The Solicitors
The Solicitors were a Birmingham punk/post punk band formed by Mark (Max) Freeth after seeing The Boys in the legendary punk venue Barbarella’s. It just took a while to actually get going; quite a while in fact! Max would later go on to front gothic legends Ausgang. Below is Max’s account of the band from his forthcoming book ‘Ausgang: Dark Matters.’
The first version of The Solicitors emerged somewhere between the summer and winter of 1977, but it existed in name only. A couple of mates, Dave Tustin and Tony Jinks liked the IDEA of it, but it never came to anything. I, however, LOVED the idea, and was the only one who took it one step further.
A couple of other mates – Mick Baker (guitar), Mike Rhodes (bass), Gary Foreman (drums, replaced by Glyn Rickards after he answered a ‘Sounds’ ad in May ’79) and Colin Keight (2nd guitar, who didn’t even make it to the first gig) – looked on the whole concept as entirely do-able. I, of course, with my super-massive ego, had to be the singer…
I came up with the name, The Solicitors (edited to simply ‘Solicitors’ in February ’81) and I was also in charge of the band’s artwork, for which I drew on movies, comic books and literature for inspiration. I was trying to create an identity for the band, so I hijacked the word ‘nagoy’ (naked) from Anthony Burgess’s ‘A Clockwork Orange’, which I was obsessed with.
We hired out Castle Vale’s Astral youth club to rehearse with minimal, crappy equipment to begin with, but that changed after our first show. I don’t know how we talked the board into it, but amazingly, it was during the kids’ lunch break at my old comprehensive school, Thursday, November 30, 1978, on the large main hall stage, where morning assemblies were held. The hall was rammed to the gills with what seemed like the WHOLE school – the entire age range – and they went absolutely mental! We charged 5p (!) entrance fee and, astonishingly, with the proceeds we were able to buy a second-hand PA system from Musical Exchanges in Birmingham’s city centre!
The Solicitors continued rehearsing, playing the local scene, getting our first ‘Melody Maker’ mention on February 17, ’79, and we made a total of four sets of demos. The first we recorded at fellow local band, Denizens’ drummer, Steve’s Moseley flat in January ’79, the second at Frank Skarth’s studio in Erdington in June, the third at Phil Savage’s Outlaw Studio on February 27, 1980, and the final one on May 8, ’81 at Woodbine in Leamington Spa. The first two are pretty bad (not either of the engineers’ fault, you understand – we just couldn’t PLAY!), but the last two stand up pretty well, displaying a move away from the more obvious punk influences to a more off-kilter, scrappy, early Adam and The Antz vibe. Early songs had titles like “Motorway Accident’ and ‘Deformed Love’, later material included ‘I Wouldn’t Want To’ and ‘Hide Your Face’.
Looking back at the flyers and posters in my archives from those years, I’m surprised at how many gigs The Solicitors played – Holy City Zoo, The Golden Eagle, and we started Friday night gigs at the Star Club, a tiny first-floor city centre venue which doubled up as the local Communist Party HQ – of which, our bass player, Mike, was a member. We even got as far as Stratford-on-Avon (!) – a gig at The Green Dragon.
Solicitors demos – Hide Your Face & I Wouldn’t Want To
We played shows with the likes of The Prefects (who later became The Nightingales), The Au Pairs (we actually gave them their first ever gig at the Star Club in January 1979), Spizz Oil, The Denizens, The Bastards, The Androids, The Safe Europeans, The Rockets (later, The Modern Boys), Gods Toys, The Privates, Tarzan 5, TV Personalities, Savvy, The Urge, Eyeless In Gaza, The Groovy Lepers, and Headbolt, amongst others.
In July 1980, The Solicitors added my girlfriend at the time, the late Joanne Murray, or ‘Jowan’, to the line-up on backing vocals. Her first show with us was at The General Wolfe in Coventry on August 16.
The furthest away from Birmingham we got was a festival in Weymouth with 021, The Skavengers, Helpless Hew, and The Undertakers, through Paul ‘Panic’ Florence who, along with his pal, Lorraine Adey, was managing us during his downtime from vocal duties with fellow punk outfit, The Accused. We all travelled to and from the show in the back of a Ford Luton van, complete with gear…
I received a phone call in June ’79, from a promoter in Norway asking if The Solicitors and The Rockets would be interested in coming over to play some shows! You bet! We couldn’t believe it! How did THAT happen?! Actually – it didn’t.
Their publicity machine went into motion, and I got another call asking, “Have you got your work permits?”
“Our what?”
“You need work permits to play a show in Norway!”
“Err… no…”
Needless to say, The Solicitors conquering Scandinavia never materialised…
Solicitors eventually ran its course, as Jo and I seemed the only two who were in any way serious about making something like this work in full-time. The others didn’t seem that bothered. So, it was time to find other people that were. Thus was born Kabuki, which eventually morphed into Ausgang.
Mark (Max) Freeth – March 2025
TalkPunk
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