1989: The Stone Roses

April – June

We hadn’t been living in London for very long when our friend (and Bluetrain drummer), Kevin Moorey, told us there was a Boys Own party at the Holloway Road Studios, just up the road from where we were living. Kevin and I had written to each other while I was in America. He had started to go to Danny Rampling‘s ground breaking acid house club, Shoom along with Boys Own parties and I was very eager to go once we were back.

That’s Kevin, wearing the hat and Boys Own tee shirt.

We met Kev outside the studio – a mad place. There was a dusty old shop front with a massive platform boot in the window with a dark wooden door to the side. I used to look at it from the upstairs window of  the 190 bus and wonder what it was.

I wore a long sleeved tee shirt, baggy 501s, Argyll socks and a pair of red Vans. Kevin had a lovely pair of blue Kicker boots. The music was a wonderful eclectic mix of house, guitars and reggae. Andrew Weatherall and Terry Farley were djing. We danced and took it all in, walking home in the early morning. Talking excitedly as the street lights flicked off and it started to get light, looking down at grey pavement and red Vans.

It was so good to be able to go and see bands or hook up with people and only have to travel for about twenty minutes. Jumping on and off the underground trains, checking out new parts of London when you come back over ground. Meeting friends in Kentish Town or Soho for drinks. No more up and down from Farnborough to Waterloo.

The Triffids played the Shaw Theatre on the Euston Road in April. A lovely 1970’s, 400 capacity theatre, which I’d never been to before. David McComb was such a cool front man and song writer. He exuded that dark Australian charisma along similar lines as Nick Cave. Afterwards, I came out from the theatre, up the steps to the street, into the cool night air, hearing the noise of London around me and thought ‘yeah, this is great’. 

I had a few albums by The Triffids, including ‘Born Sandy Devotional’ which features this splendid song, ‘Wide Open Road’.

When I had been given my job at The Rock Garden, Sean asked me to stop running the Buzz Club. There was no way I could do this, so I didn’t. I had to make phone calls from the telephone boxes in Covent Garden in my lunch hour to book the bands. If I was talking to an agent on the phone in the office, I asked them not to mention The Buzz Club, strictly Rock Garden bookings.

We had a Buzz Club on Saturday 15 April. By late afternoon, news of a fatal crush at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield started to appear on the television. Nottingham Forest were playing Liverpool in the FA Cup semi-final. As more horrific details started to unfold, we left to organise the gig. During the night, much of the talk in the bar was about the disaster and the concert took place in a somber atmosphere.

‘Skin Storm’ by Bradford had come out in 1988 and I had the 7″.

Morrissey loved the band and invited them to support him on his first post Smiths show and later recorded a version of ‘Skin Storm’.

We put ‘Morrisey’s favourites‘ on the poster to sell a few more tickets. We had about 170 people in.

(Read about this gig in a little more detail here.)

I didn’t have a band myself at this time, but Bluetrain guitarist, Rudy and myself decided to do some acoustic gigs and record a few songs. We actually ended up getting a couple German gigs on the back of the 4 track recordings. Rudy and I flew over together and were joined by Danny, John Andrews and Rudy’s girlfriend Amanda for the second gig.

April 22nd Altenna and 29th Enger, Germany.

We called ourselves Here Comes Jordan and recorded a mini album for the Bouncing Corps label while we were there. We had met the label’s owner Hansi when we had toured Europe, supporting The Television Personalities in 1984. Hansi owned a record shop and there was a flat above it where we stayed. The album didn’t end up getting released, but Rudy sent the recordings to some friends of his and was able to organise a slot for us at the Singapore Arts Festival for June 1990. We got a few more London gigs on the back of that exciting news.

Danny and I went to another Boys Own do, with Alice a friend of mine from Our Price, and her boyfriend Simon. This time it was under the arches in Vauxhall. White brick arches. Bigger than the Holloway Road one, with hired toilets outside. I remember really enjoying Andy Weatherall‘s set. He played ‘Naive Melody’ by Talking Heads. We danced and got into the whole vibe.

Alice and Simon stayed the night back at ours. Simon was from Leeds and in a band called The Bridewell Taxis. We later booked them to play The Buzz Club.

On 2nd May, The Stone Roses album was released. There was a big Our Price Records at the end of Neal Street – I ran down there and bought it (on vinyl), I was slightly breathless to see so many copies displayed in the window. I got home and played it, played it, played it. Hearing the recorded versions of songs I had only heard live up until this point. They had announced two London gigs – the I.C.A. on the 15th May and another one back at Dingwalls on the 22nd. I had tickets for both.

Margaret Thatcher completed ten years as Prime Minister – the first British Prime Minister of the 20th century to do so.

Sean had given me the freedom to start an indie night at The Rock Garden. The first night was Sheffield band, Treebound Story. I loved their song ‘Forever Green’. The band featured Richard Hawley on guitar, Richard was later in the The Longpigs before starting a successful solo career.

I soon put on another band from Sheffield, this time label mates from my Dreamworld Records days, 1000 Violins.

A public inquiry, headed by Lord Justice Taylor of Gosforth, began into the Hillsborough disaster.

By the time The Stone Roses I.C.A. gig came round, they were really starting to explode. I spoke to their agent, Pete Target who said the phone in the office would not stop ringing with people wanting to book them. Pete put me on the guest list. The evening of June 15th was sunny and warm and I walked down after work, a lovely feeling – walking to a gig (a Stone Roses gig!) in London.

There were crowds of people on the Mall, trying to buy tickets. It had long ago sold out. I bumped into a mate of ours from home, Billy Campbell who had been at the Buzz Club show and an old school friend of Danny’s, Kieran Best (the drummer in my first band when I played bass and sang, aged 14). I wanted to check 100% we were on the guest list before selling my tickets. We were, so I sold them at face value to one very happy young man!

The gig was fantastic. I remember there being sound issues, Danny doesn’t, he remembers it as being brilliant throughout. The mists of time….one thing we both remember – everyone knew the words! We all had the album. They were still playing ‘Standing Here’ and ‘Where Angels Play’ so still a chance to show off knowing the lyrics to those ones…I’m sure you can hear me wolf whistling in the drop down on ‘Standing Here’ on this great live recording.

I booked The Waltones for The Rock Garden. They had released a few records on the Medium Cool label and featured Mark Collins, (later of The Charlatans), on guitar. Their album ‘Deepest’ had just been released. Medium Cool was a great label, run by Andy Wake, he also had The Raw Herbs, The Corn Dollies and The Rain on the roster.

Liverpool won the FA Cup final, 3–2 after extra time, against their Merseyside rivals Everton. Before kick-off there had been a minute’s silence for the Hillsborough victims, the teams wore black armbands.

20th May we had another Buzz Club. McCarthy‘s second visit.

Their album ‘The Enraged Shall Inherit The Earth’ had just been released. A great night, with local bands The Ha Ha Men and Railroad Earth in support. Similar in numbers to the first time they played, about 150.

On 22 May, it was the second Roses gig in a couple of weeks, this time Dingwalls, it was my third time seeing them at this venue and easily the best. This is one of my all time favourite gigs, it was mental. It was heaving – more so than when they supported The La’s there the year before. We danced and swayed and sang and beat Reni’s rhythms in the air. I was pushed and pulled, sometimes seeing people I knew sometimes smiling at people I didn’t know.

We had put Factory Record’s A Certain Ratio on at The Buzz Club in June 1986. We went to the Town and Country Club to see them the night after Dingwalls. They had a new line up which featured a bleached haired female singer. During the gig, I felt someone tweak me from behind, turned round and there was Ian Brown, ‘If she sucks in her cheeks any more, she’ll burst’ . Wow. Keep cool Jo, ‘haha, yeah’. It was Ian and John Squire still in town after their gig the night before. They talked about the Buzz Club ‘we thought it was really cool to see the promoter down the front’ (Ian had been on stage and noticed me?!) They asked if there was anywhere to go on to after this gig. Six months later I would have had no problem with this. By then, I knew lots of great clubs to go to and could probably have also organised guest lists. But we had only been living in London for a few months and sadly, I didn’t know anywhere to go. So we said our good byes after the gig and headed home.

The night after that, Rudy and I played the Acoustic Room at The Mean Fiddler.

The Stone Roses played The Majestic in Reading on 6th June and we went. An edgy night, but still wonderful.

A few days after that, it was back to the I.C.A. to see The House of Love on June 9th.

They played five nights in a row at the I.C.A., all sold out shows , with a different support each night. We were lucky enough the get The Lilac Time, Stephen Duffy‘s band. The House of Love‘s debut album had come out while we were in America the year before. I was reading about them in the N.M.E.s my mum had posted over and they were starting to get played on the alternative radio station we were listening to, KROQ. I bought the l.p. in L.A. and couldn’t wait to see them live.

Then, on 10th June a Buzz Club that had sold out in advance. My band Go! Service had supported The Housemartins at The Room at the Top in Chalk Farm in 1985. I had stayed in touch with Paul Heaton. We used to write to each other. He told me when he had got his first pair of jeans, to film the video for ‘Happy Hour’. They were very supportive and great people. Go! Service played a gig in Stockton and we did a local radio interview before we played. The dj told us that when The Housemartins had been in recently, they saw the Go! Service 12″ and said ‘finish our interview by playing that’! When he formed his new band, The Beautiful South, Paul contacted me to say they were going to play a hand full of gigs and could The Buzz Club be one of them. Naturally I said ‘Yes’. They released their debut single, ‘Song For Whoever’ and were on Top of the Pops on the Thursday before they played. I would hear ‘Song For Whoever’ on the radio at work and have to suppress a little smile, The Buzz Club having stopped as far as The Rock Garden knew, but me knowing it hadn’t and they were performing there at the weekend!

Rudy and I played a Here Comes Jordan set in the bar.

It was The Beautiful South‘s third ever gig and was very intense. They were late going on stage as they had been down a local Aldershot pub getting interviewed by my friend Malcolm for his fanzine ‘Captain’s Log’ and hadn’t realised how late it had got. We were getting pretty nervous wondering where they were as the sold out crowd started to get a little fractious. Then in the side door they came and moments later were on stage. Paul Heaton walked on in a boxing robe and they finished with a version of ‘Fame’!

These are Paul Heaton‘s comments on those first few gigs, not sure what ‘gear smashed up’ means.

My friend Clare Patterson was always great at spotting when note worthy plays were about to go on sale and organising tickets – often collecting vouchers from The Evening Standard for weeks before hand. As a result of Clare’s fastidious voucher saving, we were able to get tickets to see Dustin Hoffman as Shylock in Peter Hall’s production of A Merchant of Venice at The Phoenix Theatre. During the play, when Simon Lavender came on stage as Stephano, Clare whispered to me ‘Good God, it’s Pikey’ where upon we got a fit of the giggles, only to be shushed by a few people around us. We pulled ourselves together and watched the rest of the performance without laughing.

Danny and I decided it would be a good idea to start a record label. Danny was working at a vinyl and cd manufacturing company, I had a great A&R source with my various live events, and we were friends with John Andrews and Sally Agarwall who were keen to be a part of it. We had known John from living in Surrey – he was from Farnham and he now worked for Concert and Tour Advertising in London and could do the marketing, Sally was a graphic designer and would look after the artwork. All we needed was a band. So, I started to look for one. I got a demo tape by The Way Out who were pretty good, so went to see them at The Bull and Gate in Kentish Town and then headed to the T&C 2 (later The Garage) to see The Beautiful South.

I arranged a meeting with The Way Out but they wanted a deal beyond us, so I kept looking.

I put The Parachute Men, from Leeds, on at the Rock Garden on 20th June. They were supported by Tim Kegan’s Railroad Earth, a band I’d met through gigging together at Surrey University.

I’d seen R.E.M. quite a few times, had all their records including ‘Orange‘ which had come out in late 1988. The first time I saw them was at the Lyceum in the Strand, December 1984.

This was their biggest gig by far. I’m not really a fan of Wembley Arena I usually find gigs there to be fairly lacking in warmth. R.E.M. did a great job though…..

A couple of days later it was back down to Aldershot for local heroes, from Farnborough and now big, Mega City 4. The band were on tour to promote their debut album, ‘Tranzophobia’. Steve Lamacq at the N.M.E. was a massive fan and they were getting healthy plays on evening radio shows along with a Peel Session. This gig was a home coming for them and the venue was rammed, with a great atmosphere. The Senseless Things were also pretty big in that scene and the two bands had often done gigs together, so they were the perfect openers.

Here’s Mega City 4 in action, supporting Mudhoney in Chester, 1989.

We went back to the Town and Country Club to see Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians towards the end of June. I loved ‘What I Am’.

Rudy and I finished June off with a gig at The Rock Garden on the 30th, supporting The Train Set, from Crewe. (I read recently that Noel Gallagher was a fan). The acoustic vibe wasn’t really where we were at though. When we were told we could have four band members in Singapore, we decided to reform Bluetrain. We didn’t play again until we started to rehearse the following year though.