar chords to play any tune. We attempted to play Clash songs, Crass songs and UK Subs songs. Steve, although not around during the initial rehearsals  had the best record collection of us all, and who was quite wordy, joined on vocals and by late autumn or early winter the group had settled down to have Steve on vocals, Andy guitar, Bill on bass and me on drums. Andy and I had spent the half term school holiday writing half a dozen songs, Steve had come up with the name Necro. We would settle for that as a decent name to shock some of the public who actually would know what the name meant. All that we needed now was for the world to listen.

Revolution rarely happens in isolation and whilst we were planning and rehearsing to take the world on there was a whole bunch of other groups in the Ware / Hertford area doing the same. From the angry to the arty, from poets to the punks. Bands like Onslaught, Virus V1, Moscovite 5, Rig Veda And The Twins, Dicotoledan, Timmy And The Wheelbarrows, The Plugs, The Frets and a whole other set of bands I can’t remember the names of with so many years passing. Some bands were real runners, some bedroom pipe dreams, but all were coming out of the mire at the same time in the same place. Necro were first and foremost mates, and we would go along to hear Onslaught (the then top punk band from the area) practice and the floor shook they were so loud! Rig Veda were arty like Orange Juice and were cool. Each one of these bands and people were a crucial ingredient in the very scene that was emerging. You couldn’t walk down the street on a Saturday afternoon without bumping into someone from one of the bands. Also worth noting was the relative close proximity to towns like Welwyn Garden City, Stevenage and Harlow. All these three areas having vibrant punk scenes already established with venues, record shops and fanzine culture. The centre of London was a forty five minute train journey away. Small Wonder records in Walthamstow was only around an hour away via all the public transport connections.

The winter of 1981 going through to 1982 was cold and long. A number of gigs were being arranged by friends at the Pioneer Hall and at the Richard Hale School in Hertford. All gigs were CND benefits, though probably not big fund raisers as they were about 30p to get in and only around seventy people in attendance!

[Penguin remembers Onslaught performing at Richard Hale school when the bassist Sam who had missing front teeth and a one string Rickenbacker bass tried to explain to a mixed race skinhead the irony of wearing a YNF shirt and hanging out with the handful of other white YNF skinheads that had turned up for the gig.]

Posters were made and photocopied. Evenings were spent fly-posting them, usually alongside CND posters. Some nights it was so cold and damp the posters fell off the lamp-posts and walls as soon as we pasted them up. Occasionally we were stopped by the police, usually when Steve mentioned his surname we got a ‘take care son’ and were left alone (Steve’s dad was in the police). It was always good fun, there was a feeling of I fought the law and got away with it (I was never sure of the punishment for a 14 year old bill stickerer if anything had not gone right on the night). The early gigs were chaotic and brilliant fun, the audience being made up of mates and people from other bands. Necro played at the local Hertford conservative party club; surely we could convert the ruling classes with our blend of music, lyrics and slogans written on the back of our leather jackets? A teacher at school was a club member and we asked if we could play on the night (he had no idea what sort of music we played). He got us a spot on a Saturday disco night. A friendly art teacher with a penchant for The Clash drove us to the club. After arriving things clearly weren’t going to go as planned, and after just one song the microphone we borrowed off the DJ was pulled and Andy’s lovely fuzzbox bearing amp unplugged. We were ‘banned from the Tory club…ok…never much liked playing there anyway…think they only wanted well behaved boys…etc etc’.

Top street cred ratings and the teacher went onto state “you should never dismiss seeing a band twice, but I think Necro is the exception to the rule”.

We should remember that the early 1980’s were highly politically charged times. Unemployment had hit three million, industry was being shut down, riots in Toxteth, Bristol and Brixton, the nuclear arms race and possible use of those nuclear arms was a very real possibility, public services were starting to get demolished by chunks (except the police and army who were given generous pay rises), and led by one Maggie Thatcher who made it clear that she was not only made of iron, she certainly wasn’t for turning. Oh yes, then she declared war on Argentina, more of that later. This war was as illegal as the recent Iraq war. On top of all this, the nazi right in the form of the National Front was on the rise and certainly on the march. The mainstream politics was either right (Tory) or left (Labour), the mush of consensual right wing politics of today was a long way away…

The songs we wrote in Necro were about the world around us and how we wanted it to change. Songs were written about the right wing press, about the (then soon to be) development of Stansted airport, about the arms race, about the police state and Maggie’s stooges. In fact we wrote about all the usual political targets. As we played more we got slightly better, we recorded the rehearsals on hand held Binatone and Soundhog cassette recorders, to us they sounded great. Andy showed up one day with a new fuzzbox, it made his guitar buzz even more like an angry wasp caught in the Ramones guitar amp! We walked around like a gang and all was going well until…

Our prime minister, Maggie Thatcher, whilst festering in the opinion polls engaged in an illegal war with Argentina, the start of hostilities from the UK was the sinking of the Belgrano whilst it was sailing away from the exclusion zone around the Falklands. After a jingoistic build up ‘our lads’ sailed to the Falklands and fought a war resulting in the deaths of between 900 and 1300 soldiers and the maiming and injuring of several hundred others. From feeling we could change the world the world had been changed in front of our eyes, the carpet pulled from under the punk and wider protest movement  and the political landscape in this country was changed forever…

Andy left Necro to sing for his brothers band Virus V1. (Skinner on guitar, Andy on vocals, Richard on bass and Russ on drums). Necro was left directionless and a bit let down.  Steve, Bill and I toyed about but without Andy’s bar chords and one string guitar leads driving us forward we didn’t know what to do. Another Andy joined us on guitar briefly but it didn’t quite work out. As Virus V1 and Onslaught gained a reputation and played more gigs, Necro languished in those bands shadow. Into the Autumn of 1982. Paul, another friend and a proper bonafide guitarist came to our rescue. We rehearsed new songs, landed a CND benefit gig at the prestigious Times club in glamorous Stevenage and were ready again to take on the world. We swapped the fuzz box for a more ‘pop’ Clash influenced sound. I’d learnt to keep time, Bill could walk a bass-line, Steve’s lyrics were intelligent and personal. The first song we wrote during this line up was about the self-expression of spray-painting. At this time ‘graffiti’ artists were not about getting exhibitions at art galleries. Walls and hoardings were fair game and there for political slogans and ideas to be painted onto.  For the Times club gig, we took a coach load of mates over and got the blame for the windows being smashed later that night!

[Penguin remembers Virus V1 had a distinct Discharge sound and Andy had spikes which were similar to Cal from Discharge at that time; Virus V1 and Necro went to Stevenage Bowes Lyon house for a Subhumans / Omega Tribe gig and Virus V1 were first on support for that night.]

In true Necro form things fell apart again, Paul left to pursue a more musical direction, and Bill petulantly declared he needed to play with proper musicians. The gloves were off and Steve and I were looking for a guitarist and bassist. Rob Baxter came along with a bass guitar and a top record collection no doubt some pilfered from elder brother Mickey (at some point much later in the 1980’s to be known as ‘Penguin’). Simon was a friend from another band who joined on guitar. Although Simon was a good friend he didn’t really get what we wanted to do and after a disastrous gig at the Triad club in Bishops Stortford, noted for all four of us travelling in Rob and Mickey’s dads car with a guitar amp across our collective legs, a confrontation with skinhead nazis and sadly missing out on a trick as Steve and Simon from the Newtown Neurotics along with Colin from Flux were in the audience to witness our band Necro’s performance. I very much doubt that performance impressed them.

[Rob at fourteen years old at the time of Necro with donkey jacket and Spurs scarf.]

Simon left and we were on the search for another guitarist. We rehearsed with a heavy metal freak called Martyn, but those rehearsals were thankfully short lived. So the solution came from within the band itself. Rob was learning the guitar and Steve the bass, so it made sense to follow our noses and become a three piece. I think rehearsals were probably torturous for my mum and dads neighbours, but we battled on and the sound took on a more raw quality. The cassettes of these rehearsals sounded ok and we had a couple of gigs to aim for. Rob developed a nice trebly sound to his guitar, which was exciting and angular and Steve could hold a simple bass-line down as he shouted along.

[Penguin remembers Rob painting a back drop for Necro on an old bed sheet - He used the wrong kind of paint so it was not that easy to fold the sheet after the paint had dried onto it, in fact impossible, it was like folding a garden fence!]

Gig number one as a three piece was at the Rye Road youth club in Hoddesdon in February 1983, it had been a snowy, cold, wet winter and a thick layer of slush lay on the roads as the mini-bus we were using with mates in pulled up outside the youth club.  Myself and Steve not really knowing the Hoddesdon scene that well, chatted to the other bands and got to know each other. Rob and his brother Mickey lived just around the corner to this youth club in this rather unglamorous town with a large skinhead population on the Essex / Hertfordshire border.  Necro played, we were quite good, there was a bit of agro from some Hoddesdon skinheads and then the malteser incident happened!  What was a single malteser wittily sent flying at the band by someone in the audience, which I thought was hilarious, soon turned into Necro being maltesered off the stage in local Hoddesdon folk-law! I only wish our exit had been that dramatic! Some of the local skinheads threw lighted match boxes (full of a complete set of now ignited matches) at Rob’s head several times throughout the heckling, but that was good natured (I think) as Rob and Mickey vaguely knew those skinheads.

[Penguin remembers Necro also performed at the Rye House Tavern in Hoddesdon in front of the same skinheads around this time and it was well behaved, it had to be as in those days the landlord ruled those skinheads with an iron fist. The band were not allowed to drink alcohol in the pub though, being at least two or three years under age.]

By the summer of 1983 Thatcher had singlehandedly claimed victory in the Falklands, had broken much of the trade union movement and weathered the storms of northern Ireland and the riots. She was returned to power in the general election with a landslide majority, for those who thought the battle was being won, how wrong we were. Worse (or at best more of the same) was to come  in the form of the breaking of the miners’ strike during the Orwellian year 1984, the dismantling of local government as it then stood and the erosion of personal freedoms. Whatever in-roads the movement had made, or believed it had made, were spat back out. The in-roads became personal journeys of awakenings and realisation  for individuals and groups of likeminded people, but any sting we hoped we’d make on the government or the ‘system’ was swatted away by the media, the police and the army. A vivid memory of this time is going on the CND demonstration at Greenham Common on April 1^st of that year. We arrived early and stood around talking to each other and groups of police, who were quite chatty and kept telling us that not many protesters were going to come along. Then some coaches appeared on the horizon, followed by some-more; then a never ending convoy headed towards the air-base, ‘fair-cop gov’! The US airbase was surrounded and we marched in tight formation, as you got to the top of one hill the ground would dip down to reveal thousands upon thousands of people, wearing black (the chosen colour of the movement), in a sea of protest, there was certainly no lack of a feeling of strength.

[Penguin remembers Necro, Virus V1 and I think Onslaught were billed to perform with Conflict at the Tudor Hall in Hoddesdon, a gig that Tim from Necro part organised but sadly never happened due to threats to the venue from the NF skinheads in the area, later to be highlighted by Tim as the main article in the Sounds music paper letter pages.]

The next gig was to be at the Hartham peace festival in Hertford. Myself, Steve and other friends had been instrumental in organising the festival. A friendly lorry driver had been persuaded to park his lorry there to form the stage, it was true DIY and we had bagged Flux Of Pink Indians to headline. Necro were to be performing second on the bill with a host of other local bands in what was planned as a celebratory afternoon in aid of CND, but in true fashion things didn’t quite go according to plan.

[Rob with some school friends turning up to the Hartham common gig ready to support Flux Of Pink Indians; which sadly did not happen.]

We and other CND factions marched from Ware to Hertford and arrived on Hartham common to be greeted by a large group of NF skinheads. Peace festival this was not going to be. Some of the NF skinheads were from further afield, Harlow and Stevenage, but many of them were idiots that could be seen in and around Hertford starting fights and generally being arseholes. With these also came a largish police presence, who were unwilling to ask the NF to leave. Wonder why? Me too…!

[Penguin remembers the march to Hertford County Hall at the end of the CND march where Steve, the vocalist from Necro unfolded a Crass ‘Nagasaki Nightmare’ sleeve and read from it word for word to the crowd in attendance whilst the poster was being blown around by the wind. I think it ended up ripped in half!]

It became clear that the tight time plan for the festival had gone and the time slots allocated to the support bands had just slipped away, Flux were planning to meet the NF face on was the little information that I had to explain this to other people and band members. Apologies were made to the local bands as we all walked around with guitars and drumsticks looking lost. Flux had brought a band called D & V with them who played a short set, then Flux took the stage and Derek Birkett, in an attempt to show the stupidity of the NF’s arguments offered them  some of their set time to debate the issues on stage, refer to a previous KYPP post for a recording made on my Binotone cassette recorder for the full debate. (Hear that tape HERE ). Flux’s strategy worked and the NF ‘intelligensia’ took the stage. He could string three words together almost coherently, he  contradicted himself, said he’d prefer to be called a nazi and generally proved what a bunch of misguided and nasty bastards they were. Flux then played a glorious set with the steps up to the ‘stage’ being guarded by a single police officer!

The PA during Flux Of Pink Indians set was so loud that a wedding in a nearby church had to be stopped as they couldn’t hear what was being said. One of the elders of the festival organisers did mention to me that he hadn’t been told that this would happen… Truth was, no-one knew…

[Penguin remembers around this time Tim from Necro produced the only issue of his fanzine ‘War Is Over’ which had pieces on animal rights, the riots from the previous year and of course the obligatory Crass interview (with Pete Wright on a visit to Dial House) amongst its pages.]

After the Hartham peace festival, Steve who I had a feeling had been thinking of moving on decided to leave the band. I was quite upset. Steve had become my closest mate and the band had been a platform for that friendship. But I knew that he’d had enough of it and wanted to concentrate on other things in his life. Although I’d formed a good friendship with Rob, and we both tried to carry on for a short while, Necro wasn’t going to work without the main lyricist and vocalist so the band just drifted to an end. I did feel a little bit guilty about the band finishing just as Rob had started to stamp his mark on it but that’s rock’n’roll folks!

Although only a tiny bubble in our local music scene, the era of Necro and the other bands Onslaught and Virus V1 was a gloriously creative time where almost all things seemed possible and maybe they were. The bubble burst around the time of the Hartham peace festival. The backdrop of politics at the time was crucial to both the development and ending of the movement and maybe moving onto to try and change things in different ways was the right way to go…But above all the times were fun!

[Penguin remembers buying The Onslaught 7” single from Kensington Our Price record shop towards the end of the summer in 1983, a rare and fine record indeed. It was released by Mark Flunder who was a well known face in the Hertford scene. Mark had a stint performing and recording with the Television Personalities in 1982 and was also involved (in an organisational way) with The Marine Girls and Ten Cubic Feet. He performed later on in the McTells, and  much later on in Sportique and Cee Cee Beaumont – Matt the guitarist of Onslaught joined up with west country band Idiot Strength as that bands drummer. Matt sadly is no longer with us.]

Rob as a guitarist helped to form other bands throughout the rest of the 1980’s (hear anothor of Rob’s mid 1980′s bands on KYPP HERE )

[Penguin remembers one of Rob's latter bands were banned from the Harlow Square due to the vocalist taking all his clothes off and hanging upside down from the lighting rig. Rob performing the gig at the time did not notice this oddity on the stage but only knew when I told him later on after the band had wandered off the stage. How he missed that I still do not know!  Rob must have been well out of it. Rob was also in a band with one of our dear friends Simon N who later on became known as Ossian Brown. Ossian now performs in Cyclobe. Rob has now lived in Sheffield for decades and is an art teacher.]

I joined a band from Hoddesdon called Strontium 90 (of which Paul, ex Necro, was already in), Andy was sacked from Virus V1 for singing too weirdly and shortly afterwards trained to become a P.E teacher. Bill got a tattoo!

Written by Tim Voss – Necro

This post is dedicated to my younger brother Rob (pictured above with Mickey ‘Penguin’) who is celebrating his birthday on the 2nd January.

This post is also dedicated with love to Tim Voss who has crossed our paths once more for the first time in almost thirty years. Photograph of Tim taken by Mickey ‘Penguin’ at Steve Ignorant’s last night of performing Crass songs. Thanks for the essay you wrote for Kill Your Pet Puppy Tim.

ALL MATERIAL FROM MICKEY ‘PENGUIN’S COLLECTION