The Buzz Club: The Pale Fountains Sept. 1986 inc. newly found live recordings.

Buzz Club regular, Philip ‘Hutch’ Hutchinson recently got in touch with me. He told me he had several Buzz Club gigs recorded plus photos from a few more. It would take him a while to locate everything, but he would start his search at his parents’ house when next there. No joy. So to the shed in his garden. A few days to clear out and look and….hey presto! Cassettes with live recordings (plus sound checks) along with photos from other Buzz Clubs.

Huge thanks to Philip as I know how long it takes to convert from cassette to digital, plus to scan and enhance all the photos. There are so many wonderful artefacts unearthed here that I am going to publish them bit by bit and enjoy myself!

To start things off, these awesome recordings of The Pale Fountains. I’m pretty sure it was their last gig – if not definitely one of their last. I had managed to get Michael Head‘s phone number and would call him up every couple of weeks until he agreed to play! He said that he was thinking of changing the band’s name and according to Wiki, Shack, the next name his band had, were formed in 1986. This gig was September of that year.

I couldn’t find any fliers from the gig, but when recently scanning some old pictures, I found this one of me with a poster for The Pale Fountains gig on the wall behind me. Loads of tickets, posters and a few autographs surround me. I had a ticket for The Jam with Paul Weller’s autograph on. Some cardboard I had found on the floor when I had got back stage with Big Country’s autographs on. Lots of Lloyd Cole tickets. These are sadly all long gone, but I love looking at this picture and working out or remembering what gigs the tickets are for.