On Wednesday, I went to the Duke of York's Cinema in Brighton to watch Kevin Wright's Punk Brighton documentary. It's been 15 years in the making and quite a few years ago a whole bunch of us met up at the Prince Albert to be filmed yakking about our own experience of punk in Brighton.
I wan't sure how it would turn out- I think Kev was born in 1983- but he had done loads of research. It wasn't just masses of old photographs: he'd found audio of Vi Subversa talking, some footage of Peter and the Test Tube Babies, and basically did a whole slice of the scene complete justice. It was a real coup to get Rose Barnard talking about The Mockingbirds, a band of women fed up with being left looking after the kids while their husbands and partners were off making music with their bands- so they made their own band, and had quite a degree of local success, including a track on one of the Vaultage albums. It was obvious how different we all were from each other, and it was touching to see Darris Golinski paying tribute to the Piranhas. There was a substantial section on Rock Against Racism that featured Tony Greenstein talking about taking on the National Front. He used to live upstairs in the squat in Lansdowne Square, and so we had a lot of conversations back then. Even he had a guitar, but he was definitely a Dylan fan; you'd hear him singing away some evenings. There was also a section with Attila the Stockbroker and Norman Cook talking about the campaign to build a new Brighton football ground, using a cover of The Piranhas Tom Hark, which charted and would have been number one if Busted hadn't broken up that week! I had a teary moment seeing photos of The Chefs with James in them . How he would have loved this film!
It was very well-received- the cinema was full. Tracy came, and ti was lovely that Sara Furse could come to (one of the first bands I was was he band No Man's Band, with Ian Loeffler in a dress playing guitar so he fitted in with the girls. And that was before punk even hit Brighton!
I had to rush back to London straight afterwards but could see Phil and Barb there, Hoggins, Stu Jones, Suzy Horne, and of course Dave Barnard and Del Ford who both did the Q&A with Kevin and I.
On Thursday, the documentary was shown at The Rio in Dalston to a much smaller but I think equally appreciative audience (hello Terry, and Rob!). My friend Charlotte came, and remembered that she'd been in a band called Austin and the A40s, again before punk started. I was sole panel member (just a pan?), interviewed by Karen Shook, and we carried on talking all the way back to Highbury and Islington. Oh, you awful dirty music industry! I had an epiphany about an unexpectedly flirty message I'd received from a married and supposedly very worthy songwriter. Oh deary me.
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