Sunday, October 31, 2010

Lead-Eater

This picture is from Dave Peacock's Facebook album.
He has loads of photos of Brighton punk bands in their earliest forms- the Piranhas and Joby and the Hooligans in particular. This must have been at the end of the gig- I'm saving the set-list and I've stuck the guitar lead in my mouth to stop it from dragging on the floor. The suit belonged to the boyfriend at the time who had a matching guitar: cream with white scratchplate. It was a joke- a total coincidence that we managed to find two guitars the same in second hand shops in Brighton.
A bit later on I hit on the wheeze of writing the set-list in black felt pen on a strip of masking tape and taping it along the top of the body of the guitar. We always used to play the songs in the same order so I never had to change it.
My small plaits were coloured blue with crazy-colour. Because my hair was curly I didn't feel like a proper punk until my tutor at art college patted me on the head one day after he 'advised' me not to be a punk rocker any more and just settle down and get on with my work. I was so annoyed that I cut my hair off to about an inch all over, bleached it blonde and started to look quite tough. I can't work out which venue this was; I don't remember playing any venues that were posh enough to have curtains, and it seems as though there is a monitor there too and that's quite fancy for a gig back then. I wonder if it was Canterbury University? Joby tried to nick the telly from the Students' Union (he was a naughty chap) but I think it was chained on to its stand. We took the Piranhas there with us, I think.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I once went to a fancy dress party as a punk ballerina ... tutu made from black bin liners, lots of safety pins and my hair in lots of little bunches, coloured with poster paint. Fortunately no photo exists!!

Vanessa said...

Haha - I dyed my hair purple and maroon with Crazy Colour in the early 80s. I even got some modelling work from a hairdresser in Camden during my purple phase. (Well, walking round the market handing out flyers...)