3 posts tagged “hobo”

The Eddie James Sound

Jul 29, 2007
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The Eddie James Sound

Beat - Tijuana - Old Tyme and Swing

Eddie James has the distinction of being about the first to take a paid ad in the first issue of Hobo. Eddie's band was

Eddie James Sound

not the usual style of music for Hobo - he was older and his band were well established on the Jazz and club circuits. Eddie lived in Lorenzo Close, Willenhall - opposite Wandering John Guitarist John Alderson and down the way from the original Hobo co-editor - Bo or John Bargeant. Both John's knew him and introduced me to him. I'd often bump into him walking his dogs on a visit to either of the John's. One day he stopped to chat and I told him of the plans for Hobo and that we were looking to finance it with ads. Eddie was straight there with the offer of an ad. I never got to see them play though.

PRIOR TO HOBO!

Jan 22, 2007
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Below I have outlined some of the lead up and influences and motives leading to the creation of Hobo - Coventry's Own Music and Arts Magazine in June 1973. These include the work of The Broadgate Gnome in 1970- 71 with its blend of Avant Garde Politics and the promotion of the non-commercial music scene in Coventry and are; the work of the Coventry Arts Umbrella and my involvement with bands and venues and the problems they face such as lack of rehearsal space, venues and equipment; the Birmingham Streetpress, Streetpoems and the Birmingham Grapevine and more.

Another influence was reading about the Beatles and the role of Liverpool's Music paper The Mersey Beat

Mersey

in developing and publicising the music scene there. Although most of us baulked at Mouldy Old Dough or rather sang it in some of the mouldy old cafe's we dared to eat in, it was nontheless a Coventry band at the top of the charts and they had played in other styled bands like Stavely Makepiece. Chuck Berry took the dubious My Ding a Ling to the top of the charts (recorded live at Tiffany's Ballroom in Coventry(now the Library) in a gig put on by the Lanch Poly tech. I couldn't afford to go to it, but did I really want to confess to 'playing with my own ding a ling' on record! On a deeper level Bob Jackson (formerly of Indian Summer, was playing around that time with John Entwhistle's band - Rigamortise and Pete Brown's Piblokto. It seemed that the music scene in Coventry needed more support and development. Many of Coventry's best bands had broken up like Wandering John, Asgard, April, Dando Shaft, Indian Summer and new bands were emerging but finding it difficult to get started. A music magazine that campaigned for wider facilities seemed to be sorely needed.

Bob Dylan: A Biography

Anthony Scaduto

Another impetus was reading Scaduto's Biography of Bob Dylan published that year. As a young Hobo singer-songwriter - somewhat quirky at that stage! (I was playing guitar by this time.) I found the book inspiring and wished that Coventry had a similar cafe scene to Greenwich Village. In my quirky style of the moment, I even wrote a quirky song about it which I performed where-ever there was a shortage of ear-plugs (mostly folk clubs where they were too drunk to throw me out!) -
Here is my 'campaigning song'!

IF COFFEE BARS WERE LIKE THEY WERE IN GREENWICH VILLAGE
(Kinda had a staccato Loving Spoonful - Daydream type of feel to it)

I spend my time in coffee bars
Cos that's where all my friends go to.
It's somewhere warm where you can get -
a cup of coffee and a view
of waitresses draws, if you're not too poor! (no we weren't too politically correct in those days were we!)

(Chorus)
Wouldn't it be nice if coffee bars
were like they were in Greenwich Village,
with folk guitars and a cool, cool atmosphere,
'stead of Breadhead; shit; plastic fooded Wimpy bars!.

I spend my time in public bars
cos that's where all my friends go to.
The Golden Cross and the Dive Bar,
Not to mention all the rest
They're not cool cos they're all
Breadhead, big scowls, cop-prowls, shit beer, booze Brothels! (hmm! I used to like the Dive and Cross actually!)

I spend my time in discotheques,
in crowded little beer bar rooms,
or in the poly tech, where you can hear the sweet sweet sounds of
Led a Zeppalin; Blackfoot Sue; Hi Ella Guru!;
'Slam it to mee' Slade and all the other groovy things
the DJ's like to play.

Wouldn't it be nice if we had some nice places to go,
to call our own,
where money was only a means to an end
and not given to the millionaires to spend.
Where we could have a groovy time
and do the things we'd really love to do.

(An optional verse was, (depending on how pissed the singer was!!)
I spend my time in public loos
Cos that's where one just has to goo!
Sitting in a cubical
when one has one's bellyfull
of shit like this!
(Bob Dylan had a harmonica - I went one better - I had a Trumpet Kazoo! Possibly influenced by seeing the New Modern Idiot Grunt Band I suppose!)
by Trev Teasdel (am I really going to admit to it!!!)

TREV AND BO - ON THE SCENE!

Jan 21, 2007
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Hobo CET On the Scene

This is the resultant article in the Coventry Evening Telegraph's supplement ON THE SCENE - Saturday June 30th 1973 - after an interview by CET Reporter Lynn Greenwood. I've written out as the print quality might not be so clear after all these years! The CET editor wrote to me after sending a petition of 500+ signatures in response to the article they published RU18 and in sending the first editon of HOBO.

TREV AND BO ON THE MUSIC SCENE

TREV and Bo didn't think much to the arts scene in Coventry - so they decided to try and liven things up. And their efforts - an eight page music mag called HOBO - is out this week.

In their own words "It's an attempt at supplying the musicians and such likery of Coventry with a form of music paper intending to cover not only musicians but discos, poets and artists, etc."

At the moment it's free and is strictly a "non-bread-head, non-profit mag"

Trev Teasdel 1973 (Cov Telegraph)

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"We want to get people intersted in helping us" said 22 year old Trev Teasdel. "the music scene in Coventry has never been brilliant although three or four years ago it wasn't too bad. But now there are lots groups wanting to do concerts and artists willing to do exhibitions, but there's nowhere to hold them."

Trev, of 16, Laneside, Willenhall Wood, Coventry, says the only place to go for music are pubs.

"And that just gives the drugs and pubs squads plenty of work," he said.

One of Bo's ideas (his real name is John Bargeant) is to start an information service which offers help to anyone with a problem.

Bo pic 24jpg

"I've called it Central Spot and at the moment people can only contact me at home," said 26 year old Bo, of 21, Lorenzo Close, Willenhall. "but we're trying to get premises and have been offered a room in Bardsley House so many nights a week"

"We want to be available to help young people who may have owhere to live or stay; they may have a drugs problem or they may just want to drop in for a chat and coffee."

At the moment the big problem is finance.

"We'd like to put on some sort of benefit to raise money for the mag." said Trev "but first we've got to find somewhere to hold it."

So if anyone has any ideas, please contact the two and try to help.

Lynn Greenwood.

Trev & Bo z

Trev & Bo 4

Bo left Hobo during the production of the second issue and became the Road manager of Khyyam - the Jazz Rock group with Chris Jones on guitar and Steve Tayton on Sax. They were embarking on a European Tour.

He ran Rouguestar Promotions and Disco and was managing me as a singer songwriter at the time of starting HOBO. The magazine took over from the music for a while although I still played and wrote. The emphasis was on

Letter from Coventry Evening Telegraph

building an infra-structure for musicians through the work on Hobo. Bo had

Letter from CCVS

worked for Release as an advisor, hence his idea for Central Spot. However Central Spot hardly got off the ground before Bo went on his European tour with Khyyam. However through going to an executive meting of the Coventry Arts Umbrella, I met Henry West, who was both on the Umbrella Executive and the head of the Coventry Voluntary Service Council. He had just employed a Detached Youth Worker for the city centre area - Bob Rhodes (who later managed Midnight Circus / The Flys for a while). Bob needed contact with local youth to help in a simialr way that Bo had intended and we needed facilities - a venue and place to organise alternative street theatre / films and music nights and prinitng facilities etc. It seemed a good trade-off. Bob got us the use of the Holyhead Youth Centre 1n 1974/5 and started an informal youth advisory service at the gigs. I was doing a Social Study course at Henley College and it became my Social Work placement - which was good because it wouldn't conflict with what I considered to be my Real work - HOBO! So Bo's idea for an advisory centre came to fruition albeit without him, but stimulated by him talking about it to the press. Following on from the informal detached work at the Hobo Workshop, a drop in House for young people S.H.A.C.K. was established in 1975. I went to Canley College for some training to be an advisor. But more of the Hobo Workshop (the music and the advice work) in separate posts in a while. For now the magazine was the first base to establish.