S'PUNK FANZINE - 1979

Back in 1978 when Steve Grimmond and Craig Methven were still only in their mid teens, they started up this fanzine call S'PUNK (it's punk), dedicated to the punk scene and its kindred on the fringe.

This particular one above is issue 13 and came out in January 1979.

So quickly sifting through some of the pages I've put up on display...

On top is the front cover which has an image stating "If You Don't Buy This Magazine, We'll Kill This Dog".

The 2nd page down is the editorial intro, or idiotorial as they have it, cramming in a few words about the mag content, surrounded by the bands and subject matter for this issue.

Image 3 is a look back at their "Singles Of The Year" for 1978. Both list their personal top 10 and there is also a general S'Punk top 20.

Craig has gone for The Only Ones - "Another Girl, Another Planet".

Steve opted for Steel Pulse - "Ku Klux Klan".

4th page down is a mention of a gig that took place up at the Bowling Alley in Marketgait, the band being Punishment Of Luxury (Punilux for short). This includes a rather brief encounter with the band which soon became an aborted interview! There is also a mini review of the gig itself.

Lastly, we have 5 acts at 2 venues.

The upper 2 are for Richard Hell & The Voidoids and John Cooper Clarke, the support acts for Elvis Costello who played the Caird Hall on 14th January 1979.

Finally, a 3 band gig, this time at Bloomers in South Tay Street.

Support acts were Curfew and Straits, with The Skids being the main headliners.

S'Punk must be a contender for being one of Dundee's earliest fanzines I reckon, so it's a rare read, and if you want to view the pages in more detail, just click onto them to enlarge.

Big THANKS to Craig.

SWEET TV TIMES - 1982

This kinky wee publication called "Sweet TV Times" was given out at gigs when The Junkies were entertaining the masses.

Needless to say, it has a fair smattering of Junkies related items in amongst a large dollop of SM fetish kinda material.

Bypassing the rubber and whips for now though, I've plucked out this item above - The Junkies Family Tree - covering the time of their inception in mid 1978 up to the time of the mag, summer 1982.

The very first line-up of the band consisted of - Alison Burns, Al Hendrickx, Vince Piggot and Mike Kane - after that it branches off into 7 different variants.

It's easy to follow the sequence of changes, during which saw Vince and Alison leave - then return again. Drummers in particular didn't appear to have a very long shelf life it seems, and by the time we get to line-up #7 even Alan McGlone was getting in on the act!

Just give it a click to enlarge.

Thanks again to Jock.

PAUL WELLER'S DUNDEE PEN PAL

These 2 poems penned by Paul Weller, were published in Dundee fanzine, Cranked Up, in the early 80's.

The reason they ended up there was because they came from Alan Matheson. Alan used to correspond with Paul Weller, and during the course, Paul would send examples of his poetry up to him.

Alan was working in DC Thomson's at the time, notably with pop/teen mag, Jackie.

Alan actually had the lyrics to The Jam's "That's Entertainment" a year before it came out as a single.

Anyway, Alan passed these two poems on to Cranked Up, and they may very well be exclusives!

Bearing in mind that poems don't always mean they are song lyrics, however I did a bit of research on the net with songs in mind, and I found 1 tiny sketchy reference linking Paul Weller to "Along The Grove", which may possibly have been recorded as a demo. Nothing clearer than that.

As for "Optimmorning"- absolutely nothing whatsoever cropping up on that one at all.

I know Paul has dabbled in publishing too, with the material not relating to his musical output, but I can't find any trace of info about the two poems above via that route either.

So if there are any Paul Weller aficionados out there who can pass on further details, feel free to share it here.

"Optimmorning" - published in Cranked Up 1981.

"Along The Grove" - published in Cranked Up 1982.

Alans brother, Keith, played in Big Blue 72, a band who have been featured on Retro, and he has also had a stint working in Grouchos.

Sadly, Alan Matheson died in 2002.

Click on the poems to enlarge, if you are struggling to read them as they are.

IMMACULATE FOOLS GIG REVIEW - 1985

Well here's a gig review that's a wee bit different from the norm.
This was put together by Deadbeat contributor, Hilary. It seems the Immaculate Fools appearance at the Dance Factory in March 1985 was so bad that she couldn't muster the usual kind of account of a live performance, so she just went around some of those who were in the crowd asking for their assessment.
Turned out they had the same opinion!
Amongst the Dundee critics were Ged, Kit & Gary from Danny Wilson, music journalist Bob Flynn, DJ Dave Calikes plus a few others who shared similar viewpoints.
Clearly the band should have presented a show that was a bit more foolproof!

DUNDEE HEAVY METAL GUIDE - 1981

In Cranked Up #3, back in 1981, there was an entire page devoted to local talent titled "A Guide To Dundee Bands - For The Uninitiated".
It consisted mostly of acts generally tagged as "alternative", many of which have had a mention on Retro in the past.
In amongst the alternative pack, however, were a few bands categorised as being Heavy Metal.
Each band was given a brief description and a score out of 10.
Here's the 7 HM bands who made the list - ASGARD - STARFIRE - SATAN'S EMPIRE - STREET URCHIN - SPEARHEAD & SARCOPHAGUS - PUSH - SILIGON.
Top of the pile was Street Urchin with 7/10, a higher score than many of the alternative bands.
Bottom of the bucket was Spearhead & Sarcophagus with no points, the only zero on the page and who were described as being a heavy metal kiddie band, a music genre I've not been aware of!!
Anyway, I thought they were all worth a gaze on Retro to see if anybody could recall them.
I don't have any other material on these bands, so if someone knows a little something about them, drop the info into the comments.
Or if you have any photos, memorabilia, sound samples etc, feel free to send them into Retro and I'll do a wee feature.

DEADBEAT - FIRST ISSUE - 1982

It's good fun looking back at "first issues" to get a reminder of how they once looked before they became more established, and so here's #1 of Deadbeat fanzine, given away free in August 1982.

The mag's debut was printed out of just one A3 sized sheet folded into quarters, but eventually it became available in a 20 page A5 sized magazine format, which later would cost a whopping 10p!

It's lifespan was 1982 - 1986.

Although it was distributed around the country, the mag's content was generally based around the Scottish alternative music scene, with Dundee getting sizeable coverage.

One reason why Dundee was represented so often was because Deadbeat's main contributors, Alan McEwan (aka Vinny Bee) was at St.Andrew's University and so would often socialise in Dundee and Hilary Smart (previously featured on Retro), went to Art College and lived in town.

They still had to do plenty of whizzing around Scotland to collect material mind you!

An example of how well known Deadbeat had become around the UK, was the time when it was runner-up to Viz on the John Peel show in a feature on alternative publications!

So getting back to the first issue, one Dundee related item in it was the article above announcing the cancellation of The Associates tour. The piece didn't quite fit the xerox machine properly as you can see, but these wee teething problems were soon sorted and later they went on to have one issue which gave away a free flexi-disc, then afterwards there was a series of compilation cassettes featuring demo recordings made by Scottish bands.

Alan has quite recently started up a blog documenting Deadbeat which can be found at this link - http://www.deadbeatfanzine.blogspot.com/

The blog's content is accompanied by lots of amusing "behind the scenes" stories, with, needless to say, Dundee getting a mention quite a lot.

He's also gonna put all those rare recordings that appeared on the cassettes, up on Youtube, so's we can all catch up with them after all that time.

There is even talk of a Deadbeat party later this year to celebrate 25 years of it's death!!

So plenty to keep your eye on throughout 2011.

The good news for Retro is that Alan sent over a few original issues of Deadbeat, so watch out for some more past items on the local music scene cropping up here too!

Big thanks to Al.

THE JUNKIES ROYAL LETTER - 1982

In 1982, Jock Ferguson cheekily sent a cassette of The Junkies to Buckingham Palace suggesting that the band would be available to perform for any forthcoming Royal Gala's planned, should Her Majesty have been looking for a decent trash-glam combo to play for free.
Master Of The Household, Vice-Admiral Sir Peter Ashmore replied on the Queen's behalf with the above letter.
Sadly it was no can do as regards The Junkies bringing their gear down to the palace, but at least their music was given the royal seal of approval when the cassette was returned stating that it was "enjoyable"!
Peter Ashmore was the chap in charge of palace security when that intruder got into the Queen's bedroom, some of you may remember.
This item was published in a fanzine called "Sweet TV Times" - (with the emphasis on TV - if you know what I mean) - and was given out at Junkies gigs.
Click onto it if you need to read the larger version.
Thanks again to the Major.

CHRISTMAS CRACKERS FANZINE - 1980'S

Don't know much about this Christmas Crackers publication, the issue here which cropped up in the early 80's, being the only example I have.

The content isn't the usual youth fanzine subject matter - no music, no theatre, no fashion, no cinema, instead it takes a dip into local politics using a mixture of satirical humour and seedy tabloid style tittle tattle. Dundee Council type personalities get the boot put into them, eg Gowans, Fagan, Bowman, Wilson, just some of the charming characters who get a mention.

They touch on topics like Nablus and Thatcher, the topical talk at the time.

Not very Christmassy come to think of it!

The team who put it together were - Archie Smibert, Tommy Dees, Dan Dare and Nick Duncan.

One of the quirkier items in this particular issue was a parody episode of Oor Wullie.

The wee man runs out of dosh and so decides to open a sex shop to try get a bit of cash for himself. Not all goes to plan however- but it is quite funny!

You'll need to click onto the image to read the large version.

Perhaps Oor Poly, Craig, may be able to give us the lowdown on the rag, he being who supplied this one.

HILARY - PUBS AND PUBLISHING - 80'S

Many of you who socialised around town in the 80's will recognise this colourful lass - it's Hilary.

I remember her from pubs & clubs like Chequers, Slickers, Tayside Bar, Fat Sams...actually, come to think of it, she was a right wee boozer!

As well as being a regular in the drinking dens of the city, she was also a familiar face on the local music scene. In fact, Hilary was involved in Deadbeat fanzine, contributing lots of articles and artwork.

The photo above is of Hilary at the Bowling Alley, circa '84, there to see local band Circus Of Hell.

Below it is her feature on the band in Deadbeat mag, including her skilful sketch of the guys.

She managed to get an amusing quote from Steevo in her piece - he says of COH "We're going to put the plooks back on the face of music" - charming!!

By the way, the 2 lads with Hilary on the photo are unknown, so if anyone knows who they are, feel free to reveal all in the comments.

You may need to click on the COH item to enlarge it if you can't read it as it is.

Thanks to Joe Ogilvie

SAVAGE PENCIL v VOCIFEROUS BIRO - 1980

Following on from yesterdays Scrotum Poles poster where I mentioned the work of Savage Pencil (Edwin Pouncey) - I managed to track down an example of his cartoon strip in an old Sounds mag I have from 1980. It was based around the weekly antics of his weird music biz creatures and was called "Rock N Roll Zoo".

Below it, however, is a parody of the strip by mystery cartoonist Vociferous Biro, also drawn in 1980, and appeared in the very first issue of Dundee fanzine, Cranked Up. This one was called "Rotten Roll Zoo", and in it, exposes the strange goings-on along at Radio Tay!!!

Click on images to enlarge.

WE ALL FALL DOWN - 1982

Here's a dinky little interview with Dundee band, We All Fall Down. This was the name The Blush changed to when they decided to start all afresh with new material and better equipment. 3 members, Steve, Bloke & Eddie discuss the new music and their plans to showcase it.
They mention a single they released as well as a 10 track tape. I haven't got/heard any of this stuff. Anybody got any copies they'd like to share on Retro?
The article is taken from a 1982 issue of Deadbeat fanzine.
Click image to enlarge.

CRANKED UP COVERS - 1981/82

I already have the first & final issue of Cranked Up on Retro, so thought I'd show you the rest of the covers in between. There are too many to put each one up individually, so I've stitched them together and made a wee video with all 18, in numerical order, below.
Thanks to The Major, Craig, Mike, Kevin & DD.

THE WELLGATE BOMB SCARE - 1982

In the early 80's, when IRA bombs were commonplace on mainland Britain, there were often many false alarms and hoaxes that went along with it which kept members of the public vigilant.
Here is an example of one of the more amusing false alarms...
In a generous act of philanthropy one day, local musician, Mike Kane, gave away free packages to the public, containing a music cassette of his band, AAGA, along with some other gifts inside... just like wee lucky bags. One of these packs was dropped off at the Wellgate Library. A little later, one of the observant librarians spotted the package sitting there, thought it might be a bomb, and promptly called the cops. The Wellgate was evacuated and the suspect package dealt with.
A few hours had passed when Mike was visited at home by the boys in blue (he kindly left his name and address on the explosive devices!).
The police commenced questioning him about the incident. Mike's tape recorder was running at the time and managed to capture the conversation, the transcript of which (above) was published in the first issue of The Voice.
You may need to click on the image to read the large version.
AAGA - louder than a bomb!!

THE VOICE - ISSUE 1 - 1982

This is the first issue of Dundee fanzine, The Voice.

It started up after the demise of Cranked Up. In fact, this was supposed to be Cranked Up #19, but when Jock Ferguson stepped down as ed of Cranked Up at #18, he took the name with him, and so leading to the birth of The Voice.

It covered similar subject matter as Cranked Up, the local music scene, theatre, poetry, politics and so on.
However, the content of this first issue does solve one mystery which has cropped up on a few of Retro's comments in the past - "When did Club Feet open?". The answer - 1982.

I did wonder why Club Feet never got a mention in any of the Cranked Up's...but now I know...Club Feet appeared just as Cranked Up disappeared!

By the way, the TSB is the Tayside Bar - not the local bank!!

Big thanx to The Bear

AZTEC CAMERA / SWING CLUB - TEAZERS - 1982

From the pages of Deadbeat comes this review of a gig that took place at Teazers (Royal Hotel), in 1982.
This venue (complete with candles on the tables) was the main home of Dundee's "Dance Factory" nights, before Fat Sam's opened.
I was at this gig, the headline act being Aztec Camera, from East Kilbride. Main man, Roddy Frame, who was still a very young whippersnapper at the time, was quite a flashy guitarist I recall. Not in a Jimi Hendrix way, but it showed through in his choice of chords and his solo runs. Quite sophisticated for bright & breezy pop songs. I mean, goodness knows how many chord changes there are in their chart hit "Oblivious"?!!!
Anyway, it was an enjoyable evening of upbeat sparkly tunes which began with support act, Dundee band, The Swing Club.
No need for me to describe their performance, for it is they who are the subject in the above review.
If you can't read it as it is, just click on it to enlarge.

DEADBEAT FANZINE - 1982

Early 80's fanzine, Deadbeat, covered the alternative Scottish music scene in the main, so the Dundee stuff was competing with Edinburgh, Glasgow & Aberdeen for mag space, although our local bands and gigs were well represented.

The wee mag was loaded with music articles, gig dates, gig reviews, band interviews, record releases, nightclub details, and so on. In fact Deadbeat is a great reminder of just how much Scotland was buzzing with homegrown talent back then.

When it came to bands from down South visiting Scotland however, Dundee didn't always get the cream of the crop, which is why a bit of an effort was needed to catch the acts perform in other cities. I didn't do too bad as I was a member of Edinburgh's Nite Club for a few years, so saw heaps of acts live there that never set foot in oor toon!

I just loved going through to the Nite Club - one of my favourite places ever!

Thanks to DD

COLLUSION FANZINE - 1982

It wasn't only Dundee based fanzines that were on sale locally in the 70's & 80's, you could also get others from around Scotland, and the occasional national one.

A good example of the latter, is this one called, Collusion, which I picked up in 1982.

It is a slightly different kind of fanzine, in that it was put together by professionals rather than local enthusiasts, but although all those who contributed to Collusion were well established music authorities already working as journalists, musicians, critics and authors, they did do this fanzine in their spare time without any financial backing.

You may be familiar with some of the names from the likes of NME, Face & Wire - Steve Beresford, David Toop, Lol Coxhill, Sue Steward, Simon Frith, Nick Kimberley and a few others.

The music covered in it is what we now call world music, but back then some of these music genres were just starting to become heard about. You may recall this was around the time the WOMAD organisation began.

The wide variety of music featured includes - African, Asian film music, Cajun, jazz, Japanese Enka, surf, 50's pop, reggae, gospel, and a few other bits & pieces.

There is also a top notch 4 page article written by fellow Taysider, Stuart Cosgrove, about the Wigan Casino and Northern Soul scene.

So Collusion was a great wee read. No idea how many were issued, this is the only one I have and I can't find much info on the net about it, but it is a good reminder of the kind of material that was on the go in those days before the internet.

The tricky bit was, trying to find any of the recordings in Dundee's record shops!!

THE VOICE FANZINE - 1982

Another Dundee fanzine that cropped up in 1982 was called, The Voice.

Covering similar topics as Cranked Up, it touched on the local music scene, theatre, food, politics, humour etc, and was on sale at places like Rockpile, Bruces and Tayside Bar.

The top image is the cover of issue 3, showing some of the subjects to be found inside, as well as coming up with the claim that it has "More Pages Than The Dundee Standard"!!

Underneath it is a page I plucked out as an example of the content, containing 4 Dundee gig reviews. KIM WILDE at the Caird Hall and 3 shows at the Tayside Bar featuring - FIRST PRIORITY - DESPERATION A.M. - ZOE & THE ZEBRAS.

Click on the items to read the enlarged version.

THE DUNDEE MUSIC SCENE - 1981

 

You may have noticed the media like to look back over past events when the year ends, and so from the pages of a Cranked Up festive issue, here is an account of what was going on in the local music scene during 1981.

Click on the image to view the large version and read about bands such as - THE MEGAZONES - SCROTUM POLES - STREET LEVEL - ALIEN CULTURE - MAFIA - ST ANDREW & THE WOOLEN MILL - LONDON BROADS - THE GRIP - THE BLUSH - PARADES - VEX - WAITER WAITER - NO FIXED ABODE - PUSH - MISBEHAVIN' - SYNTHETIC DREAMS - PULSEBEAT PLUS - PHOTOGRAPHIC MEMORIES - STRUTZ - ALL THE PRESIDENTS MEN - APB - THIRTY BOB SUITS - NEW LONDON - FRENZY - JAZZ TOO - STREET URCHIN - BLIND PEW AND ASGARD.

Phew!...and they even managed to squeeze in a Rockpile ad as well..!!

A salute to "The Major" for getting all that info down in print.

BRUCE'S TOP TWENTY - 1977

Influenced by the punk DIY fanzine craze that began in '76, Bruces Record Shop started up their own in-house publication called CRIPES, given away free at the shop counter. The contents consisted of blotchy xeroxed graphics, record info, gig updates and ads.
So what we have here is a page from Cripes showing their top twenty singles for week ending 27th August 1977. What might surprise some of you is the sight of Dundee's NRG outfit, The Drive, up there at #3.
Bruces back then was at 33 Reform Street, with Jim Stewart running it.
The shop was always buzzin'!
Click image to enlarge.