Muvvers Pride were a notorious all girl band formed as early as 1977. The girls were all well known and recognisable members of the later ’77/’78 punk scene around the Roxy Club in WC2, Vortex and the shop BOY in the Kings Road where all the band at some stage worked. Home and rehearsals were around squats in Kensal Rise. While they never got to record, their gigs were anarchic true punk affairs and the band were often used by filmmakers, photographed by the general public and appeared in various punk books. This feature gives a real taste and feel of the second wave of punk that’s no less interesting than the first and has some fantastic photos to accompany contributed by the interviewees.
Muvvers Pride was formed in 1977 with Nadine Marsh and Martha Kowa before Nina Spencer and Subie Barnes joined the band. Nadine and her brother are the prime movers.
Martha Kowa (Bass) I came to be in Muvver’s Pride because of starting King’s College in 1977 with Nadine Marsh. Her and her brother Roger were always interested in music and they wanted to put a band together, initially togther. But when Nina became the drummer, Roger thought it would be a good idea to have an all girl band. So I was already friends with Nadine and then Nina, who was also at college with us.
We spent two years going to every gig in and around London at the time. We were all art students looking for ways to express our views and political interests. Nina was doing drama. I can’t remember what Nadine was studying and I was doing art, photography, embroidery and sociology. In those days you spoke to each other, went to the pub and met other like-minded students. Gigs didn’t cost much, and once you were known on the circuit, you got in for free. I also worked at BOY.
We met Suby at a gig and that’s how we came together. Nadine and Roger taught me how to play bass; it was very basic keys I learnt. I was with them for a year or so and it took the whole of ’77 rehearsing before we got our first gig at the Vortex.
Martha & Nadine and Martha and then boyfriend Malcolm Black – Photos courtesy Martha Kowa
Nina Spencer, who had been at school with Martha and was part of the punk scene and the Roxy Club from its earliest days, was next to join.
Nina Spencer (Drums) I used to go to Global Village and many of the faces I saw there ended up in the Bromley Contingent. I knew Don Letts from when he worked in Antiquarius in the Kings Road.
The first bands I saw down the Roxy Club were The Dammed, Eater and X Ray Spex and a few others I can’t remember. There was always about five bands playing. Cherry Vanilla and Wayne County was an amazing night at the Roxy Club. I’m actually on the live Roxy album speaking hahha! Someone asks me about Chelsea and you can hear me say “Yeah Chelsea are a good band.”
In was in late 1977 when Dee Marsh asked me if I wanted to be in a band and could I play drums. I said yes to both but I had never sat behind a drum kit in my life. She invited me to her mums house near Camden and her brother Roger was there and they had a kit set up in their bedroom. It seemed easy enuff; I mean what did I know?
After that it gets a bit vague. I don’t even remember who came up with the name.
Then Sue Barnes aka Suby.
Suby Barnes (Vocals) I grew up in Brixton with my Mum, Dad and two brothers Michael and Harry. Michael is a hairdresser and worked for Ricky Burns Hair in the Kings Road. I worked as a junior and this was 1976. Michael got me into bands like the New York Dolls and David Bowie.
It’s really hard to pinpoint when I met the rest of the band; we hung out at the same clubs (Vortex, Roxy, 100 Club) and very soon the idea of starting a band came up. I still don’t know how I came to be the singer! I met John (known as Abe back then as he is a Lincoln) around the same time. I went out with Gary Olsen [was in his own punk band Swank with Nigel Moore of The Lurkers and later became an actor notably in the comedy 2.4 Children] before John for a few months and he and Chris Bashford hung out with us too. John always says that he saw me on the other side of the road and said to his mate, I’m gonna go out with her”, we are still together today!
They come up with the name Muvvers Pride as the band name which was a take on the famous loaf of cheap white sliced bread available at the time.
Martha Kowa (Bass) I think it was Nadine, myself and Nina but I can’t fully remember. We started with Mother’s Pride, because of the bread at the time and also because of mothers being proud of their off springs. We eventually settled on Muvvers because of how Londoners use the ‘f’ or ‘v’ sounds in place of the ‘th’, as in my name, people always pronounced it ‘Marffa’ instead of Martha.
Martha departed after the one gig at the Vortex which, understandably, given the time to get the band going, didn’t go down well!
Martha Kowa (Bass) I wanted to go on to do my design course at London college of Fashion and due to that I decided to leave. The rest of the band were very upset and angry with me for dropping them, but I had my own vision at the time and to be honest I never wanted fame for something I didn’t think I was any good at. Needless to say I never saw them again. Except for several years later I bumped into Nadine on the bus and we had a very awkward chat.
Martha was replaced by another BOY worker – Lynne Easton. Lynne came from a more privileged background and was always a bit different from the rest of the band. She had been prominently featured in an issue of Womans Own in October 1977 in an article entitled Punks And Mothers and was pictured both with her mum, on her own and with her punk mates by the family swimming pool at their Wimbledon home. Also in the feature , caught at a live gig was Suby.
Her mum Mrs Bobby Eastern (described as an attractive woman of 50 married to a PR consultant!) described Lynn in no uncertain terms.
…I think punks are degenerate, and yes I think Lynn is too. “She is rebelling against her background… She’s always been a bit of rebel, she ran away from home when she was 16 to live in a squat in Tunbridge Wells, Kent… Frankly, I’m afraid she’ll end up in trouble.
Lyn herself said this.
“Just because my parents are rich,” says Lyn, “people think I am too but I don’t get a penny. I don’t think I’m any different from my friends. I like punk because its energetic, exciting, fresh. And you don’t have to pay pounds to see a band. Music was mundane before punk came along.
A Londoner, she rebelled against her conservative boarding school and, at 16, left to study at Joan Price’s Face Place. It was mid-1970s London and Pearl, as Lynne was renamed by her then boyfriend Adam Ant, caught the revolutionary wave of punk self-expression [and joined Muvvers Pride] Guardian Obituary Antony Easton
Her promotional bio in later band The Spiders, would describe her as make up artist by day and bass player by night and again her background.
The bourgeois member of the group from a good home with nice professional parents in Kensington but she is never there.
The band then were
Vocals – Sue Barnes aka Suby Guitar – (Nadine) Dee Marsh Bass – Lynne Easton Drums – Nina Spencer
Nina, Suby and Dee – Italian Vogue Magazine 1978 – Punk Feature – The text accompanying the picture says the band’s name was ironic about their parents given they were punks. The irony was Suby’s parents were very supportive ” We had loads of punk parties at Mum and Dads. My Dad was great, he would make everybody fry-ups in the morning.”
At Suby’s parents house Christmas 1977 – Martha, Suby & Nina in picture. Photo courtesy of Martha
The fifth unofficial member, and a key part of the band, was manager Mark Mason.
Nina Spencer (Drums) He was our manager and good friend. He took me to Acme Attractions in Portobello Road one night, unlocked the building and in a couple of hours he had measured me up and tailor made an outfit for me! He made the first zip trousers that The Clash wore. He was such a good clothes designer and artist. He kept the Pride housed and fed and made me practice my drums. He could turn his hand to anything and I owe him a big thank you.
Mark Bashford (Swank, Bazoomies Chelsea Drummer) Mark, Nina, Martha and me all went to West Hampstead Comprehensive together. It’s a small world. Me and Mark were a little older than them and in a different year. When we left we hadn’t seen them for ages.
Turns out we were all going to the same places and clubs and we just met up again. Nina and Suby were all part of the scene and Suby looked astounding; people used to take photographs of her all the time. Mark sort of started them; he encouraged them and got their first gig with Lynn. As I said , its a small world.
The band built up set including Muvvers Pride and Products Of Today.
Nina Spencer (Drums) We used to do Boris The Spider by The Who. Blah Blah Blah Blah (one of our own). This was the only lyric in the song and it lasted one minute hahaha.
Suby Barnes (Vocals) The songs I remember (but not all the lyrics) were I Wanna Be A Page Three Girl, VD Woman, the March Of The Crawlie Bobs (I used wear a big rubber spider round my neck) and my favourite, Blah Blah Blah!
Martha Kowa (Bass) I remembered we didn’t want to cover anybodies songs and wrote all our own songs, such as Page Three Girls, referencing the Sun newspaper’s page 3 girls. We wrote about all the issues women, young and old had to put up with. We got into punk, because it was expressive, different and we were demanding change from society. I certainly was sick of being call all kinds of derogatory name because of my mixed heritage. There was a great need for change of attitudes and class structure.
It was a change, not just in music but also in fashion and particularly what girls wore or didn’t wear which initially drove shock and then unwanted attention as Punk was latched onto by the media.
All girl bands were as rare as hen’s teeth back then they joined the ranks of The Runaways, Fanny and of course their fellow punksters The Slits though there was no comparison.
Nina Spencer (Drums) We were not really that intentioned in being an all girl band but it wasn’t an accident either. The Slits were a far better band then us but we were more girly so people let us play more.
Dee Hurley (Guitar) The Slits weren’t an influence. They were totally different.
March was arguably the best for gigs for the band as they played the Roxy Club, Vortex and Battersea Arts Centre. The Roxy Club was now under the management of the infamous Kevin St John.
Nina Spencer (Drums) The guy was evil and weird. I was homeless and going out with Vince Cunningham and after a night at the Roxy KSJ offered to give us a place to stay. Well we were driven to a snooker club in Shepherds Bush with the bouncers Tiny and Black Bill. I was shitting myself and even Vince who was a tuff little fucker seemed nervous.
We got out of the car and sat in the corner of the snooker place for a while while KSJ did some business and then drove us to his house. He went to bed and showed us our room. Me and Vince had sex then got hungry so I went to go into the kitchen and saw Black Bill standing guard in a short white terry robe outside KSJ’s bedroom.
Vince and I wrote “Thanks” on a paper plate and left quick time! To this day I have a nasty suspicion Vince and I were taped? I just have a feeling and it makes me mad and I feel stupid looking back on it. But at least I or Vince wasn’t raped or worse. He was an old time gangster with a sadistic queer sleazy thing going on. I have no trouble with anyone doing their thing but KSJ just seemed nasty.
17/01/78 Vortex, Wardour Street, London 30/01/78 Vortex, Wardour Street, London 31/01/78 Vortex, Wardour Street, London
10/02/78 Roxy Club, Covent Garden, London 12/02/78 Roxy Club, Covent Garden, London 19/02/78 Roxy Club, Covent Garden, London 26/02/78 Roxy Club, Covent Garden, London 05/03/78 Roxy Club, Covent Garden, London 16/03/78 Arts Centre, Battersea, London 19/10/78 Green Man, Euston Road, London 27/10/78 Cryptic One Club, Paddington 12/78 Rainbow Theatre, Finsbury Park, London (didn’t happen)
A screen-printed poster which “captures the punk aesthetic” while “poking fun at the well-known brand of white sliced bread at the time ‘Mothers Pride’,” she explains. “It’s just pink ink printed on white paper – with the letters masked over to reveal the paper underneath. Really simple but effective as a design!” Lucy Parker
Above – Lynne Easton at Battersea. Photo – Sarah Wylde
It was this line up that played the infamous Jock McDonald Roxy Club night where clubgoers would be given a free slice of bread.
Nina Spencer (Drums) Jock was important in the sense he was everywhere and he had a nose for knowing when something was happening; usually coz he was making it happen! He wanted to promote anything that moved and helped us a lot in the beginning. He was older than all of us and wanted to be in the scene so he was part of it in a PR but helpful way and he worked hard. Yup I remember the slice of bread thing it was funny.
I liked playing the Roxy Club but I would have to use other bands drums as there was no time often to set up 5 different kits and I could not reach the kick drum or high hat pedals.
Jock Macdonald Yes, I ran my own nights with The Plague and Muvvers Pride. They were brill bands and I did it as these groups were good and had real bollocks. The best night was a Sunday, where a slice of bread (M pride) could gain one entry!
The band at this time as you’d expect, given their inexperience, sounded rough but looked good and attracted a following not least through the popularity of the girls on the scene and Soobie’s brothers who were also punks
Dee Hurley (Guitar) The sound? Visually fantastic, musically very rough edged but we got away with it because we looked stunning and people loved them. There were no demos done. Everyone went mad and loved us. It was fun.
Memories of clubgoers from the day say the same.
Lance (Roxygoer) I had some friends up in London who followed Muvvers Pride so we had some people to show us around the Roxy. You could tell the place was on its last legs. There were a few resident Punks who looked bored and quite a few longhairs with rucksacks, maybe forty people total, and no atmosphere at all. Muvvers Pride were Punkettes, an ALL girl band (I think), and my early chaotic Punk ears enjoyed them. The five or six fans they had tried their best to create some atmosphere…but it was one of those dead nights really.
June Waller (Roxygoer) Sunday nights, was the unknown band night. It was moody and meaner than the other nights and was always half empty and smelling of piss and beer. There wasn’t as much adrenaline pumping through your veins as people were cliquier and trying to intimidate everyone else.
Marc Jeffries (The Plague) Jock’s night was always Sunday nights billed as a punk disco where he roped in a core of bands he knew. We used to go with him flyering on a Wednesday. Muvvers Pride, who were an all female band and looked great, always got to play. They were like an early punk Sigue Sigue Sputnik with big spiky hair and heavy make-up, but sounded dreadful. They looked good but couldn’t back it up with what they were playing, but at least they got up and did it!
I remember seeing bands like Muvvers Pride, a group of dirty looking girls, with flasher Macs and monkey boots, plucking at their guitars and screaming shit lyrics into the mike. I also saw Patrik Fitzgerald of Small Wonder Records; small wonder he survived it at all!
One of the reasons why bands constantly formed, split and swapped members was the sheer amount of people on the punk scene and what became well known faces. Add in friends and relatives and you had a ready made audience for any fledgling band.
Nina Spencer (Drums) I used to share a squat with Bristol Taffy and Mad Mick and Vince Cunningham. Taffy is the girl on the Roxy album cover, Vince is on the Clash City Rockers sleeve and Mick was in lots of pics. False Teeth Charlie is also photographed a lot. Fritz was one of the few black punks in the early days with bleached hair and Gabriel (right) was another black guy. Kate Horse who died of a heroin overdose. Aida. Beki Edwards was my best pal; she was at drama school with me and ended up doing the lead in a series on TV called South Of The Border. She was tall and black with loads of hair.
Little Kevin who looked a lot like Johnny Rotten and used to blag his way as him into lots of places hahaha; ended up doing a Levis advert. Jo King was great; her mum used to make us copies of bondage trousers for 1/3 of the price. There were two sisters, one of whom was called Pink Parts because she dyed her pubes pink!
Umm Nigel who worked in BOY. I remember coming back to BOY after hours and he was screwing Chrissie Hynde in the shop hahahaha! I don’t remember if they saw me catch them? Donald who was really ugly but a wicked soul dancer. Sharron. Ollie Wisdom and Paul Grotesque from The Unwanted who I went out with for a while. Both are dead now. Wally Meathead who was a nice guy but people thought he was mean. He used to steal me shoes and clothes ahhh how sweet! Martin from Kent and Jock MacDonald. Steve Strange and Boy George, our roadie Roy also known as Charles. Mark Mason, Micky Barns, Abe who ended up with Soobie and Nick and Benny from Manufactured Romance.
Nina Spencer – Lol that’s me with Mark Mason, Muvvers Pride manager on drums at the Roxy. Mark designed the zip jacket I’m wearing in the picture. I might have been doing sound check for Suby. Tampax is sitting on the stairs with Dee Hurley. Below all Muvvers Pride sing! Photos Derek Ridgers
Suby Barnes (Vocals) I lived in a squat above a fishmongers (or was it a butchers) in Kensal Rise. John lived there, Mark Mason and I can’t remember who else! We painted the whole house black including the ceilings and the floors. It was freezing there with broken windows. We were so skint we made toffee one day as there was only sugar in the cupboards. I remember drum kits and drug fuelled parties.
People I remember and hung out with: Little Craig Caton, Sharon Brooks, Swede, Doodah, Meathead, Roy Pierson, Steve Kennedy [read his recollections here on the Bored Teenagers site as roadie, bouncer at BOY and friend of Lynn], Rockabilly Steve, Donald, Tampax, Pink Parts, Chris Bashford, John Harlow, Jo King, Mole, Warlocks, Martin, Jayne, Lorraine and loads I cannot remember. It was 45 years ago!
Every Bank holiday we would go to Margate and cause havoc. We went when It was the Queens silver Jubilee and I got arrested for having ‘fuck the jubilee’ painted in the back of my shirt, great times!!
Mark Bashford (Swank, Bazoomies Chelsea Drummer) We ended up sharing a flat. Mark Mason’s brother used to manage Matt’s Fisheries in Kensal Rise and we were all kids wanting to get out of home and have our own place and he got us an outrageous cheap flat above the fish shop. Nina and Suby were there for a while then they went down the road and found a squat. It was really a scene – people would just get to know each other – you’d go to the Vortex or Roxy and meet other people. It was just a little movement.
For Nina when not in the flat or squatting, the Roxy Club would sometimes be a place to sleep rough on the streets afterwards which seems terrifyingly dangerous.
Nina Spencer (Drums) I would sometimes hang around at the end of the night as my squat was far away and most of the time I was homeless and just crashing at other places. Sometimes when my squat had fallen through I would sleep on a baby mattress that was in the doorway next to the Roxy Club…hmmm nice and cozy till you wake up in the morning all fucked up. Still I learnt to sleep without messing up my makeup or hair style and would make quite a bit of dosh posing around.
The ‘posing around’ would provide another source of income that later punks would copy.
Nina Spencer (Drums) I got asked a lot for my picture to be taken and after a while I decided to charge people. Then it started to happen so much that we used to carry large fat permanent markers and if people took pictures without asking we would mark up their camera lens. It seemed fair enuff!
Suby Barnes (Vocals) We made money from tourists, charging them for photos. How else could we afford to go drinking every night!
A couple of incidents with the band stick out for Nina.
Nina Spencer (Drums) I played drums for Sham 69 one night after the police came downstairs and dragged their drummer off stage? I don’t know why and it nearly caused trouble, but once the band started playing everyone just started pogoing around like wind up toys!
I remember a gig at The Vortex with Lynne standing there with her bass going to the sound man “Its not working. Something is wrong?” then someone, I am not sure who, said “Plug the fucking thing in!” She had no lead going from the bass to the amp but she got away with it.
John Harlow (Moors Murderers & Photons bassist) Vermilion and Dick Envy were drinking in the Nags Head one night before playing the Roxy and they invited us down to watch them and I think the Open Sores were also playing. Once their gig finished Steve [Strange] jumped up and asked if we could use their equipment so we jumped up and did an impromptu set.
The Moors Murderers
Suby from Muvvers Pride was in the audience and she was laughing at me and pointing and I asked ‘what the fuck was the matter?’ and she said ‘you’re not plugged in you moron!’ It would have been most likely me, Steve, Mark [Ryan] and Vince [Ely].
The band were friends with Steve Strange and had come across the Moors Murderers once before when they were plucked for some impromptu filming.
Nina Spencer (Drums) Myself, Joe King, Dee Marsh and Suby were plucked out of BOY while we were working by a Japanese film crew. They took us to a basement where they had a mattress on the floor and a swastika painted on the wall. We had them paint over it. I think they had a plan, but we said fuck it and started jumping on the mattress dancing around etc. The film crew was scared of us.
Then all of the sudden the Moors Murderers turn up. We knew Chrissie [Hynde] because she would hang in BOY with Nigel. Steve I knew from the Roxy and Global Village. We just messed about, got paid and left to go to the Roebuck.
Early picture of the band in BOY with original bassist Marsha
Eventually nearly all the band worked at BOY during the day and played and socialised at night. Even working could be dangerous in those increasingly violent times, in part fuelled by the media publicity.
Nina Spencer (Drums) After a while I worked for BOY along with Sue B, and Dee Marsh from the Pride and we had to wear BOY clothes in the shop. Every second Saturday during the footy season we would get peed on, molested and sometimes beaten by Chelsea fans! Seditionaries would ring us and tell us they were coming down the Kings Road and we would try and lock up the shop in time. The police were always around but never helped.
Suby Barnes (Vocals) I loved working in BOY. Mark Mason was manager and went out with Dee Marsh for a while. We all worked there at some point. It was owned by Jon Krivine at the time; a lovely man. I also remember working with Grot (Gronia), Caroline and Yvonne. I used to dance to the Exodus [Bob Marley] album in the window and we filmed with Janet Street Porter for TV. That was fun.
We hung out a lot with Mark and his brothers; a very funny and creative man. One time he covered my face in very elaborate make up, and then they tied me to a tree and left me there for about an hour!
We had to fight off, not only Teds and Skinheads but also Chelsea fans. The window was always being replaced with stronger and stronger glass! We had regular run ins with the Teds; Tiny the Ted (Roxy Club bouncer) saved my life many times!
The Kings Road was like a second home; we were always in the Roebuck and have great memories of that pub. We once got chased into it by a load of Skinheads and I remember hiding under one of the pool tables.
Once I was coming back from Antiquarious with my favourite tipple Horlicks and whiskey hahahha and some snacks for the rest of the shop staff and I got back too late to get inside the store they had locked it and hid in the dressing rooms so the police offered to get me out of there as I was heading for a severe beating from about 50 raging footy fans, so this is the only time I voluntarily got in a police car.
So they drove me to Sloane Square tube and there was about 100 teddy boys waiting to beat up the footy fans, the police said they had another job to do and told me to get out of the car I explained I was going to get a beating if they made me get out there. They did not care and I got ducked in the fountain there at Sloane Square till I nearly drowned my black eye make up was running down my face my hair was flat again!! and my white shirt which was all I had on apart from six inch red stilettos and some fishnet stockings had gone see through and stuck to me like a wet t shirt competition!!! I walked nearly the whole of the kings rd like that trying to get someone to let me use a bathroom to clean myself up and it was all NO PUNKS ALLOWED all the way. I was badly bruised and soaking and looked like Alice Cooper.
BOY shop – Photo Sheila Rock
Suby Barnes (Vocals) I had quite a few bad experiences but one sticks in my mind. We had a bad run in with the Teds and were chased into Sloane Square tube; I remember seeing a Teddy Boy being stabbed and that really shook me up. I got out of there and ran like hell! That left a really bad taste in my mouth, especially as I was friends with a few Teds.
The Punk explosion certainly was a media-feeding frenzy. Not only did the tabloids, broadsheets and glossy magazines give a lot of column inches to Punk, so did the amount of books that were published very quickly in 1978 that ranged from the celebration of the new youth movement, music, ideas and fashion to downright confusion and just exploitation.
One such book was In The Gutterby Val Henessy that was predominantly photos of punks and bands juxtaposed with images of people from tribal cultures and interviews with such punks as Vick Vomit and Rick Raw. Our intrepid Val signs off the thin tome published by Quartet in 1978 with
So there you have it -I’m pogoing onto the ephemeral punk bandwagon and capitalising on its energy, its spark, its vitality and its wit.
Be that as it may, the research probably entailed a visit to the Kings Road and BOY and rounding up of some Punks to take pictures of and be interviewed. What this meant was that you get some great pictures of Muvvers Pride including Suby (above & right) and Dee below.
Another book was “Not Another Punk Book” by ‘Isabella Anscombe’ in 1978 that was a lot more arty and pro-punk. It again featured a variety of punks. There was a US and UK version and Suby appeared both inside and on the US version yet again on the cover alongside Jane Mumm.
“Punk is music, clothes, style, small magazines called ‘fanzines’. Punk is an attitude. An anarchic attitude which promises continual change. Promises it in look, lyrics, sounds and action. Anarchy is hard to maintain without bombing your own position”
Around mid 1978 Dee left (none can remember why!) and was replaced with another Dee. Dee Hurley was another Roxy Club regular. Initially, she was in the infamous Rottin’ Klitz for a short while before joining Muvvers Pride.
Suby Barnes (Vocalist) I can’t remember why Dee left. She came to our wedding in 1981. We never really saw her after that and lost touch.
Dee Hurley (Klitz, Muvvers Pride, Spiders) First time I went down to the Roxy mid 1977 I went on my own not knowing what to expect. I wanted to hear the music and be part of it. It wasn’t rough. Everyone was so friendly and that was it. I was down there as often as I could.
In the early days I had a live in job with a hotel in Sloane Square and the living quarters for staff were at a big house on Pimlico Road. Great place to be at the start of punk!
Yes it was the Klitz to start with and I wasn’t keen on the ‘Rotting’ bit lols and I played guitar with Skats on bass. We rehearsed at Kit’s basement in his home and I left the live in job and moved into the house with them in a spare room they had.
I had moved out by the time I got the offer to join Muvvers Pride. It was to replace Lynne Easton in Muvvers Pride and I jumped at that and it obviously didn’t go down well with the Klitz! So there was a bit of bad feeling there over that! The band was going before I joined which was I think early 1978. they were all working in BOY.
In mid 1978 the band got involved in the filming of the Great Rock N Roll Swindle as extras.
Suby Barnes (Vocals) We were extras in the Great Rock And Roll Swindle, running around in all this period costume. Vivienne and Malcolm asked us to be in itandI got pulled up by Malcolm because I was wearing brothel creepers! I was in a rowing boat with effigies of the Pistols. Just about everyone we knew at the time including the band were extras in it. We got paid 40 quid each and as much food as we could eat! That was a brilliant experience.
The band continued playing sporadically with one of their last gigs that didn’t happen a Jock McDonald wheeze about playing upstairs at The Rainbow.
Nina Spencer and Dee Hurley interviews May 2007. Suby Barnes May 2022. Martha Kowa Oct 2022
The end of the band came when first Nina left at the start of 1979. The band looked for another drummer to continue but when Soobie fell pregnant that was it and they called it a day.
Nina Spencer (Drums) You know I honestly don’t remember us splitting up. How awful is that? I went straight to singing in Lost Property which became 4th Reich and then became Manufactured Romance. Mark Mason did the cover for our single Time Of My Life on Fresh Records.
Dee Hurley (Klitz, Muvvers Pride, Spiders) We split up in 1979 with no record offers. We split because Nina went first and joined 4th Reich then Manufactured Romance. We brought in another drummer who was this really cute looking girl with blonde spiky hair. Debbie her name was and we called her Badger but she was a bit on and off turning up to rehearsals. Then what killed it was when Suby got pregnant and we all just decided it wouldn’t be Muvvers Pride without her.
Nina Spencer (Drums) Sue got married to Abe and had babies. Bless her! She and her family were diamonds.
Suby Barnes (Vocals) It ended for me around 1979 when it got a bit too commercial for me; it had lost its edge. We also had our daughter Clare then too and after that we were new romantics. A whole other story!!
I loved being in the band. Punk really brought me out of myself and I was free to express myself and I had a ball. We had a loyal following, we never made any money but got loads of free drinks which was great. It’s was the one and only band I was ever in. Punk, for me, was such an important part of my life and I don’t regret a second of it.
The Mail on Sunday did an article about post punk in about 1985. I did an interview and they printed a picture of me and my Son.
What happened to them all afterwards?
Nina Spencer (Drums) Dee Marsh? I heard she ended up having a fling with one of Pink Floyd but it may have just been a rumour.
Dee Hurley and Lynne formed the short-lived Pearl Harbour (not the USA act), before trying to get the original Muvvers back as The Spiders. Suby declined and continued working at “Boy.” Dee & Lynne recruited a new girl singer; 16 year old Debbie Sanders & ex Moors Murderers drummer (and brother of Rusty) Rob Egan into a mod/powerpop group similar to The Modettes. They released one single, Mony, Mony on Red Records and had an interview with Alan Anger in Zigzag April 1980 before fading away. In the interview, the Muvvers Pride song Product Of Today was mooted as the b side of the single but didn’t come to pass.
Lynne arguably made it the biggest by becoming a well-known makeup artist for many pop acts throughout the 80s before dying suddenly in 2006 aged just 46.
Nina Spencer (Drums) Lyn became a make up artist. She was such a sweet person!
Anthony Easton Her punk incarnation as bassist of Muvver’s Pride and the Spiders gave her an insight into the music business, and she was ideally placed when MTV appeared. Overnight, bands had to pay as much attention to their image as to their sound, and Lynne was the first – and initially the only – make-up artist in the field. George Michael, Bananarama, Paul Weller and Elton John were just some of the names she preened for the camera in those early days. But it was Boy George and Culture Club that cemented her reputation. She went on two world tours with them, and was George’s make-up artist on an episode of the TV show The A-Team.Guardian Obituary Antony Easton
Another band she worked a lot with was the Pet Shop Boys and Neil Tennant attended her funeral. The experience of which inspired the song Requiem in Denim and Leopardskin which is an elegy to her and to the London music scene which they were both a part of.
Another to pass away was Mark Mason who died of a heart attack in 2010 aged just fifty.
He and his partner, Amanda, were regulars at clubs and venues such as the Marquee and the Roxy. At the end of the decade, Mark took a job at the Kings Road clothing store BOY, becoming one of the managers and then a designer for the shop’s label (one of his pieces finding its way into the V&A).
Music was one of Mark’s passions and led to him working with and becoming a close friend of the punk band the Boys. He crewed for them, and later for the Ramones, who remained his favourite live band.Guardian Obituary
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