Coventry Music Archives's blog

COVENTRY NEWS (Alternative Coventry Magazines)

 

Alt paper

Although this was not specifically a music paper, it have a well developed Whatz on Section and covered some music

Cov News 1980

aspects. Intilted by Arol and others in the late 70's, it provided Coventry, in its own words, with an alternative view point to Coventry Evening Telegraph, treating community, political and environmental issues. I went to an initial meeting at the Wedge Bookshop c 1979 but didn't get involved on an on going basis. The paper was still going in 1984 (and how long after that I don't know), as I began to loose touch with Cov after that, living up in Teesside.

Cov News2

 

Urge

Urge pictured in Coventry News >

 

FOLKS (Alternative Coventry Magazines)

By 1978/9, Coventry was rich in alternative magazines. Alongside Alternative Sounds (below) there was also FOLKS,

Folks

 

initiated by folk musician Pete Willow, (link to an interview with Covfolk Online)

Pete Willow

with contributions from Arol (who I first met at Coventry Arts Umbrella in 1969 playing Jews Harp! Arol was a leading light in the creation of Broadgate Gnome in 1970 and later in creating Cov News in 1979. He also contributed to Folks. Caption shows Arol in action

Arol

 

FOLKS contained local news / reviews / feature articles / Letters - real and spoof! /History of Coventry folk / tablature of local singer songwriters such as Rod Felton. It even had a cross word!  It carried ads for local folk clubs and folkies / music shops.It sold for 15p in some  shops, folk clubs and the Wedge Bookshop.

Pete Willow is now a member of Oddsods Folk Group - here is their My Space ODDSODS
Rob Armstrong was featured in it, an ad for his Guitar Making Workshop (he made a guitar for Bert Jansch and was featured on the cover of one issue (below). Rod Felton's New Modern Idiot Grunt Band was also fetured as ws one of Rod's songs And I Love Her (his own song - not the Beatles song!). Singer Songwriter Dave Coburn wrote an

Rob Armstrong (Folks)

article about Jackson C. Frank and the London Folk scene of 1965. Jackson was a tragic figure but his guitar style influence Bert Jansch, John Rebourn, Paul Simon, Bob Dylan. Dave had been there in 65 although in the 70's he lived in Coventry, running the Rude Bear Folk club with Rod Felton in 74.

New Modern Idiot Grunt Band

Dave lived nearby to me and sometimes gave me a lift home from the Rude Bear. He would talk about Jackson C. Franks (links to Jackson's My Space) on the way home.  Later he got an article on him together for Folks. I may include it in the featured articles bit of this archive.

 

ALTERNATIVE Sounds (Other Alternative Cov Magazines)

Here is a round up of other Coventry Alternative zines and papers in the 70's - 

ALTERNATIVE SOUNDS

Alt sounds 4

 

 

Was a later  Coventry music fanzine first published  March 6th 1979 and reflecting the Coventry music scene around the rise of Two Tone - and the music scene was at that stage was totally buzzing!  Martin will no doubt be writing his own history. I enjoyed reading Alternative Sounds. It was co-founded with Dill of God's Toys four years after the demise of Hobo, because "Coventry needed something to publicise and help the local bands and inform people of what's going on - in this way giving us a much healthier scene." Alternative Sounds had the usual problem of resourcing it - mainly, at first out of their own pocket. A grant of £100 from the Princes Trust helped them get it established and the Lanch Polytechnic Student's Union (Now Cov University) printed it for free and the lads colled / stapled it themselves. Getting the printing done for free was a great help and printing costs were always a problem for Hobo  it would have come out more often otherwise! They also had a camera so there's some great photos in it. Alternative Sounds were behind the brill Coventry compliation album Sent From Coventry. Here is the cover of one of the issues - other covers will be found in the photo gallery on here.
Rexbrough, who was involved, has a Coventry band index, strong on the bands around in the late seventies early 80's but not exclusive to that period - unfortunately it seems to have gone off line. Will put the url on here if I find the new location!

The SENT FROM COVENTRY album featured the following tracks by Coventry bands c 1979.

Side 1
1. Wild Boys - We're only Monsters  2. The Clique - Mothers Never know 3. The End - Panic in the Night 4.  The Mix - With You  5. Machine (later called Hot Snacks)  Character Change

Machine (Later Hot Snacks) from Alt Sounds

6. Urge - Nuclear Terrorist.

 

Side 2
1. Protege - Protection 2. Solid Action - Message from a Loner 3. Wild Boys - Lorraine 4. Squad - Flasher 5. Homicide - Armageddon 6. Riot Act - Sirens 7. V. Babies - Donna Blitzen.

Machine or Hot Snacks as they became wre one of my favourite bands - the bass player Ollie had been involved in bands like Smack earlier. I'd met him in 1974 at the Sunshine Music Agency in Coventry while typing Hobo and, in his own words, I was "one the people that got him doing things" musically when he arrived in Coventry. The  drummer Siverton was ex - Specials. Although it wasn't typical of their music as Jackie wasn't singing  - I liked the song on this  album - Character Change - With lines like "You're behind one decade" and the chorus "You need a character Change!" underpinned by Julian's synth riff and Ollie's groundhog bass. I used to go see them at their residency at the Ryton Arms. Urge formed out of an earlier Cov band Whistler and the Zoastra (see the entry below on Zoastra (with a link to Urge's You Tube vid of their single Revolving Boy. Whistler will be featured in the Hobo Band Directory - yet to come.

Lead singer of the punk band Riot Act Stu Knapper was the younger brother of Phil Knapper - a talented singer-songwriter and firend who had been involved in the Hobo Workshop in the mid seventies. Squad's guitarist Johnny Adams has an entry below here.

The album was a great initiative and showcase of some of the musical talent around at the time.

Another initiative at that time -c 1970 was the a call for a Community Arts Music Venue. Although I'd been off the music scene for a few years, involved as a Welfare Rights Worker in community projects such as SHACK (Young person's drop in advice centre and Coventry Unemployed Workers Centre, I supported this initiative whole-heartedly. It was what we'd fought for with Hobo - to an extent we achieved it with the Hobo Workshop - but something with more resources and funding behind it was definately need in Coventry. Although Coventry had a thriving band scene, it was always inspite of a lack of facilities and support. Bands found it difficutl to find suitable and inexpensive places to rehease (where noise wasn't a problems), getting gigs to start off with was a problem (the Hobo Workshop and the Umbrella Club Band nights had provided that in some measure but they had finished), suitable community controlled central performance venues was needed to showcase bands and much more. I met Martin at the first meeting. However it was shortly after that I moved up to Teesside to do my degree 1980 so didn't follow through on that. Someone who moved to Teesside a year later told me things had moved on that after I left. Here is the letter I recieved from Peter Baker - Coventry Community Arts Association. This sounded very familiar. Coventry's music scene did deserve to be much better resourced.

Arts assoc

  

 

 

The Mountain Ash Band

08 A Long Winter from http://coventrymusichistory.vox.com/

A Long Winter - Mountain Ash Band

I met Colin Cripps

Colin Cripps

June 1973 at the Left Centre in Coventry. We were both producing our respective magazines using the the Centre's Golf Ball Typewriters and Offset Litho Printer. Colin was producing The Willenhall Free Press

Willenhall Free Press

and Bo and I were producing the first edition of HOBO. Colin was from Cambridge but studying for a literature degree at Warwick University. He lived in Ivy Walk, Willenhall and I lived in nearby Willenhall Wood at the time. At the time Colin was involved in Tenants Association and  Willenhall Estate News.  At the time there was a 'minor gale blowing between the tenants associations'  and the Willenhall Free Press developed out of that.

 

Estate News

Colin was also an accomplished guitarist and writer and his (then) wife, Lynda Hardcastle played recorder and sang. They had around them, in Ivy Walk, a group of creative people, poets, musicians and artists. Living in Willenhall I often went down to see them; join in the jam sessions, share poems and songs, swap chords sequences, riffs, discuss poetry, politics, philosophy and the Coventry music scene. Colin and Lyn and the others got involved in, and were highly supportive of the Hobo Music Workshop at the Holyhead Youth Centre in 1974 (more of that in a later post) and a few of the Hobo layouts were done at their place. Although they were not used for publicity in the end,One night, after discussing the apathy that was around at the time, they collectively produced some flyer's for the Hobo Workshop after one of the weekly sessions had a lower turn out. The Hobo Workshop did pick up but it took a lot of work and a 'Shut Down City Centre Concert' protest campaign to do it! (again more about the Workshop to come). The nucleus of the Mountain Ash Band was formed during this time but towards the end on 1974 after Colin completed his degree, they moved up to Ilkley in Yorkshire where the band wrote and performed their masterpiece, The Hermit. Colin also went on to write a history of the main forms and styles of popular music in the 20th Century

Popular Music (Cambridge Assignments in Music S.)

in 1988. The  book concludes with a short passage on forms of West Indian styles and a  small section on TWO TONE (pictured here) - 

Cripps Two tone

However, that's jumping ahead -
Before they left Coventry, they made creative entries into my Communication Book - here is a stream of consciousness piece about Coventry by Colin from the book -

 

THE SLOW TRAIN (GOD, EVA, and all stations in between)  Colin Cripps

 Coventry-city of spires-after all that – the torture you went through – why have you not learnt? Where is your heart? –

Apathy3

Office block, red wine sun through your uncurtained windows, no typists, no product, not even ink on sheets of A.10, only heaven glows on your walls- empty flats decay the clean way-no heart in the precinct, no life, no blood of general ownership flows though your hardened arteries-stillborn, this Phoenix will perhaps never rekindle – through double-glazing, from his skull he has directed vision-white concrete  rejects all light, creates no colour, but your grey is already halfway to nothingness – middle class lady, neatly attired in comfort fresh underwear, perfectly perfumed, motionless make up mask, I would never have discovered that you too shit if you hadn’t shat on me.

Lady Diahorrea unloads her troubles in her back streets, her public lavatories, her estates; Willenhall young maid that you once were – sitting beneath a tree in everyone’s forest – she put you in servants attire – on the bus from Chase Hostels to town, stubbly chin, old coat, old man on the way to work, drink and bed once a gain – never ending round of one bred to service – don’t believe the lady on the horse my brother, she takes the services of your sweat and eats your meal with delicate refinement, alas no use, coercion, creation, transformation in your sense, she shits her daily round, indiscriminately

Apathy2

selecting her areas, her  thousand bowed heads, her understains.

Labour party, union house, how far have you come! Quite grown! Gone up in the world of deodorised dreams – the backsliding, back handed, back to front, black legging respectable face of piracy, privateering, profiteering, political men.

So many fooled faces, visages, masks at mosques, business rituals at the Vere – where is the heaven you invoke? Your daylight séances produce no rebirth – your black mass meetings of monetary monks see no angels.

Somewhere a cell jumped off your car carpets, skipped the lights, crashed into the microcosm of Coombe, lived it all out, met up with you all, your felt ideas, your fantastic words, your devotion, will to go ahead, your energy, your art, your convincing universal politics, your human laughter as  you’ve sped up, spaced out, peaked, gone through, come down, crashed out and peered those curious eyes, red and sore, out at the outrageous, humiliating Babel  beyond your window. Raspberry of Radio One to raspberry at Radio One. Grow my flock. You are all in my dream; can I be in yours?

Apathy

From your flyovers to your flies, papers to pamphlets, advertisements to mirrors, comfortableness to the twitch of worry, sore bones to broken minds, split people together ones with sad eyes, I pay you the greatest accolade – I have learnt from you.

Poet / Lyricist Ray King of Ivy Walk, Willenhall was one of them and wrote a sad farewell to them, recorded in the Communication book but ended up moving to Ilkley too and writing the lyrics for the Mountain Ash Band. Here are a few sections from his very long farewell poem Till Then - it is worth sharing!

......I am burning deep                                 

Ray King

                        with pages

that  I long for all to see,

                        But Hark!

Did I hear a whisper in the dark?

 a year has passed

Many moons have waxed

                                 and waned

into forgotten episode.

          but something holds intact

something frosted like Christmas card landscapes,

                              Ideal.

Memory is fickle

                      Many tongued

treacherous as furtive night time.............

We were sometimes vein

   but strangely honest

   as we sowed those seeds

Time will take intensity from memory;                                                                        

Ilkley1

that strange intensity that only now

                                          can hold..........

We will carry all those yesterdays

  to tire in smoky anedote

                              till wearied......

Though the thought was born

                 in lowly Ivy Walk

It strides the lord of thought

                              through night time

pausing on the brink of time

                                   awhile

to gaze a knowing eye

                         across the universe

of silver studded

                  velvet sky;

........are we nothing more than whispers        

as sound slips from a broken hour glass,

this I refuse,

              as much goodbye........

our suns will burn again

our suns will burn again,

                                till then, till then,

Till Then.

Excerpts for Ray King's Poem Till Then (Ivy Walk 1974)

Soon Ray moved to Ilkley too and the the Mountain Ash Band were formed. Ray  wrote all the the lyrics for the Hermit, an album that it is now very rare (see this website) Mountain Ash Band  The band consisted of  Colin Cripps Guitar / research and original concept and music; Ray King - Lyrics; Sean Mansley - Narration; Geoff Bowen - Fiddle / Recorder; Martin Carter - Vocals / guitar; Alan Rose - Vocals/ Whistle; Graham Jones - bass / vocals / recorder; Lynda Hardcastle - Vocals / Recorders; Kevin Slingsby - Drums. 1975 Pic of album cover The Hermit here -

It's the story of a local Hermit (local to Ilkley Moors) called Job Senior - written not so much as a story but as a series of 'Glimpses of his world' as they imagined them seen by Job at the crisis points of his life. Lynn told me the album was remixed for CD in the 90's and a second version of the Mountain Ash Band was formed with Alan Rose and Lynda Hardcastle.

"Reviewed by pOoTer:

Colin's Group

 

Its been a long time tracking this legendary recording down. Possibly one of the rarest UK folk gems from 1975, as rare as life itself?. Awesome electric violin and disturbingly haunting vocals tell the depressing story of a Yorkshire hermit named Job Senior. "Birth" sets the scene for what is a profoundly sad album that will leave you deep in thought every time you hear it. "Journeys" a fine piece of violin work runs into "Stone on Stone" which is almost Incredible String Band in vocal style. "A long Winter" tells of the latter stages of Job's life after his wife dies and he is living alone on the moors of Ilkley. "Who Knows" is a sorry lament as Job ends up living in the remains of his dead wifes house which has been pulled down by her family in an attempt to evict him. "The Outcast/Rebirth" ends the albums tragic story. Hear it and weep................"

Here are the lyrics to the first song on this rare album written by Ray King with music by Colin Cripps. Pic below - Lynda Hardcastle - Vocals and Recorders.

 

BIRTH

 
On crimson wings the sun comes up                          

Lynda Hardcastle

Across the eastern sky

Who see the early dawning hour

When some may live and some may die.

Bent on the earth beneath the sky

A new born cry is heard.

The silent sky is split in two

The first eruption of the word.

Your life is started.

Your life’s begun.

 

Be quick, the years wait for no one.

A million things are yet undone

Before the winking of an eye,

Before the setting of the sun

A chance is barely waiting,

A chance is barely anything.

Please know your hour will come, (too soon, too soon, too soon.)

Your time will come.

 

Mother’s in the kitchen and Father’s on the land.

They’ll tell you life is only what you’re holding in your hand.

They know the price of hardship; yes they know the coins of sweat.

They know the price that pain affords. They know, they know it all and yet.

 

Your baby hands are open

And clutching for a star

But still they stop and warn you

You will never reach that far.

 

Be quick time’s waiting,

Be quick it slips away.

A lifetime will not leisure

In the measure of today.

 

Lynda Hardcastle - (This is just one of their beautiful albums)

Gracenotes

- went on to work musically with her new partner - Folk singer / guitarist Alan Rose in the Ilkley area c 1975 and in the 90's formed the successful all female Folk Group GRACENOTES

 

 

 

 

Maggie Boyle - vocals, flute, bodhran

Lynda Hardcastle - vocals and recorders
Helen Hockenhull - vocals and keyboards
Visit their website to hear their music and find out more -
http://thealbionchronicles.tripod.com/id31.html

 

 

Gracenotes

 

 

 
 

Lyrics by Trev Teasdel

Trev Teasdel 1973 (Cov Telegraph)

Trev Teasdel's New Album on Gnome label

I started writing lyrics at 15, become more prolific after leaving school c 68.  Some lyrics were written for various bands. Nigel Clarke of Cardinal put some to music and performed them c 1968 at gigs including The Ups and Downs in the Life of Mr Toil and Strife - written when I was 17. Tony Morgan (of the Mick Green Blues Band and later EMF (The Coventry band that is) set The Elusive Matallic Idol to music and I wrote lyrics for for sone other  local rock bands. Not all were uses and bands split up quite regulary and reformed. In 1970 Pete Waterman set A Lotta Rain is Fallin' to music - but more of that later. From autumn 72 I mostly did them solo or backed by friends from Fission and others, a loose ensemble I called Trev and Don't Talk Wet. They were performed at folk clubs or in between sets of bands like Mick Green Blues Band / Eli / Raine Chantre and Fission. Later, on moving to Teesside in 1980, I had another loose band of musicians using sybnths and keyboards - now on My Space -Trev and the Collective Unconscious and there also a growing solo site on Vox - COVENTRY DAYS - Trev's Bootleg Album Here are some of the many lyrics from the Coventry period.

Streetbattle

 

                  This song was written 1980 after going on a few anti-national Front marches.

                                 Lyrics published in my first poetry collection 1984 Escaped Poet 

Escaped Poet

 

Divert the traffic, clear the streets

The slogan’s written, the plan’s complete.

The placards painted, the people out

With raging passions to chant and shout.

Clear the streets, move that car.

Board the windows of shop and bar.

Heed the word, heed the call

No one’s safe around here at all.

 

Police on horseback, truncheon toting

Streets are hunched in mute foreboding.

Helicopters circle low, co-ordinate via radio.

Escorts ready, formations planned

Handcuffs and batons close to hand.

Heed the word, heed the call

No one’s safe around here at all.

 

A route-march chosen, a streetplan open

Spearhead banners – poison poking.

An immigrant area, it goes unspoken.

Cornershop window will soon be broken

Hymns to Hitler, dreams of greatness

A ghost of the past that will not rest.

Heed the word, heed the call

No one’s safe around here at all.

 

 

A sudden shower, sticks and stones hurled

Cops ‘neath viziers quickly curled.

Burning issues of the age

Nominate the street their stage.

 

A confrontation, quick the cameras

Inform headquarters, fetch the ambulance

Effect plan b, put in operation

‘If this thing spreads, god help the nation’

Release the gas, fire the blanks

‘Action, action, disperse the ranks’

Heed the word, heed the call,

No one’s safe around here at all.

 

Now the cameras pan, the chanters all join hands

The battle in the streets obeyed no-one’s plans.

An ambulance left, a police car burned

All agreed there were lesson’s to be learnt

Blood in puddles, mud in wounds

A peak-capped man cried ‘Damn them coons’

Burning issues of the age

Nominate the street their stage.

 

Clear the debris in the streets

Assess the damage done to property

Compile statistics on loss of trade

‘Stop press, fresh outbreak, city arcade’

Camera crews, trigger happy

Edit that newsreel, make it snappy.

Divert attention from real issues

Package ‘specially for the news

Heed the word, heed the call

Jackboot’s marching on us all.

 

This next one was written 1971 in the hippy period after hearing I Dig Rock n Roll Music by Peter, Paul and Mary.

I bounced off it to reflect the our life style. It seemed to be popular at the time and partly written in the Golden Cross.
 

 

I DIG ROCK N ROLL AND SHAKESPEARE

 

I dig Rock n Roll and Shakespeare.

I’m a heavy cat Mama!

I’m a Jew’s Harp blower

Dole receiver; not a work believer.

My poems are my medals

And I’m shooting for peace with the pellets of love.

I’m a piano person; guitar strummer

People call me a bummer but I don’t care

I know my road and my road knows me!

 

 

I dig doin’ what I dare not.

I’m a hustler by nature, Kazoo Kruncher

Stray cat seeker; Hi Heeled Sneaker.

My blisters are my passport

I’m running for election,

Wanna catch it for a souvenir!

I’m a cream cracker character,

A bread and Jam junkie

You only dig this cos it’s funky

But I don’t care, I washed my socks this morning Pa!

 

 

I dig, digging what I dig to dig

Even if no one else digs to dig it too!

I’m an indivdualistical baby.

You can’t classify me cousin

I’m too big for categories, too small to see.

Better watch what you are saying brother.

These words have ears

And anything you may say will be taken down

And used to toss bombs at Terrapins.

 

I dig Chinky water music, Indian Ragas

Forsyth Sagas.

I dig to read the bible when I feel like!

I don’t care if you may say

I must act in your hip, turned-on freaked out way

I don’t care if you may say

I must act in your straight and narrow way conventional way.

I really dig to act in my intergalactic way.

 

 

I’m a waterbearer wanderer

Poppin’ in and outta lifetimes.

I dig medieval minstrels,

You know the joculators and the jesters.

I’m a ruthless recorder shrieker,

A chuddy gum chewer, give donations to the local brewer.

I’m pleasant poster pincher,

Don’t bust me cos I’m contagious.

Call me the corduroy kid

Cos it’s a groovy kinda name.

I’m a flame throwing fire eater,

Go round burning castles in the air.

But it’s alright if I promise to wash my Hair Ma!

 

SEARCH THE CROWD

Networking wasn't done on My Space then, but by burning shoe leather, walking around the city centre, hanging out in coffee bars and pubs, going to folk clubs or to see bands. This was written in 71 while hanging out in the City centre. I was sold some lucky heather and it inspired a lyric. I had in mind Summer in the City feel (ish).
 

 

Think I’ll go down town   

CovPrecint

To see who’s around.

You know I’m feeling down,

Drag my feet along the ground

Search the side walk for a pound

That which is lost must be found.

 

 

Gypsies selling lucky heather

My eyes are full of sidewalk hustlers

Bus stop conversation debates the weather

The bowed down heads of hung up bustlers

Charity tins chanting rhythms

To the hurdy Gurdy’s  plaintive plea

Search the crowd for her face

I need her here to comfort me.

 

 

Think I’ll bruise round Woolworth    

While the sun is hiding

Browse through the record sleeves        

Jill Hanson's

New releases I am seeking.

Searching for someone to share a coffee with

Meet a girl I used to know

More than just vaguely

But still searching for my lovers face,

In this peaceless place.

 

 

Old friends criss cross my path

If I catch their gaze, I’ll smile they’ll laugh

The market mongers personify

All their lifeless goods.

Megaphone voices storm my brain

Wishing away my ‘if only she would’s’

My blistered blemished feet are lame.

Searching this faceless throng

I see her face, no I am wrong.

 

Just why did she leave without telling me

Left it to a friend to impart it to me

The city sound penetrates your frame

When you are feeling down.

Wonder what is her game

She just must be found

Search the crowd for her face

In this hell like place.

 

April 71

The pop charts were dominated by T Rex early 70's. Albums were our thing - singles charts had little of interest although I was an early fan of Tyrannousaurs Rex and saw them live at the Lanch Polytech. Ok, I went and saw T Rex there too later on and of course had to write this satire - to restore my crediblity. Kind of went to a One Inch Rock 12 bar feel.

 

Woo-ee – Turtle Dove

 

Woo-ee – Turtle Dove,

Dig ya big blue beautiful lamps.

Lashes like Lord Kitchener’s finger,

Dipped in dusk dark mascara.

Pale shadows leave your eyes,

Touch your Roman nose –

Woo ee Turtle Dove

You bring out the beast in me.

 

Woo ee Turtle Dove

Admire your agile abdomen

Calls captivate and cages my eyes,

I feel your force field pulling.

You molten magnet you,

Just want me in your shoes you do.

Woo ee Turtle Dove

You bring out the beast in me.

 

Woo ee Turtle Dove

Evergreen my myrtle tree

Limb entwiner, overload my circuit,

Pray thy magnetism’s not electro,

Don’t want no one switching you off.

Woo ee Turtle Dove

You bring out the beast in me.

 

Woo ee Turtle Dove

Dolly disco Dancer.

Tasselled trendy, toucheth me

Unzippa kippa.

With mad magic movie words of woe

Let me vibrate with you.

Woo ee Turtle Dove

You drive me out of my Cranium.

 

MRS STRESS AND STRAIN

 

Mrs Stress and Strain (Gnome 2)

Trev Teasdel

I wrote this in 1968 at 17 but rewrote it 1978 after reading feminist writers like Juliet Mitchell, Sheila Rowbothem and more. Being a single parent, it comes close to home now! This lyric was published in my 2nd collection of poems and lyrics - Poet Reprobate 1985                                   

Poet Reprobate

When the sun’s out shining

Are you always ironing?

Does Steven need new shoes?

And Mary have the lover’s blues?

As life all around gets tense

Do you ask yourself

‘where is the sense?’

 

Now the milkman hasn’t been

And the rooms aren’t very clean.

There’s bills to be paid

On your mind they’re all weighed

Prices rising higher

Your state is getting higher.

 

Chorus –

Mrs Stress and Strain, To the kitchen sink you’re chained. 

Hidden from History: 300 Years of Women's Oppression and the Fight Against It

Sheila Rowbotham

Worry haunts your life, And I can see you are the wife

Of Mr Toil and Strife.

 

“A women’s works is never done”

and the housework isn’t fun

Who else would work as hard as you

Such long hours, no rest due.

The stresses and the strains you bear,

The children and the mothercare!

 

And the beat goes on, day by day,

The isolation wears your soul away.

There’s nothing to show for all your work

You can’t stop a room from gathering dirt!

You feel you’ve got no life left of your own,

A permanent fixture, a doorpost in your home.

 

 

And though you’ll never make ends meet,

The adverts entice you to compete

With the image of an all-mod-con

Trendy space age super mom.

Should profiteers always hold the trump cards?

You’ve been dealt a hand of jokers –

What a façade!

 

Who’s the one they fall back upon.

Sometimes slave means the same as mom.

They never see the other side of you

Only what they expect of you.

Pinned down in a domestic situation

With little pills to ease your aggravation.

 

Sit down, sit back, light up and sigh,

Does your position in society make you cry?

“How hard’s the fortune of all women kind,                  

Women: the Longest Revolution

Juliet Mitchell

they’re always in fetters, always confined.

Bound down by parents until made wives

Slaves to their husbands the rest of their lives.”

 

 

 

Lyrics by Fresh Maggots

Note - As part of the redevelopment of this site there is a new page about Fresh Maggots on the Hobo A to Z of bands - here - https://sites.google.com/site/bandsfromcoventry/coventry-bands-a-to-z/coventry-bands-f/fresh-maggots

Fresh Maggots

Hatched

Fresh Maggots

You can hear more of their songs on Vox Here

Spring - Fresh Maggots, Fresh Maggots...Hatched [Bonus Tracks] Folk Rock from http://freshmaggots.vox.com/

Spring - Fresh Maggots (1970 - RCA Album Hatched)

now seem to be a cult band or rather duo with their 1971 RCA album and single now appearing on various sites. This Nuneaton duo played for us (the Friday night sessions 10 - 3 am upstairs at the Coventry Arts Umbrella club, when it was based in Queen Victoria Rd. (specific postings relating to the Umbrella club are to come to this). Further blogging about them will be included in the band directory also yet to be uploaded! Fresh Maggots consisted of two guys - Mick Burgoyne (vocals, guitar, violin, tambourine, glockenspiel), Leigh Dolphin (guitar).

 

Nuneaton duo who recorded for RCA. Booked for Arts Umbrella Jan 1971. The blurb in Umbrella News read “A rock group from Nuneaton as outrageous as their name, which promises good entertainment for devotees”. CET 1973 says Fresh Maggots invited to play Windsor Free Festival with Trilogy & A Band Called George.

Booked for Arts Umbrella Jan 1971. The blurb in Umbrella News read “A rock group from Nuneaton as outrageous as their name, which promises good entertainment for devotees”. CET (Coventry Evening Telegraph) 1973 says Fresh Maggots invited to play Windsor Free Festival with Trilogy & A Band Called George. Their single was called - Car Song/ B: What Would You Do (RCA 2150 1971)  and their album  Fresh Maggots (RCA SF8205 1971). Fresh Maggots, had another band on the go at the same time - a synthi band influenced by Kraftwerk. I can't recall the name of the synth band. I helped them get a gig at the Warwick University Arts festival 1972.

 

The following Fresh Maggots lyric was contributed to my Communication book by Denis of another Nuneaton band Flood

WHEN SHE LAUGHS.   By FRESH MAGGOTS

When she laughs her face lights up

Face lights up

When she laughs her face lights up

Face lights up

When she laughs the sun and moon

Are put to shame by the brightness of her smile  

Fresh maggots letter

Of her smile

And I love her, she’s all mine.

 

When she laughs she makes life worth while

Life worth while

When she laughs she makes life worth while

Life worth while

When she laughs all my problems swept away

By the brightness of her smile

Of her smile

And I love her she’s all mine.

 

When I’m sad she makes me laugh

Makes me laugh

When I’m sad she makes me laugh

6a00d4144e7ca93c7f00e3989790c30004-500pi

Makes me laugh

When she laughs all my problems

Are swept away by the brightness of her smile

Of her smile

And I love her, she’s all mine.

 

Fresh Maggots - Brolly

 

Words Mick Burgoyne  /Music Leigh Dolphin (Recorded on RCA)

6a00d4144e7ca93c7f00e3989771bd0001-500pi

 

Titles on Disc 1

1.: Dole Song  2.: Rosemary Hill  3.: Quickie  4.: Everyone's Gone To War  5.: And When She Laughs

6.: Spring  7.: Balloon Song   8.: Guzz Up  9.: Who's To Die  10.: Elizabeth R   11.: Fustration

12.: Car Song (bonus track)    13.: What Would You Do (bonus track)   14.: Fustration (live/bonus track)

15.: Rosemary Hill (live/bonus track)  16.: Quickie (live/bonus track)  17.: And When She Laughs (live/bonus track)

18.: Spring (live/bonus track) Fresh Maggots CD site

 

 

6a00d4144e7ca93c7f00e398977fdb0001-500pi

FRESH MAGGOTS NOW HAVE A VOX SITE THANKS TO DENNIS BURNS

6a00d4144e7ca93c7f00e398978eca0003-500pi

HEAR SOME OF THESE SONGS HERE

 

 

 

ZOASTRA -Lyrics

 Note - This post has been redeveloped on the new Hobo - A to Z of Coventry bands - here https://sites.google.com/site/bandsfromcoventry/coventry-bands-a-to-z/coventry-bands-z/zoastra

In 1974, I interviewed a band called ZOASTRA for Hobo. They were the core of an earlier band in the 70's called WHISTLER (named after the painter) and which later became the nucleus of THE URGE in the late 70’s / early 80’s. The band consisted of John Westacott (bass) / Richie (Headrock) Medlock (Drums & vocals / writer) / Zodicoaxial (Kevin Harrison) on guitar / 12 string / electronics / composition). Lynda Harrison – Synthesiser / keyboards and vocals. They were one of the early bands into experimental electronic and sythi sounds. Kevin gave me the following lyric / poems for Hobo. However they were never published as Hobo folded shortly afterwards. As far as I know, this configuaration never got to the gigging stage ( although I may be wrong!). It seems to have been a transitional stage between the progressive music of Whistler in the early 70's and The Urge in the late 70's. John Westacott had also been a member of the early version of Last Fair Deal (already blogged about). Whistler were regulars at the Coventry Arts Umbrella c 1969 / 71. (Just found The Urge on YouTube - Revolving Boy Vid - It's really cool Revolving Boy - The Urge (Check it out). Also found Kevin Harrison's site Kevin Harrison's site

STOP PRESS!! Kevin Harrison has sent some addtional info on Zoastra -

 

 

urge - revolving boy

"Zoastra was indeed a transitionary project, it was certainly more experimental than Whistler but contained seeds of the cut-up poetry/prose that 'urge' employed to good effect in the late seventies.

Envisaged as a Science-Fiction/Faction vehicle there were 2 line-ups, the first included myself, Charles Bullen (later 'This Heat' member), two drummers Gary Curtain & Al Docker, Lynda Harrison and John Westacott, this formation rehearsed twice at The Nags Head, Nuneaton.

The second line-up is the one you describe and rehearsed every weekend at Packington Lodge for a month or so, we almost did a gig for a barbecue there, but they opted instead for a band playing Rolling Stones covers!"

 

 

 

The Urge (From Alternative Sounds)

 

Imagination tuned to the Big note

Got sussed in a space

Got spaced and sussed the

Angle at which all life

On this planet evolves

Like an envelope the smaller

Part of encapsulation

Bitten by my transmuted mind

Found alive two ice-frozen

Humans licked down the waste

Eaten true in haste.

Kevin Harrison (Zoastra) 1974

 

Mirror image falling

Visceral plains converging

Tactile dactylites tacky on Vu-screen

Increase photo-image fall-out

Micro-sonics beaming in on all sides now

We must not reiterate

Protect isometric scanner gamma shields

Psyche in on sound and image flakes

Laser-tronics up full-sound.

Dip! – Cut!

Re-program atmosphere

Dials set zero

Now Millennium.

Kevin Harrison – (Zoastra) 1974

 

Neon strip ice-cream dripped back in time

To Formentara

Cinematic surfing girls serve it up in dreams

Venus seems so far, Lurex faction sleeps

Micrograms run down zingel, lightening

Caressing skin, time spaced abstract

Vegas!

Kevin Harrison – (Zoastra) 1974

 

 

TO FIND OUT MORE AND HEAR SOME OF THEIR MUSIC TRY THESE SITES -

Marz Imprints 

Marz Imprint Kevin Harrison

really good site with some of Kevin Harrison's CD's and some by Urge and the lyrics.

 

 You Tube - U T's Watch Out

Real Life Kevin Harrisons Bandspace

Real Life - Kevin Harrisons BandSpace

 

 

 

 

 

 

Image of Ezra - Ade Taylor / Wandering John

Note - as part of the redevelopment of this site - there is now a post about wandering John on Hobo Coventry A to Z of bands - here  https://sites.google.com/site/bandsfromcoventry/coventry-bands-a-to-z/coventry-bands-w/wandering-john
One of my favourite Coventry bands around 1970 was Wandering John.

WANDERING JOHN (Lanch Poly Cov 1970)

I knew guitarist John Alderson from childhood, our parents were friends but I went to boarding school and on my return discovered that he'd become an excellent blues guitarist, electric and acoustic - on dobro - and still going strong I note with Tim James. John Gravenor was the charismatic lead singer ( he had a distictive voice in my opinion) and Ade Taylor on bass and Alan the drummer. One of my favourites was a cover of Taj Mahal's Statesbro Blues. (Originally done by Blind Willie McTell). I loved it so much that walking home from a Wandering John concert I wrote a lyric called Middlesbro' Blues - an English version I suppose! I had a sticker from the GEC, where I worked at the time that said Middlesbrough on my song book! I had no idea where Middlesbrough was back then but bloody hell, I ended up doing my degree in Middlesbrough! Should have called it California blues - I might have ended up somewhere more exotic! I lost the lyric long before moving and so can't tell if it was a good description! John Alderson taught me the rudiments of Davy Graham's / Bert Jansch's  Anji and contribute some cartoon character sketches for Hobo (which will appear here somewhere). I hung out with Ade Taylor for a while and he taught me to do barre chords - I practised all night and in the morning could play the Band's version of Dylan's I Shall be Released - replete with barre chords. Another favourite Wandering John song was Image of Ezrawhich Ade had written. He wrote them in my communication book after the group split up. I'd thought there were more lyrics to it than this but they must have been repeated! Pity there are no tapes of Wandering John - as CD or a My Space for them would have been good - although I believe there were some live tapes from the Lanch Polytechnic gig c 1971 - they were to be used for an album before the band split but were considered not clear enough. In this digital age, perhaps they could be enhanced if they still exist!! Coming soon to this blog, an article on Wandering John and a band profile in the band directory section.

 

IMAGE OF EZRA By Dave Sullivan, Ade Taylor & John Gravenor performed by Wandering John)

 

Confusion raised her coloured head

Wandering John band card

And messed my mind with amber thoughts

I drifted thro’ a purple haze

Where nothing’s found and nothing’s sought.

 

Chorus

Then I looked into the gilded mirror

Standing there was the Image of Ezra.

 

Ade Taylor1970

NOTE - Ade Taylor e mailed this note for Image of Ezra

"Image Of Ezra"
which I based on a poem written by Dave Sullivan. I have another verse for you and, maybe John G. has another? The song should be credited to Dave, myself and John A. who wrote the music for it! 

 

Bassist Ade Taylor

 

John Alderson and John Gravenor had a second band - an acoustic blues outfit called Last Fair Deal ( named after the Robert Johnson song - Last Fair Deal Gone Down). John Alderson played a Dobro, John Gravenor sand and John Westacott of another Coventry group - Whistler - later Zoastra and Urge (late 70's) played harmonica. I'm pleased to see Last Fair Deal is still going in a new form with John Alderson and Tim James (former lead man in the 70's Avant Garde Jazz outfit Ra Ho Tep) - Last Fair Deal

My favourite of theirs was a country blues called -

John Alderson

 

LOUSIANNA BLUES

(Country Blues song sang by Last Fair Deal C. 1970)

Well I’m goin’ to

Maybe behind the sun.

Well I’m goin’ to

Maybe behind the sun.

I just found out, my trouble just began

 

Well I’m goin’ to  

Give me a mojo hand

Well I’m goin’ to  

Give me a mojo hand

I’m gonna teach all dem women

What they don’t understand.

 

Well if da river was whisky

Da was a divin’ duck

Well if da river was whisky

Da was a divin’ duck

I’d dive to de bottom,

Ah drink my way back up.

 

That last verse is an example of the The Poetry of the Blues
(Check out this essay by
Francis Newton (AKA Historian Eric Hobsbawm) on my Outlet site.

Wandering John, In Coventry, 1969

By John Alderson

 

  

 

Lyrics by Johnny Adams

Johnny Adams

Johnny adams

was a songwriter and lead / rhythm guitarist / vocalist who was in a range of bands during the 70's and 80's. Bands include Flying Circus 72 / The Mick Green Blues Band (72) / Eli 73 / Fission (Rock band 73 /4) / Blue Jays (pop band 74) Squad 79 - early 80's was in a band blending 3 cultures - The Panjari, Jamok, Punk Reggae Band. In 1981 Johnny wrote to me in Middlesbrough (my new home) about his experimentation with Asian, punk and reggae music. Though interesting, unfortunately the combination didn't work out for them as his letter says "firstly to tell you the Panjari, Jamok, Punk, Reggae band fell through, not surprisingly with all the different ideas and cultures, didn't work."  His letter  said said he was 'doing freelance for a few Country and club bands, nothing serious. I'm beginning to get involved with this musik called Rock a Billie, I still like punk and reggae and I'm still writing a lot of songs and poems." This gives an idea of his wide musical range. He was, at the time,  considering his next move and going solo was an option also being considered.  Johnny also wrote to me Oct 1980 telling me that Squad had split up, he said "I'm forming a new band with Paul Hesket on Sax (Ex Swinging Cats and session musician with the Specials) - Charley Anderson (ex Selecter)) - Desmond Brown (also Ex- Selecter) and an Asian lady on Vocals" Of Course Johnny was also on Guitar. I'm not clear if this was the the Panjari band or that was another band formed after. Either way by 1981 he was considering other options. I lost contact with Johnny after 1981- my life becoming more centred around getting things going on Teesside. (Note - These bands will be blogged about later here in the forthcoming bands directory). This list isn't exhaustive!

 

Johnny was a punk before punk! I met him in 72 at one of the band nights at the Lanch Polytech (now Coventry University). He was wild! My friend offered us both lifts home and I had a Spanish guitar with me which I'd borrowed off a friend. She told me to take care of it so I looked askance when Johnny, who was in the back of the car, asked to have a go on it. I figured he'd wreck it! Risking all I let him have a go on it and couldn't believe the music he was playing!  Medieval tinged classical guitar work follwed by gentle self penned ballads like Gipsy Lady (lyrics posted here). Johnny was a showman and extovert on stage but underneath he was a sensitive and quiet bloke with a well accomplished and wide ranging guitar talent. Much to my surprise we became close and creative friends around 72 - 74 period. I was a lyricist learning guitar, he was a guitar player but also with a talent for lyrics. We influenced each other - my guitar playing was stretch to the limit jamming with him - using 3rds and 4ths etc. (as in Blackbird), incorporating unusual chords into the normal GDC sequences to make it fresh, lead styles, power chords, mixing first position chords with barre inversions, little classical and medieval sequences that he often used as intros to his rock numbers and much more. He strove for catchy, accessible tunes but used his classical knowledge to make them fresh and original at the same time. He never gave me lessons as such but I learnt a lot just hanging out with him, travelling around with his bands and playing solo or with their backing at gigs. We'd hang around town with Eko Jumbo acoustic on our backs, playing outside the Dive bar or museum or Cathedral grounds. Making up songs or playing our own. He learnt from my lyrics too. First impressions were right but only a fraction of the truth. Beneath the wild punk, the showman, was a very gentle sensitive soul with a great musical talent. He put music to one of my lyrics - Well I Don't Know -origianlly a blues influenced lyric but his version owed more to Streets of London style finger picking ( a far cry from the Hawkwind style material of Fission! Although redeveloped and arranged for Keyboards by my Teesside band in the 80's Trev and Collective Unconscious, an instrumental  version can be heard on my My Space with the lyrics in the lyric part of the Mp3 player ( The mono recording of Johnny singing the original version has been lost unfortunately and the new version has an added Bridge) - Trev and the Collective Unconscious

Johnny later played with Squad

Squad%203

- I think after Terry Hall had left and was featured on the Sent From Coventry c 1979  with a song about a Flasher!! Punk was made for him!  Here are some of his early lyrics from the time we were mates.

 

GIPSY LADY

Johnny Adams song and pic

 

On a country road, roams a gipsy

Following the stars, she looks so happy

 

Gipsy princess, can you see her

She’s the wind that howls..hear her murmur

 

Gipsy lady, you’re my angel

Just words won’t ever describe you

 

Gipsy lady, be my sunshine

Be my joy…will you be mine.

 

I’m so tired, till I see you

You’re my coloured star..where you going to.

 

Be my thunder, be my lightening

Be my queen.. my silver lining

 

Gipsy lady, talk to me

Gipsy lady , talk to me.

 

Johnny Adams 1972

 

 

 

HANGMAN’S GONE  - Johnny Adams Jan 72

 

The hangman’s gone to hang another man

The hangman’s gone, there’s another man to hang.

 

The hangman’s gone to the black of night

The hangman’s gone, two wrongs don’t make a right.

 

Chorus

The hangman’s gone yes the hangman’s gone

The hangman’s gone, yes the hangman’s gone

 

A son was born, a man was hanged

Thou shalt not kill, is man damned.

 

The hangman’s gone to the black of night

The hangman’s gone, two wrongs don’t make a right.

But you must realise something’s got to be done

Something’s got to end this inhumanity.

..................

HIDDEN NIGHTMARES

Hidden Nightmares

 

 

Hidden nightmares

Sword of darkness

Thrust upon me

Like a howling wind.

 

Rain of blood

Falls at my feet

Like a pool

Of wasted teardrops.

 

Trees of fire

Burning fiercely

My mind is jumbled

Like a twisted tree trunk.

 

I’ve left my soul behind me

In a cloud of dust

Making pretty pictures

Of ornaments.

 

Johnny Adams.

In 1972 I was invited to play at various Streetpress mixed media gigs in Birmingham - Moseley and in New Street. Me and my acoustic guitar. On two occasions I took some of Fission  on jaunt around Birmingham, meeting my friends there and backing me. Johnny Adams on lead acoustic, Anthony on Bongos. Local poets, songwriters were on alongside names like Graham Bond. Johny wrote a humourous song about one of the gigs, adapting a Yorkshire accent! Ant and myself threw in a few lines! it was nothing serious though!

 

JOHNNY’S MYSTERY TOUR (1972)

Johnny's Mystery Tour

 

Tu found my way

Tu Birmingham station

I got off train alright

Got chucked outa-coffee bar

Told tu go on way.

Tu sun was shining

It was a lovely day

Got chucked of a bus

Got told to piddle on way.

Tu stood standing

In chippy bar

Eating ma pasty and chips

Took devouring glance at pooch

Tu left chippy

And went tu Bulls head

Tu what cider they serve

T trever fell flat on arse

Sitting in the Bull

Wanting chocky bar

When Tony said

Tu ‘backy shop ent far.

Tu sitting in the Bull

Going nowhere

Waiting for the lad

Tu finish booze

Tu Tony bongo-ing away

While Tu sweet play on Jux

Tu people yapping away

Supping away their blues

Count tu money

10 and half P for ash sticks

24p left

Now find way tu door

On way now

Tu have play on banjo.

 

By Johnny Adams + Ant and Trev.

 

Below are the lyrics to a song I wrote with Johnny Adams. The original lyric was written in 1970, walking home from the GEC where I worked also alongside Pete Waterman and Bill Campbell ( bassist of Coconut Mat / The Eggy). I was reading Paul Oliver's Story of the Blues

The Story of the Blues

Paul Oliver

at the time and the lyric was a kind of blues influenced thing. In 73 Johnny took the lyric and and wrote and played some music to it. It was fingerpicked number, a little influenced by Ralph McTell's guitar style on Streets of London. It completely changed the feel of it but I loved Johnny's music to it. In 1986, in Middlesbrough, I redeveloped the song with my keyboard band - Trev and the Collective Unconscious.  Although main chords were based on Johnny's version, I added a bridge and partly updated the lyrics. I used to have a version by Johnny on tape but the tape's been lost along the way. (I may have my own version osmewhere that might be good enough to upload at some stage. Here, on my MY SPACE Trev and the Collective Unconsciousis the 1986 keyboard instrumental version can be heard, developed with Steve Gillgallon and Steve Ingledew and which we recorded on a Fostex 4 track Portastudio.

 

 

WELL I DON’T KNOW

I don’t know

I got no stone to throw

Well  I don’t know

I Got no ball to catch.

 

My friend the sun

Fled to  

Oh please come back

And dawn on me.

 

Oh I don’t know

Perhaps I’ll leave here

Perhaps I’ll go

Far far away –ay.

 

I don’t know

My soul’s a star

Trapped in a jar

It just seems so far –

 

(Bridge)

The road is calling but I

Can’t go on

This restless feeling is calling

Me on and on

The lake she sings to me

Says I have no fish to give.

The tree he watches me

With no place to live.

 

Well I don’t know

I got no way to lose

All I possess

Is the blues.

 

Well I don’t know

I’m on my own now

I’m so alone now

Along way from home.

 

(Bridge)

The road is calling but I

Can’t go on

This restless feeling is calling

Me on and on

The lake she sings to me

Says I have no fish to give.

The tree he watches me

With no place to live.

 

I don’t know

Guess I’ll write a song

Well I don’t know

It all seems so wrong.

 

Lyrics by Trev Teasdel 1970

 

 

 

 

 

CONNECTIONS

by Trev Teasdel 1972.  I was round at Johnny's bedsit in Stoke Heath when I wrote this. John was writing a song and I wrote this about the creative process of looking for connections and inspirations. People used to write young people off but it was a very creative period
 

 

From a ceiling rose; musty with age

Hanging limp – earrings of dust,

Clinging from a bent burnt flex

Leading to a cracked-brittle lamp holder, holding

Secure a lifeless light bulb; waiting for connection.

I can see this quite clearly from the untidy chair

On which I’m sitting writing this.

 

John is sitting on the other untidy chair

In his Stoke Heath attic bedsit,

Trying to write a song on his Eko-Jumbo

Guitar, but his words keep tripping over

His melody line, but he’s waiting, playing

Patiently for the right connection.

I can hear this quite plainly from

The untidy chair on which I’m sitting.

 

On this untidy chair, on a unswept floor

With drawn-back curtains and spying landlady,

I am writing this like “A hungry husband eats a meal

with ‘man appeal’ “. Leaning on Leonard Cohen’s

Favourite Game; but the words may be as useful as                               

The Favourite Game

Leonard Cohen

A burnt pea, but I’m writing, waiting, waiting for the right connection.

I can feel this quite fiercely from the

Untidy chair on which I’m sitting.

 

Upon the stereo unit

Balanced finely upon the deck

Sits an album of Pink Floyd music.

The stylus lies perched upon its rest

Like an unmated hen bird, the needle

Gloved in fluff – protected from

The piercing cold felt by the cawing

Jackdaw outside the window of this

Tiny room. Trailing from the unit

Is a lead, twisting and trailing to the socket

Where a plug lurks waiting, waiting for connection

As I watch from this untidy chair

In which I sit writing this.

 

 

Later in 1980, Johnny sent me another song lyric he'd written (I'd just moved to Middlesbrough at the time)

 

 

Solidier

Step in line, better be on time

No deserters

Disciplined to use your own mind

The Sargeant keeps you all in line.

The light brigade, school boy game

Winston Churchill's on his horse again

Grenadier, you can't hear

'cause you're dead on the battlefield

You're a soldier.

Dead heros lie in their graves

Telling us the world's been saved

The paper's say the boys are brave

No one else could do the same

By Johnny Adams, Coventry 1980

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

 
 

 

 

 

 

Poems by Joe Reynolds

Joe Reynolds was the saxophonist and songwriter of the Coventry band Willow c 1973 /4. The band advertised in HOBO. Joe was in various other bands along the way that may surface in the band directory yet to come to this blog. Joe later recorded, I think, at Horizon studios and played on some early Two Tone tracks (Selecter I think). In 1973 Joe contributed some of his poems for my Communications books. Here are the poems -

FOR DAYLIGHT ONLY

Willow

Reflected spectrum on dew damp pane

Technicolour morning

Wisp away the sandman’s dust

Spraying wind to chill my face

Squealing seagulls whip the sky

Fingering foam claws the beach

Over the rock pool rapids.

 

lightening lizards

Moss covered rock wall walks

Spitting forks the bluebottle’s death

Sleepy venom adder

King of the anthill.

 

Red flamed circle kissed the crest

Rippling arrowheads across the waves

Captured second forgotten dusk

From the reaching cliffs echo

Cricket singing serenade the night

Tomorrow’s dawn will wake you

 

..............................

 

TRUTH

Behind the spot light

That shows

What’s for us

I find after looking, my truths    

Joe Reynolds letter

Folding themselves up

To look small

And hiding behind each other

And towards the sides

Of that light

The countless confusions

Struggling to find themselves

Through the mist

That limps above them.

..............................

 

 

PROSTITUTE

Through the alleys,

Night lights

Strike the slabs

And pierce the road

She walks ever watchful,

Dreaming

Of her non existing love

As profit

Rings the strings of her heart

Guilt and pride

Beneath her powder

Asking for her wage

Her mind all ablaze with dreams

As home she takes him

Pretence of not caring

Parrot fashion so straight

And upstairs

Her room

Nakedness in routine

That he must not see

A powder tear

As all her dreams

Of silk and bells

And old friends drive her forward.

 

And he unsuspecting

He mustn't’t know

As her cheeks tighten

As her fingers try to relax

In fear she holds her throat

With a rock

And smiles

As he dresses

His clumsy pants

She laughs so loud

He runs leaving his underwear

Behind

She picks it up

Still laughter.

A wardrobe full

Of past experience

And tears

If only one would stay

Could anyone ever come back

Or are they all married

Twisting

Her tears unfold

But listeners are as rare

As a unicorns horn

And who cares anyway

It’s her own stupid fault.