Tuesday 24 July 2012

Roy McDonough - Football's Hard Man

Of all the players and managers who have come and gone over the years at Colchester United, Roy McDonough is still the one who is remembered most fondly by many fans. He was certainly one of the most charismatic. And controversial.


So, with it being 20 years this very year since one of the most memorable seasons in the club’s history which culminated in the Boys of ’92 earning promotion back into the Football League, along with the little matter of the club’s first ever Wembley appearance, I thought with Big Roy’s autobiography Red Card Roy, which he has co-written with Bernie Friend and which Amazon describes as “ …the jaw-dropping story of terrace cult hero Roy McDonough - Britain's wildest footballer who was sent off a record 22 times in a career of more than 650 games, 100s of goals, thousands of beers and, allegedly, 400 women” being released next month, it would be a good time for a chat with the great man himself.  So I caught up with ‘Big Roy’ in Spain where he and his wife Liz have been living for the past nine years.

 



Roy’s last competitive game of football was back in 2003 playing for Harwich & Parkeston, where he played two games under former Us teammate Steve McGavin who, at the time, was the non-league club’s player manager. With his boots finally hung up for the last time a new life in Spain beckoned, and Roy is now enjoying success a second time around as a partner in a Spanish property company.

"Big Roy, There's Only One Big Roy"

During a playing career that saw him make over 650 appearances, and score some 150 goals, for a host of professional and non-league clubs including Birmingham City and Southend, with of course two spells at Colchester, Roy earned himself a reputation as one of the game’s ‘hard men’.  Did he model himself on anyone in particular? “Not at all. I think I was a full blooded, honest player who took no prisoners when going for the ball. Everyone should be the same for his team. Roy Keane and Mark Hughes were two of my idols for obvious reasons.”

It was a philosophy that saw him earn the record for the most career dismissals, 22 in total, with him being shown 13 of those red cards in the Football League, a record he shares with former Leicester City and Coventry defender Steve Walsh.  Does he think his record will ever be broken? “Probably not,” he says, dismissing the very notion.  “The modern game is full of pussies I’m afraid.”

Bloodied Roy gives his all

For Us fans it was Roy’s second spell at Layer Road as player manager that earned him legendary status and the gratitude of generations of fans. At the end of the 1989/90 season the club had dropped out of the football league into the GM Vauxhall Conference. Roy’s predecessor, Ian Atkins, had failed to get us back into the League at our first attempt, in spite of having a full time squad, and there was a very real fear that we would end up a part time club and never find a way back up.

"Always See Him in the Lamb on a Saturday Night" 

However, in a moment of brilliance, the board appointed Roy player manager when Atkins, who had brought Roy back from bitter rivals Southend United, departed the club. He then set about putting together a squad to win promotion, and instilled in them the battling mentality needed to get the job done

There was only one other Conference side capable of spoiling the party, Martin McNeill’s Wycombe Wanders, and they quickly became our bitter rivals.

Big Roy puts a nervous ref on the back foot

The tight stadium and atmosphere at ‘Fortress’ Layer Road has often been credited with giving the Us an edge at home, well when things were going our way at least. I ask Roy if he thinks it made a difference in our home match with Wycombe that season. 20 years later Roy is still quick to dismiss O’Neill’s efforts : “We didn’t need an advantage, we were far better than them all season! A full Layer Road did create a great atmosphere though.” It’s classic Roy, one of the game’s great characters who liked nothing better than to wind up O’Neill, and never more so than when we were  3 - 0 up in that same game and he looked over at O’Neill on the bench and said to our players “No more goals, let’s play keep-ball”.

“We had to take the piss, it was lovely. Trust me” Roy reminisces, adding that these antics extended to using the local press to rattle O'Neill. “Some herbert who worked for the Gazette was a Wycombe fan, so the odd remark thrown their way didn’t hurt, did it.”

Honest Ref it was this big

Roy’s mickey taking would have stung O’Neill all the more when, at the end of the season, it was the Us, and not Wycombe, who were crowned Conference champions. And just to rub his nose it in even further Roy also took us to our first ever Wembley Final in May 1992, and won it in style of course, adding the FA Trophy to the club’s trophy cabinet. It was the town’s biggest ever day out and it seemed like nearly everyone in Colchester made their way by car, coach and train to the famous Twin Towers to see the Us demolish Witton Albion 3 - 1. It also led to unbelievable scenes in the High Street a couple of days later as 1000s turned out to welcome the team home.

And Roy’s fondest memory of that season? “Winning the Conference the last game of the season.”

But of course.


Holding the FA Trophy high at Wembley
with team-mates Paul Roberts and Dave Martin

The following are my own photographs and memories of an amazing day out at Wembley and the scenes of jubilation on Colchester High Street that followed.

We gathered at The Globe Tavern on Baker Street before making our way to Wembley Stadium

Yes I really was young once. And skinny. And I smoked.

The Us 1 - 0 up on the Wembley Scoreboard


The victorious Us parade through Colchester in an open top bus

Roy's double winning boys show off the silverware

Personal safety was the last thing on some Us fans minds
as they tried to get closer to their heroes and the cups

Is that Dave Beard up there?

Who could have imagined then that two year later the club that Roy had done so much for would sack him. But sack him they did. In his own words “I thought it was bang out of order, but Mr Heard had gained full control over the board because of the money he put in and he wanted his say, so that was never going to happen with me.”

To this day many still find it hard to believe.

"Roy McDonough's Blue and White Army"
 
Fast forward 20 years… yes it really is 20 years, and Roy was back in Colchester in May for a reunion with the Boys of ’92 squad, including American Mike Masters who had flown in from the US especially for the event. Roy was also inducted into the Us Hall of Fame, and told me in typical style when I asked him how it felt “Delighted pal. I think the whole team should be in the hall of fame”.

And his thoughts on the Weston Homes Community Stadium? “The new stadium is great.” But would the kind of facilities the Us players enjoy these days at the new stadium have helped give the Boys  of ’92 an even greater edge over Wycombe during the epic promotion battle 20 years ago? I’ll let Roy have the final word “To be fair we didn’t need an edge over Wycombe because we easily beat them most times when I was there.”


Red Card Roy by Roy McDonough and Bernie Friend is released on August 20th. You can order your copy on Amazon.

Follow Roy on Twitter @RoyMcDonough

I run Media48, a Colchester based graphic and website design and marketing agency where we know a thing or two about how to market a business. If you would like to find out more about what we can do for your business then give us a call on 0800 756 1470 (we even pay for the call) or email me simon@media48.co.uk

Friday 29 June 2012

I Hate It When They Call Me “The Legendary Gilly”


An edited version of my interview with DJ Gilly first published in the December 2010 issue of Colchester 101 Magazine.


Colchester 101 columnist Gilly and I talk about old times, the places we used to go, and the people we both know.





Gilly is somewhat of a legend in this town of ours so, somewhere amongst all the reminiscing, I endeavour to learn a little more about his DJing career which has spanned almost three decades since he started out at the former Boadicea pub on Headgate (now the Fox and Fiddler) with former DJ partner Choc in 1982. Back then he was playing a heady mix of jazz funk, soul, new romantic and techno with the occasional Ramones or Sex Pistols track thrown in for good measure. “Nobody told us what to play,” says Gilly,” so we played what we wanted”.

Talking to Gilly it becomes clear that his fondest memories are of his ʻRare Groove Sceneʼ stint during the mid 80ʼs at The Venue, now Curve Bar, on East Hill. “People would be eating Mexican food downstairs and Iʼd be playing ambient tunes in the background, then at 11pm weʼd go upstairs and get the party started.”

Gilly recalls Tony and Sian, the owners, being great people to work for, and The Venue being the place to be at the time, making it an amazing place, the DJ says. “Everyone who was anyone in Colchester would be there and we had some great nights. They were very happy times.”

Gilly went on to enjoy an incredible eleven year residency at Twisters Bar on North Hill, having arrived there via the nearby Times Bar (now the Noodle Bar). This was a period when a whole new generation fell in love with his eclectic mixes. “I brought music to Twisters and had a great time over the years, but eventually the time came to move on to something new,” he explains.

That ʻsomething newʼ was a three nights a week residency at Robertoʼs on Crouch Street, however Gilly has since moved on again and enjoys DJing at numerous venues in Colchester and beyond, as well as spinning  the decks at last year's Colchester Free Festival.

It becomes clearer as we talk where Gillyʼs deepest musical taste lies. “I love all kinds of music, in the past Iʼve been a punk, a MOD, a new romantic, I even listen to some classical music”.

But when asked to narrow it down to a genre or two the answer comes quickly - “Jazz funk and soul”.




It was back in the ʼ80s at the Embassy Suite on Balkerne Hill, now a Chinese restaurant, that Gilly spent many a Sunday at their jazz funk and soul nights. “I didnʼt DJ there often, mostly I was a punter like everyone else”.

We reflect again about times past. There are so many more bars and clubs to choose from in Colchester on a Friday or Saturday night these days. Gone are the times when we would have to venture out to Guines Court in Tolleshunt DʼArcy, or the Tartan House in Frating, to hear some good tunes.

We both agree though that with more choice comes a shift in culture. “People were more into the music back then but now drinking has become a bigger factor.

“Music will always be here but now you have all the X Factor and all the wannabe television shows... music and fashion was rawer and it was a pleasure to go out looking different, being a punk, a mod, a new romantic...”

To Gilly it will always be about the music.


I run Media48, a Colchester based graphic and website design and marketing agency where we know a thing or two about how to market a business. If you would like to find out more about what we can do for your business then give us a call on 01206 642245 or email me simon@media48.co.uk

Monday 25 June 2012

Kentucky's Finest Export Buddy Lee Dickens

Head for one of Colchester’s numerous live music venues of an evening and there is a good chance you’ll see a young American guy supporting the main act.  Buddy Lee Dickens is his name, and in the past few months, since the breakup of his band The Family Dickens, he has firmly established himself as one of the greatest support acts around. Combine this with his claim to fame as Kentucky’s number one musical eccentric and you know you are in for a treat.


Photograph by Stephanie Round
www.facebook.com/stephanieroundphotography

Whether he’s covering the Spiderman cartoon song, delighting the crowd with his version of the Big Bang Theory’s theme, or belting out such self-penned titles such as Root Beer or Walking Bear, with off course his distinctive Kentucky twang, Buddy has become a firm favourite on the town’s music scene and is now setting his sights further afield, telling me “I’m starting to  gig in Chelmsford every week for Shakey’s Unsigned Sessions at Club Fusion to try build up a fan base there.”


Photograph by Stephanie Round
www.facebook.com/stephanieroundphotography

Buddy is also planning a tour of Essex and London to promote his debut album The Bathroom Sessions, “I recorded it in my bathroom on a 4 track and I’ve released it on iTunes, Amazon,  e-music, Spotify and on mp3.”

After a recent support spot for Mr. B The Gentleman Rhymer at the Arts Centre Buddy has been inspired to try his hand at rhyming  “I’m working on some backing tracks to try out, and a few gigs to see how it goes , which I think might be difficult for me considering I can’t keep in time with myself!” he jokes.



As if all this isn’t enough to keep the young American busy he is also working on a Buddy Lee Does Punk CD on which he will be recording his take on some classic punk tracks by bands such as X-Ray Specs, Dead Kennedys, The Clash, Sex Pistols and the The Undertones, and possibly including a cover of Colchester’s very own punk rockers Special Duties’ hit Colchester Council “It will be free to download and also free at my shows once it’s all done and dusted,” he tells me.

Punk rock country style. YEEHAW!!

Buddy adds “Apart from all that I’m just trying to work on backing tracks and the stage show to make it better really.” Well his efforts certainly impressed the Wivenhoe May Fair team who jumped at the chance to offer him a slot on the main stage this year alongside the likes of local favourites Surfquake and Hobo Chang. I think it says a lot about his dedication to his music that coming on after this year’s Colchester Free Festival headliners Animal Noise - where he will also be playing this year - a task that might unnerve any solo artist after seeing them whip the crowd up into a frenzy, Buddy won himself a whole bunch of new fans with his performance, and even had people running back to the stage to dance when he launched into The Big Bang Theory.


If you want to hear more from Buddy you can catch him on the Leftfield Show on Radio Wivenhoe this coming Monday 2nd July at about 7.30pm.

Find out more about Buddy and check out his music at his official Facebook page

The Bathroom Sessions are available to download on iTunes  Amazon  and emusic


I run Media48, a Colchester based graphic and website design and marketing agency where we know a thing or two about how to market a business. If you would like to find out more about what we can do for your business then give us a call on 0800 756 1470 (we even pay for the call) or email me simon@media48.co.uk

Sunday 24 June 2012

A Farewell To Fuzzface


Going along to see any band at the Arts Centre always feels more like an event than a mere gig, and that was never to be truer than last night as one of the greatest, and most exciting, bands to come out of Colchester took to the stage one final time. Yes, sadly it’s true that all good things must come to an end, and last night we were gathered to say a fond farewell to Fuzzface as the band members prepare to go their separate ways.




Although they haven’t really been together as a band for the past year or so Ady Johnson (vocals, guitar), Matt ‘Reverend’ Simpkins (vocals, Hammond organ, guitar) Toby Bull (vocals,bass) and Mark Turnbull (drums) decided to delight Colchester’s music lovers one final time before fondly saying goodbye and good luck to Matt, who is soon to move away from Colchester  for  three years of study for his ordination as an Anglican priest.




Timing is everything in life, so with my usual bad timing we missed the support act, up and coming Wivenhovian singer/songwriter Lou Terry, and arrived just in time to grab a drink from the bar and brace ourselves for a veritable feast of organ driven rock ‘n’ roll.




It wasn’t long before Fuzzface took to the stage and set about delivering the kind of set that they have been delighting gig goers with since they got together back in 2001. Well two sets to be precise, with a short bar/toilet break between the two, because if this was to be their final ever gig then they weren’t going to be teasing the crowd with a forty minute affair and leaving us begging for more. No sir, Fuzzface were going out in style with a set containing all the fan’s favourites, and no doubt their own too, for a good hour and a half.




Now, if you’ve never seen Fuzzface before, and have only ever seen Ady Johnson performing his own solo material, alone on the stage with his acoustic guitar, or sometimes with backing from Surfquake’s Nelson on double bass and Toby Bull on the trumpet, it might have been quite a surprise to see him in full rock ‘n’ roll mode brandishing a Gibson SG as they belted out a mouth-watering set that seamlessly blended rock, indie and soul with influences drawn from, amongst others, the likes of Blur, The Kinks, Small Faces, The Jam and The Stooges, with the sheer driving power of Matt Simpkin’s Hammond organ making it all the more delicious. They were clearly enjoying their big night. And so were we.



If any of the fan’s favourites were missed out it would have been hard to tell. I Can’t Let You Go, Not Now I’m In a Hot Tub… in fact too many to name check them all. They were all there. Played with rafter rattling energy until finally it ended, after a second encore, with a theatrical bow to the crowd who, to be honest, would have stood there all night if they would have carried on playing.

But it was time to say goodbye.

As I briefly chatted to Colchester’s Mr Cool, Ben Howard, afterwards a young guy commented to him “That was amazing! I can’t believe I never saw them before.” “And you won’t see them again” I thought,” nor will any of us. So cherish the memories of this night.”






I run Media48, a Colchester based graphic and website design and marketing agency where we know a thing or two about how to market a business. If you would like to find out more about what we can do for your business then give us a call on 0800 756 1470 (we even pay for the call) or email me simon@media48.co.uk

Friday 22 June 2012

Charley, Katrina and I

Getting caught in one hurricane when you are on holiday is bad enough, but getting caught in another the following year is downright careless. But somehow I managed to do it...


It was forecast to make landfall at Tampa Bay, Florida as a high end category 2 hurricane

But Charley had other plans…

It was August 2004 and I was in Orlando with my family and, after a week of hitting the theme parks hard, we were due to drive down to Tampa that evening to stay with our friends Mike and Mel. However, that morning Mike had called to warn us there was a hurricane making its way towards Florida, and Tampa was right in its path. He suggested that we stay put in Orlando and drive down the next day when all the shenanigans were over. That sounded like a plan to us so we hastily arranged to keep our hotel room on for an extra night and headed off to Sea World for the day.



 

Having pounded western Cuba a few days earlier Tampa was nervously bracing itself for the hurricane’s arrival, but at the last minute Charley suddenly veered several degrees off its projected path and made landfall farther south in Charlotte Harbor.

Tampa had dodged the bullet.

By now the storm had intensified into a category 4 hurricane, with winds reaching 145 mph. That’s some serious wind!  Ripping through the city of Punta Gorda, Charley destroyed 11,000 homes, six schools, six fire stations and about 300 businesses. State Governor Jeb Bush (George’s brother) dubbed Punta Gorda Florida’s "ground zero."

Charley's sights were now set on Mickey Mouse.

Meanwhile, in Orlando, we were sitting in Hooters enjoying a pre-hurricane dinner. News had reached us that Charley had set a new course and was heading our way, so we’d decided to cross the street and grab something to eat ahead of the storm rather than use the hotel’s restaurant. It had seemed like such a good idea too until, as we finished eating, all hell broke loose outside. Suddenly it got very dark, the heavens opened with almost horizontal driving rain outside the window we were sitting by, with palm trees bending at seemingly impossible angles and threatening to uproot and be carried away by the unstoppable forces of nature. The manager locked the doors, told us to move away from the windows, and said nobody was to leave. Buoyed by two or three beers, I remember thinking “Oh well, there’s probably worse places to spend the night than Hooters….” 




Thankfully this was to be just the little storm before the ‘big one’… a bit of a pre-party so to speak, a teaser for what was to come, and some twenty minutes or so later things calmed down and we were able to make a mad dash back to the safety of our room at the Rosen Plaza.


My daughter Victoria prepares for the hurricane

My other daughter Jessica unfazed by the approach of Charley

There we hurriedly packed our suitcases and put them in the bathroom in case a window broke and our room was opened up to the elements. I also filled the bath tub with cold water. Why? I don’t honestly know, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Then Charley hit. And it hit hard. Its journey overland had taken some of the sting out of its tail, but winds of up to 100mph are nothing to be sneered at. Ignoring instructions from the hotel to stay away from the window (we learned there was a little speaker in the ceiling of the room so they could talk to us at all times) I positioned myself on the window sill of our tenth floor room, between the curtain and the glass, to watch the free show. Charley tore through Orlando but for the most part America’s vacation capital held firm. I saw trees topple, others split in two, and air conditioning units ripped from rooftops and carried away by the wind, but most memorable all for me was the roar of the wind and the constant splatter of grit, dirt and sand picked up by the wind and trying to wear the glass away like Mother Nature’s very own sandblaster.


 There are more exciting Hurricane Charley
videos on YouTube but this was my experience
  
Twenty minutes later, maybe thirty, it was half time in this battle of wills with the elements as the eye of the hurricane passed over us, and for a while it went eerily calm outside. Realising the situation was somewhat worse than they had anticipated, and no doubt suspecting that idiotic guests such as me were disobeying instructions to stay away from the windows in their rooms, the hotel made an emergency announcement for all guests to evacuate to the conference centre on the lower ground floor. We duly obeyed their instruction, and here is where my fun ended as all my attempts to get anywhere near a window to watch the events outside were met with orders of  “Sir, I need you to keep away from the window” from the morbidly obese security guards.


The view from our room the next morning

Damage in the hotel car park




The next morning a one hour drive down to Tampa to finally catch up with Mike and Mel took nearer five hours as we crawled along the I - 4 in heavy post hurricane traffic. I recall telling my two daughters how lucky they were to have had this once in a lifetime experience.

How wrong I was!








Fast forward to August 2005 and we are once again in Florida, this time in Fort Lauderdale, and guess what, there’s a hurricane on its way and this one is called Katrina. But we’re not worried, this one is only a category 1 and we’ve survived a category 4. We were staying with friends Jay and Lynne, along with two other couples, Dean and Lex and Stephen and Bobby Jo, so we did the only sensible thing we could think of and went to the supermarket to stock up on beer and burgers and had ourselves a hurricane party! As Katrina began to make herself known to South Florida we were out on the back porch barbequing and putting the pool furniture in the swimming pool so it couldn’t get blown away. After eating much fun was had standing in the garden braving the winds... until someone was startled when a lilo from someone’s pool struck them firmly in the back and we decided to enjoy the rest of the hurricane from indoors.


 The wind starts to pick up
as we BBQ in Fort Lauderdale


The morning after the night before




Little did we realise, seasoned hurricane survivors that we now were, was that once Katrina had crossed Florida and entered the Gulf of Mexico she would strengthen rapidly to become a category 5 hurricane, the strongest ever recorded in the Gulf at the time, before making landfall a second time in Louisiana on August 29th and heading for New Orleans. She may have weakened to a category 3 by then but she caused more than 50 breaches in drainage canal and navigational canal levees, flooding 80 percent of the city. Thankfully an evacuation order had been made and between 80 and 90 percent of the city’s residents had fled before Katrina’s arrival. Many of those who stayed behind took shelter at The Louisiana Superdome but still nearly 1500 perished in their homes and in the city’s flooded streets.


The Louisiana Skydome after Katrina

As for us, we by this time were watching in horror as the events unfolded from the comfort of a cruise ship, Royal Caribbean’s Navigator of the Seas, and the only real inconvenience we had suffered had been the ship arriving late into Miami the afternoon after our encounter with Katrina, having been forced to plot a course back to Florida that would keep it away from the hurricane. Little had we realised during our encounter with Katrina that she was to go on to become one of the deadliest storms ever to hit America. We counted our luck stars many times over the next few days as our original plan had been to be in New Orleans with our children during that time-frame, and we had only booked the cruise to join our friends, who we had hurricane partied with in Fort Lauderdale, at the last minute after a great deal of persuasion from them, or we might have ended up in the Superdome too.

I run Media48, a Colchester based graphic and website design and marketing agency where we know a thing or two about how to market a business. If you would like to find out more about what we can do for your business then give us a call on 0800 756 1470 (we even pay for the call) or email me simon@media48.co.uk

Friday 15 June 2012

Local Legends Modern English


By pure coincidence last night I had been preparing my Colchester 101 interview with Robbie Grey to post on this blog and today I was walking through Colchester and who should call me and suggest we meet for a coffee but Robbie himself. So we met up in Cafe Nero for a chat about what Modern English are up to at the moment. But enough about that for now.

Here it is as published a year ago in June 2011 as Modern English prepared for their long awaited homecoming gig at the Arts Centre.

If Colchester did music it would probably be the best music in the World. Hang on a minute. We do, and rather well too! There’s Ady Johnson, Cav Ok, Angry Vs the Bear, Greg Blackman, plus a host of upcoming new bands such as Fick as Fieves and The Family Dickens. There was also Blur of course, who we continue to claim as our own, even though they did turn their backs on our town, with Damon Albarn once claiming “Places like Colchester celebrate the mediocre.” Thanks Damon, we’re feeling the love!


But, did Blur make it big in America? No. Even their bitter rivals Oasis couldn’t crack the States in a big way. Modern English did.

Modern who?

English. Modern English. Post-punk Colchester band. Remembered fondly by many of ‘a certain age’ around Colchester, and beyond.

A decade before Damon and co burst onto the scene and informed us that There’s No Other Way, five young guys from Colchester found a way into the hearts of Americans with their single I Melt With You. It had been picked up by college radio stations across the US. The band made a video, and found themselves the darlings of new music television channel MTV. Suddenly they were famous! “It was mad, Robbie tells us. “We weren’t even looking for it over there. It was being played on import and hadn’t even been released. Some DJ picked it up and played it on his radio show,then another, and another, and it just spread like wildfire across the major stations. All of a sudden record companies were sniffing around. We were recording our second album with Hugh Jones at Rockfield Studios in Wales and we got a phone call saying there’s a bidding war in America for I Melt With You!”




The single reached number 7 on Billboard’s Top Tracks chart and 78 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1983. It was even voted number 39 in VH1’s Greatest Songs of the 80s. Robbie continues “We’d been playing to a couple of hundred people in some dodgy dark rooms and suddenly we’d got people like Matt Dillon introducing us on stage at the Ritz in New York. We played there a lot. There were 1000 people outsideand he came backstage and said ‘How do you want me to introduce you?’ and we just said ‘You can say whatever you want!’ We did a matinee show and I had my shirt ripped off by screaming kids.”

That one song is almost a part of American popular culture. It was used in the closing credits of the seminal 80s movie Valley Girl, starring a youthful Nicolas Cage playing a young punk in his breakthrough role, and it has subsequently been used in several television shows over the years. It has also been covered many times, most notably by Bowling for Soup and Limp Bizkit’s Fred Durst, and has featured in numerous American television commercials with the roll call including :

Burger King
Ritz Crackers
Vicks
GMC
M&Ms
Taco Bell.

A cover version of it is still featured in Hershey’s ‘Pure Hershey’s’ commercials, which have been running since 2008, and Rob Lowe’s new movie I Melt With You was inspired by the song.


Photo www.andyroshayphotography.co.uk
Photo www.andyroshayphotography.co.uk
























It all began around 1976/77 when punk rock exploded onto the UK music scene and inspired Colchester teenagers Robbie Grey, Gary McDowell and Mick Conroy to form punk band The Lepers. “We thought, ‘this is brilliant, we can do this’. So we did. It was as simple as that, we just picked up bits and bobs and made a noise. But nobody wanted to be the singer so I got lumbered with that!”

With Robbie on vocals, Gary on guitar and Mick on bass they set about making a name for themselves, and The Lepers first gig was in Red Lion shopping precinct’s underground loading bay. Robbie recalls, “There was a socket in the wall and we plugged all our gear into it. That was our first ever gig, we did posters for it, and people actually turned up! We got booked for everything after that, including a Sham 69 gig at Woods, because nobody else was doing anything like it at that time.”






In those days your musical taste, and the fashion style that accompanied it, defined you to your peers, and to the world around you, creating a kind of tribalism that was very often violent. This was exacerbated in Colchester by the tension that existed at the time between soldiers from the garrison, and civilians. “It was brilliant in Colchester then but it was dodgy too” Robbie recalls. “Soldiers had their own pubs, so you couldn’t go in certain pubs, and punks were hated anyway. But we were having a great time, and the music was so exciting. That’s why the poster for the Arts Centre gig is black and white, because that’s how I remember Colchester at the time.

Colchester 101 photoshoot on the roof of the Arts Centre

In spite of these warring factions, punk, soul and funk were often strange bedfellows and managed to blur the tribal edges. “The Lacy Lady in Ilford, which was a really happening club at the time, used to play punk and soul, and you’d go to the Embassy Suite in Colchester and they’d play funk all night followed by half an hour of the Sex Pistols and the Damned and all that.”


Homecoming gig at the Arts Centre




But by 1979 punk was past its prime and a new direction would be needed if the band were to stay together. A change of name, and direction ensued, along with a new sound, and Modern English was born, with new band members Richard Brown on drums and Stephen Walker on keyboards. They got themselves their first gig at the Colchester Institute on the same bill as Siouxsie and the Banshees and Adam and the Ants, followed by other local venues including Woods Leisure Centre and the Labour Club. “The whole Modern English thing happened because we started to play our instruments properly, so we decided to change our name and get more into the music, using guitars and keyboards with an edgier sound inspired by Wire and Joy Division. We became more arty and started to take it a bit more seriously really.”

“Our first demo, which we recorded at The Hillside Studio in Ipswich, was just a collection of ideas. We sent them out to about twenty labels and 4AD straight away said they were interested.”


DJ Gilly, Robbie and myself at the Brightlingsea Festival 2011

Now signed to a label, they recorded their first album Mesh and Lace, and also released four singles which weren’t on the album: Drowning Man; Swans on Glass; Gathering Dust; and Smiles and Laughter. Then it all took off in America with the release of I Melt With You from their second album After The Snow, and long tours of the USA were soon to follow. Robbie remembers those days fondly. “We’d go over there and I’d be walking down the street and people would go “Hey! Robbie from Modern English!” then we’d come back here and go to the Oliver Twist (now The Twist) and nobody would know who you were. I loved it. You could have a few pints in the pub and nobody would know what you’d been up to over there.”


Busking in Colchester before the Free Festival






Modern English eventually split up after releasing the album Stop Start in 1986, but Robbie never really called it a day and reformed the band a couple of times with different line-ups, touring and recording. Now the 80s line-up is back together and gigging again “I blame Mick Conroy,” Robbie jokes. “Mick wanted to get the band back together. I agreed to it, the American manager got involved, and that’s why it’s all coming around again.”

The week before the forthcoming Arts Centre gig sees them playing in Paris, then back to the UK for dates in London and Kent. After that they are heading across the pond to tour America “The connection with America is still massive. We toured there last summer and it was amazing.”


Headlining the Free Festival

Their short American tour last year included playing festivals in front of crowds of up to 25,000 people. “We enjoyed being back together so much It was so funny looking around the stage and seeing all these old boys who were my friends. It was brilliant! So we thought we would give it another year then see what happens after that.”

The line-up for the tour consists of Robbie Grey (main vocals), Gary McDowell (guitars, vocals), Mick Conroy (bass guitars, vocals), Stephen Walker (keyboards), the other Steven Walker (guitars), and Ric Chandler (drums).




Robbie doesn’t rule out going into the studio to record some new tracks. “We haven’t really discussed it much yet as we’re still all too amazed at being back in the same room together after all these years! I’ve got a whole album’s worth of material written though, and Mick Conroy’s got a whole load of stuff he wants to bring to the table. So we’ll see what happens.”

For now though the focus is on the forthcoming tour, and Robbie is looking forward to be playing back in Colchester for the first time in many years, and seeing plenty of familiar faces in the crowd.

To bring the story up to date, the Arts Centre gig was a sell out and Modern English went on to headline the Colchester Free Festival in August. In recent weeks they have been back together again writing new material and this July will be touring America followed by a short UK tour including a gig at Dingwalls in London on September 9th.

 



 

  Official Modern English Website www.modernenglish.me

 

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