Mark (Keds) Hammerton and Jerome Alexandre

Rumble played by Leigh K.

The Rock and Roll Museum (London) https://therockandrollmuseum.tumblr.com/

1978 Brighton Whitsun Bank Holiday by Paul Roundhill


a celebration and spirited, documented, recorded, experienced but never captured impression of a living, potent, cultural experience. 



photographs by Paul Roundhill©1976 onwards

Mick Jagger, Earl's Court, 1976 

Rockabilly years

In the mid to late 70s a new generation of music lovers was growing up of which I was one. I lived in a squat (Although we actually paid rent - it was £9.00 per week for an entire house in Hove, Sussex) and didn’t have much interest in the products being churned out by an effete music industry. We would pick up vinyls in charity shops and car-boot fairs) I developed an interest in old juke-boxes and set about discovering original records to fill them up with. You could buy classic tunes for pennies.

The same generation was not interested in propping up the consumer culture by buying ready-made and packaged “Entertainment” It was a lot more fun and satisfying to start your own band or support local groups who had something relevant to say. Thus was born the “New-Wave” and “Punk” culture. Thanks partly to Malcolm McLaren’s genius adoption of the situationist philosophy Punk became the prominent genre but in fact there was a whole swathe of styles and types explored and exploited. The entire back-catalogue of music was rifled and re-invented

In April 1980 I started a shop “C.O.D.” (cash on delivery) at kensington Market, Kensington High St where there was a stronghold of fashion and music sub-cultures - some really great shops - Johnsons, Rock-a-Cha, Cuba. I would trawl Brick Lane Market on a Sunday before dawn looking for 50s and 60s clothes, records and paraphernalia on Saturday mornings I’d be at Swiss cottage Market or Kingsland Road Waste and at Portobello Road on a Friday.

There was a thriving club scene at that time spearheaded by Chris Sullivan and Ollie Maxwell, Steve Strange, Rusty Egan and a small tight coterie of “in the know” cool leaders of fashion - everybody knew everybody else at least by sight and the New Romantic crew, rockabillies and other types tussled with each other through design and retail, music and dance and across night-time London in a multitude of mushrooming night-clubs that appeared and disappeared with startling rapidity.

At that time vintage clothes and cars were being tossed out everywhere and the canny few who appreciated good quality design and style had a field day scooping up treasures.

The photographs here are of Brian Setzer’s  “Stray Cats’”  first British visit where I saw them at Gossips in Soho, Dingwalls and in Brighton. Buzz and the Flyers another New York band played Dingwalls in Camden and the Meteors the original Psycho-Billies from the U.K. played at the Marquee Club, Wardour St, Soho.

Peter Doherty Artwork ...where the music, writing and art collide

Brighton's best hope … The Piranhas

if you lived in Brighton or Hove in the late 70s when Punk and New Wave was the only visible and vibrant example of "culture"around, then you couldn't miss THE PIRANHAS.  They rehearsed as did most local bands in the basement of The Resources Centre (known as The Crypt) and they played all the local pubs in the area.

Johnny Helmer

They were the Brighton band most likely to succeed and did in fact break into the charts with ska song TOM HARK. Reggae and Ska were a major influence on the town's music scene at the time while Punk was hitting all the headlines.

The Piranhas

 The Piranhas even got to tour with the Jam and a picture here shows music mogul Pete Waterman back-stage with song-smith "Boring" Bob Grover at the Demontford Hall if I remember correctly THE DOLLY MIXTURES a three girl outfit were also on the bill that night. 

Dick the drummer

Apart from Tom Hark the song that stands out in my memory was "I don't like my body …. it looks like an advert on an Oxfam poster, sex is its hobby, drop it in the slot like bread in a toaster …. " or something like that.

Reg the bass player

I guess that Boring Bob must have been the quiet genius behind the lyrics although it IS only a guess and Johnny Helmer stood out as a perfectly effective and sweet faced front-man. The two characters in this gang who stood out for me as personalities were Dick the irrepressible drummer and Reg the bass player who along with Johnny, actually had a bit of time to say hello and have a giggle. 

Bob Grover with Pete Waterman and friend at the Demontford Hall Leicester

All of the band were of course local heroes for a good length of time and were I know thoroughly nice chaps.

They didn't become Brighton's answer to the Beatles or even the Sex Pistols but you couldn't ask for a more entertaining bunch of musicians to discover in some wind-swept sea-front pub and I hope that they are still out there knocking out ska tunes and some of their own idiosyncratic songs.

"Boring" Bob Grover

 Heres's to you all guys ! You cheered up the 70s for me.