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Wednesday 20 November 2013

Job Done, Tick......Tick (part 8) - The End


We decided to do another one of our walk up “can we support you type gigs”.  This time at the Newcastle House pub in Park End.  The pub has long since gone the way as lots of estate pubs in Middlesbrough (i.e. closed down and then burned down in an arson attack) but at the time of the concert it was still a thriving part of the community.   

Without an ounce of exaggeration or hyperbole I can only describe the event as Tick Tick's attempt at communal suicide.  It was a benefit/memorial concert for a young punk who'd gone missing and was presumed dead after going down to London to follow Crass.  I can't remember the name of the band playing the concert but I do remember they were a local punk band from the next estate and my neck of the woods, Berwick Hills.  We'd actually gone to their first gig, a couple of months before and walked out midway through the first song, bizarrely for a punk band, a cover of Caroline by Status Quo.  

Gary had just written 3 great new songs including one called "The Grenada Revolution" and our plan was that me, Gary and Ste would perform them at the benefit show.  He had written the lyrics down on a single piece of paper,  we would set the drum machine to sound like bullets being fired and we would simply read the lyrics out in unison. 

So  we turned up on armed just with our drum machine.  We planned to improvise the music for the other 2 songs so the other band would have to lend us their instruments.

It was sheer lunacy, the pub was packed with locals, not your usual musical crowd and although we weren’t there long we could  clearly see the atmosphere was rather subdued.   This was without doubt the most stupid thing we ever tried to do.  We hadn’t learned the songs let alone rehearse them and even by our standards it was going to be shambolic.  Thankfully lady luck smiled on us again because they wouldn’t lend us their gear or even let us do The Grenada Revolution.  I cannot stress enough  how close a shave this was, we would definitely have been lynched.
 

Tick Tick 4 must have played a few gigs but I only remember a couple.  We played a benefit concert for the Workers Revolutionary Party at Corporation Hall, Stockton supporting Blank Frank’s, Makaton Chat with Paul on drums.   

Fran Barbarian, singer from the seminal and by now defunct Barbarians (all hail) was also on the bill and we argued who should go on first.  As usual we lost.   At least there were quite a few people in the audience by the time we played and it went really well.  We were starting to use the synth to good effect (a lot down to Russ).   Not sure if we were still performing Hand over Fist but we generally just got the synth to make weird pop and crackle noises.  Russ also worked out that if you plugged the guitar through it and played notes on the keyboard you could get it to make a weird harmonic delay sound.  The Makaton Chat lads (not Blank) were fascinated by this technique.  You can probably just plug the guitar into  a pedal now but 30 odd years ago it was pretty clever stuff. 

There was a  soundboard recording of this show and the last I remember was that Russ had it.  Any comment Russ?

We were still great pals with Richard even though he’d long since left us.  He got us a gig playing at a Labour Party day time rally at Middlesbrough Town Hall Crypt.  The plan was Richard would play a set with Morgan drumming and Tick Tick would play a set.   It turned out to be another debacle.    We turned up and there was no PA.  We thought the Labour Party were going to supply the PA and they thought we were.  As if?   We spent what seemed an eternity trying to organise one.  In the end we hit lucky again.  The woman in Cleveland Music knew Morgan and trustingly lent us one.
 

It was 1982 and Margaret Thatcher had just come to power.  Sadly the whole event reflected the complete disarray the Labour Party was in.  There were stalls around the perimeter of the hall manned by middle aged men and women and a few rows of seats were set up for people in front of the stage to watch the bands.  Sadly the event wasn't very well publicised and hardly anybody came.  We weren't that bothered though we were happy enough to play to the stallholders and we were on good pay.  I think Richard got £80 to put on the gig.  The PA was buck she so he just split the money with us £40 each.  Bop bop bop.   

Richard played and sounded really good but I think we sounded awful.  It wasn't that we played badly it was just that we sounded so hollow in the empty hall.  I remember one of the stall holders pleading with us that it was too loud. 

“What, you want us to play louder?  Ok”   

That might have been the last gig but there was one more although I'm not sure about the chronology.

Ste was down the town one Saturday and spotted a fly poster in the town showing Tick Tick supporting The Sines and another band at The Empire the following night .  It was news to us.   Gary was by now studying at Sunderland Polytechnic and we had no way of contacting him so that was that, we would just have to do a no show.

It was around the time I was thinking about quitting anyway so I wasn't bothered about playing but Ste and Russ had decided they would play the gig after all.  They planned to write up 6 new tunes the afternoon before the gig and asked me if I would sing for them .  As mentioned earlier by this time I was half improvising my songs anyway so the concept didn't phase me but I said no though, I just didn’t fancy it. 

They would ask Richard then. 

Mmmm. that sounded more interesting,  go on then if they could get Paul Fowler to play I would do it.  Paul and Ste would hold the sound together so no matter how it sounded at least it wouldn’t fall apart.

Obviously with Gary missing we couldn’t call ourselves Tick Tick. As I was wearing an Argentina football shirt that day we decided to call ourselves Boys From The Pampas, as you do.  It was pre-Falklands by the way so not as provocative as it sounds.   

As usual we turned up with just our guitars (couldn’t risk the synth on a semi-improv show) and we asked The Sines if we could use their amp’s and drums.   

“No you fucking can’t” Not that I’m a bitter man but The Sines were also a band who thought they had a shot at “making it”.  I seem to remember they were originally a mod band but changed tack when the new wave of mod fizzled out.  Not sure what type of music they were playing on the night but it will have been some type of new wave.  By the way their eventual “it” moment was bringing out a flexi-disc given away with the now defunct Melody Maker.  Not bad.

No matter though the second support band loaned us their gear.  And I was right, Ste and Paul did hold it together.  Some of the songs turned out really good and eventually turned into proper songs.  From memory one of the songs later became Timpani (that makes 4).   Paul asked if we could do Mythical Bedsprings our perennial millstone.  Yeah, why not, it helped pad out the set by another 2 minutes.  Needless to say, it was exhilarating and up their with my favourites. 

So that was that.  Once again, cheers to Rich for releasing My Selling Heart which inspired me to write this up without the aid of any notes, photos or press cuttings.  Happy to do corrections and additions if anybody around remembers it better or differently.  Also a couple of people have mentioned about it being hard to read on the blog background.  Sorry.

So did we do what we planned?

Brought out a record? – Yes
Always short sets? – Yes
Did we ever compromise? – I don't think we ever did.
Thank you’s? – Not absolutely sure(I know I didn’t) but don’t think so.
Encores? – None
Exact version of Alternatives? – No.  Probably for the best.


Laugh off Cap, Elephants Stance, all of the above, we remain Tick Tick. 

We made it.

 

Tuesday 19 November 2013

Job Done, Tick......Tick (part 7)


All over, no shouting

Next up in the drum chair was Morgan Duffy who lived in the outskirts of Stockton.  He was previously drummer in our friend, Lee Gibson’s band, The The And.  We’d heard him drum and he wasn’t bad.  Happily, he also had a car and lived in a big house where we could practice (a trend I don't think we saw at the time).  And my brother Russ joined the band so we were back up to a 5 piece.  Russ was into pop music and loved the Jam, he was also an excellent guitarist having the ability to come up with great tunes and hooklines.  As mentioned earlier he actually co-wrote Mythical Bedsprings. 
He was only 16, quite a bit younger than the rest of us but he played his part.  He brought  freshness and melodies back to Tick Tick that we hadn’t had since Richard left.  One particular great tune he came up with was for lyrics written by Ste called Timpani which became a live favourite.  Russ also played an acoustic 12 string guitar which sounded great.  He played it through a normal amp which gave it a great harsh electric sound.  We talked about it later and Russ said he never liked how it sounded but I loved it. 

Morgan was a different kettle of fish to our previous passive drummers, he had attitude and always had plenty to say.  Along with Ste they argued we should introduce a few covers into our set and by now I’d lost the will to fight it.  Thankfully it never came off, we were never good enough musicians to work out the chords anyway, it wasn’t like today when you can just download the tab and off you go.  I started to get marginalised again.  Morgan suggested Ste tried to play the bass while singing leaving my keyboard basslines surplus to requirements.

I still loved performing live but the practices had become really shit, I was starting to dread them. We’d started practicing at the North Ormesby Pavillion which was great for me and Russ, it was near to where we lived and even closer to the pubs I’d started to go to with my other brother, Ian and his friends.  I just spent most of the time lying on my back day thinking let me out of here so I could go to the pub.  There was no way back,  I had little left to offer.  I could have knew gone through the motions for a bit longer but there were no gigs on the horizon and to be honest my pride had just taken one beating too many.  I told  Russ I was going to leave, he was shocked and said they would turf him out of the band if I left.  I said I didn’t think they would, he’d become too important to Tick Tick.

So I just told them I was leaving Tick Tick in the middle of band practice.  Gary looked shocked and bit bothered and obviously Russ knew about it.  Ste and Morgan didn’t really react, it was no big deal to them.  I wasn’t going to “make it”.  I told them they could still use the synth for as long as they wanted, they needed it because Russ used to play some of the songs through the synth and I just walked out and off to the Jack and Jill pub, leaving them to finish their practice.

Gary and Ste came to the pub and it was a little bit sad.  I told Gary about my unhappiness, we shook hands, that was that.


Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da
We still remained friends and Russ kept me up to speed what was happening.  I wanted them to do well.  I heard some tapes and the songs sounded really good. Properly crafted songs and I thought the best since Richard had left.  Timpani sounded even better and they had a new song  “It’s A Shame” sung by Gary.  Russ described it as a country and western song.  It had a great melody and went something like (once again relying totally on memory)

“It’s a shame, it’s a shame, shame shame, shame.
People I care about, I care about too much
And when I’m sober, I write these songs”

The Gazette ran an interview with photograph of the band.  They had become indignant and angry about the lack of venues to play.  Not sure where that come from but I was just glad I wasn’t part of it.  It looked a bit contrived, maybe just an angle just to get them into the Gazette.  I’d only left the band a couple of weeks and their consternation was news to me.  If I was still in the band and we were really bothered about not playing live I’d like to think we’d have just blagged our way onto a bill somewhere or asked a pub if we could play for free.  They also published a photo, I’ve got it somewhere, if I find it I’ll slip it in.  I know some of them are a bit embarrassed by the article but I don’t know why.  They were just young and probably went into the interview naively.  Looking back, maybe none of us were quite as cool as we like to think we were. 

A couple of weeks after that Gary and Ste threw Russ and Morgan out of the band so Russ was right after all.  Gary telephoned Russ to tell them and then asked to speak to me to explain.  Musical differences were cited but I wasn’t really interested in listening what he had to say.  Russ was distraught and I was gutted for him, he was my 16 year old brother and I was always very protective of him.  Furthermore nobody had ever been thrown out of Tick Tick before.  I’ve no idea how Morgan got the bullet and in truth I'm not really interested, it wasn’t the same. Russ had been indirectly and later directly involved with Tick Tick since the start and it was a shabby way to treat him and I felt it was disrespectful towards me.  It caused a lot of problems at home.  Our house was a tough environment to grow up in,  it was obligatory to give each other a hard time but when one of us hurt we all hurt.
Obviously, lots of water under the bridge and all that but it took some time before I forgave Gary and Ste.  Musically it looked a bad decision too. Russ was good, he was genuinely innovative and he was only young, he could have adapted and would have got better as well.  I think his downfall was ironically what he was brought into Tick Tick for, his pop sensibility, Gary and Ste just didn’t want to go down that route and fair do's.

End of the Road

Gary and Ste had already lined up our friends Jeff Luke and Ronnie Burr when they threw Russ and Morgan out of the band. They also brought in Ronnie’s then girlfriend Kate O’Neill to do backing vocals and maybe keyboard.  Just as an aside girlfriends and bands?  No!!

 I never saw Gary or Ste for sometime so my knowledge of this version of the band was zilch.  The only reason I remembered them at all was because I saw a photo of them in Lee Gibson’s book “A Punk Rock Flashback” looking very eighties.  Things had moved on.  I’m not sure whether they played live and never heard any of their songs.  I don’t even know how long they lasted. 

Update – spoke to Gary and they played a concert at a nightclub in Stockton.  They had a dressing room which was a first for Tick Tick. 

Sometime after that Gary told me they had split up.  Ronnie and Ste left to join other bands.  Ironically Ste asked Russ and Morgan back.  I’d have told him to take a running jump but in fairness I don’t know how the conversation went.  I think they even adapted Timpani to go with yet another song (that makes 3). 

Update – Gary left and the band and continued on without him for a bit.  He said they had a song where they put the words of Jean  Paul Sartre to music.  Not sure whether they still called themselves Tick Tick but I’m not going back to put them in the family tree thing I did at the start.
So that’s it, all done, but that last bit's a bit of a downer isn't it?  So I've purposely saved one last batch of live show memories to finish off , just don't call it an encore.  I'll try and post them tomorrow.

Sunday 17 November 2013

Job Done, Tick......Tick (part 6)


4 Piece (The Maid’s Neck) and Peckover - live shows  

Arguably this was our tightest line-up musically.  Possibly because we introduced the keyboard and were able to tune up properly, most of the time anyway.
 
We played 2 great performances over the space of a couple of weeks.   One a triumphant return to Marton College.  There were 5 bands on and we played third.  Local punk band The Filth were on after us and some heavy metal band were top of the bill (probably because they supplied the PA).  I can’t remember their name.  But I can remember we played one of our best ever sets.  We were all in tune and went down really well.  We were still buzzing as we were walking out of the venue with our gear as reports reached us that fighting had broken out just after The Filth started and the concert was abandoned.  That was amusing enough but who was coming swaggering towards us?  This was just too good to be true.
 
“Have a good time lads?  We’re xxxxxxx, we’re the headliners”
“Yeah?”  We managed to suppress our laughter until they were out of earshot.  A great memory.
 
The daft thing is The Filth were amongst the nicest lads in the local punk scene and we went on to play quite a few gigs with them.  We played quite a lot of shows with local punk bands.  We had to if we wanted to play because they were the local music scene.   Obviously we were very different to the punks.  We dressed and spoke differently and we generally disliked their music but we never condescended.  Most of them were ok and they treated us ok.  Even if they didn’t like our music and they almost certainly didn’t they respected our attitude.
 
 I don’t remember us having that much chew but there was one occasion at The Teessider when Terry Doyle from Discharge, an old friend of Gary had to step in to save our skins from the skins! 

We played the Rock Garden for our third and final time with The Fall in November 1980 and it was brilliant.  Everything just about just turned out just as we planned.  We weren’t on the bill to play, we just decided we were going to support them. It never occurred to us that it wouldn’t happen.  Mark Smith was our hero and Grotesque (after the gramme) had just been released, my favourite Fall album.  We went down to Stockton on the afternoon and got drunk on white wine.  Can’t remember what that was about.  We got the bus to the Rock Garden and waited for The Fall to arrive. 

When they turned up I just walked up to their then reportedly formidable manager and girlfriend of Mark Smith, Kay Carroll and just  asked if we could support them.  I was drunk and full  of bravado and think I caught her on the hop.  From memory I don't think she took much persuading.  although she did initially baulk when I asked if Paul could use their drums.  Think there might have been something wrong with his car but he definitely didn't want to drive home for his drums. 

Kay Carroll said he couldn’t use their drums.

“Why not?”

“What if he does a skinnin. ?”

“What’s a skinnin?”

“You know break the skin of the drum”

“Right, a skin in”  I didn’t see that happening but I told her that if Paul did a skin in, they could drive round to Paul’s to pick up one of his drums.  Only they would have to use their van.

I swear that is how the conversation went and Kay Carroll just agreed.

“You’ll have to pay Grant Showbiz” £5 to do the sound though”

“No problem” (only £1.25 each and free in to see The Fall - result).

We even had a sound check.  I’d gone home for some reason and when I came back cuddly Radio 6 presenter Marc Riley was having a hissing fit with Ste because he didn’t know how to switch the synth on.

I walked up, switched it on and Riley walked off chuntering something under his breath. 

By the time we went on stage we’d been drinking for over 8 hours and it told.  Gary introduced the first song.  “The plough’s mightier than the pen, Hand Over Fist”  the synth came in “whoo hooo whoo hoo whoo whoo whoo hoo.  “Ha-ha-hand, o-o-ver Fist!” Whoo hooo whoo hoo whoo whoo whoo hoo and so on.  The mix of our friends, the punks and the skins lapped it up.  It was surreal.  This one’s called “Who Killed The Mystery Girls” before breaking into For the Benefit of Mrs Smith.  We were way out of tune and tried to tune up mid-set (no electric tuners in those days).  Gary asked the audience if it was in tune?  "That'll do".

 

At the end of our set Gary goaded the crowd.  “Do you want more?”

Crowd “Yeah!”

Gary “Yeah?”

Crowd “Yeah!”

“Ha Ha (laughter not as in Hand Over Fist again), hard luck”

Not sure if The Fall would have let us?  Of course, they would have, I’d have squared it with my new pal Kay, but we stuck to our guns, we didn’t do encores.

Mark Smith saw Ste at the bar and told him how much he enjoyed it as did the Rock Garden Manager.  He said  he’d pay the sound man for us.

After that?  It just all kicked off again.  Fights broke out, skinheads were punching people at random.  It was Marton College all over again.  It is remembered in Rock Garden history as a particular brutal Rock Garden night and that's saying something.  I think I remember it referred to "Hell on Earth" on a Fall fans forum.

Obviously it would have happened anyway but I don’t think us winding up of the audience helped.
Our friend, Anarcho Punk Lee Gibson taped it all for us and then interviewed Mark Smith with Gary for his fanzine.  I digitized the interview and shared it on the Internet a couple of years ago and the transcript is in Lee's book

That could have been our last show with Paul although I do remember us going to Darlington to play at a pub called The Speedwell.  He might have still been around for that one and I know it’s starting to look like I’m making this up but we travelled on the train carrying our gear.  We walked out of Darlington Railway Station only to get chased all around Darlo by some (presumably) County Durham thugs.  Thankfully we were all reasonably fit and even lugging our gear we managed to shake them off before making our way to the venue.  Pete Farrell who’d joined up with Ste to form Those Responsible met up with us.   It was a good show.  We involved the locals and let them use our gear to play at the end.   I think Pete come in a Community Transport van and thankfully gave us a lift home, phew!

We had another close shave, although this time it was only me when we played the Birds Nest pub in Hartlepool, one of only a couple of concerts we played with Peckover.  He was only a kid, probably about 15 and although he mostly kept reasonable time he had a habit of losing it when he came out of drum rolls.  We advised him not to do drum rolls but he ignored us.  With the benefit of hindsight he was just doing what Tick Tick generally did and  ignored what he was told.  In truth he just wasn’t a very good drummer. 

The show was set up by Braz and our other pals from Hartlepool.  They also had a band,  Almost Cried and I’m guessing they probably supported us.  We decided to make it a concept show.  We still had loads of our records left and decided to call it "The Tick Tick Quiz and Sale".   We played half of our set and I introduced the quiz.  There was a bloke worse for wear talking loudly at the back and I asked Workingman’s Club stylee for a bit of order. 

He took exception to this and in a clear attempt to intimidate me he came right up to me so close that I could feel his breath on my face.  I didn’t have time to think through a response so I just continued with the show and lady luck smiled on us me and he just went returned to his seat ready to take part in the quiz, probably saving my beating for later.  As luck would have it he ended up winning a record answering “Who in darts is known as the crafty cockney?” correctly.  He was never going to kick my head in after winning a copy of “The Immortalisation of Tick Tick”. 

Friday 15 November 2013

Job Done, Tick......Tick (part 5)


We booked another studio session.  We decided we were going to bring out another single (see the introduction) and Pete Farrell set it all up for us and Paul took us up in his car.  I think he might have took us all which meant there were 6 of us.  No?  That can’t have been right.  Did Pete Farrell drive?  I’m not sure now.  I’m not going to go through the whole story so here’s my bulleted memories of the day I knocked up for the EP release.  Alas, not with the physical copy but in the PDF with the download.  
  • Turning up without drums and cymbals. We were told the studio would supply the drum-kit. We didn't know Paul still had to bring cymbals. Pete Farrell looked at us as if we were idiots because we didn't know. Paul had to go back for them.
  • Fatigued With Dub originally had chaotic conversation at the start but we were persuaded by Gav to edit it out. We didn’t call him Gav by the way.
  • Car running out of petrol on way back and we got caught by police acting suspicious round Paul's house trying to get some petrol in car so he could get to Billingham Bottoms to fill up and take us home.
  • Gav telling us that the keyboard had in the past been used by Elton John.
  • Punishment of Luxury had recorded there few weeks before us and I think Tygers of Pantang. Also didn't Discharge and Tery Tranz record their records there?
  • We wanted to record My Swelling Heart live but Pete Farrell and Gav persuaded us it wasn't the way, so we tried to do it studio stylee. It sounded sterile but thankfully I kept fucking it up so after a fraught session and fish and chips for our tea, Gav let us do it live.
  • Paul's drumming. Gav's rock production. Tick Tick rocked. Respect. 
The only other thing I would mention about the day was Gary’s clarinet on Fatigued with Indolence.  The epitome of less is more,  just 3 notes, nothing more to add.
We were on a high.  We were always confident about our songs but this was a new sound, it was just so dynamic.  There were some embryonic talks about releasing the single.  We even had talks about what the cover would look like but it never happened and not long after I heard Richard had left the band.  He might have told Gary or we might have heard it second hand but he never told me, I can’t remember being that bothered either way.  I would imagine people were bending his ear about how great Drop were compared to the average Tick Tick but Richard was strong willed and single minded.  I don’t think he will have taken much notice of them.  It was more likely about creative freedom and wanting to do things his way.   
Before Tick Tick it looked like he had a promising musical career in front of him and in the fast moving music scene any window of opportunity of “making it” had gone and he’d spent the last year arsing about with some kids from council estates in East Middlesbrough.  He was very creative and must have felt restricted in Tick Tick.  Sitting here writing this and reading it back I realise how great it was to have Richard in the band.  And in the 3 decades since then Richard has single handedly kept the name of Tick Tick alive smouldering away in the ashes before fanning the flames back to life.  Salute.

Life Without Richard

Me, Gary and Ste went on a holiday to the South of France with my brother Ian and discussed what to do with the band.  We decided to change our name and settled on "The Maid’s Neck".   We decided the name on a whim using an adaptation of the Dadaist cut-up technique selecting the words at random from a Jean Genet book.  We would each sing our own songs and I would buy a synth for me to play.  Ste was insistent I should buy a Wasp synthesiser, they were all the rage.  He’d recently seen the German band D.A.F. and he liked the sound.  More importantly  than the music though was we all read the Dice Man by Luke Rhineheart and all bought into the idea of randomness, chance and making decisions on the roll of the dice or flick of a coin including dangerous options.  It certainly helped make some of our live shows interesting.

So we came back from holiday, raring to go and went down to Guitarzan at South Bank to buy a synth.  Thank the lord they didn’t have a restrictive Wasp (it made the sound of a wasp and nothing else).  Instead they offered me a Roland monophonic synth and demonstrated in with a state of the art sequencer.  It sounded brill, you could play tunes but also change the frequencies and bend the notes to create some strange effects.  Sounds nothing now but....back in the day.  “Sold to the man at the front with the new credit card” for a bargain bucket (not) £250!
We started again from scratch.   As a non-musician I had no interest in learning to play the synth like a conventional keyboard.  I just wanted to make weird and funny  sounds.  When Ste sang his songs I think I mainly just replicated the bass line but when Gary sang I was given freedom to play more randomly.  I certainly didn’t have any inclination to learn about music, £250 was commitment enough!
I stopped writing “proper” songs.   I started writing a basic framework and improvising around it in practice and in concert.  I’d seen Scritti Politti at the first Futurama festival improvise every other song they played and was interested in the challenge.  Sometimes it would come off and sometimes it didn’t, it was the chance I took.
Paul continued to drum great and our songs were good.  Our playing became looser, less conventional and more instinctive but based on a very strong and tight rhythm.  We played some great shows and some not so good (more later) but it always sounded at least ok.   
It didn’t last long though.  We heard a rumour at the Dovecot that Paul had decided to leave us to join Blank Frank’s new band Makaton Chat.  We know it was true.
As I said earlier we loved his drumming, no matter what went on in front of him, he just held it together so well and we practiced at his house and he had a car.  With the benefit of hindsight I can see why he left us though.  He was a skilful musician and wanted to progress but the biggest problem was he was just so different to us.  He came from a posh family and didn’t share our political views.  I also don’t think he appreciated our anarchic attitude to things.  Great cheerful lad though and plenty of happy memories though and after we got over the initial shock of him leaving there were no hard feelings.

Back to Tick Tick and Peckover

We decided to change our name back to Tick Tick and started thinking about getting a new drummer when one came our way, Peckover aged 15.  He put a postcard advertising himself for a band in Cleveland Music.  We rang him up and he was in, there was no need to audition.  He had all the qualifications he needed, his own drums, he told us he could drum, his dad had a car and he had somewhere for us to practice.  It was a workingman’s club long since demolished.  No idea what the club was called but it had one bar downstairs and a snooker room upstairs.  His dad was the steward and allowed us to practice amongst the handful of members sitting there having a (now not so) quiet pint.  It was brilliant we just practiced and then went up for a game of snooker.  Peckover wasn’t that good to be honest and we only played 2 shows with him (more later).  I remember at one practice we tried to explain one of Paul’s drum pattern and the poor lad just wasn’t getting it so his father took over and had a go before telling us it was impossible for a drummer to do what we were asking.  I told you Paul was a genius on the drums.

Thursday 14 November 2013

Job Done, Tick......Tick (part 4)

More Live stuff

We must have played plenty of shows with Richard as a 5 piece but I can’t remember much about them.  We certainly rocked at times largely thanks to Paul.  We played another show at the Rock Garden.  The manager offered us support slots with either Pink Military or Echo and the Bunnymen.  Not sure why because I’m pretty sure we all liked Echo but for some reason we chose Pink Military.  Can’t remember much about it other than we had our gear nicked from the back of Paul’s car and Jane Casey being lovely with us and he feeling sorry for us.  Amazingly the gear turned up the same night in a phone box not far from the Rock Garden.  The police confiscated it but we got it back a couple of days later. 

When I met up with Braz last year he recalled a really good show (his thoughts rather than my boast) at the Empire around this time.  He remembered us playing Dockland.  Alas I have no recollection of this show.  

What I can remember though is us having loads of tuning problems live.  We didn’t seem to have much trouble when we were a 3 piece but this changed when we took on the extra guitar.  Bands today have it so easy with their expensive instruments and electric tuners.  We had nothing like that.    Gary, Richard and Ste knew how to tune their guitars and to be fair they did so diligently but because they did not use a reference note it was pot luck whether we were In tune or not.

Then there were problems hearing each other, this was particularly bad for me because we rarely had monitors and because I was behind the PA it was often very difficult to hear my singing.   We now had some loud songs and often due to the limitations of the equipment the sound just all merged into one.   I remember on one occasion Gary and Richard had to share the same amp and another night at The Teessider we didn’t have an electric extension cable or 2 way adaptor plug so we (well not actually us because we didn’t have the technical know how) had to wire 2 electric cables into one plug.  It’s a miracle we didn’t blow the place up.   We just got on with it though, I think we just thought it was us.

It’s a shame I can’t remember more about the shows this version of Tick Tick. played  We were never going to be able to replicate the rocky sound of Guardian Studio and thank Christ in a way,  we didn’t want to become The Tygers of Pan Tang but at the same time we probably didn’t fulfil our potential.  We had some good songs and we were capable of playing them well.  We just didn’t do it often enough.

Wednesday 13 November 2013

Job Done, Tick......Tick (part 3)


We found a drummer, Paul Fowler and it seemed to good opportunity to bring in our friend Ste to play bass and move Richard over to guitar.  People were disappointed and I remember Sav from Basczax telling Richard we should stick with the drum machine.  They were getting more popular and Teesside was catching up although we were still the only band in the area using one.  There was an article about the Teesside music scene printed in the national pop magazine Smash Hits and we (along with our drum machine) were mentioned.  Mind calling us “Tic Tic” really took the edge off it. 
Paul and Ste brought so much to Tick Tick.  We knew Ste was a good bass player and would fit in but we didn’t know anything about Paul and I don’t think I’m over-selling this but our collective jaws dropped when we first heard him play.  Being a lover of short songs, simplicity and repetition I’ve never learned to appreciate the skills that conventional drummers need to show to prove they are great.  You know, like drum solos, long fancy breaks or changes in rhythm but Paul was fairly new to drumming and either he didn’t try to do all those fancy bits (likely) or he listened to our brief about what we wanted (unlikely).  He kept it simple but was just so inventive.  The other great things about Paul were that he had a car and a big house with a garage where we could practise and he didn’t mind and probably more to the point neither did his mam and dad.
We decided to bin most of the 3 piece songs.  They just didn’t sound right now although we did keep Examining My Fear which was transformed by Richard’s guitar, Ste’s bass and Paul’s emphatic drumming and epitomised the new Tick Tick sound.  I wrote a little ditty called Dockland

“Arm leans over ever so slightly, weight doesn’t seem to matter anymore. 
Metaphors don’t seem appropriate, the gardeners say it’s cold out here”

Ste wrote one called Items

“Number one item departs without warning leaving you slightly unprepared ..................................
Remembering it’s not cricket to mock the afflicted”

I only mention these 2 because the only other songs I can remember are on the CD and I just want to show off I can still remember some of the words.
New band members meant different relationships and dynamics in the band.  At times there were just too many opinions and we had to start taking decisions to a vote.   We never had to do this when there were just the 3 of us and I was writing less songs and starting to feel a bit uncomfortable singing Gary, Richard and Ste’s lyrics. 
We started going to the Dovecot Arts Centre to drink and socialise and got into the “Stockton scene”.  It was weird, we’d gone to The Teessider just on the outskirts of Stockton for years but we’d never really ventured into Stockton.  The Dovecot was quite a change from what we were used to.  Until then I hardly knew any middle class people but the Arts Centre was full of them.  I think we probably started going there because Paul did.  We soon got sucked in though, some more than others.  There was an assertiveness and confidence about the young people there, I later realised it was just because they were middle class and that’s how middle class kids were and still are.  There was one fellar in particular I remember.   He was into Cabaret Voltaire and Throbbing Gristle and then the new wave of heavy metal came along and he liked Saxon and Def Leopard for a couple of weeks.  He was in a band around the time PIL were big.  Public Image Ltd actually were a Ltd company for financial reasons.  Needless to say he had looked into it and his band were going to become a Limited Company.  Not long later after that they split up.  He wasn’t a bad lad to be honest, just a bit stupid.
There was lots of bitching going on and I got a bit paranoid about it, I was starting to feel insecure in the band.  I didn’t play a musical instrument so if I didn’t sing ................?   I knew I wasn’t the greatest singer in the world but the quality of my singing was being questioned publicly.  I didn’t like it and although I knew there were elements of Tick Tick joining in the public debate but I generally had the support of the band.  I couldn’t complain really.
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Sorry, serious computer problems tonight, more tomorrow.
 

Tuesday 12 November 2013

Job Done, Tick......Tick (part 2)

I was going to plough on with the history and then recall what I could about the live shows but I think I'll break it up a bit and recall some of the live shows.

So............
 
The Live Shows - 1

About September 1979 – We played 3rd on the bill to Carl Green and the Scene and Drop at The Teessider.  Richard was still in Drop and we just arranged it with him.  The first Carl Green knew about it was when we got up on stage.  We played 3 songs before Gary and I left the stage for Drop to take over.  We played Respect, Mythical Bedsprings and another song, possibly My Present.  I’m not sure if we had the drum machine at this stage.  I was really nervous singing in front of a live audience for the first time but they looked more unsettled than me when I started doing my finger whistle in Mythical Bedsprings.  It was brilliant.  We were Tick Tick, we decided we were going to do it and we did it! 

Think our next show was upstairs in The Empire (now Swatter’s Carr) supporting  Penelope Polaroid and the Horn Rims.  Don’t remember much but we definitely had rhythm.  Our drum machine had about 6 settings.  Bossa Nova, Waltz, Samba, Rhumba, Cha Cha and something else.  Gaz bought it second hand from Cleveland Music, one of the old In shops in Cleveland Centre.  You could mix the rhythms by pressing a combination of the buttons.  It really wasn’t very clever and to be honest we would have preferred a real life drummer but it helped us sound a million miles away from the rest of the bands on Teesside.
 
We must have being playing about 6 songs by now, adding maybe  Not Before Time, Life Loves Death and Attraction to our set.  Not unsurprisingly, the audience were non-plussed by our very different sound and unconventional manner.  Little (possibly no) inter song communication and definitely no “cheers, thank a lot” from us.  I remember Penelope being very generous though, praising our sound and of course she loved the drum machine.   

We played a set without the slightest irony at my house on Christmas Day in front of my Mam, Dad, brothers and 5 year old next door neighbour and I’m claiming it as a gig.   What am I on about "claiming"?  Of course it was a gig.  I just told my Mam and Dad we were going to do it.  We only had Richard’s little amp so Gary used that for his guitar so without amplifier Richard played my brother’s funny toy wind organ.  Don’t think we got right through the set and although I don't think it seemed cool at the time I think it sounds pretty cool now?

We probably played more shows at The Teessider and The Empire, certainly our stock venues but then we got a gig at Marton Sixth  Form College.  There will have been a number of bands on the bill but my strongest memory is an altercation with Drop minus Richard, who had just left them to join us permanently.  We got into row about who had to go on first to play to an almost empty hall and we lost.  To make matters worse we were told our time was up after about 4 songs (bastards we had  another 2 as well) and I made a very public point about Drop being cheeky bastards or something like that for continuing to play Richard’s songs.  Drop were furious, particularly with me.   

We played another show with them a couple of weeks later at The Teessider and their keyboard player Neil Jones wouldn’t speak to me.  Obviously 34 years later I’m really sorry. Thankfully we sort of made up last year when Drop reformed to play a concert with Vic Goddard at the Georgian Theatre. 
  
Somebody was supposed to play The Rock Garden  and cancelled at short notice and we were invited to play with Basczax, Savage Passion and (apparently – think I read it somewhere) The Sines.  I just remember a couple of male skinheads waltzing at the front of the stage and thanks to the generosity of Basczax we also got paid a might fine £25.  £8+ each and free in the Rock Garden.  Happy days. 

More to come.................

Monday 11 November 2013

More of an essay than an autobiography - Tick Tick (part 1)


When all is said and done

So finally My Swelling Heart is released as I always knew it would be.  The original master tape went missing about 2 hours(only a slight exaggeration)  after we walked out of Guardian Studios, Pity Me back in the late spring of 1980.  Our plan was to release it as a single with Examining My Fear on the b-side but after the financial sting me, Gary and Richard took on our 12 inch EP “The Immortalisation of Tick Tick we were unwilling to stump up again. 
It was a such a rubbish decision on so many levels.   

·         It would have been so much cheaper than the first time with no lavish plan to release it on a 12inch single
·         The recording costs were a lot cheaper than for our record. 
·         We were led by the nose when we recorded “Immortalisation”. 
·         This time there were 5 of us to share the cost and in any case we just knew more about how to go about it. 
·         We could even have just left it up to Pete Farrell to sort it.  He had recent experience of bringing out  records with  The Amazing Space Frogs, Discharge/Filth and Terry Tranz. 

Hindsight and all that.... but there is in something to be said for releasing it for the first time, so long after it was recorded.  We are thrilled of course but if some old fellars had come along in 1980 and said we’re going to release a record of something we recorded just after the end of the second world war (do the maths) we’d still be splitting our sides now.   Yet I don’t think it’s quite the same is it?  Popular music hasn’t moved that far in the last 30 years.  One of the best bands I’ve seen this year were Parquet Courts a hip young American band who sound to me like a Richard Hell/early Talking Heads cross over and with that in mind I’m not the slightest bit embarrassed to big up it’s release. 

Aside of that because we didn’t release it as a single as Richard put it the follow up to the 6 track Immortalisation of Tick Tick is another 6 track EP and to accompany that I’ve written down a few words and am going to recall a few memories.  I have no notes to work from which I see as a positive, I like to think it’s the Tick Tick way.  So here goes.............. 

Job Done, Tick......Tick

Band members:

Tick Tick 1 – September 1979
Richard Sanderson
Geoff Spence
Gary Widdowfield
Tick Tick 2 – March 1980
Paul Fowler
Richard Sanderson
Geoff Spence
Ste Weatherall
Gary Widdowfield 

The Maid’s Neck – September 1980
Paul Fowler
Geoff Spence
Ste Weatherall
Gary Widdowfield

Tick Tick 3 – early 1981 (a punt)
Peckover
Geoff Spence
Ste Weatherall
Gary Widdowfield 

Tick Tick 4 – spring 1981 (another punt)
Morgan Duffy
Geoff Spence
Russ Spence
Ste Weatherall
Gary Widdowfield 

Tick Tick 5 – September 1981 (and another)
Morgan Duffy
Russ Spence
Ste Weatherall
Gary Widdowfield
Tick Tick 6 – Haven’t a clue
Ronnie Burr
Jeff Luke
Kate O’Neill
Ste Weatherall
Gary Widdowfield 


Getting it together 


I first came across Richard at Marton Sixth Form College in 1977.  We studied English together and my earliest memory of him was of us being given homework of writing a sonnet.  We were told it should to be about love and Richard wrote his sonnet about electricity pilons.  The teacher took Richard to task in front of the class.  He told Richard “you can’t write a sonnet about electricity pilons”.  Richard was having none of it, he just kept saying said “well I love electricity pilons”.  I nearly pissed myself laughing.  Anyway having missed more lessons than I attended I fell on my sword and packed college in after 1 year before my mam and found out about how much I was knicking off so we lost touch. 

Me and Gary at the Middlesbrough Rock Garden in 1979 via Ste Weatherall who I’d only  just met as well.  We came came from similar backgrounds.  Gary was from Teesville, Ste Thorntree  and I was from Berwick Hills.  We all hit it off straight away.  Particularly Gary and I had similar views on lots of things but particularly on politics and music.  He was into Patti Smith, Television and Burning Spear and impressively more obscure reggae artists such as Pablo Moses and Yabby U.  I was interested into Wire, The Fall and Alternative TV at the time.
We were interested in the attitude of the bands and had definite ideas about what we liked and didn’t like.  We were interested in concepts and applauded the unconventional, almost by definition.  We’d both liked the initial spark of punk rock, it’s politics, it’s anti-establishment and the way it challenged the conventions of writing and performing music but we’d both got bored with it.  On a national level punk had become part of the musical establishment.  All the major labels had their punk bands and most of them were just boring.  Locally, all the new bands pretty much sounded the same and as for punk and  politics?  I really can’t remember to be honest. Happy to be put right but apart from Rock against Racism/Anti –Nazi League (punk more than did its bit), definitely The Pop Group and the Anarcho Punks (Crass, Poison Girls etc.) any political point seemed to have been forgotten

We talked about forming a band.  We’d both written some songs and Gary could play the guitar.  I initially lied and told him I could as well but it didn’t matter because we agreed I’d be the singer and he’d play the guitar.   

Of course we needed a bass player but decided we didn’t want a drummer, instead we’d have a drum machine.  Drum machines were still really pretty new and unheard of in the local music scene.  The Human League had been booed off, supporting Siouxsie and the Banshees at the town hall but we liked them.  We’d heard Suicide and Cabaret Voltaire and liked the repetition of the rhythm.  We also liked the early Echo and The Bunnymen sound so we thought we’d go for it.   Actually thinking about it again it wasn’t as clever as I’m making out.  I just don’t think we were very confident of finding a drummer who’d be willing to join our band. 
We became part of a little sub-scene at the Rock Garden with some lads from Hartlepool, Braz (Paul Brazil), Smigger (never knew his real name), Ronnie Burr and Jeff Luke.  Not exactly sure how we became pals but I’m guessing live-wire and then socialite Ste was the conduit.  Also Richard came back on the scene.  We were all interested in what has since become known as post-punk (it wasn’t called anything then).
Richard was already a well established local musician.  Guitarist/Singer songwriter with Drop, he was a friend of Julian Cope from The Teardrop Explodes and it doesn’t sound much now but one of the DJ’s at Radio Clevelandwas a big fan.   It was a big deal back in the day.  Through talks with Gary and I Richard made it clear he was bored with Drop so we asked him if he fancied playing bass in our band the three of us became Tick Tick.

3 piece

We knew what we wanted to do and how we were going to go about it.  We were definitely going to bring out a record.  We would play live but we would only ever do short sets.   We would never compromise,  we wouldn’t say thank you for applause after songs or play encores.  We had ideas of concepts.  For example one plan was to play an exact version of Alternatives by Alternative TV live at The Teessider (that will only mean anything to people familiar with the song and preferably The Teessider.  We planned a concept show with loads of in jokes “Appleyards, Atkinson's, pogo at the bar”, for those no in (most), excuse in joke.
We started practicing in Gary’s bedroom and later at Richard’s house.  We were thrilled to have Richard on board even though he was still also in Drop.  We would never have asked him to leave Drop but amazingly and to our great pleasure he did.  I thought he wouldn’t like not being the focal point of the band and the fact he was a much better singer than me was a bit intimidating but I blagged it out  and he didn’t seem to mind at least certainly while we were a 3 piece.   We all fully bought in to the Tick Tick way of doing things and it was just so much fun.  Richard described his time with us as like being in a gang.  We were inseparable.  As well as play in the band together we socialised together.  Gary and Richard even worked together.  I think really Richard just liked knocking around with 2 hard lads from East Middlesbrough.
We all brought lyrics and we would work on the music together and when we’d worked out a melody we’d just fiddle about with the drum machine until we found an appropriate back-beat.  It all sounded fantastic to us.  I can’t remember much about the early songs (actually can’t remember many of the later songs either) but I do remember Gary wrote Respect and My Present.  I brought Mythical Bedsprings with me (originally written with my brother who eventually joined Tick Tick 4), wrote Not Before Time and Disco Smirk Hopeless Smiling and Richard wrote Attraction.  We must have written other songs but we decided to record these and bring them out as a 6 track 12 inch EP.
I cannot stress how difficult it was to bring out a record back in the day.  I got some details about mastering the record, pressing the record, labels etc. from the back of a Scritti Polliti record cover but we had no idea about recording studios.  I didn’t even know where there was one so asked for help from somebody we thought would in Blank Frank formerly of local punk heroes Blitzkrieg Bop and now keyboard player for Basczax.  He’d had lots of experience recording with both bands so we thought he would be willing and able to help us.  He booked us 8 hours in the 16 track Impulse Studio in Wallsend where Basczax had recorded their Madison Fallout single. 
It was really expensive as well.  Blank bought 2 hours off us but it still cost us just under £200.  To put that in perspective we were all working but our combined weekly wages didn't cover that.
In truth it was a disaster.  We got to the studio and the engineer hadn’t turned up and when he did he seemed out of his head on drugs.  The production was sterile and we weren’t given the slightest bit of advice from anybody.  We actually recorded a 7th song, Joy Pass By that by some way was the best song of the day which we naively and foolishly agreed to let Blank have it for a local Teesside LP he promised was going to be released. 
We released the record and I think we knew it wasn’t very good.  They were really good songs but as I said the production was shit and particularly my performance was lacklustre.  We could have done with better advice and leadership really.  We should have practiced more before we went into the studio and had a real idea about how we wanted the songs to sound.  We just turned up there and expected it all to happen.  The engineer was totally out of his depth, he was used to heavy metal bands and he didn’t know what to make of us or what to do with the sound.
Nevertheless Disco Smirk was played by John Peel and more impressively Kid Jenson played Mythical Bedsprings on day time Radio 1 but..... it just should have been so much better.
It was just great the 3 of us, probably my best time in the band.  It was so easy with 3 to reach a consensus; there was never any need to have a vote and just really fun.  More about the live shows later but we always challenged our audiences.  Most of the people in our audiences had never seen/heard anybody like us before and people either loved us or (more) hated us, nobody was indifferent. Somebody once told me a story that Carl Green a fairly successful local musician being interviewed by a fanzine got angry when asked a question about Tick Tick!  I'm really chuffed he cared, I was totally indifferent towards him. 

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For those that have made it this far - That's enough for now eh?  I've written more but I'll publish it in chunks.