COCONUT MAT

c 1970. I was introduced to Coconut Mat by Pete Waterman while we were both working for the GEC (General Electric Company) Stoke works Cov. Pete of course wasn't world famous then although he was already a centrifugal force on the Coventry music scene  - as a former R & B singer in the 60's band Tomorrow's Kind and Coventry's top soul music DJ - 7 nights a week - on top of a full time job in wiring dept of the GEC! Pete certainly earned his success by hard work, the night shift of DJaying being the enjoyable bit!

Pete had just put music to my latest lyric A Lotta Rain is Fallin' I had written at the GEC (management and I had a difference as to what I was employed for!) and Pete then introduced me to Billy Campbell who was the bassist with Coconut Mat and also worked at the GEC. Coconut Mat was a heavy rock outfit at the time when bands like Black Sabbath, Free and Led Zepplin were arising on the national music scene.

I can't recall the full line up but Bill Campell played bass and Martin Barter played Keyboards.(Pic show Martin Barter as he is today playing keyboards with folk band Shkayla)

Bill Campbell lived in Grafton St, Gosford Green, near Indian Summer's keyboardist / vocalist - Bob Jackson (later of Badfinger etc.). There was an Organ shop over the road where, I think Bob would have bought his first Hammond. I didn't know Bill's background at the time until I read it on the Broadgate Gnome Music site but Bill used to play bass for the Eggy circa 1968 / 69 with Roger and Nigel Lomus of the 1965 hit group The Sorrows. Roger Lomus was later involved in the production side of some the Selecter records.
 

The Eggy produced a single which wasn't, as far as I know, a hit - called You're Still Mine/B: Hookey (Spark SRL1024 1969). The music was described by Broadgate Gnome as 'Freak Beat'  and vocalist Bill Bates was formerly in The Boll Weevils.

Pete had liked my lyric enough to put music to it and repeat the line 'There's a lotta rivers flowin' but the sea's learned how to fly" in the song and on the strength of it asked me to write something for Coconut Mat.

I niether knew of their background or had seen them live but taking on board that they were a heavy rock band influenced by the current Black Sabbath / Led Zepplin genre, I thought I'd write an evil lyric about living in a rat-race city like Cov with it's pollutants and haste etc. And there was plenty of all that at the GEC (A Telecommunication firm who produced, at that branch,  telephone componants and racks for the Telephone exchanges.

I heard a Led Zepp screaming vocal like in A Whole Lotta Lovin' in it. However Bill didn't like the lyric that much. He thought that you couldn't have a hit single with the word Beelzebub in it! I had no idea they were thinking singles - I didn't think they were at that stage but know knowing Bill's background, I can see why they might be thinking that way. Bill nicked named me Beelzebub afterwards but didn't use my song (but he did kindly lend me his PA once when I was trying out vocals with Mojo (Tony Morgan's band Railroad). 5 years later of course Queen had a huge No one with Bohemian Rhapsody and lo and behold - it had the forbidden word Beelzebub in it!!  Ahead of my time again but obviously  my effort didn't compare with Queen's operatic masterpiece!

Martin Barter went on to play in many bands from Mojo Morgan's short lived group Concert, to Just Jake, Trilogy and many more. An excellent keyboard player who is still going strong today in the folk band Shkayla. Martin worked at Rolls Royce (I think) - one of the car factories - I think in the office but I maybe wrong. He was well sort after as a keyboard player. I became friends with him early 1971 - he was friends with Silk Disco and hung out at the Sunday night Plough gig at the bottom of the London Rd. Elton John and Bernie Taupin had just emerged and Martin was inspired by Elton's music. We talked of a collaboration with Martin writing music for my lyrics and he took my song book away for a while. It would another year before I played guitar well enough to put music to my own lyrics. However this collaboration didn't work out - Coconut Mat split up and Martin moved on to other bands, sometimes more than one at a time. That's as far as I can take the story if you've any info on this band feel free to leave a comment- but here's the Coventry inspired lyric I wrote for them in a sort of Whole Lotta Lovin' Style!

The City Fires

Amidst the conflagrations

Living substances survive.

Squandering their energies

In the furnaces they thrive.

Making haste that’ll only guarantee

An early grave.

Chorus...

And the cities burn

And the cities burn

And the cities burn

You’re gonna die

You’re gonna slowly die

You’re gonna slowly die too young

In the city fires

In the city fires

In the city fires.

Preachers scream from the steeple

That we’re heading for hell

But tell me people if this place ain’t worse than hell.

Making waste that'll only guarantee an early grave.

Bridge..

The evil witch has cast her jinx

Beelzebub now rules.

Pandemonium’s the song he sings

As he swallows all you fools.

And he’s gonna drink your blood

As your bodies slowly burn

Chorus

As your bodies burn

As your bodies burn

As your bodies burn

You’re gonna die

You’re gonna slowly die

You’re gonna slowly die too young

In the city fires

In the city fires

In the city fires. etc..

By Trev Teasdel 1970

 

ASGARD c1969 - 71

Asgard held open rehearsal sessions in the little theatre of the Coventry Arts Umbrella as well gigs c. 1969 –71. I first saw them in 1969 at the Umbrella’s mini-arts festival – Transcendental Cauldron (One of the first Cov bands I ever saw when I was 18). At that time they were a four piece including Neol Davies on lead guitar. I think he left soon afterwards and they continued as a three piece. Can’t remember the names, but they had a drummer / bassist and an organist (Farfiza). Mainly original material but with an Ummaguma – period Pink Floyd sound. They covered Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun. Mick Gawthorp

(Sax player with another band on at the Transcendental Cauldron) told me recently he gigged briefly with Asgard.

 

The Arts Umbrella News (December 1970) entry for them was; -

THE LYRICS TO THE JAWS THEME!

Songwriter, producer, muso and Community Media expert Steve Thompson doesn't hail from Coventry but he does have a Coventry connection via Pete Waterman and by a strange coincidence I met and became involved with him on Teesside in 2005.

Steve relates a great story of being commissioned to write lyrics for the Jaws theme by Pete Waterman which can be viewed on Steve's own site ST Media but first a bit of background. (Note the direct link to the Jaws Post is below).

The connection began in 2004 when I began work on The Writers Cafe - one of my current commitments -  one of the liveliest spoken word and music venues in the North East of England. Now at the Georgian Theatre, Green Dragon Yard in Stockton (a converted tithe barn used by the Teesside Music Alliance(ie Stockton and Middlesbrough music Collective) as a rock venue. However back in 2004 / 5 we were based at the plush Stockton Arts Centre called the ARC. The ARC were working with CIRA  who were An ERDF funded project based at the University of Teesside to work with Community groups and enable them to construct their own websites. None of us at the cafe could 'speak' HTML or PHP and so we linked in with CIRA who helped us build our first Writers Cafe website using a content manager system. The support was excellent. I mentioned that I had a vast archive of material on all the Creative Writing initiatives on Teesside - many of which were mine - which I wanted to  put on line (as I have done with the earlier Coventry material here). Soon I had two sites going Outlet and The Writers Cafe and Cira were talking about making Outlet into a funded programme documenting the full literary history of the Teesvalley area. However Sod's law kicked in and ERDF funding was pulled from  many projects in the area and CIRA was closing down along with the  websites.

Just when I thought that was the end of the websites I got an e mail from Steve Thompson who was coordinator of Teesside Uni's Community Media Project who wanted to rescue and facilitate some of the valuable work that Cira had begun. I arranged to meet Steve at the Uni and expecting a young be-suited techno-lecturer type I went along suitably be-suited my self. However this guy was more my own age, casually dressed and well bearded. As you enter his office you have this strange perception that this guy is not your normal go-ahead acedemic. It was more like wandering into a London music publishing office, with CD covers all over the walls, press cuttings, pictures of musical artists. His conversation bedecked with colloquialism and a few choice expletives were more in keeping with a rock n roller than with an acedemic.

However Steve is brilliant at his job, pioneering and developing community media throughtout the North East of England. He soon had us up and running with new and much improved websites for Outlet and the Writers Cafe and his support was 24/7 (well over and above the call of duty). Over the last year or so Steve has helped us to move venues - is working on webcasting the Writers Cafe and giving excellent support for our projects.

However my initial perceptions were correct. Steve had begun in a heavy metal band in Consett in his youth supporting many a name band, playing bass in the main but capable of playing guitar and keyboards and singing. He is listed on a site called Metal Godz. The long hair has long since gone but the spirit survives. In 1981 he became a staff songwriter for Pete Waterman, writing songs for Elkie Brooks, Celine Dion, The Searchers, Bruce Ruffin, Sheena Easton, Alvin Stardust, Sara Brightman, Elaine Page, Tygers of Pan Tang, Wavelength and many more (to be found on his own site), he went on to be an assistant producer working with Andy Taylor (Duran Duran)  Toni Haliday (Curved Air / Police / Tygers of Pan Tang / Venom) Gus Dudgeon (Elton John's producer) and much more before (in his own words) giving up the three minute pop song to work on Community media which he finds just as satisfying - hence the long hours he works on it.

Steve has a great tale on his site of being asked by Pete Waterman to write the words to JAWS If you think the theme to Jaws has no words - think again - it wasn't for the want of trying on Pete's behalf.

Steve is still working on his music though, these days developing collaborative projects with poets and and photographers and film makers around North East Industrial themes. Find out details from his own site.

I met Pete Waterman in 1970, while working at the GEC Stoke Works in Coventry. I was an Electrical Inspector at

19, testing telephone racks in the Telecommunications dept. It was a 7am start in a smelly factory (although as Pete notes in his autobiography - it was least polluted part!). While most of the workers had an unofficila 'smoke' break in the toilets (in between the offical breaks!), I used to have 'Write breaks' being a non-smoker and more interested in writing songs than testing telephone racks!

One day the boss was out and I sat at my rack writing a new lyric - It was called A Lotta Rain is Fallin'. It was kind of Bob Dylan / King Crimson (Epitaph inspired - what I was listening to at the time). About that feeling where you doing a lot of things but getting no results - both on a personal basis and a global basis. I constructed symbolic images that expressed or re-inforced that feeling. I'd got the first verse (a longish one and the Bridge, when one of my work mates asked what I was doing. I told him I was writing a song and he said 'You should have a word with Pete Waterman'. The only thing I knew about Pete was that he was the shop steward on the next section and his voice could often be heard ringing out at meetings. He told me Pete used to sing in an R&B band in the mid 60's  - Tommorow's Kind and was Coventry's top DJ, at the Locarno and many other places.

Next thing I knew Pete was standing over me and asked to see what I was writing. I told him I put on the band nights at the Umbrella club and wrote song lyrics (I didn't play guitar Myself until 72). Pete took the lyric away (even though it was unfinished) and said he put some music to it. A week later, again while the boss was elsewhere, he brought in one of those small mono cassette players they had in the 70's and played the song. His voice sound to me like a cross between Paul McCartney and Bob Dylan, playing it in 7ths. It sound great to me. He said he's repeated the line 'There's a lotta rivers flowing but the sea's learned how to fly' because he particualry liked that line and asked me to write another verse, which I did, so it patterned, technically speaking, ABAB Verse Bridge Verse Bridge. I don't think it ever got played anywhere that I know of and he didn't have a record company back then but here is the lyric - NOTE - THE AUDIO VERSION HERE IS WITH MY MUSIC NOT PETE'S AND WAS RECORDED ON CASSETTE 1981 WITH STEVE GILLGALLON ON LEAD GUITAR. I DON'T HAVE A COPY OF PETE'S EARLIER VERSION OR ANY SAY SO TO USE IT IF I DID.

A LOTTA RAIN IS FALLIN’

A lotta rain is fallin’, but the earth has moved aside

There’s a lotta bullets flying but the victim’s found somewhere to hide

There’s a lotta rivers flowin’ but the seas learned how to fly.

There’s a lotta clouds a wondering which rockets knicked the sky

‘cos the roads are moving fast but the cars are standing still

and so much is happening yet nothing’s ever done

Oh we want to see the light but we’re dazzled by the sun.

(Bridge)

And some people’s only sunshine

Are their Cornflakes in the morning time

And the age of instant sunshine
In packets of bright display
I know will be dawning, in some future day.

There’s a lotta tears a fallin’, and more are being cried

There’s a lotta people trampled on as man takes another stride

There’s a lotta smoke a rising but the sky’s learned how to swim

There’s a lotta faces smiling but their hearts are feeling grim

Cos a lotta tension’s forming and the bags about to burst

There’s gotta be an answer cos the world is getting worse.

A lotta help is needed to get that truck back on the road

Cos too many people are pullin’ too heavier a load.

(BACK TO BRIDGE)

Pete was working at the GEC by and by night DJ all over the option in Coventry. He invited meto come down to the

Walsgrave Pub (seen in the pic albeit with a new name) on a Tuesday night to his Progressive music venue, where he DJ'd and put on bands. I used to go every week, get there early, help the bands load in their equipment, do odd jobs and sit on the door in the early part of the evening. Pete introduced me to some of the musicians, like Rod Felton and I'd often book some of the bands for the Umbrella club. Some of the bands I already knew from the Umbrella but I got the contact details for Indian Summer and Dando Shaft from there. Some times we'd to town or the Earlsdon Cottage or his house to get equipment before the gig. On one occasion he sat on the lawn outside the Earlsdon cottage accompanying Rod Felton on flute. At the gig itself Pete sometimes got on stage - a memorable occasion was when Pete got on stage with R&B band Gipsy Lee and belted out Rock me Baby - adding in some Jethro Tull like percussive flute riffs. This may astound some of you who only know of Pete Waterman from Pop Heros or SAW

connections! There is more to the man than meets the media eye! Further on in this blog you'll some of the range of

Pete's acitivites and work on the Coventry Music scene - he was Coventry's top DJ and promoter, later he ran the Soul Hole laready blogged about and won a Radio one competition to go over to the USA to find out first hand how the Philly sound worked. it was obvious back then that Pete was going places, had tremendous drive and was marshalling his record producing skills on Coventry's dance floors. But who would of guessed he would virtually take over the music business and charts with SAW in the 80's?

At the GEC Pete was a Shop Steward for TGWU - during one of his big meetings, explaining the strike action and why our sections would be laid off, I wrote this, ironically, as we stood en masse on the green near the Binley Rd.It was my first introduction at 19 to the labour movement but my mind clearly wasn't on politics at that stage.

LIKE A HAIRPIN BEND

Sometimes the road’s so dark and lonely

Shaded by the overhanging trees

Sometimes the road’s so long and winding

Guided by a violent breeze

And sometimes my road’s lined with forests

And confusion breathes

And sometimes the fords are deeper

Than my motor car.

Bridge

But when I get to thinking

That my seas are raging torrents

The wind seems to change direction

And blow the other way

Like a hairpin bend – Like a hairpin bend

And things start happening

As directions change

Like a hairpin bend- Like a hairpin bend

Sometimes the paths I wander

Bare no fruits of life

Sometimes the patterns I encounter

Are painted by the brush of strife

And sometimes my mind is lined with sadness

And reason squirms beneath

And sometimes the cauldrons seem more real

Than just figments of my mind.

(back to the Bridge)

By Trev Teasdel, May 1970

Another one written in 1970 at the GEC captured the alienation felt working in such an environment when you wanted to be doing something more creative with your life. As Pete says in his autobiography, mostly young women worked in our section and the protagonist in the song is female despite being in the first person!

GOOD DAY TO YOU MRS JONES

Alarm clock rings and with it brings a sleepy head that feels like lead on rising.
Throw back the sheets and draw back the curtains and look at the frosty streets.
Put on your clothes, everyone loaths getting up in the morning.
Your mind seems to settle as you put on the kettle although still sleepy.
Frying the bacon, fried bread and eggs, it seems there's a mountain upon your legs.

Brush down your hair, taking great care to paint on the make up, still trying to wake up

but you know that you can't

Slip on your coat, pick up your bag and off to the daily drag.

Open the door and a cold wind bites, go back on your woollen tights

Rush for the bus in the usual crush, collapsing on the seat.

Run to the gate, in case you know you're not really worried.
Look at the clock, must have got stuck, doesn't the time drag by.
"Roll on today, Roll on tommorow" wishing your life away.
Nothing gets done, you're not having fun, you're needing a holiday.

Working for the rich man as hard as you can
and you don't get nothing for it.
He's getting rich while you're living in a ditch
but he don't do nothing for it.
Hometime comes, your head still drums at train beat tempo.
Lay on the sofa, thinking over but you're much too weary to know.
Maybe there's an artist somewhere in you with plenty of things to do
but he never gets a chance

Good day to you Mrs Jones
Good day to you Mrs Jones.

By Trev Teasdel - April 1970

Billy Campbell also worked in that department of the GEC. Bill was a bass player who had played in the group Eggy in the late 60's with Roger and Nigel Lomus (who had been in the Sorrows) and Bill Bates. They made a single

You're Still Mine/B: Hookey (Spark SRL1024 1969) - althugh I knew nothing of this at the time! I did know that Bill, at the time (1970) was playing in a band called Coconut Mat with Martin Barter on Hammond Organ. Pete Waterman suggested I write a 'heavy Song' for them as they were a 'heavy' band. It was the days of Led Zepplin and Black Sabbath. I wrote a song called The City Fires (purely to try and suit the band - I wouldn't have written this one otherwise.) However they took umbridge to the word Beelzebub in the lyric, saying that you could have a hit with the word Beelzebub in it. I had no idea it wa for a single - I didn't know of Bill's recording background at the time and thought it was for the stage. Satanic images were vogue at the time with Black Sabbath. He used to call me Beelzebub after that but 5 years later Queen took Bohemian Rhapsody to the top of the charts with, yes that word Beelzebub in!! Ok my song can't compare with the brilliant Bohemian Rhapsody but they did have a hit with that word Beelzebub in! i fell about when that hit the charts!

It's not my best or favourite lyric from that time but here is the infamous satanic song about the evil of industrialism -

THE CITY FIRES

Amidst the conflagrations

Living substances survive.

Squandering their energies

In the furnaces they thrive.

Making haste that’ll only guarantee

Eggy-01

An early grave.

Bridge..

And the cities burn

And the cities burn

And the cities burn

You’re gonna die

You’re gonna slowly die

You’re gonna slowly die too young

In the city fires

In the city fires

In the city fires.

Preachers scream from the steeple

That we’re heading for hell

But tell me people if this place ain’t worse than hell.

Making waste that'll only guarantee  an early grave.

Bridge..

The evil witch has cast her jinx

Beelzebub now rules.

Pandemonium’s the song he sings

As he swallows all you fools.

And he’s gonna drink your blood

As your bodies slowly burn

Bridge..2

As your bodies burn

As your bodies burn

As your bodies burn

You’re gonna die

You’re gonna slowly die

You’re gonna slowly die too young

In the city fires

In the city fires

In the city fires.

Bill was a good lad thugh and Martin Barter became friends. I used to hang out with him at the Plough club on a Sunday night. He was very into Elton John who had just emerged at the time and we talked about a kind of Bernie Taupin Elton John collabortion but it didn't pan out. Martin went on to play with John Alderson in Just Jake and a host of other bands since and I think is still going strong.

Trev's Music My Space - Trev and the Collective Unconscious

Trev Teasdel's New Album on Gnome label

COVENTRY DAYS - Trev's Bootleg Album on Vox

In 1973 Pete Waterman opened his new shop (with his mate Tilly) - The Soul Hole - in the basement of I AM  - a hippy boutique in Hales Street Coventry. It specialised in rare soul imports not available in this country. Pete had connections through his DJ work and had apparently supplied imports to the Beatles on their first visit to Coventry c 1963. The basement was very cramped and soon the Soul Hole moved to upstairs at Virgin Records. I knew Pete from the GEC and the Walsgrave. Pete supported Hobo by giving us an ad, a Soul Hole Singles Chart and the article below published in issue 4 of Hobo - August 1974.

As you know by now our small shop (The Soul Hole) has now moved to the top of Virgin Records in the City Arcade. Our new shop will, we hope, bring more people into the faith. We had a good time at the shop in the I AM boutique but the stock was getting too big for our small shop. The move will not, we hope, change the service that we are so proud of. The new shop will give us more room to serve and talk. Also you can stand up! (The Soul Hole was originally in the cellar of the I AM boutique with a low ceiling!!)

Anyway, down to business. As most of you know by now, I spent the 5th and 6th of March with the Three Degrees.

Sheila, Fay and Valerie. On Monday the 5th I went to the Mayfair Hotel in London to see the girls do their own thing. The girls got on and did When Will I See You Again. The first thing that took our breath away was their see through dresses, but they are from just good looking foxes. At dinner I sat with Peter Winfield (for all those who don't read sleeve notes) Peter is the cat who played keyboards for BLODSTONE on both Natural High and their new album. For all the foxes and cats not into our faith, Pete also plays for COLIN BLUNSTONE, and writes for a National rock paper.

Pete is soul freak, like myself and we both agreed their harmonies were the tightest we'd heard for some time. The voices were fantastic, Sheila takes the lead most of the time. The next in line was Dirty Old Man, this was fantastic, with the girls showing they can handle the audience with fun and firmness. Then they did "A Woman Needs Love" proving they can sing ballads as well as up tempo Nos. Their footwork was as god as any I've seen before, and if any in the audience weren't sold on that, the next was they're single Year of Descision. I t had everybody on their feet shouting for more. But it was all over, Pete and the Colin Blunstone band went off to record the Old Grey Whistle Test, and I went to the girls bedroom to have a chat.

Just as a boost to our egos, David Bowie was there to pay homage to the

three ladies of soul. It seems that Rock stars are getting back to their roots with Bowie telling me that he is soon to be recording with top black acts in the states and John Lennon saying Ann Pebbles  I can Feel the Rain is the best record for two years.

New Sounds to Look Out For The Ojays new single is a track off their latest LP (as are all the new Philly singles) and

is called For the Love of Money. The Intruders - I’ll Always love My Mama (2 Pts)
Trammps new single is a track off the 1970 British Motown company picking the slower track. USA Marvin Gaye  scores with his controversial single You Sure Like to Ball taken from the Let’s Get it On album. A new single soaring up the American charts from the M.F.S.B. band on Philly International is called Tsop, taken from the TV series Soul Train. The end five bars feature the 3 Degrees.

LP of the month - too many really to pick one but look out for Blue Magic and  import Out Here on my Own Lamont / Dozier. Superb LP’s. Next Billy Paul single The Whole Town’s Talkin’ .

Also check out - Rock me Baby - George Mc Crea / Help Yourself - Undisputed Truth / Dancing Machine - Jackson 5 / I Lied - Bunny Sigler / Mighty Mighty - Earth, Wind and Fire / Be Thankful For What You’ve Got - William Devaaughn /  Chameleon - Herbie Hancock /  Sagittarius - Eddie Kendicks /  If You’re Ready - Staple Singers / Got To Get You Back - Sons of Robin Stone / Pepper Box - The Peppers

See ya soon. Keep the faith right on
Pete Waterman (1974)

DAVE SIMMONS DJ of Radio Ones Saturday soul programme, dedicated last weeks program

exclusively to the Philadelphia Sound, thanks to the efforts of our own Pete Waterman, who has just returned fromt he very place with a hoard of interviews and information about the music. Pete was interviewed throughout the program by Dave and his interviews were also aired. Next issue, providing Pete gets it together, we'll have an article on the Philly sound from the expert!
(Note - this didn't happen, apart from anything else Hobo folded owing to increasing difficulties in affording the cost of printing)

SOUL HOLE ADVE