More Velvet Underground following yesterday’s Sunray/ Sonic Boom/ Ocean post. Today’s post has The Velvets via Liverpool and Barking. The photo above is of Eric’s in Liverpool, not the original Eric’s- that closed a long time ago, 1980- but a live venue on Mathew Street under the same name and logo. Since The Vinyl Villain’s guest post here a few weeks ago I’ve been vaguely obsessed with one of the performances in his post- Echo And The Bunnymen, a group firmly connected to Eric’s, playing live with Billy Bragg, covering The Velvets’ Run, Run, Run on OGWT in 1985.
Will and Billy have the Velvet twin guitar drone/ wired lead line nailed with Pete’s thumping backbeat covering the Mo Tucker thump. Ian McCulloch gives it the full big hair, big coat, alternative rock star frontman, kicking off with ‘show me the way to go home’ and squealing/ crooning/ grunting as required.
In 1985 The Bunnymen set out for a tour of Scandinavia, a tour Ian has referred to as ‘the last great Bunnymen tour’. They played support act to themselves, playing a set of covers every night, then going off for a break before returning to play their own songs. Many of the covers were chosen by Will Sergeant- Action Woman and She Cracked- along with Bunnymen favourites by Dylan, Television, The Doors and The Velvets. This take of Run, Run, Run was recorded onstage in Gothenburg by Swedish radio.
Will has also spoken of his enjoyment of the Scandinavian tour, playing the support set of covers through practice amps in small halls with no stage, staying at the promotor’s house and having breakfast with them. ‘I think’, Will said, ‘it was the last time we were a band really. The next tour we played was stadiums. I hated that. Playing places like Wembley… was everything the Bunnymen wasn’t about’.
Run, Run, Run was on The Velvet Underground’s debut, the banana album/ The Velvet Underground And Nico. Lou Reed wrote in on the back of an envelope while on the way to a gig at Cafe Bizarre. It’s a belter of a song, with those speed freak guitars, rumbling rhythms and lo- fi, reverb production. Lou”s cast of characters- Teenage Mary, Margarita Passion, Seasick Sarah, Beardless Harry- are all on the streets of New York looking for a fix and/ or to be saved, drugs and religion mixed up. Lou’s guitar solo is unlike other guitar solos from 1967, a trebly, wired, atonal freak out.
I spent last Thursday evening in the company of JC, the man behind the long running, standard setting blog The Vinyl Villain. He’d travelled down from Glasgow overnight and we met for a few drinks and a catch up taking in two legendary Manchester pubs- The Briton’s Protection (grade II listed, serving beer since 1806- the year not the time- with a mural of the Peterloo Massacre down one wall) and The City Arms (a pre- Hacienda haunt for many back in the day, situated just across the road from Fac51). Earlier this week JC sent this to me. A few weeks ago I started an irregular series of Bands In Places They Shouldn’t Be including Echo And The Bunnymen on Wogan, Prefab Sprout at Alton Towers, Ice T on The Late Show and Aztec Camera on Pebble Mill. I’ve got a few ideas lined up for further editions in the series but in the meantime JC has stepped in with a Bands In Places They Shouldn’t Be Scottish Edition. Without further ado, then, over to JC…
I was quite tickled by Adam’s previous posts in which he dug out some classic video clips of performances or appearances in the most unlikely of places. So much so, that I’ve come up with a few more, all of which feature singers/bands from Scotland.
First up are Aztec Camera and a rendition of Walk Out ToWinter that was broadcast on Switch, a series aired on Channel 4 between March and September 1983. It basically took over the Friday evening slot that had been occupied by The Tube, starting one week after the end of the first series and ending one week before the second series began.
Look closely and you’ll see that the normally immaculate Roddy Frame and his bandmates are wearing identical and hideous tracksuits. That’s because the footage was from the afternoon rehearsals when they did their bit to help the camera operators and lighting technicians do their thing, returning later on for the actual performance that was broadcast. Only thing is, the band decided not to perform the new single and thus leaving the record label a tad upset. Which is why, no doubt after much pleading with the producers of Switch, this footage was shown a few weeks later.
Back in the days when the BBC actually were half-decent at putting out music shows, they came up with the idea of a 24-hour broadcast across BBC 2 and Radio 1, which was given the imaginary title of Rock Around The Clock. I think there may actually have been a couple of these, with the shows being a blend of live performances from concert venues, studio performances, interviews, videos and specially commissioned film clips. It also saw musicians dropping in for chats, as was the case when Edwyn Collins, Paul Quinn and Zeke Manyika were interviewed, from recollection around 1am, and it’s fair to say they were up for having a bit of fun.
I’ll divert for a few minutes, as the same show also had Billy Bragg and Echo & The Bunnymen in the studio at an even later hour. They teamed up for an unforgettable cover of a Velvet Underground number.
Turning now to the first band ever to play at the Scottish Exhibition Centre, the cavernous venue on the banks of the River Clyde to which all the big names would flock after the legendary Glasgow Apollo was closed down and demolished. History records that UB40 were the first to play in what became known as Hall 4 in 1985, but the truth of the matter is that a little-known local act called Snakes of Shake were the first as evidenced by this clip which went out on The Tube in 1984:-
OK….the building was still under construction, but let’s not split hairs.
That clip was part of a special on Scottish music that was broadcast by The Tube. You’ll have to bear with me on the next one as I can’t find a segment where it’s just the song.
It’s a seven-minute piece of film, in which presenter Leslie Ash turns up on a very wintry day in Dundee for a chat down in the dockside area with Billy Mackenzie. The interview takes place on what appears to be a tug boat, while Billy then mimes outrageously to the Associates song ‘Waiting For The Loveboat’ on board the HMS Unicorn, a 200-year old frigate that operates as a museum/visitor attraction in Dundee. The music begins around 4 mins and 24 seconds in.
You’ll have spotted by now that many of these clips are courtesy of the hard work of an individual who goes by the name of ScottishTeeVe who has taken hundreds of hours to take his VHS etc recordings and put them up on YouTube for our enjoyment. All the clips thus far, I also have on dozens of different videotapes that are in boxes in a cupboard beneath the stairs, but I just don’t know how to now put them in places where they can be shared and enjoyed more widely.
I’ll finish off with a cheat.
It’s a clip that doesn’t feature anyone from Scotland, but it was filmed in Glasgow on 3 June 1990.
The location is Custom House Quay on the banks of the Clyde. It was part of ‘The Big Day’, one of the centrepiece events in a year-long set of festivities to celebrate Glasgow being designated as the European City of Culture. An all-day music festival that was free of charge across various locations, with the big-name acts performing on stages at the main civic square or in the largest of our inner-city parks. Some more niche acts were put on at Custom House Quay, one of whom was Billy Bragg. He didn’t let on that he was going to be joined for part of his set by some friends from America:-
You can see that the location is full to capacity, with maybe a couple of hundred folk sitting down and maybe as many again standing up at street level. No mobile phones, so no way of letting anyone know that Michael Stipe and Natalie Merchant were singing their hearts out. I don’t have this clip on video, for the simple reason that I was out on the streets that day, among what was estimated to be a crowd of 250,000. Nor did I see it on the day…..I was half-a-mile away enjoying the one stage where the music was quite eclectic, watching the likes of Aswad, Nanci Griffith and Les Negresses Vertes put on great shows. It wasn’t until the next day, reading the newspapers, did I learn about the Custom House Quay happening. The performance has become the Glasgow equivalent of the Sex Pistols at the Lesser Free Trade Hall in Manchester in 1976 with thousands claiming to have been there.
Massive thanks to JC for this time capsule, a hugely enjoyable post.
The last few days have shown the worst of this country and the best too- the sadly predictable response by knuckle dragging racists to three young men missing penalties for England at Wembley on Sunday night, not to mention the behaviour of some of the fans in and around the stadium and central London, is profoundly depressing and enraging.
The response by people in Withington, the part of South Manchester where I grew up, has been moving and uplifting- heartfelt messages of thanks and inspiration left on the mural of Marcus Rashford which had been defaced by scumbags at some point on Sunday night. Marcus Rashford spent some of his childhood in Withington living close to Copson Street where the mural is (picture below shows our visit last year).
Marcus Rashford’s own statement in response to events was powerful and moving, a statement of apology for missing a penalty (as if that were needed) and a defiant note against racism and intolerance. Teammate Tyrone Mings responded to Pritti Patel’s shamelessness (denouncing racism this week, condemning the players for taking a stance against racism three weeks earlier), calling out her hypocrisy. It’s easy to find events and the state of modern England dispiriting but the eloquence and defiance of the youth, both professional footballers and ordinary people interviewed on the news in Withington and elsewhere, is enough to make me hope for better in the future. One day the likes of Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson and Pritti Patel will be gone and the upcoming generation will I think make a better job of things than ours is.
Back in 1985 as The Clash spluttered to a conclusion Joe Strummer wrote a state of the nation address, the last great Clash song, This Is England. Joe looks around and sees the collapse of industry and loss of jobs, war in the South Atlantic, jingoism, police brutality, violence and racism. ‘This is England/ This is how we feel’, he laments.
Kirsty MacColl and Billy Bragg both claimed not to be looking for a new England, just another girl. But I think we all know he wanted both. Is it wrong to wish on space hardware? Nope, whatever it takes I reckon.
Bagging Area 