A list of North-East UK Punk & New Wave Bands
A friend is compiling a list of new wave and punk bands 1977 – 1980 from the north-east of England for a project. If anyone can add any to the list below, please contact him at: thinkpinkfairies (at) aol.com
Marcus Abused
Amazing Space Frogs
Angelic Upstarts
Arthur-2-Stroke
Basczax
The Beetles
Blitzkrieg Bop
The Carpettes
The Condemned
The Crime
The Cult
Crawling Chaos
Dementia Praecox
Discharge
Disorder
Fanheater
The Filth
Flesh
The Four Plugs
Frenzy Batallion
The Haemorrhages
Harry Hack & The Big G
King Crabs
The Lice
The MPs
Murder The Disturbed
Neon
Nicky Beat & The Beatniks
Nod
The Noise Toys
Nothing
No Way
Wavis O’Shave
Penetration
Pig Sani
The Police
The Proles
Public Sector
Punishment Of Luxury
Rebels
Red Alert
The Rejects
Sandgate
Scared Bananas
Scottish Polis Inspectors
Showbiz Kids
Soviet France
Spair Pair
The Spares
Speed
Suspect Device
Toy Dolls
Treatment Room
The Vomits
Marcus Abused was a bit later (I only know of his track on one vol. of Crass’ ‘Bullshit Detector’ comps.)
Basczax included members of Blitzkrieg Bop but were more Pop than Punk.
Crawling Chaos were more experimental but def with punk attitude: Kraut Punk?
Discharge: Not to be confused with the Stoke band of the same name.
Flesh were more experimental and incl Andrew McKenzie later of Hafler Trio.
King Crabs incl Jimmy Nail.
Nod: Punk poet.
Nothing incl members of Crawling Chaos.
Wavis O’Shave was an eccentric poet / singer. Tho not strictly Punk, he def had Punk attitude.
Soviet France (later Zoviet France) started as a Punk band.
NB: The first issue of ‘Smash Hits’ incl an article on the NE Punk scene (I kid ye not!)
did’nt THE WALL originally form in,or around sunderland,before moving to london?..
I sent an email to the address you gave and it was bounced back. Here’s the email:
Hi
I saw you were putting together a list of North East Punk bands. Noticed you’d missed The Putrids from Hartlepool (Originally called the Putrid Morons) named by Janette Sharp who at the time was girlfriend of Dimmer Blackwell from Blitzkrieg Bop if I remember correctly. This was shortly after the release of the first Ramones album so must have been 1977. Early songs included “Buckingham Palace” “Loose Advice” “Fiona Dance” “London Town” Two of the band, singer Chris Robinson and guitarist Chris Larkin (me) attended the “secret” Sex Pistols gig at Middlesborough Rock Garden in 1977 when they appeared as Acne Rabble or Rebel. Early line up included David Goodwin on bass and Ian Meredith on drums. Goodwin was soon replaced on bass by Andrew Bake or Bako Putrid as he was known from then on. In classic punk style he couldn’t play a note on the bass nor indeed did he own a bass when recruited. However, he did have a black leather biker jacket, which we took turns on for photoshoots and also more importantly he was a dead ringer for Sid Vicious. The Putrids released a cassette only release called Dead or Alive limited to a few copies for ourselves and fan. Not long after we tired of all the spitting and getting beaten up and shouted at for wearing drainpipe trousers and morphed into New Wave popsters Chesterfield Modern who featured briefly in Smash Hits magazines feature on Teesside music and released an acetate only EP (1 copy in existence) featuring Sexpert, Chesterfield Modern and Admit Defeat, once played by Larry Ottaway of Radio Cleveland. We regularly played some of the top dives, sorry I mean venues Teesside had to offer including The Teessider in Stockton and The Empire on Linthorpe Road in Middlesborough.
Cheers everybody, will get these added to the list, martin
Heres a few more – The Wretched, Fungus and the Bogeymen and State of Emergency / Easington Colliery, The Demented, Damage and Uproar / Peterlee, No Cover, Crucified by Christians / Shotton, Sadistic Slobs / Houghton, The Crazed / Durham, The Straw Mats / ?, Passion Trade / Yarm ! Zulu and the Heartaches, The Revolving Doors / Sunderland Cheers
Hi
Thanks for the contributions, all included. Richard did a long list of NE PUNK as insert for an lp, can be seen at
http://www.behance.net/gobonthetyne
doing a book next, seek any contributions/anecdotes
Dementia Praecocks wss fronted by Steve the Goon Pierce.A punk star waiting 2 be born.He never was,but theres time yet.
John Ramsey, thanks for contribution, Mick from The Big G and DP gave me some recordings of DP with steve the goon, pretty freaked pre punk stuff, if you’d like to hear it: [email protected]
Martin
you’ve missed quite a few teesside bands from the list silent mafia from billingham shoot the lights out from hartlepool the vultures robot youth and johnny seven all from thornaby monitor from boro area the barbarians also boro the sines stockton area (very Jam like so got lumped in with new mod) thats about all off the top of my head but if i remember more i will let you know these were all fom 77 to 79 period when i was singer for silent mafia
Hi
You need to add
The Holiday Patrons from Hartlepool
Emergency purge from Boro.
TNT North East somewhere.
Carl Green and The Scene, not punk, but very much part of the teesside music scene.
Terry Tanz and the vestites, Stockton.
Hi just to as to your list public toys played from Hebburn changed name to the fiend hope this is helpful
It’s Lice? not The Lice – anyway Alan King an original member of the band and later music entrepreneur and Vic Reeves comedy partner died earlier this month.
Genocide exit,brill punk band from north east,i saw them early 80s at continental sunderland,had 1 ep called future vibes
Here’s a few more for the list…
The Coils, Morpeth:
Maurice Devine (Gary Natrass) – vocals
Johnny Condom – bass
Hoddy Nasty – guitar
Friction Burns – drums
(previously participants in Raw Power, Genocide & Butcher bands, all Morpeth)
Dependable Bodies, Kenton:
Dave Hendas Preston – guitar & cowbell
Neil Spud Finley – vocals & triangle
Paul Mungo Chippendale Riley – bass & kazoo
Allan Boppa Dryden – drums & tambourine
Model Workers, Gateshead:
Sean Leyland – lead guitar
Andi McGarry – vocals
Paul Thompson – bass/vocals
Gary Donahue – drums
Rival Savages, Gateshead:
Paul McTaggart – voice
Bob Clark – drums
Paul Horsley Bass
Allan Brown – guitar
(single released on Savage Records, recorded at Guardian Studios 3 August 1980)
Teenage Rebels, Bedlington:
Tony Dunn – drums