#musicaloddities

The #MusicalOddities series is an alphabetical blog series by Molly and Bradley Hall. The series curates the lesser known works and personal stories of and about prominent musicians. You are welcome to join in or respond, using the #MusicalOddities hashtag.

My friend Joe tagged me in a tweet once; it was from Relentless (the energy drink). They were hosting a music blogger competition and he thought I’d have a good chance in it. The challenge: review a gig and send it in. The prize: a year being Relentless’ in house music reviewer. A foot in the door in an overcrowded and unkind industry that I had been hokey cokeying in and out of since I was fifteen. I hadn’t and have never given myself fully to the ambition in the fears of unemployment but this seemed like my chance - a way to get there without risking a stable future.

So I had a go. Unsurprisingly, I chose Arcade Fire, I had seen them at Hyde Park a few months earlier. And amazingly, I made the top five out of hundreds of applicants - a real pat on the back considering I hadn’t studied journalism. We had one final challenge to compete on: a gig review: Grandmaster Flash at the O2 Brooklyn Bowl. I managed to book it off at the part time job I had, citing “life changing opportunity” as the excuse.

We had around a week to prepare. I had heard of the Grandmaster: ‘The Message’ was nearly in every advert or TV series and Shaun and Ed dance to ‘White Lines’ in ‘Shaun of the Dead’ with a zombie. But I’ll admit, I wasn’t an expert, indie bands with dodgy haircuts were my area of expertise - GM was the godfather of hip hop, the inventor of scratching and DJing. So I spent seven days listening to his discography, reading every website I could find and plying my DJ dad with questions on tech and the historical context of The Grandmaster. I even prepared interview questions on the off chance that we would meet him.

The day arrived and following advice from my friends and family, I really dressed up, nearly all in black with a very on trend co ord set with creepers to match. I had enough make up on that you could probably scratch it off with a credit card. I wanted to feel confident and glamorous. I just ended up looking a bit overdressed and try hard. Anyway, we did some interviews with the brand and filmed some footage for the competition. We all spoke about our experiences, of which I had the least. And somebody said how pretentious it was to use a notebook during a gig for notes, which I always did and was planning to do tonight. My bag had never felt heavier or lamer. 

We separated out and began to observe and enjoy. I had to get my book out in the fear I would forget the samples GM was using. These were the days before I had an iPhone. It was a great gig and I made sure to show this in my article. The ‘master’ part of his stage name was well deserved, the whole performance was effortless and full of surprising cuts and changes to his classics. It was an education into the world of hip hop.

The #MusicalOddities series is an alphabetical blog series by Molly and Bradley Hall. The series curates the lesser known works and personal stories of and about prominent musicians. You are welcome to join in or respond, using the #MusicalOddities hashtag.

When I was younger, me and a few friends were in a post-punk band. One day in rehearsal, my mate Peter said “You’ve got to come and see my friend’s band - they’re called Wasted Youth’. I thought, are they a reggae band? At the time, there were a lot of reggae bands with ‘youth’ in their names. Anyway, they weren’t, they were post-punk like us and were playing in Canning Town at a pub called the Bridge House.I saw them a few times and really liked them. Then we found out they were playing at the Futurama Festival, held in Leeds. 

It was September, 1980 and the Saturday of the two day festival; we didn’t get tickets for the Sunday. I got up really early to get the bus to the newly opened Hackney Central station and then onto Canning Town to the pub. We were dressed quite outrageously and I was a bit scared. Dressing like that back then was risky.

One by one we all arrived to get the coach up. It was four hours long and the furthest North I had ever been. We turned up to the Queen’s Hall, a former tram depot near the station. It was cold, damp and wet, the old tram lines visible inside and it was so dark that if you wandered away from the stage, you couldn’t see anything. 

There were some big names playing that day: Soft Cell, Altered Images, Modern English, U2 and Echo and the Bunnymen. Headlining were the newly reformed Siouxsie and the Banshees. This was also one of the first gigs where I saw a large screen being used; Ian Curtis had just died and footage of Joy Division’s ‘Transmission’ played. Later, Wasted Youth were on, all in black, entering the stage one by one, exiting the same way until just the drummer was on stage. 

The #MusicalOddities series is an alphabetical blog series by Molly and Bradley Hall. The series curates the lesser known works and personal stories of and about prominent musicians. You are welcome to join in or respond, using the #MusicalOddities hashtag.

It was Autumn/Winter 1976 and I already knew punk was coming. My older brother was working at EMI, a massive record company and organisation. They not only produced music but owned a pressing plant, venues and electronic goods like fridges. 

My brother Eamon with Glen Matlock, the Sex Pistols’ bass player in the background.

At this point, the Sex Pistols were signed there. Them and my brother would go drinking at a club called the Speakeasy in London’s West End. So I was privy to a lot of information and the occasional bit of merchandise or single. This time I was lucky enough to have received a demo single of ‘Anarchy in the UK‘, produced by Chris Thomas with a B-Side called ‘I Wanna Be Me’, produced by Dave Goodman. It came with a fanzine press release with pictures of the group which I foolishly gave away. No one else seemed to have the single even though the band were a household name for all the wrong reasons. They had caused nationwide outrage with their appearance on Bill Grundy’s show, where they had vulgarly sworn on live television for the whole country to hear. 

The track  jolts out of the record player - a game changer. All of a sudden, everything else sounded old, creating a year zero in music. I didn’t even know what anarchy meant, I was only thirteen and had to look it up to find out. No authority, no government - an anti hero track that didn’t want to get to number one. Ironically, it only reached no.38 for such a seminal record that everyone knows and finds meaning with. 

The #MusicalOddities series is an alphabetical blog series by Molly and Bradley Hall. The series curates the lesser known works and personal stories of and about prominent musicians. You are welcome to join in or respond, using the #MusicalOddities hashtag.

It was the start of a new millennium and pop was popping. Boy and girl bands were storming the charts, trampling over the footprints left behind by Take That and the Spice Girls. 

And every Saturday morning, you could find them performing on CD:UK, ITV’s answer to Top of the Pops. It came on straight after Ant and Dec’s ‘SMTV Live’, the highlight of any 90s kid’s weekend. Pokemon, Wonky donkey, Catdog: the show was glorious.

So believe me when I say I hit the ceiling when my mum said we were going to see SMTV one weekend. 

Basically, it was the best morning of my life. Ant and Dec were in their prime; my little belly was in pain from all the laughter. After the show, CD:UK started, but it seemed that because I was so young that we wouldn’t be able to watch. Luckily, we were snuck in and sat on the arch (that surrounded the SMTV Live presenters) right at the top. Westlife, Atomic Kitten, Gareth Gates, Craig David... it was basically everyone who had a hit in the early noughties. And nearly all of them were dressed in white, some with matching feather boas.

Anyway, we were leaving and my uncle (who got us the tickets) told us to wait behind for him in a lounge. And then the celebrities started to ebb out. I met all of them, just before they left to a crowd of press and other fans outside. 

Gareth Gates

Liz from Atomic Kitten

But where was Craig David? I was desperate to meet him. I already had an autograph sent in the post from him but it wasn’t enough. Bitterly disappointed, we started to get our things together to leave.

Out he came, white beanie hat and matching roll neck and he came to take a photo with us! 

The #MusicalOddities series is an alphabetical blog series by Molly and Bradley Hall. The series curates the lesser known works and personal stories of and about prominent musicians. You are welcome to join in or respond, using the #MusicalOddities hashtag.

We spoke to Denna Hall for this post.

Crocs was a nightclub in Raleigh,  Essex. Being a soulgirl, it was almost a natural home for people like me. By the time I was going there, the soul/disco scene was dead, people were doing human pyramids and using whistles.

I had a friend who had moved out to Canvey Island. She and her now husband said “You’ve got to go to this club. It’s brilliant, it plays all the music we like and the bands there are really good.” So me and my friend Jenny went up by train, slept in the station after we left and got the milk train back the following morning. We kept coming back every few weeks when we could afford it.

It was amazing. Everyone was dressed outrageously. Often you found there that the men were more outrageous than the women. A lot of them would wear leather peaked hats, leather jackets and leather straps that went across the chest.  One of my clearest memories is of a bloke with bright red hair, standing on end paired with blue eyebrows. I remember being totally awestruck as a young kid from Upton Park. But I got it and it was for me. 

We wore winklepicker shoes and aimed to be more flamboyant from one week to the next. Some of us had ‘wedge’ haircuts - I based mine off Phil Oakey’s as I loved The (early) Human League. Everything was about the hair. Mine was black but I used to spray it with gold spray. One time I was in a car, having a cigarette and I managed to set it alight.  And as I tried to bat it out, I realised it looked quite cool and left it.

I loved the music there, a lot of electronic stuff but overall a combination. Disco featured, like Machine’s ‘There But for the Grace of God Go I’- a classic Crocs track. They also played ABBA’s ‘Voulez Vouz’. Depeche Mode played there often and they never got canned (beer cans thrown at them) because they were good and local boys too. Same with Culture Club, who played their first gig there. They were very different before they became successful. They were more like (a better) Bow Wow Wow back then.It was hard to impress at Crocs, if anyone who gave it large, people would take the mick. 

The #MusicalOddities series is an alphabetical blog series by Molly and Bradley Hall. The series curates the lesser known works and personal stories of and about prominent musicians. You are welcome to join in or respond, using the #MusicalOddities hashtag.

It was May 1976 and I was playing football outside with my cousin in Stamford Hill. My dad had just died - it had only been a month. My uncle turns up in his really flash Jaguar, he said “Jump in the car, we’re going out.”

We were driving for a while and it must have been at least half an hour. As we’re driving along a road, I noticed loads of people with different coloured hair. These were the first punks and soulboys/girls of the time. You never saw people with hair like that then. We’re getting closer and I realised that we were going to Wembley Empire Pool - I had seen Cockney Rebel there a few months before. Anyway, we pulled up, my uncle said ‘Here’s two tickets to David Bowie.” 

I was twelve, my cousin thirteen: we were young and on our own. We walked through glam rockers and punks all dressed up. Five thousand of them ready to see Bowie on the second leg of his Isolar/Station to Station tour. His records had been re-released to much success and his new, monochromatic image meant he was cooler than ever. Bowie was king.

He didn’t have a support act, instead he put on a 1920s surrealist film by Salvador Dali called ‘Un Chien Andalou’. After that, the beginning from Station to Station came on, building up and up, but there was no band, just the curtains. And then all of a sudden, David Bowie came on. We were at the side - everyone surged to the front. There was nobody sitting in their seats, hundreds and hundreds of kids - the oldest people there would have been in their twenties. 

Bowie was wearing a black waistcoat and matching pegged trousers, white shirt and his hair was slicked back, still orange yellow from ‘The Man Who Fell to Earth’ - The Thin White Duke. He started to play; it was pandamonium; Bowiemania at its peak. 

Setlist

Station to Station

Suffragette City

Fame

Word on a Wing

Stay

I'm Waiting for the Man (The Velvet Underground cover)

Queen Bitch

Life on Mars?

Five Years

Panic in Detroit

Changes

TVC15

Diamond Dogs

Encore:

Rebel Rebel

The Jean Genie

Halfway through the show, whilst Bowie was offstage, probably having a cigarette, the band did a twenty minute instrumental version of ‘Panic in Detroit’. Then he came back for an encore, ‘Rebel Rebel’ followed by ‘Jean Genie’. We later saw him leave in his black Mercedes limo. 

I remember telling other kids that I had seen Bowie at Wembley, they’d say ‘You’re a liar, that didn’t happen.’ 

It did happen.

It was a surprise when someone bumped into her. Even more so when when scaling hot liquid spilled onto her.