List-D
Dek McHugh (Zippy), vocals.
List-D cropped up on the local Dundee music scene in the late 70’s, forming in 1979. The band kinda started off as teenage punks, music-wise, and their gigs had a bit of a reputation for often ending in fights! Influences were The Ruts, Sex Pistols, Wire, Clash and The Adverts.
Drummer Jim Grieve, tells how he got into the punk scene and the journey around the country before joining List-D.
Jim Grieves: I first became aware of punk when I was fifteen. This was 1977. This was the spark that lit the fuse on everything that follows.
We had gone on a family holiday to Cornwall, not really the centre of the punk universe, but when I was there I met this guy from Middlesex and we became pen pals. He was telling me about this new music that was happening in London and I didn’t really know what he was on about, but the next year we went back and we were driving through London on the way. There were things happening on the King’s Road, people fighting, some just hanging around in these strange clothes. It was then that the penny dropped and I thought, ‘This is that thing Dave from Middlesex has been telling me about. These must be punks.’
I started to think more about this punk thing, just that one small sight of it had got to me. And then I started to notice people going around town in Dundee who were dressed differently. Guys with drainpipe trousers, a completely different look at a time when we all still looked like refugees from the hippy era crossed with that pitch invasion at Hereford, parkas and anoraks and flares all over the place.
There was nowhere up here you could buy this stuff. You’d see someone on Top of the Pops and think, ‘I fancy a bit of that look’ but the only way to get it was to try and make it yourself. I remember I asked my mum for a pair of bondage trousers for Christmas. You could hear her shrieking down the street. ‘Bondage? What’s all this about bondage?!’ I can’t blame her; the notion of anyone wearing something called bondage trousers was completely beyond her means of comprehension. The generation gap opened by punk was as wide as the trousers of my dreams were narrow.
Above – Jimmy captured on the 1978 Captain Trip video Don’t Dream It, See It rehearsing with The Dispozest
I left school in 1978. I had no idea about what I wanted to do. Well, what I wanted to do was something that wasn’t work, but I had no idea what. My dad and my uncle had their own business, and my gran and grandad had a shop in Stobswell area of Dundee. So there was an entrepreneurial streak in the family, but I wasn’t feeling it when I finished with school. I had never really bothered with exams and stuff, I just wasn’t interested. The only thought I had was that I’d probably get a job with my dad or something.
Somehow, I ended up getting a job as an apprentice plumber. I packed it in after two months. It became ever more in focus – I wanted something for nothing. Or at least I didn’t want to work, to move into a job I had no interest in, after spending years at school and not being interested in that.
Punk was the thing that gave me a vague direction. It produced the idea that anyone could play an instrument. That thing of, ‘Here are three chords. Learn them. Now form a band.’ I decided to play the drums….
In 1978 I kinda ‘ran away’ to London. I saw Wire at the Red Cow Hammersmith in 1977 but some great punk bands played Dundee as well.
So whilst I was there, I answered an ad in the NME for a drummer, rehearsed with the band Dispozest (never played any gigs) who were London folk and was back and forward to Dundee till I ran out of money and went back home. There I joined D-List.
Later in 1980, they tried to develop a more mature sound and they played locally at venues such as the Tech (Bowling Alley), Tay Centre, Marryat Hall, and they sometimes ventured out of town too. In fact on one occasion, supporting the Mod band Beggar on a ‘Scottish walkabout tour’ which ended up with both bands being arrested up at Loch Ness for breaking into the Loch Ness visitor shop and grabbing dozens of kilts.
The photo below was taken in 1980 in the spare grounds near the Grey Lodge in the Hilltown area of Dundee. The Grey Lodge being where they rehearsed. Spot the nifty piece of graffiti in the background!
List D songs included:
Scottish Soldier
Knifepoint
H Block
These Boots Were Made For Kicking
A demo tape by List-D was recorded in 1979 at Seagate Studios, Dundee, but went missing, so sadly no known recordings exist.
The photos were published in the Dundee Standard, and while they were at it, Dek was asked to supply his Top 5 records.
After List-D split, Jimmy formed a reggae band called The Grip from Dundee who did quite well and moved to London. The Grip split in 1983 and he’s been promoting clubs and concerts ever since
Respect to GG’s blog ‘Retro Dundee’
TalkPunk
Post comments, images & videos - Posts are checked and offensive or irrelevant ones will be removed
