The Prefects
The Prefects were Birmingham’s first punk band as we can’t really count the Suburban Studs! Enthused by catching the Sex Pistols at Barbarellas, the band embarked on their own lo-fi punk adventure from 1976 onwards. Songs ranged from hardcore punk minimalism of songs lasting 7 seconds (VD), confrontational (Birmingham’s’ A Shit Hole) to more rhythmic extended avant-garde pieces (Going Through The Motions and The Bristol Road Leads to Dachau. In between were songs that were post-punk before Punk had even finished with a dash of Velvet Underground and Television.
The performances were equally as interesting and they did around 85 gigs before they split and a number of them very high profile with The Clash, Buzzcocks and Slits. Rob Lloyd the singer would go into the audience and sing, walk through the audience post-gig, sing through his pullover and shave on stage. His delivery of them was often hit and miss too and people missed the obvious (black) humour in the song titles and lyrics.
However, for all the reasons above most likely, a record deal eluded them despite two John Peel Radio 1 sessions that arguably just came too late and the band (like The Worst) never released anything in their lifespan.
Add to that a churn of drummers and bassists and a disillusionment with punk and the band just petered out in 1979 turning into The Nightingales.
The Prefects were and are fucking legendary!
The story of The Prefects is a game of 2 halves or maybe even four. But before The Prefects came into being there was the Church Of England, Gestapo and Motivators and connections to be made with the very approachable and open Clash.
Joe Crow tells the tale from an email from June 2005.
Robert, myself and the long-lost P.J.Royster first met up in 1975, alongside other hopeless pop-heads in the death days of glam (the New York Dolls were the thing, not to mention kraut-rockers
Neu!), introduced by our mutual fiend (sic) ‘Butch’ Scholefield (eventually invited to be an original member of the Motivators, more about which…) at his Mommy’s and Daddy’s house somewhere in Hednesford (they probably still don’t know). Where is Aggie now?
This was ostensibly, the first rehearsal of an already existing band (one gig in Anne’s shed?) named The Church Of England. Yes, Anne was there too, with mysterious friend Roy, of no perceivable
talent. Rob and I laughed, as ever; I knew a riff and all were mightily pleased, with themselves, if not one another. I think I impressed Rob because I’d managed to borrow an amp.
Rob, myself and P.J. went on to get together again, mutually inspired by various articles in NME (who was this old man Rotten?), for a (yet another) rehearsal in Anne Morton’s shed to form a
drummerless (paradise!) combo called The Gestapo. It was at this session that the name ‘The Prefects’ was suggested, by P.J. as I recall, but it could have been a private joke between the other two (Rob, at the time, was seriously thinking of calling himself Robert Perfect – get it? “Perfection, in itself, is a fault” Prefects/Perfects? No? Well, please yerselves).
The three of us also took a comic odyssey hitch-hike sometime in 1976 (I think) to Chalk Farm Road and Rehearsal Rehearsals; a horror trip instigated by Rob, who had done this kind of thing before. What the fuck’s a Tube? There we met Joe Strummer, Mick Jones and Paul Simonon (whose Kit-Kat I refused, even though starving in my nylon anorak and pig-tails. Hey, just kidding about the anorak!). Then Joe Jones (or was it Mick Strummer?), he formerly of the London S.S., uttered the immortal and fateful words: “You can’t call yourselves the fuckin’ Gestapo!”
Alan and Paul Apperley had been into music since school and wanted to start a band. They were also going to see bands like T Rex and Hawkwind at Birmingham Town Hall and went to see the Sex Pistols play at Barbarellas and that was that.
There weren’t enough musicians in Birmingham so they put an ad in the local paper. Rob Lloyd who worked in Birmingham and also wanted a band, but had the same problem finding people in Cannock, picked up the paper. This was around September 1976 and they all met up in October for a Patti Smith gig in London at the Hammersmith Odeon. They all got on well and so…
Joe Crowe And so we traipsed home to the dark heart of England via a death-trap oil transporter, a flooded river, tears of despair (not mine) and helpless, piss-taking laughter. In a bus station in Cannock.
I told Rob I was bored, didn’t see where it was going, etc. He responded to some ad in Melody Maker (as I was told – turned out to be the Cheslyn Hay Gazette, or some such) out of sheer contrariness and founded the Apperleys!
I was actually auditioned to be in my own band (for some odd reason, Rob still wanted me in there) but failed ’cause I couldn’t afford an amp, joining later in ’78. P.J. stayed on as their original bassist (Ted Ward joined a little bit later)
Alan Apperley I’m an ex-Prefect. I put the group together with my brother Paul in 1976. Robert answered an advertisement that we put in the Birmingham Evening Mail. Previously, we’d had a response from a greasy rocker who wanted to be Iggy Pop and from a bloke called Chris Collins, who really wanted to be in the Kursaal Flyers. Chris is now the comedian and football dilettante Frank Skinner and boasts about being in The Prefects in the early days, but this can’t be so because the name came from Robert. Even then he was a better comedian than a singer.
The original line-up from 1976 was Robert Lloyd (voice), Graham Blunt (a mate of Robert’s on Bass), Paul Apperley (drums, later drummer for the Nightingales) and me on guitar. Graham and Robert came from Cannock in Staffs and had previously had a band called the Church of England, or so they used to claim. I don’t think they played any gigs.
1977
The diary that follows was compiled from diaries, notes and memories of Alan Apperley and Helen McMorrow and was previously on a now-defunct Nightingales site. I’ve added comments, images and quotes.
March 12th Woodstock Road Birmingham, Private Party. We got pissed, trashed our equipment and the party ended with five police cars on the doorstep.
March 31st Rebecca’s Night Club, Birmingham, supporting Birmingham band Model Mania. We played a song called ‘Birmingham’s a Shit-hole’ (we were young then…) and the crowd threw beer glasses at us. After the set, when we were standing at the bar, the glass-throwers came over to menace us but when they found out that we were from Birmingham, they suddenly became firm fans. If we’d have been a London band they’d have decked us.
April 30th Barbarella’s Night Club, Birmingham’s most famous punk venue.
We supported the Suburban Studs, ageing glam-rockers riding the punk band-wagon. Widely disliked on the Birmingham scene.
May 5th Rebecca’s again, supporting the Buzzcocks.
May 9th Rainbow Theatre, London, supporting The Clash, Buzzcocks, The Jam, and Subway Sect. We open the evening with our seven-second, two-chord number called ‘VD’ whose entire lyrics were ‘Help me please help me I’m so weedy I’ve got VD please help me I’m so weedy I’ve got VD’. John Peel witnessed this after having apparently sat through a Genesis concert the night before during which no number lasted for less than half-an-hour. He boasts about this to this day.
At first playing more orthodox punk numbers their chance at the big time supporting The Clash at The Rainbow was put into perspective when “their entire gig pay consisted of four small cans of beer. Disillusioned Rob began to inject sarcastic humour into the bands songs and performances. Spiral Scratch 18. Aug 1990
Lloyd’s frustration set in a year earlier playing on the Clash’s White Riot tour, where disappointment and animosity quickly flourished. “It was the same old fucking cabbage,” recalls Lloyd. “Everyone wanting to be pop stars. In my stupid teenage mind I thought it was more revolutionary. I’m glad I got disillusioned so quickly so I didn’t waste my time thinking I was in a movement that didn’t exist.”
Lloyd’s band and the Clash came to blows. “Their roadies attacked a member of our band and put him in hospital and that was the icing on the cake,” he says. The Clash’s manager, Bernie Rhodes, exclaimed: “I’m a patron of the arts and you’re just a bunch of amateur wankers.” Years later, the Prefects released a compilation entitled Amateur Wankers. Guardian
May 11th Barbarellas again, but a private party with no PA system. A band called ‘Dole Queue’ support.
May 29th Chelmsford, supporting the Subway Sect, Slits, The Clash. We join the Clash’s ‘White Riot’ tour-bus for a couple of dates and get to stop in hotels just like all those dinosaur rock stars we were supposed to hate.
May 30th California Ballroom, Dunstable. Same line up as previous gig. The Subway’s set ends with the Subways, Slits and Prefects jamming the Velvet’s ‘Sister Ray’ together. This session made its way onto an obscure pre-release Slits record.
June 3rd Barbarellas. Prefects headline, supported by the Motivators who were Joe Crow’s band at the time. Joe would later join the Prefects, and would even later release the great single Compulsion/Absent Friends on Cherry Red records (the Nightingales’ label).
June 17th Wolverhampton Civic Hall, supporting Slaughter and the Dogs and The Vibrators.
June 26th Electric Circus, Manchester, supporting the Damned and the Adverts. The Electric Circus was Manchester’s finest venue, a great club. This was the first gig we’d ever played where a crate of beer – extra-strong lager too – had been placed in our ‘dressing room’. I vaguely remember Paul (Prefects, later Nightingales drummer) trading drum-riffs with Rat Scabies in the dressing room (‘Can you do a paradiddle?’ ‘What’s a paradiddle?’ ‘I dunno’ etc) I was so pissed by the time we got on stage that I spent most of the gig sitting on the front of the stage talking to the audience. At one point I careered backwards at high speed and fell backwards over the drum-kit. Days later, back in Birmingham, we were told by Endale Associates that we were cult heroes in Manchester.
June 28th Tiffany’s Nightclub, Shrewsbury, supporting Ultravox.
July 5th Barbarellas supporting the crass Wayne County and the Electric Chairs.
July 7th Westbury College, Bourneville, Birmingham. We tried to blag our way into supporting Geno Washington and his Ram-Jam Band, but the organisers told us we could only go on after Geno had finished his set. After his roadies had cleared the stage, we quickly set up behind the curtains. The dregs of the crowd were dancing to funky soul music when suddenly the curtains opened to reveal the Prefects in full flight. For all of three songs – then the plugs were pulled.
August 15th Vortex Club, London. The Slits headlined, we supported and Tanya and the Tormenters (whose only number seemed to be Blueberry Hill…) opened the set. Elvis died that night.
Image Credits above – Allen Adams
August 17th Bull’s Head, Birmingham, a pub venue, newly opened. We headline with the Motivators supporting.
August 20th Eric’s, Liverpool. The Spitfire Boys open the set, then us, and the Slits headline.
August 22nd Rebecca’s, Birmingham. The Verdicts open the set. Next up is Shock Treatment, starring a goofy nerd called Nigel Taylor on bass. He would later re-emerge as contact-lens-wearing John Taylor, bassist for Duran Duran and subsequently voted world’s handsomest man by some teen-girlie magazine, several years running if I remember right. It’s a strange world…
Punk77: John Taylor would be joined in the early incarnation of Duran Duran by TV Eye singer Andy Wickett who would write the song Stevie’s Radio Station which would become Girls on Film and he wouldn’t get a credit for.
The Prefects – Photo Credits Martin Booth
September 1st Rafter’s Nightclub, Manchester. Buzzcocks headline, we support and the Distractions open the set. Paul Morley interviews us for the NME.
September 5th Top of the World, Stafford supporting Rich Kids, Killjoys, and Generation X.
September 14th Bull’s Head, Birmingham supporting the Slits.
September 25th Electric Circus, Manchester. Slits headline supported by The Worst with the Prefects opening the set.
September 28th Locarno, Coventry supporting Subway Sect and Ultravox.
October 1st We play the last night of the Electric Circus, with Steel Pulse the only non-Manchester bands on the bill which included Warsaw (shortly to become Joy Division), The Worst, The Fall, The Negatives, Magazine, the legendary John the Postman, John Cooper Clarke, and the Buzzcocks.
The Prefects – We Are Crazy – The Electric Circus Manchester – Rare Live (1st October 1977)
October 2nd Jenks’s Club, Blackpool supporting the Buzzcocks.
November 1st Ambassador Hotel, Dundee supporting the Buzzcocks.
November 2nd Silver Thread Ballroom, Paisley supporting the Crabs and the Buzzcocks.
November 4th Clouds, Edinburgh supporting the Skids and the Buzzcocks.
November 6th Top of the World, Stafford supporting the Flys and the Buzzcocks.
November 21st Tiffany’s, Shrewsbury supporting The Worst
December 5th The Golden Eagle, Birmingham. We start a brief residency. Shock Treatment support.
December 12th The Golden Eagle
December 19th The Golden Eagle. The Assassins support.
1978
Their music is as bleak, cynical and loveless as their personalities, with a perverse humour. Their relationship to orthodox rock music is tenuous, at the closest a horrendous doppelganger parody. At its best their music can have a frightening intensity. Suspicious and arrogant, they have no friends, want none and despite creating an evolving sound, their potential for recognition is limited. NME Book Of Modern Music 1978
January 2nd The Golden Eagle. Birmingham band TV Eye support, along with our friend Butch who does his amazing, dangerous fire-breathing act. For some reason, Rob shaves on stage. I think it was his Dadaist phase.
Punk77: Remember Butch from Joe Crow’s pre Prefects piece? Butch was in The Motivators along with Joe.
January 7th Mr George’s Nightclub, Coventry. TV Eye support.
January 13th Huddersfield Polytechnic. We support The Doll, The Fall, and Sham ’69.
January 14th Sheffield Polytechnic. We support The (sic), and Sham ’69.
Going Through the Motions… The song was a choleric response to punk, which Lloyd had tired of. “We were supporting Sham 69 and they had a bit of a skinhead following so we started opening our set with Going Through the Motions, this five-minute dirge,” he says. “It was to purposefully piss them off and see how much we could antagonise them. It worked a treat.” Guardian
February 17th Dixieland Showbar, Colwyn Bay. Paul the drummer’s last gig with the Prefects. TV Eye support.
Punk 77: Paul Apperley will rejoin other members of The Prefects when the band splits in 1979 to form The Nightingales. Brother Alan will also join The Nightingales at a later stage.
March 10th Huddersfield Polytechnic, supporting Wire and with temporary drummer Stephanie. Joe Crow’s first gig with the band.
Joe Crow I still wrote for them, though (‘Supermen’, ‘The Only Real Heroes Are Dead Ones’, ‘625 Lines’, etc.)…”Barbarella’s” is a Motivators song, incidentally. Punk77 email, 2005
March 24th King’s Hall, Derby. We open the set, then the Slits, Patrick Fitzgerald and Buzzcocks. New drummer Adrian’s first gig.
March 25th Top Rank, Birmingham. Same bill.
March 30th Victoria Halls, Hanley. Same bill.
May 26th Mayfair Suite, Birmingham supporting Buzzcocks.
June 10th Rafter’s Nightclub, Manchester supporting Subway Sect (and reviewed by Paul Morley for NME).
June 23rd Civic Centre, Stourport.
August 11th Peel Session #1 (Things in General/Escort Girls/Bristol Road Leads to Dachau/Agony Column)
A nice line in matching knitwear!
October 27th (Can’t remember this gig!)
November 3rd, Eric’s, Liverpool supporting The Fall. Graham our bass-player doesn’t turn up quitting the band for personal reasons.
November 25th, Huddersfield Polytechnic supporting the Mekons and John Peel. Peely offers us another session.
1979
January 8th Peel Session #2 (Faults/Motions/Barbarellas/Total Luck)
February 10th Fighting Cocks, Birmingham with The Solicitors, Rebound, and Spizz Oil
March 27th – April 21st “4/4 Time: Scenes from the Diary of an Unknown Musician” exhibition of photographs by Brendan Jackson at the Holt Street Gallery, Birmingham. Joe Crow is the central figure, but the Prefects are featured also.
The trouble is noone understood the band. Johnny Waller writing in Zigzag 91. “Musical anarchy was The Prefects way that night -songs lasting just seven seconds, kazoo solos, a gross version of Queens Bohemian Rhapsody”
While in the same article Rob opines “We’ve got a following that applauds us for not playing or making records and being street credible but they don’t realise that give a chance we would make records and play lots of gigs.”
Humour, po faced, mainstream or whatever. A month after the Zigzag feature The Prefects had split up having played some 85 gigs and recording two John Peel Sessions. A strange band in a strange time.
Fade… The end as the most of the band morphed into The Nightingales…
Last word to Rob and that 1979 Zigzag feature.. “I honestly can’t understand why the world isn’t bazoomi about The Prefects”!!
Amazingly The Prefects didn’t record any vinyl during their career. Like Siouxsie and The Slits they defied categorisation and seemed chaotic, impenetrable and uncommercial. And while the former two moved at least towards a middle ground, The Prefects didn’t. They also weren’t exactly prolific in their writing of new songs so a lot of the set was getting on for over a year old but again you could say the same for Siouxsie & The Slits but they had record deals.
So thank God once again for John Peel and his radio sessions of which the band did two with a short gap between them. Peel was reputedly enamoured by the band when he saw them play after seeing Genesis perform terminally long waffly prog songs in concert.
May 9th Rainbow Theatre, London, supporting The Clash, Buzzcocks, The Jam, and Subway Sect. We open the evening with our seven-second, two-chord number called ‘VD’ whose entire lyrics were ‘Help me please help me I’m so weedy I’ve got VD please help me I’m so weedy I’ve got VD’. John Peel witnessed this after having apparently sat through a Genesis concert the night before during which no number lasted for less than half-an-hour. He boasts about this to this day.
John Peel was reputedly enamoured by the band when he saw them play after seeing Genesis in concert. While Genesis delivered songs lasting on average 30 minutes and full of pomp and intellectual waffle, The Prefects delivered their song VD in around 8 seconds which spoke to Peel’s heart more.
Robert Lloyd – Vocals & Harmonica / Roots Apperley – Guitar / Joe Motivator – Guitar / Ted Ward – Bass / Paul Apperley – Drums
As left but Eamon Duffy – Bass / David Twist & Andy Burchell – Drums / Dave Whitton – Sax
While Rob Lloyd formed The Nightingales post The Prefects demise, Rough Trade, for some reason, asked to release a Prefects single. They released Going Through The Motions / Things in General from the John Peel sessions in late 1979 and was one of the few punk singles not to be released in a picture cover.
The band were also recorded for The Last Night At The Electric Circus album, appear on the back cover but didn’t make the cut of the famous 10″ released by Virgin Records. There’s a long (very rambling) explanation of why and the quality of the recordings on the Electric Circus Archive Release Campaign Facebook page.
Below is the live track We Are Crazy from that last night at the Electric Circus on the 1st October 1977. It’s delivered at breakneck speed sounding like a cross between Crass and later hardcore punk bands which must have confused punters when mixed in with their other tracks.
For you completists here’s them with The Slits and Subway Sect on the White Riot tour murdering Sister Ray that came on a promo Slits record that did the rounds early on and a lter live album
The Slits, Subway Sect, Prefects – No More Rock ‘n’ Roll For You
Live At The Festival Suite 1978
Interestingly the song Barbarellas appears on a compilation called What A Nice Way To Turn Seventeen from 1979 for no apparent reason.
TalkPunk
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