{"id":21,"date":"2023-07-05T15:10:00","date_gmt":"2023-07-05T14:10:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2023-11-13T04:27:51","modified_gmt":"2023-11-13T04:27:51","slug":"hobo-coventry-music-and-arts-magazine-at-50","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsrainbow.com\/coventrygigs\/2023\/07\/05\/hobo-coventry-music-and-arts-magazine-at-50\/","title":{"rendered":"HOBO – Coventry Music and Arts Magazine at 50."},"content":{"rendered":"

 HOBO – Coventry Music and Arts Magazine at 50.<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Pete Clemons Interviews Trev Teasdel – Co founder and editor of Hobo.<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n


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50 years ago (June 1973) Trevor Teasdel and John Bargent (Bo) launched a Coventry Music and Arts magazine and music workshop called Hobo (John’s name for the magazine<\/b>).<\/span><\/div>\n

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Hub for the Hobo Coventry Music Archive Sites – bands, discos, folk, Umbrella arts club etc.<\/span><\/div>\n
https:\/\/covmusicscenehobo.blogspot.com\/<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n

The magazine was run on a shoestring budget – no funding, and had intended to be a voice for, and build on, the then floundering Coventry Music scene. But Hobo was much more than that and covered a wider range of issues. <\/p>\n

The magazine’s launch was on 30th of June 1973 with an article in the Coventry Telegraph ‘On the Scene’ supplement. <\/p>\n

I asked Trev what inspired him to undertake such a venture and how it all get off the ground. Trev certainly didn’t hold back. I found this a very interesting response:……… <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

Some got involved with the Coventry music scene because they were musicians. I started writing lyrics at school and wanted to find bands that might use them. <\/p>\n

APPLE CORPS <\/b><\/p>\n

In 1969, when I was 18, I was inspired by the Beatles Apple Corps project. I liked that they were setting up all kinds of creative projects, boutiques, films, publishing and the Apple recording studio and that people could potentially get involved. It was very exciting. I was an apprentice electrician at DF Gibbs next to the General Wolfe on the Foleshill Road but wanting to do something more artistic. My friend Keith Murphy and I went camping in Southend for a summer holiday and we spent a day in London, and I took a folder with my lyrics with the idea of calling in at Apple Studios. As we walked down Saville Row Paul McCartney ran towards us looking just as he did on the Get back film with that black beard \u2013 he wasn\u2019t going to stop! In the end we couldn\u2019t easily get past the groupies on the steps and so never went in. Who knows what might have happened had we got in \u2013 everything or nothing lol! Anyway, Apple sowed the seeds (or pips) of building an infrastructure around your base activity and that has been my practice since with so many projects.

COVENTRY ARTS UMBRELLA CLUB <\/b><\/p>\n

Shortly after, while doing day release at Coventry Technical  College, I saw an advert on the<\/p>\n

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noticeboard for The Transcendental Cauldron, a weekend festival of Underground Arts at the Coventry Arts Umbrella Club in Queen Victoria Road. The Umbrella was inspired by events at Drury Lane Arts Lab \u2013 which is where David Bowie started off at. I had to go \u2013 it seemed to me to be the Coventry equivalent of the Apple Corps, but without the Beatles \u2013 although Neol Davies, later of Selecter was involved and later John Bradbury. <\/p>\n

I went with Al Docker, a songwriter and drummer who worked at DF Gibbs. Al knew a lot of musicians on the Cov Scene and the Umbrella asked him if he\u2019d put on the Friday night bands at the Umbrella and Al asked me to help him and I later took over completely when Al formed the band Tsar. So almost from the start I had a role on the Coventry Music scene and also helped Pete Waterman (whom I worked with at GEC) by doing the door at his Progressive Music venue at the Walsgrave in 1970. I wrote a song with Pete and wrote for several bands who later spilt up \u2013 it was hard for bands as they just did the usual Coventry venues \u2013 breaking out of Coventry was so difficult and many of them split up in frustration. <\/p>\n

The first form of a magazine came in setting up a notice board at the Umbrella \u2013 people were always asking me questions like \u201cDo you know any bass players or a man with a van\u201d etc. I got them to post on the noticeboard. Al Docker and I used to network by doing a ‘crawl’ of the music or student pubs like the Golden Cross, The Dive Bar etc. Not to get drunk but to make contacts, gather news on what was happening. – there was no social media then.<\/span><\/p>\n


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The Transcendental Cauldron Arts Festival at The Coventry Arts Umbrella Club<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 October 1969<\/span>
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THE BROADGATE GNOME <\/b><\/p>\n

The first big influence of creating Hobo Magazine came in 1970 when a group of Coventry<\/p>\n

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hippies \/ anarchists produced the magazine The Broadgate Gnome. Suddenly the Coventry music and arts underground scene had a voice! It\u2019s hard to convey how exciting this was at the time- to see people and places you knew in print. Production wise it was no great shakes \u2013 produced on a duplicator at Gnome House on Humber Road, but the monthly magazine embraced both counter culture and local politics and local ceramic artist, Labour Councillor, and curator of Coventry Toy Museum –  Ron Morgan was a regular contributor, but the Broadgate Gnome also covered the music scene \u2013 many of the \u2018Gnomes\u2019 (editors and contributors were more than evident at local gigs and were also huge fans of Wandering John. They got the title from the Gnomes on Broadgate island and the \u2018Gnomes\u2019 were largely influenced by the San Francisco Diggers who in turn were influenced by 17thC Gerard Winstanley and the Diggers who \u201ctried (by “levelling” land) to reform the existing social order with an agrarian lifestyle based on their ideas for the creation of small, egalitarian rural communities.\u201d There were a network of them around the UK. I don\u2019t know how many copies they printed but unlike mainstream magazines and newspapers, they operated on a shoestring budget and reached a select audience \u2013 i.e. young people interested in alternative politics and the local music and arts scene. As such they encouraged readers to pass on \/ share Broadgate Gnome with others and certainly at the Umbrella whoever had a copy would share it with whoever was there at the time. <\/p>\n

I was impressed that suddenly there were people we knew in the magazine, and it connected us to other things that were going on \u2013 remember there was no internet back them \u2013 information travelled by word of mouth. I was also impressed with their ideas for projects \u2013 many of which never got off the ground before the Broadgate Gnome team fled to Brighton after a clash with the powers that be in 1971. However, the ideas they generated resonated with me and Hobo – in part, was an  attempt to keeps something of that spirit going in Coventry in the early to mid 70’s. They don’t get a lot of praise but I have to say ‘hat’s off to the Gnomes’!<\/p>\n

THE DIGGERS HOLE <\/b><\/p>\n

Broadgate Gnome got use of the bomb hole (now built on) outside the Golden Cross for an outdoor Arts Collective whereby local artists could meet and sell \/ exchange ceramics and paintings. I remember this being very popular although only available when the weather was fine! If my memory serves me well Arol was instrumental in this and probably Councillor Ron Morgan. It was a far cry from the pristine walls of the Herbert Art Gallery and run by the artists themselves. In the first issue of Hobo we ran an article on the Minster Gallery at Spon End that was I think an off shoot of this idea.<\/p>\n

THE TRIBAL ROCK COOPERATIVE <\/b><\/p>\n

This pre-dated by 15 years all the Music Collectives that sprang up in the early1980\u2019s. Neol Davies, John Bradbury, Tim James (of Ra Ho Tep) and Roy Butterfield were among musicians who played at gigs for this. The main reason local bands split up so frequently was that they got board playing to the same local gig network in the Coventry area. The Diggers had a national network and set out to arrange gig swaps with the diggers in different towns, enabling bands to play further afield, share resources and find places for the musicians to stay \u2013 usually at someone\u2019s house. To this end they organised gigs at Police Ball room and Warwick University. The gigs were sometimes chaotic, improvised but it was a brilliant idea, if short lived idea.<\/p>\n

THE PIG MOTHER LABEL <\/b><\/p>\n

The Broadgate Gnome even created their own Record label and Wandering John were ear marked to be the first signing using a reel to reel tape recorded at what turned out to be the bands last gig (until the reunion gig in 2010) at the Lanch Polytech. Sadly the recording was flawed, the bass amp blew and the sound was unbalanced and the band split up anyway! Ade Taylor, the bassist still has the tape I believe. After Wandering John split up, the Broadgate Gnome ran an article with Neol Davies and John Gravenor talking about forming a new band called Thundering Pig. This new band might have been the first Pig Mother signing had not John Gravenor the Gnomes fled to Brighton! <\/p>\n

The idea was shelved until Hobo created the archive website on Vox blogs in 2007 and the Gnomes recreated the label digitally and this time round called it The Gnome Label. The first signing was me, myself, to my amazement ie Trev Teasdel with a 17 track CD of cassette or porta studio demos of my original songs. The album was called \u2018Songs from the Coventry Underground\u2019 and had a bootleg feel in keeping with those early times in the 70’s. The album appeared on iTunes Europe and Amazon USA as downloads. The Gnome label published work by Coventry bands and singer songwriters on their Reverbnation site \u2013 including work by Roger Williamson who had worked with Dando Shaft at one stage, Dave Pepper, former leader of Coventry punk band The Xcerts and who had his first gig as  a 16 at the Hobo Workshop in 1974, Kristy Gallacher – a Coventry singer songwriter starting out around 2007, Dennis Burns (of the 70’s band Flood) and others. <\/span><\/p>\n


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That was a summery of some of the Broadgate Gnome’s ideas that were an influence on Hobo. A great gap was left in the scene when the Broadgate Gnome left Coventry in 1971. <\/p>\n

THE MERSEY BEAT <\/b><\/p>\n

Another influence on my thinking was reading about the role that the Mersey Beat newspaper played in the development of the Liverpool scene and the rise of the Beatles etc. There was no way the Broadgate Gnome of Hobo could match the resources of that newspaper, set up on a professional basis but it seemed to me that we needed something to promote and encourage bands and artists in Coventry. By 1973 when Hobo started, Bob Jackson (formerly of Indian Summer and Martin Jenkins formerly of Dando Shaft) seemed most likely to make it although they were no longer in Coventry based bands. However, unseen in the daylight, the forces that formed the later Two Tone movement, were gathering at that time. Neol Davies and John Bradbury had been on the scene and in bands since the late 60’s and Horace Panter and Pauline Black and Jerry Dammers were studying at the Lanch Poly – Horace of course sent a couple of letters to Hobo. In 1974 when we started the Hobo Workshop at the Holyhead Youth Centre, in the basement Charley Anderson and Desmond Brown etc were rehearsing their early reggae and with Neol Davies who briefly joined the Hobo Workshop committee organised a jam session for us – were operating at that time. i remember being on the door at the Holyhead hearing this, then, new music coming up from the basement and wondering if this might be the new Coventry sound – 5 years later it was and magnificently so – wow. Coventry made it eventually!<\/p>\n

UMBRELLA CLUB MUSIC MARATHON<\/b><\/p>\n

Mid 1971, Lindy Watson (Brimstone) and I set about organising the second Umbrella club all<\/p>\n

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night Music Marathon. The first had been held in November 1969 and we thought it was time for a follow on. We advertise in alternative papers like Bit and Friends for bands to play and got a great response from Birmingham. However, after all the hard work of organising it – the Umbrella club informed us that we couldn\u2019t hold it at the Umbrella. They had got notice that the Umbrella HQ in 18, Queen Victoria Road, was due for demolition at the end of 1972 and the local authority were not keen to provide another building to use while the Umbrella put on loud hippy type bands, especially late at night. We tried other venues including the Charterhouse but there was nowhere to host an all-night Music Marathon in Coventry. The Charterhouse referred us to the police and fire brigade departments who elevated it into a Glastonbury type festival – which it wasn’t at all, but gave lots of reasons why we couldn’t hold the event. Crest fallen, and disappointed with Coventry, we moved into a shared musician’s house in Kings Heath for the summer of 1971. The singer who was renting the house was in a band called Ascension and had agreed to play for the Music Marathon.<\/p><\/div>\n

The three months in Birmingham provided time for reflection and exploration. Birmingham had so much going for it \u2013 The Cannon Hill Arts Centre, The Birmingham Arts Lab, Henry\u2019s Blues House (where Black Sabbath and Indian Summer were discovered) but it was the magazines that impressed me. <\/p>\n

THE BIRMINGHAM GRAPEVINE <\/b><\/p>\n

The Birmingham Grapevine impressive me as a well produced Whatz On magazine with all kinds of features on the arts and available around Birmingham in Newsagents, arts centres and the Birmingham Peace Centre. This was certainly a big influence, although smaller scale, I felt Coventry could do with something like this and took note. <\/p>\n

THE BIRMINGHAM STREETPRESS \/ STREETPOEMS <\/b><\/p>\n

By autumn 1972 a new alternative magazine called the Birmingham Streetpress was being<\/p>\n

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produced. The editor in chief was John Keetley but they had a team of editors and graphic artists. It was similar in content to the Broadgate Gnome but amazingly well produced. Birmingham certainly had more resources from layout studios, graphic artists, and cartoonists, to offset-litho presses and distribution outlets. I went over to meet the guys who were based in Moseley. The guys took me to the Birmingham Arts lab where Streetpress produced their layouts. They typed them on the lab\u2019s Electric Golf ball typewriter and did the layouts twice the size ie A3 and had an industrial camera to photographically reduce the size to A4, which gave a sense of more space in the layouts. Over there they had some top-class graphic artists and cartoonists some of whom went to work for mainstream publications – I remember that Steve Bell was around then and later produced cartoons for the Guardian. Streetpress then sent the final layouts to the legendary Moss Side printing press in Manchester, so the production was top class. <\/p>\n

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They also had a sister magazine The Birmingham Streetpoems \u2013 and one of the guys took me over to Bearwood on the back of a motorbike (I was terrified!) to meet the team who produced it. One of them put music to some of my lyrics. They also encouraged my writing sending my work to top alternative poets who ran magazines. I had started to run the Humpoesic Happenings at the Umbrella (poetry and folk were still allowed at the Umbrella, but not bands!). The Birmingham Streetpress and Streetpoems ran some similar gigs in Moseley with local poets and songwriters and big name bands like Graham Bond \u2013 I got to play at some of them, and they would send people over for the Umbrella Poetry and folk gigs in exchange. <\/p>\n

Before Hobo started, I was selling Streetpress and Streetpoems around the Coventry pubs like the Golden Cross and the Dive bar and sending over information about the Coventry scene. However, there was so much coming out of Birmingham, that the Coventry information never got in, so the guys encouraged me to start up a Coventry magazine. <\/p>\n

ON THE SCENE \u2013 COVENTRY TELEGRAPH SUPPLEMENT <\/b><\/p>\n

I so wanted to do a Coventry music magazine, but both my experience and resources were<\/p>\n

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limited. I could write and had contacts on the music and arts scene in Coventry and had noted how the Birmingham magazines worked, but I had no finance or experience in graphics and layout design. I had identified a duplicator we could use at the Hillfields Community Centre and an Offset Litho press at the Left Centre bookshop behind what became Ikea. That printing press was donated to the centre by author and historian EP Thompson who had written The Making of the English Working Class, and was, at the time, a senior lecturer at Warwick University. <\/p>\n

Around April 1973, The Coventry Telegraph introduced new Saturday supplement called On the Scene with a colour cover. We all thought this would be about the Coventry Scene but it turned out to be more of a fashion zine. However it did cover some local music \/ arts related copy. The first of these was an article on the new RU18 Squad. In addition to the drug squad monitoring the pubs in the city centre there was now an underage drinking squad. True underage drinking was illegal and there were problems with drunken fights at places like The Market Tavern, but a lot of the underaged drinkers at gigs were a different kettle of fish. So many young people at that stage rejected the old youth centres and tended to come into the city centre at night or the weekend, to see bands and drink in the pubs where music fans went. Most of them were not in any way criminals in the usual sense but after being bust for underaged drinking, they then had problems with their families, and it also made finding a first job difficult. Most of us thought they should address the problem properly rather than bust them \u2013 eg set up alcohol free gigs in the city centre. The local anger came to a head when a 15-year-old girl was busted and she subsequently hung outside the Golden Cross where the drug pushers managed to get her hooked-on Cocaine. She quickly went down hill and it was at that point that I took the imitative and organised a petition to the Coventry Telegraph in response to their article, outlining all the issues around this and for the Coventry music and arts scene, suggesting the authorities do more for young people and the arts and music scene. I got 500 signatures from pubs like the Golden Cross and the Dive Bar etc and wrote a long letter to the editor highlighting the need for resources for young people and a different response to underage drinking. 500 might not seem many in comparison with online petitions but again there was no internet and anyway it got the editor\u2019s attention, and he assigned a journalist to interview me. <\/p>\n

MEANWHILE \u2013 HOBO! <\/b><\/p>\n

While gathering signatures for the petition in the Dive bar, I came across John Bargent who signed it but said \u2013 \u201cWhy don\u2019t you do your own magazine rather than expecting the establishment rag to represent young people\u2019s cultural needs?\u201d So, I told him the background as above and the reasons. John said he had some redundancy money so could finance a first issue and had worked with Release in London as an adviser, so had experience of the social issues involved and had some basic layout experience and he also ran Rougstar Promotions and Disco and what\u2019s more, he lived nearby in Willenhall. <\/p>\n

So, without much ado we met up and started planning the first issue and John also began promoting me as singer songwriter. <\/p>\n

By this time, mid 1973 \u2013 there was a dip in the Coventry music scene. The Broadgate Gnome had come and gone, the Umbrella had been demolished and still had no base and anyway couldn\u2019t now put bands on, and most of the top Coventry bands like Indian Summer, Asgard, Wandering John, April, had broken up and other venues had gone down (maybe Mouldy Old Dough and Chuck Berry’s My Ding a Ling had got to No 1 in 1972, but the scene needed more venues and support. So there was a lot of ground work for Hobo and others to do. <\/span><\/p>\n


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Part 2 \u2013 A further set of questions that Trev kindly answered………. <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

What was the intention of the magazine?<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n