Shameless Funkiness….
In these dog days between Christmas and New Year, I’ve been nostalgically recalling some favourite rock music tracks and remembering live performances, the best of which were at small intimate back room pub venues which have now gone, and many more gone more recently thanks to our wonderful health-giving smoking ban.
I remembered The Magic Village in Manchester where believe it or not David Bowie wandered in and played an acoustic set – the booked local band was paid off and thrown out! Also Country Joe and The Fish, Edgar Broughton, and Marc Bolan among many others.
Also in Manchester, standing near to (but not daring to speak to) Jimi Hendrix who was having a drink and a smoke in The Shambles pub.
The years flew by. Moving across the Pennines I discovered the various Leeds venues and the black music scene – all in smoky pubs and clubs and back room bars – sometimes played on scratchy imported vinyl – often played raw and live.
One of the favourites was The Duchess of York in Leeds (usually known just as “The Duchess”) which was an ordinary and scruffy city centre pub with an amazing back room for live bands. Kevin Ayres did a comeback gig there. To my delight he did the whole of ‘Stranger in Blue Suede Shoes’ (just google it) , while dragging on a cigarette:
He gave me a smile that was sickly and wet,
And I offered him one of my cigarettes.
He took it, afraid that he might appear rude,
Then proceeded to sell me some second class food.
Nice guy – meet ’em everywhere.. .
He said, ‘My oh my, I have suffered too long,
And this cigarette seems to be very strong;
I don’t make the rules I just get what I take
And I guess every rule was made to break’…
The Kaiser Chiefs also played and built up their following at The Duchess, and deeply regret its closure. As they recall in this somewhat hidden Christmas Day BBC news item which I only found today (I blame it on the sunshine, and the moonlight, and the boogie, and the Christmas booze…).
What the article doesn’t blame of course is the fecking smoking ban.
I then compared this with the news item about the deeply untalented but hugely self-promoting Madonna ranting at her fans for smoking in the open air at a recent sound test.
Now there may well be a musical point to Madonna (though increasingly she reminds me of Gillian McKeith) but frankly she can’t really hold a candle up to Jimi Hendrix. Or even Slade. Let alone Tom Robinson or Tom Waits.
The last gig at The Duchess, we kicked up a storm. A few local bands, then Chumbawumba doing this to finish. We sang along till we could sing no more.
Then there were the Irish pubs with pianos where every Friday night Mary and Sean and Nuala and Fionn would take it in turns to play and sing and reduce everyone to wonderful mawkish tears. The Harp of Erin…The Admiral Rodney….all gone, all closed since 2007. Over 11,000 gone.
Here, in 2012, the Sunday night before Christmas Eve, our tiny village working class backstreet pub had Barney the DJ in (a local lad who looks like Frank Gallagher from ‘Shameless’ but with a strangely mid-90’s neat Mancunian haircut and an eclectic music collection). At 11.00 p.m. precisely the doors were locked, we were provided with the landlady’s best saucers for ashtrays, and Barney played ‘Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun’. We cheered to the rafters and I swear my husband had tears in his eyes.
It was almost like old times.
Before the Smoking Ban.