1.
How did the band start, where and when and why?
Started at the end of 76, start of 77. Both Chris Wood and I were totally
taken away with the Sex Pistols/ anarchy thing. At the time there was a
feeling anybody could start a group and you could change the world (or at
least the town you were living in!). We all lived in Harlow New Town,
which was really dull in those days, so making your own entertainment came
easily to us.
2. Members of the band and instruments played?
Mickey Howard – Drums – Also known as Little Mickey
Steve Horton – Keyboards – Also known as Bobby Crush!
Shane Roe – Guitar
Chris Wood – Bass (Dec Baron from The Rabbits on the No Pictures single as
Chris had left) Replaced by Scott Barker from The Fatal Microbes in 1979
who played on Mopey Grope and wrote the B-side
Me – Vocals and generally insulting the audience and starting punch-ups
with fascists!
3. Were you
involved with any bands previously…type of bands?
Chris and I had never been in a band before, though we had always wanted
to. The fact neither of us could play a musical instrument used to be a
bit of a barrier pre 76. Mickey was a hippy (refused to cut his hair) and
had played (mostly guitar) in a load of local prog rock outfits. But we
felt he was a much better drummer than guitarist and in those days
drummers were rarer than rocking horse shit (in fact I think Mickey played
drums for another two or three punk outfits at the time). Shane was also a
hippy back then, into Frank Zappa and things. He could play a bit and
taught Chris where to put his fingers on a Bass guitar.Steve’s dad was a
church organ player, and I think Steve played piano at home and may well
have helped his dad out in church. He’d never been in a band before though
4. Influences?
Many and varied as you can tell. The Pistols kick started us, but we
listened to tons of different stuff. Chris and I were big Blues lovers. We
had also been into early David Bowie. He’d played Harlow in the early 70’s
just before the release of the Ziggy Stardust album. It was on a Wednesday
night and our local 550-seat theatre was only half full. It cost Chris and
I 30p to get in cos we has forged student union cards. We were expecting
some sad old git with an acoustic guitar to come on and do Space Oddity
(his only hit record to date back than). Suddenly, the lights went down,
fireworks went off and these geezers all dressed up like nancy boys came
on to dry ice and very loud rock music. I tried to get my mum to make me a
gold lame cat suit, but she wouldn’t! I also liked The Sensational Alex
Harvey Band back then as well. From the punk era I liked a lot of things,
Pistols and The Clash (though you only supposed to like one or the other,
not both!) I was also into American bands from that era, The Ramones,
Patti Smith, Devo and Richard Hell and The Voidoids. Shane was into Iggy
Pop, but he was a bit too Heroin Chic for my liking.
5. How did you
get into punk rock? I understand that members of the band were at the 100
club festival and Jubilee boat ride. Memories of these events and how they
affected you?
I don’t think any of us were on HMS Talcy Malcy when it sailed the Thames
so Brown, but my mate Bill Meadows (he was a co- conspirator in Stortbeat
Records and founder of another Stortbeat combo, The Gangsters) went to see
the Sex Pistols at the 100 club in 76. This was about a month or so before
the notorious Bill Grundy incident on the TV. I was completely knocked out
by the whole event. Can’t remember any of the original songs from back
then, but the did versions of The Monkees “Stepping Stone” and The Who’s
“Substitute”. And yes, they were actually wearing safety pins!! Holding
old John Collier suit jackets together and Rotten was wearing a dirty
great nappy pin as an earring and a Pink Floyd T Shirt with “I hate”
scrawled above the band’s name in thick black marker pen. Contrary to
common belief, I can’t remember people wearing safety pins through their
noses. At the time, I had long shoulder length hippy hair and wore flared
jeans and trousers. That night changed my life. The next day I had my hair
cut and threw away all of my flares. Never worn them since and never will
do again!!
6. What bands
did you support, places played. Reaction to you. Spitting, Violence wild
adulation?
We tended to do local gigs, where as the first and proper Harlow punk
band, we headlined. Our first gig was at the LSE bar in central London.
Our mate Div was a student there. We only knew 3 songs and one of those
was the Velvet Underground’s “Waiting for the man”. I think we did each
song four or five times. We did a couple of support acts, The Lurkers at
Chelmsford, Eddie and The Hot Rods in Harlow. The best one though was when
we supported Siouxsie and the Banshees. We went on and did a cracking set,
the stage got covered in beer. Her majesty, who I must say had been a bit
toffee nosed back stage, then struts on to the stage wearing these boots
with towering six inch high spiked stiletto heels. The stage was still
covered in beer and she went arse-over-tit and landed with a thump on her
coxic! Serves her right for not heeding the warnings I gave her back
stage. I think The Poison Girls may have played that gig as well, but I’m
not sure. My band mates tell me we also supported Wire and Steel Pulse,
but I have to say that I don’t remember, but there’s a lot I don’t! I was
never too bothered about gobbing and stuff, though I thought it did play
into the media stereotype of punks, which we tried to avoid like the
plague (listen to the lyrics of No Pictures, our first single and now
available on CD on The Stortbeat Collective Album!!)
Most of the violence we encountered was with The National Front and I
think they deserved it! Mind you there was always more of us than them.
Would have been very scary the other way round. We did a gig in
Cambridgeshire in this pub way out in the sticks in a place called The
Welcome Inn, at Horseheath. Welcoming it was not. It was a biker’s pub and
they made it very clear they did not like punk music. One hell of a fight
broke out and it was just like those bar room brawls you see in old
westerns. Got no idea how it ended, but we were not asked back for a
return gig
7. You
supported a lot of major bands – what was their attitude towards you.
Superstars or we’re all in it together attitude?
See above, though we went to see the Pistols play at Middlesex University
once. Although we couldn’t get in, we met Joe Strummer in a pub over the
road. Turned out both he and Chris had mouth ulcers at the time so we
spent the whole evening talking about them and the best cures. I wish we
had recorded it. I would have titled it “The Bonjella Tapes” and released
it after his untimely death a couple of years ago
8. What bands did you rate and conversely what bands did you think pants?
Like I’ve already said, The Pistols and The Clash here and a few Yankee
bands. I hated The Police, The Lurkers, Adam and The Ants and all of those
once hippy, now punk outfits like The Skids. I also liked a couple of the
northern bands like The Buzzcocks when Howard Devoto was in them, Joy
Division and The Ruts. Shane was into The Talking Heads and The Tubes. I
never was but did liked the “We’re white punks on dope “ single. These
days as an old git, I listen to a lot of Jazz, early Miles Davis in
particular.
9. You
supported quite a few name bands. How come you didn’t make it to the
London circuit of the Roxy, Vortex etc and get more coverage?
Beserkley
records had a slogan that read “Support your local bands, wherever they
come from” We were lazy and it was easier playing locally. Cynics might
say it was easier being a big fish in a small pond rather than being a
small fish in a large one. It was tough getting gigs in London and it was
very cliquey. We just couldn’t be bothered and we were enjoying ourselves
locally
10. There was
obviously a large scene around Harlow? How did the general public take to
punk rock and punk rockers around Harlow?
Same as in the
rest of the country I guess, with a mixture of horror and contempt fuelled
in the main part by those misleading and ill informed media stereotypes.
Mind you, I always found everyone’s mums very nice and understanding!
11. Local places played and bands?
The Square, which is still just about going was the main place. We played
community halls and church halls a lot cos you had to put the gigs on
yourself. For other bands you should really check out the new Stortbeat
Collective CD. We were the first, but following us were The Newtown
Neurotics, The Gangsters, Pete the Meat and The Boys, Easy Action, The
Pressure Stops, The Rabbits, The Epileptics (later to become The Flux of
Pink Indians) and many more I can’t remember
12. Without
being too over the top I think No Pictures is one of the finest records
ever made. I never heard it until 5 years ago and as soon as I heard it I
just wanted to play it over and over again which is what I did. It’s a
kind of mixture of punk velocity and garage psychedelia with a cracking
hooky chorus. How would you describe the Sods sound and how did you arrive
at it?
By pure chance! We decided to have Steve in the band on keyboards before
we had actually written any songs. Having an organ in the band, the style
came a bit from The Doors, who Shane really liked. The rest is history. I
have to say that I don’t really like my own stuff and hate listening to my
own recordings
13. There
really were no pictures of you on the single or the next one? What’s the
story behind the singles covers?
It was cheaper to do them that way and we were skint is the honest truth.
It’s also true to say that none of us were prima donnas so the idea of
having pictures of the band on the covers never came up. There were never
any pictures of The Sex Pistols on their record covers were there?
14. Why were
the Sods not signed to a bigger label? Did you try? Were you ever
approached? How did you get on the bigger bands tours?
Dunno really, As I said, we were really very lazy sods and I think time
limited in what we could do. No we never tried, though we did have a
couple of dodgy managers once that would have made Malcolm Maclaren look
tame. I blame them for the lack of success, not the fact that we were a
bunch of talentless wasters!
15. What did
the Sods want to achieve? Fame, success, just a laugh?
People who climb mountains say thy only do it because they are there. We
only did the things we did, because we could and the time was right
16. How did you
get involved with Stortbeat?
I was one of the founder members along with Billy Meadows and Shane Roe.
To be honest it was the only way of getting the stuff we were doing
released to a wider audience, and at the time there were hundreds, if not
thousands of bands doing it up and down the country. I thought up the
name, for those who don’t know, the Stort is a tiny river that flows
through Harlow. The label also was an attempt to harness all of that local
talent in the area under one roof, a bit like Stiff records but with less
talent! Billy and I also run an alternative club at the start of the 80’s.
We had alternative comedy, dance and videos (played on gear rented from
the local Granada shop!) as well as music. We were ahead of the time! The
name of the club was the Apocalypso, A name I notice has recently been
nicked by a TV production company. Maybe we should have registered it
17. Best
moments in the Sods?
Just managing to get it together in the first place! Mind you, chinning
our then manager Henry in a pub and him getting thrown out because the
guv’nor thought he’d started it came a close second
18. Worst Sods moment?
Chris leaving and a huge fight occurring with bikers at a pub called the
Welcome Inn at wide spot in the road in Cambridgeshire called Horseheath
19. How did it
all end?
In the documentary of The Ramones called “End of the Century” one
interviewee (I think it’s Chris Stein from Blondie) says that being in a
band is like being married, except you have three or four spouses all at
the same time! This is true and after Chris left the momentum slipped away
and we just argued a lot. No I go back to my original thought it was all
the fault of our managers Sean and Henry!
20. What do you
make of the renewed interest in Punk rock now and its place in history
with bands reforming?
I really enjoyed doing the gig back in November 2004. All five of us met
in a rehearsal studio in London the day before, the first time we’d all
been together in over 25 years. We rehearsed five songs in five hours and
then did the gig…it felt great. However, I think it is just a bit of fun
and limited in its appeal. However, I am pleased that there appears to
renewed interest in the type of music with younger people. I the late 70’s
Punk gave a very staid and arrogant music business the kick up the arse
that it needed. I get the feeling another kick up the arse is needed now,
with the reasons for making music and being in a band being more about
changing thinking than making money or achieving your 15 minutes of fame
21. Anything to
add?
Thanks for the questions, sorry it took me so long to reply, but that
happens when you become an old git! Also
1. Go out and buy the Stortbeat Collective CD
2. Look out for a possible CD release from the Sods. After the gig, we got
into a recording studio and recorded four tracks we never got round to
recording back in the 70’s. We hope to do a limited release sometime. It
should be unique, with all of the material being written in the late 70’s,
half of it recorded then and the other half recorded in 2005.
Kevin Jones
May 2005
|
