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Mike McGuire & Steve Rolls Live At The Vortex 1977
The Now are.... Steve Rolls Mike McGuire Joe MacColl Faz Farrow Incept Date 1976 Destruct Date 1977 Resurrection in 2003 1st Generation UK Punk Rock Anyone??? .............There it was. Early '76. "The Faderz" (available for weddings discos and parties) live at the Wirrina There's Steve and Mike bashing away at Blitzkrieg Bop watching the skaters go round and round. They don't stop skating. . Exit "The Faderz" (not available for weddings discos and parties) Then it was late '76. The 7.20 Kings Cross train - Mike, Steve, Joe, Dip - Faz too, all there somewhere. Straight outa school and here they come now office workers at Thomas Cook. S'only temporary isn't it? Theres Sniffin Glue with coffee isn't there? And it's a monthly railpass up to London. Right time. Right place. Just in time. Right - lets get really started. And so it was the first month of 1977 and its all down to the Marcus Garvey Club. It's the only place in Peterborough that's going to let us rehearse, lets face it. Steve's got lots more fuzz in his fender, Mikes got a little bin in his binliners (sew 'em together - they look like trousers for about half an hour) Joes on his way, says he's off the knitting needles now got some real drums from the small ads of the ET. Meanwhile out there, the Development Corporation gotta little plan. But we gotta little plan too. So while they get busy turning Cathedrals into cul-de-sacs we're getting busy in that hall with the West Indian geezers out back playing cards all night, never batting an eyelid whatever they hear playing out front. Jamaican lagers all round? Tonite at the Garvey - Live with the Legions (the leg irons as Steve called em) -Peterboroughs firrrrrrst reggae band!!! We better get a bass player. Cut to Joes garage where DIP the dangerous one comes a calling. Biggest pisshead you ever met. Even Wayne (no it was definitely Jayne by then) County wet her knickers when she beheld the bulk of his might. Our big Vortex debut. The Dips pissed as a fart again shouting F - U - C - K , DIP Go! Go! as 9 O'Clock kicks off. Only he's forgot to plug in. Plays the whole set at zero volume. Nobody noticed but maybe, we thought, maybe we should think again….So there's Pete Terrible learning bass notes in Mikes mums dining room. A month later he's doing a perfect swallow-dive off the Garvey stage into the sea of seig-heiling NF boys who'd paid us a courtesy call. And you couldn't help thinking "what a fuckin hero" as he disappeared under the boots and fists. But there was no choice after that. Those dodgy sideboards had to go o'course but he could play bass faster than fast so Faz was in. And there it was. Here come the Now. Then it gets faster still. Lots of faces, lots of early daze speeding into history. There's that Aggro Griffin gettin up on stage and whacking the bloke from the Killjoys in the face. (Come on Eileen!) There's the enemy. Robert hippy Plant hiding behind his bodyguard in the Roxy bar. Theres that niiiiice cheeky cockney chappy in the painted up pissed over changing room - - cept he's really trying to nick Faz's amp with his orrible fascist skinhead mate lurching around threateningly in the background. Ta Suggsy. Oh no….. theres Faz going and getting us into shite with the two birds leaning on the Roxy stage. Didn't take 'em long to spot those horrible stitched round toes shoes with the mini stack heels feature. The birds was right sure but honour was at stake so Mike and Steve kept leaping while Joe kept bashing and all the 20 people down there kept pogo-ing till the birds got bored and started spitting into each others faces. There's the Kid (21) manager of the Now doing something unspeakable as only he can. Here come the hotspots of the Fens. But you gotta watch those fen-boys so it's a quick exit from March when they spot the straight trousers. And Christ no - there they are again at that barn-dance of a birthday-party gig out in Ponders End. Fists flying, Joe steaming in there (again!) - even tho it was Debbies fault in the first place. Never bite a fenboys finger when its waggin at you. Theres the squaddies waitin outside the Corn Exchange. Chasin us thru the back streets. Curling up in a shop window. Waiting to die. Then we're finally there - in the studio. Well, some mixing desk in our "producers" floral front room. No wonder the neighbours just called the police. And now the "producers" gone and put Steves guitar on that extra quiet "fizzadelic" TM setting which Steve ain't too happy about. Joes screwin' his face up at the stretched T-shirts over his drums, getting pretty edgy. "Don't worry boys" says our "producer". "You're two places higher than the Pistols in the Sounds chart and the Development Corporations refusing to comment so ain't you just really on the way now"? We're on our way. All thru the East Midlands. Corby - some unemployed steel workers studying our strides with dubious interest. Kettering with XTC. Northampton… Northampton?. And then on our way up to Raw. 1978 an all that, getting ready to head into the 80's. Cept before we get there, Raw records has burnt down and we're getting chased thru the back streets of Cambridge (again) by some West Ham boys. Your problem the coppers said. Your problem our sleeve designer said, jumping in the only available cab. Then its suddenly 1979. Some kinda pink trousers with button downs? Some kinda newish, oldish waving? Definitely some kinda newish guitarist/drummer. So we must be on our way. Here come the Now? Nah. Now had come, and it had certainly gone by then. Till now.
2005
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