Category: Nag’s Head

My research for wycombegigs.co.uk has confirmed that Friday 5^th April 1968 marks a significant date in the live music history of High Wycombe – it was the opening night of the ‘Blues Loft’ in the upstairs room at The Nag’s Head on the London Road.  Organised by a then 25 year old Ron Watts, it proved to be the start of many years of live gigs at The Nag’s Head.

The advert above, taken from the 29^th March 1968 edition of the Bucks Free Press, shows that the acts on the opening night were ‘Champion’ Jack Dupree backed by Shakey Vick’s Blues Band.  The following week, Savoy Brown would continue the Blues theme that would run on an almost weekly basis for the remainder of the year.

Watts had chosen The Nag’s Head after he had arranged Blues gigs earlier in the year at Wycombe pubs, including Ye Exchange, The White Hart and The Angel. Watts explains his choice of The Nag’s Head in his 2006 autobiography – 100 Watts – A Life in Music.

“I went to have a look at the upstairs room, and it was perfect. The bar was at one end of the long, narrow room, which had windows along one side and when we started there were two open fireplaces that came in handy during the winter, when the place could be freezing cold until the customers started to arrive. There were proper dressing rooms, at first to the side of the stage and later, when we had to install a fire escape in the area they took up, we used a small room behind the stage, with direct access onstage. With a capacity of 200, the room was bigger than the ones I’d used before, but I never had any doubts that I could fill the place. And for almost 25 years, I did.”

In my efforts to track down more information on the 5^th April 1968 gig, I discovered a webpage (on http://blues.gr/) that contained a picture of Jack Dupree, playing in front of a poster for the opening two nights of The Blues Loft at The Nag’s Head.  The poster is now recognisable as the style that Ron Watts introduced for his Nag’s Head promotions.  It is understood that Les Watts (no relation to Ron) designed the posters.  Behind the band, there is also a sign (partially covered) that says Big Ron’s Blues Loft.  The photograph appears to have been sent to as a memento by Jack Dupree. So much information in just one photograph!

I was subsequently delighted to have made contact with the drummer in the photo – Mel Wright – who believes the picture was taken at the Nag’s Head on that opening night – 5^th April 1968 and taken by Roy Holley.

Mel was drummer for Shakey Vick that night and later when on to form Dynaflow Blues, who performed at The Nag’s Head on at least five occasions before splitting up towards the end of 1968.

Recalling the night of the first gig at The Nag’s Head on 5^th April 1968, Ron Watts said:

“So many people turned up that the bar staff got caught on the hop, working flat out from opening time until last orders. I realised all the other stuff I’d been involved with had been a dress rehearsal. The Nag’s was where I became a real promoter.”

Watts was well known for having his helpers during his promoting days. Nag’s Head landlord at the time, Ron Saunders, was no doubt delighted with the extra trade coming through his door?  Although the Nag’s had a history dating back to the late 19^th century, this appears to be first time it had been used a regular venue for live music.  The previous year (1967) it had been used as a disco and during the early months of 1968, the local ‘High Wycombe 18+ Club’ had used it for their new HQ which met at the venue of Tuesday evenings.  Watt’s efforts to promote gigs, saw him use local man, Nick Prigg.  According to Watts, Prigg was a ‘big beared guy’ who drove a wan around with his mate Ivan, covered in posters.  The van was then used to sell hot-dogs in the Town Centre when the pubs closed.  This was pre-kebab days!

Mel kindly sent another photo from the same gig (again taken by Roy Holley of Pinnions Road, High Wycombe).

Please get in touch if you have any memories or memorabilia from these early Blues gigs at The Nag’s Head. I plan to publish further articles throughout 2018 to mark the 50^th anniversary.

To give a feel for the kind of music you would have heard that evening:
For your viewing and listening pleasure

Calcutta Blues – Jack Dupree – Beat Club, German TV, June 1969

Savoy Brown at Fillmore East 1969 – music dubbed to colour footage

References:

http://blues.gr/profiles/blogs/brit-author-and-musician-mel-wright-talks-about-british-blues

http://www.melwright.co.uk/

http://www.britishbluesarchive.org.uk/

http://shakeyvick.com/

 

Swindon based XTC released their debut album White Music on 20 January 1978. The Virgin record release came just over six months after they had made two appearances at The Nag’s Head.  Their debut at the London Road venue came on 16 May 1977, with promoter Ron Watts bringing them back again on 6 June 1977.

White Music included classic pop singles ‘Radios in Motion’, ‘Statue of Liberty’ and ‘This is Pop’, plus their take on Bob Dylan’s ‘All Along the Watchtower’. The album, recorded at The Manor Studio in Oxfordshire, was put to tape at the time of their Nag’s Head appearances and produced by John Leckie.

The XTC line-up for White Music was Andy Partridge (guitar and vocals), Colin Moulding (bass and vocals), Barry Andrews (keyboards and piano) and Terry Chambers (drums). That line-up would record follow-up album Go 2 in October 1978 before a change of personnel saw Barry Andrews depart – eventually opting not to replace him with another keyboard player and instead bring in second guitarist Dave Gregory.  XTC would go on to record the straight pop album Drums and Wires – recorded at Townhouse Studios in West London and produced by Steve Lilywhite after the band were apparently impressed with his work on Siouxsie and the Banshees debut The Scream.  The second single from the album, ‘Making Plans for Nigel’, would become a Top 20 UK hit just a few weeks after a May 1979 appearance at High Wycombe Town Hall.

For your listening and viewing pleasure

White Music – Full Album audio via YouTube

BBC Sight and Sound – March 1978

Live on French TV – Chorus 1978

Wire returned for a performance at The Nag’s Head on Friday 9^th December 1977 for what is believed to be their first headline appearance at the High Wycombe venue.  The London based band, formed in late 1976 as part of the original ‘punk’ scene, had supported The Jam at The Nag’s Head in May 1977.

Formed in October 1976 by Colin Newman (vocals, guitar), Graham Lewis (bass, vocals), Bruce Gilbert (guitar), and Robert Gotobed, real name Robert Grey (drums).

Their influence has outweighed their relatively modest record sales. Robert Smith has described how, after seeing the group live, influenced The Cure’s sound after their first album.  Wire and The Cure played a double header at Aylesbury Friars in early 1979.

A plagiarism case between Wire’s music publisher and Elastica, over the similarity between Wire’s 1977 song “Three Girl Rhumba” and Elastica’s 1995 hit “Connection“, resulted in an out-of-court settlement.

Their December 1977 date at The Nag’s Head came as part of a nationwide tour to help promote their latest single – Manequin/Feeling Called Love/12XU and debut album – Pink Flag. Dates on the tour also included two nights supporting The Tubes at Hammersmith Odeon (6^th and 7^th December 1977).

Aside a period of solo activities from 1981 to 1985 Newman, Lewis and Grey continued to perform together as Wire and in January 2017 they released a new album called Silver/Lead – their 16^th studio album.

Support act, Trash, appear to be a band with members from Weybridge and Reading. The link below to the excellent boredteenagers website gives more background – including a mention of their gig in High Wycombe supporting Wire.

For your viewing and listening pleasure

Manequin -Wire – audio

Three Girl Rumba – Wire – audio

Priorities – Trash – audio

Further reading:

http://www.pinkflag.com/

http://www.boredteenagers.co.uk/TRASH.htm

 

Three months into their career, The Damned stepped on stage at The Nag’s Head on Thursday 14^th October 1976 to make their first headline appearance at any venue.  By all accounts they didn’t fill themselves with glory as they subjected a rapidly diminishing audience to a torrent of abuse and then Manager Ron Watts threatened to get his shotgun if they didn’t behave.

Nag’s Head promoter Ron Watts had been impressed with The Damned after seeing them support The Vibrators at The Nag’s Head just a few weeks earlier. It prompted Watts to take on the management of the band.  Watts recalls the decision to take on band management in his autobiography – 100 Watts – A Life in Music – “I managed the Damned for a while, right back when they first got started.  Management wasn’t something I ever enjoyed but I did it as an occasional favour so I agreed to help the band out.”

However, after the band ended up in jail following a gig in Luton, their return to the Nag’s Head in October 1976 proved the catalyst for Watts and The Damned to go their separate ways.  Watts was unimpressed with the attitude of his new band towards a sparse audience mixed between new punks and the Nag’s Head regulars.  The bitching by the bands eventually drove the remaining numbers in the audience down to around 30.

Watts recalls the evening: “Brian James was trying to antagonise the crowd, shouting, “Call yourselves punks?” I’d had enough of this so I shouted back, “Keep it up and I’ll fetch me shotgun. We’ll see how much of a punk you are then.”

The events of that infamous evening were also reviewed by Jonh Ingham writing for Sounds magazine. His review was titled ‘High Wycombe – Village of The Damned’, where he said: “The Damned never do something simply if it can be accomplished with a grand gesture. They don’t ask for a beer, they scream for a blanket-blank beer.  They don’t tell the beard ‘n’ denim set they’re antiquated or silly looking, they scream the most abusive sewage they can dredge up”.  But Ingham was impressed with their musical output, commenting: “Musically, though, there’s no stopping them. Starting where ‘Search and Destroy’ leaves off, they smashed and stormed through an inferno of blazing numbers, ‘Neat, Neat, Neat’, ‘Born to Kill’, ‘So Messed Up, ‘Fish’, the energy level was phenomenal.”

Luckily for The Damned, Watts didn’t get out his shotgun at The Nag’s Head but by the next morning the two sides had agreed a parting with Jake Riviera of Stiff Records the new man assigned to try and control Captain and Co.

A week later The Damned released their debut single ‘New Rose’ the following week on Stiff Records – regarded now as the first ever ‘punk’ single in the UK.

It would be a while before The Damned returned to High Wycombe.

Is she really going out with him?

The Tom Robinson Band made a return to The Nag’s Head on Sunday 9^th October 1977 for a low key warm-up date to promote their debut single – 2-4-6-8 Motorway.  The band had signed for EMI just a few weeks previous and their previous appearance at The Nag’s Head on 25^th August 1977 had gone down a storm with the locals – and with a near sold out venue, promoter Ron Watts was a very happy man too!

The 2-4-6-8 single had been released the Friday before their second appearance at The Nag’s Head and it was another busy night.

Peter Cottridge, writing in the December 1977 issue of the High Wycombe fanzine, Bucks Shee Press, said of the Tom Robinson Band: “When the band played at The Nag’s Head recently it was something special. The atmosphere was almost tangible, the audience becoming spontaneously involved in a way rarely seen at most rock and roll outings.”

He added: “Tom’s songs are securely rooted in the reality of 1977 and are social comment with a definite political stance.”

The set list for the gig at The Nag’s Head included the following:

• Long Hot Summer
• Don’t Take No For An Answer
• 2-4-6-8 Motorway
• Martin
• Winter of ‘79
• Better Decide Which Side You’re On
• I’m All Right Jack
• Right on Sister
• Glad to Be Gay
• Power in The Darkness
• Up Against The Wall

Encores are most likely to have been popular covers, Bob Dylan’s ‘I Shall Be Released’ and Lou Reed’s ‘Waiting For My Man’ – plus another play of the new single,  2-4-6-8 Motorway.

The performance was extremely well received by the Nag’s Head gig-goers and Tom promised the crowd he would see them again soon. It was a promise he would keep – returning to the much larger Town Hall venue at the tail end of the tour – by which time the band had celebrated a top five hit and appeared on Top of the Pops.

This is a live performance of 2-4-6-8 Motorway recorded at a similar time to the Nag’s Head.

‘Punk rock’ at The Nag’s Head came to a violent and controversial end on Thursday 1^st September 1977 after trouble broke out at 999 gig, with local punks Xtraverts as support.  In what was becoming a more regular occurrence, local punks were targeted by alternative cultures of the period (affectionately known at the time as ‘long haired boring old farts’, or words to that affect).

Nag’s Head Landlord Mick Fitzgibbons subsequently began banning anybody looking remotely ‘punk’ like from the premises and also pushed the ban on to the type of bands being promoted by Ron Watts. The draconian action came just short of a year after Watts had promoted a Sex Pistols gig at the London Road venue – with the following 12 months seeing the likes of The Damned, Stranglers, Clash, Jam, Generation X and Siouxsie and The Banshees all grace the upstairs stage.

999 were a band formed in what some regard as the second phase of the punk explosion. The idea of what was to become 999 originally came from London based musicians Nick Cash (vocals and guitar) and Guy Days.  Cash was a former member of Kilburn and the High Roads, with Days a session guitarist on some of the High Roads’ demo tapes.

Via a late 1976 Melody Maker ad around October 1976, the duo recruited Jon Watson (bass) and two months later, Pablo LaBritain (drums).  Their first gig is recognised to be at Northampton Cricket Club in January 1977 but the 999 name was not used until mid-way through 1977 when the now classic raffle ticket logo was devised.  Previous incarnations of the band had been The Dials, Fanatics and 48 Hours.

They released a partly self-financed debut single – “I’m Alive”/”Quite Disappointing” in July 1977 and having established themselves on the London punk circuit, were signed to United Artists around the time of their Nag’s Head appearance. Their debut release on UA – “Nasty Nasty”/ “No Pity” followed in October 1977.

Meanwhile, support band, Xtraverts, were now firmly established on the local ‘punk’ scene having played their first gigs earlier in 1977 – including a ‘Wycombe Punk Night’ down The Nag’s Head in July 1977.  By the time of their September 1977 appearance, 20 year old lead singer Nigel Martin had recruited Tim Brick on drums and a 17 year old Mark Reilly (*) on guitar.  Meanwhile, Ian Stavan (formerly of Cardiac Condition) was set to replace Carlton Mounsher on bass – the latter joining the newly formed Party with Kris Jozajtis.

* It is obligatory to mention at this point that Mark Reilly later went on to form early 1980’s pop band Matt Bianco – Matt Bianco being the name of the band, rather than a name change.

Much of The Xtraverts self-penned set at the time was written by Brick and Reilly – including ‘Read it in the Papers’ and ‘Interview’ (a song about the infamous Bill Grundy/Sex Pistols debacle and formerly called ‘Hey, Bill Grundy). However, Martin had written the lyrics for ‘Blank Generation’ and ‘A Lad Insane’ – these two songs would be recorded in December 1977 and released in January 1978 on the Spike record label – the record being produced with the help of local musician ‘Spike’ Jones.

Nigel Martin commented on the targeting of punks in the December 1977 issue of local fanzine Bucks Shee Press “Everyone picks on punks. We’re just a target for everyone. “

The violence and subsequent action by the Nag’s Head landlord, also prompted at least one disgruntled punter to write a letter to the Sounds magazine:

‘Katie Komplex’ from Gerrards Cross made it quite clear why the trouble had started:

“This was due to some ignorant individuals who looked at the gig as a good excuse to beat up punks, and naturally we got the blame for the trouble.”

“Anyone who has been to the ‘Nags Head’, will know that it is a good little club, with a good atmosphere, which has had some brilliant new wave bands over the past year.”

 

And finally, back to the music you may have heard during the eventful night at The Nag’s Head in September 1977.

999 – I’m Alive audio via YouTube below

Xtraverts – Blank Generation audio via YouTube below

Your memories of this night most welcome.

The Tom Robinson Band made an early career appearance in High Wycombe on Thursday 25^th August 1977 with a Ron Watts promoted evening at The Nag’s Head.  During my initial research for wycombegigs.co.uk, I’d believed this was TRB’s debut show in High Wycombe but an additional date on Thursday 30th June 1977 subsequently came to light – this making this the second of three appearances at the London Road venue.

TRB’s set consisted of mainly politically edged songs touching on the subjects of gay liberation, racism and political issues surrounding the country at the time.  Their repertoire also included the pure rock/pop of ‘2-4-6-8 Motorway’ – a song that attracted the attention of record companies.

Lead singer and bassist Tom Robinson had originally been inspired by the early pirate radio shows of John Peel.  He moved to London in 1973, aged 23, and joined acoustic band Café Society.  But it was in 1976 that Robinson got another wake up call.  He stumbled across an early Sex Pistols gig at The 100 Club in London and although he openly confesses to not liking the music, it was something about the anger, attitude and spirit of the Pistols that caused Robinson to have a complete rethink of his own musical aspirations.

After a few solo gigs in late 1976, Robinson drafted in guitarist Danny Kustow, drummer ‘Dolphin’ Taylor and organist Mark Ambler to form the Tom Robinson Band.  Robinson would take on bass and vocals and they performed their first gigs in late 1976 at the usual London pub outlets.

Some might say that TRB were a watered down version of the early punk bands but the message they were putting across was as hard as anything the Clash or the Pistols could come up with.  For many, it also seemed a perfect fit for the more laid back suburbia of High Wycombe.

2-4-6-8 Motorway may have been an ear catcher of the record companies but followers of their live gigs would soon realise they were not a one trick pony, with a series of classic songs, that despite not yet being committed to vinyl, were now sing along or fisting pumping standards – from ‘Glad to Be Gay’, to singing about Grey Cortina’s – from preaching ‘Don’t Take No for an Answer’ or predicting the future with the haunting ‘Winter of ’79’.

This is the band appearing on Janet Street Porter’s London Weekend Show in mid 1977 – shortly before they signed for EMI.  They would return to The Nag’s Head in October 1977 before a near sell-out appearance at much larger capacity High Wycombe, Town Hall in November 1977.