Many people go to Amsterdam for many reasons. Three young lads from Carlisle in 1986 went to Amsterdam to play music, all else was secondary; and played music we did, every night around the centre of Amsterdam, in squats, on street corners, for radio and for private parties. Sure we saw the strip shows and tasted, smelled, drank all the substances we wanted…but our drug of choice was music, and that we hammered every night for 3 months.
The Red Aligatorz were no more, we had renamed ourselves “The Lonesome Pump Attendants” Wotto had stayed in Carlisle, but the rest had regrouped in Holland.
We met some amazing people: Daddy Glass, Pop Dick and Harry, a solo Irish lad from Dublin who sang U2 songs better than U2 (well that is not hard). One man who stood out was Papa Joe, all the way from Indiana US of A. He came along half way through our set and took out his banjo and played a long and we saw him every night for all the time he was there. His legs would fly out and he danced and strummed and finger picked through our skiffle and rockabilly set, a true gent.
But when we were not playing I think we would get bored, we would sit around and read, play to ourselves, go for walks, or a bike ride, smoke cigars or cigarettes drink coffees or have a beer. Time would pass slowly, we lived for the night to play, to get cheered and to get paid. After playing, about 1am we would go off for a bag of “fries” and a beer, go to our local bar “Onnies” and drink until the early morning. Once we played Onnies bar on my birthday, and a good night it was! I was particularly partial to Dutch Gin.
This is a recording the 3 of us in Amsterdam, killing time before the evening busking. Swanny is playing Slide guitar, I am strumming my mandolin and Ellie is playing double bass.
Jan-88 to July 88 (rough dates)
Dung – guitar and vocals
Smoo – Guitar
Will Greenwood – Bass
Matt -Drums
July 88 – Jan 89
Dung – guitar and vocals
Will Greenwood – Bass
Matt -Drums
Jan 89 – Dec 89
Dung – lead guitar and vocals
Muppet – Bass
Will Greenwood – rhythm guitar
Matt -Drums
This transcript by Matt is a follow on from the previous blog…
Matt….”Couple of posters. Not sure if we played this Hunt Sab social but it’s mentioned in the interview. The Lancaster poster was the last gig in Dec89. Sarah provided these plus the Crack n Deek interview (see previous blog).
We’ve also enclosed the recordings mentioned in the interview and a bit of artwork. Andrea was responsible for the tape cover for a ‘New Era for New Errors’ a pastiche of a Hare Krishna book cover handed out on the streets of Carlisle.
The 3 songs, ‘To the Core, Ain’t Humanity Cute and ‘Rubber Necklace’ were recorded at Cottage Pie in early 88.
The following 2 recordings ‘Promised Heaven’ and ‘Still Twitching’ (early 89) were recorded at a Riverhead studio run by Omega sounds, Brampton. I believe Alex was the engineer. Nice and very patient chap was my memory. The indoor photos in the interview were taken during this recording.
The Damned gig was the biggest we did. We got paid about 60 quid which was split 4 ways and mostly got eaten up by musician union fees, which we had to join. The band that night was myself on drums, Will on bass, Smoo on guitar, Dung on vocals. The Live recordings of this gig are quite rough with lots of echo. A few mistakes too but we’d only been together for a few months.
After Smoo left we did continue as a 3 piece until Muppet joined us on bass in early 89. We had a few gigs around this time, with the final one in Lancaster in Dec 89 (see poster).
A couple of memorable gigs were a mid-week one in Cockermouth arrange by a friend. We were the only band on the night and after doing the sound check waited for people to arrive. My friend arrived, the owner behind the bar was there and so was his cat. We played the tightest set ever to the crowd of 3. Midway through the set the cat departed!
Another unusual gig was at Annan Chapel Cross community hall. This could have been in 88 as I think Smoo was still in the band. A few people did arrive at this gig which was a surprise considering the location (and potential radiation) One member of the audience (Trotsky) joined us on stage for our last 2 songs (Who Needs More and Ugly – Int. dole cheques covers) I’d always thought Trotsky was fairly mild mannered but he turned into a man possessed on backing vocals. The sound man was impressed and suggested we do more like that, rather than the rest of the set! (Trotsky “I remember the gig”)
I haven’t seen Dung for over 15 years but would be keen to make contact if anyone knows his whereabouts? When I last saw him he was living in Morton west, writing for Amnesty International, as well as composing music on the piano”.
Trotsky “Thanks to Matt and Sarah for all the info about Every Smile´s a Lie, There has been a few bands that have been recorded at “Cottage Pie Studios” in Carlisle during the 1980s, it would be interesting to get more information about the studio and the bands that recorded there.
Matt, mentioned having to join the Musician´s Union to be able to perform at The Damned gig, we also had to join to perform on Border TV as The Red Aligatorz, it also seemed a waist of money at the time, especially when you are earning very little. But a band like Every Smile´s a Lie who was anti establishment playing money to the establishment is a kick in the teeth and a band taste in the mouth.
Matt now lives in New Zealand, Dung lives in Carlisle.
Hidden away in Ellie’s cuboards were a few cassettes from the 1980s, I am sure there are more cassettes out there in attics all forgotten about, believe me they do no good in boxes in attics, they should be out and jumping around like what they used to be doing all those years ago.
This cassette has travelled quite a lot. It was a “mixed tape” Carlisle style, not your normal mix of “other people’s music”, but our own music/songs played live into a standard cassette machine and sent to someone who cared enough to listen.
Dung´s (other band)”Grinning in the Graveyards” was on the go when he recorded this in his parents mobile caravan in York/UK. He went there to escape memories and his life in Carlisle, after his break-up with his girlfriend. Most of these songs are about his girl-friend; and he recorded this cassette while getting pissed in his parents small caravan where he used to sleep.
The cassette was done for me (as he says so in the recording) but I gave this cassette to Ellie (bass player in Red Aligatorz) and he kept it until (like Frodo’s Ring) it came back to it’s original owner. Hearing it again brought back some fond memories, as well as some smiles and laugh’s, as it is dry sarcastic and sardonic humour which is embedded onto the tape.
The cassette also charts Dung’s musical influences; on it you can hear chord changes reflected in his musical choices: The Dead Kennedy’s, The Anti Nowhere League, Killing Joke, Conflict etc. As well as lyrics of dry humour and playful bitterness. I liked his songs then and I like them more now.
On Side 1 all songs were played on a small folk style acoustic guitar, tuned by ear and strummed with vengeance. The recording starts off sober enough, then as the night goes on his tuning, vocals and style becomes more “relaxed”. These songs would be transferred into a group setting with bass guitar, lead guitar, vocals and drums as was “Grinning in the Graveyards”.
The order of the tracks on the cassette are written next to the titles, Audiomack desided to reorder them…not sure why?
Side 1
When I heard Side 2 I did not know who it was! I thought it was someone else singing Dung’s songs, perhaps a girl friend with a deep voice! I had never heard Dung singing like this before, like it was a 2 track recording (guitar in the background and vocals over dubbed); then I saw scribbled on the cassette “Dung sober”, so this is what he sounded like sober! I had mostly heard him sing while drunk, it is a very different experience to Side 1. If I am wrong and it is someone else singing I would appreciate it if you got in touch to correct the records, otherwise I might be doing him/her an injustice.
Did you ever make anyone (or yourself) a music cassette? If you did, did you take the time to design it? To spend time and thought into making it individual and artistic? Sadly, I did not ! It never occurred to me to make it beautiful. My cassettes were “functional”, they had a title and a penned list of tracks… but often, it did not have even that! For people who painted on jackets, t-shirts, designed poster etc. cassette covers were an extension of that artistic outlook. Mine vision was “blue and white” not Technicolor.
I do not have many original cassette covers left in my attic. But the little I have may reflect some of the people who took the time and trouble to design me a personalized symbol of their creativity… many thanks to them.
The first cover on show was given to me my Swanny, when I joined the “Red Aligatorz” in the mid-80s. Being a punk, I guess I was not musically ‘cultured’ enough to play Rockabilly music from the 50s, I was lacking the background and information to play that music.
To ‘educate’ me, Swanny made me several cassettes with countless artists of the 40s, 50s and 60s. Musical styles such as: Blues, Rockabilly, Skiffle, RnB, Swing, Jive, Talking Blues, Country, Hillbilly, Bluegrass…etc. His cassette covers were hand-made, often pen on a white background with imaginative characters drawn on the cover with ‘text boxes’ coming from the character’s mouth. Inside the cover was hand written titles, with minute handwriting the artists and titles of all the songs.
Not only did the covers have a stamp of originality, but the recording themselves had its own trade mark. For example, as Side A came to its end and the last song had been played, there would be a few seconds of tape remaining. Swanny would record his vocals saying something like,”turn the cassette over or I will kick your arse”…! But often the song would end in the middle as the cassette finished. Music (and sound) was crammed into every millimetre of tape.
The example here shows Swanny’s multicoloured cassette cover entitled “Nameless Musical Styles of the Fifties”
Next follows a series of cassettes by Swanny, with coloured headers: Getting Hot, Feeling Blue”
Another style of cassette art was from my friend called Jamil. He was also educating me into a music that I had by-passed. “Joy Division” had long ceased to be when I read for the first time “Touching From a Distance” by Deborah Curtis. I had not listened to them much when they were climbing the popularity charts. But after reading that book I was hooked. Jamil kindly did me an extensive collection of recordings of demos, live gigs, singles and LPs. What made these cassettes special for me was the hand writing. They were (in my opinion) works of art. More a type of calligraphy than hand writing. When I travelled abroad, Jamil and I used to correspond, and I used to receive letters in this style, beautiful pieces of literature.
As Ian Curtis was a big David Bowie fan, Jamil also inducted me into Bowie’s music too. I do not think I would have listened to it other wise! I am pleased I did if only the 1st 2 LPs.
The front covers of these cassettes were made from designed paper:
Joy Division Cassette CoverJoy Division Cassette Covers
And the Bowie front cover was a wrapping paper design:
Bowie Cassette Cover
The final example of a cassette design was from my friend Paul. He used to do me a mixture of music from the 90s, not Punk by any stretch of the imagination. His cassette was a compilation of Punk songs. His front cover design was his own typical humour!!
I think CD covers were just as equally creative as cassettes, perhaps more so as we had the added help of the computer software, but that what gave the cassettes more of a Punk/D.I.Y. approach was the absence of this technology. It was not always “correct” or “tidy” precise and “finished” and that’s what gave them an attraction.
Carlisle's Punk Bands 