Drongos For Europe – headliners at my final gig

Summer 2000: The Spread Eagle was clearly a decent venue, there were more bands around in Leicester. I was planning to go on. Of course it was a pain sometimes. Every so often someone who knew nothing about punk gigs would come up with some helpful advice. An older guy who lived in my house had apparently been manager for Flintlock(the in-house boyband on The Tomorrow People children’s sci-fi series)in the 70s. His suggestion was that what I needed to do was book a marquee, print up some flyers…

An associate came to me with the suggestion that we actually put on an all dayer. I’d thought about this, but I wasn’t sure I was ready yet (some people dive straight in. Some people also fall flat on their faces and end up either paying a load of money out of their pockets, or do a runner at the end of the night). We booked a Saturday and agreed that we’d both come up with about 6 bands that we’d get. It did actually sound quite simple.

From the outset he wanted to mix it up and get some young skater punk type bands. I’d always resisted this. I wasn’t into it, it wasn’t my idea of punk, and I thought it was two different audiences. A skate-punk band approached me once but made the faux pas of describing the UK Subs as “irrelevant” , blowing any chance I’d put them on! With hindsight this might have been a good time to start mixing bills and getting a wider audience , and this worked well in some places. I’ll never know.

Back to the all-dayer, I was having trouble getting bands the bands I wanted. I got 80s band External Menace but that was about it. My co-promoter rapidly filled the bill and in the end I think it was around 14 bands.

I did get one coup as I saw it. Some time before an ageing Leicester punk who had been around since 76, and was a not always reliable source of information, had told me that cult early 80s bands Drongos For Europe and Dead Wretched were both playing again , but not telling anyone because they didn’t want anyone to see them. Which made no sense. Although if they wanted to play a gig with no one watching I might have been the man they needed.

A while later I  went to a gig in Birmingham where the Drongos  made tgheir comeback, opening for UK Subs and GBH. In the bar afterwards I spoke to bassist Dek and asked if they were interested in playing the all dayer. He said that at this stage this gig was a one off and they hadn’t made a decision about continuing. A few days later he called me – they wanted to play. There was also another band they wanted to play with them , Sister Automatic, who were ex members of Dead Wretched. Wretched had been responsible for No Hope For The Wretched, a UK82 classic. However the new band was a different proposition , more 77 punk rock n roll. I said I’d book Drongos and keep Sister Automatic as a standby as the gig was now full. But the cryptic statements from the elder statesman now seemed to make some kind of sense: Drongos  hadn’t been ready, and Wretched had morphed into another band altogether.

Shortly before the gig was Holidays In The Sun. I got a scrappy flyer together, gave all of them out, and as I didn’t even have one left to photocopy I had to make another one in my B & B which was an entirely handwritten rush job. We also realised a possible error of judgement. We’d inadvertently booked the gig on the same day as Leicester’s Abbey Park Festival. This attracted most of Leicester’s alternative/indie crowd. However they appeared to have a blanket ban on proper punk bands due to their “anti-authority” stance. A mate once told me he tried to get his band on and was told “we don’t want your sort “. So we reasoned it didn’t matter, the punks would come to our gig.

My co-promoter made another mistake. He’d dubbed the all-dayer “Steve Applecatcher’s Trousers” – an in-joke understood by a tiny handful of people. He sent some info about the exciting Steve Applecatcher’s Trousers event including the full line-up  to the Leicester Mercury Gig Guide. We checked the Mercury gig guide that week. There two or three pages on the Abbey Park Festival. Our gig just appeared in the listings ,as Steve Applecatcher’s Trousers – All Dayer, with no info about who was playing. They’d stitched us up! (Or maybe they just didn’t put a lot of effort in compiling the gig guide).

Next was the steady trickle of cancellations. One of them was External Menace. The cancellations continued right up until the gig. Contempt cancelled something like the day before due to a band member’s partner being due to give birth. In the end we were down to around half the bands! Sister Automatic certainly had their slot. Again , while cancellations on these sort of bills were common, no one could recall an all dayer when so many of the acts  had cancelled this late in the day.

Early doors at the Spread Eagle looked dead. I got a message that Setback, a young local  band who’d only played a couple of gigs and were going to open , had to cancel due to a member being at A & E all night with a mate who’d broken his leg (the injured party being the same guy who’d failed to hand out my Red Flag 77 flyers – I wasn’t responsible for the broken leg though). Combat Shock turned up – or at least two of them. While sitting in the pub they got a message that the other two weren’t coming, so that was another cancellation! I then got a phone call from behind the bar. It was a woman I’d had a date with a couple of weeks ago. She’d told me she was coming to Leicester this weekend and would come to my gig after she’d been to Abbey Park. She was phoning to say she wasn’t well and couldn’t make it. Nothing new there , although she had actually gone to the effort of contacting me.

A couple of guys had travelled from wales to see Drongos, but it was otherwise very quiet. Gradually a few trickled in including a few youngsters , probably expecting the more teen friendly punk all dayer that the pub put on every so often. Once there were enough people late afternoon we got our first act on, acoustic punk and purveyor of humorous songs , Paul Carter. The plan had been to hold him back because with so many bands there was a risk of running behind schedule , and he could be wheeled on very quickly when we needed to catch up. Not an issue now – we had more time than we needed. Mercyless Kop, a streetpunk band from Nottinghamshire , played next. Their manic and rather confrontational frontman Alan was delighted to find the venue was next door to a police station. He’d been a striking miner in  84 . He flung the window open and shouted “This is for you wankers” by way of  introduction to a song called ..yes, All Coppers Are Bastards. No reaction from next door , perhaps they were all at Abbey Park. The the kids went wild though. They weren’t bothered about whether it was the right type of punk band, they just enjoyed it.  The next band ,reformed 80s streetpunk veterans from the Welsh valleys, Foreign Legion, also went down really well, and singer Marcus said that it had been “well worth the journey”. One of the nice guys of the scene. This gig had just managed to avoid territory marked total disaster.

The most bizarre moment of the day was outside the venue. It had been pointed out to me that one of the few people there early was a Mercury journalist. Maybe he thought the cryptic reference to Steve Applecatcher’s Trousers hid a big story. At some point I nipped out to eat and spotted a Leicester Mercury billboard outside a shop -“Punk Makes A Comeback”. Really? Had the journalist filed has report? Was this a sort of apology for the shabby job they’d done in the gig guide? I bought a copy and hurriedly turned the pages to find “Punk Is The Next Big Fashion Trend”. It was obviously a quiet news day and they’d just rehashed something from a fashion magazine, dressed one of their staff in “punk” fancy dress, and done a vox pop. Back to the real thing.

Sister Automatic played a set of their material. Halfway through they announced “This is called No Hope For The Wretched…” Some of us old ‘uns cheered. “Not really!” Thanks. Dead Wretched did reform briefly a nearly 10 years later and it was fun while it lasted. After this W.O.R.M played, a pop punk band from Chesterfield I think, but who were well known on the d.i.y circuit. Drongos were due to headline but local garage band The Pokers (another new band from the Jet Junk Jivers / Flaps  stable) were also on the bill. They’d been pencilled in for earlier but wanted to go to Abbey Park so wanted to play late. Drongos were officially the headliners – ie I said so – so we went with Drongos followed by a Pokers “aftershow set”. It made no difference to anyone actually there!

By now the pub downstairs was pretty full, but people weren’t showing an interest in the gig. Some of the punk crowd had arrived and told me they’d got no money to pay as they’d spent it at Abbey Park. Shortly before Drongos came on we worked out we’d got enough money to pay the bands. I didn’t announce it was free, I just stopped doing the door. Probably the best decision because the room filled up for Drongos and they had a great set, and the Pokers got to play to a full room as well. Drongos were delighted to get £50! They carried on and are still going to this day and pull a big crowd at Rebellion and other gigs.

There was nearly one more band. A teenage girl who’d been there early doors approached me at one point and suggested we should give people a partial refund from the £5 door fee because of the cancellations. I didn’t blame her, I would have asked the same thing. I pointed out that we still had the headliners who we needed to pay the most money to. She came back shortly afterwards and said that she had a band called Grotbags, and asked if they could play instead of a partial refund. I came to an arrangement with a slightly wary Pokers that they would loan their instruments, and told the representative of Grotbags that they could go on straight after the Pokers. But they didn’t appear. Maybe it was past their bedtimes. Otherwise the last band I put on would’ve been called Grotbags, which would have been a fine way to end my promoting “career”.

Was that gig a flop or success ? I couldn’t tell.

The Spread Eagle in 1977 which is sort of appropriate. It’s now flats, obviously

I should mention that the woman who’d phoned the pub earlier to say she couldn’t make it was the future Mrs wyngatecarpenter. She had been genuinely ill, wasn’t even in Leicester at the time, and had gone to quite a lot of effort to find the phone number for the Spread Eagle and contact me.

That nearly wasn’t my last gig. My mate who was connected with The Casualties was booking three dates for them, probably en route to Europe. He asked me to give them a Thursday gig, but promised that this would be the only Midlands date which sounded OK. I booked a pub called the Lamplighters that was a biker pub but was now getting the alternative crowd in, and was putting gigs on. Then my mate told me he’d booked Nottingham on the Friday. OK…Then he booked Derby on the Saturday. In a fit of pique I  told him I was pulling out. They had no gig on the Thursday and in hindsight they’d probably have been happier with a poor turnout than no gig, but there you go. Another mate then offered me The Bloodclots, a Casualties type band from Seattle, who’s debut album had been my favourite of 1999. Again the Lamplighters was booked. Flyers were printed and were being distributed. Then my mate called me and told me they’d split up. I never organised another gig, although I occasionally phoned up Sick On The Bus if they were required for special occasions! Meanwhile some of the younger crowd started putting gigs on and the 00s turned out to be a good time for the Leicester punk scene.

Despite my usual cynical tone I had a great time over those two years. All the aggravation seemed worth it to get to put some of my favourite bands on. When I’ve read similar things it’s quite common for people to say that they made long term friends , etc as a result and actually I did , as well as a lot of people that I still see now and again. But I’ll end with a different story – no names…

The singer of one of the bands that I put on several times had made clear how much he appreciated what I was doing for his band. My name was on the thanks list of their 7″, and he even gave me a name check in fanzine interviews. The band split and then he seemed to disappear from the scene for a bit. A few years later I saw him at a gig in Derby and went over for a chat. After a couple of minutes he said “Sorry , I don’t mean to be rude ,but who are you? Are you from Derby?” I reminded him that I’d put them on more than once in Leicester. He looked blank. He clearly had no memory of me or any of the gigs I’d booked for them! Sums it up quite well I think!

Playlist – Mercyless Kop and The Pokers are the final “too-obscure for youtube” omissions.