Great stuff Jim. Just spotted my old mate James Hunter in Howlin' Wilf and the Vee Jays in you listings poster for The Cricketers. Now there's a proper talented young man from Essex!
Thanks for the kind words and for watching the video! Back in the early days of Howlin' Wilf, I'd ring up "Wilf" to book a gig and his mum would shout up the stairs, "Neil! You up? It's another one of those blokes asking for Wilf…" Those were the daze… 😀🌻
I'm really enjoying these videos Jim! As someone who grew up in South East London, and has been a musician all his life, SO MANY of your tales "ring bells" with me! I'm now retired down in Ramsgate, like you, but love hearing about "back in the day" again. As a side note... I lived near Canvey Island for about ten years, up until about 6 years ago, and was quite acquainted with the Feelgoods...as well as Peter Green, who ended his days living with his nephew Joe Green (great sax player) on the Island. But...I never knew that Lee Brilleaux fronted the money to start Stiff! 😊
As an agent, I used to book bands into venues outside London. I don't remember a friendly venue in Wigan but we did book into Oldham, Manchester, Preston, Lancaster and Liverpool, as I recall…
Thanks a lot for your passion ,action, pleasure ,motivation for music you share with people like me, an eternal electrified french teenager aged now 61 years old....! Friendly yours from Le Havre/France ✨🎶🎸🎤🥁🎶⚡💥🌞😘
John Waters once said to John Peel 'Your job isn't to play what people like. Your job is to play what people don't know they like'. So I think my number five is exposing people to music they didn't know about. I can remember going to see an act & coming away with a tape I bought of the support act's music.
Thanks for that. Having vaguely known John Peel and worked with him, occasionally I can confirm that he wasn't as clear-cut about what "he" liked as he pretended. He was always afraid of being unfashionable, as he knew that was the quickest way to get fired from Radio One. John Walters had a huge part in the John Peel "myth"…
Stiff Records put out some great music gleaned from the Pub Rock scene. I have a lot of their early releases. Roogalator, Lew Lewis and Tyla Gang along with more widely known Nick Lowe, Wreckless Eric and of course Elvis (no, not the one in the chip shop). Missed the first legendary Stiff tours but did catch the equally legendary (maybe for different reasons) final Son of Stiff tour when they came to Coventry in 1980.
Who needs Elvis in a chip shop when you've got Elvis on Stiff Records, right? But seriously, it's great that you caught the final Son of Stiff tour, which was one of my favourites. If only for Joe "King" Carasco; and Edward Tenpole-Tudor can never be boring, no matter how hard he tries!
@@JimDriver The gig at the poly in Coventry was perhaps indicative for the tour. I was one of about 20 or 30 people who actually paid. Started fairly early because there were 5 or 6 acts on the bill. After the first couple they opened the doors for free to the student bar which about doubled the crowd. Initiated several heated discussions about the appreciation of live music of any genre, not metal exclusively. 😄
I'm thoroughly enjoying watching my way through your offerings Jim. However, having been blessed with an eclectic taste in music and although I didn't like what they later became, I saw both Pink Floyd (in 1972) and Genesis (the following year with Peter Gabriel's theatrics) at The Brighton Dome and they were excellent shows - and cheap, at 50p per ticket!
Thanks, Peter, I really do appreciate your kind words! I quite agree that some of these shows were great but I've never been one for watching the band through binoculars! Pub Rock suited me down to the ground and I'm so lucky that it was such a big part of my life. Cheers!
That was the beauty of the Brighton Dome, though; it was reasonably-intimate and I was close to the stage on both occasions. I've been to events in larger venues and spaces (Glastonbury, Knebworth, Victoria Park, etc.), and you're right about the binoculars. I've tried getting close to the stage(s), but it gets quite claustrophobic. Luckily for me I've been able to see Spirit (as you know), Arthur Lee & Love, The Flamin' Groovies, The Electric Prunes, The Pretty Things and (one of my all-time favourites) The Fall, and many other top-class acts in pubs.
I was born and raised in London, long enough ago to have enjoyed the pub rock scene for myself. I enjoyed the last video from Jim Driver, on what it was and wasn’t. This one I had to stop watching when he asserted England is the music (does he mean rock and roll or all music?) capital of the world. It isn’t. America is. Sorry mate. But it is what it is. Yes I know the 60’s saw the Brit’s hold a mirror up to an America that had turned its back on its blues tradition, and Americans are still grateful for that to this day. But it’s American music and the British version is only different because the Brits are not brought up to know the proper conventions of how it is supposed to be played. So they do an approximation, which sound great BTW and Americans love it because it sounds so fresh. Mark Knopler, himself a beneficiary of the London Pub Rock circuit likes to say this. So yes, the Brits have made an enormous and important contribution to the evolution of the music we call rock and roll. They have literally created their own version of it and at its best it is sublime. But The UK is not its capital.
Haha! That's the problem with adopted Americans, you can't take a joke! I was being ironic, and if you'd gone on to watch the rest of the video you'd see that I mentioned that Pub Rock featured mainly Brits playing American music. Though we did create Punk and not CBGBs… 😉
@@JimDriver The British contribution was enormous and still is. But the music that the London pub rock scene largely staged (bar Punk) was born in America. London never became the capital of it. New York can’t make that claim either. Both cities have played huge roles. BTW I owe a chunky debt to the scene you created myself, beyond attending some great gigs. I just put down my thinline ‘partscaster’, a sweet guitar, that was built by a bloke called Brinsley Schwarz, and I once had my house rewired by a dwarf from the Shetlands, excellent electrician and lovely (if deeply sardonic) guy who also played a mean bass, called Charlie Sinclair. So I enjoyed seeing that photo of Kilburn and the High Roads you included in your other video. Bless him! So thank you!
I'm talking about the 1980s. By about 1988, £5 was pretty standard t o see top acts like Steve Marriott and Geno Washington in "the better" pubs. Plus, I remember that tickets for Bo Diddley at the Half Moon Putney were a fiver in about 1982…
Yes, aside from the band's much-heralded beginnings in the Cart & Horses, Stratford, I remember seeing them advertised playing regularly at a pub in Leyton or Leytonstone. For the life of me I can't remember the name of it (senior moment!!) - can anyone help me?
Great stuff Jim. Just spotted my old mate James Hunter in Howlin' Wilf and the Vee Jays in you listings poster for The Cricketers. Now there's a proper talented young man from Essex!
Thanks for the kind words and for watching the video! Back in the early days of Howlin' Wilf, I'd ring up "Wilf" to book a gig and his mum would shout up the stairs, "Neil! You up? It's another one of those blokes asking for Wilf…" Those were the daze… 😀🌻
@@JimDriver I'll tell him that. He's still gigging around, still the best harmonica player I've ever heard.
I'm really enjoying these videos Jim!
As someone who grew up in South East London, and has been a musician all his life, SO MANY of your tales "ring bells" with me!
I'm now retired down in Ramsgate, like you, but love hearing about "back in the day" again.
As a side note...
I lived near Canvey Island for about ten years, up until about 6 years ago, and was quite acquainted with the Feelgoods...as well as Peter Green, who ended his days living with his nephew Joe Green (great sax player) on the Island.
But...I never knew that Lee Brilleaux fronted the money to start Stiff!
😊
Thank you very much for the kind words. Anybody with any sense ends up in Ramsgate! I think I vaguely knew Joe Green but didn't connect him to Peter…
Thanks Jim, fascinating stuff. I think the whole history of the pub rock scene is a much neglected subject, of which you are an undoubted authority!
Thanks, Sean: very good of you to say so! I certainly find it a fascinating subject…
Help Yourself was a pub rock band but they Toured outside of London and saw them in Wigan plus the Motors - Stranglers - and many more
As an agent, I used to book bands into venues outside London. I don't remember a friendly venue in Wigan but we did book into Oldham, Manchester, Preston, Lancaster and Liverpool, as I recall…
Thanks a lot for your passion ,action, pleasure ,motivation for music you share with people like me, an eternal electrified french teenager aged now 61 years old....! Friendly yours from Le Havre/France ✨🎶🎸🎤🥁🎶⚡💥🌞😘
Thanks for listening and for commenting. I really appreciate the compliment!
Please keep listening and watching…
John Waters once said to John Peel 'Your job isn't to play what people like. Your job is to play what people don't know they like'. So I think my number five is exposing people to music they didn't know about. I can remember going to see an act & coming away with a tape I bought of the support act's music.
Thanks for that. Having vaguely known John Peel and worked with him, occasionally I can confirm that he wasn't as clear-cut about what "he" liked as he pretended. He was always afraid of being unfashionable, as he knew that was the quickest way to get fired from Radio One. John Walters had a huge part in the John Peel "myth"…
Bring back pub rock 🎸👍
I quite agree, though my head says that pub rock was a product of its time… 😉
Kareoke helped kill live entertainment in pubs🎤 they did not have to pay idiots to sing 😔
@@JimDriver we're else are new bands going get a following 🤔
Here in Dublin all the great small venues close down in the 90s😔
It's not gone away here in Bristol.
Stiff Records put out some great music gleaned from the Pub Rock scene. I have a lot of their early releases. Roogalator, Lew Lewis and Tyla Gang along with more widely known Nick Lowe, Wreckless Eric and of course Elvis (no, not the one in the chip shop). Missed the first legendary Stiff tours but did catch the equally legendary (maybe for different reasons) final Son of Stiff tour when they came to Coventry in 1980.
Who needs Elvis in a chip shop when you've got Elvis on Stiff Records, right? But seriously, it's great that you caught the final Son of Stiff tour, which was one of my favourites. If only for Joe "King" Carasco; and Edward Tenpole-Tudor can never be boring, no matter how hard he tries!
@@JimDriver The gig at the poly in Coventry was perhaps indicative for the tour. I was one of about 20 or 30 people who actually paid. Started fairly early because there were 5 or 6 acts on the bill. After the first couple they opened the doors for free to the student bar which about doubled the crowd. Initiated several heated discussions about the appreciation of live music of any genre, not metal exclusively. 😄
I'm thoroughly enjoying watching my way through your offerings Jim.
However, having been blessed with an eclectic taste in music and although I didn't like what they later became, I saw both Pink Floyd (in 1972) and Genesis (the following year with Peter Gabriel's theatrics) at The Brighton Dome and they were excellent shows - and cheap, at 50p per ticket!
Thanks, Peter, I really do appreciate your kind words! I quite agree that some of these shows were great but I've never been one for watching the band through binoculars! Pub Rock suited me down to the ground and I'm so lucky that it was such a big part of my life. Cheers!
That was the beauty of the Brighton Dome, though; it was reasonably-intimate and I was close to the stage on both occasions.
I've been to events in larger venues and spaces (Glastonbury, Knebworth, Victoria Park, etc.), and you're right about the binoculars.
I've tried getting close to the stage(s), but it gets quite claustrophobic.
Luckily for me I've been able to see Spirit (as you know), Arthur Lee & Love, The Flamin' Groovies, The Electric Prunes, The Pretty Things and (one of my all-time favourites) The Fall, and many other top-class acts in pubs.
Great stuff mate
Thank you so much for your kind words! Keep watching!
Very Interesting.
Thank you and thanks for commenting!
Just subscribed. 🎉🎉🎉
Excellent! Welcome on board. Fasten your seatbelts for a (hopefully) exciting ride!
I was born and raised in London, long enough ago to have enjoyed the pub rock scene for myself. I enjoyed the last video from Jim Driver, on what it was and wasn’t. This one I had to stop watching when he asserted England is the music (does he mean rock and roll or all music?) capital of the world. It isn’t. America is. Sorry mate. But it is what it is. Yes I know the 60’s saw the Brit’s hold a mirror up to an America that had turned its back on its blues tradition, and Americans are still grateful for that to this day. But it’s American music and the British version is only different because the Brits are not brought up to know the proper conventions of how it is supposed to be played. So they do an approximation, which sound great BTW and Americans love it because it sounds so fresh. Mark Knopler, himself a beneficiary of the London Pub Rock circuit likes to say this. So yes, the Brits have made an enormous and important contribution to the evolution of the music we call rock and roll. They have literally created their own version of it and at its best it is sublime. But The UK is not its capital.
Haha! That's the problem with adopted Americans, you can't take a joke!
I was being ironic, and if you'd gone on to watch the rest of the video you'd see that I mentioned that Pub Rock featured mainly Brits playing American music. Though we did create Punk and not CBGBs… 😉
@@JimDriver The British contribution was enormous and still is. But the music that the London pub rock scene largely staged (bar Punk) was born in America. London never became the capital of it. New York can’t make that claim either. Both cities have played huge roles. BTW I owe a chunky debt to the scene you created myself, beyond attending some great gigs. I just put down my thinline ‘partscaster’, a sweet guitar, that was built by a bloke called Brinsley Schwarz, and I once had my house rewired by a dwarf from the Shetlands, excellent electrician and lovely (if deeply sardonic) guy who also played a mean bass, called Charlie Sinclair. So I enjoyed seeing that photo of Kilburn and the High Roads you included in your other video. Bless him! So thank you!
£5 for pub music.
You are having a lough. In 1977 I paid £4.25 to see Yes in Wembley Empire.
I'm talking about the 1980s. By about 1988, £5 was pretty standard t o see top acts like Steve Marriott and Geno Washington in "the better" pubs. Plus, I remember that tickets for Bo Diddley at the Half Moon Putney were a fiver in about 1982…
Ok maybe not pub rock but Iron Maiden started in the east end pubs about 1975
Yes, aside from the band's much-heralded beginnings in the Cart & Horses, Stratford, I remember seeing them advertised playing regularly at a pub in Leyton or Leytonstone. For the life of me I can't remember the name of it (senior moment!!) - can anyone help me?
@@JimDriver I don't know about Leyton, but they used to play the Ruskin Arms, I think this was their first venue.