Ahh there you are, I think these punks have come for you…

Posted on by
Reply

Firstly thanks a million to Mike from The Crossroads Appreciation Society (here) for his prompt reply and sterling work for finding the episode where the punk band were featured and for putting the clips up on youtube above. It’s a bit of a classic! From these clips we have found out that the band were called The Foremen (a play on four men perhaps, but the band is made up of three men and a women) and the line up was:

Danny Fielding – Lead Guitar and Vocals
Wally Roberts – Keyboard and Synth
Jeff or Geoff Blake – Drums and Percussion
Tracy – Bass Guitar and Personal Manager

They were at the Crossroads Motel reception on their way to the basement studio to record two singles. One of the songs was influenced by or used the lyrics from William Hughes Mearns‘ Antigonish or so Danny told Meg Mortimer later (Wikipedia mentioned that “David Bowie is believed to have partially inspired the lyrics for David Bowie‘s 1970 track “The Man Who Sold the World,” which describes an encounter “upon the stairs” between Bowie (who “wasn’t there”) and the titular figure”).

With songs like this and the use of a synth, could they be considered even Post-Punk or New Romantic with that image? Or are we being very genre-pedantic there?

Mike told us “There was a ‘story’ to the recording studio which was opened by Chris Hunter (David Hunter’s son). It was called Eldorado Records which had Kate Long (Kate Robins) as its major star. Really Lew Grade’s way – as he had several times prior – to
get a chart single seen on Crossroads to get into the charts.” Brilliant stuff.

He went on to say “Not sure it would be classed as a social issue, but for whatever reason, ATV wanted to show the punk group in a positive light. The alternative music show Revolver at that time had been produced in the studio next door (which is) possibly the reason they did it”.

We love the clip, which starts “With Meg being annoyed with them, playing their music loud in the reception. But later one wanders into her office, she assumes to cause trouble, but he instead has a nice conversation with her.”

It’s terrible to think that all of this time that we though the band were the ones who started the fire. Apparently not but Mike added “A long time ago one of the actors who played a punk in the band did email us to mention he also played one of the ‘thugs’ that started the fire”. We knew that Danny Fielding and his mob were the good guys!

If you want to know anything about the long-running Soap Opera and we mean anything we recommend you to visit the fan club site here. There is so much info on there, including music related referenced, including a Coventry Connection (of course) here:

Wilfred Burns and The Connaught Light Orchestra – Cathedral Close
From 1958 part of this track was used as the closing theme to the episode which saw Meg sitting in Coventry Cathedral following Sandy’s car accident. Released by Conroy Music, BM 115-B.

Cheers again Mike and thanks very much for your help again!

Dub for a saturday evening

Posted on by
Reply

A wonderful bit of dub just released out of the Jah Warrior camp called Lost Dub by I-Lodica. Excellent stuff.

 

More polytunnel business

Posted on by
Reply

We managed a few hours in the garden this afternoon and it was nice to be able to spend some time out there. We picked our beef tomatoes (above) from the polytunnel, and a couple of hours later a sauce was made (then later frozen) with a couple of chillies added to give it some heat.

In the tunnel we gave the workbench a bit of a wipe down, as we’re a bit paranoid that diseases and the like can spread quickly so we always check there isn’t a build-up of water on the plates below the plant pots, cut off anything that looks dead or damaged and also check any that we may have missed out while watering. The tunnel is starting to fill up now as we’re bringing in anything that could be damaged by the frosts (in a few weeks’ time?) and starting off some vegetables including parsnips, carrots and some onions and garlic in large tubs.

We also stuck some onion bulbs outside (above) after clearing an area in the side bed and made sure to put down protection from any birds and squirrels who fancy nicking them.

And we just seen on Facebook that Bez has just got himself a polytunnel, good stuff. That’s a nice sized one!

Crossroad’s punk legacy

Posted on by
2

Years ago a good mate of ours (Ricky R.I.P.) always used to tell us that he watched an episode of Crossroads where a punk band (who were recording at the state of the art recording studios down in the motel’s basement at the time) were ticked off by Meg Mortimer and kicked out of the motel’s reception. Because of this interaction, the punk band were linked as one of the possible suspects for burning down said motel thus putting an end to the popular series.

We didn’t see the episode but we imagined some scruffy leather-jacketed, short-haired louts with black ripped T shirts with guitar cases pushing poor Amy Turtle out of the way, stubbing out their Player’s No. 6 out on the reception desk and spilling Breaker lager over the CM-initialled reception carpet.

Amazingly we have just found some footage from the said episode. The band look more like Sigue Sigue Sputnick than The Suburban Studs and we love that one of the members is carrying a transistor radio. What is funny though, we mentioned Sigue Sigue Sputnick and what do you know, we also found a picture of Tony James (and Billy Idol) in the motel’s reception. There can’t be a connection can there? Did Generation X actually record in the basement studio with Shughie McFee at the controls?

PS. If anyone knows what the punk band was called, what songs they were recording downstairs in the motel’s basement or if you were one the actors who played the band, please get in touch at one deck pete (at) gee male dot com

Nolly was a great mate of ours

Posted on by
6

While we were putting together a shortwave mix we came across a cover of the Crossroads Theme Tune that we couldn’t stop smiling to by The Lost T-Shirts of Atlantis. It is some tune! (The cast above including Carney the Gardener, Benny and is that Buzz the hippy character with the long hair and beard at the back?)

Question of the evening is “What does hearing The Theme from Crossroads by Tony Hatch, mean to you?” Answers to one deck pete (at) gee male dot com.

Radio IS a foreign country

Posted on by
Reply

Cheers to Steve Barker from the excellent On The Wire radio show for letting us know about the wonderful online radio station that is Radio is a Foreign Country here. As it describes itself: “An endless stream of obscure (and mostly retro) global music and audio ephemera.” Crazy is not the word.

There’s a whole load of stations to have a listen to here from Shortwave, Exotic, 24/7 Nature Radio, Oddball (including Mechanical Music Radio), American Elsewhere (WBCM Radio Bristol) and tons more. It is such an eclectic selection and for God’s sake, don’t touch that dial. Cheers again Steve!

More chilli business

Posted on by
Reply

The other month we got this great multi-coloured Bolivian Rainbow Chilli Pepper plant from Herne Hill Market that is now housed in the polytunnel and seems to love it in there so much as we are now getting more great purple flowers. Great stuff!

On a Chilli tip

Posted on by
Reply

Thanks to Kit G5KIT in Bristol who sent us these great pictures of his chilli plant and he wrote: “Remember those little chilli seedlings from earlier in the year? We’ve given most of them away, but kept the biggest one – and we took our first crop yesterday. The chillies aren’t very big, maybe 20mm long for the largest ones, but boy do they pack a punch. They’re not called ‘Demon Reds’ for nothing; they’re about 194,000 on the scoville scale of heat!” Wow that is crazy Kit!

He sent a tune too and added: “I do like the way the fruit grows upwards, they’re attractive as well as tasty. We’re going to make some chilli oil from these ones.” Cheers Kit for getting in touch.

Morschen43 on the wire

Posted on by
Reply

A big thanks to Steve Barker, Fenny and Jim from the excellent On The Wire for playing Morschen43’s Dark Dread / Toi … , L’Homme … at 1 hour in on the show earlier this morning. Cheers Steve for mentioning Weeds up to me knees also!

The track is off Spike’s new album available on Bandcamp here.

The track above was the tune played before it which is of the crazy dubby trumpet variety. Cheers again Steve!

To listen to the wonderful eclectic programme that is On The Wire check the blogspot here.

It’s also on Totally Radio on Sundays at 6pm here. It’s well worth a listen to say the least.

Now across to the twin cities

Posted on by
Reply

Another big shout out to our good friends across the pond Dr Strangedub and DJ Baby Swiss of the excellent radio show The Echo Chamber on KFAI. We’ve said this countless times, but if you want to hear reggae, dub, downbeat and beyond, tune in from 8 – 12 UK time on a Wednesday morning here.

This Wednesday just gone was the annual Echo Chamber/Echo Beach Dub Club Tiki Bar Special (not unlike the The Skybird Lounge series of shows) with all sorts of beach bar and holiday beach destination classics including One Deck Pete presents a mix for WAVE at 80 mins in.

Tracklistings:
The Grizzly Folk – Broomway
High Skies – The shipping Forecast
Michael Rose – Surfing in the dub (Intro)
Quiet Village – Keep on Rolling

Pull up the deck chair or get the 1970’s sun lounger out and tune in here for a far out holiday sunny vibes show as there’s some wonderful stuff on the show.