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”
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.
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