The Heads rock/History

`The Heads`
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`History Part 1`

By Simon On To History Part 2

Record shops are great. If it hadn’t been for them, then I guess you would n’t be reading this now. They serve a vital social function as a sonic outlet , a meeting place for likeminded souls and a place to raise cash when desperate. The independent ones are the best by far, scruffy,decrepid ,eclectic and sometimes smelly, they usher you into a world of extreme sounds, rude yet knowledgable staff, crazy sleeves and hidden gems.

I was fortunate to work a couple of days a week in one such emporium,Replay, Haymarket/ Bearpit, Bristol, at the turn of the nineties. It was there that I was introduced to Hugo, bassplayer, by a mutual friend,Ruth. I was moaning behind the counter about wanting to form a band having just been hoofed out of another band for going on a holiday. Their guitarist, Dave decided to jump ship too and we now needed a rhythm section to get the whole thing going. Luckily the shop was a great place to meet most aspiring musicians and wastrels of Bristol. Hugo often came in, though he was working at the local HMV, to browse the shimmy back cat or to raise a bit of cash with a cash/exchange deal. We were introduced and he was game to give it a go.

I’d been listening to the latest albums by Mudhoney, Spacemen, Loop, Sonic Youth and such like and wanted to blast out some fierce psychedelic noise, being a rather inept yet enthusiastic guitar player I would rely on my pedals , amp and enthusiasm to see me through. Luckily Dave and Hugo were both considerably better than I was so any shortfalls could be glossed over. NO thoughts of gigs, just getting wasted a making a racket. For hours if possible. We needed a drummer. I approached a couple of customers in the shop, mainly if they bought a record that I rated or in the case of females, if I just rated them. We eventually struck lucky with Mel. She’d give it a go which was all we could ask so into PIJ* we went and whacked out a couple of no brainer riffs, usually in E(“if in doubt go for E” was/is our creed).

A few “rehearsals” in we, thanks to the shop connection again, got our first gig opening for “Babes In Toyland” at the Fleece via Nick And Redge, local teenage chancers. It was quite nervewracking, I was a big fan and got to meet and grin inanely at Kat, we got pretty wasted and played our three song set(“banana”?). Seemed to go down alright so we got more blasted and went off home.

Thing is though that Mel wasn’t very confident/keen so we parted mutually and also relocated to our first spiritual home,the garage. The garage was at the bottom of the garden of the house that I was living in at the time. Nick, a housemate,fellow longhair and in retrospect a musical mentor in obscure 70’s rock , helped us to break in one chilly winter afternoon. Apparently it had lain dormant since the previously owner got incarserated for some heinious crime. We filed off the padlock and saw our new room. It had bits of motorbikes,a BSA BantAm and Triumph Despatch bike intact, various rags denims and tshirts ,a prison letter and the largest roach(toilet roll size ) we’d seen, home! WE cleared it out a bit , put a new lock on , annoyed the neighbours and did some basic soundproofing and a lot of smoking and chatting.

The drummer solution had now emerged. Hugo was also playing with another band , The Heads being enthusiastic part timers. Their drummer was living in his transit van(“Frank”) and keen to play more and keep warm so Hugo invited him along to jam. This was the first real line-up at last.Wayne hit his kit with a true passion and also was a great soundproofer, good with his hands. We now practised most evenings and had a laugh whacking out amped sixties rock, simple but most enjoyable for us. We had done a couple of other gigs but this line-up’s first was opening for Swervedriver at the Bierkeller. We did fine, Hugo did shrooms post gig and Swervedriver had about ten guitars each, we may well have been a bit rude. Another NRK promotion which gave us experience if not a lot of cash.

We now had to relocate out of the garage, neighbours complained,it got broken into(bass rig nicked) leaked badly and we were paranoid that the biker owner may come back to claim his stuff(at one point there was a scary letter demanding “rent” for 18 months use). With visions of helmeted psychos we upped sticks to the cellar. We recorded our first tracks at the Whitehouse, Weston-super-mare about this time (1990?) and made some tapes up to get gigs etc.. 5 tracks of okay stuff but it did include “Spliff Riff” a live fave and constant in our set for years. This version was eventually released a decade later on the first Rocket sessions 7”.

Wayne and I were housemates now with Nick in Montpelier, Bristol, living in a post-war prefab built on an old WW2 bombsite, opposite the Cadbury House pub, oh dear.The house was haunted, or so Redge reckoned as various overnight guests had had visions of old ladies in grey and chills in the night. Lots of smoking and drinking too needless to say. Dave was getting itchy feet and a bit paranoid at our rare gigs , he left for new pastures and Hugo moved into the house.

It got a bit messy but we were perfecting our lightshows in the mirrored lounge and listening to “Bull o the woods” on repeat through the “wems”. Again we had no real aims except to maybe record a 7” sometime. We went through a couple of guitarists, notably Jim who had a real cool move on the WAH and Steve(/?) who did some great whale noises. We recorded a couple of rough things with Jim at PIJ with Fatty but nothing to set the world or even a rizzla on fire. We wanted a bit more raging rock in our midsts. We went to see various bands Soundgarden, Bad Brains and best of all “The Magnet” as we styled them. We sort of knew what we wanted to sound like but needed some extra fire power.

This arrived in the unassuming shape of Paul(“Rock Proph”). Fatty had said we ought to check him out as he knew we wanted an axeman. We tried it and it worked. Paul had to slow down a bit and we played him some of our current faves(that record shop coming in handy again) and worked at it down the cellar.The cellar was on Jamaica Street, another salubrious part of town, and suited us fine. It was cheap, we could turn it up and leave all our gear there just waiting to be played, lovely landlady too, ta Syvle. It was also damp, freezing in winter, and had a leaky sewage pipe running down one wall but hey! it was a place to rock. I had bought a recording walkman and was getting into the habit of taping everthing we did (D90’s courtesy of Replay) so we could listen to our efforts in back at Richmond Road with copious teas. Some of these recording s were to turn up on various releases over time. Only slight snag of the cellar was the leccy meter, it could run out mid-riff. Total darkness, three flights of rickety stairs and a 50p were needed to resume, after a hefty smoke to get over the shock. We all smoked at this time, the others drank too. The cellar is immortalised on the back shot of “Relaxing With” and of the debut 7” Quad.

We recorded our debut up at PIJ which was just around the corner and virtually free with the help of Fatty. we wanted a set opener and “Quad” fitted the bill in a magnet kind of way. “Woke up” was an old track that Dave had come up with and “Looking at you” was a very sketchy version of the MC5 classic, 2 chords, quick and easy to complete the E.P. I was doing vocals , not because I could sing at all but ‘cos nobody else fancied it and someone had to. I still dislike the sound of my voice and try to shut up as much as possible, needless to say my favourite Head’s tracks are all instrumentals. The recording took a day one weekend, we all had day jobs. Wayne-mechanic, Paul- office temp, Hugo-HMV, me-Replay. Done and dusted we had it on tape and then sat on it for a year with a drive and motivation that would become hallmarks of our “career”.

The record shop. Pete, Replay’s boss, liked to encourage his staff to give things a go and somehow was persuaded to start a label for the shop which I would run and featuring The Heads, he paid for us to eventually press up 500 “Quad”s and Rooster Rock was born. I did the sleeve, ripping off a Russ Meyer poster. The sleeve was done with prit stick, a black pen and a photocopier, cutting edge stuff, great back photo though. WE also did a load of limited Heads Rizzlas to go with the 7”, took bloody ages to cut out and hand colour the letters, and also stuck a joke “This ROCKS” ... Thurston sticker on it to give it extra indierock cred. The release was ready and round about now the final piece fell in as I chatted to a fella from Cargo at an awesome Bored! gig at the Croft, Bristol.Simon Keeler lives for music and had organised the Bored!/Walking Seeds gigs as a favour to his Aussie mates. WE dealt with Cargo(independent distributors) at the shop and I’d asked if they’d be interested in doing a Head’s 72. Sure they said , send us 100.