Eddie Duggan

How important was The Roxy to punk ie the bands the audience?

Eddie Duggan: I think it was incredibly important, especially in the early days: the scouse-pop scene in the early sixties has The Cavern, jazz had Ronnie Scott’s, the renaissance in popular music that started in London in the mid-1970s will always be associated with The Roxy.

When did you first become aware of The Roxy?

Eddie Duggan: I’m not really sure. For some reason, my memory of those years is a little patchy (it must have been that bang on the head). I saw—or rather heard—lots of bands there that became established names on the scene: Buzzcocks, Chelsea, Eater, Generation X, The Models, Slaughter and the Dogs, X-Ray Spex, By the time the so called “American Invasion” happened—the package that brought over Cherry Vanilla, Wayne County, and some of the other bands on the New York scene, The Roxy was well established as a venue and had been the focus of the London scene for some months.

The club has kinda grown to mythological proportions. I don’t think it gets the recognition it deserves. When you run through the list of bands that played there it basically is a dictionary of punk and new wave Do you think it deserves its reputation?

Eddie Duggan: Absolutely. There wasn’t really a single venue like it before it opened, and after it closed, changed hands, went into decline, or whatever it was that happened, The Vortex opened at the Oxford Street end of Wardour Street—that was a great club too—and The Music Machine and Dingwalls in Camden Town had also become venues of note, but while they might have been better venues, the Roxy Club is the spiritual home and the most significant.

Who were the faces on the scene apart from the usual suspects?

Eddie Duggan: Well, there were certainly plenty of familiar faces, people that would always be around. There was usually a bunch of birds from Bristol, with stencilled shirts, the old stockings-without-skirts look, and lots of eye make-up; there was also a strange woman who was always on her own that I used to erm, chat with, sometimes, whom I used to refer to as “Bianca Jagger” although I suppose on both legal and moral grounds, I should point out that I only referred to this woman as “Bianca Jagger” with very prominent inverted commas, and that she was not and nor do I mean to imply that she was ever in any way “Bianca Jagger” without inverted commas.

Sometimes people would gesture across the small crowded upstairs room to point out Julie Burchill and Tony Parsons, but I despised both of them long before it became trendy to do so;

Right Burchill & Parsons

even now I toy with the idea that in response to some of Parsons’ assertions on The Late Show Tom Paulin or Germaine Greer might lay into him, a la Sid Vicious who, by all accounts was a tosser of such magnitude, he could hardly find his way into a paper bag, much less punch his way out of one, but he beat up Tony Parsons though.

There was a clear divide between the originators of the punk movement and the followers. Was the Roxy very cliquey? You read of Burchill and Parsons sitting upstairs on their own or Siouxsie ignoring The Damned?

Eddie Duggan: I suppose it was kind of cliquey, but I think there were cliques within cliques. I was never really close enough to any inner circles. I’m still mildly narked that, despite several phone calls to Glitterbest, which was Malcom McLaren’s set-up in Dryden Chambers, the miserable bastards wouldn’t tell me what was happening with the boat-trip, so I ended up missing it because, although I knew something was happening, I didn’t know where. This after I went around Oxford Street at Malcolm’s behest, posting “God Save The Queen” fliers on anything they’s stick to. As far as the Roxy goes, some bands were more hip than other (the term then was “cred”, which one either “had” or “lacked”). The Clash had it. Siouxsie and the Banshees had it, or were perceived to have it, while The Damned didn’t, nor did The Vibrators, nor The Stranglers.

Can you describe a typical night there, the atmosphere, bands and audience?

Eddie Duggan: The night would probably start with the walk from Covent Garden tube, as there’d usually be someone else heading toward The Roxy. Neal Street is quite different these days to what it was like in the first half of 1977. Now, it’s vibrant and bustling, all bright and crowded; full of restaurants and coffee bars and gift shops full of overpriced tat for tourists. Then, it wasn’t much more than a poorly-lit alley. I think there may have been a pub on the right, at the end nearest the station, The Roxy was about half way up on the left and, besides a few bags of rubbish, there wasn’t much else—not open at eight or nine in the evening, anyway—until you came out at the Shaftesbury Avenue end.

Getting past the door would require having one’s name on the guest-list, simply slipping in if it was crowded enough at the doorway to get past the little kiosk-window or, alternatively, handing over some money. However one got in, the atmosphere inside was usually one of upbeat anticipation. People would be milling about upstairs—perhaps some foreign journalists would be snapping portraits of the more spectacularly dressed clubbers—and a stream of bodies would be travelling in both directions up and down the narrow staircase. On the lower level was the larger room where bands played on a makeshift stage (beer crates and boards) there was a DJ booth to one side, and a small bar in front of the tiny dressing room to the other, which were separated from the stage by the path of the human traffic spilling in from the stairs.

There were always familiar faces in the audience—people you’d recognise from the audience at other gigs, either at The Roxy or from other venues, or people from bands. There’d be a smattering of outsiders as well—“straights” just in for a look, or A&R people from record companies. The notable thing about the Roxy crowd though was that it was quite democratic—there was no VIP area or any of the bollocks that goes on in clubs these days, with differential queues or special bars or areas.

When a band was due to play, they’d come out from the dressing room behind the bar, walk the six-foot or so distance to the stage (across the traffic flow to and from the stairs) step up onto the beer-crate stage, count to four and they were off. The audience were inches away from the band and, if there was a lurch in the crowd—and often there was—the people at the front would end up rolling around on the stage, bumping into band members. Sometimes pogo-ers would get a bit enthusiastic, perhaps shaking each other or slamming into each other as they bounced around. I’d try to stay out of the way of the jostling, and try to concentrate on watching the band, taking pictures, drinking, smoking, or doing all of them at the same time.

An audience at The Roxy would often comprise of members of current and future bands. Do you think this contributed to its appeal?

Eddie Duggan: Absolutely. If it didn’t seem to do so at the time, but it certainly did by the time people were going to The Vortex and The Music Machine.

What nights stood out for you and why?

Eddie Duggan: Well, there was one night when I was a little the worse for wear (perhaps I had inadvertently mixed my drinks) and I think I may have tried to set fire to Wayne County while he was playing. After the set, we engaged in a slanging match in the dressing room. If I didn’t apologise for the attempted arson at the time, I hope I did subsequently. Another night I somehow ended up working behind the bar. I’ve no idea how this situation came about but, while I was handing over cans of beer, I did put some money in the till, even if I was handing out plenty of freebies to people I knew. As far as performances go, I remember The Police used to play two sets a night. Back then they were Sting, Stuart and Henri. They’d play as The Police and then Sting and Stu would come back and play a second set with Cherry Vanilla. I think I also remember The Heartbreakers playing there too, possibly as part of the same themed “American Invasion” when several bands from the New York scene came over. I used to have the Roxy handbills, along with old copies of Sniffin’ Glue, but they’ve long since gone the way of old bits of paper that have probably been kept, but have somehow managed to disappear.

Any bands that stood out there that should have made it but didn’t

Probably not. In fact, the question might be recast as “Was there anyone who made it who shouldn’t?” I reckon if we could turn back the clock and revisit a few nights back in early 1977, we might be surprised at how crap it all was at the time. There was plenty of energy, and everyone was young and angry and had nothing left to lose, but it might not have been that good really. There; that’s my shocking statement. how about that for outrageousness?

The Roxy closed and the reopened? Any noticeable difference in atmosphere?

Eddie Duggan: Yes. A marked difference. When Andy Czezowski ran The Roxy it had a great atmosphere, but when it changed hands things really changed. I remember one night there were bottles being thrown in the street outside; I think I blagged a lift most of the way home from someone in Eater, (or from their mum!) that night, but it wasn’t pleasant. Fortunately, however, The Vortex opened up soon after (I’m not sure now, but it may even have called itself “The New Roxy” for a couple of weeks), which was a good venue, but I think an episode had certainly closed. I’m not sure why—I think the answer to that lies in inner cliques and business arrangements, and who knows what else. But when the club changed hands, that was the end. It may have been something as simple as bookings and band loyalties, or there may have been other factors at work. There were rumours too, toward the end of the life of the original Roxy, about how things were about to change for the worse, but I can’t recall any details now.

How important were drugs to punk rock?

Eddie Duggan: Drugs? Do you mean illicit substances? I think it was only the boring old hippies who made The Roundhouse smell funny that were interested in such things. Actually, to be serious, little blue pills were very popular back then, and I was told that three could usually be secured for a pound from someone in a dark corner of a club. Apparently, a powdered form of the active ingredient in the blue pills was also popular, and was widely used by some people around that time too. Quite a few smelly roll-ups were smoked as well, and not just by the cheesecloth-shirt-sandals-and-a-beard brigade. I think I remember reading somewhere that a piece of toffee-like substance, allegedly weighing an eighth of an ounce, but invariably a bit less, was about seven quid back then. Obviously, the yellow peril and yuppie snuff were around, but the prevalence and cheapness that would characterise these two particular substances in the following decade hadn’t made them as widely available or as affordable in the fag-end of the seventies as hash and speed.

Forget drugs. Give me food! Photo – Eddie Duggan

However, it may have been the American scene that really ran on drugs. The Ramones advocated the use of dry-cleaning fluid for uses other than removing stains from clothing in “Carbona Not Glue” and they also sang “Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue”. Meanwhile, Johnny Thunders, Dee Dee Ramone and Richard Hell were co-credited for “Chinese Rocks” while Lou Reed had famously serenaded the effects of the drug in “Heroin”.

British bands, on the other hand, sang about more mundane things: The Sex Pistols wrote about “Holidays in the Sun”; The Boomtown Rats were moved enough by a casual glance to record “Someone’s Looking At You”; Siouxsie and the Banshees were more interested in a Chinese takeaway than in Chinese Rocks, as demonstrated by “Hong Kong Garden”; The Jam, inspired by a trip into town, penned “In The City”, while Elvis Costello reported, albeit parenthetically, that he didn’t want to go to Chelsea.

Drugs then, I would suggest, were entirely irrelevant to the British music scene, and had been ever since The Beatles decided that they had had enough of hallucinogenics and the old wacky baccy, and declared that they would stick to tea but might indulge in the odd glass of sherry with a bit of shortbread so long as it was after six o’clock, but still before seven so as to avoid “a head” the following morning.

The Live at the Roxy album? Was it a fair representation of a night down at the club? What did you think of The farewell to The Roxy album or had you moved on by then ?

Eddie Duggan: I’m not sure that it is representative, really. As the saying goes, I think that one would have had to have been there. To be honest, it’s not something that I play, although I have just pulled it off the shelf to have a look. On the back cover, in the top left-hand corner is a shot of the dressing room, in which somebody in leather trousers (Siouxsie?) is bending over. My initials, ED, scratched into the wall, are clearly visible on the right of the picture. Another thing I don’t play, that dates from around the same time is the Max’s Kansas City compilation. I do have a much more playable collection from that era in the form of the Live Stiffs album. But when the thirtieth anniversary special edition remixed compact discs with bonus material and colour booklets of these things are released, I don’t think I’ll be queuing up at the counter of the local record shop with the reissues in my hand. I’ll wait until they’re remaindered.

Roxy graffiti – bottom right is Ed’s

How did outside events (Sex Pistols negative publicity) effect The Roxy ? I mean as punk got more publicity did the atmosphere change? Tourists? Violence?

Eddie Duggan: As I mentioned earlier, sometimes there were a couple of “outsiders” who’d come in for a look around, but I don’t remember that happening particularly often. The only real outbreak of violence that I remember is the bottle-chucking incident that I referred to back in question ten, although having said that, there may have been incidents I didn’t see or that I just don’t recall. There were some hairy moments around the Kings Road though, and of course Paul Cook and Johnny Rotten were attacked, and Rotten was stabbed as a result of the media hype after God Save The Queen was released.

What were some of the worst bands you saw there and why?

Eddie Duggan: Oh, there were some crap bands. Perhaps it was the acoustics on certain nights, or perhaps it was musicianship, or perhaps the songs just weren’t catchy enough. Rather than rattle off names though, I think I’d prefer to say that the quality was variable.

Any moments from attending the Roxy that stand out among others as after dinner anecdotes ?

Eddie Duggan: Well the night I “worked” as a bar steward was one, although I think I’d need to get the details from others with clearer memories of quite what a bar steward I was, and the incident with a lighter was another, but there was also the time, just after the club had changed hands, that I turned up at the door with a mate and I was asked if I was the new disc jockey! Obviously, the answer was yes, so we swanned in, sans vinyl, down the stairs and into the booth. I can’t remember if we had actually worked out how to switch on everything and had started playing records, or if we were still flicking switches and tapping the stylus when the real disc jockey arrived. As I recall, his name was Mick and he was from Gants Hill. I can’t remember how the evening ended, but it must have been fairly amicable, as we met up again some time later and I even lent him a copy of Metallic KO, on Skydog, with a grey cover. I remember because I never got it back. I never got my Bowie bootlegs back from Wayne Barrett either, who “borrowed” them while we were round at The Cuddly Toys’ house in Hendon, and took them off to Manchester, but that’s another story.

Eddie Duggan: