I stepped off the train in Middlesbrough with my tape deck and my suitcase sight unseen having got a place through clearing after collecting a set of unspectacular A level results. I left my luggage at the station and walked through the town to find the Halls of Residence to get the keys to my accommodation. As towns went, it didn't seem much different from my native Doncaster although the existence of the polytechnic seemed to add something to the place, not least the friction between town and gown in a town whose industry was being dismantled while bright young underachievers piled in every year to talk loudly with funny accents.
Once settled in I went to look at the place and found the local alternative clothes shop Phaze back near the station. I bought two things the first time I went in, my first copy of Viz, issue 8a and this tape, as was my habit. It was made by the local music collective, had a rather lumpy title (which, thinking about it, either comes from dole forms of the time or the council bureaucratese the MMC had to battle with continually. I played it, and was intrigued by the DIY weirdness of Ball and found a couple of other things interesting but nothing really stood out. As time went on I started a band with a like minded incomer and played many Collective gigs at the Empire Hotel and annually in the open air at the Middlesbrough Festival. Ball turned out to be local boys done weird, powered by home made synths and drum machines and who had a Frank Sidebottomesque childlike but slightly sinister alter-ego called Bill (of which more later). Icy Eye were semi-acoustic folky types who took their name from one of the big local employers (and the graffiti 'ICI burns holes in the sky', which could be found overlooking their Billingham complex). Flower Drum People represented the goths from Hartlepool (there were quite a few there). Teargarden played expensive synthpop (well, at the time, it's the sort of thing you can knock up on an iPad now). Thirst were dark and arty. In general probably the sort of thing you'd expect from a northern town at the time.
Yet the place wasn't really like that. Monday nights at the Empire were generally fun and involved a wide range of music, both local and from elsewhere. The redoubtable Rob Nichols ran the show and got in bands like The Ex with their fire engine-cum-mobile home, The Darling Buds just prior to their brief brush with stardom, Darlington pop-punk from Dan and their successors Sofahead, Rob's own band, Shrug, self described as 'half-Fall half biscuit', and many more that I was probably too drunk to remember, even when I was on the stage. In fact we were Pinny's House, the gloomy two piece with a drum machine that held up many a night as the first band on.
It was a great time in my life and I liked the place a lot. I don't think there are many other documents of the time apart from Shrug's fragments and a few other tapes of other Monday nights that I was party to but if anybody has any, including other compilations from the time, I'd love to hear them.
Side One
- St. Christopher and the Scum Disciples - Everyone Loves a Loser
- Ball - Elvis Parsley
- Thirst - Ghost Dance
- Icy eye - Man in Her Life
- Billy Oblivion and his Band - All my Friends
- Ball - Maureen Peevor Has No Bloomers
- Teargarden - Smack and Shiver
- Pandora's Box - Sunday
- In Vain - Journey's End
- Wreckage - Sketches for the Close of the 2oth Century
- Ball - Nobhead
Side Two
- The Euphoria Case - Purity and Pearl
- Ball - Keith Phils Maggie's Bin
- Thirst - Monkeys
- That's A Renault - Soap in My Hair
- Flower Drum People - Naked and the Dead
- Ball - Rog on Plod
- Steve Graham - untitled
- Icy Eye - Crashing the Party
- Billy Oblivion and his Band - (My Love is) Black and Cheap
- The Prams - Return to the Stone
- Ball - Pea Head, Fork Eyes, Bum Hole Mouth
- Stilletto Pigeonetto and the Blow Out - Lots and Lots of Bacon
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