Calabria is the rugged, sparsely-populated and partly mountainous region that begins south of Naples and extends down into the “toe” of Italy’s “boot”, towards Sicily. As well, as the notorious ‘Ndrangheta criminal syndicate, Calabria is famous for the spicy spreadable salami ‘Nduja, the Calabrese soppressata dry sausage, peperoncino (red chilli peppers – Calabrian cuisine is notably hotter than in the rest of Italy) and the distinctive Tropea red onions. They grow between April and October and the most famous and revered variety cipolla da serbo are in season in May and June.
They resemble giant spring onions but with a bright red bulb and they are renowned for their sweet and more delicate taste. In fact, Calabrians claim that when a Tropea onion is ripe, it should be able to be “eaten just like an apple”. Having bought some of these prized onions for the first time earlier this week, I can concur that they certainly are sweeter than their brown and white cousins and were equally at home being finely chopped raw into a salad and also, cooked and softened over a heat to form the base of a casserole. This versatility means that Tropea onions are frequently served in Italy as part of antipasti cold cut spreads, as a panini filling, as pizza toppings, in pasta dishes and even grilled or barbequed whole (in Catania in Sicily I saw a variation of this where the whole onions had bacon or in some cases, intestines wrapped around them and they were then cooked outside over charcoal).
Red Tropea onions hanging alongside peperoncino di Calabria (photo: Caterina Policaro).
Tropea onions have been awarded PGI status (Protected Geographical Indication) and are known locally as the “red gold”. That said, I’ve noticed that Italians do seem to have a particular penchant for referring to edible items as “gold” – peperoni crusci (dried sweet peppers) is known as “the red gold of Basilicata” and the residents of Bronte in Sicily, a town renowned all over Italy for its high-quality pistachios talk about the humble nut as its “green gold”.
The origins of these Tropea onions have been disputed but it’s now widely agreed that they were most likely introduced to Calabria by the Greeks and Phoenicians from present-day Lebanon around 3,000 years ago. Tropea’s sandy soil, proximity to the coast and more moderate climate meant that the conditions were ideal for these unusual onions to flourish and eventually become one of the region’s best-known culinary exports. The reason for their sweetness is due to a lower level of pyruvic acid than normal brown onions and this makes them less pungent and harsh – also less likely to induce tears as you slice them.
Red Onions “Cipolle di Tropea” (photo: Martin Mboesch), my own purchases and a wholewheat lampascioni and wholewheat pasta I made with them.
The cipolla da serbo also reputedly has numerous health benefits and the Roman author, naturalist and philosopher Pliny the Elder (his first solo album went massively under-the-radar) detailed the 30 ailments which can be treated by these particular onions in his then-groundbreaking encyclopaedia “Naturalis Historia”. Pliny also pointed out that any dishes containing onions are curative as well as more nourishing. Good to know…
Just a few examples of the different landscapes Calabria has to offer; Tropea, Belvedere Marittimo, Condofuri and Scalea.
I have been to Calabria twice; a week before the first Covid lockdown when I stayed in the coastal villages of Belvedere Marittimo, Diamante and Scalea and then last September, when I spent several hours winding my way through its mountainous landscapes on my way to Villa San Giovanni, to then take the short ferry hop over to Messina, Sicily (and then all the way back again). The ‘vibe’ is noticeably different to that in Puglia; the scenery is more varied (craggy mountains, hilltops towns, scenic coasts and then fertile plains), the people slightly less open and welcoming and overall, it seems more wild and remote. Puglia is by no means a developed region – apart from the bigger towns and cities, a lot of its rural areas appear to be just row upon row of olive trees and vines. However, parts of Calabria feel a long way from civilisation. Having said that; I was still pleasantly surprised by the fare available in the various Calabrian service stations I stopped at; ‘Ndjuja and mozzarella panini were the order of the day (historically, the region’s hot and humid climate led to food preservation techniques being key and cured meat and salsiccia are popular staples here).
To find out more about Tropea’s unique red onions, you can watch the video below (it’s in Italian but English subtitles are provided):
In my previous post, I talked about some of the very best and very worst gigging experiences we had as a band from the glamorous rock and roll hotspots of Chippenham and Romford to the slightly more hallowed boards of the Leicester Charlotte and Camden’s Dublin Castle. In this third and final post about The Screenbeats, I’ll draw a line under the group with a couple of stories from Occitanie in the South of France but first a leafy suburb of North London.
“But I love that dirty water…”
Supporting one half of the future Raconteurs in Tufnell Park
One of the early high points back when were still known as The Shake was when we got booked to play a show at the Dirty Water Club in Tufnell Park, North London in November 2005. Taking its name from The Standells’ cover of the Ed Cobb song, for a brief period, it was one of the hippest psychedelic and garage rock nights in London and its popularity had surged after a certain White Stripes had played a show there in August 2001 to an audience packed full of A&R people – as well as Kate Moss and pals (obviously). As well as stalwarts like Billy Childish, Holly Golightly and The Wilko Johnson Band, a lot of the most-hyped groups of the time played there including The Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Datsuns, The Von Bondies and a few months after us, The Horrors. We were to support The Greenhornes, a well-known three-piece garage outfit from Cincinnati, Ohio.
The day of the gig came and on arrival at the venue, the club’s promoter PJ Crittenden explained to us that there was “a chance” that the enigmatic frontman of cult ‘60s psychedelic band The SeedsSky Saxon might be coming as he had been performing at the club recently and was staying nearby. Roger was a huge fan of The Seeds so suitably nervous and excited to hear this news. In fact, he might even have been wearing his black and pink Seeds t-shirt but unfortunately no photos exist from the night. We never did find out if Sky came to the show or not and it was too dark to see from the stage!
1.) A post-gig photo of us from 2005/6 with Roger wearing his Seeds t-shirt! (photo: Newbury Weekly News) 2.) The Seeds’ frontman Sky Saxon with Love’s Arthur Lee after their show together at the Kentish Town Forum in 2004. 3.) The White Stripes at The Dirty Water Club, August 2001 (photo: Dirty Water Club).
We played to a busy room and went down well – playing just before The Greenhornes took to the stage as their main support band. I remember that in the shared dressing room Patrick Keeler the band’s drummer commented on Joost’s snare drum (“nice snare man!”) and that they watched us from the side of the stage. Just a couple of months after the gig; The Greenhornes went on a hiatus and it was announced that Patrick and bassist Jack Lawrence were forming a new band, The Raconteurs with none other than Jack White from The White Stripes and singer-songwriter Brendan Benson. Their debut single ‘Steady As She Goes’ was a huge radio hit in the UK in 2006 and reached number 4 in the Top 40 singles chart, whilst the accompanying album Broken Toy Soldiers peaked at number 2 in the album chart.
It was my brother-in-law Stuart who first mentioned to me that he could hear a similarity between ‘Steady As She Goes’ and one of our songs ‘All The Rage’. Now, to my ears the songs are very different but there are certainly some things they have in common. Both tracks use a lot of the same chords and the introductions to both each of them feature a descending bass line, staccato guitar stabs and a prominent snare drum (“man”). Little did we realise when we shared a stage with The Greenhornes what a huge band their future group would go on to become. ‘Steady As She Goes’ was named “the second-best song of 2006” by Rolling Stone magazine, nominated for a Grammy and later covered by Adele. To this day, The Raconteurs play main stages at festivals all over the world from Glastonbury to Coachella – the last time I saw them live was at All Points East 2019 in Victoria Park, East London.
We recorded ‘All The Rage’ on at least two different occasions and below is a version that we captured with Ed Deegan directly onto his 1970s Studer tape machine at Gizzard Studios in Hackney Wick. Below is also a clip of The Raconteurs playing ‘Steady As She Goes’ live on the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury 2008.
Decide for yourselves if there’s any resemblance below…
I have also dug out this video of us playing ‘All The Rage’ live at The Betsey Trotwood in Farringdon, London in July 2007. We’re playing it a lot quicker than on the record but it’s got a raw energy to it and features an impressive vocal performance from Faye. It was also the gig where I was struck down with food poisoning – possibly the reason why I’m pouring with sweat in the video.
Ça va Montpellier!
Perhaps the pinnacle of The Screenbeats’ ‘career’ was playing the 1,000-capacity Rockstore venue in Montpellier in December 2010. We were booked to play through a mutual contact of our later era-drummer Praag and were headlining a line-up, consisting of six other Anglo-French bands with all of the ticket proceeds going to a humanitarian aid charity.
We spent two fun nights in Montpellier and were looked after brilliantly by the co-organisers Savaha and Hanna, staying in Savaha’s apartment both nights. I think they were a little surprised by how many bottles of beer we got through in two days though… The show itself was brilliant; the venue was busy and the other bands not only decent but good people too. The venue, formerly an automobile garage was a mid-sized old theatre and bands to recently play there included Beach House, The Kills, Phoenix and The Stranglers. We were in our element, flattered to be in such illustrious company and felt great to play a large venue with top-drawer facilities.
Clockwise (from top left); 1.) Arrived in Montpellier! Place de la Comédie in the city centre. 2.) Faye, Roger and I outside Le Rockstore venue (Praag was taking the photo). 3.) Faye and I side of stage. 4.) Post-gig elation at Le Rockstore. Maxime on the far right of this shot was the frontman of The Wishy Washy, a local Montpellier band who opened for us. 5.) The Screenbeats do Montpellier! (l-r: Praag; Faye, yours truly, Roger).
The show was filmed but unfortunately only one video existed on YouTube of us playing a version of Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers’ tune ‘Hospital’. It’s a great song but quite downbeat and not exactly a showstopper. I’ve recently found the first half of the show and below for the first time are some of the tracks. A member of the audience filmed this and the camera angles and sound quality are a little erratic in places but it serves as a good record of the concert. If anyone has access to the second half of the show – please let me know (it contained our best songs!).
‘Why Can’t We Let Go?’ (live at Montpellier Rockstore, 16th December 2010)
‘Pound Signs & Foreign Villains‘ (live at Montpellier Rockstore, 16th December 2010)
‘For The Faint-hearted‘ (live at Montpellier Rockstore, 16th December 2010)
‘For The Faint-hearted’ was a new song that we had only written a couple of months prior to Montpellier and this was one of its first live outings. It was a punchy song but sadly never recorded so this is the only version that exists (the sound quality is not ideal but it gives you some idea).
‘Hospital‘ (live at Montpellier Rockstore, 16th December 2010)
As luck would have it, our return flights to the UK were severely delayed due to heavy snow storms and we had an eight-hour wait at Montpellier Airport with all of our equipment. We passed the time by playing cards and sinking a few beers and I remember that Praag, a vegetarian was forced to have some pastries and a couple of doughnuts for his main meal (the airport’s cafes were not veggie-friendly to say the least). At one stage, it was touch-and-go if we would be able to fly but we eventually made it home in the early hours, only to return to find Roger’s van covered in snow at Gatwick Airport carpark (see below).
1.) Praag tucking into his nutritious evening meal of pastries, Montpellier Airport. 2.) Finally in transit back to London after the eight-hour delay. 3.) Roger’s snow-covered van, Gatwick Airport.
The later years
Praag joined us in 2008 (he was interviewed in the very same Newbury pub that I was five years earlier) and after a spell of flux with various talented, but ultimately temporary drummers, we enjoyed another period of stability within the band. We were all older, a little more worldly-wise and we began writing some of our best songs to-date. Having been around the block a few times; the types of venues we were playing got better too and we stopped playing, well, the really shit gigs. We also by now had a small number of go-to trusted contacts who helped us out; namely Adam Cooper who released some of our music through Rowed Out Records based in Lincolnshire, Woodie Taylor (a member of The Cribs’ favourite band Comet Gain and also the drummer on Morrissey’s Vauxhall and I album) who would mix our tracks and act as an honest sounding board and we also found a new regular rehearsal and recording space; Studio 91 on the former Greenham Common airbase on the outskirts of Newbury with Jordan Fish (now a member of the huge Bring Me The Horizon) at the helm.
The new line-up of The Screenbeats with the addition of drummer Praag. August 2009, Newbury and the surrounding Berkshire / Hampshire countryside (all photos: James Thorogood).
I had by now entered the world of work and also remember spending a memorable afternoon at Studio 91 around a similar time, recording a radio advert for one of my clients, Guide Dogs For The Blind. They were a great charity to have as one of my first clients but they insisted that only real people and real guide dogs were used in the recordings. As a result, Jordan, myself and the dog’s owner spent the best part of an hour trying to persuade a docile black Labrador to bark into a microphone for the ad – we eventually succeeded though.
The Screenbeats went into the studio with Jordan at Studio 91 in summer 2009, laid-down what we felt were four very strong tracks and then sent them over to Woodie who was based in Windsor to perform his magic on them. The result was the ‘Super 8’ EP-of-sorts, containing four tracks; a reworked and more abrasive version of the song ‘Super 8’, ‘Hanging On’, ‘Under Neon’ and ‘Why Can’t We Let Go?’. ‘Hanging On’ and ‘Under Neon’ were perhaps the most notable; the former being the heaviest and fastest track we’d ever recorded, with a blistering tremolo-picked guitar solo (if I can say so myself) and the latter transforming into a disco track midway through and pre-empting the Nile Rodgers and Chic revival craze by at least three years (we were all already big fans of the Rodgers / Edwards songwriting duo). These songs also sounded distinctly contemporary and were very different to some of the more retrofied recordings we made in the early days.
‘Under Neon’ (video filmed by James Thorogood at the Lock, Stock & Barrel, Newbury, September 2009)
At least 300 copies of the ‘Super 8 EP‘ were issued on CD in 2009/10 but the tracks are also all available digitally on Soundcloud – see the links below:
The Screenbeats called it a day in 2011 and looking back, I personally have nothing but fond memories. Being in a regular gigging band from the age of 16 onwards certainly taught me some life skills (as well as probably exacerbating my email addiction as I booked most of our gigs!), exposed us to all sorts of people and we perhaps learned not to be so green and always eager to please as time went on.
Without sounding too mawkish though, the most important thing to come out of the band was friendship. I was Best Man at Roger’s wedding in 2014 and he remains a great mate to this day. Faye and I both lived in South London for a few years and it was always good to catch up with her and put the world to rights over a beer or three – most frequently at Brixton’s Effra Hall Tavern or Trinity Arms. Joost is someone I don’t see regularly enough but we usually pick up where we left off, whether it’s in London or in Newbury (“Well, I’m up for staying out!” was his response when I tentatively checked if he wanted to call it a night at 11pm when we last caught up at The Heavenly Social on Little Portland Street towards the end of 2019). Praag again, is someone who I mainly keep in touch with on social media these days but the drives to places like Cardiff or Southampton were always a good laugh and one particularly messy night springs to mind after Roger’s 30th birthday party – festivities may have continued long into that night / the following morning…
Roger and I performing a short acoustic set at his wedding reception, April 2014. (we covered Daft Punk, The Cure, The Kinks and The Velvet Underground!)
Music in London
Glastonbury 2010 was one of the hottest festivals on record (the only other year I can recall to rival it was the almost unbearable heatwave in 2019). Whilst a sunny and warm Glasto is always a blessing, the downside is that it’s very difficult to stay asleep inside a tent as soon as the sun comes up. However, this did mean that at that particular festival, my friends Joe, Mark and I got to chat to our neighbours every morning; Vicki and her friend Kate who were camping next to us with a group of friends.
Fun and games at Glasto’ 2010 and with Vicki and Kate packing up to leave on the Monday morning (photos: Joe Miller).
One of the positives of social media is that we all stayed in touch and after moving to London in January 2011, I began playing in an acoustic duo with Vicki on vocals and myself on guitar. In a strange twist of fate, we also ended up living a two-minute walk away from each other in Brixton, making rehearsals (and trips to the pub) very convenient.
After The Screenbeats, I was keen to find another group to join in London as quickly as possible. I briefly joined forces with a hip hop MC from Camden and we used to rehearse in the community studios at The Roundhouse – we were trying to emulate the guitar sounds in Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Money Trees’ and ‘Bitch, Don’t Kill My Vibe’ but ultimately, the project was short-lived. I collaborated with a fellow Manic Street Preachers fan from Limehouse but despite him being a powerful vocalist it didn’t quite gel. Then there was also the promising teenage soul singer from Neasden who had allegedly been spotted by Dave Stewart from Eurythmics; she had a lot of promise but her backing band consisted of a bizarre motley crew of characters from across London (a French Metallica fan on drums, a Danish barmaid backing singer and a mysterious bassist who never arrived). Her mother was also the ‘manager’, sat in on the entire rehearsal and chipped in with nuggets of advice at various opportune moments. We could barely get through a cover of ‘Sittin’ On The Dock Of The Bay’ without an interruption of some form or another.
Vicki and I worked well musically and we soon established a regular routine of a weekly Tuesday evening practice. Whilst joining The Immediate as a teenager led to me discovering a lot of great soul and Motown music, as well as the more underground movements of the 1960s and 1970s, playing as a mainly acoustic duo with Vicki introduced me to some more introspective folky influences; Elliott Smith, Martha Wainwright and Neil Young to name just three.
The Queen’s Head, Stockwell Road (and the ‘gig’ at Julia Bradbury’s house)
We were lucky that around the corner from us was The Queen’s Head on Stockwell Road. At the time, it was one of London’s most anarchic, free-spirited boozers and the burgeoning Fat White Family had made it their adopted HQ and lived upstairs (they were pictured draping a ‘The Witch Is Dead’ banner out of the top floor window on the day Thatcher died and made the pages of most of the national newspapers as a result). The pub was a pretty unique place, had a certain gothic air and it soon became a hotspot for other South London bands and musicians with the likes of Childhood, King Krule and Shame all hanging out and playing tiny gigs there. We would play Carl Chamberlain’s weekly open mic night ‘Sing For Your Supper’ (the performers were ‘paid’ with free pizza) and on one hand, would often share the stage with a wonderful Dolly Parton-esque Brixton singer, well into her autumn years known as Patti Paige, but also with an angry political poet who would rant to the crowd from The Queen’s Head’s tiny stage. I also strangely met King Prawn’s (a band I had a fondness for as a teenager) former bassist Babar Luck at the pub before playing one of the open mic nights; he was handing out flyers for a political night he was hosting there. Brixton Buzzdid a great piece on Carl’s open mic night back in 2014 with lots of photos; check it out here.
The Fat White Family performing during the anarchic ‘glory days’ of The Queen’s Head, Stockwell Road (circa 2013-15).
You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone though and The Queen’s Head changed hands in 2015 and is now a very pleasant, yet slightly bland ‘vegan pub’. The pub was only 16 doors down from my old flat and had I known that the live music and bohemian antics would be coming to an end, I would have gone there a lot more in hindsight. The Queen’s Head wasn’t our strangest gig though. That honour was reserved for the day when we played a humanist baby blessing ceremony in the home of BBC and ITV presenter Julia Bradbury in Notting Hill. The gig was secured through one of Vicki’s contacts from work who explained to her that “it would be at one of her friend’s, who has a bigger house”. Vicki recognised Julia immediately after she opened the door to us (“she’s famous!”, she whispered to me as we were tuning up in an upstairs room) but I didn’t really fully know who she was until afterwards.
Now that I’ve been in Bari 18 months and with the pandemic severely restricting any musical opportunities, this is the first time since the age of 13 that I haven’t been in a band or played music with other people. It’s a time for self-reflection and practising those difficult chords or scales though and I remain convinced that there’ll be a global Belle Époque-style creative resurgence and renewed interest in the arts once this pandemic is finally over. I didn’t write these pieces about being in a band for self-promotional reasons but rather that I wanted to put down the memories onto paper for the first time and for posterity’s sake. Radiohead famously once said; “anyone can play guitar” and my advice to a 16-year-old who’s thinking about picking up a six-string, a bass, a turntable or even exploring GarageBand is to justgo for it. Start making music. You’ll meet some interesting characters, make some great friends and you’ll learn just as much as at school.
Clive & Vicki became ‘OCDC’, adding bassist Rich and drummer Pete in 2018 for a gig at The Heavenly Social on Little Portland Street (first photo). Also, two shots of us rehearsing at Antenna Studios, Crystal Palace, South London. Early 2018.
APPENDIX; THE SCREENBEATS’ ARCHIVE
We recorded a reasonable amount of material and gigged a lot between 2004 and 2011. Recordings and videos have existed in various places online for a number of years now but below is an overview of where you can find the best of the band’s output. It’s the first time that everything has been indexed in one place and in roughly chronological order (by the date of release – starting with the oldest). I have embedded the ‘lead’ track for each of the main recordings below but then hyperlinked to the rest of the material (where possible).
Also recorded; ‘They Say’ and ‘You Are The Ones’ (at that point, the most futuristic-sounding track we’d ever recorded, complete with a ‘Superman’-style guitar line in the chorus, to quote Rog).
‘Super 8’EP (recorded by Jordan Fish at Studio 91 and mixed by Woodie Taylor at Milou Studios, 2009)
‘The Immediate’ (recorded in 2004 with Ali Moore at his home studio in Hermitage)
Recorded; ‘Blown Away’, ‘All The Rage’, ‘Loyal Union’ – tracks not currently available online. Cover photography below (photos: James ‘Winnie’ Winter).
‘Home demos’ (recorded by Roger Green 2005-2008)
Roger has always been something of a home recording buff too and below are two interesting sketches of what would go onto become ‘Pound Sounds & Foreign Villains’ and ‘You Are The Ones’. In the first, Rog is playing all of the instruments himself and it sets the tone for what would later become ‘Pound Signs…’. The latter features a weird keyboard intro from Rog and is much more soulful than the version we recorded and in retrospect, I think I prefer it!
‘Pounds Signs & Foreign Villains‘ (the building blocks)
‘You Are The Ones’ (home demo)
LIVE VIDEOS
Below are links to various pieces of live footage on YouTube. You will find links to other songs from the same gig on the YouTube sidebar.
There are too many photos below to label but they include shows at The Lexington on Pentonville Road, The Monarch in Camden, The Dublin Castle, Bloomsbury Lanes, Cardiff University, Cardiff Barfly, Southampton The Rhino, Southampton Central Hall, Reading Oakford Social and The Lock, Stock & Barrel, Tap & Spile and Northcroft (all Newbury).
In my last post, I reminisced about The Artist Formerly Known As The Screenbeats / The Shake / The Immediate and shared a link to the newly-re-uploaded video for ‘Super 8’ which was shot in South Wales back in 2008. In part II below, I’ll expand a little bit more on some of the most memorable tales from life in the band…
Unsurprisingly, it’s either the very good or the very bad stories that stand out in the memory.
The ‘not ideal’
Who could forget the time that we played Brixton Jamm in summer 2006 to a crowd comprising of only the sound man? That’s right; no paying customers – even the bar staff had called it a night and gone home. The promoter had booked a line-up consisting purely of bands from out of town (a band even travelled down from Northumberland for the gig) and we were due to play last at 10pm, by which point all of the other groups (who also had also brought no fans) had left. We played Jamm twice and luckily the second time was a lot busier. There was also the heavy snow blizzard we had to endure on the way back from a gig in Kingston in 2009. Roger’s steady driving prowess (and perhaps the Saint Christopher necklace that he decided to wear for luck) got us home in one piece though – even though the journey took several hours longer than usual.
At Clwb Ifor Bach in Cardiff in 2009, my cherished Gibson ES-335 guitar fell over whilst in its case during soundcheck and I was distraught to open it to find the neck had snapped clean off. I was a bit subdued during the gig but the guitar was able to eventually be repaired so all ended well (it was actually my second guitar to have been badly damaged after one of Newbury Corn Exchange’s technicians knocked my white Les Paul off its stand before a gig in 2004). The less said about another show at Cardiff University in 2007 where our sticksman at the time got “lost” on his way to the venue and never arrived, the better. We soldiered on drummer-less as a three-piece – with the occasional member of the audience coming up to try and improvise along to our songs. Not our finest moment.
The red Gibson 335 that got badly damaged repaired and in action at a gig in Newbury in 2009 (photo: James Thorogood) and the “one where the drummer didn’t show up” – Cardiff University CF10 venue, 23rd November 2007(photo: Emily Trahair).
Bizarrely, we agreed to play a gig in Chippenham, of all places in August 2006. We were playing for a local ‘face’ around town known as ‘DJ Delboy’ (no, I’m not making this up) who had put on a night of bands loosely inspired by the 1960s and mod culture at a venue called Fizz Bar. At the time, I was slightly prone to anxiety and over-thinking things – possibly as a result of my high caffeine intake (until the age of 21 I would drink a bottle of Coca Cola a day until I went cold turkey in 2008 – I rarely touch the stuff these days). Onstage I became convinced that I was desperate for the loo and about to wet myself in front of the assembled audience. Midway through our final song ‘Loyal Union’, I flung off my guitar, rested it against my floor monitor and sprinted to the bathroom upstairs (where it turned out that I didn’t even need to go after all), before returning to finish the song the guys had continued playing in my absence. Afterwards, the rest of the band weren’t best pleased with my decision to bolt upstairs mid-song and things were a little tense as we loaded our equipment into Rog’s car. However, the mood was soon lifted and we started laughing about it after an incident involving an underwhelming post-gig chow mein takeaway, an open car window and Chippenham High Street.
The notorious Chippenham Fizz Bar gig (the Union Jack flag on the guitar amp was NOT ours), August 2005 (photo: DJ Delboy). Onstage at Clwb Ifor Bach in Cardiff with Haydn drumming. May 2007 (photo: Ed Salter)
It wasn’t our only incident involving an open car window…
Our hometown Newbury had been a Liberal Democrat stronghold for 12 years since 1993; and the incumbent local MP was the late David Rendel. However, in 2005 he lost his seat in parliament to Richard Benyon, the Conservative candidate. On our way to a London gig sometime in 2005/6, we spotted Benyon being interviewed by a camera crew as we drove past Newbury Market Square in Roger’s Rover 400. It only felt right that we should of course, wind down our windows and shout some words of disapproval at him as we drove past. We didn’t hang around to see what the reaction would be. I actually met Benyon years later whilst I working for the Newbury Spring Festival in 2009. He had hosted a classical recital at his stately home and country estate Englefield House and even though I don’t agree with his views, he was pleasant enough.
Another unfortunate car window-related incident but this time involving a bout of food poisoning, vomit and the famous Harrods department store was en route to a gig in Clerkenwell in July 2007. We had optimistically booked ourselves to play two gigs in one day. The first was at the TNT Festival in Victoria Park in Newbury; an all-day event headlined by Columbia Records signing GoodBooks and compered by the irrepressibly upbeat ‘Smiley’ Dave Browne. After our early afternoon slot at the festival we then drove to London for our second show of the day at The Betsey Trotwood; a grand Victorian pub on the Farringdon Road that had a great little cellar venue (both The Magic Numbers and Keane had been spotted after playing shows there). We also liked it because it feltpacked, even if only 20 people were there.
Our first gig of the day on 28th July 2007 – at TNT Festival, Newbury (pre-vomit).
It was as we made our way through West London and the upmarket areas of South Kensington and Knightsbridge that I began to feel unwell and very nauseous. I asked Rog to stop the car in South Ken, lay down on the pavement briefly and then began to feel momentarily better and we continued with our journey. However, it was as we were driving past Harrods, London’s premiere luxury goods emporium that I couldn’t stop it; I hastily wound down the right-side rear passenger window and was violently sick onto the busy A4 with the oncoming traffic behind us. This continued to happen every 10 minutes or so until we finally reached the venue. I spent all of the evening lying in one of the venue’s darkened alcoves (apart from the occasional visit to the bathroom to heave up whatever was left in my stomach), unable to keep any liquid down whatsoever. However, I somehow managed to find the energy from somewhere to do the gig and we actually played pretty well. As luck would have it, the entire gig was filmed too (why was it never the best gigs?).
The Screenbeats – ‘Before Before’ – live at The Betsey Trotwood, Clerkenwell. 28th July 2007
We wrote ‘Before Before’ in 2004 and changed the chorus at some stage in 2005/6. We would later drop it from our live set in 2008/9 but it contained a nice vocal melody and some soulful chord changes.
We will never know exactly what strain of food poisoning I had that day and admittedly I had been out the night before to the closing party of Southampton’s alternative nightclub Nexus (towards the end of the night bar staff had stopped charging for drinks and everything had to go), but I had felt fine at the TNT Festival gig during the day so I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a hangover. Also, on the Betsey Trotwood line-up with us that day were The Lucky Strikes, a band from Southend. They were good lads, helped us with our equipment with me incapacitated and we ended up playing a few gigs with them over the next couple of years. They’re still together today although have taken a more rootsy / Americana direction in recent years. They’re decent – check them out here.
Then there was Romford, Essex in April 2005. We had been contacted through MySpace (the way most bands booked their shows at the time) by a promoter who had heard our music, claimed to be a “big fan” and wanted us to headline a show at a venue called Pacific Edge. We had reservations about the merit of playing a gig in Romford and the venue’s name did it no favours but he assured us that it would be busy, we’d be paid £300, would have a rider of complimentary food and drink and our own dressing room.
When we arrived, it was nothing of the sort and we found out we would be playing the small upstairs room of a town centre nightclub that had no stage other than a DJ booth (we had to set up our amps on the floor). To add insult to injury, soundcheck was at 3pm and our stage time was 10.30pm. The crowd was sparse, the PA system not loud enough for Faye’s vocals to be heard and the promoter paid us a paltry £20 towards petrol costs. Our night in Romford finished with all four of us shouting at the promoter (we were all generally pretty mild-mannered, most of the time) as he tried to justify his decision to reduce our fee by more than 90 percent. I ended up leaving one of my overdrive effects pedals at the venue too but to give the promoter his dues, he did eventually post it back to me – but only after my Dad had phoned him pretending to be our ‘manager’ (I was only 17 at the time so it’s perhaps less pathetic than it sounds).
Our eventful evening in Romford. 10th April 2005.
It wasn’t all bad at Romford though. Earlier that day some genuine local ‘fans’ had contacted us by email saying they were coming to the gig and asked if we could put them on the guestlist. The promoter was having none of it so drummer Joost and I met them outside the venue instead and helped the two lads to climb over the wall in the garden at the rear of the building so they got in for free after all. It was the closest we ever got to The Clash letting their fans in through an open dressing room window before their gig at the Edinburgh Odeon!
The Clash’s Joe Strummer helps fans get backstage through an open dressing room window. Edinburgh Odeon Theatre. January 1980.
Joost and I crashed on his sister’s floor in Leytonstone the night of the Romford show and after initially being too wound up to sleep after the heated altercation with the promoter, we got up bright and early the next day and headed to Soho with the aim of dropping off our demo CD and press pack to as many music companies in the area as possible. We found Heavenly Recordings’ then-HQ on above Ronnie Scott’s and opposite Bar Italia on Frith Street, dropped off our demo but sadly there was no response on the buzzer from Jeff Barrett, Robin Turner and co – at least we tried.
NB: Looking back, it’s quite amazing the chutzpah we had in our late-teens and early-20s – perhaps lacking the self-awareness and social etiquette you pick up as you get older. Edith Bowman, Steve Lamacq, Zane Lowe, Huw Stephens and various members of The Cooper Temple Clause, Ocean Colour Scene and Super Furry Animals; these were all people that we would bound up to at gigs and festivals, thrust a demo CD into their hand, ask if they would mind giving it a listen and urge them to get in contact if they liked what they heard.
The Pleasure Unit; Bethnal Green’s finest
We then headed East to Bethnal Green where we were playing a show later that evening at The Pleasure Unit at 359 Bethnal Green Road. Apart from some certain venues in our hometown of Newbury, The Pleasure Unit became a second home for us over the years and musically and aesthetically it felt like a venue very much in-keeping with our identity as a band. Stepping into the venue for the first time was like going back to the ‘60s; kitsch aged wallpaper, projected light shows and some walls painted cream whilst the others were a lurid purple. Despite its retro stylings, the venue was a favoured haunt of Pete Doherty, Art Brut, The Paddingtons, Special Needs and a lot of the other current crop of post-Strokes-era bands coming out of London at the time. Although the venue was downstairs, there was a dressing room-of-sorts up a rickety staircase on the next floor, where we would keep our equipment when we weren’t playing. Before a gig in 2005, we were surprised to bump into Libertines bassist John Hassall and his band Yeti who were also rehearsing in the building. More about Yeti and their marvellous and underrated single ‘Never Lose Your Sense of Wonder’ in a future post.
The heyday of The Pleasure Unit, Bethnal Green Road. Pure Reason Revolution, Thee Unstrung (joined by Dominic Masters from The Others) and Pete Doherty with Dot Allison (photos: Andrew Kendall) – all in 2004. Also, The Actionettes dance troupe and some shots of the venue’s distinctive interior.
The quality of the acts at The Pleasure Unit was usually pretty high (from memory, two of the best bands we played with were the brilliant Young Soul Rebels from Brighton who toured with The Ordinary Boys and The Lost Revue who had a minor indie hit with ‘The Devil Hit A Hi-Hat Riding’) and we got to know the two main promoters ‘Nigerian Nick’ and ‘Smart Phil’ and even earned a slot supporting the then-buzz band Thee Unstrung who were briefly signed to former Creation Records boss Alan McGee’s Poptones label and fresh from supporting The Libertines on tour. I would bump into Phil (whose feather cut made him a dead ringer for Roger actually) years later during my leaving do for the London PR agency Mischief that I was working for at the time – by chance he was DJing at the underground dive club The Bar on Hanway Street (now sadly gone and replaced by a karaoke bar) He’s a nice bloke and a complete music aficionado. The Pleasure Unit closed a long time ago now and 359 Bethnal Green is now the trendy Star of Bethnal Green pub.
Happy days
A short interview with us and a clip of ‘Hanging On’ filmed at the 229 Club, Great Portland Street by Caffy St Luce. 4th March 2010.
For every Romford or Leicester Square though there were 10 shows that went well and where we actually received a decent reaction from the audience. It was always a pleasure playing for Caffy St Luce and Jean ‘Genie’ Graham, whether it was down in New Cross at Goldsmiths University, The Walpole, New Cross Inn or the unique Montague Arms, or in later years at 229 Club on Great Portland Street. Simon Owens always made sure we were well-looked after and fairly-paid at our busy hometown gigs at the Newbury Tap & Spile – the audience sometimes even bizarrely included our former teachers. Neil Jones got us some great gigs in Cardiff, including a rather surreal night playing a Primal Scream aftershow party at Chris Sullivan’s (of WAG Club fame) newly-opened venue Tabu on Westgate Street – we went onstage at 1am just as the ‘Scream’s Bobby Gillespie, Martin Duffy et al were arriving. The Hope & Anchor in Islington and Camden Dublin Castle were both well-run, small grassroots venues where you also felt a sense of history; the former being the location of not only Joy Division’s but also U2’s first London shows and the latter venue will be forever closely associated with local heroes Madness, Blur and Amy Winehouse. There is a great 10 minute documentary about it here.
Clockwise (from top left); 1.) Onstage at The Dublin Castle, August 2007. 2.) The flyer for one of Caffy St Luce’s Art Beat shows, 2010. 3-4.) Live at The Hope & Anchor, Islington 2008 (photo: Hersh Tegala). 5.) One of the many shows we played at the Tap & Spile, Newbury. September 2007 (photo: Scott Burgess).
It was sat on the floor of the tiny ‘dressing room’ / equipment cupboard at the Dublin Castle in 2007 that by complete chance I became reacquainted with Dan Fatel (or perhaps ‘Fate-l’ is more apt). Dan was the frontman of Renton, a North London post-punk band that I booked to headline a charity fundraiser concert at my school St. Bart’s in Newbury on 2nd July 2004. Significantly, it was Joost and I’s first-ever show as members of the revamped The Immediate. I had also booked The Junglists who would go onto become a big name on the Newbury scene and would even support The Mystery Jets. A review of the show that appeared in the Newbury Weekly News still exists on the R*E*P*E*A*T Fanzine website – it makes for nostalgic reading. After the show, my pals Jason, Mike and I went to a party and would then spend the night trying to sleep in a pup-tent that we had cheaply bought from Argos and then stashed for safe-keeping in a bush on our school’s athletics field, Brown’s Meadow. Despite it being July, it was still rather cold at 4am so we returned to the school as soon as it opened on Saturday morning and actually slept for a couple of hours on the Luker Hall stage, with the fire curtain closed, obscuring us from view.
Dan and his band Renton taken just before their charity show at St. Bart’s Newbury, 2nd July 2004 (photo: Newbury Weekly News). Two of our first promo shots from around a similar time.
Dan and I would keep in touch after our Dublin Castle encounter and he was in a number of bands after Renton split up including Fatels, No Picasso and then CuT. CuT were managed by former Food Records boss and Blur impresario Andy Ross and after seeing them live a couple of times I chose them to feature in the new point-of-sale advertising campaign for Jack Rocks for 2014/15 – the music initiative from Jack Daniel’s, who was I was working for at the time. It was great to get reacquainted with Dan some 11 years after that first gig in Newbury and CuT went onto to play raucous Jack Rocks shows for us at both The Macbeth in Hoxton and The Isle of Wight Festival 2015. Dan’s a top bloke and is now making music as REALS.
Some 11 years later and CuT play the Jack Rocks Stage for us at The Isle of Wight Festival 2015 (photo: Will Ireland).
Supporting The Arctic Monkeys’ best mates at The Charlotte, Leicester
Leicester was another city where we strangely played a number of shows; at The Charlotte (R.I.P.), The Attik (R.I.P.) and the ace Firebug venue (still open – hurrah!) where we supported twee-pop starlets Pocketbooks in 2010. The Charlotte was one of the oldest, well-trodden and most famous independent ‘toilet circuit’ venues in the country when we played there in July 2005 supporting Milburn from Sheffield.
Milburn were good friends (and two of the members actually cousins of bassist Nick O’Malley) with the Arctic Monkeys and had apparently “taught them how to play their instruments”. Both bands were on the ascendancy at the time (Milburn had been signed to Universal Music Group imprint Mercury Records), yet it was the Arctic Monkeys who went stratospheric one year later, although it quite easily could have been Milburn instead. They had some great tunes like ‘Send In The Boys’ and ‘Cheshire Cat Smile’ – both of which dented the UK Top 40, charting at numbers 22 and 32 respectively and their Dave Eringa-produced debut album Well Well Well went in at number 32 and featured an appearance from none other than Billy Bragg.
Onstage at the Leicester Charlotte, July 2005. Milburn took to the stage just after us.
That gig was notable for a number of reasons; The Charlotte was the first ever venue we played where they had an actual full-size bath in the upstairs dressing room. Neal, an old primary school friend still living in Leicester came to the gig with some friends – the first time I had seen him in over 10 years. An emerging music photographer called Ollie Millington came to the gig and took some shots of us; Ollie is today a well-established snapper and we still keep in touch. We also encountered the venue’s notorious soundman Feedback Phil. Phil was in his 60s, had a ponytail, arrived at the venue by bicycle and curtly barked orders at us from behind his sound desk; a tactic I think was designed to crush any oversized egos that visiting bands might have brought along with them. Milburn were a nice bunch of lads too. They let us share their backline equipment and midway through their set frontman Joe Carnall even paused between songs to hand an errant earring back to Faye after it must have been fallen out during our performance.
Milburn disbanded in 2008 but reunited in 2016 to a rapturous reaction from fans including several arena shows and four sold out nights at the O2 Academy Sheffield. Here’s footage of them playing to the sort of crowd they deserved back in the day; to 7,500 fans at the Don Valley Bowl, Sheffield in 2017 (I think their influence on the ‘Monkeys has finally been recognised). The full concert is available here.
In the third and final post about The Screenbeats I’ll look back at what happened when we played the legendary garage-rock club Dirty Water in 2005 – with a band that would go on to form a supergroup with Jack White just a few months later. There’ll also be some never-seen-before videos from one of our final shows at the Montpellier Rockstore, December 2010.
I first met Allan B. Hill just over 10 years ago through a mutual friend of ours – my old classmate from school Chris. My band The Screenbeats were playing the 93 Feet East venue in the Old Truman Brewery on Brick Lane, East London, supporting the-then buzz band Man Like Me and Chris and Allan came along to watch. In fact, we went for a slap-up curry a few hours before the show; perhaps not the ideal pre-gig preparation on my part. From memory, a group of us then had a boozy night out afterwards and a couple of hazy photos still exist from that night.
A snap from the gig in question; 4th December 2010. The Screenbeats at 93 Feet East, Brick Lane (photo: Emily Trahair (née Joel).
Anyway, 10 years on and Allan and I reconnected for an episode of his The Nostalgic Vagabond podcast where we talk about swapping hectic London life for the South of Italy and the effect the pandemic has had on us all. It was great to catch up after all this time and I really enjoyed our chat.
You can check out the new episode which went live today – it’s available on all good streaming services and you can find out more below.
This is the first in a series of three posts looking back at my former band The Screenbeats / The Shake / The Immediate which was active from circa 2003 until 2011. There’ll be some never-seen-before photos and video footage, amusing anecdotes and hopefully these articles will provide some sort of glimpse into what life was like for a group navigating the choppy waters of the DIY music scene in the mid-noughties.
15 years ago this summer…
My old band The Screenbeats (also previously known as The Immediate and The Shake) recorded what would become our first proper release on Rowed Out Records, ‘Troubled Scene’ at Gizzard Studios, Hackney Wick with the ace analogue engineer Ed Deegan who had previously worked with our favourites The Cribs, Holly Golightly, The Fall and later, Michael Kiwanuka. We recorded the EP whilst the 2006 World Cup was taking place and made ourselves comfortable in a nearby East London industrial estate pub on the Saturday afternoon to watch England play Portugal, strongly encouraging Ed to come and join us. England only went and got knocked out on penalties and we then had to return to the studio to finish the day’s session at 7.30pm with us all of us feeling somewhat deflated…
Halcyon days at Gizzard Studios, Hackney Wick. 2005-6.
14 years ago…
We launched the more adventurous and soulful follow-up EP ‘Pounds Signs & Foreign Villains’(also recorded at Gizzard Studios with Ed), with an actually-quite-busy show at the famous Dublin Castle in Camden Town. I started the morning in Southampton where I was working for the summer at a language school, took the train up to Cardiff to sit an exam during the day and then made my way to North London for the gig that evening, before taking the night train back to Southampton afterwards. One of the more restful days…
Onstage at The Dublin Castle, Camden Town. August 2007.
13 years ago…
We decamped to South Wales for an eventful weekend (we stayed at my flat in Cardiff) over the Easter period and recorded a set of songs with Gethin Pearson (Kele Okereke, Charlie XCX, Crystal Fighters, Badly Drawn Boy) in Pontypool, including an early version of ‘Hanging On’ and what we felt was our strongest song yet, ‘Super 8’. Gethin now has his own residential studio and you can find out more about his work on Big Life Management’s site here.
Also, 13 years ago…
We filmed a video for ‘Super 8’ in Dinas Powys in the Vale of Glamorgan with Cardiff-based film-makers Skin and Sledge. The video sadly disappeared from YouTube a few years ago but happily, and with Skin’s help posting the master copy to me, it’s now back online in all its glory once again. Hopefully in perpetuity this time.
The Screenbeats – ‘Super 8’
I had met Skin and Sledge in The Mackintosh pub in Cathays, Cardiff (and later Clwb Ifor Bach) – as is often the case with the most productive of meetings. They were a good laugh and kindly offered to storyboard and shoot a video for us free of charge – they enjoyed the creative process and it was something for their portfolio too.
Stills from the ‘Super 8’ video shoot. June 14th 2008.
We shot the video on 14th June 2008, the day after my final university summer ball so I was suitably rough around the edges that morning. However, we were blessed with a warm, sunny day (not always the case in Wales) and Skin and Sledge’s concept of a ‘Mexican vampire party’ turned out to be something of a masterstroke. It was a long day of filming and our drummer at the time couldn’t make it but we still were happy with the end results. We filmed the closing scenes of the video in my shared flat in Cardiff and when a group friends turned up ahead of a night out later that evening, they were suitably bemused by the black plastic sheets taped to the walls and the people walking around in supposed traditional ‘Mexican’ dress.
The Screenbeats; a potted history
I was in this band from the age of 16 until I was nearly 24. The first time I met singer Faye and bassist Roger we had to sit outside the Newbury pub we were in and they smuggled pints of beer out to me on the sly (the legal drinking age in the UK is 18). We had three names; starting life as The Immediate, then becoming The Shake and finally settling on The Screenbeatsafter being threatened with legal action on not one, but two separate occasions. An Irish band called The Immediate had been picked up by Fierce Panda Records in 2005 and we received a letter from their lawyer ordering us to change our name as both bands had started to get some radio airplay and it was making things confusing for journalists and DJs alike. We had been using the name for over two years but we didn’t have the funds or legal expertise to challenge them so acquiesced. The same thing then happened two years later when an American band called Shakes got signed to a major label and their legal team got in touch. We chose to change our name to The Screenbeats as we were pretty sure it was unique and there wouldn’t be another band with the same name.
Two of the earliest photos of The Immediate / The Shake. Waterside Centre and Northcroft, both Newbury. October 2004 and July 2005 (photo: Newbury Weekly News).
The band’s core nucleus was distinctive, soulful vocalist Faye, ever-reliable bassist Roger whose melodic playing became a key part of our sound and myself on guitar (excitable, something of a liability at times but I think I also brought a certain energy). We had as many permanent drummers as we did names; my schoolmate and supremely-talented jazz percussionist Joost (2004 – 2007), the self-confessed vegan ‘posi-punk’ Alex (2007-8) and our final drummer Praag (2008 – 2011) who brought a degree of calmness and sophistication to proceedings. We also had two notable temporary drummers – the inimitable Newbury character Nick and South East Londoner Haydn, my pal from university.
In the beginning; Row 1; various promo shoots – all taken in Newbury, 2004. Row 2; the cover art to our first demo CD as The Immediate (2004) featuring an early version of ‘All The Rage’. Our first ever London gig at Southern K, Kilburn in July 2004. Row 3; live at Newbury Corn Exchange, November 2004. Our new ‘The Shake’ branding and logo following our enforced 2005 name change.
We played over 300 gigs with our various line-ups from every corner of London to Southampton to Cardiff to Leicester to Birmingham to Bristol (and everywhere in-between). There are too many stories and capers to recall them all but being in the band was very much an education for all of us. We learned how to occupy ourselves for hours in between our soundcheck and stage time, not to mention the long journeys – either by train or in Rog’s trusty van. “What would you do for a five-album record deal?” and “speak in pirate language for an hour” were just two of our favourite ways of passing the time. There was also great excitement when we once spotted the late magician Paul Daniels and Debbie McGee at a motorway petrol station on our way home from a gig at The Sunflower Lounge in Birmingham too. From memory, I think Joost snuck a photo through the passenger window as we drove away…
We also met all manner of people vaguely connected to the music business; from the absolute diamonds (you hold onto these people), to the well-intentioned but hapless, to the absolute scumbags. The second-ever London show we played in 2004 at Sound, Leicester Square springs to mind as an example for the latter; we had sold 50 tickets at £10 each and the promoter still kept all of the proceeds. We even had to use the venue’s guitar amp (we weren’t allowed to bring our own due to space constraints on the stage) and this stopped working halfway through our set meaning we had an impromptu midway interlude. You live and you learn from these experiences though and it’s amazing how many of these people – the good and bad – I would meet again during my career in my 20s.
More in my next follow-up post about the very best and very worst gigging experiences we had and some other tales about life on the road.
A selection of photos from the early days of the band including a raucous party at The Colony Club, Greenham (complete with stage invasion), The Halfmoon in Putney, the Farringdon Betsey Trotwood, Newbury Northcroft and Joost’s farewell gig with us at The Late Lounge in Newbury. All December 2004 – January 2007.
