Chuggin In The Ruggin / Steppenwolf
Look Mummy Clowns emerged early on in 1982 from the members of The Eratics. Stringy continued to play the bass and Snout continued to play the guitar. Roper, The Eratics drummer, moved over to vocal duties and the vacant drumming position was filled by ex-Apostle drummer Dan MacIntyre.
The band performed with the likes of Hagar The Womb, Blood And Roses and Flowers In The Dustbin in many of the usual pubs and squats that were available to punk bands in and around the London scene at that time.
A year on in 1983 the band recorded and released a demo which impressed ex-Eratics fan Jumpy who was based in Bolognia amongst the radical squats and book shops that existing in that Italian city. The band travelled over to Bolognia, performed in front of the radical audience and then sometime later in the week, the band rush recorded these tracks in a portacabin before having to travel to that nights gig in Milan. The travel arrangements to this gig in Milan ended in confusion as two members made it and two members ended up somewhere else near by!
The band performed for the last time at the New Merlins Cave pub near Kings Cross in June of 1985.
Dan MacIntyre had a thought about about this one and only Look Mummy Clown 7″ release;
“it actually came out alright considering it was recorded very quickly in a portacabin in Bologna using a small mobile studio. This was during a tour of Italy in 1983 organised by Jumpy from RAF punk record label Attack…”
Interesting article written by Tom Vague in August 1984 for Zig Zag magazine HERE and HERE
Many happy returns to Dan MacIntyre whose birthday it is today. Hoping you and yours are having a nice day down on the south coast.
Thanks to Jim Wafford for the lend of this release and to Dan for the flyers and for supplying the demo track ‘White Horses’ a song that was mentioned in the comments after this post was completed.
Graham Burnett
January 19, 2010 at 4:56 pmHappy Birthday Dan!
danmac
January 19, 2010 at 8:41 pmthanks pengy and graham – much love out to you and all puppyites for the thrills and spills recent and not so recent…where did you get that puppy product placement pic from eh?
Penguin • Post Author •
January 19, 2010 at 10:25 pmThe Puppy product placement pic is from Brother Tod’s collection Dan. Many more photographs of various young things in the photo archive under the heading ‘Puppies And Thier Friends’.
Here’s a link for your ease on your special day:
http://s208.photobucket.com/albums/bb227/killyourpetpuppy/Puppies%20and%20their%20friends/
chas
January 25, 2010 at 3:05 pmAm I deluded, or did LMC play a cover of On White Horses, the theme to a kids tv show from the mid 70s? I think I remember them doing it but couldn’t say where or swear it was them, maybe it was all a dream.
alistairliv
January 25, 2010 at 7:03 pmYou mean the theme to this kids TV series Chas?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvZgqIUsrtU
My 7 year old niece loves the song.
gerard
January 25, 2010 at 8:25 pmI love that song too – memories of sunny summer holidays that never seemed to end!
It was also featured on a punk-related (fiction) film starring Anna Friel
Penguin • Post Author •
January 26, 2010 at 1:27 amDan is supplying me with an mp3 demo of this track ‘white horses’ performed by Look Mummy Clowns.
I must admit that this TV series must have passed me by in the early / mid 70’s as I have absolutely no recollection of the TV title song or in fact the TV programme. Although I do have weirdly strong memories of the Robinson Crusoe series being played out every school summer holiday in the early 70’s (and I assume the late 60’s as I think it was quite an old programme). Very haunting music score and filmed in black and white.
Nic
January 26, 2010 at 2:52 pmAn inspired choice of cover by LMC!
My wife has a copy of the ‘White Horses’ 7″ by Jacky (aka Jackie Lee who sang backup on Hendrix’s ‘Hey Joe’ and later sang the theme to ‘Rupert’): a good one for singing along to in the car on long journeys…
‘Robinson Crusoe’ seemed to be on every summer, didn’t it? It was a mid-60’s production, but they screened it throughout the 70’s into the early 80’s…The soundtrack has been out on CD a couple of times, and there’s also a DVD of the complete series available…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQHB1zd1f5M
A couple of my favourite kids TV programmes from the 70’s were ‘Children of the Stones’ (absolute nonsense set in Avebury) and ‘The Changes’ (post-Apoclayptic dossing about with strange BBC Radiophonic Workshop ‘sounds’ by Paddy Kingsland)…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLpcr7KTi9I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYkkfBMK-7c
Nuzz
January 26, 2010 at 11:35 pmThe Changes, was that the one were everyone smashed up the machines and a boy and a girl had to make it somewhere seem to remember a barge journey happening along the way. Andy Blade (ex Eater singer has done a good cover of White Horses on his album, it’s up on my blog somewhere. Robison Crusoe, yes, here’s another couple of others I seem to remember, titles escape me though one was a French Revolution 3 Musketeers type thang and another was about the adventures of a couple of French Airforce pilots.
gerard
January 27, 2010 at 4:27 amWas that The Flashing Blade?
Another striking theme tune – “it’s right to fight for what you want…. and love and life and happiness are well worth fighting for” or words to that effect. It left an impression on me, that song.
Weren’t a lot of those old shows dubbed European imports? Strangely exotic. I think Heidi was another. Of course, Banana Splits was great too.
Penguin • Post Author •
January 27, 2010 at 11:01 amLook Mummy Clowns ‘White Horses’ demo track courtesy of Dan Mac now on the bottom of the post above. I still do not recall the TV version of the tune or the TV series.
Nic
January 27, 2010 at 12:02 pmYes, Nuzz, that’s ‘The Changes’..I got a dub of the series (from a seller in the ‘Rare TV’ scene), and it’s still pretty spooky…The Post-Apocalypse/Return-to-Eden theme was so prevalent in the cinema and television of that period – obviously a few Hippies having a shot at scriptwriting…
I remember the series you mentioned: nice one on ‘The Flashing Blade’, Gerard: what dashing music! Apparently the theme tune was released as a single back in the late 60’s…It’s also out on DVD…
http://www.thechestnut.com/flashing.htm
The other one you remember was ‘The Aeronauts’…
There did seem to be a lot of Euro imports around in the late 60’s and 70’s (like ‘Heidi’), Gerard…One of my favourites was the bizarre ‘The Singing Ringing Tree’ (which is out on a great double DVD with ‘The Tinderbox’): talking bears, evil dwarfs, magic, surreal sets…I managed to pick up a ‘digest’ of it on Super 8mm film about 15 years ago: top notch…
Here you go Pengy:
http://ferieninlipizza.spaces.live.com/
John no last name
January 27, 2010 at 9:58 pmWhile we are on the subject of kids shows, what about a kids show called Captain Pugwash where one of the main characters names was ‘Seaman Stains’. How did they get that one past Mary Whitehouse?
Penguin • Post Author •
January 27, 2010 at 10:09 pmSeaman Stains was an urban myth John, as was Master Bates and Roger The Cabin Boy. None of these characters existed in Captain Pugwash. Think the names were banded about in the school playground a fair bit though as a giggle. He did have a ship called Black Pig though which was a also a name of a fanzine from St Albans.
Nic
January 28, 2010 at 9:53 amI went down to Rye a couple of years ago, but didn’t see Captain Pugwash: he was probably out somewhere on the Spanish Main…
Graham Burnett
January 28, 2010 at 7:39 pmYes remember the White Horses program well, and the theme tube by Jackie. Hows this for recall, the B Side of the single, which a friend of mine owned, is called ‘Too Many Chiefs, Not Enough Indians’, is it not Nic?? How come I can rememeber that but can’t remember what I had for dinner yesterday????
Some other classic 60s/70s summer holiday TV shows I can recollect are The Magic Boomerang (about a boomerang that could make time stand still), Flipper, Skippy the Bush Kangeroo, Robinson Crusoe, Chopper Squad, Belle and Sebastein (about a boy and his dog living up a mountain which every week seemed to involve saving somebody from an avalanche), Hergest’s Adventures of Tin Tin, the 3 musketeers and The Flashing Blade (the theme tune of which was covered by the APF Brigade on one of their ‘cassette albums’!!). Also some strange Saturday morning program called ‘Zokko’ which featured a talking pinball machine/robot hybrid thing introducing random things like bits of film of people going round a roller coaster… Or did I just imagine that last one????
As you say Gerard, just thinking of these programs takes me back to never ending summer holidays and plates of my nan’s white bread Sunpat peanut butter sandwiches on a plate cut into triangles served with a glass of lemon squash and chocolate covered biscuits…
The last time I remember seeing Robinson Crusoe was at Dean ‘Great name In Tape Cassettes’ Poole’s house in Penarth in 1982, Autumn Poison travelled all the way there for a ‘punk festival’ he was putting on the local scout hall, but when we got there it had been canacelled so we spent the day lolling about in his house watching what must have been the fag end days of the BBC getting away with putting worn out copies of dubbed European black and white serials on as ‘childrens entertainment’ during the school holidays…
danmac
January 28, 2010 at 8:40 pmmy memory of those 70s kids apocalypse / sci-fi programmes is that they always used to feature ominous electricity pylons crackling and droning unsettlingly…though maybe i just saw this once and it made an impression
Nic
January 29, 2010 at 11:07 amYou’re probably thinking of ‘The Changes’, Dan…Ominous electricity, gargling Radiophonic tomfoolery…
Do you remember ‘The Owl Service’, Graham?
It was actually a 60’s programme but they repeated it in the late 70’s (and again in the late 80’s)…Strange story (by Alan Garner) based on Welsh myth…
Dean Poole was in The Chromosomes (and The Living Legends), wasn’t he?
Graham Burnett
January 29, 2010 at 11:22 pmDon’t remember the Owl Service program but I am familiar with the band of the same name, a friend has given me a copy of their CD so that I can use their song ‘apple Tree Man’ for a short little Youtube film I’m making about a local orchard, imagine my surprise to see that it was a Southern Studios production, with Alison and the usual suspects credited on the cover… the world gets ever smaller…
Dean ‘Great Name In Tape Cassettes’ Poole was indeed in Living Legands and The Chromosomes….
Graham Burnett
January 29, 2010 at 11:27 pmTalking of 60s childrens TV I also have very vague memories of a scarey program with a moving giant pumpkin in it, can anybody shed any light? My friend Steve who was in stripey Zebras also vaguely recollects it, but neither of us can remember any more about it…
I also have very vague memories of being scared shitless by an episode of ‘Space patrol’ which featured a planet of moving giant leeks, I think it even made me cry… Saw exactly the same episode a year or so ago at Friends house on DVD, I remebered it really well some 44 years later, but it wasn’t scarey at all!!!!
Penguin • Post Author •
January 29, 2010 at 11:28 pmSmall world indeed Graham, Steven Collins from the Owl Service (the band) was interviewed and hired by myself to begin employment at Southern Record Distribution in the early 1990’s and is still with us today as head of S.R.D. accounting. He is in charge of two further staff in his department.
A nice man and the head of a marvellous band. He is also from Westcliffe / Southend area. He drives all the way to Tottenham for his day’s grafting at S.R.D.
Graham Burnett
January 30, 2010 at 1:20 amhas he got a wife/partner called Dianne by any chance?
Penguin • Post Author •
January 30, 2010 at 1:26 amOh dunno about that, I never asked him I don’t think. He has a wife and two kids, but do not know the names.
Graham Burnett
January 30, 2010 at 12:00 pmIf so Dianne is a friend of another Westcliff resident called Keith, who used to teach Chris ‘Elephant Face’ Knowles (Cold War, Boiled Eggs, now known as Chris Liberator) at school back in the early 80s… Yet more crazy loops and connections..
Penguin • Post Author •
January 30, 2010 at 1:47 pmAnd of course SRD used to deal with Stay Up Forever records (run by Chris, Aaron and Paul Harding) in the heyday of that label. Steven would have been in the SRD Returns Dept at that point I think though.
Great fun this but I think you should get back onto 60’s and 70’s kids TV (or even Look Mummy Clowns!).
Clangers was good.
Graham Burnett
January 30, 2010 at 2:02 pmJust looked at the sleeve of the Owl Service CD and Dianne is Dianne Collier who is part of the band…
I liked Noggin the Nog, although I believe that is a criminal offence nowadays (as is Muffin the Mule)…
chas
January 31, 2010 at 1:11 pmBloody Hell – what have I done? Yeah Al that was the one – can’t remember much about it but always loved the song. Seems I did LMC a disservice as theirs isn’t so much a cover as a development of it. There’s a Lush song that made me think they must have been fans too – i think it’s ‘Lovelife’
jill page
September 6, 2012 at 12:56 amI remember the giant pumpkin tv show in the 60s, it ate people. Me and my sister were so scared we had to hold hands over the gap in our single beds to get to sleep. I would really love to find out what it was called.