{"id":64,"date":"2022-08-19T18:33:00","date_gmt":"2022-08-19T17:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsrainbow.com\/coventrygigs\/2022\/08\/19\/alan-poole-interview\/"},"modified":"2022-08-19T18:33:00","modified_gmt":"2022-08-19T17:33:00","slug":"alan-poole-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsrainbow.com\/coventrygigs\/2022\/08\/19\/alan-poole-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"Alan Poole Interview"},"content":{"rendered":"

 Alan Poole Interview<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

by Pete Clemons<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Alan Poole was, for many years, a distinguished journalist at the Coventry Evening Telegraph – Alan interviews our Pete Clemons aka Fred Bison.<\/i><\/div>\n

<\/i><\/div>\n
\n
<\/a><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

Alan Poole<\/b> (pictured) was, for many years, a distinguished journalist at the
\nCoventry Evening<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n

Telegraph. Along with others he was axed when the paper became
\na more on line based outlet. He had a passion for both sport and popular music
\nand was had vast knowledge in both. Some years ago he spoke to me at length
\nabout a project I had indulged myself in. I don’t think the interview was ever
\npublished. Although I closed down the database I was working at the end of 2020
\nI am still adding various dates to this very day…………..<\/i><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

‘FOR more years than I choose to acknowledge, I\u2019ve been boring people
\nrigid with stories of the night I saw David Bowie support the Rolling Stones in
\nCoventry.<\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

Even now, four decades later, I can still summon up vivid mental
\nsnapshots of a magical evening \u2013 Mick Jagger whipping off his leather belt to
\nslap out the pulse of Midnight Rambler, a bubble-haired, buckskin-clad Bowie
\nperched on a stool as he strummed an acoustic version of Space Oddity.<\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

To paraphrase Ray Davies, it was one of those nights I\u2019ll remember all
\nmy life. Only problem is, that\u2019s not the way it happened \u2013 those memories, it
\ntranspires, stem from two separate concerts, both at The Coventry Theatre but
\n17 months apart.<\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

When I saw Bowie on October 8, 1969, he was, in fact, opening for Humble
\nPie, the short-lived supergroup fronted by Stevie Marriott and Peter Frampton;
\nthe Stones hit town on March 6, 1971 when The Groundhogs supplied the support
\nfor the two back-to-back performances that were the norm in those days.<\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

Those intertwined recollections have finally been unravelled courtesy of
\nPete Clemons, a self-confessed rock fanatic who is compiling a comprehensive
\ndatabase of half a century of gigs in his home city. It\u2019s a massively ambitious
\nproject and he admits that he\u2019ll never know when it\u2019s complete \u2013 but the hobby
\nthat has transformed itself into an obsession began when he, too, was trying to
\npin down the details of a single show.<\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy brother Nigel used to collect the tickets from concerts he\u2019d been
\nto,\u201d explained Pete. \u201cOne of them was for the Moody Blues at Chesford Grange
\nbut he couldn\u2019t remember exactly when it was.<\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI looked at their website and there was no mention of it and when I
\nwrote to them they said they had no record of it. So I went to the library and
\ntrawled through some old papers and eventually found it.<\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat got me interested in the 60s and I realised what an amazing time
\nit was in Coventry \u2013 there would be concerts seven nights a week and on a
\nSaturday you could have half-a-dozen bands playing somewhere in the city.<\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cA couple of years ago I started compiling a list of bands who played
\nthe Coventry Theatre but it\u2019s expanded way beyond those original plans and now
\nit covers all kinds of venues, from Taylor John\u2019s and The Craftsman pub to the
\nRicoh Arena.<\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI must have about 20,000 dates by now but there\u2019s still a long way to
\ngo. I\u2019ve finished the 60s, the 90s and the last 10 years as best as I can; I\u2019ve
\ngone through the 80s but I know there\u2019s a lot missing, and now I need to work
\nmy way through the 70s.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

A telecommunications engineer by trade and still, at the age of 51, an
\nenthusiastic footballer when he can wangle a game, Pete\u2019s love affair with rock
\nbegan in his early teens when his big brother took him along to concerts by the
\nlikes of Procol Harum and Barclay James Harvest. And his determination to
\ncomplete the project gathered pace when Nigel died suddenly in 2008.<\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe was a huge influence on me,\u201d said Pete. \u201cHe went to all those
\nlegendary festivals like Bath and the Isle Of Wight and he had boxfuls of LPs
\nwith fantastic sleeves like King Crimson. But he never took to punk. I
\ndiscovered that all by myself … those amazing gigs at The Locano.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

Courageously for a Cov kid, he admits that he wasn\u2019t too fussed about
\n2-Tone, although when pressed to name his favourite among the countless
\nconcerts he\u2019s attended he plumps for last year\u2019s Specials reunion at The Ricoh:
\n\u201cSome friends bought the tickets as a 50th birthday present and it was a
\nfantastic night \u2013 the atmosphere was absolutely awesome.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

Pete\u2019s admirably catholic taste incorporates superstars (Pink Floyd
\ntaking pride of place), cult favourites (Porcupine Tree, Pineapple Thief) and
\nlocal heroes (Indian Summer, Cliff Hands). And since he began compiling his
\nlist he has reinvented himself into a rock detective, eagerly following up
\nrumours of legendary, possibly mythic, concerts.<\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI played a season with a team called Jah Baddies when I worked with
\ntheir club secretary,\u201d he recalled. \u201cThey had some cracking players and the
\nsocial side was great. We twice went to see Bob Marley and The Wailers at
\nStafford Bingley Hall \u2013 and I recently discovered that Bob once played in the
\narea before he became famous.<\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve also found an advert suggesting that David Bowie did a Coventry
\nshow when he was known as Davy Jones And The Lower Third and I\u2019m looking for
\nevidence that Nick Drake once played here, possibly as support to John Martyn.
\nIt\u2019s easy enough to pin down names and dates at places like The Coventry
\nTheatre, but it\u2019s a lot harder when you\u2019re dealing with pubs and small clubs.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

Pete admits that his family are mildly bemused by his obsession
\n(although his then 23-year-old daughter did allow Dad to accompany her to a
\nStain\u2019d concert at Birmingham Academy) and, having inherited Nigel\u2019s records to
\nsupplement his own collection, he is now contemplating a purpose-built
\nextension to his home to accommodate his hoard of souvenirs.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

In time that might come to include his own publications. \u201cI don\u2019t really
\nknow what I\u2019m going to do with my list when it\u2019s as complete as I can make it,
\nbut I think that there might be scope for some books tracing each decade,\u201d he
\nsays.<\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think there might also be a slot for it on the internet. What this
\nhas proved is that Coventry was, and in many ways still is, an amazingly vibrant
\nplace.<\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt really annoys me when people say that there\u2019s nothing to do here
\nbecause if you go looking for it, it\u2019s there. Wandering John are planning a
\nreunion gig in April, 40 years after they split up, and I\u2019m really looking
\nforward to that!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

Wandering John, needless to say, already feature in Pete\u2019s 50-year
\nalmanac alongside such luminaries as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, U2, Queen, The
\nEurythmics, Elton John, Deep Purple, Cliff Richard, The Osmonds, Oasis and his
\nbeloved Pink Floyd.<\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

The Floyd, famously, played the Locarno on February 3, 1972 as the
\nsecond half of an astonishing double-header that kicked off with Chuck Berry,
\nwho didn\u2019t hang around too long but did find the time to record the
\ninnuendo-soaked version of My Ding-a-Ling that gave him a belated No.1 here and
\nin the US.<\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

If you listen carefully you\u2019ll hear me and my wife-to-be chiming in on
\nthe boy-girl choruses, and trivia fans might like to know that also among the
\naudience that night was Slade guitarist Dave Hill sporting a plaster cast on a
\nbroken leg. Or, come to think of it, was that Led Zep in \u201971′?<\/span><\/p>\n

………………………………..<\/span><\/p>\n

Below Pete Clemons with Trev Teasdel waiting to be interviewed on BBC Radio Coventry 2015<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/a><\/div>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

 Alan Poole Interview by Pete Clemons Alan Poole was, for many years, a distinguished journalist at the Coventry Evening Telegraph – Alan interviews our Pete Clemons aka Fred Bison. Alan Poole (pictured) was, for many years, a distinguished journalist at the … 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\/64"}],"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=64"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsrainbow.com\/coventrygigs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsrainbow.com\/coventrygigs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsrainbow.com\/coventrygigs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsrainbow.com\/coventrygigs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}