STUMP - FAT SAMS - 1988

Stump came out with a strange kind of hybrid music that ended up sounding something like Captain Beefheart playing Hillbilly. Add to that, their quirky amusing lyrics and the whole bizarre mix seemed to work a treat. I still have their debut album in fact.
I've never seen them play live mind you, but on the 7th Feb 1988, the band were doing their thing at Fat Sams. Something seems to have gone horribly wrong with the gig however, as the write-up doesn't exactly give them glowing accolades. On the contrary, the review leaves a very dim view of the evening's event. Even main man, Mick Lynch, wearing a Bash Street Kids t-shirt didn't liven up the Dundee response! EEK!!
As if that wasn't bad enough, support act, Nyah Fearties, came off even worse than Stump getting a giant thumbs down for their efforts! YIKES!!
Oh well, you can't win them all!
Anyway, with a name like Stump, maybe they'd have been better playing at Club Feet!

RICKY ROSS IN DUNDEE

Ricky Ross's music career took off when he moved to Glasgow and formed Deacon Blue. There is plenty of information about Deacon Blue's history on the net already, but not quite so much about Ricky's early Dundee days, so I thought I'd drop a few bits & pieces of the lesser known stuff about him.
RR actually lived near Dawson Park I recall (my old roll delivery patch) and was a Dundee High School kid. He then went to Dundee College of Education to become an English teacher.
Ricky was also involved in the local music scene around this time too (late 70's) - one aspect of which was playing in a band called Cahoots. Another connection with the Dundee music scene was his friendship with the Scrotum Poles, going to all their early gigs and helping them out behind the scenes, which included travelling to London with the the band, sharing driving duties on the way down, when it was time for the Scrotum Poles to cut their "Revelations" EP.
RR also ran a youth club in town called The Other Door Cafe, in a city centre church. A place where local bands could play and teenagers could grab a few soft drinks.
He even dabbled in a bit of acting on stage, along with Scrote, Craig Methven. There is photographic evidence for that one!!
Anyway, these wee snippets of his youth spent in Dundee, all eventually lead up to him going west in the early/mid 80's - and the rest is well documented.
I had a sift through some old music papers I have and found the above item in an NME from June 1987, an early tour schedule which shows a Deacon Blue gig at Dundee's Dance Factory (Fat Sams) on 5th July that year.
2 years later, the band put on a show at the Whitehall Theatre, and as if by magic, I have a track from this gig, below, the concert having taken place on 1st March 1989.
Apart from a bit of sax near the end, it's pretty much a Ricky Ross solo spot. A track called "Thunder Road".

REGGAE NIGHT - FAT SAMS - 1984

A Crucial Youth reggae night at Fat Sams on 30th May 1984, featuring roots reggae band, Beshara, from the midlands, backed up by the Akabush Sound System, and guest, Smartie, from London.
The flyer is bang on with all the reggae patter, slang and wee catch phrases that were on the go back then, and there's also a reminder on it that reggae dancehall nights were referred to as "raves", way before the acid house scene snatched the term!
That guest DJ from Shepherds Bush, Smartie - he once MC'd on a track recorded by The Grip when they were down in London at the Mad Professors studio.

One final thought - you know those lists people make, usually called something like "50 things to do before you die", or similar, and contain "swimming with dolphins" - "fly the length of the Grand Canyon" - "Base jump off Eiffel Tower" that kind of thing, well I'd like to add "go to a reggae dancehall night with a Jamaican sound system" - honestly, if you've not sampled one, ye cannae beat it!!
Big thanks to JG

JIH - FAT SAMS - 1988

Here's a couple of tasty items from a Jih gig that took place at Fat Sams in June 1988.

The 2 top-notch photos show Grant McNally at the mic, with a band mostly made up from members of Better Backwards.

Underneath is a wee review of this very gig which appeared in local magazine, Street Life.

Big thanks to The Bear.
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So after a bit of deliberation in the comments as to who the backing musicians are in the photos, we seem to have settled for this line-up...

Neil Forbes, sax - Anth Brown, guitar - Barry Gibson, drums - Jimmy MacKenzie, bass and Jill & Jen McGrath, backing vocals.

FRANK CHICKENS - FAT SAMS - 1986

These lassies made me laugh when I went to see them play. Called, Frank Chickens, I caught them live at Fat Sams in 1986. Two Japanese girls - Kazuko Hohki & Kazumi Taguchi, and although both are singers/musicians, I think you could also add "performance artistes" as well, because they kind of acted out each song on stage, usually in a comical manner. They wore matching white dungarees (or was it boiler suits), and they had a great rapport with the crowd...plenty witty banter flying around all night.
I got handed this cassette from them in Fatties, containing a few live tracks recorded that year, so thought I'd let you hear a track to give you an idea of how they sounded on stage. This particular track below, "Blue Canary", always brings a smile to my face every time I recall them performing it. During the "jungle noises" part of the song, the pair whipped out 2 shopping bags, as if they'd just raided John Menzies toy dept, then proceeded to play with squeaky ducks, whistles, wind-up animals etc, much to the amusement of the crowd.
There is a band line-up listed on the cassette cover but I'm fairly sure they just used backing tapes on the night.
2 of the musicians mentioned I recognise though - Steve Beresford & David Toop, a couple of music heavyweights, both serious music critics/journalists (Wire mag etc) as well as recording artists in their own right.
Blue Canary was also one of John Peels faves.

JOHN PEEL AT FAT SAMS - 1984

One of the best nights ever at Fattie's was the time John Peel paid a visit back in 1984.

There was a great buzz in the town pubs before the event, then the club itself was absolutely crammed with the clubbers fully stoked, and everybody just seemed to be in a dancing mood.

Peely's selection on the night was as diverse as the music he played on his radio show - from fresh indie to raw punk, new wave to old soul, 80's hip hop next to 60's garage, loads of reggae and African tunes, and even Status Quo got a spin!!

The friend I was with decided to go over to him to see if she could get his autograph. She came back beaming and showed me the bit of paper he had written on - it said "John Peel - the world's most boring man".

A short while later I went over and asked Peely if he could play any Ini Kamoze (this was a new reggae singer that had burst onto the music scene), he just smiled and nodded.

And yes he did play "Teenage Kicks", in fact I think that was his final record of the evening. Even back then it was a song that became his signature tune.

On his radio show a couple of days later, Fat Sam's got a mention and he said it was one of the best nights out in Scotland he's had!!

THE ASSOCIATES - FAT SAMS - 1985

Sometime around the start of 1985, The Associates played live on stage at Fat Sams.
Above is a review of that very gig, written by local journalist, Bob Flynn.
It was a gig I was at too. Absolutely choc-a-block I recall.
A couple of wee extra details I can remember are - on 2 or 3 of their songs they brought on backing singers dressed in black polo necks - they were called Die Zwei, from Germany.
I can also remember occasionally glimpsing part of the show on the in-house TV screens. They had TV monitors in the back room so you could still catch the act when nipping through for refreshments. I wonder now whether the show was ever recorded onto video? If anyone out there has a copy, feel free to get in touch..!!
I do, luckily, have an audio recording of the Fat Sams gig.
So here below is a reminder of that sweaty evening in South Ward Road.
The vid contains a short piece of film of Billy Mackenzie in Fat Sams at the start, but it's not from this gig, it's only the music that's from Fatties. The rest of the visuals are stitched together from various sources.
The track is "The Affectionate Punch".

ANGUS HOTEL #3 - 1980's

On the Angus Hotel reception desk they used to have a visitors book for guests to sign and an additional separate book for celebs autographs.

Being Dundee's top hotel for 3 decades meant that it did contain quite a few famous names. In there were the likes of Maggie Thatcher, David Bowie, the Queen, Peter Ustinov, Rod Stewart and so on, page after page.

In March 1985, The Associates booked in for the night when they were in town for a gig at Fat Sams.

A while afterwards, I managed to get the page from the celeb book the band had signed that night.

I also attended the gig too and I'm gonna give that a mention on Retro Dundee next. Stay tuned..!!

Incidentally, on the other side of the page was the signature of songstress, Susan Maughan. She had a couple of hit records back in the 60's (remember 'Bobby's Girl'), and she was performing at the Whitehall Theatre in April that year.

PAUL HAIG - FAT SAM'S - 1986

This is an NME review of Paul Haig's gig at Fat Sams - the gig taken place in August 1986.

I was at this one, me already being familiar with Paul live, having seen him play with Josef K in Edinburgh a few years before.

I can't recall too much from the Fatties set list other than he did perform all my favourite tracks from "The warp of pure fun" album (which I've still got on vinyl).

Staying on the fun theme...although this was a Paul Haig gig and NOT a Haig/Mackenzie gig, needless to say Billy Mackenzie did make an appearance and sang a couple of tunes. In between tracks, Billy pointed to Pauls fluffy cropped hairstyle and commented "He's got a head like a squeaky ba'" then pretended to squeeze it. Pure fun...and a good night had by all.

To read the review, click on the image to enlarge or download.

THE FAT SAM'S SWIZZLE-STICK

Here is one of the original Fat Sam's Swizzle-sticks that we used back in the 80's when cocktails were on the increase in nightclubs.
Not that I needed one for my pints of lager mind you!

FAT SAMS - SOUTH WARD ROAD -1980's

Fat Sams opened in December 1983 and very quickly became a favourite with local clubbers.

One of the main reasons for this was because many of the best night's in Dundee in the 80's were the ones under the "Dance Factory" banner.

Dance Factory organisers had been putting on gigs in town since 1982, but they never settled on a specific venue for these events. Sometimes it was Teazers, other times it was the Marryat Hall and they even tried the Barracuda a couple of times, but when Fat Sams cropped up on the scene, this then became their venue of choice.

The first manager was John MacDonald, and Dance Factory promoted the "alternative" music scene in the main.

Some of the acts I can remember catching here in the mid 80's were - Frank Chickens, Bhundu Boys, Shriekback, Jonathan Richman, X-Mal Deutschland, Divine, The Higsons, John Peel, The Associates, Bo Diddley, Jesse Rae, Paul Haig, plus a whole heap of others who's names now escape me!!

The above photos, which were taken around the mid/late 80's, give you an idea as to how the exterior & interior looked back then, as does the video clip below, also from the same era - with Billy MacKenzie your host.