Redbeards from Texas - Goodbye T' Jane

A good friend of mine, when I was around 16, got a job at a guitar shop called the Bass Place in Suffolk Street that was owned and run by two members of the Redbeards from Texas and thus my introduction to the band began.  It’s a little tricky to describe the Redbeards act without using the phrase ‘mock ZZ Top’ but it’s fair to say that, particularly in their early days, they really modelled themselves as ZZ Top soundalikes which, at least during that period of the mid-1980’s, wasn’t necessarily a bad thing in terms of gaining a listening audience.

In fact, prior to  actually meeting the band, I do recall reading about the Redbeards from Texas in Kerrang and a few friends of mine told me about a particularly torrid gig they’d seen them play at one of the short-lived ‘Blast, Blitz and Boogie Nights’ at the Birmingham Odeon supporting black metal ‘inventors’ Venom:  whoever thought-up pairing a ZZ Top genre group with a death metal act needed help!

My particular introduction to the band was when a friend asked me if I could help out as a roadie for the day at the Portland Club where the band were to shoot a video for their single Shoot It Up.  I jumped at the chance and spent the day with the band - along with their preferred PA company Tourco headed by Richard ‘Fez’ Ferriday (about whom you can read more as bassist with Cryer) whom I had got to know through Edwards Number 8 gigs - ‘Crazy’ Al King, Tony Smith, ‘Big’ Mick Hughes, Dave ‘Sprog’ and Den York.  It was an eye opening experience and great fun.

The band consisted of:

Morton Pinkley (Ian Allen) - Guitar, Vocals
Wild Hoss Maverick III (David ‘Kink’ Keates) - Bass, Vocals
Bud Weiser (Craig) - Guitar
Duke Delight (Colin) - Drums

Neil Troman - Drums (final tour)

During their time they release several singles from their one and only album - Havin’ a Ball - performed a BBC Peel Session on 25/06/85 and made several TV appearances.  However, despite being a good live act and pulling a considerable audience for their gigs, they were somewhat limited in appeal due to their musical adherence to the ZZ Top mould and their association with their early days comedy gimmicks such as false beards etc which was a pity.

Redbeards from Texas - I Saw Her Standing There

I helped out carrying equipment etc at a number of gigs for them during the mid-late 80s and had a blast - endless Budweiser, practical jokes and far too much running around naked (won’t elaborate further but some of the band’s antics were legendary) ensured a good turn was had by all,  except possibly at a gig at the Kent Custom Classic bike show where Fez pulled the gearstick off the van exiting Toddington Services on the return journey at about 5am in the morning and we had to get the AA to bring us back to Birmingham - which they did, in just enough time for me and Fez to pick up the Tourco PA truck to go off to a gig elsewhere!

The Bass Place was also a hive of activity with many of the City’s musicians shopping there - or at least popping in for a natter with Ian and Kink.

However, by the close of the 80’s the band had called it a day with Ian and Kink going on to form Mazique with vocalist and ex-recording studio owner, Guy Stanway (brother of Magnum’s Mark Stanway) - who had a minor hit with a cover of Golden Earring’s Radar Love - only to reform a year or two later - this time with Neil Troman on drums - for a final (Inland Revenue-related) UK tour. Ian and Kink also had had a song entered to be the UK song for Eurovision but it lost out in the final of ‘Song for Europe’ several years ago.

Museum Collection Racking

As you would expect, over the years Birmingham City Council has built up some ‘overspill’ from its museums that it needed to put into storage.  However, with the closure of the Birmingham Museum of Science and Industry in 1997, considerable storage space was required for a large proportion of its exhibits as only some made the transfer to the Science Museum at ThinkTank: the 1.5 hectare warehousing centre on Dollman Street, Nechells, serves this purpose.

Whilst I opine the loss of the Museum of Science and Industry elsewhere on this site it is of some comfort to know that the exhibits once displayed there are at least in good order and stored as opposed to having been sold off. However, it is not quite apparent what they are being stored for as the Centre isn’t open to the public - only on two days per year - and the Council have made it abundantly clear that a dedicated industrial museum is not a worthwhile use of taxpayer’s money: although I’m sure most of us could think of far less worthy causes that do well from the Council’s coffers!

That said, the Museum Collections Centre contains some real gems and for anyone who remembers the old Museum of Science and Industry, a good deal of memories will be jogged whilst walking around it’s rackings and viewing its vehicles collection - my particular favourite being an electric refuse truck from the 1960s (see below) which, for some reason, caught my imagination as a small boy.

It also needs to be borne in mind that whilst the overwhelming majority of items stored there are from the old Museum of Science and Industry, there are exhibits from the Art Gallery and Natural History Museum here too: a significant porcelain collection is housed here - some items dating back several thousand years BC - along with a shoe collection, a toy collection and various other items and artifacts from various historical periods.

Whilst the Centre is a fascinating Aladdin’s Cave of exhibits and industrial and scientific history, it does beggar the question as to why it’s all locked away out of the public’s view: surely its content belongs to the people of Birmingham and we pay for the Centre’s upkeep and staffing: wouldn’t it be better to make it publicly accessible - even charge a small fee for entry (as opposed to a large one at ThinkTank) - and let people enjoy what’s there? Come on Birmingham City Council, I know you seem to actively pursue a policy of erasing and hiding all traces of Birmingham’s industrial past but surely it’s what made Birmingham what it is and should be celebrated and promoted as a significant part of our regional heritage, not locked away in a warehouse!

Cryer

Along with the Starfighters and Quartz, Cryer were a heavyweight in Birmingham rock music circles.  Constantly gigging, and touring in support of such notables as Gillan and Ozzy Osbourne, the band had a great live reputation - not least due to the extensive use of somewhat unpredictable pyrotechnics operated by roadie Stevie Husband - alongside melodic hard rock tunes.

Formed in 1974 the line up fluctuated over the years but by the time they got around to committing their sound to vinyl in 1980 the line up consisted of Graham Careless (Vocals), Garry ‘Musical Exchanges’ Chapman (Guitar), Stu Clarke (Guitar), Pete Wayne (Keyboards), Richard ‘Fez’ Ferriday (Bass) and Roger Whitehouse (Drums):  previously, Steve ‘Bertie’ Burton had been vocalist but had left to form the Starfighters.

A self-financed single - the Single, aptly enough - was released (with the much better B-side ‘Hesitate’) and an album ‘Set Me Free’ recorded at the Old Smithy studios in Worcester.  However, this album was finally released after the band split in 1983 on Heavy Metal Records who decided to change the name of the band to Force for reasons better known to themselves!

Post-Cryer, Garry Chapman (lovingly nicknamed ‘Frog’) was manager of Musical Exchanges (where I ’enjoyed’ a Youth Training Scheme upon leaving school and was mentored there by Steve Husband) on Snow Hill and can now be found running Professional Music Technology (PMT) on Lawley Middleway, Fez Ferriday formed Tourco (for whom I worked) which operated out of offices next to Musical Exchanges and later premises on Gooch Street, and Graham Careless and Roger Whitehouse formed a band called Force to gig the album material:  I do recall Force in the later-1980s with Musical Exchanges very own Gary Sharpe on guitar regularly gigging at Edward’s Number 7 and 8.

All-in-all a good Birmingham band that enjoyed 10 years of ‘cult’ success but never quite made the big-time.

The Starfighters

A more classic example of a rags to riches - to rags again cautionary tale of the music industry could not wish to be found than that of Birmingham’s Starfighters.  Formed in 1979 the band comprised of Steve ‘Bertie’ Burton (vocals) - previously of Birmingham rock band Cryer, Stevie Young (guitar), Pat Hambly (guitar), Doug Dennis (bass) and Steve Bailey (drums) and followed a very hard rock/ACDC-type groove - understandable with Stevie Young being the cousin of ACDC’s Angus and Malcolm (a band with whom Stevie would tour covering for Malcolm in the late 1980s).

Signed to Jive records (who at that time hosted an eclectic artist list including Tight Fit, A Flock of Seagulls, Billy Ocean and Samantha Fox!), things looked bright for the band.  A self-titled album was released in1981 featuring a raucous blend of hard blues-based rock with Bertie’s rasping, sneering vocals on such track as Don’t Touch Me - a uptempo ditty about a flasher with a penchant for younger viewers - a real standout.

The band hit the pub/club circuit relentlessly and began to gain some press and support slots to some of the bigger names in the hard rock/metal scene of the early 80s.  Often retrospectively co-opted into the ‘New Wave of British Heavy Metal’ genre, the Starfighters ploughed a more lonely furrow - not succumbing to the increasingly bouffant brigade that was beginning to emerge through such bands as the Tygers of Pan Tang, Def Leppard etc - preferring to keep to the tradition of unpretentious, hard drinking rock and roll.

Following the 1983 release of their second album, In-Flight Movie (featuring the Starfighters battle-cry ‘Who Cares’) the band were on tour in the States when they were unceremoniously dropped by their record label . . . and drifted into Birmingham band history.

Fortunately, around 1987 two great things occurred in the history of the Starfighters.  Firstly, Bertie and Stevie decided to give the band another try and reformed - with Rick Sanford (guitar), ex-Surface Jamie Hawkins (drums) and ex-Hostage Steve ‘Redvers’ Hill (bass) - and I met them!  Not that the latter was of any significance in their career but does allow me to introduce a few anecdotes to this tale.

By this time the band were based at a rehearsal studio called The Pits  - having previously been based at a house in Rotton Park Road on the side of the disused railway embankement into which they joked the house was gradually slipping due to the vibrations caused by their extremely loud rehearsals there - which was housed in an incredibly old three storey early Victorian industrial premises on Granville Street backing onto the then-Davenports brewery.  The various floors were accessed via the narrowest, steepest wooden stairs imaginable - almost like long ladders - which I spent a considerable amount of time - in various states of sobriety - falling down and up!  The very top floor contained a ‘recording studio’ and a ‘lounge’ with a pioneering half ceiling which contained Bertie’s bed, as he also lived there.

Regular inhabitants, Bertie aside, of The Pits were a band called Pavlov’s Dogs and Frazer Young - Stevie’s brother - who was an absolute madman and served as the band’s roadie/tour manager/security and just about anything he wanted to be as - despite being of diminutive stature - had a wild temper and heavy Glaswegian accent and, after a few Jack Daniels, could turn from your best friend to your worst enemy in the blinking of an eye . . . remember Robert Carlyle’s ‘Begbie’ character in Trainspotting?  In the bowels of the studio also lurked Phil - a hippie sound engineer with a yellow Luton van and a Tac Blue mixing desk who ran their PA service for local gigs.  Finally, a band from Whitehaven - Teacher - along with a couple of girl friends of theirs - had also come down to live in Birmingham and various members of them and their entourage also kipped down there most nights.

Anyway, back to the band! I got to know them well through working for a PA company and getting to know Phil and through working at Edward’s Number 8 nightclub where Bertie would come for a drink from time to time.  Further, I also did bits of roadie work for a band called the Redbeards from Texas who were long-time mates of the Starfighters . . . if I was particularly drunk and/or too skint to get home from the City Centre, I’d stagger up to The Pits at any time of the night and be given a sleeping bag and a mug of coffee . . . Bertie was an incredibly hospitable chap!

I saw them a few times in the late 80’s era at Birmingham University, an incredibly good turn at the Portland Club in Ladywood along with the Redbeards, and at an Edward’s Number 8 organised metal all-dayer at Goldwyn’s nightclub which, again, was an absolute knockout.  Their energy live was incredible and boy could Bertie sing - and drink, his trademark bottle of Jack Daniels on stage during the set - and spike Rick Sanford’s pint with something rather hallucinogenic causing Rick, mid-gig, to do something rather unseemly in a plastic cup on stage . . . but we won’t go into that any further!

It was during a very late night intoxicated chat with Bertie that I asked what happend to the ‘Mark I’ lineup on their US tour.  Apparently, the band spent their entire US tour’s money from the record company within the first few days of the tour and then when they contacted Jive for more funds, on the back of a few other ‘issues’ with the band,  were swiftly dismissed from the label.  Unfortunately, they had no money to get home so a couple of the band had to get some casual work to get the money together to fly home!

Apart from feeling very lucky to have been around the band and having seen them live - as they were truly a great live act - they were also responsible for one of my biggest regrets.  One night I was at The Pits with ex-Cryer bassist Fez Ferriday and Metallica sound engineer (Big) Mick Hughes having a beer and a chat with Bertie between a sound check and a gig at either Edward’s or Goldwyns.  Apparently a couple of minutes after we left, long-time friend of Bertie’s Ozzy Osbourne turned up for a binge - still gutted to this day that I missed that as Ozzy is another ‘hero’ of mine!

The ‘Mark II’ line up of the band was all too short lived and split in 1989 with Bertie going on to form the E-Numbers who were - whilst good live - more of a traditional blues band and not of the high-aggression and energy of the Starfighters.  In more recent years Bertie fronted Vincent Flatts Final Drive who released several albums (all of which appear to be now only available second hand) and toured relentlessly through Europe and the US with their southern rock stylings.

The last contact I had with any of them was with Pat Hambly - who I hadn’t known during his period in the band - who runs a gents hairdressers (Hair Razors) on Weoley Castle Square.  I went in for a trim and saw a Starfighters poster up on the wall so asked where he’d got it from - as soon as he said he used to be in the band it clicked who he was (second from left in the above photograph) and we had a good old natter about the band.

Shame they’re not still going - as I’m sure anyone who saw them live would agree - and I’ve no idea if Bertie is still gigging:  if anyone knows please post the details.  Both their albums have been released on CD too for anyone interested - I’d recommend them - with bonus tracks not on the vinyl releases and are available from the US on Amazon.

As for The Pits, things went a little downhill following a gig at the Powerhouse when the PA - engineered by Phil - was far from up to scratch and he was last seen being chased down Ridley Street by Fraser Young with a piece of 4 by 2 in his hand.  The studio building has sadly long been demolished and is now a complex of appartments.

Birmingham and Midland Eye Hospital - corner of Church Street and Barwick Street

Opened in 1883 to accomodate the hospital’s move from Cannon Street in 1823, the building - designed by Payne & Talbot - is fortunately still standing and is a prime example of Victorian Architecture as can be seen above.

As with the other City Centre hospitals - the building was insufficient to cope with today’s demands of a hi-tch hospital and a move to more centralized, multi-disciplinary hospital sites (and now ‘Super Hospitals’) swept in during the 1970s and gathered pace during the 1980s and 90s;  the days were numbered for the specialist hospital. Along with the Birmingham and Midland Ear, Nose & Throat Hospital a few hundred yards away and the Birmingham and Midland Hospital for Skin and Urinary Diseases, the hospital’s function moved to Dudley Road ‘City’ Hospital and the building was vacated by the NHS.

In 2000 the vacant building underwent a major refurbishment and opened as the 600-room Hotel du Vin - a ’boutique hotel’ (no, I’m not certain what that is either) and the long-term future of this impressive Victorian building has thus been assured.

Birmingham Skin Hospital - John Bright Street

Opened in 1888 - following transfer of facilities from Newhall Street which began operating in 1881 - the Birmingham and Midland Hospital for Skin and Urinary Diseases operated from its John Bright Street base for nearly 100 years before its work was transferred to George Road Edgbaston and is now part of the Dudley Road ‘City’ Hospital group.

The hospital, as the name suggests, concerned itself with all manner of skin ailments and diseases and operated both an in and out-patient department from the site which was purpose built to house the hospital for the princely sum of £5,000!

Interestingly, the entrance for woman and children was via John Bright Street - as seen above - whilst the entrance for male patients was via the rear of the building on Beak Street (see below) - presumably to save them the embarrassment of being seen entering through the main entrance by women and children due to the moral incorrigibility of more ‘urinary’ related issues!  For in-patients, the ward originally held 21 beds and there wee also medicated bathing facilities to be found in the basement of the building.

With the move to consolidate specialisms within large, multi-disciplinary hospitals - and due to the building itself not being suitable for the modern hospital - closure came during the early 1980s and the building lay derelict for several years.

Whilst working at Edward’s Number 8 nightclub, which adjoined the hospital, in the late-1980s the building was acquired by either Edward Fewtrell or Ansell’s Leisure shortly after their takeover (I can’t precisely recall) and we had keys to the building as it was being used to store a few bits and pieces from the nightclubs and bars.  Naturally, we spent many hours exploring the old hospital which was left in remarkably good condition inside with a lot of fittings and furniture still in place, along with signage etc.

Our greatest find - whilst mooching around in  the dark in the basement area - was a wooden hand cart that was shaped like a coffin:  no idea how old that was as I presume it had been ‘retired’ to the basement many years prior to the hospitals closure . . . at least one would hope so!

Some time later the building was opened as The Hospital - another bar in the by-then rapidly declining John Bright Street bar/club area, killed-off by competition from Broad Street, pedestrianisation and the moving of major bus termini to more central points in the City - which ran for a relatively short period before closure.

Whilst apparently not a listed structure, it is still standing and, externally at least, in pristine condition as the photographs here show.  I am unaware as to any function served by the building itself and assume it is vacant as no external signage indicates otherwise but sitting,a s it does, in one of the City’s development areas I would posit its conversion to offices imminent.

Birmingham and Midland Institute - Margaret Street

The Birmingham and Midland Institute was founded in 1854 with a mission “for the Diffusion and Advancement of Science, Literature and Art amongst all Classes of Persons resident in Birmingham and the Midland Counties” and operated from a purpose built building in Paradise Street - a short distance from its present-day location - which was swept away with the redevelopment of the City Centre in 1965.

The Instituter’s present-day home on the corner of Margaret Street and Cornwall Street, as seen above, was built in 1889 and designed by Jethro Cossins, F. B. Peacock & Ernest Bewley (the former two also designing the nearby Birmingham and Midland Ear, Nose and Throat Hospital).

The work of the Institute is varied but basically falls into the educational category of providing lectures, seminar rooms for hire and maintaining a 100,000+ book and 300,000+ record library for the use of its members.  It also publishes a BMI Journal containing educational and scientific articles periodically. For those of you wishing to find out more about the working of Institute itself, please visit the Birmingham and Midland Institute website.

The building is now Grade II listed which, as can be seen elsewhere in the City, isn’t a cast-iron guarantee that it won’t be majorly reconstructed - or have it’s guts ripped out to leave just a facade into which something far more bland will be built - but with the BMI still in residence and their appreciation for the history of the City along with their stated aims it is fairly certain that as long as they are there, the building will remain in the great condition it is in today.

Birmingham Ear and Throat Hospital - Edmund Street

Opening in 1891, the  Birmingham & Midland Ear, Nose & Throat Hospital in Edmund Street is one of a handful of what we would now call ’sepcialist’ hospitals that were constructed around the City Centre during the 19th Century.  Designed by Jethro Cossins and F. B. Peacock, the building today cuts an impressive figure as can be seen above.

The hospital closed in 1989 with a move to concentrate all medical treatment into a small number of large hospitals in the suburbs - Queen Elizabeth, East Birmingham etc.

I remember going there myself for some allergy testing in 1976 and it was incredibly antiquated then and a warren of tiny, high ceiling rooms:  I don’t whether or not their wards were operational at that time - or if indeed they took in-patients at that time, or whether, as it seemed, they just ran a series of clinics and day-patient procedures:  any further information would be greatly appreciated.

Whilst an impressive building, its interior was far from suited to being a modern hospital and accommodating the equipment and data systems needed for treatments today, not least due to its fairly restrictive size.

It is good to see that the building now enjoys Grade II listing status so will hopefully be around for many years to come albeit in a somewhat reduced form as it does now have a glass office edifice rising from the middle of it which, apparently, was designed to complement “beautifully the listed facade of [the] cherished building” - according to E.H.Smith who supplied the ceramic glazing tiles for the ‘One Eleven Edmund Street’ development within the facade of the hospital under the guidance of Glazzard Architects in 2001.

I, on the other hand, have a very different opinion of the ‘complementary’ nature of the construction . . .

Farclose House, Springbank Road - Awaiting Demoliton 18/10/06

The City of Birmingham has a great time-honoured tradition of replacing substandard housing with soon-to-become substandard housing - see the results of  inner-City slum clearance around Aston, Newtown and Nechells for prime examples - and where once we had great swathes of the City cleansed of their private hovels to be replaced by the wonders of municipal housing, the reverse process is now at full force with Council housing stock being swept away to make way for largely ’social housing’ (Housing Associations in old money) and the buzzword of urban regeneration -  ’mixed use’ developments.

Farclose House seen above in October 2006 on the corner of Springbank Road and Cambridge Crescent awaiting ‘dynamite demolition’ was built in 1967 as part of the Woodview Estate in Edgbaston - a 13 floor high-rise, symbolic of not only 1960s Birmingham but of the inadequacies of housing construction and planning myopia in the late 1950s and 1960s.

The Woodview Estate has now largely been levelled as part of the sprawling Attwood Green redevelopment project that has encompassed the Lee Bank, Benmore and Woodview estates and - in the  main - levelled them.  The estates themselves were sprawling Council developments comprising mixed storey developments from high-rise tower blocks to maisonettes, houses and bungalows.

The estates grew-up in the 1960s hemmed in by the previously - and to some extent still - affluent residential Edgbaston, the industrial outcrop around Broad Street and the A38.  The realisation that they had, by the 1970s, deteriorated into high-crime ’slum’ areas finally led to the realisation that drastic action was required and the £100+ million Attwood Green project begun. The usual beneficiaries of Council estate redevelopment - Mercian Housing - are joined by Optima Community Association and Crest Nicholson in the project which aims to create over 900 homes and shops etc etc . . .

Whether the new estate will stand the tests of time - or deteriorate as quickly as the previous ones - remains to be seen!

Birmingham Assay Office - Newhall Street

Opening in 1773 following the Hallmarking Act, the purpose of the Birmingham Assay Office was to validate the quality of the previous metal used and to hallmark the item to attest to this measure having been validated (the hallmark indicating the maker and date of item and the anchor symbol indicating the Birmingham Assay Office).  With a flourishing ‘Jewellery Quarter’ at Hockley, the Assay Office was destined to be an increasingly busy place and, interestingly, its first customer was Matthew Boulton who had tirelessly campaigned for the opening of a local Assay Office due to the restrictive practice of having to send all products to London to be assayed.

In 1877, the Assay Office moved to its current location on the corner of Newhall Street and Charlotte Street - opposite the Elkington’s Silver Electroplating Works that was later to become home to the Birmingham Museum of Science and Industry.

An enduring success story in the history of Birmingham, the Assay Office in Newhall Street is today the largest in the World handling in excess of 12 million precious metal items a year!