QUEERBOYS / DAVE KUSWORTH / LOVES YOUNG NIGHTMARE - (*Re-Posts*)

I've had requests to re-post these three, so for those who asked here they are, and for those that didn't, here they are as well. First up there's a four track live promo tape from THE QUEERBOYS and their   Stones/Faces Rock'n'Roll swagger.  Then we've got the loose and low slung Rock'n'Roll love lorn laments of DAVE KUSWORTH and THE BOUNTY HUNTERS. recorded live in Birmingham. Finally it's the psychedelic tinged pop punk of LOVES YOUNG NIGHTMARE. with their 12" single All Too Much For more detailed write ups go to the original posts.

The Reading Festival 1987 (take a trip)

As it’s The Reading Festival this weekend, I thought I’d stick up a few live sets from the one in 1987. I could approach this post with memories of standing by the side of the stage that year when The Quire Boys were playing ready to change any guitar strings, catch flying guitars etc. Or there’s 1992 the year when Kurt Cobain from Nirvana was pushed on stage in a wheel chair dressed in a white hospital robe and wig, when I worked behind the bar for the Workers Beer Company, (all my wages were donated to the Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign) serving beer to the moshing mud monsters. Alternatively I could talk about the notice someone had put up at work last week selling a couple of weekend tickets for this years Reading Festival. They only wanted £187 for them, was that for a pair? No it was a £187 each! I think the only time I paid to get into Reading it was £17.50 for the weekend. I know that was back in the 80’s, but maan! that’s some price rise over the years. Anyway, enough of my shit; here’s some great music from Reading 23 years ago. There’s the sleaze and leather gasoline rawk’n’roll of Zodiac Mindwarp and The Love Reaction. Then we’ve got the blues’n’roll boogie of The Quire Boys, finally there’s The streetwise guitar assault of The Godfathers. Enjoy!

BROOKLYN DOGS - 1988 Demo Tape

What’s in a name? Brooklyn Dogs, well they came from Birmingham for a start, and I first came across them when they followed The Quire Boys around on tour in a beat up old Ford something car. Nice blokes from what I remember. They supported the Quire Boys on a couple of occasions, a memorable time being one night in Wolverhampton, when a rather drunk Tyla from The Dogs D’Amour joined them on stage. He was giving it some; with a Jesus Christ/James Dean pose; mic stand behind his back arms wrapped around the stand crucifixion stylee, then he fell over and couldn’t get back up, all the while the Brooklyn Dogs trashed out their Heartbreakers, New York Dolls licks, leaving Tyla thrashing about on the floor, classic. Or maybe you had to be there. Anyway here’s their two track demo from 1988, a no nonsense glam punk rock racket. There should have been a live set from The Marquee, but somehow it has mysteriously disappeared from my tape, if it was ever there, but I’m sure it was, I digresss, no I don’t got nuffin much left to say, mmm!……..I wonder what ever happened to those Birmingham Cats?

THE QUEERBOYS/PRETTY GIRLS and THE BABYSITTERS - Live: Sometime, Somewhere

I’ve absolutely no idea where this was recorded, but I’m sure it was somewhere on a tour both bands did with The Cherry Bombs in 1986. By the end of the tour The Queerboys had become The Pretty Girls after there’d been a bit of a kerfuffle at the first gig of the tour, when the Bradford University Lesbian and Gay society handed out flyers telling the audience that: “The name the queer boys is offensive” and not to applaud this “sick support band.“ Fuck knows what they thought of The Babysitters and their comedy Punk’n’Roll antics. Any way if you fancy some hot live action from the London Rock’nRoll scene click here for The PrettyQueerGirlBoys and their take on The Faces and Stones, and there for The Babysitters with their Damned/Heartbreakers racket. Enjoy, the recordings a bit rough and it was recorded on a right cheap old tape, but hey what the fuck!

LINKS NOW FIXED!

I should really write a lot more than I’m gonna for this post; cos I got to know the band, after meeting Spike the singer and Guy the guitarist at a few Gunslingers gigs, they said they played in a band called The Queer Boys, a name given to them by the Irish builders they had laboured for, imagine Keith Richards and Rod Stewart turning on a building site; mixing up cement and carrying bricks about, and you’ll get the picture, funnily enough you’ll also get the bands sound, a dirty Faces/Stones bar room boogie. Saw the band loads of times in the pubs and clubs of London and on various support tours with the likes of Tenpole Tudor, One The Juggler, The Cherry Bombs, often squeezed into their van wedged between the amps and drums for a lift there, or a lift back. I eventually ended up roadieing for them for a couple of tours, and one offs, like their Reading Festival appearance in 87 I think, same year Meatloaf and Bonnie Tyler were bottled off at. My roadieing skills were rather limited as I couldn’t drive or tune a guitar, but I blagged it. By now in order to get signed by a record label they had to change their name; The Queer Boys wasn’t acceptable, so they became The Pretty Girls after a couple of independent single releases, several major music biz players became interested in managing the band, including Sharon Osbourne, in the days when she looked like yer mum and dressed like yer nan, The Quire Boys as the band were now called signed up with her for some amount of money, enough to hire a big fuck off tour bus for the last few dates in Scotland of the tour, and go to Los Angeles to record their debut album A Little Bit Of What You Fancy, they took me along for the ride. I spent six weeks in Los Angeles and watched all the bands rough edges get smoothed away by one time Steve Harley and Faces Guitarist Jim Creegan, in order to get the product ready for the market. Thousands of miles from home, I didn’t feel that I fitted in with Sharons plans for the band. I was their mate, not a roadie, she expected me to drive the band about, and loads of other shit I knew nothing about, that wouldn’t have been a problem, apart from the problem that I couldn’t drive, the band had told her that I could in order to blag my trip out there, to share in their success. I felt my ability was being questioned, especially after Spike had a drunken accident and hurt his arm when I had been ordered to “look after him tonight.” Then boredom began to set in, especially hearing the same song being rehearsed for eight hours a day with the producer suggesting different chord changes, timings etc songs I once liked began to sound not so good. After six weeks the band hadn’t even got into the recording studio, and I’d had enough, I missed home and their new found rock’n’roll lifestyle just wasn’t punk rock enough for me, so I wished ’em luck and flew home; It wasn’t a bit of what I fancied. Anyway as I said at the beginning, I should really have written a bit more, but hey here’s what yer after; a four track live promo tape issued by the band to try and generate music biz interest in them when they were still Queer!