Ed Newsom & Al Read used to work at the Granary. Ed contacted
Bristol Rocks and agreed to an interview about his time at this
great venue. Al Read has written a book about the Granary (See cover
on right) and also
agreed to the interview. It is down to Ed that the 'Famous Bristol
Venues' section of Bristol Rocks has come into existence. I hope
that you find it interesting. This was supposed to be an interview,
but my one question was so comprehensively answered by both Al and
Ed, that no further questions were required!
Many thanks to both of them for their help.
"The Granary Club
The Rock Years 1969 to 1988"
by Al Read Published by Broadcast Books 2003 £14.50 from all good
book shops.
Listen to Dialect radio interview with
Al & Ed.
An interview with Ed Newsome & Al Read.
Kevin: Can you
both tell me a little about your history at the Granary.
Ed: After a spell as East of
Eden's roadie in the late 60's (see under Famous Local Musicians),
I realised that it wasn't a living, and packed it in for a day
time job at a Westminster Bank Branch in Bristol. I still had my
van however, and was happy to roadie for any band or lightshow
that needed me locally. I kept in touch with the Bristol music
scene in this way. The Old Granary Club, which very soon became
known simply as The Granary, opened as a Jazz Club in Oct 1968.
Acker Bilk and his brother Dave started it off with Jazz 7 nights
a week. At this time I was loosly involved with the Progressive
Rock nights at the Dug Out Club in Park Row, presented by Plastic
Dog.
Plastic Dog was a loose cooperative of
like minded Bristol musicians including ex-East of Eden members
Terry Brace and Al Read. We quickly found that the Dug Out wasn't
big enough for the kind of music, which we wanted to promote,
and when the Granary Club offered us the chance to use their
grand premises for Rock bands on monday nights, we jumped at the
chance. It really was a grand place back then. In later years it
was sadly neglected, and became notorious for the poor state of
the interior (particularly the toliets !!).
The very first rock gig took
place there on Dec 30th 1968, and featured local band Griptight
Thynn (two members Andy Davis & Crun Walters were to form
Stackridge a year or so later - see under Famous Local Musicians
again). Within 6 months the Monday nights at The Granary were
becoming very popular. By keeping our ears to the ground, reading
Melody Maker every week, and making some good contacts in the
music business, we became astute at booking bands that later would
become very famous indeed. I remember with some awe, even to this
day, the appearances at the club of King Crimson, Yes, Barclay
James Harvest, and Mott The Hoople in June, July, August, &
October 1969 respectively. In those days bands had their own P.A.
systems. The club didn't have a P.A. system, and more by accident
than by design, I found myself involved in setting up a P.A.
system each night, so that we could play records between the live
sets, and introduce the bands. I thus became the first DJ at the
Granary Club.
Gradually the club allowed us to
promote gigs on days other than Mondays, and 1970 saw literally a
who's who of British rock bands sqeeze on to the tiny stage at the
Granary. Van Der Graaf Generator, Wishbone Ash, Skid Row
(featuring a very young 16 year old Gary Moore), Curved Air,
Argent, Slade, Supertramp, and Atomic Rooster were just some of
the bands that played there that year.
It carried on in the same vein in 1971
with appearances by Genesis, Lindisfarne, Robert Palmer & Elkie
Brooks in Da-Da & later Vinegar Joe, Thin Lizzy, Uriah Heep, and
Heads Hands & Feet. There were repeat appearances of many of the
bands from the years before too.
It continued like this throughout the
time that I worked at the club. I hardly thought of it as work. It
was a pleasure and a joy to be involved with the burgeoning
Bristol music scene at that time, and I certainly wasn't in it for
the money.
Terry Brace, one of the founder
members of Plastic Dog Promotions, sadly died last year. He wrote
about our involvement with the Granary Club as follows:-
"Smarter people than us went on to
make big bucks from their involvement with music. Well, maybe not
smarter, just those who kept their eyes on the prize a lot more
emphatically than we ever did. It was all about a brilliant
lifestyle and having massive amounts of fun. We were just lucky
bastards".
Al: When
the original line-up of Bristol based prog rock oddity "East of
Eden" split down the middle in the Autumn of 1968 it left me (guitar
and vocals), Terry Brace (bass and vocals) and Ed Newsom (road crew)
running the bands cosmic and far too far out regular Monday night at
the Dugout Club on Park Row. We were aided by long time friend and
colleague Mike Tobin (he was front man for the Magnettes who played
a major role on the Bristol rock n roll stage for many a long year).
The popularity of the night which, had by more accident than design,
become known as "Plastic Dog" quickly outgrew the small cellar of
the Dugout. A recently opened jazz club in Welsh Back called The Old
Granary had the Monday night free and Mike swiftly talked them into
allowing us (the Plastic Doggies) to move in there.
We had no business plan at the time just a passion for the
music of the day and a genuine desire to create a weekly event that
would be appreciated by like minded hippies. We also had little
inclination to do real jobs. Some how we were in the right place at
the right time and it worked.
I managed a trendy men's boutique on Park Street (all tie dyed
T-shirts and wide flower power ties) and was near a telephone all
day and had a nice address to handle the booking of Granary bands.
The first floor there became the Plastic Dog offices where I ran the
Agency and Terry looked after the Graphics Studio.
The Granary Monday nights attracted some real big names and a year
after our first Granary gig we took over Thursday nights as well.
Mike Tobin had left to work for a major London Agency and Ed, who
had been the DJ on the rock nights, also moved away. Terry became
more involved in the Graphics Studio producing damn good posters,
badges and album covers and then moved the studio away from Park
Street and Plastic Dog was no more.
I moved into an office at The Granary with ³Entertainments
Manager² on the door and a poster of Aerosmith on the wall. I
handled the publicity and advertising, the bookings and played the
records between bands. The rock nights spread to Saturdays as well.
In February 1978 jazz finished at the Granary and I took over the
Friday night with a rock disco. They turned out to be great nights
and every now and then we (all the DJs who worked at the club over
the years) do it again as "Granareunited" nights in venues around
the city. (See local press and the web site for regular updates,
plug,
plug).
So that was me at the Gran. I was, in the latter part of my
hairy and drunken time there, also the club's licensee which kinda
put me in a spot when I found drugs being openly sold on the
premises. My efforts to get the dealers barred were thwarted by the
management at that time so in 1982, with my license still intact but
some sadness in my heart, I left the club for the relative sanity of
Radio Bristol (I had been presenting weekly rock shows for the Beeb
for several years). The Granary continued for six years
after I left and closed in 1988.
In the years from 1968 to 1982 I had been responsible (along
with the
other Plastic Doggies in the early part) for presenting YES : KING
CRIMSON :
MOTT THE HOOPLE : CURVED AIR : ARGENT : SLADE : SUPERTRAMP : ATOMIC
ROOSTER: GARY MOORE : THIN LIZZY : DEF LEPPARD : FOCUS : BARCLAY
JAMES HARVEST :STATUS QUO : GENESIS : URIAH HEEP : ROBERT PALMER :
JUDAS PRIEST : MANFREDMANN : BEBOP DELUXE : SQUEEZE : AVERAGE WHITE
BAND : MUNGO JERRY : ALEX HARVEY : IAN DURY : DIRE STRAITS : JOHNNY
COUGAR : PAUL YOUNG : GINGER BAKER: BLUES BAND : BILLY IDOL: CARAVAN
: STRANGLERS : MOTORHEAD : UFO: IRON MAIDEN : GRAHAM BOND and
hundreds of local, national and international rock bands which had
put the Granary on a par with the Marquee Club in London and Mothers
in Birmingham.
My last booking go the club was ROBERT PLANT's first solo gig
after Zeppelin which I thought was fair enough finale. After all
before the Granary I was just the former lead singer for a band
who's only hit was an instrumental!
Hope this is okay, get back to me if there is anything further
needed for this piece.
This is the standard press info if it's useful
The Granary was built in 1869 and the 10 storey building is the
perfect example of Bristol Byzantium architecture. In 1968 it became
a jazz club started by jazz musician Acker Bilk. Later on it was
part owned by international yachtsman Tony Bullimore. On the British
club circuit it was on a par with the OMarquee¹ in London and
OMothers¹ in Birmingham and featured the major groups on the music
scene throughout the Seventies and Eighties including DIRE STRAITS,
ROBERT PLANT, YES, GENESIS, THIN LIZZY, SUPERTRAMP, IRON MAIDEN, DEF
LEPPARD, SLADE, STATUS QUO, MOTORHEAD, GARY MOORE, JUDAS PRIEST,
MOTT THE HOOPLE, ELKIE BROOKS, ROBERT PALMER and hundreds of local,
national and international rock bands.
The author of ³the Granary Club - the Rock Years 1969 to 1988, Al
Read, has spent a lifetime as part of the city¹s entertainment
scene. He started what was probably Bristol¹s first pop music club
in 1957 at the age of 15 in Filton. After playing and singing with
several local groups he became a member of progressive band East of
Eden . Along with three colleagues he started promoting rock events
at the Granary in 1969. After the others had moved on Al stayed at
the Granary booking the entertainments and acting as DJ. Al also
joined BBC Radio Bristol in 1976 and was one of their team of
presenters for 16 years.
In 1999 Al came across a pile of old files containing details for
every band that played at the Granary in the early years and the
basis of the book was formed. It is the result of four years of
research into the musicians, artists and general music freaks who
grew out of the place. It catalogues how virtually everyone apart
from David Bowie and Pink Floyd tripped on the steps of the tiny
wooden stage at one time or another. It's a trail through a dozen
music genres from jazz and blues, through progressive and heavy rock
via pub rock, high energy R&B, new wave and punk.
³The Granary Club - The Rock Years²chronologically details all the
bands that played at the Granary and how much they were paid plus
photographs, visuals and memorabilia along with anecdotes from the
artists and the club members.
Read it and weep for the years of your youth!
The Granary Club - The Rock Years is published by Broadcast Books in
paperback at £14.50.
East of Eden had chart success in 1971
with ³Jig a Jig² which went to number
7. Leader and violin player Dave Arbus also featured on several
tracks by
The Who, most notably the instrumental passage in ³Baba O²Riley².
