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"Hallo paul , here we go , the valves were originally a
band called…….ANGEL EASY!!!!???, playing what was known at the time
as….progressive rock!!!!!, i happened to be playing at the time , in a pub
duo , who were joined by ronnie macinnon(?) on guitar , he asked me if i’d
be interested in joining his band (angel easy) on vocals , as their rhythm
guitarist/singer couldn’t do two things at once , i agreed , but when i
saw the texts that i had to sing , i threw-up , and asked `if I could maybe write my own lyrics , they agreed , and after some
terrible gigs , where their “hard-core”fans totally hated and rejected
me….punk was born!!!, but don’t get me wrong ! we were not responsible for
the birth , it was coincidentally(?) the same time space ?????, we were ,
as you so rightly say , playing “pub rock” at the time , but it was all
around then anyway , basically , i’d never really written a song in my
life , so when i got the chance , i just went crazy !!!, and as my musical upbringing was rock and roll , that meant songs don’t last more
than three minutes (maximum) , and exactly at this time , i started to
hear things on the radio , like “new rose” from the damned , which is still
, like one of the best tracks ever recorded ever (ever) , of course , i’d
read in the music papers all the stuff about the sex pistols , etc.,
but i didn’t like the look of these guys (later i met steve jones and he
was pretty cool) , anyway , in answer to your first question , it wasn’t
really a question of us taking a punk direction , it was more that
we met each other on the crossroads (man) , and the people who were
booking gigs at the time , didn’t know who the fuck was who !!!.
STARDATE:1976….i guess punk hit scotland at more or less the same time
as it hit everywhere else , in edinburgh , bands sprung up like mushrooms
after the rain , matt vinyl and the decorators (a name dave christie stole
from me !) the scars , the freeze (the exploited came later) and many more
, but i wasn’t counting , basically “real” punks hated us , people who
liked rough rock and roll and r&b loved us , and as you might imagine ,
there are always areas of crossover.
Well , like i said , we were never a punk band , but probably becos of the
first single , we got gigs , and we did obviously have “fans”, but i think
very few of them were punks ! we played lots of fast songs , but none of
them had anything to do with margaret thatcher or looking for a job !
therefore we were looked down-on by the REAL punk bands , altho we did
have some friends among them , gigs were mostly bars and student unions ,
tiffany’s , eric browns , stewarts ballroom , the abercorn (?) , the art
college , but to be honest , i can’t remember them all.
I liked the rezillos very much , was in fact , kind of in awe of them ,
they seemed so professional ! and in fact “adolfs’’ was based on the riff
from their classic “can’t stand my baby” ! i never heard the self abusers
, but they were glaswegians , we did however do a gig with the original
simple minds (same group , different name) , but i didn’t like them , and
was convinced they were going NOWHERE ! i think there were many bands ,
when you consider the size difference between london and edinburgh ! .
We got some management , who got us our first support with tom robinson
(no relation) ,and after the gig , lenny love (rezillos manager) came
backstage with bruce findlay (?) who asked us if we’d like to record , we
were of course delighted , and we signed-up ! i have no recollection of
the deal , only that we got to drink some champagne , which seemed pretty
big-time to us ! i don’t remember the reviews , so i guess they were crap
! but we were probably just happy to get mentioned in the music papers !
obviously we felt like local heroes , i think at the time there were only
us and the rezillos with a record out .
It wasn’t a question of revertion (?) to r&b , that was more or less the
style i was writing in , like i said , there was a bit of confusion at the
time , between pub rock/punk/new wave , i also disagree that “tarzan/no
surf”killed the band , it was recorded not so long after the first one ,
and we were in fact beginning to get bigger and better gigs , we played
all over england/scotland and ireland , and got booked for a mini-tour of
sweden , all in 1978 when we had no record out at all ! i don’t regret
signing to zoom , and i don;t remember if ANYTHING went wrong , i think
our management were trying to get us a deal with a major , we had an offer
from E.M.I. to do a single , a cover of manfred mann’s “54321”( r&b)!!!
which we used to do for an encore number , but i guess that was fucked-up
? there were two or three offers from other companies to do an album , but
gordon , our drummer, who we trusted to know stuff ( cos basically the
rest of us didn’t have a clue !) , persuaded us that there wasn’t enuff
money involved , so i guess you could say we fucked that up ourselves !
i’m not sure any of us wanted to move to london , we
played there on a very regular basis , but i’m not sure we could’ve
survived there , i don’t think it was even discussed , but i couldn’t have
gone anyway , as i was married ( with children !)
The deal with albion was for publishing only , meanwhile we ( our
management ) were hoping to sign to a major, ( some hope !) history will
show that it never happened , and out of desperation , albion decided to
put out a single….”don’t mean nuthin”……which also DID nuthin at all !!! at
first we were excited becos it was played on the radio for a couple of
weeks , then silence ! we went to albion to ask why our lovely record had
suddenly vanished , and the head honcho said…….O , the record plugger has
gone on holiday !!!!! so of course we asked why they couldn’t get some
other bugger as a plugger , but it was just like they
couldn;t give a shit , so i quit !!! O! regarding the missing sleeve !
there was an excellent layout prepared by a guy called DON…somebody , a
really cool guy who worked with our management , and there was the
possibility of four different sleeves ( i think generation X had just done
this trick , and we were impressed ! )
but this was obviously beyond the financial reach of albion , which is
fucking ridiculous in a time when things like sleeves and colored vinyl
really DID make a difference ! .
Thats about when it ended , we played ONE more gig , AFTER we were
officially broken-up , at the first stadium concert in scotland ,
organised by our ( ex ) management , and they asked if we’d like to play ,
just for fun , so the cheetahs opened ,(good friends of ours ) and we
played second , on a bill that included squeeze and the undertones , to
mention just a couple , and van morrison was top of the bill , but i never
saw him , cos me and my family had to catch the last bus home (it’s tuff
at the top !)
Directly afterwards we were all caught-up by the dole , and faced with the
choice of getting a job , or going to court , so i got a job in a biscuit
factory , which drove me crazy , after two or three years of doing what i
liked , and being a little mini-star/big fish in a small pond , so i quit
, and got huckled again by the dole , who seemed to be determined to
crucify SOMEBODY !!! i got ANOTHER job and stayed with it ( remember , i
had a family ) But meanwhile i was writing all the time , i wanted to get
a new band together , and i wanted to write ALL the songs ( in the valves
i wrote all the texts , but only a percentage of the tunes ) but thats
another
story , i think ronnie went back to printing ( his trade ) , and got
married etc., i don’t think he plays anymore , but i don’t know as i
haven’t seen him for YEARS !! padda went back to his goverment job !!! and
i heard that he traded his bass for a set of golf clubs !!!!!! but i don’t
know , he got married sometime in the eighties , but the cunt didn;t even
invite me to his wedding…..so fuck him , i like to think that i got on
best with gordon/teddy dair , the drummer, He was cool/handsome/knew stuff
( except about recording contracts !!!) was mostly very sweet to me ,
except when we had personality conflicts ( like all the time ) i used to
see him quite often when i came home for a visit but we seem to have lost
touch.
I liked bands like the damned and the clash very much , i wasn’t crazy
about the people who took themselves too seriously ! i also liked X-RAY
SPECS , the saints , from australia , and john otway , I think we only
toured with joe jackson , but we played support for lots of big acts; The
stranglers , ian dury , the adverts , gen.x , saints , screwdriver (?)
,the members , the greedy bastards , etc.,.
I think we got pretty good coverage , considering that we weren’t SO big ,
of course it could always have been better , but then….so could we !.
We did a couple of sessions for the B.B.C., the kid jensen show , and
something else that ( of course ) i can’t remember , but i know we did
some good stuff , we were always told that we changed our repertoire too
often , with the result that we never quite gave material a chance to
“grow” and develop , this was probably my fault , cos i got bored with the
songs very quickly , but i remember ( big surprise ) one song we did on ,
i think , the kid jensen show.…”that’s for me “ which waas very much in
the style of the new york dolls , who i was a huge fan of , but these
things were just before we quit , and as far as i remember (?) we never
got tapes of the sessions !!!it would be nice to hear some of that shit
again , i think in the short time that we were together , i’ve forgotten
more songs than i can….you know , remember !!!.
i think we just thought it was cool to be in london ? i’m not sure that
london bands paid any attention to us ! and the public was generally
cooler/colder toward us than at home , but we were happy to do it , AND we
did have the BIGGEST graffitti (?) campaign in london !!! one of our
managers was up in court because of it , we got fined four hundred pounds
or something like that . We played the roundhouse , the marquee , the rock garden , the hope
and anchor , the nashville , the music machine ( later the camden palace), the last resort, in acton,
with screwdriver, and a few other things.
I hope i’ve answered some of
your questions to your satisfaction , and if there is anything else i
can help you with just let me know , dave .
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