Demolition

Pete Sandford tells the story of Demolition: Myself, Matt Emulsion (Steve Holmes) and Split Belsen (Paul Davies) were all regulars at the Lodestar – a pub/ nightclub/ music venue in Ribchester, just outside Blackburn. Saturday nights were always heavily based around Roxy Music, Bowie, Dr Feelgood etc but everyone was always open-minded to new stuff & it wasn’t long before the first punk records were getting played there.

The Sex Pistols played there in 1976 before they had a record deal. I remember being there in the bar at the other end of the building & reading a poster for this oddly named band the ‘Sex Pistols’ who were playing that night. I’d never heard of them so decided to give them a miss!!! Later I heard they’d been so bad that Andy Grimshaw who had booked them, said he wasn’t going to pay them! After a bit of a fracas, he did pay up. Once I heard New Rose and some early Pistols sessions, I was hooked and it was when I went to The Clash gig at the Electric Circus that I spotted Split in the audience. He had no way of getting home and I had a car so I gave him a lift home & over the next couple of weeks we got together with Matt to form Demolition in May 1977. We first got together in Paul’s (Split) mum’s living room where he just churned out a few chords.

We were driving back to Manchester to see a gig soon after and struggling to come up with a cool name when we went past a building site & I spotted a warning sign saying DEMOLITION. That was it – job done! I don’t know where Jim the drummer came from, I think Paul put a ‘wanted ad’ up in Reidy’s music shop in Blackburn & Jim was the only one to reply. His mum used to bring him down to rehearsals at the Lodestar then sit outside in her car until we’d finished! The only words I can recall ever saying to him were hit the fu**ing things., I think he was into drumming rather than the music if that makes sense.

Split was our main songwriter with such classics as No Feelings, Gangrene, Swastika Girl, Heart Failure, Factory Floor and about another 15 I cant remember. In The Lancashire Evening Telegraph we were quoted as having Dave Goodman interested and wanting to release a double A sided single with No Feelings and Heart Failure.

“I’m a factory whore on the factory floor
Can’t take no more of this factory chore.”

Steve Holmes

I just remembered, there was one more local band – Ian ‘Odgie’ Hodges and Alan Deaves were another couple of regulars at the Lodestar. They formed The Worst around the same time as we were getting going and went on to play a fair few gigs around Manchester. They were great blokes. They came to our first gig supporting the Boomtown Rats and afterwards said I’d make a good bass player for their band. I’d only been playing for about 3 weeks so my style was minimalist to say the least! I can see why it would have suited The Worst, what with Odgie’s real Chad Valley drum kit etc.

Amazingly Demolition blagged their way onto what would have been their biggest gig was in front of 3500 people at Wigan Casino at a Rock Against Racism gig. It was when the Pistols were touring under various different names and the turnout was phenomenal. On the 3rd September 1977 at the Wigan Casino (home of Northern soul all nighters) a Rock Against Racism gig was held with two punk bands The Drones and The Nosebleeds. But what everyone was really wondering was just who were the ‘special surprise guests’ mentioned in the publicity. Could those guests be the naughty Pistols?

There were the four of us plus a couple of roadies. Within about five minutes, out of nowhere came a group of local lads who tried to jump us. Not knowing what was happening or how many of them there were, we proceeded to ‘leg it’ out of there back to the van. Unfortunately, when we got there we found that Paul was missing – they’d grabbed him & given him a bit of a roughing up but nothing too serious. Later the same lads came up to the van & we all got talking. It seems their local paper had printed a scare story about how there was going to be this huge punk invasion that day so, being good, northern soul fans they thought it was their duty to defend the town!!

Sadly, that tip-off from the local paper meant the Pistols didn’t turn up. I don’t know how the crowd reacted as we didn’t stay very long – we knew by then the Pistols weren’t going to play and Saturday nights at the Lodestar were too good to miss back then!

In actual fact the special guests were Exodus and China Street. The audience comprised a full house of marchers (who had been let in for free) and punks some who had travelled miles to see the band. That said there was no disappointment at the Pistols no show and NME reporter Phil McNeill despatched to the gig recorded:

Fortunately it was a great gig anyway. Pistols or no Pistols – but simply because of the spark in the audience mix of punks and marchers.

That night, however, there was violence with numerous arrests, two stabbings and gang riots reported in the local papers. Probably not surprising with the newspaper coverage and that as the gig ended the exiting crowd would have come up against the waiting crowd for another all nighter of Northern Soul . Then again in a town Wigan’s size probably a normal night! 

The demise of Demolition came as Split thought he deserved most of the credit in the band. I as lead singer was getting all the attention and he didn’t really see eye to eye with Pete on bass. The end came shortly after we went down to a recording studio in Coventry where we recorded our first single No Feelings & Gangrene a double A side. What happened to the tape god only knows but it never happened as Pete gave Split a good hiding after discovering him practising Demolition songs with a local band with Split on vocals…an ego had landed…. it was brilliant while it lasted….

Oh and the shades I’m wearing in the Demolition band photo….Another regular at the Lodestar back then was Neil Arthur who went on to form Blancmange in 1979. I got the shades I’m wearing in the photo from him. He made them himself out of bent acrylic. They were dark blue, wraparound & soooo cool! I think I still have them somewhere!

Steve Holmes

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As if you haven’t guessed it – the above article was by Steve Holmes

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