music

A packed room for our 61st SMART coffee meet. Among the newbies this time were Roger Ferris, Ray Barry, John, Robin and Caroline Hayter, Paul Coleman, Tony Powell and others!!  Roger plays with popular blues jazz duo Smokestack. He had some wonderful stories to tell including when he was second engineer on The Beatles album Let It Be at Abbey Road Studios and Phil Spector gave everyone a present at the end of the recording and he got 200 Benson & Hedges! He also wrote songs for Arrows, Racey, Smokie and others and has Joe Meek’s 1963 Framus Star Bass guitar. Ray was in conversation with Eric Harmer and Dave Boutwood talking about the old town in the 50’s and the fishing community and also memories of Priory Road School. John had happy memories of The Witch Doctor, Robin was talking about the success of his recent film ‘Polo’s Dream’ which was recently shown at St Mary In The Castle Hastings Rocks film festival. Also the many films and tv series he has appeared in over the years and Caroline had happy memories of seeing The Rolling Stones on Hastings Pier. Paul was chatting about The Kult  and Unabridged Telephone Directory, and Tony who was manager of The Witch Doctor from 1964 to 1967 came along with lots of interesting photos, including a photo of him standing in front of The Who poster 1965, ‘I know’ The Witch Doctor flyer, photo of his group Texans, Stonefield Road bike mob and many more. Mo have Level 42 tickets from 1983 and more rare collection of DJ business cards including Sight & Sound Roadshow, The Golden Hind Roadshow, Al Cohol Disco, The Mik Kasey Soundshow, Domino Disco, Colin’s Pick a Disc Roadshow, D.C./Southern Sounds, The D.C. Discotheque, Second City Disco, Silver Sound, Johnny Francis roadshow.  Dave Jenkins had an great book called ‘Liverpool Music Roots memorabilia collection of Bob Wooler. Monica Bane had memories of The Rhythm Aces, 2 piece who played on Winkle Island on carnival days in the 1950’s. They were Arthur and Gordon Miles who run the lawnmower shop in George Street. Arthur played the piano and Gordon played the accordion and magic saw. (Anyone got any photos).  Rod Evans had a photo album of the many groups he has sung with and also a very early photo of The Swan Minstrels which featured him and others from Clive Vale Secondary Modern School, Githa Road. Merv Kennard  has found another business card from Terry James Arrow Fm as well as keyrings. Dave Muriel had some more publicity photos from his book and more details on the Hastings Art School and Mick Knight was talking about his ABC Acoustic Blues Club at The Jenny Lind. Nan was talking about albums that you buy just for the sleeve. Pete Prescott was reminding people that the Ray Fenwick tribute is on Wed 3rd August.  Too many other people to mention.  Thank you for your support and pleased to say the website had 12477 hits in June. If you had anything interesting you were talking about then please feel free to add and if I reported anything wrong then please advise.

Monica Bane… Enjoy this get together today. Thanks Alan. Monica x

Stephen Moran… I’m really sorry I couldn’t get to todays SMART coffee meet Alan, I look forward to reading your report.

Ray Barry… My first time made to feel very welcome , I’m not a musician ,I went for the retro talk and meet up with musicians, and some of these guys went to Priory Road, some before me, some after me, a great 3 hrs of reminiscing. My thanks to Colin Tapp who I went along with. Look forward to the next meet .

Lucy Pappas… Great meet-up today, Al. Thanks for organising it all x

Wendy & Graham Weaver… We didn’t sign in Alan. Every time you brought the list over you got called away. Nice to see so many people.

Mick O’Dowd… What a Meet! At first it looked as if no-one was coming and then it seemed as though a coach pulled up outside and there was a tsunami of people! Great to see so many newbies there. Some very interesting chats with several people who I haven’t really chatted to before. Thanks Alan you did us proud again! Bet your hands were sore after all that scribbling of notes you were engaged in. Get a dictaphone maybe!

Geoff Peckham… No, Mick. I’m sure his hands are perfectly adequate…. A most enjoyable afternoon. Thanks again, Alan. x

Cris and Merv Kennard… Might have to take over the theatre at this rate.

Mick O’Dowd… What an interesting guy that Roger Ferris is! I think the only thing he was not involved in was the invention of The Ferris Wheel, but then again he has only been to the Meet once so maybe this is for afters. Really nice guy.

Tony Davis… Sorry to miss it.