The Ligger Years... Part 4 ... More Clash

So a couple of weeks after the Manchester Apollo gig, The Clash were playing at King George's Hall in Blackburn. A group of Preston punks (actually all the punks in Preston!) had organised a mini-bus to take us there and back, but Peggy and I went earlier than the others.

I'd written up the interview and done a copy for Joe Strummer to read - copy approval even before there was such a thing! - he hadn't asked for us to do that, it was basically just an excuse to get on the guest list again!

As if getting to see The Clash again wasn't exciting enough, there was an extra-special treat awaiting me in Blackburn - now there's a sentence you never thought you'd see! There was an extra guitarist playing with them that night and I literally bumped into him backstage. It was none other than Steve Jones from The Sex Pistols!

He was the reason I'd become a punk in the first place. I can still remember seeing his photo in the NME in what was probably the first ever feature on the band, and thinking 'if that's what punk men look like, I'm gonna be a punk!' Shallow I know, but there ya go, and bear in mind that the time I was "into" 10cc!

I can still remember how my legs turned to jelly when I saw him close up. He was so handsome in those days and smelled amazing! He was wearing a Vivienne Westwood Seditionaries T-shirt that was an open letter to Derek Jarman slagging off the movie Jubilee and a pair of black jeans. Goddam he was hot!

Luckily for me, my pal Peggy aka Anne R Key, was on the ball and told him who we were. I was mute with virginal teenage desire! Eventually I recovered enough to tell him about the fanzine and ask for an interview. He said he'd happily do one after the gig. Peggy then said 'she's your number one fan, why don't you give her a kiss?' Jesus! I am cringing now just thinking of it! But, it worked, he kissed me on both cheeks and said he'd see me after the show.

That gig was one of the best times I ever saw them play, they were on cracking form and Steve Jones' guitar added an extra kick to the tunes.

After the show, we went backstage, and met one of the many seminal characters of punk rock - a former Sex Pistols roadie called Steve English. He asked Steve Jones if he planned to fuck me (I know!) and Steve Jones said 'No, she's a good girl', before disappearing off to shag two sluts in the orchestra pit!

It has to be said that while I was flattered that he didn't see me as 'just another groupie', as a 17 year old virgin, had he asked I probably woulda fucked him! What a slut! We hung out with The Clash for a bit - wooohooo another can of Coke! - and then Steve Jones reappeared minus the girls. He handed me a sweaty bit of black cloth and a piece of paper, saying we'd do the interview another time.

The cloth was the Seditionaries t-shirt and the bit of paper was the address and phone number of Glitterbest in Denmark St - Malcolm McLaren's office!

The Ligger Years... Part 3

Emboldened by the successes of interviews with Ian Dury and Glen Matlock, Gaye Abandon (that's me folks) cast the net wider still, and got the big one.

We blagged tickets to see The Clash at Manchester Apollo and got there early enough to catch them coming in for a soundcheck. Their tour manager - Johnny Green - told us that we could do the interview when they came back later to do the gig.

I remember it was pissing down that day and poor old Peggy or Anne R Key as she was now known had used some kind of temporary black dye on her hair. The rain showed just how temporary it was as the colour ran in rivulets down her face! We nipped into the pub that used to be next door to the Apollo - I dunno if it's still there, I'm guessing that whole area has been re-developed by now, it was like a bombsite in '78! - and she wiped the black streaks off her face and we prepared for our big interview.

The Clash were like my all-time favourite band in the punk rock days - and probably still are if the truth be told! - so the thoughts of getting to sit down with Joe Strummer and Mick Jones was incredibly exciting for me.

True to his word, when Johnny Green saw us waiting outside he slipped us in through the stage door and up to the band's dressing room. I was introduced to Joe Strummer and offered a drink. I remember only having the balls to get a Coke!

Joe was a great interview - once I'd calmed down enough to talk to him properly. I remember being impressed by his intelligence and articulacy (is that even a word?????). Anyway, it was quickly becoming apparent that none of these "punks" were illiterate yobs! After Joe, we sat down with Paul Simenon who was far less chatty, Topper had nowt to say really, and Mick Jones was second only to Joe in the chatty stakes.

Interview over, we were asked if we wanted to watch the gig from backstage, but as this was our first time seeing the Clash properly, we wanted to be out in the audience. As it turned out, we shoulda stayed backstage! We'd missed Suicide who were the support act, but as The Clash walked onstage all hell let loose. We were sat near the front, but no-one was sitting! Soon no-one had the choice, as the seats began flying over our head and landing in the orchestra pit!

The whole gig passed in a bit of a blur, but even to this day i can remember the energy that just powered the whole experience. All of us, the band, the crowd and the poor, useless security men, were on fire!

Best of all, we even made the bus back to Preston!

I saw The Clash play over 30 times and most of those gigs are still alive in my memory, so if you enjoyed this on, there's plenty more Clash stories to come, believe me!

JoJo Smith...The Ligger Years Part 2

So yesterday I posted about my meeting with Ian Dury and the feedback has been amazing! Not to mention to huge amount of hits to my site!

As a result, I've decided to stop hanging onto all my little rock and roll stories for the mythical autobiography, and start recounting them here. Let's face it, I'm not famous enough for the 'big budget in the shops for Christmas' type book deal, and thank god my life hasn't been tragic enough to make a bomb on one of those "misery books".

In yesterday's blog I explained that in order to legitimize my meeting with Mr Dury I said that me and my mates had a fanzine called The Ligger. At that point it was nothing more than words, but as we sat on the train back to Preston, it dawned on me that actually doing a fanzine would be a great idea.

Kosmo had given us tips on being real liggers, useful tips such as:

1. Never pay for a gig ticket, always ring the record company press offices and blag them

2. Never pay for records, always ring the record company press offices and blag them.

3. Never pay for anything much at all if you can help it, blag, blag, blag!

Those words resonated in my head and have stood me in good stead for almost all of my adult life!

As you might imagine, Preston wasn't exactly Punk Rock Central, so we had to travel for our ligging. One trip we took was to Blackpool. Glen Matlock - the Sex Pistol who was sacked for 'liking The Beatles' had formed another group called The Rich Kids and they were doing a gig in what I recall was the function room of a hotel somewhere in the seaside town.

This time it was just Peggy and I that went. By now we had proper Punk Rock pseudonyms - just like Poly Styrene and Sid Vicious - Peggy was Anne R Key and I was Gaye Abandon! I'd contacted the record company - EMI ironically given Glen's previous band's troubles with the label - and got us on the guest list, and we were off!

Guest List - two of the most incredibly wonderful words in the world ever put together!

Now strictly speaking of course the Rich Kids weren't punk rock, dear god they had an ex-member of the teeny-bop group Slik in them! I speak of course of Midge Ure. At the time we went to see them, they'd had one record out, also called Rich Kids (I got a free copy!). We were more interested in seeing the ex-Sex Pistol on bass then what he was today.

The gig itself has faded from my memory, but I do remember it was great! Exciting, so different to the Blockheads one in that the room was tiny and we were really close to the band. Up until then we'd only ever seen bands in massive venues like the Guildhall, and the Manchester Apollo and the Liverpool Empire, so to be in somewhere about the same size as one of those venue's toilet was enthralling.

After the show we sat down with Glen and did the interview. He was happy to talk about the Pistols tho of course preferred to talk about his new band, but he was happy to talk. So much so that we missed the last train back to Preston! Bless him, he gave us £20 which in those days was plenty to get us a taxi home. Luckily, he'd also given us an address for his management offices and I'm proud to say we did actually send him a £20 postal order when we got back!

As a footnote to this tale, I actually saw Glen on the tube a couple of weeks ago. I thought it'd be way to weird to try and remind him about this incident from 32 years ago. I have to say that of almost all the people from those days he's worn the best, he was looking hawt for a man in his 50's!

One More Movie! AKA The Ligger Years...Pt 1

Soooo today I revisited a bit of my history.

I went to see Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll, the Ian Dury biopic starring Andy Serkis. I had a little investment in it being good, apart from the £7.80 it cost me to get in. Thirty-two years ago Ian Dury and The Blockheads came to Preston to perform at The Guildhall, and me and my mates Peggy and Lynn had tickets to go see them.

I was a huge fan, I had one of the limited edition copies of Sex & Drugs on Stiff - I also had an "If it ain't Stiff, it ain't worth a fuck" t-shirts which I got free just by writing to them at 32 Alexander St and asking for one!

The afternoon of the gig, a Saturday, Lynn and Peggy met me for lunch - I worked Tuesday to Saturday at the Lancashire Evening Post - and we tried to work out how we could get backstage and meet Ian Dury. I said "Let's say we've got a fanzine and wanna interview him". The girls agreed it was a good idea, so we went over to the Guildhall to see if there was anyone around we could try blagging with. Oh man! The arrogance and fearlessness of youth eh? I was 16 and invincible!

This guy Kosmo Vinyl appeared. He worked with the band and said that if we found him after the gig we could go meet Ian Dury and maybe do our interview. He asked what the fanzine was called and I just blurted out "The Ligger". It was a brilliant name as it was something I'd always aspired to be. I never wanted to fuck the bands, but I did wanna lig - hang out with em and drink their beer!

Anyway, we went to the gig and we did go backstage. Unfortunately, so did half of Preston. These were the days of punk rock and "no more heroes". We got our photo taken with Ian Dury, and were all set to scarper when Kosmo found us. He said that there was no chance of doing the interview tonight, but if we turned up on Sunday lunchtime, we could go with them to Liverpool and do the interview on the bus!

How could we refuse? Of course we told minor fibs to our parents. No halfway respectable parent would say yes to their 16 year old daughter asking if it was OK to go to another town on a tour bus with a "punk rocker".

Anyway, off we went. We met up with Kosmo outside The Crest hotel and he led us onto the bus and introduced us to Ian! He remembered us from the night before, so he was cool. As this whole scam had been my idea, I was selected to ask the questions (to be fair I had written them!) and Peggy and Lynn were gonna write down his answers. No tape recorders or shorthand for us!

I also took him a present. At the time he had a Union Jack on his front teeth and I had a pair of Union Jack socks, so I gave them to him. They were ankle socks and while he thanked me for them, he explained that he couldn't wear them, and rolled up his trouser-leg to show me why. I'd never seen a caliper before or indeed met anyone with polio, but as he showed me his leg he said that he only wore the thick fisherman's socks cos they stopped the caliper from rubbing. Talk about an ice-breaker!

Somehow, I managed to come up with enough interesting questions to hold his attention all the way to the Liverpool Empire. We were escorted in through the stage door, and got to watch the soundcheck - god it was so exciting! Like a dream come true!

We had to leave halfway through the gig to get a train back to Preston, but that was and still is one of the most magical days ever!

So that was my Ian Dury story. That interview was written up and eventually led to me getting a proper gig as a journalist a few months later when I moved to London.

The movie really was fantastic, Andy Serkis's portrayal is incredible, and while Kosmo Vinyl seems to have been totally written out of the story, it was reasonably accurate. If you're of a certain age, go see it, what a remarkable man.