After kicking our heels for 23 years, someone asked if we’d reform for a gig.

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Post Script

Demise Is Quick

The thing that struck me as most surprising, was how quickly the band folded. In May ’81 we recorded the Bedsitter EP. In July Roy left. We played our last gig in August. Steve left in September, Clive left in October and the band folded in November. Six months after recording what we thought was a great single, it was gone. Over. Ended. Finito.

It’s often easier to give up than to keep pushing onward, but it’s easy to forget how hard it is being in a band: the time, the effort, the money. Just to rehearse is a big outlay in terms of finding a suitable location, paying for it, getting everyone there at the same time, getting all the gear there, setting up, playing, packing up, taking everything home again. And that doesn’t take into account the disagreements, the arguments, the differences of opinion.

It also doesn’t take into account finding the money to buy equipment and maintain it. Then someone has to write the songs, then you have to find time to practice playing and learn the songs too. Then you have to find gigs. This is on top of having a job/family.

So, if you want to be in a band, don’t expect it to be easy, but then don’t take it for granted either. All too soon it’ll be gone and all you’ll be left with is a handful of fading memories, a few crumpled flyers and a cupboard full of dusty music equipment.

Stortbeat Collective Gig

In 2004 the band reconvened for a hastily arranged gig at The Square in Harlow.  It was to promote a CD called “The Stortbeat Collective”, a collection of recordings put out in the 70’s and 80’s by Stortbeat, Airplay and other associated labels. It was a great success, the night was a sell-out, we played again but without Clive, since he had booked a ‘cheap holiday in someone else’s misery’ which at the time, was more important. So, a friend from school called Kelloggs played drums, or at least tapped them at roughly the right time.

We played People On The Side, Control, Bedsitter, A Day In The Life and Crash Wanderer.  It was great fun and other than the CD, there was also a DVD of the night too.  Other bands on the bill were Easy Action, The Gangsters, The Rabbits, The Sods and yes, The Newtown Neurotics.  And guess what? The Sods actually spoke to us but The Neurotics? Sadly, even after all these years, they were still too busy.

I bumped in to Shane Roe (of The Sods and Crash Wanderer overdubs fame) in the toilets at The Square. I commented on his purple suit and said something about it being a bit ‘funky’. He smiled and asked whether we were playing ‘that song‘ tonight. I said yes, and that we’d reworked it with a 21st Century electronic vibe (we hadn’t). “Sounds good,” he replied. “Well,” I said, “You can hear it later when we get on stage.” “No way,” he said, “I’ll be in the bar,” and he laughed.

I don’t know whether he watched us or not but I enjoyed their set all the same.¹

Covers

A month or two after the gig Roy, Robbie and I started up a covers band called A Curious Charm², whilst Roy and Robbie continued to play in the Big Boys Blues Band also.  Then Roy left the band (again) as did Robbie eventually, and I soldiered on with the singer Vikki.  We drafted in new members and became a Blondie Tribute called Bite-Sized Blondie.

Then in 2014 Vikki and I got married and the band played Crash Wanderer live one more time at the wedding.

I thought that would be it, but no.  Roy got married in 2019 and the original four Pressure Stops met for the first time again since 2004, at Roy’s Stag Night.

We again rolled out the ‘Wanderer’ at the wedding, but this was somewhat shambolic appearance since we hadn’t rehearsed.  And we haven’t done anything since.  Probably just as well.  Sometimes you have to know when it’s time to let it go.

The Invention of Indie

So did the Pressure Stops invent Indie?  Well, as discussed earlier, they didn’t technically speaking, invent anything.  They were part of the musical revolution which did bring about the invention of Indie, along with thousands of other independent bands. 

Indie was a whole sub-culture of music that stemmed from the remnants of Punk, New Wave and Post-Punk.  If you were a guitar band in the late 70’s, early 80’s and you were using Pop elements, melodic guitar riffs, single, repeated note solos that followed the vocal melody line – the embodiment of this being the solo at 1 min 15 of “What Do I Get?” by The Buzzcocks – and you were on an Independent label, then you were categorised as an Indie band.

But of course, there’s a bit more to it than that (isn’t there always?) because Indie was a shortened version of the term “Independent”, which referred to the Independent Record Labels which sprung up everywhere when punk grew out of the chaos of early 70’s UK and US, specifically in New York and London. 

Coupled with the deep-set mistrust of major labels, when bands realised they could record, press and distribute records on their own, without the need for the major labels, they jumped at the chance.

One of the first, “Stiff Records” brought many great artists to the attention of audiences across Britain:  Elvis Costello & The Attractions, Ian Dury & The Blockheads, Nick Lowe, Madness, Lene Lovich, The Damned, Jona Lewie, Kirsty MacColl, Tracey Ullman, Mötorhead and The Pogues were all Stiff artists at one time or another. Famously, the company was originally set up using a £400 loan from Lee Brilleaux, the singer from Dr. Feelgood.

It was Stiff who released the UK’s first punk single, “New Rose” by The Damned, which hit the shops on 22^nd October 1976. 

This was, although nobody knew it at the time, the first tiny shoots of “Indie”. Because so many bands were being signed to, or creating their own, Independent labels, eventually music papers such as Sounds, began printing the weekly Singles Charts, Album Charts and Independent Charts to keep everyone abreast of the underground music scene as it grew across the UK.  The Pressure Stops, on Airplay, were just one of many.

So, it’s growth can be charted organically due to a spreading desire for bands to be recorded and those recordings to be heard.  Punk was very much a DIY (learn three chords and start a band) ethic where the band had control over their musical output. 

However, the major labels had the last laugh.  They destroyed indie some years later by infiltrating the indie sub-culture from within by creating their own new labels which purported to be “indie” supporting indie bands but they were nothing of the sort.  Eventually you couldn’t buy an indie record anymore and be sure it wasn’t part of the majors and so its credibility withered and died. 

The Pressure Stops however, never had any credibility to begin with so it wasn’t much of problem for them.

So, what are The Pressure Stops doing these days? Well, I’m now retired and living in Maldon, Essex, and occasionally play in a band with my wife Victoria. Roy runs his own company, still plays in The Big Boys Blues Band and in The Princes of Les covers band and lives near Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire. Steve Coulson works in the print trade and lives in Bishops’ Stortford.

Clive continued to work for the BBC and even found time to become and accomplished amateur cyclist. Robbie works and lives in Harlow and plays in a covers band called Quixote’s Beard. Steve Byrne lives near Peterborough, Mick Richards moved to Portsmouth, and John McGinn plays drums in The Princes Of Les with Roy. Kelloggs sadly died a few years ago from MS.

One time random Pressure Stop Richard Holgarth (of The Gangsters) now plays guitar with Eddie and the Hot Rods and also John Otway. You can see him on Netflix in the film Otway The Movie.

Rock and Roll’s Greatest Failure: Otway the Movie – Wikipedia

So, that about wraps it up for The History of The Pressure Stops. It was an eventful ride which will thankfully never be repeated.

It just leaves me to say thank you for your time and to let you know there is one, last blog. A short walk down memory lane.

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1. I was informed recently that Shane Roe had died in a car accident in Spain a few years ago. So, I never got to thank him for putting me through untold stress during our first recording session. But he was right, there wasn’t a lot on the song without overdubs. There wasn’t a great deal after either, but that’s another story.
2. On one occasion, when John Peel played The Pressure Stops single on Radio 1, he referred to the song as having ‘a curious charm’ which we felt was a positive statement. Mind you, he also said he hadn’t found anyone else who liked it. That’s the best we were likely to get unfortunately.