COCONUT MAT | Coventry Bands 1960’s to Now

COCONUT MAT

COCONUT MAT (Heavy Metal)
circa 1970 Source Hobo and Errol McGrath

Line Up – Left to Right

Martin Barter (keyboards) Errol McGrath (Lead Singer / Guitarist) Terry Price Drummer / Billy Campbell (Bass)

Errol McGrath told us

“Terry Price and I formed the band. I was the lead singer and guitarist with the band, Bill Campbell (Bass) was with ‘Eggy’ at the time playing with Roger and Nigel Lomas but they were in the process of splitting. Myself and Terry went to audition Martin Barter (Keyboard) at his home, Martin was a lovely guy and we were impressed immediately.

We enjoyed a limited success playing many of the rock clubs around the midlands and supporting some headliners ‘Status Quo’ etc. When the band split Terry went on to work (road manager –I think) for the glam rock band ‘Sweet’ and then ‘Wizard’ (aka Roy Wood). He moved to the US (Beverley Hills no less) and became vice president of ‘Tasco’ the PA hiring company, the last time I saw him he visited me in Coventry on his way back from Germany organising Elton John and Tina Turner tours.

We played a cross section of heavy rock stuff, some we wrote ourselves others were covers of top bands of the times and some you might not class as heavy rock i.e. ‘Ride My Seesaw’ (Moody Blues), ‘The Kids are alright’ (Who) even a heavy version of ‘River deep mountain high’. The bands we liked at the time were ‘Deep Purple, ”Led Zepplin’, ‘Blue Cheer’, ‘Naz’.

I went on to form a club bands ‘Amber Sin’ and ‘Streetlife’ and played most of the WMC’s in the midlands. In 1986 I moved to Bournemouth and formed a club band with my son ‘Lloyd’ (14 years old) on lead guitar (he was better than me). I currently play solo gigs in pubs.” “Other act we supported were Jeff Lynn, Status Quo, Pink Floyd etc.”

Memories from Trev Teasdel

Coconut Mat opened for Wandering John at the Walsgrave Pub gig (Pete Waterman’s venue)
and this where i saw Coconut Mat.

c 1970. I was introduced to Coconut Mat by Pete Waterman while we were both working for the GEC (General Electric Company) Stoke works Cov. Pete of course wasn’t world famous then although he was already a centrifugal force on the Coventry music scene – as a former R & B singer in the 60’s band Tomorrow’s Kind and Coventry’s top soul music DJ – 7 nights a week – on top of a full time job in wiring dept of the GEC! Pete certainly earned his success by hard work, the night shift of DJaying being the enjoyable bit!

Pete had just put music to my latest lyric A Lotta Rain is Fallin’ I had written at the GEC and Pete then introduced me to Billy Campbell who was the bassist with Coconut Mat and also worked at the GEC. Coconut Mat was a heavy rock outfit at the time when bands like Black Sabbath, Free and Led Zeppelin were arising on the national music scene.

(Pic show Martin Barter (left) as he is today playing keyboards with folk band Shkayla)

I didn’t know Bill’s background at the time until I read it on the Broadgate Gnome Music site but Bill used to play bass for The Eggy circa 1968 / 69 with Roger and Nigel Lomas of the 1965 hit group The Sorrows. Roger Lomas was later involved in the production side of some the Selecter records.

Listen to the Eggy on Youtube –

The Eggy produced a single which wasn’t a hit – called You’re Still Mine/B: Hookey (Spark SRL1024 1969). The music was described by Broadgate Gnome as ‘Freak Beat’ and vocalist Bill Bates was formerly in The Boll Weevils.

Pete had liked my lyric enough to put music to it and repeat the line ‘There’s a lotta rivers flowin‘ but the sea’s learned how to fly” in the song and on the strength of it asked me to write something for Coconut Mat.

As coconut Mat were a heavy rock band influenced by the current Black Sabbath / Led Zepplin genre, I thought I’d write an evil lyric about living in a rat-race city like Cov with it’s pollutants and hurry n haste.. perhaps with Led Zeppelin style vocals.

Bill turned the lyric down saying ‘you can’t have a hit single with the word Beelzebub in it!’ I had no idea they were thinking about singles! Bill nicked named me Beelzebub forever afterwards rasping it as Beez -le-bub’. Ha 5 years later Queen had a No 1 hit with Bohemian Rhapsody and lo and behold – it had the forbidden word Beelzebub in it!!

Here is the turned down lyric

The City Fires

Amidst the conflagrations
Living substances survive.

Squandering their energies
In the furnaces they thrive.
Making haste that’ll only guarantee
An early grave.

Chorus…

And the cities burn,

And the cities burn
And the cities burn
You’re gonna die
You’re gonna slowly die
You’re gonna slowly die too young
In the city fires
In the city fires
In the city fires.

Preachers scream from the steeple
That we’re heading for hell
But tell me people if this place ain’t worse than hell.
Making waste that’ll only guarantee an early grave.

Bridge..

The evil witch has cast her jinx
Beelzebub now rules.
Pandemonium’s the song he sings
As he swallows all you fools.
And he’s gonna drink your blood
As your bodies slowly burn

Chorus repeat..

By Trev Teasdel 1970

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