Photo Tim Paton
A Certain Ratio 14th June 1986
By the summer of 1986, I was working in Our Price Records by day and either rehearsing or playing with my band Bluetrain or drinking the The Hero in Bagshot on Friday and Saturday nights. It was brilliant at The Hero – there was a d.j. some nights, playing great music. I remember falling in love to the 12″ of ‘She Sells Sanctuary‘ by The Cult when I heard at played at there.
My band had changed from Go! Service after our European tour when drummer Mike Auton was replaced by Kevin Moorey, also regular at that pub. A very cool fella and most importantly a friend from primary school days. Danny, Kevin and my brother Tom had all been in the same class at school, I was a couple of years younger and our guitarist, Rudy a couple of classes below me.
When Kevin joined the band, he brought with him a slightly cooler taste in clothes and music. I was into New Order and Factory Records but Kevin first made me aware of A Certain Ratio.
Danny and I decided to book them for The Buzz Club. We phoned their manager, Mick Paterson and sorted out a date. (Mick by the way popped up briefly again into our lives when he managed Spiritualized – the only band to have played both The Buzz Club and The Green Man.)
We got the fliers and posters done and started telling everyone A.C.R. were coming to Aldershot.
We used to make our own contracts, printed on my Dad’s Amstrad word processor and about three clauses long. Basically saying the band agreed to play at our venue, the date and fee.
A Certain Ratio hadn’t sent theirs back yet, and we started to worry. I ‘phoned Mick a couple of times and he said all was fine. We were still nervous though.
We saw that A.C.R. were playing at Ronnie Scott‘s in London so we went up early to see if we could catch them while they were sound checking. We printed off another copy of the ‘contract’ and headed up to London.
When we arrived at Ronnie Scots at about 4pm we just asked if we could see Mick the band’s manager and we were let it. Mick was surprised to see us, and happily signed the piece of paper. We watched the band sound check and Mick asked us if we’d like to go on the guest list for the gig.
Another Hero regular was Dave Harvey. Dave used to run the Get Downs at The Agincourtin Camberley. Funk and soul from the ’60s and ’70s..
It just so happens that there was a Get Down that night in Camberley. We knew everyone would be there and so, rather stay and get on the guest list for A.C.R., we were so excited that we’d met them and seen them sound check, we declined the offer of the gig and headed back to Camberley to tell everyone about our adventure! Haha!
So on June 14th 1986, A Certain Ratio came to Aldershot.
Luckily Dave Driscoll was in with his trusty Walkman and so was able to record the night, here’s the set opener ‘Flight’.
Also luckily photographer Tim Paton was there and took this great shot.
And now, over 30 years later, I have been sent this selection of photos from the gig. Philip ‘Hutch’ Hutchinson got in touch with me in august 2018 and after searching in various places, including his garden shed, he sent me lots of fantastic photos and recordings of some of those Buzz Clubs.
In this treasure trove, he found this lovely selection of previously unseen A Certain Ration photos, from June 1986 at the Buzz Club!
Indie Through The Looking Glass 
O my mate x crest of a wave we all just took it for granted little did we we know the creative energy brought together by you guys saw some of the top bands of our time and beyond come to are sleepy sleepy hicksville looking back now we were so blessed thank you so much for having the courage and blag to pull it off forever grateful x po
LikeLiked by 1 person