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Indebted to Bob Butler for this recording of the last time The Mob performed in Bristol. Later on this month, in 1983, the band were no more…
Two interesting points to this audience quality recording. Firstly Captain Max does a version of Arthur Comix classic ‘Is God A Man’, secondly the track entitled here as ‘Smack’ is a totally unknown track to most Mob appreciators, including the writer of the song suprisingly enough! So give that a listen.
Loads and loads of other Mob live gigs and singles uploaded on this site, if you use the search function.
Captain Max from Paul Wilsons Site Pavlik
Roz
February 16, 2008 at 12:57 amThe first time I have ever googled Rosebery Ave & I find this. How strange & amazing. Thankyou Puppy’s. Quite a few names & faces that I recognise. Hello 🙂 It’s good to hear from some folk of those days. I moved into Rosebery Ave in the latter part of ’83, was there for some months, lived at Molly’s for a while; various squats. So many stories, so many characters. Could go on for PAGES.
Sad to hear about Bill. He was a good bloke.
Here is a nice pic of him in his ex croupier’s jacket
(he was an ex croupier)!
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj297/Blibblable/Bill-1984040.jpg
I have some other pics & bits – will try & dig them out. In the meantime:
Me
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj297/Blibblable/Roz-1984-MollysCafe037.jpg
Tim & Martin
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj297/Blibblable/MartinTim-1984038.jpg
Nils & Napoleon at Molly’s
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj297/Blibblable/Nils-Napoleon-Mollys-84042.jpg
Spoons
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj297/Blibblable/Spoons-Mollys-84047.jpg
Monty & Bagpipes
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj297/Blibblable/MontyBagpipes-Bristol-84048.jpg
Bless everyone who has not survived, everyone who is struggling, & everyone who is surviving.
(Blessings of a non-jesusy, non-cosmic variety, you understand).
Tony Puppy
February 16, 2008 at 2:22 amGreat for you to post onto this. And somehow warming that Google is recognising us.
Hey Roz, look to the right hand side and see comments. Work from there and you’ll find friends.
I’m loving your photos.
Will put them into the puppy gallery unless ….
Roz
February 17, 2008 at 8:01 pmHi Tony
Hadn’t looked at those pics in years. They’re not bad are they. I’m especially glad to have the one of Bill, since he is no longer with us. That was his fave outfit (dig the shirt) & he wore it till it pretty much till it decomposed. Think I have some cartoons of his – we did a Rosebery Ave comic – I must have that somewhere. by all means do add the pics to the gallery.
Will have a delve for some others, & a rummage around the site – amazing & laberinthine! (is a site map feasable? I feel like a need a ball of string incase I get lost in the catacombs)!
Penguin • Post Author •
February 17, 2008 at 8:03 pmRoz photos now up in Photo Gallery under Puppies and their friends, thanks Roz!
John Serpico
June 6, 2009 at 8:31 amThis is one of the few gigs from my days in Bristol that for some forgotten reason I didn’t go to. Strangely, its sometimes the gigs and events that I missed that stay with me as a nagging lost experience – “Its better to regret something you have done than to regret something that you havent”, as The Butthole Surfers put it. So I’m grateful to be able to hear a recording of this gig.
There was something uniquely English about The Mob which to this day is difficult to define. A loose, understated eccentricity. A strangeness, fuelled by their association with free festivals and LSD. I can remember the porky prime cut messages scratched on the inner groove of their records: ‘Acid Punks’, ‘Take a trip down’, etc. Unlike most of their fellow Crass-type bands, they never offered any solutions or calls for action. They simply described how things were and how they felt. While Crass et al attempted to inspire through anger, The Mob inspired through being very truthful. While some put forward pacifism as an answer and others direct action, The Mob offered no answers at all and in this respect they were just like us because we also had no real answers. We all knew the world was wrong but none of us really knew what to do about it. It is this aspect of The Mob that makes them important (in the scheme of 1980’s anarcho punk rock things): They were the same as us. They were closer to us than most other bands, closer I imagine than they ever really knew.
Though the music they played was relatively simple, the sound they made was very big and it translated well from small to big venues, from small crowds (or just you alone in your bedroom) to large festival audiences. I always thought they could have been a hugely successful band in the sense of reaching out to a wide audience. They were getting better all the time, their last single ‘The Mirror Breaks’ even being covered by an Indie band the Close Lobsters (as posted elsewhere on this site). For some reason, however, they called it a day but in doing so they passed into legend.
The recording of this gig in Bristol cuts off near the end, just as ‘No Doves Fly Here’ begins. ‘Roger’ is also edited out. Maybe its due to the cassette tape being turned over and not being quite long enough to capture the whole set? For all that, its good that this recording exists and that there are a few people out there who are aware enough of its value to merit posting it up here.
Pete
June 6, 2009 at 10:15 amAlright John,
It’s Pete here – once of London, then of Bristol and now Prague! How’s things? Are you still in Bristol?
On another note, reading earlier comments on this thread, wasn’t it the Demolition Ballroom rather than the Burn It Down Ballroom? Or is my drink and drug-addled memory failing me?
Penguin • Post Author •
June 6, 2009 at 11:11 amJohn, what you wrote is great, may edit it a little and place it on http://www.myspace.com/themobfansite which I also moderate along with Mark.
Pete, yeah Mark Mob’s memory in the earlier comment is slightly incorrect by around 180 miles.
John Serpico
June 6, 2009 at 11:30 pmHello Pete, nice to know you’re still around even if its in Prague. What are you doing there of all places? Hope you’re well? You’re someone I quite miss, actually, along with Roger, Ian Bone, Geoff and the Easton Cowboys. Im living in Amsterdam, have been for almost 5 years now. Its quite nice here! Keeps me constantly amused, at least.
Yes, it was the Demolition Diner – with the Ballroom above – on the corner of Cheltenham Road which was being referred to. Its quite funny reading through the debate about the so-called ‘slope’ past Trinity Hall, dont you think?
And yes, Penguin, use any comment I post up for whatever you wish. Much respect to you.
Pete
June 7, 2009 at 10:23 amBloody hell! Amsterdam eh? Hey John, if you want to contact me I give the KYPP folk full permission to give you my email address, it’d be good to hear from you!
Slope?!!! Pah! Slight incline, more like!! I think you’d have difficulty getting water to run down that! Totterdown – now that has slopes!
Penguin • Post Author •
June 7, 2009 at 10:26 amI will swap your emails when I get my computer back. This is written on someone else’s.
Pete
June 7, 2009 at 10:33 amCheers Penguin, here’s a proper Bristol slope for you!
http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2045/2518243153_fc2cb8aee8.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.flickr.com/photos/7705990%40N06/2518243153/&usg=__4VQgiVrt0qpj-gOnkk-eVPLY8P8=&h=375&w=500&sz=153&hl=en&start=2&tbnid=y34_o_1Ljm-G-M:&tbnh=98&tbnw=130&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dvale%2Bstreet%2Btotterdown%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den
John Serpico
June 8, 2009 at 12:15 amI presume this is Pete from Bristol as in ex Spite / In The Shit / Icons of Filth? Not One-Eyed Bastard Pete from Bristol who wants to torture me slowly for copping off with his wife that night? If the former then yes it would be nice to have your email address. If the latter then fuck off you cunt she was never happy with you anyway….
John No Last Name
June 8, 2009 at 1:59 amI’m using every bit of restraint I never used to have but luckily have now to not post
“How dare you, I loved that woman”
and sign it
One-Eyed Bastard Pete from Bristol
Luckily I’m more mature now
Pete
June 8, 2009 at 7:52 amNo, this is Two-Eyed Bastard Pete! Ex Spite etc.
Who the hell is One-Eyed Bastard Pete? I’m intrigued!
Bob
June 8, 2009 at 1:55 pmI reckon the clues in the name!
Pete
June 8, 2009 at 2:55 pmYes, very funny – what I meant was, of all my 22 years in Bristol you’d have thought I’d have come across someone else living in close proximity called “One-Eyed Bastard Pete”!
Now I know a “One-Eared Slightly-Annoying Dave” and a “Three-Toothed Stingy-With-His-Roll-Ups Bert” but of all my time in Bristol I’ve never come across a “One-Eyed Bastard Pete”……
John Serpico
June 9, 2009 at 7:08 amEr… just in case there is a ‘One-Eyed Bastard Pete from Bristol’ who is out there Googling himself then suspects his wife has betrayed him, maybe I should declare that all events and characters are fictional and that any similiarity to events or persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Like it says on the missing last page of the bible….
Pete
June 9, 2009 at 1:26 pmWhat? The bible’s not real?
Penguin • Post Author •
June 9, 2009 at 11:16 pmJohn, placed your text on the Mob myspace page with a little editing. Looks nice. Wrote this on someone else computer, my one still not well enough to be embraced back into my arms. John No Last Name, will read my emails when I get it back and sort out those email addresses.
The Bible IS Real, at least the parts that I was featured in are (in an earlier life you understand). Gabba Gabba…
John Serpico
June 10, 2009 at 9:40 amThe pleasure and the privilege is mine, Mr Penguin.
Emma
August 13, 2009 at 9:39 pmHi
I work for Trinity Centre and I am collecting images and people’s stories from past events.
We would like to add some of your Trinity pics to our archive space on our website: http://www.3ca.org.uk/archive/gallery
If you would like to send me a few that we would be allowed to use, or let me know if I can just grab them from flickr and we would be able to credit you for your images and link to your flickr site/website. Also if you’ve got a back story you’d like to share with us that’d be great too…
Any help you can provide would be much appreciated.
Kind Regards
Emma Harvey
Activities Coordinator
Trinity Community Arts Ltd
0117 935 1200
emma@3ca.org.uk
http://www.3ca.org.uk
mal
February 18, 2010 at 5:13 pmWas there really a Burn It Down Ballroom in Bristol in 1984? I was part of the Kafe Kollaps collective who squatted and opened the Kafe in Arkwright Rd in early 1983 before opening the Burn It Down on Finchley Road later in 1983 (Crass opened, Mob and Youth In Asia also played. We ran that and briefly a satellite squat venue up the Finchley Road for a while in 1984 and where we put on the first Class War benefit gig with Poison Girls and Chumbawumba headlining. Opened the Glasshouse squat venue and art gallery with Copy Art in 1985, and I think the Mob also played there. I know Olly who used to be part of the squat moved to Bristol late in 1987 or 88 and may have taken the name with him, but the only Burn It Down we knew of in 83 and 84 was ours in London.
luggy
February 20, 2010 at 2:56 amNever went to the Bristol one but went to gigs at all of your venues. Were you one of the blokes who tatted the Bingo Hall at Highbury corner when we got evicted?
mal
February 20, 2010 at 10:23 amI vaguely recall going into a place in Highbury, which had been a venue of some sort. Didn’t it eventually become a part of the Forum or something? I remember helping to get the Ambulance Station going in South London and a place in Notting Hill which I can’t remember very well. My memory is not what it could be, doubtless due to the amount of (cough) passive smoking that went on back then.
luggy
February 20, 2010 at 1:30 pmThe place is now The Garage, remember that you mainly wanted the push bar emergency exit fittings from there.
mal
February 20, 2010 at 6:16 pmAh, that’ll be because we were having trouble with the spider gang of skinheads (+ Johnny Rubbish frae Perth) from West Hampstead. I recall that they started a ruck at a Flowers In The Dustbin gig. Getting them out of the door was difficult, and once they were ejected, keeping them out meant leaning against the doors until they got bored and left. Someone must have figured that the push bar emergency exit would have been handy. Can’t remember installing it though.
luggy
February 20, 2010 at 10:32 pmWas that their gig at the place on Finchley Rd? Vaguely remember the trouble & getting dragged away from it by a comely wench!
waff
September 28, 2010 at 11:17 pmJust found this site being old and reminiscing….I come from Clevedon and we had a good bond with the ‘Bristol Punx’ at the time, along with ‘Chaos uk’ who were also local and some members of ‘Disorder’. I remember the Crass gig at trinity when the NF skins came in and started singing ‘God Save the queen’ and all hell broke loose, ambulances were called and much blood was spilled (Dave Ayres and some others may have been included, some did express remorse) It must have been an earlier gig 81 or 82.
All the Mob gigs were great except when we got a coach to Frome and the local skins decided they wanted a ruck. Luckily for us we had a couple of skins our own who were more than capable of seeing them off..Mike Kemery and Chris Fear no less….
Ardcorr
February 20, 2011 at 1:49 pmI don’t ever remember it being called “The Burn It Down Ballroom”
At least not by anyone who knew it.
It was always called “The Demolition Ballroom” and next door was The Demolition Diner” There are photo’s around to verify the fact for all you non believers 🙂
It was formally a VW Beetle showroom.
I have met many people who seem to have confused it with the Burn it Down Ballroom in London and it’s easy to see how such an error could be made.
I played there on too many occasions and was with Tim Bennett, Bear, Beano and others the night it was squatted.
With regards to Trinity I must beg to differ, the sound was fucking awful and more akin to wookey hole than a music venue and when it wasn’t under siege from skinheads it was the Bristol wrecking crew who were ex skins turned psycho-billies. I don’t remember it being such a great venue and am more aligned to Waffs recollections. I was at that Crass gig. I remember their last gig at Trinity where they played the entire “Yes Sir I will” album.
That was shockingly bad.
I well remember Mark, Luggy, Bedwin, Ronnie and others turning up at Picton Street and then going on some kind of cider run.
I was kind of living there at the time. Most of us in Bristol were only ever, “kind of living somewhere” If you had a place for more than 2 or 3 months you were damned lucky.
Shane Dabinett
February 20, 2011 at 3:27 pmAs the promoter of this gig, I knew the Mob from way back in Yeovil in 77. I remember talking to Mark at Stonehenge that year, we all thought it was novel idea for The Mob to gig with Disorder / Amebix et al, and what a show it was…what a show! Worthy mention and remembering….