You have a great site that
brings back memories that are full of adventure, drama and thrills.
My name is Martin Cass and I now live in Ohio USA. My lifetime friend and former
punk rocker Mark Hodgkinson lives in Chester. We were the artistic pioneers,
editors, photographers, and anarchists that tried to document the 1976-77
rock revolution as it occurred on the pages of Bombsite fanzine distributed
around Liverpool outlets like Probe records. We produce it with
little equipment and no money as the dole was paying us about £6.50 per week
to live on.
Interestingly the press of
the time crapped up the whole event as few of the musical journalists
would risk their career and credibility if they supported the movement.
Slowly that did change but by then the primitive era was over. The news was
mixed, slow, glamorized and often did not interest us anyhow. When described
today it sounds like the whole country were punk enthusiasts in 1977. It was
not that way; there were few and we risked our necks walking the streets of
British cities looking for the next dose of musical energy.
We were unemployed or working in factories for cash under the table as
Britain's North was bleak and had no money. Most nights we would make our
way over to Roger Eagle's club Eric's. The place was home, full of energy
and a refuge for the punks. As writers for Bombsite we believed that we were
helping the cause by promoting a better future for Liverpool and UK music.
For example, Bombsite #3 gave a horrible review for Big in Japan's live
performance at Eric's in 1977. The arty band members were insulted by the
write up. Imagine Bill Drummond insulted. The Bombsite review persuaded
Julian Cope to start a petition calling on the band to split up. The
petition was displayed at Probe Records where Cope and Pete Wylie were
working, and quickly gathered 2000 signatures, and the band split up,
forcing the members toward a better musical direction.
I started
to mess with a guitar at about 12 years old, and Mark, bless him was a
drummer with the Army reserve at about the same time. We started to play
music together at high school, along with, wait for it, our music
teacher. Fast forward to September 13th 1976 when the Pistols played
Quaintways in Chester, and then the release of 'White Riot' in March 77.
We bought our amps and started to practice on the day that we purchased
the Clash's single. I remember feeling pissed off about the grey days
and our bleak future, but had been energized to do something by the
sound and lyrics of 'White Riot'. These events, the buzz from London, plus
the timing all felt right to start a band and a fanzine. Our actions had
nothing to do with the Stooges, CBGB's the Ramones or any other distant
place or rock star. We were broken and so was England.
We ran the fanzine for about a
year, during which time we started to put a band together. We ran with Wylie,
Bill Drummond, Pete Burns, Ian Broudie, Holly Johnson, Ian McCulloch and the whole
Liverpool scene so finding places to practice was not too difficult. Our band
was "Why Control". We played with the Toilet's, Mike Peters band before 17 and
The Alarm, and a few shows with The Brownshirts. Paul Adams actually practiced
with us for a while
around 1977-78. Between 1977-79 we played many events around the NW in
Ellesmere Port, Liverpool, Chester, Queensferry and were lined up to play Eric's
lunch gig but got cancelled for a reason that I do not recall.
Why Control played mostly
original material, although on one occasion we played the classic Clash '1977', and on one
other we had a go at 'Borstal Breakout'. We were from the Clash, Pistols and Buzzcock's troop, but we had a list of appreciated 77 sounds that ranged from
The Adverts to X-Ray Specs. The Spitfire Boys were an energetic Liverpool punk
band that we enjoyed who had started to create something for Liverpool, but again
they got skinned by Roger Eagle's arty direction. In fact as I recall we named
Bombsite around the whole Spitfire Boys styling, and similarly "Why Control"
were the leather jacket lads with loud broken amps. No keyboards or lampshades
on our heads; ours was garage guitar with a machine gun beat. We were chaotic,
distorted, and fast.
Many of the gigs were
interrupted because of fights; either us or the punks watching. I remember
playing a Rock Against Racism gig and the whole place erupted when the scuffers
arrived as someone decided to close the bar early and it made the papers. We did
not do any studio stuff, only live. Funny we almost felt like that would be a
sell out to go to a studio. When the whole thing turned to "Tainted Love" we
bagged it and ran.
The Why Control line up was :-
Cookie - Cliff Ison - Vocals
Mart - Martin Cass - Guitar [pioneer of Bombsite]
Grom - Colin Grombach - Bass
Algy - Mark Hodgkinson - Drums [pioneer of Bombsite]
Other bands like
the Mutant's? A funny thing happened that summer. Mark was walking down City Road
past the Black Abbot's recording studio in Chester and Paul Codman,
drummer for the Mutant's, was standing in the doorway and stopped
him. The shakedown was like "Hey Punk did you hear of the Mutant's?
Well we are recording our record right here". Mark and I spent the
next couple of days hanging out with them in the studio. Paul was
pushing the band to capture a Pistols sound on the tracks. But they
were a mixed bag of musical backgrounds, and the sound came out that
way. On stage they more energetic, kind of like Slaughter and the
Dogs, but the Liverpool art crowd was not letting them in. We used
to watch them down at the Havana, and I could feel Paul's
frustration to be accepted. Not sure what happened to them.
All in all it was a
great time for Britain when the youth movement turned stuffy Britain into
a direction of free thinking
entrepreneurship. Both Mark and myself consider ourselves successful. We
did not continue in the music industry as many of the Eric's clan did,
but that period left an impression that is still part of my DNA. The
punks that didn't OD have gone on to make a difference. A few years ago
I was awarded the Ernst & Young entrepreneur of the year award for
business. It was because of what Pete Shelley taught me.
