New Band

[dmccombe7]

Was asked at start of week if i'd be interested in joining our drummers other band as their current bassist has decided to leave.

 

My main band is a 70's Glam Rock covers band but they can only manage to gig 6-8 times a year due to work commitments.

 

2nd band is a blues/rock based 8 piece band incl 2 singers, bass, drums, 2 guitars, keys and sax player. The material is more Paul Carrack, Flletwood Mac to Peter Green amd Clapton. They only want to play their local pubs around the borders towns near Galasheils Kelso etc I'm 40 miles away from where the band are based and rehearse. 

 

The new band is a classic Punk covers band who gigged fairly regularly before Covid and have had 3 requests in the past week alone to play various types of gigs in next few months and they haven't started looking for gigs yet.

 

I agreed to give it a try altho i do still have long hair and dont look like a typical punk but i can see a ponytail coming on. 42 songs to learn for their first gig on 18th Sept but they are all quite short. Total of 2.5hrs worth. The singer with them is our backing vocalist in the Glam Rock band too. I've never played punk songs before but have to say i'm really quite enjoying learning them. 

 

I normally wouldn't play in more than one band at a time but having spent a lot of money on my new Mesa rig i want to get as much use out of it as i can plus i enjoy gigging.

 

Dave

 

 

[Waddo Soqable]

Just do it ! ... an olde Punk covers band would be a proper larf 👍

[Lozz196]

Nice one Dave, I’ve done similar in the past and it works out to just playing some immensely fun 3 minute pop songs. 

[dmccombe7]

I've been to quite a few of their gigs and they are great fun.

Altho i was a rock and prog fan during the punk era its surprising how many punk songs i know from that era.

I'm good friends with their other bass player and thats exactly how he described playing the songs @Lozz196 "Good fun pop songs"

I need to get used to using a plectrum again but i'm finding it quite easy with the punk songs. 

Dave

[police squad]

sounds great fun. enjoy

[Nicko]

11 hours ago, dmccombe7 said:

I agreed to give it a try altho i do still have long hair and dont look like a typical punk but i can see a ponytail coming on. 42 songs to learn for their first gig on 18th Sept but they are all quite short. Total of 2.5hrs worth. The singer with them is our backing vocalist in the Glam Rock band too. I've never played punk songs before but have to say i'm really quite enjoying learning them. 

Keep the pony tail and shove a safety pin through your cheek - you'll fit in fine.  

 

FWIW I have a mate who is in a very successful punk covers band playing mostly festivals and they mostly look like stockbrokers with attitude.

[joeystrange]

11 hours ago, dmccombe7 said:

I agreed to give it a try altho i do still have long hair and dont look like a typical punk but i can see a ponytail coming on.

The Ramones all had long hair. You’ll be fine!

[kendall]

Years ago when my rock band had imploded, I was asked to dep. for the bass player of an all girls punk band for a couple of gigs.  Their bass player was my girlfriend at the time, so I knew their material pretty well.  She was off to Uni and they had a few gigs booked that they wanted to do.

 

They played a lot of their own material, plus some Pistols, Clash and Godfathers.  Looking back those 3 gigs were some of the most fun I've ever had playing.  You can really let yourself go with a good old punk gig.  I even wore a kilt for the final gig - which on reflection was a mistake.  As were the pigtails I did with my long hair.

 

Go have some fun.  I'm envious.

Edited August 12, 2021 by kendall

[Barking Spiders]

5 hours ago, joeystrange said:

The Ramones all had long hair. You’ll be fine!

 It's odd how none of the original / first wave punk bands wore tartan bondage trahsis, had mohawk hair dos etc. Being the pendant that I am 😉, it's an error to call the punk hairdo of choice a Mohican. In the fillum Last of the Mohicans, it was the Hurons led by Magua that had that hairstyle.  Chingachook and Uncas who are Modhicans don't. 

[dmccombe7]

Bad news today that the guitarist in the blues rock band has doubts about carrying on so rather than waste time and money while he decides i called it a day with them so i'm now back to 2 bands again. It was an 80 min drive each way to their 2hr rehearsals including a smoke break in the middle for 15mins and was costing me £50 / mth between fuel and rehearsal room. And they only wanted to play 5 or 6 gigs a year. 

 

Bands are funny old things.

 

Fair enjoying the punk songs tho. Lots of energy and good fun playing along with them.

 

Dave

Edited August 12, 2021 by dmccombe7

[Waddo Soqable]

1 hour ago, Barking Spiders said:

 It's odd how none of the original / first wave punk bands wore tartan bondage trahsis, had mohawk hair dos etc. Being the pendant that I am 😉, it's an error to call the punk hairdo of choice a Mohican. In the fillum Last of the Mohicans, it was the Hurons led by Magua that had that hairstyle.  Chingachook and Uncas who are Modhicans don't. 

I certainly don't recall ever seeing a mohican hair do at the Roxy for instance, they were more the "clone" types that came later and usually had virtually identical biker jackets with the back painted up and one arm studded (plus the tartan) etc etc.

 

I remember from somewhere that apparently the "mohican" hair style that we associate, was in fact a "war" thing, and not a general everyday tribal hairstyle.

[dmccombe7]

I remember punk as being just short hair styles, not skinheads but short hair with tattered jeans and T shirts with punk bands on them. Apart from the hair styles not much different to what i wore as a hippy biker type.

Dave

[hiram.k.hackenbacker]

Sounds like a cool gig you’ve landed yourself 👏👏👏👏

I get occasional dep work with a Ska band and it’s just nice to go out and play material you don’t usually play.

Hope it all works out for you 👍

[Nicko]

2 hours ago, Barking Spiders said:

It's odd how none of the original / first wave punk bands wore tartan bondage trahsis, had mohawk hair dos etc.

I seem to remember my oldest brother, who claimed the title Head Moose of the Whitton punks, and his mates mostly just cut their own hair - and it actually looked like rats had been gnawing away at it.  I seem to remember one his mates later getting a mohawk of sorts but it was more a shaved sides job than the full 6" spiked and dyed job, and by that time I think he was roadying for PIL.

[dmccombe7]

I'm really looking forward to it.

The drummer and singer are both in the 70's Glam Covers band so that helps with scheduling gigs.

Dave

[dmccombe7]

Were the mohican styles the New Wave era just after punk ?

I cant really remember a lot about the punk movement to be honest.

Dave

[Nicko]

5 minutes ago, dmccombe7 said:

Were the mohican styles the New Wave era just after punk ?

I cant really remember a lot about the punk movement to be honest.

Dave

I think it was mainly the ones that got sucked into the Malcom Mclaren/Vivienne Westwood fashion thing that went down that route.  

[Stub Mandrel]

My brother was a punk in the late 70s. Leather jacket, skinny jeans, 13 hole docs and spiky hair.

 

Mohican vs. Mohawk. Whatever is technically right, no-one called it a mohawk before the 90s.

 

Mohicans weren't unusual among 'lifestyle' punks in the 70s.

 

https://flashbak.com/a-duty-to-offend-1970s-punk-jackets-41008/

 

Lol seems many of those aren't  70s, cant do a proper image search on my phone. The 'punks not dead' one would be mid 80s at a guess!

Edited August 12, 2021 by Stub Mandrel

[Waddo Soqable]

11 minutes ago, Nicko said:

I think it was mainly the ones that got sucked into the Malcom Mclaren/Vivienne Westwood fashion thing that went down that route.  

The types that used to charge  a quid for tourists to take a photo of them hanging around down the King's Rd etc !

[Lozz196]

Mohicans seemed to be the 2nd wave of punk in the early 80s, the followers of the more hardcore sounds such as GBH & The Exploited. Like anything things move on. Similarly the Oi movement which had punk bands with fans looking more like skinheads, but a rougher image than the crombies and sta-press that were previously associated with skinheads.

[Stub Mandrel]

I hate to give Gary Bushell a boost, but this gig review (Exploited) from 1981 features much mohican and a 'Punk's Not Dead' t-shirt.

 

http://punkrocker.org.uk/punkinterviews/exploited.html

 

This is interesting (the one mohican is mid-80s):

 

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/gallery/amazing-photographs-show-what-like-15732480

 

So how frar back can I get?

 

1980:

 

https://www.shutterstock.com/editorial/image-editorial/stock-3488814a

 

 

Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver, 1976 - quite possibly the inspiration for punks?

 

 

1979:

 

1980:

 

1971?

 

 

How about 1951?

https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/mohican-hair-cut-june-28-1951-josephine-amaya-17-years-mrs-news-photo/1048017544?adppopup=true

 

[Stub Mandrel]

I'm sure the guy from 1979 is David Tennant...

[Leonard Smalls]

15 hours ago, dmccombe7 said:

tattered jeans and T shirts with punk bands on them

 

As a young punker in Chester we had no money, and no access to any fancy punk clothes shops (though one of our tiny band had a rich dad, so he had tartan bondage kecks and a leather jacket).

So we used to make our own clothes; me and Swamp hit on the idea of Sh!t/Fwck tshirts - black t from tesco, spatter bleach on it so it'd also go holey, then write the immortal words in big top and bottom. Then we made our own bum flaps - mine was from greenish curtain material and had "Slits" written in orange day-glo paint. My trews were an old pair of flared jeans I made into drain pipes, then spattered a bit of bleach and paint on 'em, dyed them puke green and cut some slashes in to insert flourescent zips. Jacket was an old RAF blouson with more paint, and shoes Major Domo doc martens rip-offs held together with orange string. Hair was spiked with soap and sugar water, dyed with cochineal.

We looked a proper state!

[Waddo Soqable]

Originally the whole point was to make your own unique stuff..

Ps  if you want to do the full monty, stick a couple of safety pins thru your face eh !

 

Edited August 13, 2021 by Waddo Soqable

[dmccombe7]

34 minutes ago, Leonard Smalls said:

 

As a young punker in Chester we had no money, and no access to any fancy punk clothes shops (though one of our tiny band had a rich dad, so he had tartan bondage kecks and a leather jacket).

So we used to make our own clothes; me and Swamp hit on the idea of Sh!t/Fwck tshirts - black t from tesco, spatter bleach on it so it'd also go holey, then write the immortal words in big top and bottom. Then we made our own bum flaps - mine was from greenish curtain material and had "Slits" written in orange day-glo paint. My trews were an old pair of flared jeans I made into drain pipes, then spattered a bit of bleach and paint on 'em, dyed them puke green and cut some slashes in to insert flourescent zips. Jacket was an old RAF blouson with more paint, and shoes Major Domo doc martens rip-offs held together with orange string. Hair was spiked with soap and sugar water, dyed with cochineal.

We looked a proper state!

But you had great fun doing it.