Tag: UK Subs

Wickerman Festival 1

There was gang of four of us (John and Tony Dewhurst, Uncle George and me) who attended every one of the 14 Wickerman Festivals. The festival took place in the third weekend of July and the first one took place in 2002. The first couple of years coincided with the British Open golf tournament and that first year we stayed in a B&B in Kirkcudbright.

The site itself was situated off a very quiet country road on farmland midpoint between Kirkcudbright and Dalbeattie, located just after passing through Dundrennan.

At about 5pm on the Friday we landed at a cold and rainy site. Not unusually for us, we headed straight to the beer tent and based on the remarkably attentive reaction from all staff I still contend we were one of the first to purchase a libation in the Festival’s history, the drink obviously being a cold frothy Tennants!

There cannot have been more than 1000 people in attendance, and it did so well to survive those first couple of years as it sure it must have been operating at a loss. It was grey and windswept until the local legendary 10 strong pipe band, including Big Dougie and Wee Dougie, called the Dangleberries stepped on the main stage, the sky cleared, and the sun came out and the Wickerman festival was born. They also played a highly original bagpipe cover of ‘Paranoid’. From that day we have always said the Dangleberries saved Wickerman!

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The Dangleberries on stage. Image Credit dgwgo.com

As the festival was badged in the Ska/Punk category, there was a Scooter Tent located at the top of the hill which looked like a huge Mash tent. The DJ was playing some killer tunes within. There was a suite of cover bands on stage over the weekend, namely Combat Rock (Clash), Surfin Pinheads (Ramones) and Last Year’s Men (Stiff Little Fingers), the last two named were very good fun.

The support act on the Main Stage on Friday were UK Subs with their timeless frontman Charlie Harper. To embody the DIY ethic Charlie was spotted carrying a table over to the side of the stage to set up his merchandise stand. He was later spied nursing a bowl of lentil soup in the one and only food tent on the site. The band themselves crunched out a sparky set, with ‘Warhead’ being the highlight.

I was very excited prior to the headliners SLF playing as I thought it was a such a novel location to witness them. I had only seen them once previously on the comeback tour in 1987 and they met my expectations by producing a stellar set. To add to the merriment, it was the muddiest moshpit I have encountered, to the point where you could barely raise your feet out of the treacly morass!

Other bands we observed over the weekend were Dub Skelper, Misled Youth, Naeem, Druggy and Wilderbeast. The headliners on the Saturday were Spear of Destiny who I had misjudged beforehand as being primarily in the Goth space. However, they surprised me with a stronger more metallic sound and I thoroughly enjoyed their performance.

To mirror the film theme, there was a ritual at every festival at midnight on the Saturday to burn a huge wooden Wickerman. As we were in the Sassenach minority in the audience, we were joking we might be the human sacrifices, but thankfully that didn’t come to pass. It was a suitably warm combustible end to the weekend!

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The Burning of the Wickerman. Image Credit efestivals.

Preston Venues 5 to 7 – Caribbean Club Part 2

When living near the Withytrees in Fulwood I quite often used to walk into work which took me across Moor Park and right past the location of the Caribbean Club, now a Cash and Carry store.

My first visit around 1985 was to see Bogshed on a cold Wednesday night. They were pretty forgettable and had one good track – ‘Fat Boy Exam Failure’. I recall I managed to get a lift home from one of my brother’s mates.

My second visit in July 1986 on another Wednesday night was eminently more memorable. Prior to the first band I won £10 on the £100 bandit which was my biggest ever win and a tidy chunk of money in those days, resulting in me drawing annoyed glances from the club members.

The support band was Howl in the Typewriter which wholly consisted of one bloke called Sam from Blackpool playing a guitar loudly which sounds rather limited in scope, but he was good fun. He went on to form a long running record label called Pumf Records and Tapes. His encore party piece was unveiling his array of 15 guitars and allocating members of the audience to each one which created an unusual cacophonous outro.

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Howl in the Typewriter. Image Credit last.fm

The interesting backdrop to the music was that England were playing Poland in a must win World Cup game in Mexico with an 11pm kick off. So, there was a runner coming in from the other side of the club whilst the main band were on stage to announce each goal of Lineker’s hat trick which generated loud cheers every time.

The main act was a Washington DC Hardcore/Blues band called Scream who were really enjoyable. They had to go off at midnight as residents were complaining about the racket and their last act was to ask the audience for the bed for the night. A postscript was that 3 months after I saw them a 17 year- old drummer called Dave Grohl joined the band. The night ended by tottering home and watching the last 10 minutes of the England game.

Continuing the theme of Caribbean based venues, there is another club Jalgos – Venue 6 behind Raiders nightclub. I visited there once around 1995. It was again a social club set up on the ground floor with the venue upstairs. They were many old and new punks in attendance that night.

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Jalgos Club. Image Credit facebook.com/Jalgos

Support was Jez Catlow’s band punk band Pike who I was watching for the first time. They had been ploughing the local circuit for many years prior to this gig and continued to afterwards, however they are scheduled to play their last ever gig later this year.

The main band were UK Subs who continue to this very day to play a legendary number of gigs per year. I can only think comparably of Status Quo who were as hard touring as the Subs. They are fronted by the timeless Charlie Harper, who is now aged 74.

I read recently that the continued existence of Jalgos is in doubt, which would potentially leave Preston without a Caribbean venue, which I think would be a shame as there is a thriving Caribbean festival that takes place each summer on nearby Avenham Park.

Venue 7 – Lion Pub was down the bottom end on Church St located between the George and Joplins hostelries. It had gigs virtually every night, however it was primarily a Jazz and Blues venue and as a result it was not a regular haunt. I did see one gig there around 1988, involving Human Nature referenced previously in the Blackburn King Georges article. I also recall John Inverdale hosting some interviews in the very pub for a Radio 5 live piece when they were undertaking a tour of Britain looking at regional variations.