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From L-R: Vini
Reilley - Guitar, Ed Banger - Vocals, Toby Romanov - Drums and Peter
Crookes - Bass
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Ok so why
all the fuss over a band that released one single. Simple. Like the
Killjoys and Users there's more to the story than just a song.
Edmund Garrity AKA Ed Banger's story criss crosses through vital moments
in punk that makes it impossible to ignore and at times so improbable
that a film script could or should be made.
Wythenshaw Manchester spawned two sets of mates
in bands enjoying a friendly rivalry - Slaughter & The Dogs and Wild Ram.
Wild Ram (I keep
thinking of Bill & Teds Wild Stallion!) were formed by Ed and Toby in their kitchen originally
playing Beatles covers before moving on to play heavy metal
complete with long solos and legs apart quo boogieismsl
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Its late 1976
and these two bands
going nowhere were about to change: Having played the Lesser
Free Trade Hall Manchester
once to about 30 people The Sex Pistols were returning again but this
time with more publicity momentum and a buzz about them. While
Slaughter & The Dogs managed to get on the bill, Ed failed and
instead was roadie for the Dogs.
On the night violence
flared and Edmund
bleeding from a head wound from a bottle and his mate Pete with a
nosebleed the immortal lines were uttered by someone:
You're a right
bloody mob aren't you? Headbanger here and him with a nosebleed.
And so a bands
name came into being.
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Following the
Pistols visit and the emergent punk rock scene Wild Ram became Ed
Banger & The Nosebleeds who, like so many other bands, changed and
adopted a more punk look and sound. As Wild
Ram they had been unable to get gigs or played to 15 people.
Now as a punk band
"We ....had a single out, it was like 400 people at a
concert."
How serious were they about punk? In a
documentary about the band Toby the drummer interviewed recounts
how they changed for the money and gigs and how
"I don't like
punk rockers. Personally I hate them...everyone has some
hecklers...ours is the whole audience!"
Ed in the
Punk77 interview recounts
'After spilling our blood for the punk cause damn right we regarded
ourselves as true punks but we still got labelled bandwagon jumpers.
Virtually every band after the Pistols suffered the same but in a sense
everybody but the Pistols were bandwagon jumpers you know what I mean.' |
Ed and Peter Crookes |
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About the single's subject "We supported Sad Cafe who said we
couldn't play our instruments. Its inverted snobbism" Peter
Crookes. |
A one off
single with Rabid Records (1977) with
I Ain't Been
To No Music School / Fascist Pigs,
a spot on Tony Wilson's TV programme So It Goes and gigs in the the capital at
venues like The Roxy should have been a springboard to success.
Instead it wasn't. There was no money and noone got a penny for
the single despite it selling 10,000 copies. The band started to
argue, Vinnie Faal their long time manager was sacked and Ed and
Vini left the band.
Click to hear clip of 'I Ain't Bin To No Music School'
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Vini Reilley
.... "I'd told the rest of the band that we'd be confrontationalists." Vini counters. "So for example when we
played the Roxy in London, which was the venue to play, even
though we had a full set of songs, I said 'No, we're just going to
play two songs all night, that's it, and keep playing the same two
songs and wind them up' which we did. The audience went absolutely
beserk, and consequently we were asked to play again and again,
because that was what was required. But I would also do things
like sit with my back to the audience and play a very melodic
guitar piece, which was what I'd always been doing all my life
anyway, and the punks were totally confused by this, and baffled
and maybe hostile, but at least it was a reaction, and I thought
that was valid."
From
24 Hour Party People
website |
Click image above to view larger readable one. |
Stills on this
and other Nosebleeds pages are from The Rise & Fall Of The Nosebleeds
broadcast in 1978 and made by John Crumpton.
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