High School Musical

My career in the management team of a local rock band was very short lived. I had good credentials for the role, a new donkey jacket from Burtons with tartan lining , floppy fringe, suede-effect boots and drainpipe jeans, well actually corduroys because my mother said they would give better wear. She was right. I am not sure how I got into the entourage of 'Red Tape' in the first place. Mal Williamson knew the band members from some promotional work he had done for them and was a natural choice for progressing to become their manager. Quite surprising really as we were both still at school. They were heady times in the Hull music scene in the late 1970's. The city was still basking in the reflected glory of The Spiders from Mars , David Bowie's definitive band whose members were from Hull and Driffield. The new boys on the block, The Red Guitars, had an album deal and their track 'Good Technology' got good airplay. Everyone wanted to follow their success. A lot of bands emerged with close name associations and our boys were right there. The period also saw the revival of the Mod movement with The Jam in the forefront. My CV for rock management was definitley enhanced in that I knew most of the lyrics for the songs from 'All Mod Cons' and could rattle off 'Down in the Tube Station at Midnight' almost word perfect although to this day I have never seen the lyrics actually written down. After hours and hours of playing a single album in its entirety the lyrics just seep into the deep memory part of the brain. My bedroom wall became a tribute to The Jam. The artwork is still actually there after 30 years but under quite a conservative pale greeny-white wallpapered finish. I will leave the thrill of discovering my obsessive scribblings to successive generations. Juggling home chores, school,  homework and assisting in band management was a challenge for me but Mal took to it all in his stride. In the days before mobile phones he spent many hours in or around public telephone boxes making and awaiting calls to promoters, record companies and village halls.Neighbourhood Watch was not around at the time so he was largely unchallenged in his otherwise very suspicious activities. Much was to be said for his persistence and the band did get a few local bookings. The wooden community hut at Ryehill was a lively gig. Ryehill was not big enough to be called a village and barely qualified as a hamlet. About a dozen houses off the main road from Hull to Withernsea.  I was on the door collecting monies and trying to look cool. I was amazed that we attracted quite a crowd, at least 25 locals which ,with the band and hangers-on swelled the total to at least 37. I was not allowed near the instruments or PA system as the band did all that themselves.In fact, coming to think about it, I never even saw them rehearse.The sound was not too bad but I suspect that at least one member was only in the group because he had use of his dad's van on an evening to cart around the amps and gear. Andy Welch was the lead guitar and vocalist. When not dreaming of being the next Paul Weller he was working as a chef in a pub. He had a smart mod suit, thin lapels ,pencil tie and two tone brogues.Although Hull born and bred he did have a bit of a Cockney accent. Some charisma there but he was the tallest in the band so a natural choice for leader. The bass player, name unrecalled, was a bit of a poser. I think he was from a wealthy background and a student at Hull University. A bit above everyone, in his estimation. Just slumming it between cramming for a degree. The drummer was  notable by his anonymity. The Ryehill gig was followed by a residency in the upstairs room above The Bull Public House on Beverley Road, Hull. I could get there easily as the 121 bus stopped right outside and it was on a tuesday night so not too heavy for homework.  The hard core smoking and drinking pub regulars could just about be persuaded to make the effort to ascend the narrow stairs to the function room but soon lost interest if their drunken requests for 'Stairway to Heaven' , 'Freebird' and 'Silver Machine' were not heeded. Otherwise the crowd were a small, selective lot. I remember there were quite a lot of very heavily made up, very young girls. There was good publicity from the gigs. This was only because Mal wrote the reviews for the tuesday evening feature in the Hull Daily Mail. The band began to believe Mal's  reviews and eagerly anticipated the arrival of the predictions of stardom. I liked Mal's writing style, very much following the trend in the New Musical Express for alternate expressions of anger, anti-establishment anarchy and comparison to The Jam. There was tension developing between the members as Andy was, by now, going out with the Bass Players younger sister. She brought all her friends to subsequent gigs and the crowd started to look more like a Bananarama fan club or a teenage girls party. The bookings did not extend farther than the City boundary. There were no calls from promoters wanting the band to support any of the big names on their UK or World tours. Perhaps Red Tape, after all, were just not that good. It all fell apart at a gig at Hull Uni. There were recriminations and backhanded comments mainly around Andy Welch's courting of the bass players sister and how he was getting some grief from his mum and dad about the sister's late nights, the impact on the girl's schooling, potential access to under-age drinking and worse. Within a couple of days Andy was on his way to a new job in London. We suspected that he had this lined up for some time as a back-up plan if the band did not make the big time. Mal took the news quite well. He was a realist and moved onto black and white photography instead. He did some nice work, angry,anti-establishment and just plain sentimental sepia. I went back to my studies. I was basically a big swot but I had seen the bright lights and had sensed the energy in live performance and a drunken crowd. I did take time to help out on other media projects, one being the school magazine and the other an independent photo-copy produced pamphlet specialising in satire, rumour, libel ,word play and witticisms to a circulation of about 20 schoolmates. I did find, some time later, a BASF C90 cassette of Red Tape which had been studio recorded with the intention to be sent out as a demo. Through a combination of the usual phenomena of the stretching of the audio tape, exposure to magnetic influences and the fact that I had recorded over it accidentally I doubt now if there is any historic archive of the music of Red Tape. The Hull music scene fluorished anyway without the band and the Housemartins and The Fine Young Cannibals went global without the help of the Ryehill Parish Council or the landlady of The Bull Public House, as far as I know.