GIG 0017: Anhrefn / Model Citizens at Colwyn Bay Leisure Centre

 

Model Citizens

Having seen Anhrefn for the first time a couple of months ago and establishing connections with the Bangor punk fraternity, we got wind that they were returning to our town. 

The Norwest Holst Room is a lifeless square function room at the Leisure Centre in Colwyn Bay - it could probably hold about 500 people. No chance of that tonight but still, a smattering of we 'punks' and a pile of Model Citizen's school mates did our best to fill the empty void.

That aside, we had a great time. Everyone piled to the front and made a 'gig' of it. Model Citizens were not long out of their 'practicing in the bedroom' phase, playing rudimentary punk rock, but were good fun. Fuelled by Kestrel lager and spurred on by my mates, I got up and sang Anti-Nowhere League's Woman with them, which was a giggle*.

Anhrefn by now had been proper bigged up as a decent live band by myself and I was eager to share my enthusiasm with my friends, and after their 45 minute set of punk rock, those friends agreed. They played the songs we knew, having recorded their John Peel session, including the excellent Defaid and Action Man. 

I loved the band's humour, notsomuch in the songs, but as people; particularly Sion and Dewi, who seemed up for a laugh, drummer Hefin too. Bassist Rhys was more the organiser, keeping it all together and we spoke at length about creating a scene across the North Wales coast, bringing together like minded people to spread the punk manifesto.

*[I'm pretty sure I sang 'Woman' with Model Citizens on more than just this occasion, which means I've obviously seen them before or after this gig - probably in Colwyn Bay - but sadly I don't have any record of it]

GIG 0016 - Anhrefn / Paraletics at Rydal School, Colwyn Bay (The Birth of Crud)

It was the 30th of August, 1986, and I was in my flat on Ellesmere Road, Colwyn Bay. I remember it well — one of those warm days when you’ve got the rickety shash windows open and the world just drifts in. That afternoon, I started hearing the thud of drums and raw guitars echoing across from beyond the main road. It sounded good. Really good. Curious, I followed the noise.

The music was coming from the Rydal School playing fields — an open-air punk gig / summer fete happening right in the middle of Colwyn Bay. Rydal was a private school, and not exactly unfamiliar territory. Being teenagers, we’d often skulk around there, full of adolescent hormones and the daft idea that we might catch a glimpse into the girls' showers.

On stage was a Welsh punk band called Anhrefn, delivering a fierce, rebellious set. I’d actually heard them just the week before, doing a session on John Peel’s show on Radio One. Seeing them live was something else — wild, Welsh, loud, and absolutely vital.

Sharing the bill were another band from Bangor called The Paraletics, just as raucous, just as raw. Their guitarist, Jez, ended up getting told off mid-set by — of all things — an angry clown, furious about his swearing. You couldn’t make it up.

As the bands played, I was appraoched by a guy selling fanzines. One stood out immediately — ROX, thrown together by John Robb of The Membranes, a maniacal noise outfit from Blackpool. I’d flicked through countless 'zines over the years, but this one had a real charge to it. It was anarchic, urgent, buzzing with DIY spirit.

I’d been keeping a scrapbook since leaving school three years earlier, full of oddball newspaper cuttings, satirical bits, and funny headlines. As I thumbed through ROX, I thought, Why not do something with all that? Maybe put together a fanzine of my own.

When I mentioned it to Edi, he took the idea a step further.

"Why don’t we do a ragmag-type magazine for the Bay?" he said.

I paused. "Yeah. But what the hell would we call it?"

Edi didn’t even flinch. "Well," he said, with a perfectly timed pause, "Crud."

And that was it. That was the moment it began — on a late summer day in Colwyn Bay, fuelled by punk noise, DIY attitude, and a clown with a grudge.

GIG 0015: The Damned 10th Anniversary at Finsbury Park, London

 

Me looking pretty fucked after travelling to London

There was no live music scene to write home about in Colwyn Bay during those times unless you liked boring bland blues bands and that awful new wave of spandex metal rubbish. So entertainment was garnered from further afield. We went to Finsbury Park in London to see The Damned celebrate their tenth anniversary. Our quest to get there started around midnight on the day of July 26th 1986 when the National Coach driver refused to let us on because we were punks; even though we’d booked tickets. This is how the story unfolded…

My sister Emma, Ade Brunskill, Helen The Hair, Wayne The Bastard, Edi Filmstar and myself stood there, open beer cans in our hands, in our punk attire as the coach pulled up, the doors swung open and the driver took one look at us and flatly refused to let us on the coach!

’But we’ve got tickets!’ – he wouldn’t be budged, we weren’t getting on his coach and that was final. They call it judging a book by its cover, and we were the pages he didn’t want to read. There wasn’t much we could do, violence would’ve proved this bigot’s presumption right and landed us in the cells and not in London, so we sloped back to the flat and regrouped.

Thankfully, Helen had a credit card and she forked out for train tickets; we would successfully fight National Express for our money back later, but first we had a gig to get to. I think it was only Helen who managed to get any sleep on the journey down, the rest of us were pretty much cream crackered by the time we emerged into the London sunshine. Today was all about The Damned, a band I loved so much, enough to have their name tattooed onto my wrist next to a flaming love heart! [I’ve since had it lasered off, but my love has not diminished; although it has been tested with the latest album!]. The Damned were all things to me through my teenage years, my mates were not into them in school, preferring Sham 69, or Crass, or the Oi! Scene – I too went along with all that, but it was Vanian/Sensible/Scabies/Ward who always topped my charts. Dave Vanian’s guile, Captain Sensible’s exquisite guitar playing, Rat Scabies is still the best drummer I’ve ever seen, and Algy Ward is the best of a long succession of bassists the band has been through since.

This Finsbury Park gig was over two days and rumours were rife that the two years departed Captain Sensible would be making a guest appearance. He did, but we got the wrong day, and despite the hopes of 20,000 people chanting the old chestnut, ‘Sensible’s a wanker’ he didn’t show up on our day. We were however treated to a superb opening, Plan 9 Channel 7 was orchestrated before blasting into the full song and we all went bananas! Lot’s of ‘newer’ stuff was played, Eloise, Street Of Dreams, Is It A Dream, plus new tracks off the forthcoming disappointing ‘Anything’ album. I remember Limit Club (love that song), Stranger On The Town, then the finale of LA Woman, Smash It Up (the whole tent erupted) and Love Song. The encore, I think, was Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde, followed by New Rose and ending with Lust For Life.

The opening band were Electric Bluebirds, I don’t recall much of these, although The Proclaimers seem to spring to mind, followed by the rockabilly Restless. Wayne’s interest in psychobilly bands would drag us to many gigs and to many albums, with the likes of King Kurt and Guana Batz being favourites, but Restless were pretty mediocre.

Dr And The Medics however, were far from mediocre. The drummer got up on stage and started with a great beat, soon followed by the guitarist and bassist as they formed an ace riff, then The Anadin Brothers (two girls) alighted the stage with their unique dance moves, before The Doctor himself (or Clive Jackson as he was called in school) appeared and had everyone in the audience in the palm of his hand. The attention he commanded was immense, the perfect MC, the ultimate band leader, the conductor, The Doctor!

We had their Happy But Twisted EP in our collection and would soon be buying their Laughing At The Pieces debut album, from which most of their set was made up. I do recall a rubbish version of Paranoid, and then an apology for making it to No.1 with Spirit in The Sky – The Doctor then announced that

‘This is the way it should’ve been played’ and they launched into a much better sped up version that kept the majority of punks happy in pogoville. Hard to imagine at the time that forty years from now The Damned would still be in existence and celebrating their 50th anniversary.

GIG 0014 - The Cramps / Stingrays at Royal Court, Liverpool

 

I was going out with a girl from Colwyn Bay. Helen’s leaning was very much toward the Goth end of the punk spectrum, and we shared a deep love of all things Bauhaus (her love of the band probably extended into the sexual aspect of their lead singer too!). I will also be eternally grateful to her for dragging me kicking and screaming to the Royal Court in Liverpool.

‘There’s no way I’m going to see the fucking Cramps.’ I protested. It was 20th March 1986, and at nineteen years old I was still a bit set in my pure punk rock ways; or at least had a reputation to uphold. We sat on the balcony, that very steep balcony at the Royal Court. The Cramps were incredible. You don’t realise at the time of seeing these bands that they will someday be iconic. They had just been on The Tube on TV and released the album ‘A Date With Elvis’ and played just about all of it before heading into crowd favourites like Goo Goo Muck, Human Fly and Surfin’ Bird, during which Lux Interior scaled the PA speakers with the microphone in his mouth, grunting throughout. A great spectacle. He was pretty oiled, necking red wine straight from the bottle and launching one at the over-zealous bouncers who kept beating up crowd surfers.

A couple of years later I bought a bootleg tape of this gig from Aladdin's Cave in Rhyl. I have no recollection of The Stingrays.