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Was supporting the Stranglers at the Roxy your big break?
DS:
Yes, it was a real turning point and quite a fluke. A few months
before, during the summer of 1976, Nick (the guitar player) had
spotted Hugh Cornwall lounging in a park in Bristol. Nick had just
recently gone up to London and seen the Stranglers at the Roundhouse
with the Ramones, so he recognized him right away. Apparently, Hugh
Cornwall had lived in Bristol a few years prior and regularly came
back to visit old friends. Nick went up to Hugh and chatted for a
while. He mentioned that he was in a punk band and asked if we
could play a gig with the Stranglers. Not long after, a postcard
arrived from Hugh saying “come and open for us the Roxy on the 22nd
of January” (1977). After we performed that night at the Roxy we
were immediately offered three more shows. Our only request was the
show were on weekends as we were all still at school.
NS: My mum said as I left for the
Stranglers gig , “Don’t be too upset if they don’t like you up in
London"
Cortinas live at the Roxy 77.
Photo -
Erica Echenberg
The Roxy club must have been some eye opener as kids of around 16? What did you make of the place. The fashion, the people
the sounds and the girls? Out of place or a giant playground?
DS:
From my perspective as a fifteen year old, and in comparison to the
hippy-rock venues and lout-filled discos of Bristol we had
experienced, the Roxy seemed like a whole lot of fun! It certainly
was just the basics and run in a very casual way by Andy Czezowski
and his staff - very low pressure and informal. As we loaded our
gear in late in the afternoon, Generation X, who had used the venue
to rehearse in, loaded out. I remember looking in amazement and
envy at their equipment, black leather outfits and died hair. As
the club filled up that night it was apparent to us that we were a
lot younger than most of the punters. It was pretty incredible to
spot the faces of various punk band members hanging out the bar. We
recognized them from their photos in the music papers we had been
reading in the months prior. Before we went on that night I remember
we were all shit scared, but with our nervous energy being bonus in
a punk performance, we made it though. I remember Jeremy facing off
some hecklers and lambasting the audience to a degree that there was
a feeling we had stood our ground in spite of our young age.
NS:The Roxy was fantastic
at first! Everyone was very friendly and into the whole scene. No
Posers, no hierarchy, all inclusive – brilliant! Unlike Dan, I never
recognized anyone. Occasionally I would be informed that I had just
been blithering on to someone from the London inner caucus so to
speak, but everyone was really unpretentious and very cool! That all
changed fairly quickly as some peoples Pop Star fantasies started to
come true…
A lot of people make a
big deal out of the fact that Don Lets introduced Reggae to the Punk
scene; Coming from Bristol we were already well into all of that. It
was good music to play though…
The only beer on Tap
was some foul lager; undrinkable, so everyone ordered Lager and
Black. I remember the Saints looking on in shock as we all ordered
what they obviously considered a poofters drink.
Nick and friend
outside the Roxy - Photo -Dan Swan
Out of interest can you remember anything of the Stranglers Roxy
gig. After you left the place got robbed.
DS:
We were in my Dad’s van on the M4 on the way back to Bristol when
that happened. We just read about it in the music papers
afterwards.
How did it differ from playing clubs in Bristol? Attitude, type
of audience reaction etc.
DS:
In Bristol by late 1976 there were no punk venues per se. But when
we played gigs we brought in a large crowd of mainly school friends
who were all in a very innocent way experimenting with the punk rock
look. At the Roxy the crowed was a mixture of scenesters and
musicians who had been in the punk scene a while and a certain
number of people new to the game who were trying to figure out how
to act “Punk.” Some of them were acting and dressing demented, some
pissing on the floor and some yelling abuse at the band. I remember
being quite shocked that people were openly taking drugs at the Roxy
as I had naively assumed that the Punk scene was anti-hippy and
therefore not about drug taking.
NS: The Roxy was the first
place I remember seeing the whole “Part Time Punk” thing; people
trying very hard to be what they thought Punk was. Dumb – you can’t
try and be something, you either are or your not – you get it or you
don’t. It was also the first place we started to meet older people
that were into the scene and understood it’s wider ramifications;
obviously a lot of these people (but not all) worked in the record
industry.
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Who did
you rate and who did you think was pants on the scene?
DS: I liked Dr Feelgood in 1976. But by 1977 things got a little more complicated because of
the hype surrounding bands. By the time you saw them it was hard to separate the
hype from the experience of seeing them. Having said that I saw some terrific
shows by the Clash, the Damned the Jam etc. I think collectively the Cortinas
felt that our friends from Bristol, the Pop Group, were “the pants.” This was a
little later and more post-punk than punk, but they really took things in
another direction and we had a lot of admiration for what they did. But that
all started to happen for them just as we broke up.
NS: The Clash
were the band that blew me away – I can still vividly remember the first time I
listened to their first album. Quite fortunate really… Things started to get
polarized very quickly; cartoon Punk bands like Sham 69 turned up, as did the
first of the post punk bands, new wave bands, power pop bands, Mod bands, Oi
bands. A new genre every week… |
How did
you cope with gobbing and violence at gigs? What was the worst places for it?
London or outside?
DS: I still have
my drum set from that time in my parents attic an there is a wad of gob still on
the rim of my tom tom that got baked on by stage lights! Probably need a hammer
and chisel to get it off. But I was the drummer way at the back and I was the
last to get hit. A couple of the others have stories of gob landing in their
mouths as they were singing. I can assure you that there is no experience more
bizarre than watching someone walk up to the stage as you are playing, hone in
on you and fire a wad of spit at you. All as a sign of appreciation! Some
nights it was like the first twenty minutes of Saving Private Ryan, only with
spit! I think the Electric Circus in Manchester gave the Cortinas the highest
gob ratio of any venue.
NS:
I still have a scar on my forehead from a gig we did in Southville, a really
rough part of town, the week after the Grundy thing. We were massacred! |