Liverpool Eric's: #1979

Showing posts with label #1979. Show all posts

Monday, 30 May 2016

Eric's - January 1979

Rock Against Racism poster courtesy Gis Southworth

Thu 4th January Rock Against Racism with

Mekons

+ Malchix

Fri 5th January Hot Water

Sat 6th January The Slits

Thu 11th January Rock against Racism

Ton Trix or

29th & Dearborn

+ Echo & the Bunnymen

Fri 12th January Gary Boyle

Sat 13th January UK Subs

+ Manicured Noise

Thu 18th January Rock against Racism

Belt & Braces Roadshow

+ Crash Course

Fri 19th January Eric Bell

Sat 20 January The Damned

+ Malchix

Set included: Jet Boy Jet Girl, Teenage Dream, Stretcher Case, Ballroom Blitz, Problem Child, Love Song, Looking At You, Born To Kill, Melody Lee, Help, Stab Your Back, So Messed Up, Neat Neat Neat, New Rose. encore - I Feel Alright, Black Night.

Thu 25th January Rock against Racism
China Street
+ the Glass Torpedoes

Fri 26th January Bette Bright & the Illuminations

+ the Moderates

Sat 27th January Adam & the Ants

+ The Straits

Eric's - February 1st - 10th 1979

Thu 1st February Rock against Racism
Iganda
+ The Names

Fri 2nd February Ded Byrds
+ Malchix
+ Teardrop Explodes
+ Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark

Sat 3rd February Human League

Thu 8th February Leyton Buzzards

Fri 9th February Moon Martin

Sat 10th February Gang of Four
or The Police (according to Bill Sykes book on Roger Eagle and Police gigography site

Eric's - March 1st - 9th 1979

Thursday 1st March Rock Against Racism
Reggae with RAAW

Friday 2nd March Cabaret Voltaire
+ Frantic Elevators

Saturday 3rd March The Undertones

+ The Squares

Monday 5th March Benefit gig for Ron Parry

Liverpool Jazz Workshop

+ John Dowie

+ CP Lee

+ Night Sights

+ Ded Byrds

+ Supercharge

Thursday 8th March Rock Against Racism
The Smirks
+ John Dowie

Friday 9th March Joe Jackson

Many years later (2004 I think) I met the drummer from Joe Jackson's band. Our paths crossed professionally for a while. There are three things I remember about that - one is that his birthday was February 29th which meant he'd just celebrated his tenth (or somesuch) birthday, the second is that I lent him a David Byrne live video which he hasn't given back yet (... Dave?); and third we spent some time, on a boat, programming Is She Really Going Out With Him as the ringtone on his newfangled mobile phone (remember the Composer function?). Funny old world.

Eric's - March 10th 1979 - Punilux, PMSA, Dead Trout

Saturday 10th March Punishment of Luxury
+ Pink Military Stand Alone
+ Dead Trout

On 10th March Punishment of Luxury headlined at Eric's, Dead Trout supported. According to Peter Alan Lloyd's very excellent bombedoutpunk blog so did Pink Military.

"Pink Military Stand Alone were playing at Eric's Club, Liverpool, on the 10th March 1979. It was my first Eric's gig with the band, and we were supporting Punishment of Luxury . . ."

I don't remember that. In his book Bombed Out Peter says he first played at Eric's on the 22nd March, not the 10th. Memory is a funny thing. If you haven't already you should read Bombed Out. It's an inspiration. But back to March 1979. What I remember is this:

Dead Trout were playing at Eric's Club, Liverpool, on the 10th March 1979. It was my first Eric's gig with the band, and we were supporting Punishment of Luxury . . .

Here's my dodgy memory of my short Eric's career. It first appeared on The Vinyl Villain's blog and then again on my other blog :

Dead Trout setlist from March 10th 1979

Bands used to play upstairs at Kirklands wine bar. I remember going to a benefit gig there to save the Lyceum, (once a Gentleman’s Club, later Liverpool’s first lending Library, later still a Post Office. This would have been late 1978. It must have been a successful gig because the Lyceum is still there).

I don’t recall exactly who was on the bill; I think the Moondogs played, remember the Accelerators were advertised to appear but didn’t, Big In Japan almost certainly headlined. One I do remember was Julian Cope playing his second gig as Teardrop Explodes. They played as a two piece: Julian on bass and stylophone (as advertised on tv by Rolf Harris) and Gary Dwyer on drums. It was a short set, just four songs, including Louie Louie and Robert Mitchum , Julian’s fanboy tribute “you’re such a dude, such a guy, you’re so half asleep” which turned up a decade later on the Skellington Chronicles.

More significant for me that day was a conversation with a couple of students whose band I had seen a few nights earlier at Eric’s.

Hello, I said. You’re the Dead Trout.

Hey, they said. Our first fan.

Which is how I fell in with the Dead Trout. (This was a long time ago, c’est juste une histoire, not a history book. Apologies in advance for any inaccuracies). They were Jon and Julian and within a few weeks they suggested I perform a song with them. It was to be based on a single note (E) and have one line. I am the controller. Although I was painfully shy and had no singing voice I obviously said ok. Because that’s what you do when you are 17.

My first public performance was at the Everyman Bistro and I remember nothing at all about it.   Bill Nighy’s first public appearance was also at the Everyman Bistro.

The next was at the Factory. This was Tony Wilson’s club in Hulme, Manchester. There were rough bits of Liverpool in 1978 but Hulme was much, much worse.

I remember more about the before and after of that day than the gig itself. We met up at Jayne Casey’s flat (you know Jayne, the adorable but Jayne. From Big in Japan and Pink Military) in central Liverpool. Spent some time there. Oh hi Holly Johnson, hi Spitfire Boys, hi Pete Burns. Yeah, we’re part of this scene.

Dead Trout were supporting Pink Military who suffered the indignity of having bottles and ashtrays hurled at them. Nobody really paid much attention to the Trout.

I remember the Commer van journey down the M62 to Manchester and back as the snow began to fall. I remember the advice not to stop at the traffic lights around Hulme. I remember we had to carry gear miles through the snow when we got back to the Halls of Residence. And I remember that, like George Harrison in Hamburg, I was too young even to be going into the venue.

The highlight of my career as a Dead Trout was a Saturday night at Eric’s. My Fifteen Minutes. I only found out about the gig on the Friday. Joe Jackson was playing at Eric’s and I was mithering him trying to get him to give me the Ramones badge he was wearing. These two came over and interrupted. Joe turned to give them the autographs he expected they were after but it was me they wanted.

We’re playing here tomorrow night, said Jon. Or Julian.

This had been in the offing for a while, Roger Eagle, Eric’s manager, always happy to give enthusiastic amateurs their moment in the sun. Ok. We were the unadvertised support for Punishment of Luxury.

Being a typically pretentious teenager and trainee diva I had done my best to develop my part. I had expanded the lyric of I Am The Controller. I had translated its one line into French, German and Italian. Probably I was inspired to do this by the fact that Bowie had just recorded “Heroes “as “Helden” and “Heros”. Plus I knew an Italian guy called Dom. So now the song goes:

“I am the controller,
je suis le controller,
ich bin der controller,
Io son il controllotore.”
(repeat ad nauseum)

I step up onto the stage.

The stage previously graced by the Ramones, the Clash, Sex Pistols, Talking Heads, Iggy Pop, Elvis Costello, Rezillos, XTC, pragVEC, the Mekons, the Teardrops, Bunnymen, Big in Japan . . . This is my Madison Square, my Rainbow, Budokan. The weight of expectation. A short time earlier I’d been one of the crowd and now . . . The band, which numbered around seven that night, started this rhythmic drone (do I contradict myself? I contain multitudes . . .) the usual bass, drums, guitars, plus violin, kazoos and more. And I stepped up to the mic. I’ve never claimed to be a singer, so all I do is to intone the words, kind of in the style of Ian Curtis “day in, day out, day in, day out”. Getting a bit faster at the end, kind of shouting Io son il controllotore. Went ok.

They’re still playing. Do the verse again. I can hear another voice singing the words, a fraction of a second behind me. This hasn’t happened before, ok, I’ll slow down and then we’ll be in time. I slow down . . . I . . .am . . .the . . .con . . .troll . . .er . . . the other voice slows too, still behind me. It kind of dawns that it is just a trick of the PA, a delay or echo but it is too late. I keep going. Deathly slowly. Like it is supposed to sound like this. It seems the slower I go the more the band get into a stramash, faster and noisier, everything playing at once. I think they’re going to finish so I turn around to watch them.

If there’s one thing that feels more unnatural to me than singing it is dancing so I don’t dance. But you can’t help but move, so I’m waving my arms around - except being too cool for school I don’t take my hands out of the pockets of the long mac I’m wearing. So I have my back to the Saturday night Eric’s crowd with this coat waving round like a raven having an epileptic fit. I’m not saying that Ian Curtis was in the audience that night but JD’s career began to take off after that.

When we came off Pete Wylie, then of Crash Course, later Wah! Heat said either “I wish I was in a dance band you can think to” or “I wish I was in a thinking band you can dance to.” Either way it sounded like a validation.

Dead Trout had a track on the Open Eye Street to Street - A Liverpool Compilation album. In one of the music papers (I think it was Melody Maker) someone (I think it was Penny Kiley) wrote something to the effect of ". . . of 12 tracks on this album only one is unlistenable . . ." Guess which one. It's about 20 minutes in.

You can hear echoes of Dead Trout's The Arab in the Revolutionary Army of the Infant Jesus track. That's because Jon Egan is behind both of them.

What do you mean it doesn't rhyme

Neither did Jesse Owen

And he won four gold medals

In the 1936 Olympics

In Berlin

Eric's - March 15th - 31st 1979

Thursday 15th March The Thursday Show with

Those Naughty Lumps

+ SPG

Friday 16th March Jonathan Richman

Saturday 17th March The Skids

Thursday 22nd March Pink Military Stand Alone

+ A.D.T.

Friday 23rd March Patrik Fitzgerald

+ The Molesters

+ Ed Banger

Saturday 24th March The Pretenders

Thursday 29th March Teardrop Explodes
+ The Drills

Friday 30th March The Fall

Saturday 31st March The Cure

+ Frantic Elevators

Eric's - April 1st - 8th 1979

Monday 2nd April Supercharge

+CP Lee

CP Lee talking about Manchester's pre-eminence as a music city.

(he does talk about the mutually symbiotic relationship with Liverpool)

Thursday 5th April Ded Byrds

with members of the Ded Byrds going on to be involved with Dead or Alive, Sisters of Mercy, the Mission, Pink Military/Industry and Frankie Goes To Hollywood you would think it would be easy to find some footage, but no. Instead feast your ears on these offerings from Ambrose, Knopov and Denyze's hubby

Friday 6th April Prince Far I

+ Bim Sherman

+ Prince Hammer

+ Creation Rebel

Saturday 7th April UK Subs

+ Distractions

Eric's - April 9th - 16th 1979

Monday 9th April Supercharge

Thursday 12th April Doll by Doll
+ Psychamesh

supported by Psychamesh, note DxD's Antonin Artaud backdrop

Friday 13th April Crass

+ Poison Girls

Saturday 14th April The Damned

+ Toyah

+ Anti Pus

Smash it up: the end of this OGWT selection is pretty much how the evening at Eric's ended. Long after the Damned had finished Rat Scabies came back to the stage waving the Captain's bass guitar. He proceeded to smash it up. I went home with a bit of the guitar.

well Shoestring, this is fun!

And next on Mr & Mrs, Toyah Wilcox and her husband Robert.

21st century schizoid man

Eric's - April 16th - 20th 1979

Monday 16th April Supercharge

Tuesday 17th April Jean Jacques Burnel

+ Rapid Eye Movement

REM or Rapid Eye Movement featured John Ellis,

former Vibrator and member of JJ Burnel's Euroman band.

OK A bit of mixed up confusion coming up.
Handbill above says Thursday XTC, Friday B52s,
However, completist XTC fan site www.optimismsflames.com says XTC played Thursday and Friday.
But another Eric's flyer headed Thursdays says it was TJM records night with V2, Fast Cars and The Teardrops (no, not The Teardrop Explodes).

But furthermore:

I think B52s cancelled,, turned up a few weeks later (July 29th). I think XTC may have replaced them - but not played the Thursday. But I don't know. Or maybe XTC played Thursday and TJM Records do was on Friday (less likely)

Thursday 19th April XTC

or TJM Records Show featuring
The Teardrops
+ Fast Cars
+ V2

Friday 20th April XTC

or TheB52s

Eric's - April 21st 1979 - Iggy Pop

Saturday 21st April Iggy Pop

+ The Zones

Iggy Pop. Yoof of today know him as a weird longhair advertising car insurance. Yoof of 1969 in Detroit knew him as the king (or clown) of some form of shock rock. Youth of Liverpool in 1979 knew of him as a legend, a myth Nowadays you can find out anything about anyone at a couple of clicks (this whole blog is just youtube searching). But in the 1970s it was a different story.

Legends were truly legendary: their exploits passed down by word of mouth. I knew someone who saw Jimi Hendrix at the Isle of Wight, someone else who saw the Doors at the Roundhouse - in a different age. Iggy Pop was a legend. A legend gone bad (all part of the legend), Drink, drugs, loose cars and fast women. And then, courtesy of David Bowie, there was a comeback. Bowie even played keyboards for Iggy on some gigs. These were the days of The Idiot and Lust for Life. Iggy at the top of his game. And in April 1979 Iggy toured the UK and played these two gigs at Eric's. It was a week after my 18th birthday. And it was the day of his 32nd birthday.

I went to both sets. With a different group of friends each time. Unfortunately for them they went the wrong way round. For the afternoon gig I was with a younger group of punks who knew the legend and wanted to see him bleed all over the stage. He didn't. He had an incredibly tight band (with real live Ex Pistol, Glen Matlock on bass), played an absolute blinder of a set. The young punks were disappointed. I loved it.

Later on that evening I was back with some college mates who liked proper music. Not to worry, I thought, Iggy has the tightest band. He'll play a blinder. However, at some point between the two sets Iggy and band had partaken of something to help them relax. After all it was his 32nd birthday. Possibly just alcohol, possibly not. They were no longer the tight little band. They were way out there. Iggy was bleeding all over the stage (this is Eric's stage, 18 inches high, two foot away from where we're standing). It was manic, it was crazy, it was all over the shop. It was that (godbless) bomb going off on stage right there in front of us. My muso friends weren't impressed. I loved it.

To get to and from the stage at Eric's performers had to walk from the dressing room through the mob before stepping up onto the stage. Can you imagine how that went?

I touched Iggy Pop's jacket.

Everyone was there. Everyone that was in a band in Liverpool in 1979, yer Teardrops, Bunnymen, Pink Military, Naughty Lumps, Wylie, Pete Burns, 051. Quite a lot of people suffered from that aloofness that plagued the Liverpool scene at that time. From some (the Zoo circle) there was a collective air of "whatever". Their loss. Iggy was incredible.

Frank Cottrell Boyce was at Eric's that night and spoke about it on Desert Island Discs. It's about twenty minutes in. He wrote about it in the Guardian too. Frank was wrong. Iggy was electrifying. Frank Cottrell Boyce has a guilty secret. He was a Dead Trout.