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 3^rd 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.................