The Sedgemorons: A Retrospective

The Sedgemorons existed from about August 1984 until December 1985. Not even 2 years. Formed by the editors of Sheep Worrying magazine to do a series of cabaret gigs just to raise money to keep the fanzine going but developing into a tight and original unit writing their own songs, bringing out a single (Drop Dead Darling) which received national airplay and was reviewed in the music papers, and doing a stage musical. And then they split up. And were forgotten. Until last week when an American record label (Cloudberry records) asked if they could do an interview and then bring out a 'Sedgemorons Retrospective'. Here's an interview I did plus some of the Sedgemorons music.

Hi Brian! Thanks so much for getting in touch and being up for this interview! How are you? Are you still based in Bridgwater? Still making music?

Ey up. No problem, thanks for the interest. I’m in Bridgwater. In fact I’m in bloody cold freezing wintry Bridgwater today which is very unusual here in the Tropical south west of England. How am I? I’ve got a cold. Still making music -not so much -spend more time touring other bands round -check out NYC band Gangstagrass -I drove them round UK & Europe last year. Played my last gig in April this year with a Jamaican guitarist a Czech bassist and an Italian drummer – that’s International Socialism for you. I sang ‘Car Park Attendant’ a song I debuted in the Sedgemorons.

So let's start from the very beginning, like what was your first instrument and how did you get it? Was it easy for you to learn how to play it?

 Instrument? Probably a piano accordion that laid around the house as a kid. My grandad was a captain of sailing ships and brought it back from Nazi Germany in the 30s. Having been liberated from Fascism it featured on and off in bands through the years. I did some session work with John Parish’s band ‘Automatic Dlamini’ (featured PJ Harvey) in the 90s and played it on that. Song called ‘Roland Barthes didn’t do country’ (1992) and again later with a US band called ‘Ensenada Joyride’. You can also hear it on the Red Smed track ‘Partisan Song’ (currently on 374,000 views- that’s more than Uncle Freds Lucky Tandem!!). Anyway - learning that led me to piano and then one day I moved to guitar at about 16 and taught myself that. Never had no lessons nor nothing. Hence shit technique.

And what sort of music was listened at home while growing up? When did you know you wanted to be in a band?

My dad was never at home as he worked away at powerplants but when he came home he’d sometimes bring comedy records with him – Jake Thackray, 5 Penny Piece, Spike Jones, Blaster Bates, My mum would sing old movie songs around the house. So no help there then! I was a kid in the mid 60s and so the Beatles were the first thing I listened to -  also the Monkees. And it was their TV series that made me want to be in bands. So I formed a garage band aged about 10 when I lived in North Wales (called ‘The Thundermakers’) I sang (and wrote) and we played in the garages on our council estate and invited the neighbourhood kids in to watch us. They paid a penny each then we’d take the cash and spend it on Batman bubblegum cards. Rock n Roll or what!!

Had any of you have experience in being in bands before being in The Sedgemorons? If so, which bands were you in?

Just me and Nervo the drummer really. We’d been in punk bands together since the late 70’s (mainly ‘The Dangerous Brothers’).Stuart the bass player had been singer in a punk band called The Market Gardeners, but he was also in the Royal Navy and so didn’t gig too often (apart from Falklands War and the Cod War) (that was a real war about fish against Iceland)(Aggressive little sods) (the fish I mean) Anne, Lianne and Gareth -SMs was their first band and Bazza the sax man had only just learnt his instrument (I think)

How did you all know each other to form The Sedgemorons? Was there some sort of recruiting process?

Well, the Dangerous Brothers were the heart of the Bridgwater music scene and we formed an organisation around us called Sheep Worrying -which was not just a record label it was also a fanzine, a theatre company, we put on gigs and so on and it was very DIY indie punk stuff. So all the people in the SMs were an integral part of Sheep Worrying. It was a bit like recruiting the Magnificent Seven. First there was me and Nervo, then Stuart, then Anne, then Lianne, then Gareth then Bazza and then we shot up a Mexican village. There was nothing like ‘auditions’ except maybe me teaching Stuart to play the bass.

Where did you usually practice? And how was the creative process for the band?

Sheep Worrying had an ‘office’ on the top floor of the Labour Party headquarters Unity House. We did everything there -wrote the fanzine, rehearsed the plays, etc and so we rehearsed the band there too. The creative process was mainly me writing stuff and bringing it to the band and them adding to it with ideas. Later Anne or Gareth wrote whole lyrics. ‘Girlfriend’ lyric was mainly by Gareth with me putting music to it. Then I’d teach Stu the bass line, then Anne and Lianne would work out some harmonies and then Gareth would fall off a chair or out of a window.

The sound of The Sedgemorons is quite unique I think, so I wonder, what would you say were your influences?

In truth we decided to break away from the quirky punky feel that came from the previous bands I'd been in and aimed for more indie pop and more accessible music. We formed the band to raise money (not for ourselves) so we wanted mainstream gigs  and to be a bit cabaret to earn cash-but we very quickly weren’t satisfied with that and kept pushing the boundaries, sending ourselves up and the audiences and so influences were quite eclectic. Personally my guitar influences were always Eddie Cochran, Hank Marvin and Wilko Johnson so that mix is where you get the fast jangly rhythm and the twangy lead sounds. But the underlying influence was punk attitude I’d say.

What is the story behind the band's name?

well, the district we live in is called Sedgemoor. You can checkout that it’s also the scene of the last battle in England (1685) so it didn’t take much to add ‘morons’ in there. 

How was Bridgwater back then? Where did you usually hang out? What were the places where you would go out and check bands? Where there any like-minded bands? 

Bridgwater was and is a small provincial town but with a radical history. 75% working class but by the 80s that was in decline due to Margaret bloody Thatcher. Unemployment was high and money was scarce. So we were a mix of the fightback against her and trying to create a scene ourselves that was original and local and encouraged all bands to work together and put on stuff together, share gigs, share gear etc. However, we basically took over the local Art Centre (which incidentally was the first art centre in Britain-1946) and put on it’s music programme and our original theatre  and mainly hung out there. So it was us that put on the local gigs 4 bands at a time -and brought down big alternative bands of the day such as Crass, Toy Dolls, Chumbawamba that sort of thing. Bands rarely came to Bridgwater that we didn’t put on so you’d have to go to the nearest city-Bristol to see big gigs. However, Glastonbury is only 10 miles from Bridgwater and there’s that massive music festival there every year which we all went to. We used to help them with the traffic control -these days I supply workers for the bars there.

Your first release was a cassette album titled "We're Bonkers". I haven't found much information about it aside that it was recorded live. Is there a tracklist? When was it released? How many copies were made?

'We’re Bonkers’ was the first thing we did yes. It was a mix of a live gig at the Antelope Inn Sherborne where we played with The Chesterfields. Simon Barber recorded us from the PA and in fact his voice is on the album wishing me a happy birthday (it was my birthday) -but we also went into a studio to add maybe 6 more tracks. The album was basically a mix of the ‘cabaret’songs we’d been doing to raise money (‘Sorrow’-The Merseys,’Don’t Get Around much anymore’-Duke Ellington plus our on stage opener ‘Y Viva Espana’-played Shadows Style) then some of the newer originals we were writing including an early version of Drop Dead Darling and some of the ‘poems’ (which I wrote for a stage play and Stuart read). Recorded 22 Sept 1984. Don’t think we made more than 100 copies Track list -1 Y Viva Espana (Trad) 2 Sorrow (trad) 3 Don't Get around much anymore(trad) 4 Greed (Smedley) 5. Window Box of life (Smedley) 6 Drop Dead Darling (Smedley/Kane) 7 Ethiopia Utopia (Smedley) 8. I walk the line (trad) 9.Twist n shout (trad)10 20 Flight Rock (Cochran)

Your second 7" came out in 1985 on the label Sheep Worrying Records. This was your own label, how was the experience running it? 

Sheep Worryings first release was ‘False Nose’ by the Dangerous Brothers in 1980 and then we did a few others and as it was our umbrella organisation it was natural the SMs would be part of it too. In fact it was our 3^rd 7” release -the second was ‘the Sheep Worrying EP’ (1982) which featured me and Nervo + others in a band called Club Whoopee doing a song called ‘You’re sort of ok’ (written by me and horror writer Kim Newman). Running a DIY indie label with no money was a nightmare but so was the 1980s. We were in a massive political struggle and no one involved had any money, few had jobs and gigs were a political statement more than building a career. We also went on demos, actions, protests all that stuff. The establishment hated us. One local newspaper labelled me ‘the most dangerous man in somerset’ at this same time.

I read that because the label needed funding to keep going you formed The Sedgemorons to get out of the debt. Is that true?  Did it work out in the end?

Yes that’s true. We built up our fanzine to a 'Listings' magazine with 1,500 circulation but it had to be paid for so we used advertising. Sometimes we didn’t get enough to cover it so we just kept letting the debt build up then one day we were staring at a £1,000 debt..so we said ‘let’s form a cabaret band just to pay this off’ -hence the Sedgemorons. After a year we paid it off and by the second year we were gigging for fun and actually gaining a reputation and enjoying it so stuck with it

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This 7" had two songs, "Drop Dead Darling" and "I Need a Girlfriend". I found a video for the second song, all of you playing it at the Bridgwater Arts Centre when the BBC2 was filming a documentary about it. How was that experience? Was it the only time the band was on TV?

The clip is from I think 1985 and upstairs at the art centre. We’re playing acoustically but I dubbed the single version over the youtube clip.I'm in the white car park attendant coat,Lianne in the bobby socks, Anne with a broken arm, Gareth singing ‘Girlfriend’ Stuart on tea chest bass playing with his motorbike gloves and Nervo and Bazza sat on a window sill, I don’t recall the SMs doing any other TV. We got a fair bit of radio play.

I must say that I love the song "Drop Dead Darling", was wondering if you could tell me in a few sentences what is the story behind it?

Ha! When the SMs formed in 1984 I lived with Debbie (Kane) and we jokingly wrote the song together. Mainly her lyric and directed at me. And then she left me. Reality imitating Art. She also did the design work on the cover which is meant to represent a lipstick message on a mirror! I wrote the music. Actually the original idea came from writer Kim Newman (who I wrote musicals with) and who was trying to write a pastiche of ‘Move Over Darling’ (Doris Day) but when I was trying to put music to that basically me and Debbie just totally re-wrote it and we changed all the words except his title so he asked not to have a credit. I played the new song to the band and it became our most popular song and sort of set the scene for the next 2 years

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 How was the recording process for these songs? 

We recorded them at the Milborne Port studios near Sherborne early 1985. It was an 8 track studio and the producer was Chris Hardcastle. It took us an afternoon and evening I think. We brought in Bazza to do some sax on ‘Girlfriend’ and he also did the ‘whistling’-which he ad-libbed in a jazz style. Bazza was basically Gareths mate who we’d barely met. Gareth wrote the words to ‘Girlfriend’ and sang it and also spontaneously did the scat singing bit (without asking us). Anne sang lead on ‘Drop Dead’ with Lianne doing backing. I over dubbed the lead guitar and then at the end I put in some piano. There’s only one ‘mistake’... during the almost last line of 'Girlfriend' Stuart is slightly late on a bass note – and now I’ve told you that you’ll hear it all the time!!

 Did you appear in any compilations that you remember?

The SMs didn’t. We did ‘we’re bonkers’ then ‘the single’ and then we went into a studio in Weston Super Mare to record 4 more tracks which we never released. Although the photo that we use on most of our promo stuff was taken that night on the stormy seafront in the town of John Cleeses birth. We only lasted 2 years

And so, why weren't there more releases by the band? Was there any interest by other labels? 

When we did ‘we’re bonkers’ we tested the water with record labels and in fact Cherry Red were really keen and sent us a hilarious fan letter back. This really boosted us and made us take the cabaret band into the more original direction hence the single -which was distributed by Rough Trade and led to good coverage in the music press and some good gigs. 

Are there more recordings other than the ones mentioned, any unreleased songs by The Sedgemorons?

Just the 4 songs from Weston – 2 Anne lyrics (my music) ‘Small town’ and ‘women only’ and 2 of mine ‘Rock n roll is pretty exciting’ and ‘Trotsky’. Both these songs are on you tube done by my later bands but I might put these original recordings up as now I think of it theres some comical bits there plus me playing a banjo and some backward vocals from Nervo to sound Russian and backward cymbals to sound Pink Floyd. We also played one gig at the Thekla (a boat owned by Bonzo Dog Doodah Band frontman Viv Stanshall) which we recorded and I think there’s an unreleased tape of that somewhere..I’ll have a look!

What about gigs? Did you play many? Any particular great ones that you remember and why?

We played lots of gigs mainly in the south and west of England. Best gig was the Moles Club Bath after which we had a review in Sounds (music paper) and then Peel played our single and the next days gig at the Exeter Art Centre was packed with people who’d heard it. The Bristol Thekla gigs were good, lots of obscure pub gigs and of course a lot in Bridgwater and surrounds. Our last gig ever was in St Pauls Bristol at the Tropic Club, but Nervo couldn’t find it so we had to borrow a drummer from the audience

 I read that you toured a stage musical named "Rock N' Roll is Pretty Exciting", how were this musical? What was special about it?

Yes this was a send up of teen rock musicals like ‘Summer Holiday’or more likely 'the Young Ones'-or maybe check out 'What a Crazy World' or 'Gonks go Beat'. We all wrote lots of sketches based around our songs and then glued them together to make a show. It was about a car park attendant (Rockin Brian) whose car park was going to be closed and turned into a discotheque. So -like Yul Brynner did, but with more hair – I had to get ‘the kids’ to help me save the car park. (oh, that’s ‘parking lot’ in American). We did all the songs and we all acted in it. Then we toured it to a few other places. We considered reviving it recently with my daughter – but then she grew up. For this show we all gained our stage names -I was Rockin Brian-a particularly tedious man with a flat midlands accent (ref Noddy Holder from Slade, Ozzy Osborne or anyone in the cast of 'Peaky Blinders'), Lianne was Bobby Bland-a rather starry-eyed teeny bopper, Anne was ‘Betty Bonkers’-a hard bitten feminist, Gareth was ‘Bing Beasley’-a twat who fell over a lot , Stuart was the abstract poet ‘Ghenghiz 2-Stroke’ Bazza and Nervo were just themselves really

And where there any bad gigs at all? Any anecdotes you could share?

We didn’t do bad gigs because we made out we were bad and argued with each other on stage so no-one could tell the difference. We played one gig at Cheltenham College where the rugby team tried to disrupt it but couldn’t work out if they had or not so gave up. The ‘legs’ photo on the sleeve is from there. By our last gig at the Tropic club we’d actually fallen out with each other for real so the atmosphere wasn’t good. Our last song played together was an acapella version of ‘Silent Night’. It was excruciating, we just sang the words 'silent night,silent night' over and over.

Did you get much attention from the press or radio? I see John Peel used to play you. What about fanzines? 

Yes Peel liked us and played us a few times as did other radio and we got a fair few reviews here and there. Fanzines -well, we reviewed ourselves and so did a few other ones.

When did the band call it a day? And why? What did you all do afterwards? I see you were involved in many bands even covering some Sedgemorons songs!

I’m pretty sure it was late 1985 which now I think of it meant we were only going for a year and a half. We started off as great mates with an aim – to raise money – we did the album then the single -got good reviews-looked like we were on the up and up and then I reckon egos came into it a bit. We sort of split into 2 ‘partner’ factions , me and Lianne against Anne and Gareth with Stuart in the middle. Nervo was always in demand with other bands and was a very good ska-reggae drummer playing with the Alkaloids and another good indie band ‘India’ then I think this reflected in what we all wanted to do next. So when we got to the Christmas 85 gig we in fact formed 2 bands -me and Lianne formed ‘Red Smed and the hot trot smash the system boogie band’(which did the comedy political stuff) while Anne and Gareth formed the ‘Inflatable Ducks’ which were more maybe ‘Smiths meet the Cure’ type of sound. Then people moved on and the band wound up. Anne left music and went into journalism (she was actually the main reporter for the Bridgwater Mercury at the time anyway) but moved to another part of UK and in fact to NYC at one point. She went on to make a name for herself as a producer of current affairs programmes for the BBC radio 4. I met her a coupe of years back in London for the first time in 20 years. She has 2 daughters. Lianne, who I dated at the time, went off to RADA and then became a successful stage manager of largescale childrens theatre productions  around the world. I haven’t seen much of her since she left-but I always get a xmas card. She lives in Coventry. Or possibly Belgrade. Gareth went to Manchester and studied acting-which is what he does now with his one man shows. He’s very good. I met up with him again mid 90s and we produced a Czech-English musical together called ‘Czechomania’. Stuart left the area to study drama and became a teacher. He moved back to Bridgwater mid 90s and I got him playing for the Red Smed band on and off. I hadn’t seen him for 10 years by the way – until today!! Weird or what? He wants to get another band together. Bazza went off to London and did his own thing as an electronic music session player and recently moved back to Bridgwater and I bump into him rarely. Nervo (real name Kevin) played in every band I was subsequently in (Red Smed, the Visitors, the Spanners) but about 10 years ago his doctor told him he couldn’t drum anymore. So he just stopped.(Nervo i mean, not the doctor)

Are you all still in touch? What do The Sedgemorons do today? Has there been any band reunions?

We’re not really in touch. I had a go recently to see if I could get a reunion, but it didn’t seem likely. That said Stuart seemed keen today, so you never know..

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Aside from music, what other hobbies do you have?

Well, in 1990 I got elected to the council as a Labour councillor and have done that for 27 years. Today I’m the Leader of Bridgwater Town Council-which is a strong socialist council and so I’m trying to instil some of that original punk ethos into the local political scene and I think It’s working. I also became very involved with the Czech and Slovak Republics after the collapse of Communism and so spend a lot of my time taking people backwards and forward there – every year organising a rock tour for instance -and lots of other stuff too. Not sure that gives me time for a hobby – football maybe. I’ve organised international football teams and tournaments and only stopped playing myself a couple of years back (with a sensational hat-trick in Hungary against a fat team of Czech factory workers). I like encouraging young bands -especially original ones – and I like driving and touring musicians. One of the last gigs that Clash Frontman Joe Strummer played was here in Bridgwater in 2002-a month before he died (he lived round here and called Bridgwater 'a Clash Town') – me and Nervo supported him on stage and from that gig we keep an annual link up with KEXP radio Seattle who do a live link up for their ‘International Clash Day’ (c. Feb 8^th). We twinned Bridgwater with Seattle – check out the youtube click of me reading the proclamation.

Today how is Bridgwater, Somerset? Has it changed much since The Sedgemorons days? If I, or any reader of this interview, was to visit as a tourist someday, what would you suggest checking out in your area?

If you or anyone who wasn't a total fkwt wanted to come to Bridgwater you would be welcomed with open arms. Today it’s a bit of a boom town…yes, we now have 3 nuclear power plants…..and 6 new hotels. A lot of music and a lot of history and all in the beautiful surroundings of the cream and cider drenched West Country. The Bridgwater Art Centre is still going, the Engine Room film and media centre was set up following the Strummer benefit gig and is a great progressive place, and the river has the 2^nd highest tide in the world (after somewhere in Canada). Check out the Green Olive meze restaurant, the Blake fish and chip bar, the Cobblestones indie music pub, the Fountain Inn (an old sailors pub..if you like old sailors), Wetherspoons-for the cheapest drinks in town (and Nervo) and my flat in the elegant 18th century Georgian Castle street (a bit like Boston) home of the Swedish Womens Netball Team – well, it would be if they were looking for a home.

Looking back, what would you say was the biggest highlight for The Sedgemorons? 

1. Getting the fan letter from Cherry Red 2. Getting played on John Peel 3. The early days when we were one big happy family

Put On Your Dancing Shoes and Overthrow Capitalism

There can be no argument that the most important single contribution to revolutionary cinema in the 20th century was not 'Battleship Potemkin', 'Strike' , 'Oktober' or any of the Eisenstein classics, but 'Summer Holiday' featuring Cliff Richard. In this internationalist epic, (then not) 'Sir Cliff' and his freewheeling comrades cross Europes post war boundaries, only recently liberated from the Fascist jackboot,  in search of workers solidarity, class comradeship and girls -some dressed as young boys admitedly. And their mode of transport is the good old  red London double decker bus. What's not to like.

After 'Zulu', '20 Interesting Things About Fish' and 'Sharon's Overnight Visit to Goole', it;s undoubtedly the film I've watched more than any other, seeking, on each viewing, to gain a deeper insight into what exactly they're trying to say. Is it 'tear off the shackles of your oppression', 'you have nothing to lose but your chains', 'if the kids are united, they will never be divided' or is it 'if you go off on a European holiday with the lads you;ll definitely pull a bird like Una Stubbs'? I think I know what it is.

Telling it like it (probably) is

So for me the best song in the film is 'Dancing Shoes'. In a scene, which could otherwise be seen as terrifying, Cliff and a gang of 4 teenagers surround a Yugoslav peasant girl in a haystack, force her to dance and throw her around between them. With the volume turned off the images could be repulsive. The sheer horror on the girls face as she totally fails to understand what this gang of 'hands on' strangers even want of her. But whatever it is they're not letting her get away. in the end it transpires that what they want is 'bread'...but due to a hilarious misunderstanding they translate the next word in their 'Serbo-Croat Dictionary' which happens to be 'bride'. Suddenly everything's alright and the girl cheers up, rushes them back to her village where a bunch of Slavic tribesmen from a different century to the rather progressive 1960's of Yugoslav Communism, are waiting to throw a big party for their soon to be new relatives...until of course the young Balkanating Brits suddenly realise the horror of  their situation and try to escape. At which point the Slavic types attempt to stab them with pitchforks, batter them with chairs and shoot them.

What better allegory for the eventual dissolution and catastrophe that eventually was to befall Yugoslavia.

Tearing down the walls that surround us

But, for me, the failure of the writers was in the lyrical department. A wonderful swinging rock tune was spoilt by the totally meaningless juvenile lyrics inserting nursery rhymes rather than think fo actual lyrics. 'Do you remember little bo peep' 'let me tell you bout jack and jill, theyre the ones that went up the hill' etc.
So obfuscation no more....I politicised it.....it's what they would have wanted..or...deserved.
'Humpty Dumpty' no more, 'Bo Peep' no more, instead those working class martyrs Salvadore Allende, Joe Hill and Terry French.

Now, this version is from 2002 and done by the Red Smed band at the Monkton Heathfield Popodrome studios - although there's an even older version from 1986 done in a brickworks in Dunwear, Bridgwater, partially acoustically and totally fuelled by 2 bottles of Irish whiskey.....but I seem to have lost that one....

Blue Remembered Armpits

"Now then, who lives in a film like this....?"

On December 19th 1975 I went to my first RAG DAY. It was cold and rainy and I was a first year student at Bridgwater College. Dressing myself up as Morrissey , years before even Morrissey had the idea to dress up as himself, and nicking a bottle of whiskymac from my parents drinks cupboard then hiding it in my raincoat pocket to take secret swigs out of during the course of the day. But rag days in 1975 were very different to what they are today. In them days students dressed up like twats and got shitfaced. Today....well, moving swiftly on.

Bridgwater looked very different in them days and yet, very similar. As did all my friends. Many of who appear in a film of the event made by lead vocalist of my band the Dangerous Brothers, Rod Jones, and which has lain dormant (well, in his cupboard) for more than 40 years. But now through the miracle of him agreeing to it, we can have a glimpse back to those blue remembered bastards we used to call students. We can see a Bridgwater with a Marks and Spencers and a Tescos in Fore street, the Admiral Blake statue in it's old place on the Cornhill side of the road and we can identify the total bastards who actually managed to get off with some  girls in the debauchery pit known as the Blake street Annex, as they emerge looking very pleased with themselves while some of us had to resort to getting, well very pissed, by , say,10 am.

"Why, if it isn't horror writer Kim Newman..."

Look out for  Sheep Worrying legends Kim Newman - first seen selling bottled water and hot cakes on the Cornhill to see which would sell like, er, hot cakes, and Eugene Byrne, wearing a forage cap bought from the Army Navy shop in St Mary Street, and roaming around with a michrophone interviewing people. Plus rare appearances from early Dangerous Brothers stalwarts Fat Bald Dave (when he was Thin Long Haired Dave) and Cold Buffet Bill when he was, well, a bit on the barmy side.

The song I've put to it is 'Clever Students', which seemed appropriate. I wrote this after spending just a month at University, but it could equally apply to us all at College. The song was recorded in 1978 in the White Hart, Eastover and the musicians featured include film maker Rod Jones on lead vocal, backed by Kev 'Nervo' Freeman on drums and chorus vocal plus Simon 'Supermeat' Gibbs on guitar and chorus vocal. I'm playing the rather simple Floydesque bass line on my old Hofner violin bass, which was held together by araldite and which I twattishly sold to Shrunken Duncan for £20, while the clever bit of keyboard/synth work featured is played by Neal Heckford in his mid period Bowie role of  Cosmo DG Glissandoz.

"And here's Eugene Byrne and our schoolmate Liz Lee-

incidentally the first person to nominate me for Council in 1990.."

I was convinced that the Police were on to me that day and my best memory of the day is when they jumped out of a car in Blake street and Cold Buffet Bill said 'run' so I did. Bill, a mountaineer, leapt over the Blake street wall into Blake Gardens, which was twice as high on the opposite side. Agile fucker that he was, I managed to get my Morrissey coat caught on the brickwork at the top and found myself dangling over a rose bed until it ripped and I dropped into it....before escaping Steve McQueen-like into the Bridge café. Now who remembers the Bridge café....?

Remembering The Funbunnies

I'm sat in Tescos at St Ives. Somewhere below me a dozen Czech students have been sent for a walk around Cape Cornwall in gale force winds and a near horizontal rainstorm and are doubtless at this very moment being swept out to sea, buffeted  from rock to rock and dashed to pieces on the cruel headlands of what would otherwise be quite nice surfing country. What better setting to contemplate top Bridgwater all girl(and 3 men) band The Funbunnies.

The Funbunnies formed in around 1998 and basically consisted of 3 singers - Elaine, Julia and Lorraine or Elaine, Julia and Heidi, and a backing line up of Red Smed (guitar) Big Barry 'Fowler' (bass) and Kevin 'Nervo' Freeman (drums). Gigs were frequent and always popular. Material was usually well known crowd pleasers. 'Brown Eyed Girl' featuring Julia, 'Shoop Shoop song' featuring Lorraine or 'Talking bout a Revolution' featuring Elaine or 'Happy Hour' featuring Heidi. But now and then they did a few originals...

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The Funbunnies (Elaine, Julia, Lorraine)

I Hope You Die' was written by Kim Newman and Brian Smedley for the 1987 rock epic 'Rock rock rock rock rock rock rock' and was devised as a torch song for the character of Kathy Kardiff, an alcoholic weather beaten old hag, and sung in the original production originally by Sam Terry, an alcoholic  weather b..etc. (She wasn't really)

Red Smed (who wrote the music and plays guitar on this track) wasn't available for comment this morning as he was busy soaping down the Cornish cliffs around Zennor before driving his minibus as fast as he could away from the bobbing and waving Czech students, now some yards off the headland. 

Lead vocals on 'I Hope You Die'
were by Heidi Powell

However, in a previous statement on the subject he said "I Hope You Die is one of the best songs I've ever written clearly, apart from most of the others. And several that I didn't write. For me however, making a film of the song has always been a problem as I don't really want anyone to die. Apart from Donald Trump, Nigel Farage and the whole Norwich City Team. So I could never find the right imagery for the video. Then suddenly after a particularly memorable week driving French students around I managed to grab a well earned rest at Chesil Beach and during a brief 'out of body' experience, involving a fish cake, I thought hey, this could be about me..."

The actual lyricist of the song , Kim Newman, is not a particularly bitter and twisted individual and his many books and film reviews can be found here.

The Funbunnies lasted maybe 2 years. At one point the mums (that they all were) let their daughters take their place and a 'Mini-Funbunnies with  Cathy, Beth and Alice took the stage at the art centre and did a version of Edy Reeders 'Perfect'.


 

Where's Mac?

The late (well he's not arrived yet) Mac McCausland

The question I get asked most often that I can't answer is 'have you really been out with ALL of the Spice girls and how is that even possible?'. No it's not in fact. The question is 'Where's Mac?'. The people who write me fan mail (by which I include geneal enquiries and parking tickets) always first remember the great and talented frontman of the Spanners Mac 'Lawrence' McCausland who was everywhere and then suddenly nowhere for about 10 years. And nobody knows where he is. Probably including himself.

In this clip- 'Stalin was a really nice bloke', sang by Mac, I've unearthed some rare footage of him moving. I mean, some rare moving footage of him. Nostalgia , isn't what it used to be.

It comes from a gig at the Bridgwater Arts Centre which was recorded and released as the Spanners album 'I like a glass of beer now and then'. Which was true of Mac. But who was-and maybe still is -Mac McCausland. It's a question thats confounded men, women and paleontologists alike for the last 15 years.

Quaint

The Skacats playing on Luhacovice, Czechoslovakia

From the quaint Kentish town of Minster, very close to the second world war Manston air field and the seaside postcard town of Ramsgate, Mac move to Combwich. A village situated on the widest part of the river Parret and within exploding distance of Hinkley Point nuclear power station. His main employment was as a barman - usually in the Labour club but also in the Art Centre. And in 1991 he was elected the Labour councillor for Eastover, which lasted 4 years. Throughout this time he was the lead singer with any band I was in and lead actor in numerous stage shows of the Sheep Worrying Theatre company including his starring role as pantomime villain 'Bad sir Bastard' in the 1990 show 'Jack and the Poll Tax' with his false black moustache sitting uneasily over his famous red beard. (see photo).

Mac also wrote several songs with me, including 'New Age Boogie Man', which we recently aired at the 'Come back (and don't come back) gig' at the Art Centre in April 2016, 'We'll be in love forever' sang by co-Spanner Alexia Vernon and Anne 'Stevie' Fraser -now working as a redcoat at Butlins Caerphilly, and several from the musical 'Czechomania' which celebrated his love for the Czech Republic-a place he helped us link up with.

Interminable

Mac with some other 'Sheep Worriers'. Red Smed at the piano

In fact Mac was never happier, or more popular, than singing interminable Irish songs to visiting Czech students in those pioneering days of the first British-Czech twinning. Whether it was sat around a campfire in Moravia drinking slivovice or sat around Crowcombe Youth hostel drinking slivovice or sat arund the Labour club drinking slivovice, Mac was always part of the furniture. Which might explain the incident with the chisel and the sanding tool.

Mac was on the first pioneering bus trip with us to what was then Czechoslovakia in 1992. The band we took over was the 'Skacats' - a bunch of musicians we'd basically thrown together in the mistaken hope that the Czechs would like Cliff Richard and the Shadows and fondly remember the film Summer Holiday. Sadly they had shot people for less during the early 60s.

The Skacats is a story for another time. Which I'll tell. But can somebody..ANYBODY..tell me..Where's Mac??????

The People's Commissar of Rock'n'Roll

"It was 30 years ago today"

'They say 'a hard rain's a gonna fall'. So presumably some kind of 'hat' is advisable. But of course if you look at the idiom deeper - as I always do - then there's presumably something big and impending on the rock n roll horizon. Without a doubt it's the first Red Smed gig in 5 years.

"People have said to me 'why don't you do another gig?" explained the People's Commissar of Rock'n'Roll himself "Although admitedly more people have said 'Don't...are you listening...DON'T do another gig'. I think I'm getting the real message of what they;re trying to say. So I'm going to do another gig."

First gig in 5 years

The gig in question is the Bridgwater Twinning Party at the Art Centre on Saturday 23rd April supporting the Italian rockabilly band After Dark and Maltese karaoke king Dom Spenser. Tickets are £10 although it is emphasised that "This is to help pay to get the Italian band over here, absolutely none of this will go to Red Smed" explained one very sincere organiser as he repeatedly tugged this reporters sleeve with an increasing look of desperation in his eye. He just had the one. Which of course was a story in itself. Possibly involving cuttlefish.

Red Smed first got together a 'Hot Trot Smash the System Boogie Band' in 1986 and the line up changed with every gig and every purge. Some people came back more than once. Some people 'went missing'. Original tea chest bass player Dave 'a bit of a communist' Hanna, was 'shot trying to escape' after a Benefit gig for striking miners in Taunton, replacement bass player Matthew 'Matthew' Bartlett was found to be in wilfull possession of a Fez with the clear intention of wearing it on stage and shortly afterwards 'disappeared'.

Songs what they have done

Red Smed's first album 'Songs for Swinging Communists' was released on cassette in 1987 and featured the song 'The Day we met the Fascists in Bridgwater', voted the 'worst song of 1987' by Red Smed's own 'Sheep Worrying' Magazine.

Two CD albums were later released  to widespread acclaim, within some sections of the band, 'Parretgrad UK' (2000) and 'Do the Washing Up' (2002).

Smed explained his reasons for coming out of retirement "In 2011 I played Pat Morley's 70th birthday party. I thought that was the pinnacle of my career. Now, 5 years later, she's 93. Some things just can't be explained. So I thought if I don't do another gig soon I'LL be 93."

Twats


So of course there's one question on everyones lips. However, we won't be getting a satisfactory answer to that one. So the second question is 'what twats have agreed to be in the band this time then?'

Red Smed- described by many as
a 'Fat Twat'

Smed explained. "Well, on the positive side we've got Cat and Jo on vocals. So that means there'll be 2 singers on stage. I'll be on lead vocals. Then we're fortunate to have Nick Tuckwell, ex Bikeshed bassist in the line up and of course not so fortunate to have Fat Bald Dave on Flying-V Mandolin. The good news is that neither of them have played for 5 years either. We've always had a problem with drummers since Nervo died a few years back and has failed to turn up to gigs ever since. Although he does always send apologies. This time we've really dug back in the past and we have the legendary Dean Skilton with us on drums. Fortunately he's a regular gigging drummer-sadly, in the Exmouth area, but he was in a very early band I formed in 1972 where he played pottery drums and we sang songs about brain surgery  in a made up East European language. I'd like to reassure people that at no time did we even leave the rehearsal room."

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So clearly, nothing can go wrong and everyone's now desperately looking forward to the 23rd of April. Not least because a new series of Paddy McGuinnesses 'Take Me Out' starts the same night.

However, to get a taste of what the band is all about here's some ancient videos from the primordial heritage that is Red Smed and the Hot Trot Smash the System Boogie band.

Sin and Sodomy at the Bridgwater Arts Centre

Kim Newman as sex pervert  'Prince' surrounded by
'actresses  from the 
Sheep Worrying Theatre Group

In 1980 the Bridgwater Arts Centre was labelled a 'jive joint for wierdies' by Tory councillor Margaret Rees who moved in next door and then complained that there was an Art Centre next door to her. So appropriately it was the venue for the launch of Sheep Worrying Theatre Company in September 1980-with the play 'Another England' -written by Kim Newman and about a Fascist takeover of Britain. 

The show was a success and the Theatre company's next production was agreed to be the play previously banned by College Principle JC Miles when the Youth theatre had planned to do it 'The Scandalous History of the Reverend Henry James Prince and his Abode of Love'.

The story of Prince - basically a religious nutjob who lived in Spaxton and set up an 'abode of love' where he saved sexy young women by shagging them whilst proclaiming himself to be the Messiah - is told on the Westover web here.

http://westoverward.co.uk/day-history-january-10th-1899-death-reverend-henry-james-prince/

Smedley & Byrne as Victorian tabloid
journalists in the Prince play

The Sheep Worrying show was written by local  playwright Charles Mander with music by Brian Smedley and starred Kim Newman as Prince and premiered on the anniversary of the night of the Son of God's surprise death.

Several of the songs went on to become features of  Smedley and Newman's band Club Whoopee along with other songs from the future Sheep Worrying musicals that loomed over the horizon.

'Sin and Sodomy' was what the villagers of Spaxton drinking their ears off in the Lamb inn next door to the Abode of Love ,undoubtedly  assumed was going on next door to them and probably exactly what Mrs Rees assumed was going on next door to her.

Smedley overacting like a twat

'Sin and Sodomy' was recorded on 22 February 1982 at Milborne Port studios along with a pile of other tracks thrown together one take style including 'He could save me anyday' sang by future screen actress Liz Hickling and also from the Prince Play. The whole session was released on an album 'Sheep Worrying at the Club Whoopee'.

The musicians included Kim Newman on lead vocals, Smedley on bass, Andrew Napthine on guitar, Neal Heckford on piano, Robin Tucker on drums plus Lynne Cramer, Liz Hickling and Sarah Marks on backing vocals. Peter Grieve was also doing some vocals  - but not on 'Sin and Sodomy'. If anyone wants to play along it's in the key of C Minor . Well, most of us.....