Stumped / A Rebel Without A Conscience / Swimming In The Sea Of Life
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irishdave
December 3, 2007 at 5:58 pmThis will keep me happy until I get the cds. Really good quality as well – my old tape never sounded this good 🙂 Nicey Nicey
Chris
December 5, 2007 at 7:27 pm“2nd dark Age” & “Topics For discussion” demos next please, sir? My old tape copies are well mangled.
Penguin • Post Author •
December 6, 2007 at 12:28 amMine on the other hand are not! Soon young Chris, soon…
Nic
December 6, 2007 at 10:25 amWhat a great tape – I listened to this over and over and over and OVER when I first got it from the gents…
I get a ‘Hello’ on the tape cover too!
Favourites: ‘No More Heartaches’ (Dave’s L.A.M.F. obsession 😉 ), ‘Last Train to Hellsville’ (“After donning her blusher and eyeliner, she proceeded about the bi-weekly ordeal of signing on”) and ‘Rebel without a Conscience’…
‘The Master Race’ is the old song that Andy did with Black Flag / Black Cross, isn’t it?
I remember seeing the lyrics on a collage page Andy did for Enigma fanzine (Issue 3, I think – the one with a page on The Ex and the free patch) before they started doing the song in The Apostles…
“This is a nation with a National Front, a government, a monarchy, a fucking cunt…Women in their places, men on theirs – and if you disagree, he’ll kick you down the stairs”…
I have a nice tape from the period just after this demo with (mainly) Andy doing a few of the songs with drum machine: nice version of ‘DF 118’…
One day I might manage to digitise it…
In a couple of weeks, my old friend Miles is coming over from Denmark and I’m going to ask him if he still has any of his early Apostles cassettes (I’m not holding out much hope – he spent a long time travelling the world): he had some great ones with songs that never made it onto demos and unusual recordings – such as the first demo line-up doing an instrumental called ‘The Damned’ live at the Wapping Centre…
Why do I remember all this rubbish? 😉
Jim V
June 6, 2008 at 12:14 amany updates nic?…love to hear anything not currently available…rubbish?
Nic
June 6, 2008 at 9:27 amI haven’t got round to it, I’m afraid, Jim…
Maybe in the summer…
I do have a few tapes that were not recorded for release – practice sessions and so on – but please don’t wait for me to pull my finger out – I get easily distracted!
When is Dave putting his recordings up on the Nookienet?
John Serpico
January 17, 2013 at 11:52 pmFor those not yet aware, Stephen Parsons of BBP Records & Tapes passed away on Christmas Eve 2012 from cancer.
Like many people, I first came upon Steve through BBP and a flyer in the mail. I sent off for a cassette tape from him and was subsequently sent a huge list of other items he was selling. His distro was one of the very few outlets for among many other groups just about everything ever recorded by The Apostles and over a period of time I purchased all their LPs from him. Being one of the very few people in Bristol with an interest in The Apostles must at least have caught Steve’s eye.
During one of my later postal shopping expeditions, Steve wrote in a letter that he was thinking of moving out of his home town of Swindon and that he had it in mind to go to Bristol. I wrote back (with probably another Apostles-offshoot order) describing what it was like in Bristol, particularly in the Easton area where I lived, light-heartedly describing it as like an elephants graveyard where all the punks come to die. There was actually some truth to this, however, as there were a lot of ex-punks in the area and a relatively healthy alternativeness to it; buoyed up at one end by the hippy Kebele community centre crew and at the other by the Easton Cowboys Football Club, the middle ground being The Plough pub where everyone would come together.
Anyway, I was somewhat surprised when one day I walked out my front door to be met by this skinny guy in glasses who with a big smile greeted me like some long lost friend. I had never met him before in my life and didn’t have a clue who he was but lo and behold it was Steve Parsons and he was moving into the house almost directly opposite mine. He later confided to me that even though he had it in mind to move to Bristol, it was actually going to be to a completely different part and it was only because of me that he had decided on Easton. But perhaps he said that to everyone? Who knows?
Steve had set up his BBP distro in 1981, specialising in selling bootleg and demo tapes of practically every Anarcho punk band you could imagine. Over the years he had amassed an almighty impressive collection of punk tapes and had continued year after year to distribute them at pretty cheap prices. He moved to Bristol in about 1999/2000 so at that point he had already been doing his distro for almost 20 years, which was impressive in itself. Swindon, according to Steve, was a cultural wasteland and he had moved to Bristol to be near more like-minded people. I remember, I took him out to a local Chaos UK gig and started introducing him to a few people. Steve was a right old chatterbox and soon it seemed as though the world and its mother was congregating at his house.
Along with Melissa of Yellow Fever Records he put out vinyl records by Unit, Los Crudos, Icons Of Filth, Diaspora, and Bug Central. He put on gigs with among others Left For Dead, In The Shit, Rabies Babies, Zemezluc from Poland and again his old friends Bug Central. I introduced him to Ian Bone and he subsequently compiled and released on tape the Living Legends back catalogue. With Ian he got involved with the Bristol Vote Nobody campaign and the Movement Against Monarchy, ending up with him dropping his trousers in a Moon Against Monarchy outside Buckingham Palace.
I reckon Steve was having a pretty good time compared to his past life in Swindon.
During this period I was getting more interested in Trance rave nights, ecstasy and Reclaim The Streets which I found more ‘technicolored’ than the black-and-white, lit-by-a-single-lightbulb, DIY gigs that Steve was continuing to breathe life into, and so our paths drifted. At the same time, both our personal lives were unravelling, resulting in me going off to Amsterdam to live and Steve going off to live in London. This was in 2005 and it was really the last time I saw him.
Eight years later and news of Steve’s passing saddened me. I liked him. He was a funny guy and very engaging. He had good taste in music. I respected him for his loyalty to punk. For almost 30 years he was at it with his distro. He was a stalwart.
There are some lines from Flux Of Pink Indians on their Taking A Liberty EP that goes: “Punk offered so much but I hesitated too long before accepting. Just as I stepped forward the door it had held open closed. Given the key – but failed to use it. Directed to the exit – but failed to take it. Shown the potential – but failed to make it.”
Steve hadn’t hesitated before accepting what punk offered. He stepped forward whilst the door was open. He took the key and he used it. He went through the exit. He saw the potential and he made it.
With a tear in my eye, I just wanted to pay him my respects.
I understand that a gig to celebrate Steve’s life is being held on March 30th at The Boston Music Rooms in London, featuring Hagar The Womb, Cult Maniax, Shocks Of Mighty, and The Pukes. If someone could stick the poster for it up here, I’m sure it will be appreciated.
Darkness
January 19, 2013 at 11:58 pmReal sad news about Steve. I used to get loads of APOSTLES stuff off him as well. He did an interview for my zine and I loved getting tapes/records from him, a top bloke. Although I never met him I felt like he was a friend. RIP mate!
Mrssnips
February 21, 2013 at 12:10 amI’m Helen Steve’s partner. Thanks John and Darkness for those kind words. You are right in saying that there will be a gig in memory of Steve on 30th March, the week after what would have been his 47th birthday. Having trouble posting the flyer but I believe that tickets can be bought via wegottickets. I understand that Decandent Few are also now added to the line up (this gig has been organised by Alex Norvill and as you can all imagine I have lots of other things on my mind so am a bit sketchy on the details.
BBP was Steves passion and although he had not been well on and off for some time it was in the last six months of his life he was really unwell although he was only diagnosed with cancer 2 months before he died so he hadn’t been that active wiht it for a while. It was his wish that I continue with BBP although I have not made any firm decisions about it yet as its only been 8 weeks since he died.