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The History and Mystery of one of the most Notorious bands to come
out of THE ELTHAM CONTINGENT !!
THE
PITIFUL,
formed at the very beginning of the smouldering music
movement that would be known as the PUNK ROCK scene. It was 1976,and
the scene was still a very infant movement. A new band was being
born every week, and hundreds of pubs and venues throughout LONDON
were nurturing the dreams of Thousands of young, wannabees.
In NOVEMBER of 1976 ,FOUR young ELTHAM
based kids incited by the music and movements of THE CLASH, THE SEX
PISTOLS and even bands like DR FEELGOOD and EDDIE AND THE HOTRODS
,or even IAN DURY and his infamous BLOCKHEADS, thought that they
could do just as a good job as them. Realising that they could
literally do what they saw others doing at THE MARQUEE, THE ROXY,
VORTEX or HOPE AND ANCHOR most days of the week, they immediately
put together the idea of forming a band of their own!
Sitting in the FRUITERERS ARMS
[locally known as the Mud Hole], in Crockenhill near SWANLEY, I'm
waiting for the arrival of one member of this notorious band of
tearaways. My victim is already half an hour
late, and I'm wondering if the myth and mystery will continue with
the non arrival of my guest. Did this band really exist? Were they
really as bad as the rumours say? Who exactly were these bunch of
vagabonds from the dark corners of S.E. LONDON?
At just past 1pm on a Friday afternoon the door slowly squeaks open to reveal a figure of just
touching 6 ft tall, dressed in a Second World War flying
jacket, dark ‘Levis’ and boots, dark glasses and sporting a freshly
sculptured flat top hairstyle!
When did THE PITIFUL
actually form?
Well it was late November
1976.The line up at the time was Jim [JARRETT ] on Bass Guitar, ’Mazzo’’
[Steven
Mason] on guitar, Steve [HOPPO] Hopkins on Drums [Mark pauses for a
sip of …Wine] …… and there was Tony [Cunningham], on vocals at that
time. I wasn’t in the band then. I knew the guys but didn’t get
involved with the band until late in 1977.
TONY [CUNNINGHAM] just lost his nerve,
couldn’t get it together to do a gig in front of a real crowd and
walked off, and then the drummer left so the band was at the point
of splitting at the starting blocks. The others wanted to try and
keep the band going so they asked around and then I got involved.
What was the motivation for
THE PITIFUL to form in the first place?
Well everyone was seeing bands
all over the place and really it was just that everyone just
thought, Oh I could do a better job or just as good. You really
didn’t need to play anything particularly good. If you knew how to
bang a drum or hold a guitar and go TWANG [Mark moves his arm in an
arc as if to mimic striking the guitar strings] then you
could form a band and be playing in a local pub or somewhere, SOMETIMES,
literally
at the end of the week of even deciding, Ooh lets form a band! It was
about having a laugh and just having a go. The girls liked it too
to think you were in a band [He laughs ]
When did you get the place of being
the singer Mark?
 That would have been about
November 77’.The band were having a bit of a problem. The singer Tony
Cunningham, lost his nerve, he just couldn’t sing in front of an
audience which is fundamentally quite important being the front man! The band had their very first gig at the Roxy on MONDAY the 16th
of DECEMBER, that was the ROXY audition night, and just 50p to get
in. On that occasion we were playing with a band called THE FURS. They
later become that band the PSYCHEDELIC FURS. That gig felt quite a
big deal for us to be playing straight in at the ROXY. I was so new
as THE PITIFUL front man that I didn’t even have time to learn any
of the lyrics and so was pretty much destined to be a nightmare from
the word GO!! I had to read the lyrics as I went along. They were
pasted into the pages of a dirty magazine with the most pervy
pictures facing out into the audience [MARK laughs in an adolescent
manner as if slightly embarrassed just thinking about it]
In fact, the
place [The Roxy] was a dump, with probably half of the bands
that filed through the doors barely worthy of the name, and a
bunch more still a few months-worth of rehearsals short from
mastering their first actual song....On a bill topped by the
immortally named Jesus Savage...the Psychedelic Furs would be
duking it out with the similarly unknown, equally obscure The
Pitiful... it really was a dreadful show.
Beautiful Chaos: The Psychedelic
Furs - Dave Thompson
We did get another chance at playing
THE ROXY again, how I dunno. It was 1978 and the FAREWELL TO THE ROXY
album was being put together at that time. It was like a real big
thing to be asked to do the gig. As kids, we thought WOW, we've made it.
Hello LONDON, we've arrived kinda thing …The gig started off really
well. On a real high note as we stormed through our signature song,
FAITHHEALER but it rapidly went down hill from there on. Our Drummer
‘’HOPPO’’ [Steve Hopkins] decided in his infinite
wisdom, half way
through the song to go for a piss. Just getting up and walking off.
Leaving his drumming duties… to a dumb struck member of our
audience. Yeah a member of our audience was given the job of
drumming until ‘’HOPPO’’ came back. On his return ‘’HOPPO’’ took over
his drumming stool again. He was clearly and very obviously half
cut, but we soldiered on only for ‘’HOPPO’’ to loosen his grip on one
of his drum sticks. Like a dream, one of those slow motion scenarios,
the stick sailed through the air and whacked the sound guy right on
the head. Because of that we didn’t get included on the final
FAREWELL to THE ROXY album. We were
told straight that we were too amateurish. We didn’t have a chance
after that mishap. Oh well, it happens doesn’t it? That line up carried on for
about another 6 months. It was inevitable that a change was going
to happen, after that ROXY gig.
 How did the lyrics get put
together. Did you all play a part in writing the songs or did you
have one person who did the job of putting lyrics together?
Mazzo’’ [Steven Mason] did all
the lyric writing. It was far from intelligent stuff, it wasn’t
meant to have a message or anything. There was songs about heartbreak
and stuff.
You know I've still got the lyric book. [Mark pulls out a note pad from a carrier bag and hands it to
me.]
First verse from a song titled ‘’Faith
Healer’’ from the notebook.
We got a feeling deep inside,
I think it is a stomach ache,
or could it be indigestion
or could it be CANCER-R-R-R
Mark says this song is actually about
a broken heart. OPTIMISTIC STUFF indeed!
Other songs included I Remember You,
Barbara Anne, Move It, Elvis, Working Class and Schoolboy.
Recordings exist of live gigs but may be too rough to be ever
released.
What highlights do you
have from all the memories that you have about being with the band
and what are the darkest points?
Well, the highest point really
was having the opportunity to do the ROXY thing, even if it didn’t
get used.
We turned up at the ROXY in Neal
Street in this big, I mean massive Mercedes Van. We parked up and all
the people around were like, mmmm I wonder who this is getting out.
And we opened the back and removed the gear. All we actually had in
the back was this VOX GUITAR AMP, a HARMONICA and a GUITAR in it. It
was so funny.
The gig itself was a bit of a disaster.
Getting to play the ROXY for THE
FAREWELL album was exciting. That was a good memory. It was like a
kid dream for us to get a gig anything like a high profile. It's
just a shame it all went tits up for us. As I said earlier to say we
didn’t get used for the FAREWELL to the ROXY album is an
understatement really. We didn’t have a chance. We were told we
were too amateurish . . . Us and GOATS TEETH were the only two bands
to not be included. We thought we might get the chance to be famous
and all we ended being is infamous failures. [Mark Laughs]
And the low
points for THE PITIFUL?
The low points . .mmmm,
well
there were no real low points really from that time. The low points
that stick out for me was being told that JARRETT [Jim] had died a
couple of years ago. That was really sad. That was in March 2006.
I'd got in touch with an old friend from way back, a couple of
years ago .And I asked about the whereabouts of Jim and what he
was up to. He said ’’Oh you wouldn’t have heard Jim hung
himself back in 2006.’’ Well that hit me like a ton of bricks. Very sad.
Do you have any recollection
of Kevin St John?
Kevin St John was the most
creepy of individuals you could ever have the misfortune of meeting.
I always thought of him as being a Gay thug. A very
unpleasant and unsavory character. He seemed to have this unhealthy
interest in me, which always scared me shitless. You just tried to
stay clear of him and his lot.
He used to have John
Conte's brother
as one of his bouncers. The bouncers there were real unsavory people
too. You didn’t mess with them. Kevin St
John was the second of the
ROXY owners and was just someone you had nothing to do with if you
could help it.
Other than the ROXY album
recording, did anything like interest ever get shown in THE PITIFUL
as far as label interest. It was the pretty much the thing
to get a seven inch single out then, Did anything get released by the
band?
No not
really. Nothing like
label interest really come up until something else that I was doing
after the demise of THE PITIFUL. The FAREWELL to the ROXY was the
nearest we had to getting anything released. But that never
happened! We just weren’t good enough.
You were thought of as quite a
notorious band. Why was that?
Where ever we went,
usually
ended up in a huge fight. I still have recordings where the gig is
cut short by a punch up. There is these sounds of the guitar being
whacked over peoples heads and glass smashing. Utter chaos! I think we
were probably thought of as notorious because most of us. Well, all
except me had done time in PENTONVILLE. We were all pretty handy. I
had a punch up with Adam Ant once. He come off worse! When I was
17 maybe 18 I was real tear away. Coming from Leeds I learned how to
look after myself from an early age. I did boxing and so wasn't shy of
getting into a punch up. That’s all behind me now. There was
incident where I was jumped by Colin and Big John of Conflict and
they got pretty beaten up. Sorry guys. I will say that me and
Colin actually became very good mates after that incident. I still
don’t know what it was all about.
Who else did you hang about
with in those days?
WELL, I don’t know about hung
around with, because you met different people all the time and made
really good friends. I was real good friends with members of RED
LIGHTS, THE SWORDS and had sort of made friends with bands who we
played with like, THE BARRACUDAS, TESCO BOMBERS and the MODETTES.
TESCO
BOMBERS were formerly called the VINCENT UNITS, who we played with
both bands. You just made friends all over the place.
What happened to THE PITIFUL?
I
mean how long did you stay together and when did you split up and
why?
I joined in 77’ and then
there was another line up change in 1978 which was actually the
original line up, pretty much. Me on vocals and then there was
‘’MAZZO’’ Steve Mason on guitar, Jim Jarrett still on
Drums. On Bass
Guitar we had Morris [MOLE] Chesterton from the 101’ers. That
was a good name check. We had a few guest musicians too - Richard
Dudandski from the 101’ers played on drums a few times, so did
Palmolive from THE SLITS. Big John of CONFLICT came and did a gig
with us too. Just the once. That line
up of Jim,
Morris, ’’MAZZO’’ and me stayed the same until late 78,early 79, when
the time bell rang and we split.
 The split was just a natural
progression of things. We were growing up and starting doing
different stuff and getting bored of what we were doing. I carried on
playing music in a band called MARK AND THE MYSTICS, which was me,
my
sister and a guy named Martin. We played a skiffle type proto
Rockabilly type sound. I had always been into ROCKABILLY and BUDDY
HOLLY. Pretty much all the way through my PITIFUL days I wore
glasses, BUDDY HOLLY t-shirts and had a flat top - apart from the odd
grease back or spike - but mainly I've had my flat top. I've stayed
pretty much true to my love of that era. Right from being a little
kid. MARK AND THE MYSTICS had all those traits. We were sort of like
YIP YIP COYOTE and THE THE FORREST HILL BILLIES. Rockabilly is
something that is a passion and so the music with MARK AND THE
MYSTICS had a lot of that element.This was when IRS RECORDS wanted
to do something with us and was a very, very did nearly. The biggest
nearly I EVER had. We did have the chance of playing with JOE
STRUMMER. JOE actually came and played guitar with us for a benefit
gig we did and Den Hegerty of DARTS fame came and played tenor
sax.
Saying about all the friends we made
and had over the years along with chance meetings and such was
mainly because of the fact that a lot of these people rehearsed at
the same studios. You would just chance meet in the stairwell or in
the corridor and then end up playing together either as a gig or a
jam session type situation. They would come into a rehearsal of ours
and then occasionally we’d drop in on one of their rehearsals.
It was lovely times.
Do you still have contact
with any of the old members of THE PITIFULL? Do you know what they are up to?
Unfortunately I don’t have
really have any regular contact with any of the guys. Well apart
from finding out about Jim [JARRETT] dying in 2006,I don’t know
what the other guys are doing right now, but I know TONY CUNNINGHAM
became a CARETAKER at ELTHAM HILL all girls school and later went on
to become a male nurse; well it wouldn’t have been a female
nurse would it? [MARK laughs] Steve Hopkins became the LANDLORD of
the CASTLE pub in ELTHAM and Steve Mason, he became a telephone
engineer.
And what is MARK TATE
doing
these days?
 I've been a CAREWORKER for
the past couple of years but ill health is getting in the way of
that. At the moment I'm taking some time out to get my fitness back
up to speed. But I've got some work in the coming weeks being a
SUPPORTED CARE WORKER to an elderly infirm lady. I'm looking
forward to that very much. I’ll be just helping her around the
place, cooking for her, a bit of cleaning and making sure she takes
her medication etc.
Me wrapping stuff up ‘’MARK,thank you so much for taking time to speak to me
today and I
wish you all the best in your health and new job prospects.
MARK . . ‘’ My pleasure.
Its been great
remembering all this stuff. I don’t get much chance to relive this
life. Things are a bit different these days. I like to forget the
bad stuff I did and make life a positive thing. Helping people. A lot
of that bad stuff is like a different person now. A different life,
best forgotten, well most of it . . [Mark smiles].’’
We shake hands and the sound of the
squeaky pub door sounds again as Mark Tate of the Pitiful
disappears, out into the cold breezy Friday afternoon.
Interviewer: Brian Dennis.
Date: Friday 27th March
2009 |
