Newtown Neurotics – Pissed As A Newt – No Wonder Tapes 1982

Newtown Neurotics were based around my old stomping ground, Harlow, home of Stortbeat Records, Urban Decay, The Square, and The Playhouse (on a Saturday for a swift pre-gig drink).

Also dead near to Stevenage, Welwyn and Bishops Stortford…and all the wonders of those places!

Also, I regret to inform, Harlow was also home to members of Combat 84 and the Jean Harlow / Bennys pub / club, where the BBC cameras were poised just in time for a bit of the old ultra-violence between the boneheads. Nice bit of footage if you like boneheads cracking bonehead’s heads…!

Plenty stocked up of the first couple of 7″ singles by Combat 84 in the punk record shop in Post Office Walk near the market, strangely enough I never did pick those up… Perhaps the vibe between the grooves wasn’t quite right, huh?

Countering those naughty people were The Newtown Neurotics, who’s members when this tape was recorded at London gigs in 1980, included Tig, the drummer, Steve Drewitt (who had hair down to his arse, Joey Ramone style) and the lean punker Colin.

Around late 1981, Tig had left to be replaced by Simon, and Steve had a haircut, making the band look a little more clean cut and sharp!

They went on to record some great political and personal material, including the tracks on there only full length album ‘Beggars Can Be Choosers’, which simply must be heard.

This one’s for Nuzz…

9 comments

Michael
January 31, 2008 at 9:54 am

Another great post. I was at all the gigs on the tape. Great band to watch travelled everywhere with them. Great memories of the Playhouse, Square 1, Jean Harlow (Painted Lady!), Triad (Stortford) and all the Harlow / Triad bands of the time.
The record shop down Post office walk was called Startime.
Nuzz
January 31, 2008 at 8:30 pm

Cheers Penguin, I’ll give that a blast later. What is it with New towns and Nazi’s had problems in the 80’s with ’em and the 90’s, still got a threat C18 sent through the window of Bowes wrapped in a brick, after one of their members was evicted from a Social Distortion gig there in 1992 for just being there, also in the last local council elections had a candidate standing in my ward from the BNP. Always thought Harlow had it slightly better with the Neurotics, than Stevenage with the Gen.
Penguin • Post Author •
February 1, 2008 at 10:26 am

Think racism was rife all over ther place in the late 70’s / early 80’s Nuzz. Do not think New Towns were any exception. Chron Gen v Neurotics. Both had a couple of fine singles but put the debut LPs together and there is only one victor – THE NEUROTICS.
mrg
December 15, 2011 at 7:34 pm

They actually had more than one LP. ‘Repercussions” was a mini with 7 tracks I think, “kickstarting a backfiring nation” was a live one recorded in Wapping and ” is your washroom breeding bolsheviks?” was near the end. Great band-way better than Chron Gen
DavidM
December 16, 2011 at 12:57 am

Steve Drewitt also popped up, albeit for a single performance, in The Epileptics.
keld
March 22, 2012 at 12:49 am

Just downloading the neurotics, this will be the first time I’ve heard them. About time really if you consider my past. In the late 80’s I knew Tig pretty well, I was squatting on a sofa bed in his girlfriend, Kats, kitchen. He gave me the very drum kit I’m about to listen too. Tig was playing in a local dub band at the time called The Palm Tree Club. Quite liked them, got one of their singles somewhere still. Their male singer, Nathan, went on to sing in Brother Beyond. Lucky for those who don’t remember them. Tiggy was trying to give up some pretty hard core prescription drugs at the time. Hope he succeeded! What’s even madder is a couple of years before I met Tiggy I shared a house with couple of lads called Christian F and Billy. They were in a band with the Neurotics Collin called Christian F And The Hard Left. They were like a live drum & bass band before jungle was even thought of. Collin on bass, Billy on drums (a right Kieth Moon drummer/nutter) and Chris put loads of tape loops together to play along with them. So spent a fair amount of time with Collin listening to music. Especialy In The Studio by Special AKA. Which ironically I had on the turntable a couple of nights ago. It was round then I left Bishop’s Stortford for good. Became a Traveller, which I still am over 20 years later. Didn’t like the way Stortford was becoming a suburb of the airport. So went to live the dream and still am. Any news on Tiggy or Collin for the present day? Keld in a muddy field, Oxfordshire (for now)
Penguin • Post Author •
March 22, 2012 at 6:53 pm

Hi Keld, I remember Palm Tree Club and Nathan. Nathan used to go to my secondary comprehensive school although he was a year above me. I remember several gigs by Palm Tree Club, one of which was in Tundridge woods I think. Nathan had his mohawk and native american moccasins on. Last time I saw him was Notting Hill Carnival about 1987, spoke for a while there after bumping into him and then saw him later in his little red mini driving down the A10 towards Hoddesdon / Hertford. By that time though I think he was already a member of Brother Beyond which as you mentioned is not worthy of any of my memory cells. That band was the next ‘boy band’ after Bros I think… I remember seeing a couple of 12″ singles a year or so later in some record shop bargain bin for 25p or something. Most likely Tracks records in Hoddesdon, Ware or Hertford. Can’t quite remember. I also remember Nathan appeared on TV during his last year at school on something like ‘It’s A Knockout’ but for schools. He was only 16 I guess, but in one round the team managed to beat the clock on sorting out several massive cubes with letters on to make a word. The team done a word with haste, finished and waited for other teams to finish. After all teams had finished, Nathans team expected a raptious congrats only to find that the word they had spelt out and they were standing against for at least a minute was spelt incorrectly so the got no points! Wish I could remember the word now, it was something pretty simple, but can’t remember. Never really knew any other members of Palm Tree Club although my little brother supported them a couple of times. That single was called ‘Seasons’ I still got it!
Keld
March 24, 2012 at 10:04 pm

Am just sitting here wondering about other things you may know about (or folk who visit yer site) as it goes. I stopped going to festi’s years ago cos they all stopped allowing dogs on coupled with lots of family bollox. Can’t go without them as I take my home with me. As I rebuild things I’m getting back into the whole idea. I’ve found a couple of things to go to this year but the kids and meself wanna get the Pukka Tukka Bakery on the go again next year but need more festi’s. Though won’t even try to do earth ovens any more. Too many places are getting funny about fires on the ground (insurance I expect), so fiddling with bits of metal at the mo to invent an easily collapsible oven but still of a heavy enough grade to take the heat. So anyway I prevaricate, wanna find small festi’s I can get me dogs and home onto and eventually the bakery. Suggestions please. There’s pics of my present trailer on traveller homes.com. So also if anyone spots it somewhere round the country come have a cuppa and tell me what you can. Put my name in the traveller homes search box and you should get it up. It’s still the same hippy colours, though I may finally have got round to painting the roof by then. And I can be wary to a grumpy degree till I know you ain’t come to burn me out.
Penguin • Post Author •
March 27, 2012 at 11:45 pm

Hi Keld, perhaps you should cut and paste your comment (about any festi’s) and place it onto a more relevant thread; perhaps this one for starters: https://killyourpetpuppy.co.uk/news/?p=4946 and another cut and paste job here: https://killyourpetpuppy.co.uk/news/?p=792 or here: https://killyourpetpuppy.co.uk/news/?p=829#comments Hopefully you will get some pointers from either post browsers. I am a bit out of the loop nowadays.