The Inside Story of Viz: Rude Kids. Chris Donald

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       CHAPTER TWO

       The Gosforth

      From the age of sixteen or seventeen Jim and I began to rendezvous in pubs instead of railway stations. We were still loners to a large degree. We’d sit in the corners watching people and pass cynical remarks on their behaviour and appearance. The fact that good-looking girls were going out with other blokes and not us gave us a shared, nerdy sense of injustice. In terms of cultural identity Jim and I were hovering somewhere between being hippies and punks. We both had long hair and wore denims, and sometimes we’d go to the Mayfair Ballroom for the legendary Friday Rock Nights. But neither of us played air guitar. We were only there to gawp at the hippy chicks with their tight jeans, cheesecloth blouses and supposedly liberal attitudes towards sex.

      In our schooldays Jim had displayed a fondness for Steve Hillage, which I could never quite understand, and he once went to Knebworth to see Rush. I was a bit of a Seekers fan myself. Them, the Beatles and Abba. But if anyone asked me I always said I liked Thin Lizzy. I tried to broaden my tastes but most contemporary music didn’t grab me. A friend once suggested I try lying down on the floor, in the dark, and listening to a Pink Floyd album. I did, but it still sounded shit to me. Punk, when it came, was an absolute godsend. The fashion was a trifle severe, but I loved the spirit of it and particularly the fact that Radio 1’s Mike Read didn’t like it. Jim was more a connoisseur of music than I was. He introduced me to The Buzzcocks and The Stranglers and we started going to see New Wave bands. We were still dithering, going to see Judas Priest one week and The Jam the next, until one night our loyalties were put to the test. It was a Friday at the Mayfair and we’d gone to see a mod-revival package tour, Secret Affair and The Purple Hearts. A battle broke out between the Mayfair’s native rock fans and the visiting mods and punks. As chairs started to rain down from the balcony Jim and I instinctively found ourselves running towards the mod end of the room for shelter. It was a defining moment.

      The Two-Tone Ska revival was happening at the time and in Newcastle a new record label had been set up, clearly inspired by Coventry’s porkpie hat-wearing fraternity. The name of the Newcastle outfit was Anti-Pop, and on Monday evenings they promoted bands at a pub called the Gosforth Hotel. Jim discovered the place and suggested I come along the following week. Jim’s musical tastes were still a lot broader than mine so I didn’t hold out much hope for the entertainment, but he’d also mentioned that there’d be girls from Gosforth High School there, and to a couple of likely lads from Heaton Comprehensive the prospect of a room full of high-class teenage totty from Gosforth High was a major attraction.

      The Gosforth was a typical two-storey, brick-built Victorian pub, situated next to a busy road junction in a fairly well-to-do suburb. There was a traditional old codgers’ bar downstairs plus a lounge, and upstairs there was a very small function room where the bands played. The function room was dark, with blacked-out windows, a corner bar that looked as if hadn’t been used since the 1950s, a big round mirror on the wall above a fireplace, and beneath that the band’s equipment taking up about half of the overall floor space. Most of the crowd who squeezed into the other half of the room – and some of the musicians – were under-age, so they’d sneak in the side door, dash upstairs and dart into the function room before the red-faced ogre of a landlord could catch them. He was an obnoxious, drunken git who didn’t approve of loud music and alternative fashion, or under-age drinking on his premises. Every now and then he’d storm up the stairs in search of under-age drinkers, threatening to set his dogs loose in the function room if he found any kids inside.