{"id":436,"date":"2014-03-18T18:52:00","date_gmt":"2014-03-18T18:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsrainbow.com\/coventrygigs\/2014\/03\/18\/when-punk-invaded-coventry\/"},"modified":"2014-03-18T18:52:00","modified_gmt":"2014-03-18T18:52:00","slug":"when-punk-invaded-coventry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsrainbow.com\/coventrygigs\/2014\/03\/18\/when-punk-invaded-coventry\/","title":{"rendered":"When Punk Invaded Coventry"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\nPete Clemons turns his pen to the Punk scene in Coventry – for his latest article for the Coventry Telegraph.<\/span><\/b><\/div>\n

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\nBelow – the Sex Pistols at the Lanch Poly (Coventry University) Arts festival 1976<\/span>.<\/div>\n
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\nTrev Teasdel <\/span><\/b>recalls – <\/span><\/div>\n
\n“Coventry lad – Scon (Steve Connelly<\/b>) – better known now as Ratty Roadent<\/b> joined The Clash <\/b>as their roadie and later joined the Sex Pistols<\/b>. He introduced the Specials<\/b> to Bernie Rhodes<\/b> (and unwittingly caused Gangsters<\/i> to be written when it all went wrong!).  Scon (as Roadent <\/b>he was known in his Coventry days) was involved with Coventry Cathedral <\/i>as a young man and was a regular at the Lanch, working in the cloak room during the Lanch gig nights. I met Scon in 1972 and we used to hang out in the Wimpy bar<\/i> near Trinity Street, writing poetry and lyrics, chatting up the waitresses and discussing the world. Scon recalls those bohemian days set him up for life on the road with the two bands.<\/span><\/div>\n
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\nKevin Harrison of Coventry band Urge<\/b> alerted me and  in 2007 I got e mail from Roaden<\/b>t confirming the story of his joining Clash – Roadent wrote –<\/span><\/div>\n
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\n“<\/span>It is true I did work for the Clash, used to live in the rehearsal room with Joe & Paul ’76\/’77, until musical differences between me and Mick left to my departure just after “White Man…” was released. Then I moved from one rehearsal room to another \u2014 The<\/span> <\/span>Sex Pistols<\/strong>. What times we had.<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n
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\nAfter the Pistols demise, I fled to Germany and had a couple of years acting
for German tv \u2014 high point…”<\/span><\/i><\/div>\n
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The Passions song “I’m in Love with a German Film Star”was written about me, you might remember it. \u00a3 5,000 a month was too much for my liver (that was quite a lot in the early eighties), so I drifted back to “RocknRoll” as a mercenary, journeyman, technician doing onstage sound for: Pretenders, Undertones, Stiff Little Fingers, UB40, PIL, Elkie Brooks, Earth Wind & Fire, Bob Marley, ABC, Bob Dylan, Barbara Dickson (Zal Clemonson of SAHB was in her band!) amongst others. So you see that early grounding in an unconventional lifestyle, living in the <\/span>Wimpy<\/strong>, stood me in good stead<\/span> “<\/span><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

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\nRoadent (Scon)<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n
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\nRoadent’s sketch of Trev Teasdel<\/b> by the Lady Godiva statue, Broadgate Coventry 1972<\/span><\/div>\n
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\nSongs Roadent<\/b> influenced – I’m in Love with a German Film<\/i> star by The Passions<\/b>.<\/span><\/div>\n
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\nRoadent<\/b> continues<\/span>
\n“Whilst working for the Clash<\/b> I had been interviewed for a German documentary “Punk in London<\/i>” After the demise of the Sex Pistols. The director of that documentary contacted me and asked if I would like to be in a tv show for German TV ” Brennende Langeweile<\/i>” (Burning Boredom) featuring The Adverts<\/b>. It was shite but as I had no means of supporting myself so I took the part. After I stayed in Germany, moving to Munich, where I got more work acting for German TV, I always thought I was a crap actor, but they were willing to pay me up to 20,000 marks (around \u00a35,000) a month \u2014 who was I to refuse.) The biggest film was Das Ding<\/i> (The Heist<\/i>) in which me and four mates from the German army stole 250,000,000 marks, but all in 5 Mark pieces. The film was directed by Uli Edel<\/b> who later went on to direct an equally bad actor \u2014 Madonna<\/b>. I have always been touched by the idea of a song written about me, but not so sure about the Foo Fighters<\/b> doing the same.”<\/span><\/p>\n

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\nRoadent went out with Barbara Grogan<\/b> of the Passions,<\/b> who wrote the song about him. There has been a lot of speculation about who the the ‘German film star<\/i>‘ was, bnut it was our downhome Scon or Roadent –<\/span><\/div>\n
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\n“Contrary to popular belief, the German Film Star referred to in the song is not Klaus Kinski, Curd J\u00fcrgens, J\u00fcrgen Prochnow<\/b> or even Marlene Dietrich<\/b>. In fact he was neither German nor a star but a certain Steve Connelly<\/b>, aka Roadent<\/b>, one time roadie for the Clash<\/b> and the Sex Pistols<\/b>. However, he did appear in several minor German films” http:\/\/www.thepassions.co.uk\/german_film_star.html<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
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\nPete Chambers with Roadent in Coventry c 2009 for the erection of the Two Tone Plaque for Mr Georges nightclub in Coventry, where the Specials met Bernie Rhodes.<\/span><\/div>\n
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\nScon (Roadent) <\/b>with Christine Street<\/b> in the Coventry Evening Telgraph<\/i> July 1973. They both worked at Michael Rixom’<\/b>s Hair Salon about the time Bowie <\/b>had his hair dyed. They were the first in Coventry to follow Bowie’s style.<\/span><\/div>\n
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\nRoadent signing an autograph<\/span><\/div>\n
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\nRoadent with the Clash<\/span><\/div>\n
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\nScon in his early days c1972 on the left.<\/span><\/div>\n
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\nThe Wimpy bar hang out in 1972.<\/span><\/div>\n
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\nPete Clemon<\/b>‘s mentions Alternative Sounds<\/b>, another Coventry music magazine which was created by Martin Bowes in 1979 as Two Tone<\/b> broke through in Coventry. Martin championed a lot of the new Punk 9or punk inspired bands of the late 70’s in Coventry and initiated the Sent from Coventry<\/i> album on Cherry Red.<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n
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\nMartin Bowes of Alternative Sounds <\/span><\/div>\n
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\nBelow – A selection of Coventry punk bands from the late 70’s \/ 1980. Roddy Radiation’s<\/b> early band The Wild Boys, V Babies \/ Criminal Class \/ Stu Knapper’s Riot Act  and Terry Hall’s Squad.<\/b><\/span><\/div>\n
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Pete Clemons turns his pen to the Punk scene in Coventry – for his latest article for the Coventry Telegraph. Below – the Sex Pistols at the Lanch Poly (Coventry University) Arts festival 1976. Trev Teasdel recalls –  “Coventry lad … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsrainbow.com\/coventrygigs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsrainbow.com\/coventrygigs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsrainbow.com\/coventrygigs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsrainbow.com\/coventrygigs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsrainbow.com\/coventrygigs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsrainbow.com\/coventrygigs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsrainbow.com\/coventrygigs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsrainbow.com\/coventrygigs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsrainbow.com\/coventrygigs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}