The International Dole cheques

Dung – acoustic guitar/vocals
Trotsky – acoustic guitar/banjo ukulele/vocals
Ellie – cardboard boxes, chairs, beer barrels…anything except a proper drum kit/vocals
Smoo – acoustic guitar/vocals

The International Dole Cheques or as it was sometimes called “The Wild West Show” was an anarchic drunken mishmash of styles, people and music. It existed during the Red Aligatorz period, and Ellie who was also in the Red Aligatorz, was playing drums.

The Dole Cheque’s influences were George Formby, The Pogues, The Vulcan’s, Snake-bite Cider, and a condemned flat that Dung lived in. We used to rehearse in Dung’s bedroom/livingroom, which was in a condemned flat which was falling apart (where Morrison’s now stands), in Rickergate. It stank, it had rats, and it had a Buddhist living in the room next door. It was where we met, drank, and rehearsed. We did a few recordings and they were bloody good, because we were all coming from previous bands: Dung (Frenzy, Nightmares…), Ellie (Red Aligatorz) and myself (Red Aligatorz); later Smoo joined the 3 of us.

The original line up were a busking band, we did our first concert underneath “Binn’s” (House of Fraser) department store on a Saturday afternoon in the Centre of Carlisle and we got ourselves an audience…that stood quite far off; so it was even harder for me as I had to shout even louder to be heard.

This photo was taken outside of Dung’s condemned flat before a trip to do some busking in town

We did not have any full lyrics, only part of songs and as I was mainly the singer I used to make them up or just shout babble until the chorus came round. We did the chorus to The Vulcan’s song “The Hard Hate Zone” and “Ugly” – where Ellie and I going out to dance around while Dung scream the lyrics.

I had seen The Vulcan’s busking in Florence and Amsterdam in 1983 and I was greatly impressed, they used to command large audiences with their crazy highly energetic performances and the Dole Cheques were certainly a part of that. Ellie and myself, by chance busked with The Vulcan’s in Covent Garden (London) when we were down there doing a concert with The Red Aligatorz, and after the few numbers we did with some of The Vulcan’s I have never felt so knackered, the output of energy was amazing. They had a mixture of comedy, good musicianship and entertainment, something the Dole Cheques never had!

Besides the few Vulcan choruses/songs most of our material was written by ourselves…it is amazing we could still write!

This Train (Ellie),
It’s so bad its unreliable (Trots),
I wish I was a bicycle Seat (Trots)
Here we go (Trots)
The Hole (Trots)
I’m Lost (Trots)

Here are some recordings of the International Dole Cheques, recorded in Dung’s flat in 1985. I will insert them into the page of The Dole Cheques. The line up is Ellie, Dung, Smoo and myself. Tracks 1 and 4 were written by Dung; track 9 was written by Ellie; tracks 5, 6, and 8 were written by me; track 2 is an old Blues/Skiffle number; and tracks 3, 7, and 10 were based on the songs by The Vulcans, we did not know all of their lyrics so we made them up.

Another set of songs by the Dole Cheques, recorded on another day. Additions to the above list is a song called “The Hole” (track 9) written in Amsterdam; and “Here We Go” (track 10) and track 11 “I Am Lost”. All these songs were written by me.

We did not play much in Carlisle, but we did play a lot outside of Carlisle… mainly in Amsterdam on the Leiderspein, and Dam Rank, and the 3 of us we did a concert in the squat/bar called “Pal” where we “held” the audience similar to The Vulcans’. When Smoo had joined us we went back to Amsterdam and supported Chumbawamba in the squat “Vrankrijk” (I managed to track down a recording of the Chumbawamba gig, see the Links page), but there is no mention of us playing, not surprising really, as it was madness: Ellie breaking his drum stick and cutting his eye open with the splinters, blood everywhere; and Smoo diving off the stage into the audience…it all went wrong, we were shit and we broke up. I don’t think the Dutch crowd knew hat hit them.
The final bunch of recordings back in Carlisle, you can tell by now we had a lot of songs about trains!

The video is taken from the recordings of the condemned flat, the song is written by myself “It’s so bad it is unbelievable” inspired by George Formby (R.I.P.), the photo is taken on the Dam Rank, Amsterdam.

This recording was done in London when The Gatorz were playing/living down there. It might seem very exciting to live in the capital city with everything going on around you, but in reality it is very boring. We were there to play music but the music only happened at night and perhaps 3 or 4 times a week. The other times we sat around, or did our own thing. Ellie used to strum a 5 string banjo or play slide guitar; Swanny was teaching himself Bluegrass banjo; and I was teaching myself Classical guitar and Northumbrian Smallpipe music.

While Swanny would pass the time playing records, Ellie and I would strum a guitar or have a drink or two… these sessions often happened after a gig and went into the early hours when people of Whickham Road (Brockley) were trying to get to sleep. “Shut the f–ck up” often filtered down to us from a bedroom window…

The Dole Cheques´s music was a mixture of anything…there was not any set style, a lot of it was our own scribbles, and some of it was borrowed. This recording is mostly a tipsy collection of other people´s songs.

1 Come with me… is not the real title, but it was by a band called The Holy Modal Rounders, am not sure if it originally by them, but I heard it on their LP, or when they became a duo, something like that anyway.

2 The Wild Rover…is an Irish folk song, well known the world over and one Ellie liked to sing.

3 I’ve Got a Sperm Stain…one of Ellie’s compositions, a classic in my opinion.

4 Ugly…The Dole Cheques were moddled upon a busking band called “The Vulcan’s”. I had seen them busking in Italy, and later in Amsterdam in ’83; and they blew me away by their energy and crowd control. Half concert half theatre, comic and entertaining, they made a lasting impression. Ellie and I saw them play in London years later and later still, we busked with them in Convent Garden (I have never been so knackered after playing a short set with them). Ugly is one of their songs. I never knew all the words I used to make them up, but the chorus is theirs.

5 They Say this is a Democracy…written by Dung (Every Smile’s a Lie), who was a member of The Dole Cheques.

6 A Blues Ditty…a poor attempt at a Blues improvisation.

7 The Rolling Pin Song… written by myself. Inspired by The Vulcan’s.

8 Crawling King Snake…by The Doors.

This cassette disappeared for a long time, but it re-emerged via Ellie, many thanks for giving this the light of day again. Probably recorded in 1987.