UK Free Festivals 1986 - 1992

These days there is a plethora of festivals, from huge expensive ones (Glastonbury) to smaller more affordable ones (Green Man, Wicker Man), but I don’t know of many (if any) free festivals. The term itself conjures up images of halcyon days back in the sixties, of hippies sat in circles, nudity and free love. But there was a thriving free festival scene in the UK more recently than you think.

I discovered it when my band ‘Poisoned Electrick Head’ was introduced to it by some Liverpool squatters called ‘Radio Mongolia’. We were big fans of Gong and Hawkwind, but also loved Devo and Magazine, and wanted to deliver a visual freak-out, so it was the ideal platform for us. The thing about these festivals though, that continues to baffle me to this day, is just how “underground” they were. I’ll quote (if I may) from my book ‘Take Your Protein Pills’ (The Poisoned Electrick Head Story), where I explore this in more detail:

“Rave was still in its warehouses and its infancy, and the knee-jerk reaction of the Public Order Act had yet to happen, but through our contacts with Radio Mongolia and The Space Agency we found ourselves tentatively involved. It’s hard to imagine in these times of overpriced events and draconian police measures that such a thing could have existed, but every weekend throughout the summer an event sprang up in a different location. 

Through word of mouth alone thousands gathered, stages and lighting rigs arrived and a ragged collection of bands descended on the public land. The police often made a half-hearted attempt to stop the thing happening but once it had gathered momentum they wished merely to contain it, and would stand quietly by as truckloads of party-ers filtered in, determined to let rip until Monday morning’s eviction notice. 

But where were the media and the music journalists? An isolated incident would easily pass by undetected (and even then, no doubt the local rag would get wind of it) but this was every weekend, all summer, all over the country. Tens of thousands of people in garishly painted buses consuming every conceivable type of booze and drug, yet it went un-noticed, unspoken of. Ignored. In “under your very noses” terms it predated ‘Harry Potter’ by a decade but with one noticeable difference, in this hidden magical world everybody was Hagrid.”

Local newspapers didn’t mention them; they never made the national or even regional news. Surely the NME, who knew about all things music-related were onto this? Incredibly, no. Unlike today’s mainstream media blackouts, where protest marches are conveniently ignored, this was a case of no-one having a bloody clue.

The first one we attended was at Ribble Head in Yorkshire, (a rare northern event, the majority being down south) by the viaduct on the Settle-Carlisle railway. It was 1986, so we were already quite late to the party. The “Mongs” had said just turn up with your gear, and ask to play, so that’s what we did. Easier said than done when you suddenly find yourselves in a Mad Max movie. We didn’t know a soul but as we were a seven-piece band, with a couple of gobby sorts (singer A.F.) who were always trying to be pack leader, I felt only half-fearful for my life.

It took three days for us to persuade the stage crew to give us a shot, and inbetween we just got hammered and tried to take it all in:

“As night fell, a transformation occurred anyway as it always does. A benign yet malevolent force took up residence, mischief lurking in the shadows, and silhouettes conspiring to mutate the pastoral in to the primeval. 

Perhaps there was more to these events than we’d given A.F. credit for, and just maybe that was the very reason the authorities so frowned upon them. Dark thoughts could fester and breed in such surroundings, shattering the docile equilibrium that has been cultivated by keeping the populous individually boxed away at night. 

Off I wandered into the makeshift city of flickering flames with A.F. beside me like a Yacqui Indian spirit guide. The atmosphere was reminiscent of a legion encampment the night before a momentous battle, a cacophony of strange sights and sounds illuminated by campfire light, the soundtrack changing with every step as conspirital murmurs behind canvas gave way to ghetto-blasters, then a sudden crackle of embers and the distant throbbing echo of a makeshift stage creeping ever closer. 

Sudden unexpected wafts of heat emanated from every side, occasional relief from the crisp chill of the night air. Dogs snaked and foraged amongst the vehicles and guy-ropes, and the smell of wood smoke permeated all, creeping into your hair and clothes and your very pores until we were all one ragged smouldering pagan offering to the great oblivious creamy moon above.”

It was a world, the likes of we’d never encountered. The people running the ‘Wango Reilly’s Travelling Stage’ thankfully liked us when they finally relented, so we could generally play wherever they showed up. They explained that the whole thing was financed by benefit gigs during the winter, and that the sound and lighting crew all worked for nothing, as did the bands of course. Police presence was nil on the site so everything operated by a kind of jungle law. There was a hardcore of nomadic travellers who lived the life and held the community together, but inevitably there was also a rogue element of berserkers, known as the ‘Brew Crew’, an ever-present element of menace. Wherever the convoy set up camp, local kids from the surrounding area would come along to join the party. Due to police intervention, the site location could change three or four times, and as this was all in the pre-mobile phone/internet days, we were always furnished with a hotline number. Consequently, whenever we saw a red public phone box, someone jumped out and checked for any change of plan.

Stonehenge had been the daddy of the free festival circuit until the year previously when ‘The Battle of the Beanfield’ in 1985 had resulted in some of the worst police brutality the UK had ever witnessed. After that, any attempt to approach the stones at Solstice was fraught with danger, but a festival managed to occur a few times some miles away from them.

For the next six years these huge anarchic, lawless, but joyous outdoor events continued, even permeating Glastonbury, where Michael Eavis allotted a field especially for the travellers (ironically, the only way a “hippie” band like ours could get to play there).

In 1992 however, things escalated:

“It started out just like any other event on 1992’s free-festival calendar, but being the first of the season maybe more people made the effort to attend. As ever, its location remained a guarded secret until the last minute but we knew it to be happening somewhere in the Malvern Hills; a series of phone calls along the way guiding us to the actual site. 

I recall we were in two minds about going, but it was far too early for crusty fatigue to have set in, and as we had a gig in London that weekend we saw no harm in dropping in a few days earlier for an impromptu warm-up appearance. 

Sightings of buses and other vehicles in the area told us we were on the right track and before long we found ourselves in a long tailback, which trundled infinestimably onto the site. These things were always occurring and were usually down to someone breaking down further along the path, thus blocking everyone else’s passage. In such cases A.F. or Billy would wander ahead to investigate the hold-up, where they would inevitably find some clapped-out shed on wheels held together by willpower alone, whose owner thought that M.O.T. stood for Marijuana On Tick and that the A.A. was only for wimps who couldn’t take their Special Brew. 

Still, there was never any shortage of amateur grease-monkeys on hand to cast an eye over the antiquated pistons and rusty plugs, or indeed, pick-up trucks to haul it out of the way. 

On this occasion however, the delay seemed to be purely down to everybody deciding to show up at the same hour, so by the time we’d got on and chosen a place to park it was already night, so we no doubt drank ourselves into a stupor and crashed out, leaving any exploration until the next morning. 

Billy was first one up, being high on life and Armenian philosophy, and after a brief walkabout he returned with the news that there seemed to be a lot of people, but only as more of us investigated did the true enormity of the situation sink in. It was vast. Trucks and vans were crammed together in all directions and extended as far as the eye could see. There seemed to be no end to it. 

We had managed to locate the Wango stage the night before, parking adjacent to it, and discussion with Marge and Scouse revealed that the gathering had exceeded everyone’s expectations and was still growing. One reason for this was the culmination of a trend that most fezzy-goers had noticed over the years; namely the growing presence of ravers or “cheesy quavers” as they were less than affectionately known. 

Starting out as an indoor phenomenon with warehouse parties in disused buildings, the movement had felt the restrictive sting of the authorities brought on by the glare of sensationalist publicity, and had been forced ever further out of the cities and into the countryside. Once out there, ravers were bound to collide with the pre-existing and established new-age traveller circuit, resulting in a joining of forces, though not without some animosity. Some travellers felt their way of life had been hijacked and that the presence of ravers would throw a spotlight on a scene that had been allowed to flourish relatively ignored, and the ravers? Well they didn’t care much either way as long as the bass-drum eventually kicked in. 

Basically everyone wanted the same thing – the freedom to party and the chance to escape, really escape into the wide open space, away from bouncers and door policies and four fucking walls. The hippies had always known that the countryside was where it’s at, and the loved-up ravers were beginning to realise that if you wanted to give your entire generation a group hug you needed somewhere big enough to do it.”

The combined presence of the travellers and the rave community joining forces, resulted in a gathering of 25,000 people at the now infamous Castlemorton festival. Finally this was too big to ignore. Tabloid journalists descended, police helicopters hovered, barking impotent amplified threats, and the establishment panicked. Within a matter of weeks (or possibly days) the Public Order Act was passed, with its nonsensical clauses of “repetitive beats” and powers to seize sound equipment. The party was over. Many travellers relocated to mainland Europe, and festivals slowly mutated into the over-priced, over-policed commercial events we know and love today.

In textbook fashion, about a year later the NME and Melody Maker were ablaze with the new Crusty phenomenon, and a brief feeding frenzy ensued. Our pals ‘Back to the Planet’ were signed by a major label, and did a national tour, (choosing us as their support act – happy days!) and  even the likes of us landed a management deal, but it was all very too little too late.

Much interesting information about these times can be found at Alan ‘Tash’ Lodge’s fine site http://digitaljournalist.eu/ and at http://www.ukrockfestivals.com/ 

‘Take Your Protein Pills’ (The Poisoned Electrick Head Story) can be obtained at http://www.lulu.com/shop/brian-carney/take-your-protein-pills/paperback/product-6319409.html 

The game's up

The last few weeks it's felt like Punk, when the bloated private-jet supergroups suddenly looked preposterous, irrelevant and surplus to requirements. Overnight. It was a collective conciousness mindshift, and for a time it was inescapable.
Has the same thing happened with government, politics and the establishment? Jeremy Corbyn's mere existence has shone some kind of bullshit-detector spotlight on the whole shebang, and the bullshitters are running scared. Boris Johnson's tweet reprimanding "Jezzer" for not supporting the rugger, epitomised the pompous privileged gin gan goolee twit mentality that has entrenched itself at the heart of UK culture.
These pampered buffoons with their little elitist clubs and rituals. The old school tie, the Paxman conspiratol Etonian jocular wink, the BBC old guard loveable home counties Downton Abbey-watching, Alistair Armstrong sings Edward Elgar, last night of the proms flag waving dullards.
They're bombarding us with history shows, regal pageantry and gripping intrigues in the court of the king. Such entertainment from the monarchy surely justifies a life of drudgery and poverty for the rest of us eh?
Corrupt expense abusing freeloading gentlemen's club members, knighthoods all round. The game's up boys, Sleaford Mods are packing 'em in. Be afraid you parasites.

Whine about wine

My wife messaged me, 'Can you get some wine for tonight?", so off I strolled to the supermarket. The streets were buzzing, the digital clock on the Chemist's said 24 degrees and ths sun was beating down gloriously.
Franci the wine expert was in the aisle, so he advised me on a couple of good choices, and there was even some reduced to clear vegetarian sausages, which I snagged for breakfast the next day.
When I came to pay, my bank card was missing from my wallet, but thankfully I remembered using it in my card reader earlier to check my balance. It was obviously still in there.
The cashier said she could keep hold of the basket, if I wanted to go fetch my card, and being a fool I agreed. On my way out I checked what cash I had on me; about 12 euros in change, not enough. It's only about a fifteen minute walk, the streets were buzzing and the the digital clock on the Chemist's said 25 degrees.
Upon arriving home, I grabbed the card and headed back to the supermarket. The streets were buzzing and the digital clock on the Chemist's said 26 degrees.
When I entered the supermarket I headed straight for the till in question, the one for self-scanners. It was a different girl, but the first one was still hovering around, and upon seeing me said "Ah, Monsieur, your basket is here, but I put the sausages back to keep them cool, you can go and get them." They were of course no longer there. I didn't want to get anything else as I no longer had my scanner, so I just went to the queue with the wine.
When I got to the till I explained the whole scenario but the girl had been filled in on this calamatous situation, and just smiled and scanned the wine. It came to eleven euros fifty. I didn't need the card.

"Are you English?" she purred. "Yes, and you?" I replied. "Morrocan." No kidding, she looked like a Disney version of the Queen of Sheba. Looking into those eyes for too long could turn a man's mind to mush. "The English are very polite" she said, "When I went to England everyone was really polite to me." She'd obviously never been in a St Helens pie shop on match day.
"Oh, that's nice." said I, pleased that the English are good at being polite, because we evidently suck at flirting.
Back outside, there was a fight erupting by the crossing. The digital clock on the Chemist's said 27 degrees.

The Dead Fly Diaries 2# THE UNHOLY ROW

The Unholy Row were a three piece Punk band (when that term was easily grasped - so not 'Green Day', but that rudimentary racket of UK '77), consisting of Les on vocals and guitar, Kirk on bass and Martin on drums. I can best summarise them with the mention they got in my book, 'Take Your Protein Pills' :

"I was doubtless being serenaded by The Unholy Row rehearsing in the adjacent room, a space we actively discouraged people from using but which was fiercely popular due to its superior acoustics. The Unholy Row embraced that punk ethic of incompetence as a virtue, and in their case that other adage “practice makes perfect” held no fear as with each rehearsal they seemed to actively get worse. They were our best customers.

One Friday after being press-ganged into drinking Thunderbird all afternoon with A.F., I staggered up to the Fly to let the Unholies in. They were one of the few bands who rehearsed on a Friday night; I think it was part of their social calendar, but they were low maintenance once up and running. My session with A.F. had taken its toll and before long I passed out on the office floor. At the end of the night they found me flat out on the office floor, so I was awoken by them and they carried me to the storeroom so they could put their gear away, totally unphased by my inability to walk there myself. I declined their offer to drive me back to the pub so they took me home and almost certainly carried me up the stairs to my flat. If the atmosphere of the Dead Fly needs to be summed up in any way then that little story doesn’t do a bad job of it."

They were friendly and self-deprecating, always putting their own efforts down as amateurish at best (you can see what an encouragement I was), but they had an admirable camaraderie. Les was the driving force, a charismatic wiry guy, very earnest. He had a semi-Rod Stewart hairstyle that he carried off effortlessly due to his good looks. He was the lyricist, and from what I remember of them ( you see, that was the thing, bands would come and show you their lyrics, or recite them at a digestible speed, God knows what use me and Bun were in that field, I guess we were just a sounding-board, priests in the confessional box of weirdness, sworn by sanctity never to reveal them), they were great lyrics, but lost on an audience in their screamed scattershot delivery. (That's a great thing about Punk; imagine Shakespeare sweating over sonnets, then shredding them into pieces and scattering them in the hedgerows like 70's porn mags, hoping someone could piece them together).

Martin was the joker, a pleasant lad, a family man if I recall. And then there was Kirk, a mountain of a guy. I first encountered him at Wigan Pier's weekly Wednesday Alternative/Goth/New Wave night, his shock of black hair backcombed into a Robert Smith peacock crown, in stark contrast to his death-white make-up.

He had quite a good job as I recall, that involved extensive travelling so he drove a BMW company car. He once told me that he got pulled over and sent to prove ownership of it so many times that in the end, the judge swore to jail the next cop who did so. It was the 80s, but imagine plod seeing Arnie from Terminator cruising past in Siouxsie make-up.

They never gigged a great deal if I recall (and when they did they were ready for projectiles; spit, bottles or just verbal abuse, and took it as an occupational hazard or badge of honour even), but their practice sessions seemed to be enough of a male-bonding Friday night crack to keep them sane.

In any scene or situation, like in a company for example, there are those ruthlessly ambitious types who want to rise to the top, and those who just turn up, do the work and try to have a laugh while doing it.

The Unholy Row were happy to be part of the St Helens Music Scene, that often congregated around The Dead Fly. They out-lived, out-played, and out-drank many of our transient customers.

They didn't take themselves too seriously and they used music as a way to connect with other people, and in today's fame-grasping climate their kind are sorely missed. (I suspect they are still together...°

The Dead Fly Diaries 1# - POST MORTEM

So, an occasional reminisce through the time vaults, back to the Dead Fly Rehearsal Rooms - the St Helens practice place of notoriety and legend, created and curated by myself and Bun - and a look at some of its clients.

Post Mortem were a Punk band from Rainhill, comprising of Dink on guitar, Paddy on bass, drummer Dave, and Mike on vocals - better known by his stage name Doctor Death.
Doctor Death wore a top hat and bore the black-and-white voodoo skull make-up of Baron Samedi from 'Live and Let Die'.

Their gigs were memorable affairs; Doctor Death was fond of dropping his keks and sticking the microphone up his arse - a routine that seldom endeared him to the other singer when they were the support band. I remember one show, when cries for an encore were refused on the grounds that, after soldiering on for some time with just the one, Dink no longer had any strings left on his guitar. Another time, Paddy played with a dead cat gaffer-taped to his leg. He'd found it by the side of the road on the way to the gig.

In 1985, a 'Live Aid' concert was organised at the St Helens Rugby Club, featuring local bands. My and Bun's band 'Academy of Unrest' played, along with many others (In From the Storm, Dixie Cartoon, The Saviours(?)..) and including Post Mortem, or so we thought.Then early on in the evening it was announced that they wouldn't be playing as Doctor Death had been in a serious car crash and rushed to hospital.
The show must go on and did, albeit under this black cloud. Some time later, the compere's speech about famine and Bob Geldof was cut short by a battered, concussed and probably medicated Doctor Death, who staggered down the aisle to the stage, head in bandages like Basil Fawlty in 'The Germans', and screamed "Rumours of my death are unfounded!"

They were no less unpredictable in the practice room. One time the good Doctor came to my office and said "Bri, when you have a minute, can you come to our room?", then bounded off again. A minute or so later, I went to see what they needed, and Doctor Death said "Oh, nothing. we've just all wiped our dicks over the door handle".
On another occasion, shortly after we'd put signs up in the rooms, kindly asking people to use the bins provided, I went in the room to find black scorch-marks up the wall where the poster had been.
The Post Mortem boys' explanation for this was "Spontaneous Combustion".

They ran me ragged with their antics, but behind their Marks Brothers chaos was a genuine affection for the poor sod running the practice rooms. The local music scene is less rich without such eccentric characters, with their songs about Myra Hyndley, and Doctor Death's idea of a love song - "I love my Mammy Baby, but she's got metal legs".
If anyone can correct me on the "facts" in this blog, please do so as it was some time ago, and the mind plays tricks...though not as many as Post Mortem did.

A Man out of Time

As I cruise along on the double-decker train towards Amsterdam for a well-deserved break and  a Kraftwerk concert (OK, I admit it, I lost a little enthusiasm when Florian Schneider left, leaving only Ralf from the classic line-up, but it's still my favourite night out) I feel like a man out of time with his surroundings.
Swigging on a black beer can - once it was tattoos, but now the black can is the true mark of the outsider - the Ace of Spades of beers, (tattoos are so ubiquitous now they are as synonymous with rebellion as 'Songs of Praise') my recently acquired crombie type coat hanging by my side, replete with its leather collar and various zips, and writing in a notepad with a biro, I practically belong in a museum.
The girl sitting alongside me has a laptop on the go, and a smartphone in her lap, and keeps alternating between the two. One must have better connection or signal.
I do have a rather intelligent phone in my pocket, recently bequeathed to me by my wife, but I'm  still a little shakey on how to access my stored contacts. I can ring out on it, but if it rings I don't know how to answer so I just call the person back.
Apparently this train has free wi-fi but the girl by my side is struggling to take advantage of it, so what chance do I have?
I feel like a simpleton, easily entertained by pen and paper, like a Victorian child spellbound by a hoop and stick, oblivious to the X-Box hanging out of the pocket of his tattered britches.
All around me, people are talking into little boxes, checking on restaurant reservations and tonight's plans. This steel mobile sausage presents no barrier to the bustling outside world. A few seats down some people are talking to each other; their batteries must need recharging.
Bowing to my own self-imposed social pressure, my second beer is a regular one, and with just over an hour to go before arrival, it's a question to ponder as to when to crack it.
The ticket guard suddenly appears, and to access my ticket I have to remove the smartphone thingy from my pocket, thus shattering the up to this point, well maintained illusion that I time travelled in from 1978.
Once he moves on I find that with a bit of poking around I suddenly have "trein wi-fi". Ya boo! Cyberspace girl, I'm hitchiking on the Information Superhighway! Suddenly I have Facebook access, yet I'm on a train! Does anyone have anything of any import to say or share? No. The novelty wears off and I'm strangely drawn back to the notebook and biro.
I crack the second can, regretting not buying another black beast, but enjoying the fact that I'm out of the soul-destroying Orwellian nightmare workplace for a few days, plus I'm meeting my wife and some old friends at the other end, so clattering out of the train like a sozzled tramp is not good form. I am not in the Poisoned Electrick Head anymore. The days of going through passport control on all-fours are behind me now.
We're going to "eat" - drinking's less interesting cousin. Evidently we grew up when I wasn't looking.

Food for Thought

I read about a guy the other day who gave up food for Lent. Sounds extreme I know,when most people give up digestive biscuits or sugar in their tea. So how did he do it? He replaced food with Belgian Trappist beers, and was also allowed soup and fruit juice. It got me thinking, (oh boy did it, and am I in the optimum neck of the woods to try such a thing!), as to how much eating food is an automatic act; how little thought goes into it.
What if "they" discovered it was bad for you? Trends are moving towards super-nutrient foods like 'Soylent' (yes, named after the film Soylent Green, and it's grisly subtext, and much as I hate marketing men, Don Draper aside, that was a stroke of genius), and the instant knee-jerk reaction is, "Oh No! Your teeth would go blunt, your stomach would shrink to the size of a peanut and your jaw would hang slack like an interbred hillbilly squeal-like-a-pig retard.
But bizarrely, in this culture of fearmongering no-one ever worries about the strain eating might be putting on the body. With jogging addicts, their knees eventually pack in, manual workers have back problems in their later years, but with the digestive system we can hammer it non-stop, gastric juices bubbling away, chewing, swallowing, squeezing it out through the colon like an organic scatalogical toothpaste tube, and not expect a jot of wear and tear.
Seems to me the odd day of liquid diet could be a good thing (and before you start I don't mean down The Turk's Head Tavern). All proteins, nutrients and vitamins easily absorbed into the organism, nothing solid to break down.
Wind, indigestion, constipation, heartburn, nausea, lethargy - all symptoms of solid fuel. With liquid fuel you might float along, super efficient with boundless energy. I don't know, I'm just putting it out there.
And no-one says you have to give up the pleasure of eating, maybe a combination of the two. Maybe eating's got a bit high-fallutin full of itself. Imagine going to a petrol station where a series of overdressed preening flunkeys poured small amounts of diesel into your car at protracted intervals, from silver jugs, whilst cheesy music played under soft lighting, and the whole thing took three hours and cost three times as much.
Plus we're all guilty of eating only because we have to, absently cramming a piece of toast in while simultaneously stuffing clothes into a hold-all with one eye on the breakfast news.
Just some food for thought.