ALTERNATIVE Sounds (Other Alternative Cov Magazines)
Here is a round up of other Coventry Alternative zines and papers in the 70's -
ALTERNATIVE SOUNDS
Was a later Coventry music fanzine first published March 6th 1979 and reflecting the Coventry music scene around the rise of Two Tone - and the music scene was at that stage was totally buzzing! Martin will no doubt be writing his own history. I enjoyed reading Alternative Sounds. It was co-founded with Dill of God's Toys four years after the demise of Hobo, because "Coventry needed something to publicise and help the local bands and inform people of what's going on - in this way giving us a much healthier scene." Alternative Sounds had the usual problem of resourcing it - mainly, at first out of their own pocket. A grant of £100 from the Princes Trust helped them get it established and the Lanch Polytechnic Student's Union (Now Cov University) printed it for free and the lads colled / stapled it themselves. Getting the printing done for free was a great help and printing costs were always a problem for Hobo it would have come out more often otherwise! They also had a camera so there's some great photos in it. Alternative Sounds were behind the brill Coventry compliation album Sent From Coventry. Here is the cover of one of the issues - other covers will be found in the photo gallery on here.
Rexbrough, who was involved, has a Coventry band index, strong on the bands around in the late seventies early 80's but not exclusive to that period - unfortunately it seems to have gone off line. Will put the url on here if I find the new location!
The SENT FROM COVENTRY album featured the following tracks by Coventry bands c 1979.
Side 1
1. Wild Boys - We're only Monsters 2. The Clique - Mothers Never know 3. The End - Panic in the Night 4. The Mix - With You 5. Machine (later called Hot Snacks) Character Change
Side 2
1. Protege - Protection 2. Solid Action - Message from a Loner 3. Wild Boys - Lorraine 4. Squad - Flasher 5. Homicide - Armageddon 6. Riot Act - Sirens 7. V. Babies - Donna Blitzen.
Machine or Hot Snacks as they became wre one of my favourite bands - the bass player Ollie had been involved in bands like Smack earlier. I'd met him in 1974 at the Sunshine Music Agency in Coventry while typing Hobo and, in his own words, I was "one the people that got him doing things" musically when he arrived in Coventry. The drummer Siverton was ex - Specials. Although it wasn't typical of their music as Jackie wasn't singing - I liked the song on this album - Character Change - With lines like "You're behind one decade" and the chorus "You need a character Change!" underpinned by Julian's synth riff and Ollie's groundhog bass. I used to go see them at their residency at the Ryton Arms. Urge formed out of an earlier Cov band Whistler and the Zoastra (see the entry below on Zoastra (with a link to Urge's You Tube vid of their single Revolving Boy. Whistler will be featured in the Hobo Band Directory - yet to come.
Lead singer of the punk band Riot Act Stu Knapper was the younger brother of Phil Knapper - a talented singer-songwriter and firend who had been involved in the Hobo Workshop in the mid seventies. Squad's guitarist Johnny Adams has an entry below here.
The album was a great initiative and showcase of some of the musical talent around at the time.
Another initiative at that time -c 1970 was the a call for a Community Arts Music Venue. Although I'd been off the music scene for a few years, involved as a Welfare Rights Worker in community projects such as SHACK (Young person's drop in advice centre and Coventry Unemployed Workers Centre, I supported this initiative whole-heartedly. It was what we'd fought for with Hobo - to an extent we achieved it with the Hobo Workshop - but something with more resources and funding behind it was definately need in Coventry. Although Coventry had a thriving band scene, it was always inspite of a lack of facilities and support. Bands found it difficutl to find suitable and inexpensive places to rehease (where noise wasn't a problems), getting gigs to start off with was a problem (the Hobo Workshop and the Umbrella Club Band nights had provided that in some measure but they had finished), suitable community controlled central performance venues was needed to showcase bands and much more. I met Martin at the first meeting. However it was shortly after that I moved up to Teesside to do my degree 1980 so didn't follow through on that. Someone who moved to Teesside a year later told me things had moved on that after I left. Here is the letter I recieved from Peter Baker - Coventry Community Arts Association. This sounded very familiar. Coventry's music scene did deserve to be much better resourced.
Comments
Martin Bowes of the band Attrition and former editor of Cov's Alternative Sounds sent a message on My Space. I've transfered the relvant bits to here. Thanks Martin.
Hi Trev
really nice to hear from you!
been reading your site....really like it...i didnt know anything about your mag or the scene at all in Cov before about 1977!...
will be happy to pass on any info i have if you need it!
glad you like the music!... i still live here in Cov but have little to do with the scene in terms of playing here... (although i teach music technology at tile hill college so have a lot to do with the local scene in that way!)
As for Alternative Sounds - i'll have to write something about it!
just to say though that i had to PAY the lanch to print it! it wasn't at all free and so apart from a couple of ads i received the funding all came back from sales...! (got up to 1000 copies at it's peak early in 1980!)
anyway more sooon!
Martin