white rock hotel

SMART 6  another successful afternoon at The White Rock Hotel and very good to see Mick Mepham join us, in between his busy gig schedule. Expect to see some more rare pier posters from him on the website soon. Mick O’Dowd brought along a rare ‘Eurythmics‘ ‘Peace‘ cd inside a stunning book and he’s trying to find any photos or cuttings on the bands ‘Group Therapy’ and ‘Circuit 4’. Various cuttings and photos were handed around but at last Jon McCallion has unearthed the very rare early photos of ‘Muller‘ which featured Jon, Steve Demetri, Paul Wiseman and Paul Dove and later ‘Steve Kinch‘ and Ian Coby’. The band were extremely popular in the early 70’s with Jon a pin up in The Hastings Observer. He reminded us of a gig  they played when an over excited fan took off all of her clothes in front of him whilst he was singing. Jon the constant professional carried on but I’m sure he had a certain glint in his eye for the rest of the evening!  Ray Medhurst was full of stories of when he was a roadie for them and interestingly his son now plays drums in the band ‘Killing Season’. Jon also had a photo of the group ‘Candy Stripe’ featuring Paul Dove, Jed Stacey & Nigel Dance.  Andre Martin took us back to  P.P. Arnold at the collage all nighter on Friday 22nd June 1968. This was his 21st birthday and he received a phone call in the early hours at 02.30 from the pier. Help, John Peel has thrown a fit and stormed off, so Andre rushed down to take over the dj/compere role .

Mark Rymell who’s working on the book of bands who have played Hastings Pier was again bombarded with the same question, when is the book going to be publish? Its a mammoth task to collate and double check all this information but he’s getting close to completion and has some new rare photos recently added. Other talk was the great photos taken by Chris Meachen of ‘John Martyn’ and others, Jimi Hendrix Experience autographs but on the same piece of paper Graham Nash of The Hollies had signed it, so was he back stage that night? Did the Rolling Stones play the Caves at a private party(as reported in the Hastings Observer in 2011)?  Barry Taylor’s working on a write up on the ‘Sex Pistols’ pier gig, as well as writing about working with Fleetwood Mac and other projects.

Impressed by Peter Millington website Jinks The Group, the story of the group from The Confederates to Spyke, to Jinks in 51 years. Finally, the much talked about photo of Harry R & The Jump Jets and the extra member in the band at their shows. A great time was had by all.

Peter James Shaw….Circuit 4! They played at a Hastings Grammar School gig in the first incarnation of The Phoenix Theatre (aptly named) in about 1963…Cliff Brooker, Keith Barren, Merfyn Ashdown and fhe late Tony Hughes…memories lads! The Shadows it was!