Nipple Erectors
Formed by the gorgeous Shanne Bradley towards the latter days of The Roxy. She was involved with the punk scene from the very start putting on early Sex Pistols and Damned gigs. It was she who came up with the name Nipple Erectors for the band and when she teamed up with the toothy-challenged Shane McGowan writer of Bondage fanzine and well-known face on the punk scene she’d found a soul mate and they were off. Sort of…
Fluid personnel, constantly changing style over their four singles, limited reaction on Chiswick Records who couldn’t afford to promote heavily and last, but not least, their very name which they reluctantly changed. By the time they got going punk was changing so they had to change to avoid being dated and they supported a wide variety of acts from The Dammed to Mod acts like The Purple Hearts to Dexy’s Midnight Runners and Crass!
Paul Weller of The Jam was a big fan and produced the last single Happy Song but it all just fizzled out and they went their separate ways. Shanne would go onto greater glory with The Men They Couldn’t Hang while for Shane the dizzy heights of The Pogues. God bless them both.
This feature was one of the earliest written so dating from the early 2000’s and came from quotes From Vox September 1995, Zigzags 93 (1979) and 99 (1980) and personal interviews.
The Nips Facebook | Site not kept up with loads of info – Licensed To Cool
The Nipple Erectors aka The Nips has always been about Shanne Bradley and Shane McGowan, two prominent punk faces on the early punk scene.
Shanne was involved with the Sex Pistols from their early days. An involvement that was by pure chance.
Shanne I happened to be at Hertfordshire College of Art and Design, St Albans age 16 doing a foundation course and guess what the Sex Pistols gate crashed our Halloween event in 1975. They were so bad I thought it was a kind of ironic take on the 60’s and enjoyed it.
We danced and mucked around. I just happened to be wearing an old ladies salmon pink corset from Oxfam, holster with 2 guns, ripped tights, and outsize ice skating boots topped off with bright orange home butchered hair due to a henna/peroxide chemical reaction.
I was chatted up by Johnny; he made me laugh with his hairy mohair jumper from Sex. I was told I should meet Jordan and visit the shop, was given the manager’s number and after that went to most of their gigs. I even booked a couple more at St Albans.
Sex Pistols St Albans 1976 – Photo Credit Ray Stevenson
Shanne features in the pictures of some key punk events particularly the Pistols like the 100 Club and Screen on the Green gigs.
Sex Pistols Midnight Special – all nighter – Screen on the Green – Islington – 29 Aug 1976. Check me out second row! cropped hair, beret and sequins giving Sioux a filthy look! Shanne – 16/04/02 – Photo Credit -Ray Stevenson
Although MacGowan was born in England, he spent most of his childhood in the Tipperary countryside in a world without amenities but rich in adventure and Irish music. Forced reluctantly to come back from this more idyllic back-to-nature existence to living in a city, it’s no surprise the young Shane hated it.
London is no fun for a kid. To be quite honest, nowadays it’s no fun for an adult. It was bloody awful. There was f–k all to do in London. I hated England and every time I went to stay in England some disaster happened. My parents were unhappy there and no matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t help it rubbing off on me, and I got disturbed. I started having recurring nightmares and all the rest of it. John Kelly, Only the End of the Beginning, Irish Times (26.8.2000)
McGowan surreally won a scholarship to the Westminster Public school before being expelled for possession of drugs at the age of 17. Add in a bout of serious illness, and mental health problems, and the young Shane, like the young Lydon, was cocked and loaded ready for when punk rock hit.
He hit the music headlines at a Clash gig when featured in the NME in November 1976 after a bloody scene with future Modette Jane Crockford was captured at a Clash concert.
Shane Me and this girl were having a bit of a laugh which involved biting each other’s arms till they were completely covered in blood and then smashing up a couple of bottles and cutting each other up a bit. ZigZag, 1986
The dentally challenged Shane McGowan writer of Bondage fanzine was a well-known face on the early punk scene and indeed appeared on the front cover of Sounds with the caption ‘The Face of 76.
He’s also there in Don Letts’ ‘Punk Movie’ in the Union Jack blazer pogoing and bashing on the Jams drum kit at the Roxy Club. A relationship with that band would endure.
How did the two first meet?
Shanne I saw him across the bar.. (an omen) and thought whose that mad bastard on a mission? Those ears! It was a Jam gig at Ronnie Scott’s 1976 I believe. I had just travelled up from Croydon with a new red miniature toy bass that Fred Berk (Johnny Moped bass player) had given me. He and Ray Burns explained the ‘bassicks’ so to speak and I enjoyed my first bass lesson – all the The Damned bass lines – on the top deck of the tedious 68 bus journey back into London.
Then Bruce Foxton broke his bass so I lent him my new toy. I still have a photo from that night. Me, Ray, Shane, Claudio a.k.a. chaotic bass, Adrian Thrills and Harry the Sniffin’ Glue photographer. Well maybe he took it.
Shanne I was Shanne Skratch for a short while in 1976 but usually Shanne Bradley! Also before the Nipple Erectors a piece of little-known history – I was in The Launderettes as Shanne Skratch with Ray Pist and Chaotic Bass (Claudio Magnani).
They all become regulars at the Roxy Club and it’s Shanne who decides to form a band. She already had the name, which let’s face it, gives the Rottin’ Klitz a run for their money in the doomed before you start stakes!
SHANE: “Well, one day, I was playing with her, (Shann), and her nipples suddenly erected, you know… got really big, and I thought, .. ‘That’s what we’ll call our band… The Nipple Erectors'”
MARK: (To Shann) “Is that true?”
SHANN: “Er.. Yeah.. I suppose so”. Skum 6 October 1977
The reality is even stranger
Shanne I had seen Jobriath an American answer to David Bowie. I think his head popped out of a segmented clear plastic globe, very space-age. I had a dream about a band – my dream band – who would look very futuristic wearing skintight rubber body suits covered in nipples I shall go no further! Well the name came from there.
I auditioned Shane in my bedsit, he was Iggy Pop rolling and writhing around the floor totally manic. I thought yes this is our man.
So that was 50% of the band then in place!
A band is pulled together. Rehearsals are in her flat, Arcane Vendetta is on drums using pencils and boxes and a gig hastily convened at the Roxy Club.
Shanne It was a great adrenalin rush to play our first gig with toy instruments. I think we knew everyone in the crowd. The most Diva thing was having those gladioli thrown at us by Ray Burns. It was a magical night for us really strange. Then the strip lights went back on the rotting lino and Paul Weller’s dad was chatting to my mum or something!
Adrian Fox I became a member of the Nipple Erectors as their first drummer. I was actually drafted by Shanne the bassist in May 1977 at a Ramones gig at the Roundhouse to join their band. We used to practice in Shane and Shanne’s flat in Arsenal. I was using a biscuit tin to play on at the time because I didn’t have a drum kit.
I played only one gig. It was their first and it was at the Roxy. It was a pretty dead night. August 77. A couple of The Models turned up and Captain Sensible lent support. A very dead night. 20 people if you were lucky.
Being a woman in music is still a strange thing to men and Shanne suffers the rampant misogyny
Shanne There weren’t that many female musicians around It was tough I felt I had to be able to play harder and faster than a bloke to be accepted and taken seriously. It ain’t funny when ya have a couple of skinheads gobbing ‘atcha for target practise in an empty hall in Farnham, Surrey and the long haired sound man smirking. One bloke even cut off the guitar strings to stop me from playing. That was when I was first learning.
Gigging is infrequent but they still manage to get reviews and be supported in fanzines. they sign to Soho Records who have offices in Andy Czezowski’s James Street block they are renting. It’s here the Moors Murderers/Photons are also rehearsing and The Nips also use Andy’s rehearsal room.
Their first single comes out in June 1978 and not what people were expecting being arguably the first punkabilly song with King Of The Bop. Early songs are classic punk – tracks like Stavordale Road and So Pissed Off are 3 chord distortion-free bouncy punk with a swagger and a groove!
Shanne…”we really want to play a lot of different styles. When Shane went through his rockabilly stage we were called ‘punkabilly’ coz we couldn’t play very well.”
Shanne and Shane were already disillusioned with Punk
Shanne Bleat! bleat! I grew my hair back and went all naturelle for a while and but realised if ya can’t beat ‘em and there’s fuck all else going on you may as well join the Daily Mirror look alikes. A lot of the individuality, initial excitement and humour disappeared and the Sex Pistols got snooty! Everyone turned into a laddish Clash type clone fan or band. All the original creativity had gone; just listen to the music. It all looked violent!
Shane, Shanne and friend at Buckingham Palace!
Shane on Punk..
Nobody knew what the fuck was going on in those days. I got into the turgid debasement of punk rock in its bad days. I was snorting sulphate, spending money on drinks which were over expensive and missing the bands I was supposed to be watching. It was a load of crap in the end.: The Pistols, Clash, Jam and especially The Damned. They summed up the true punk attitude.”
The whole scene was extremely elitist. If you walked into a club wearing the wrong thing you’d be laughed out of the fucking place – you’d have to leave the country….The whole point was to be yourself….but in the end there were loads of people walking around with anarchist signs and spiky hair wearing leather jackets
Indicative of this was the type of bands they were playing perennial support to like err Raped and double errr Crass!
Two months later and a few personnel later, the band shorten their name to The Nips and in tune with the times released the mod/garage sounding All The Time In The World again on Soho Records. It does nothing.
Part of the challenge of the band is that music is changing at a rapid rate and punk has become watered down with bands like The Police and Tourists on the one hand and harder bands like the UK Subs, Cockney Rejects and more hardcore bands on the other.
Top 2 Chiswick promotional photos
Six months separate the next single Gabrielle which is a err …love song and is released by Chiswick. It’s their most commercial offering but strangely comes with no picture sleeve in the UK but one in Spain. Maybe all Chiswick’s money was going to the revitalised reformed Damned who had hit the charts.
The single received some radio plays and the band was a popular support for The Jam (who had stayed fans), Dexys Midnight Runner´s and the Purple Hearts.
By the time they came to the last single numerous people passed through their ranks; Grinny from Skrewdriver (“He just disappeared!” says Shanne).
Grinny Playing with THE NIPS was great. Shane was good fun and we both liked to drink. We all lived in a squat in Burton St. near Euston. We played with THE JAM, who were friends of Shane’s, and I met plenty of interesting people.
Also in transit were Phil Rowland from Eater, Gerry McIlduff, original drummer with the Pretenders, and Mark Harrison from the Bernie Torme Band.
Left very rare picture featuring 50% of Phil Rowland courtesy of Adrian Fox.
In an NME 1979 feature on the band Shane set himself up as the great hope in the face of commercialised music.
The way I see it is that we’re coming up to the ’80’s and somebody’s got to save rock’n’roll from all these prats with synthesizers and a university education and it might as well be me!
Paul Weller of the Jam was a big fan and produced the last single Happy Song but by then the band was no more and Shane didn’t save rock n roll.
Shanne We never had a stable line up it was always me ‘n’ him plus a variety of guitarists and even more drummers who would leave or disappear dramatically so there were plenty of break -ups In 1981 I decided to try and mix up my music. I was in love with Cretan/ Greek music. Soo bored with ‘rock.’ We tried out a fiddle player and a standup drummer. Shane wanted to go more Irish and I didn’t want to join in, mainly because at the tender age of 19 Shane’s dad had intimidated me for many hours with Dubliners records in their smart Tunbridge Wells living room. Though one of the first songs we ever did in the Nips was ‘poor paddy works on the railway!’
I decided to concentrate on my baby daughter Sigrid, finding somewhere to live, that type of thing for a while. I then joined up with Cush and Swill to form the Men They Couldn’t Hang and later played with Wreckless Eric and a cast of millions
NME, March 22, 1980 The Nips tell Adrian Thrills of their untimely demise.
Shanne We were just sick of each other and I hated the music The Nips were playing. Shane and I weren’t communicating. We were just beating each other up all the time.
As to Shane, he went on to start a little rudely named band called Pogue Mahone and like before shortens the name but this time does hit success and even writes among many other great songs, arguably the greatest ever alternative Christmas song.
Shane If we ever make it, it’ll be down to luck because we’ve been dropped by everyone who’s ever dealt with us. I dunno I suppose we’re just cunts really. 1980
Shane on not singing any of Shanne’s songs ..” I don’t agree with a lot of what she writes about…I write about healthy teenage subjects such as sex and violence and getting pissed. When I was excited in the punk days, I wrote about being bored. Now that I am bored, I write about being excited. It’s a rock’n’roll fantasy.”
King Of The Bop / Nervous Wreck
(Soho Records May 1978)
It’s a bona fide punky classic especially the b side but the punkabilly a side comes damn close as well.
Shane: “When we recorded ‘King Of The Bop’ we were all on drugs and Dragonella was in a coma.”
Shanne on ‘King Of The Bop’… “When we made our first single we all thought, ‘Great, we’ve made a record’, but as for what’s on it, well….I just don’t like it all. I don’t care too much about records now, anyway. I prefer playing live.”
If you haven’t got it why not? Produced by Stanley Brennan
All the Time In The World / Private Eyes
(Soho Records September 1978)
Again produced by Stan Brennan on Soho Records (1978). An album was due to come out on the label but didn’t happen. Shane was happy using Stan. Shanne thought the singles overproduced and wanted a rougher sound. The single? A sort of souped up R&B/sixties garage sound with harmonica added.
Gabrielle / Vengeance
(Chiswick Records October 1979)
Onto Chiswick Records but over a year gap since the last single. This time with a clean-cut pop production making them sound like Joe Jackson or the Cars and yet another different sound and style.
Shane thought it a mistake “… Chiswick fucked it up…I am fucking ashamed to be associated with a silly pop record.. I hate the lyrics now…I wrote a fucking love song….I feel disgusted now whenever I sing those lyrics on stage… I want to drop it but they (the band) won’t let me.”
Says Shanne “….we ought to do ‘Gabrielle’ again because we play it so much more aggressively onstage and that single just isn’t representative of us at all.”
The band was unhappy with Chiswick’s promotion (err not even a picture cover for the UK release) and distribution although Chiswick managed to release the single in Spain!
Happy Song / Somebody To Love
(Burning Rome Records)
Obscurity beckoned with this release on Burning Rome Records in 1980. Even The Jam’s Paul Weller producing couldn’t do anything for it and it sank without a trace. Okayish A-side couple with a dire Buddy Holly soundalike B-Side.
Back in 1977 this young go getter was a regular at the Roxy Club and went by the name first of Randy Bollocker and then Arcane Vendetta. His real name was Adrian Fox and together with his sister, Sharon Spike, they regularly travelled up from Ilford to the Roxy Club and mingled with their gang which include Dij and Pape of Defiant, Adrian Thrills and others.
Adrian was one of the ‘pogo kings’ in the club with Shane McGowan and Claudio who went wild and bounced around the place. Arcane also created the classic punk fanzine ‘These Things’ which ran for 4 issues but that’s another story!
The photos below of The Nipple Erectors were taken in June & August of 1977. Click for larger images.
Shanne Bradley This is on the roof of my freezing musty bedsit in Stavordale road, Drayton Park N5;the place I wrote the song about..Stavordale Rd N5. The greasy chip shop in Holloway Rd and the Arsenal were a short stagger away.
Frenchie (the girl in the black motorcycle jacket) was a good friend from Norwood she was the other singer and rhythm guitarist /sax player in the original get together for The Nipple Erectors.
These pics feature the Watkins /Wilson toy bass I had just bought for £35 in Halligan Heapes studios in Holloway Road. Oh how we larfed!
Adrian Fox: I became a member of the Nipple Erectors as their first drummer. I was actually drafted by Shanne the bassist in May 1977 at a Ramones gig at the Roundhouse to join their band. We used to practice in Shane and Shanne’s flat in Arsenal. I was using a biscuit tin to play on at the time because I didn’t have a drum kit.
I played only one gig. It was their first and it was at the Roxy. It was a pretty dead night. August 77. A couple of The Models turned up and Captain Sensible to lend support. A very dead night. 20 people if you were lucky.
Shanne Bradley There were probably more mates from bands (now punk icons..) and their parents. Dear Mr Weller always supportive, turned up with his whole family. A very Diva initiation we were pelted with flowers, gladioli perhaps? Thanks to the lovely Mr Ray Burns.
Shanne & Shane – Holborn 1977 taken by Mick Hurd outside Central School Of Art
Reading the old quotes from Shane and Shanne you’d think they hated each other or were in a punk Fleetwood Mac soap opera.
In the NME, March 22, 1980 The Nips tell Adrian Thrills of their untimely demise. Shanne reveals:
“We were just sick of each other and I hated the music The Nips were playing. Shane and I weren’t communicating. We were just beating each other up all the time.”
Whatever never having a stable line up and arguments over direction saw them never permanently hook up. But there’s a deep well of romanticism in Shane and the Irish do like a good tearjerker and years later Shane wrote the words and tune for Rainy Night In Soho.
The song reflects on Shane & Shanne’s punky past both as young punks going out to gigs, pubs and clubs around Soho and as a band that used to rehearse in ex-Roxy Club owner Andy Czezowski’s James Street basement nearby. That same building also housed Soho Records which would release the Nipple Erectors first single King Of The Bop.
Shanne Bradley Rainy Night In Soho’ the song that Shane wrote for me about our times in Soho. Those long nights after The Roxy Club and other venues when there were virtually no night buses or taxis or money for them. Facebook Post March 2024
Shane MacGowan Trash is what we’re really about. I’ve always lived around the Soho part of London. The side that’s full of pimps, whore and junkies…..there are no records that really capture the trashiness of London. Quote from God knows where
Nothing could come in between Shane and Shanne – well except a sheep outside Buckingham Palace obviously!
But more specifically it’s seen as an enduring torch song for Shanne.
A Rainy Night in Soho was written by Shane MacGowan and was originally included on The Pogues’ 1986 EP ‘Poguetry in Motion’, produced by Elvis Costello. It has been described as ‘a love song in the purest sense’ and ‘a most beautiful declaration of scarred love’.
The lyrics describe a close, loving relationship that lasted ‘down all the years’ and even though circumstances have now changed, he still hears her talking in his head and she remains, as he so poetically describes it, – ‘the measure of my dreams’. The song is usually interpreted as a love song to musician and one-time bandmate Shanne Bradley with whom Shane had an on-off relationship from the late seventies to the mid eighties. Pogue guitarist, the late Philip Chevron, described how ‘Shane was still getting over Shanne when he wrote’ the song and believed ‘it was part of the process of coping with his torch for Shanne’. RTE, A Rainy Night In Soho, 22.05.2019
It’s a beautiful song and the two remained friends right until his sad demise in November 2023.
A Rainy Night in Soho
I’ve been loving you a long time
Down all the years, down all the days
And I’ve cried for all your troubles
Smiled at your funny little waysWe watched our friends grow up together
And we saw them as they fell
Some of them fell into Heaven
Some of them fell into HellI took shelter from a shower
And I stepped into your arms
On a rainy night in Soho
The wind was whistling all its charmsI sang you all my sorrows
You told me all your joys
Whatever happened to that old song?
To all those little girls and boysSometimes I’d wake up in the morning
The ginger lady by my bed
Covered in a cloak of silence
I’d hear you talking in my headI’m not singing for the future
I’m not dreaming of the past
I’m not talking of the first times
I never think about the lastNow the song is nearly over
We may never find out what it means
Still there’s a light I hold before me
You’re the measure of my dreams
The measure of my dreams
The Shanne Bradley Interview 26/8/2001
Shanne was an early fan of the Sex Pistols and face on the punk scene around the Roxy Club etc. A one-time beau of Johnny Rotten, he wrote the song Satellite about her (tho whether that is a good thing or not is debatable). What’s not debatable is that she is an unsung hero always tending to get overshadowed by Shane.
She founded and named the Nipple Erectors and was/is an extremely competent musician deserving more credit. Later she was in The Men They Couldn’t Hang and still is occasionally involved in the music business.
So Shanne all the best to you and thanks for answering the questions so fully. It’s a corker of an interview with loads of interesting little facts and memories done in an inimitable style!
What was the first music you got into and who were your musical heroes?
Ah YES! The sounds of the womb & childhood – A cup of tea with Shanne Bradley
Ken Dodd’s ‘Happiness’ was my first record or was it ‘Mother Goose’ read by Boris Karloff and others that still scares me today or Doris Day’s ‘Move Over Darlin’? It was the 60’s and we lived in Ware in a new house surrounded by other new houses built in 1960. For all my mother’s wild parties, the house was emptied and all the furniture went on the lawn. I made a bed in the cardboard boxes on the sofa, it rained. She had a huge gramophone player stacked with singles that automatically dropped down. Mega bass that filled your bones and ricochetted around the yellow hessian walls. In the 70’s I loved Slade and then in about 1973 or 4 I saw David Bowie and the Spiders from Mars at Harlow Playhouse (still have the ticket stub for that one!)
I was converted – Mick Ronson (sadly deceased) is still a guitar hero of mine. I was completely thrilled to meet him once as a prospective producer during the 80’s when I played in the Men They Couldn’t Hang; he had the most erotic handshake! If you listen to some recordings from that ‘spiders’ time he sounds so ‘punk.’ So I went to every rock gig I could get into and loved it. I saw all kinds of bands including The Faces, Thin Lizzy, Hawkwind, Elton, Devo, E.LP., Pink Floyd, The Who and Lou Reed. One night I went to see Status Quo at Imperial College London and who was the support band? The New York Dolls. So noo york flashy, loud n’ trashy in 3 minutes they’d emptied the hall of long-haired science students. Billy Doll (drummer) died the next day
and then….
How did you get into punk and why?
IT HAPPENED! SYNCHRONICITY!
I happened to be at St. Albans School of Art aged 16- 8 doing a foundation course and guess what the Sex Pistols gate crashed an event, they were so bad I thought it was a kind of ironic take on the 60’s and enjoyed it.. we danced and mucked around just happened to be wearing an old ladies salmon pink corset from Oxfam, holster with 2 guns, ripped tights, outsize ice skating boots and just happened to have bright orange home butchered hair due to a henna/peroxide chemical reaction. I was chatted up by Johnny and he made me laugh with his hairy mohair jumper from SEX. I was told I should meet Jordan and visit the shop, was given the manager’s number and after that went to most of their gigs, even booked a couple more at St Albans, There is so much…..personal stuff, dissatisfaction with everything, art
Sex Pistols at St Albans – Photo Credit?
You were in at the start of punk when it was very small. In retrospect, it seems very cliquey with the Bromley Contingent and Seditionaries crowd and the fans? Was this so? What did you make of people like Jordan, Siouxsie and Soo Catwoman having profiles as big as the bands?
Sometimes after gigs, I used to stay with Malcolm’s friend Helen who is a dwarf artist in Bell Street. She used to wear outrageous outfits, tell outrageous stories show me unfinished portraits and prepare clear cabbage soup. She had such a lot to do with the beginnings of it all the Malcolm McLaren scene having been at Goldsmiths Art School with him and in a close relationship. I read a book she gave me concerning gentlemen, well it had gentlemen in the title, it was about unemployed youth and the beginnings of street youth culture/rebellion teddyboys/ skins etc. Helen should have more of a profile about her thoughts and activities.
At least some women have profiles. The so called Punk scene was cliquey sometimes, but I didn’t get involved with that bollocks. Times were exciting and there seemed to be so many earnestly crazed people to meet. Jordan was always very humourous and nice to me. I see Soo Catwoman from time to time. She was at the screen on the green last year for The Filth and the Fury which I think is a very good film. It gives a very accurate description of the Sex Pistols and England dreaming. Also, there is a classic piece of footage dug up of myself and Shane singing Anarchy for the UK. in a tower block on the Westway. Note: he gets a name check. I do not. Marcia Farquhar (artist) made a comment to Julian Temple about this outside the cinema. Women are often the footnote to men, so as far as I am concerned women with profiles are brilliant! The punkwoman fatale profiles are all part of todaze mythology about those times but I don’t think these women have profiles as large as the Sex Pistols…ha ha
How important was fashion to punk? How important was Mclaren and his shop? What were your favourite clothes at the time? How did the general public react to you?
Fashion or anti-fashion was essential to punk’s identity. In fact I went to St Martins Art School to study antifashion after Malcolm McLaren showed me around SEX. I only lasted a term; should have done fine art but institutions seemed like dinosaurs.
How did you become a musician and why the bass? Why do women seem to choose the bass?
I got chucked outa art school due to the fact I was always going to gigs or spending all my time living it. The bass had 4 strings and the guy across the hall from me had a Ramones album to learn with. I had tried to play Hawkwind’s Space Ritual and the Alice Cooper songbook on Spanish guitar when about 16 years old. I love the bass! Because I am Earth mother!! maybe we could get into some earth roots rock mama stuff here–feel the force!
Punk threw up a lot of women musicians like yourself ..what did you make of bands like Siouxsie and The Slits? Do you think you were treated as equals or a novelty? Do you think anything changed for women musicians thru punk?
I remember throwing up on the pavement outside the Roxy Club. A friendly Welsh guy in a spikey dog collar crawled down on his hands and knees to lap it up and it was thick and lumpy..did I feel sick after watching that! There weren’t that many female musicians around and it was tough. I felt I had to be able to play harder and faster than a bloke to be accepted and taken seriously. It ain’t funny when ya have a couple of skinheads gobbing atcha for target practice in an empty hall in Farnham, Surrey and the long-haired sound man smirking. One bloke even cut off the guitar strings to stop me from playing when I was first learning
I enjoyed all the bands and it seemed like there were new ones with familiar faces every night. My favourite female was Poly Styrene. I used to go see X Ray Spex at the Worlds End, Chelsea every time. The others mostly seemed too catty and aloof for me like 6th form prefects with safe carefully styled/coloured salon hair and fetish fashion items. Nico was cooler! My favourite piece of Chelsea Girls (a dual-screen Warhol film I saw at the I.C.A around that time) is her trimming her long blonde fringe with scissors. It lasts for hours D.I.Y. Great! Poly Styrene had humour, irony, songs, made her own fabulous plastic tack and wore a German helmet and a brace on her teeth.
Actually, I used to run into Chrissie Hynde (photo left by Kate Simon) a lot back then as she was a model at St Martins). I remember trying to dye her hair red and instead of washing the chemicals out she just left it in. How hard is that? She recorded her first demo in Ray Burns’ (later Captain Sensible) living room. He played drums on cardboard boxes. No actually for those songs she had Fred and Dave Berk (from Johnny Moped) on bass and drums.
I remember singing the chorus for ‘Precious’ with Ray. A great song I thought. Chrissie just had IT whatever IT is she had and still has IT! Chrissie used to sing with the Mopeds. I particularly remember a gig at the Roxy Club with stripey Breton sailor’s tops and pirate hats. Sometimes I would get up to sing backing on ‘Hardlovin Man’ all because of those sessions in Ray’s parent’s living room in Croydon. Later she nicked the Nipple Erectors drummer Gerry Maccleduff for The Pretenders after she saw him at a gig we did. He played on ‘Stop Your Sobbing’. Yes, some women musicians definitely got richer but not that many. It gave more women a voice and the freedom to relax a bit, wear big boots if they felt like it and stop having to be ‘the nice girl from next door ‘.
Did you audition or were you invited to join any other bands?
I have never auditioned for a band always preferring to start em from scratch usually with beginnerds
How did you come to join the Nipple Erectors and who thought up that name! Obviously a name like that would kinda hinder your chances of airplay! Did the shortening down to the Nips help at all? The Nips didn’t really play your standard punk fare. How did it end up sort of rockabilly. Worst gigs …best gigs?
I auditioned Shane in my bedsit; he was Iggy Pop rolling and writhing around the floor totally manic. I thought “Yes this is our man!” A few years previously on TV. I had seen Jobriath, an American answer to David Bowie. I think his head popped out of a segmented clear plastic globe, very space age. I had a dream about a band – my dream band – who would look very futuristic wearing skintight rubber body suits covered in nipples. I shall go no further, adamwell the name came from there. I thought shortening the name later to The Nips was a cop-out.
We hung out (!) at Rock On Records listening to all kinds of old music. We even used to dice with death and go visit the Electric Ballroom, Camden on ted’s night to watch old rock ‘n’ roll veterans (a bit like the punk vets nowadays..). There was a lot of aggro between punks and teds. We mixed up the music in the Nipple Erectors and then it all went a bit mod-like and even poppy.
We had a loyal following which included Bananarama and Guns For Hire a fictitious band with their own badges later to become Department S. One of my favourite gigs was at the Music Machine -with The Jam I think. I took some of my mum’s old frilly nylon nighties and dressed up the band. Shane had a pair of giant frilly knickers on like a baby. Myself? I was 8 months pregnant and wore a large black sheet like a yashmak. At the time we had Jon Moss drumming he was too embarrassed to come out for the encore! One of the worst gigs was also at the Music Machine with Dexys Midnight Runners, our guitarist Gavin Douglas failed to show up for the gig he had been arrested on the tube with no ticket and no money to buy one. A previous guitarist Larry Hendrix was pissed as a fart on Pernod and blackcurrant and he only knew a very old set we no longer knew so he stood in.
Mr Shane was an interesting character. How did you come to meet him and what did you first make of him? He seems a world apart from Siouxsie and people like that and it is quite sad the state he is in now
I met him at the Royal College of Art. I saw him across the bar ( an omen) and thought whose that mad bastard on a mission; And those ears! Or was it a Jam gig at Ronnie Scotts 1976 I believe I had just travelled up from Croydon with a new red miniature toy bass that Fred Berk (Johnny Moped bass player) had given me. He and Ray Burns explained the ‘bassicks’ so to speak and I enjoyed my first bass lesson -all The Damned bass lines- on the top deck of the tedious 68 bus journey back into London. We went to Ronnie Scotts to see a very early Jam gig. They had been giving out flyers at Rock On Records in Soho Market that afternoon.
The Jam were very young, skinny and spotty in restrictive-looking dark suits. I couldn’t quite get it at the time. The music was very nostalgic I thought. Later they were brilliant. Ray thought it would be a great idea for me to pose around the club playing, then Bruce Foxton broke his bass so I lent him my new toy. I still have a photo from that night. Me, Ray, Shane, Claudio a.k.a. Chaotic Bass, Adrian Thrills and Harry the Sniffin’ Glue photographer. Well maybe he took it. Shane isn’t sad so no one else oughta be. I saw him this week in Eire playing a couple of gigs; he was in great form and we enjoyed the crack!
As 76 turned into 77 and 78 how did you see punk changing ie the personalities, the groups, the fans?
Bleat! bleat! I grew my hair back ‘n’ went all naturelle for a while and but realised if ya cant beat ’em there’s fuck all else goin on so may as well join ’em the Daily Mirror look likes. A lot of the individuality and initial excitement and also the humour disappeared and the Sex Pistols got snooty! Everyone turned into a laddish Clash type clone fan or even band and all the original creativity had gone. Just listen to the music. It all looked violent.
Looking back what was your best experience or the thing you enjoyed most during the punk years and conversely what was the worstTHE BEST? I enjoyed so many happy times with my leetle punk chums..ah yes! I always enjoyed the gigs the energy- live energy! The feeling that all things seemed possible, self-expression, a living artwork/sculpture/a statement/ antifashion, anti whatever it took, create a different approach break away from the expected, things can change! Anyone can pick up an instrument sometimes a blunt one and make a racket, not just a macho rock god with a triple album, be ‘someone’ be who ya like, stand out from the crowd..well in the end everyone in the crowd became uniform, looked the bloody same used the same signs became anovver yoof cult etc….another labelled sanitised product another category etc blah.
THE WORST? ah yes…..
Both you and Shane were photographed a lot at places like the Roxy? What do you remember of the place, atmosphere the bands etc?
There were no other -places like the early Roxy..it was wild, full of spontaneity, full of all sorts. Most of the audience were in bands or wished they were. Stars were falling out of the ceiling; yes it was tatty with plenty of mirrors. It was the first place I heard dub music too. Yes I can remember something about the Roxy. In fact I knew Andy Czezowski from The Damned days, I had spontaneously booked their 2nd gig (St Albans Art School) the day after I saw the 1st at the 100 Club. Malcolm pulled the Pistols out at the last minute due to poor attendance at their last St Albans appearance so I remember how excited Andy and Sue (who used to give me free makeup samples) were at the prospect of their own club. Shane and I helped build the stage on the first night with Generation X; such a nice bunch of boys! When Andy left the club changed.
He said it was time London had a proper club with music for the new scene. I noticed there was a lot of 60’s style talk about ‘happening scenes’ emanating from Malcolm Maclaren, Bernie Rhodes and Andy Czezowski. It was intriguing to listen to; they were all so much older than us and had apparently tasted the club magic of the mysterious 60s or even 50’s? Anyway, we went down to Covent Garden and Andy was standing in the ticket box all gold tooth and smiling to welcome us. Andy is great. We then went further down the narrow staircase to a small room but I don’t remember doing very much just chatting with some nice lads who were working. Later on they played calling themselves Generation X.
What do you remember of the Generation X opening night.
There was a small enthusiastic crowd .“Punk’ I don’t think existed as a marketing and packaging tool at that stage? The singer/guitarist was a boy in tight trousers with newly peroxided hair. For some reason he was kind of like Cliff Richard’s cousin. The songs seemed annoyingly contrived, sort of Summer Holiday on speed. I said “Ready steady go-O. I said “Ready Steady Go-O etc. What I find annoying is I didn’t realise until the 1980s that this boy who still smelt of peroxide was William the boy with the brown pudding basin haircut from Bromley who had chatted to me at a Pistols gig at the Three Kings in Fulham. (Years later I actually bought the Billy Idol ‘White Wedding’ album after a roadie used to play it a lot while driving along in the van with the Men They Couldn’t Hang… ramble ramble!
Why did you choose there for your first gig?
errm I think a friend of ours called Phil who was about 16 and was mates with Kevin booked us in, so we had to keep practicing in my bedsit. Poor Phil worked in a record shop in East London. One day some British Movement thugs walked in and sprayed ammonia in his face. He lost an eye. He also worked in a porn shop, in Soho.
When you played there in August how had the place changed atmosphere and people wise?
Did The Nipple Erectors play in August? It was a great adrenalin rush to play our first gig with toy instruments. I think we knew everyone in the crowd. The most diva thing was having those gladioli thrown at us by Ray Burns. It was a magical night for us though really strange. Then the strip lights went back on the rotting lino and Paul Weller’s dad was chatting to my mum or something.. you know! Actually I’ve got no idea if my mum was there…will have to ask her.
How important was Andy and Susan to the Roxy Club?
Essentially they were fun loving, arty and business like and they tapped into and promoted nostalgia and the nouvelle vague all at the same time. Nouvelle vague sounds so much more blank and interesting than New Wave which sounds like a hairdo.
Did you continue to go to the Roxy after it changed hands?
After Andy moved on to his next venture, sadly on occasions I ventured there, largely because someone booked us our first gig I think. Non of the main players really went there after Andy went.
Sue Carrington & Andy Czezowski – Roxy Club
If so how did it change?
The energy changed. It was no longer upbeat and vibrant with an air of expectation that new things were going to happen. It became just a sleazy kind of no hope the parties over atmosphere remained.
Both of you were obviously Pistols and Clash fans? What was it that these two bands had that made you attracted to them ?? What other bands did you like and who did you think were crap?
I am/was a Sex Pistols fan. The Clash never quite reached the parts that that the pistolas music and ambience and entourage did. The Sex Pistols had the je ne sais pas and the humour the clash did not; for me anyway. I always felt vaguely suspicious of The Clash. Maybe because I saw Joe Strummer shivering and sweating all over in the 101ers. The Clash were definitely a lads band thru and thru with those stage poses and judging by the 4th generation punk lads from Portsmouth i met. I did like the first album with Keith Levine very much.
When did you think sod punk I’m moving on and why? Talking to other people involved in the early punk scene like Marco Pirroni they seemed almost resentful when punk became more popular. Did you find this?
I never was a punk; the name didn’t exist. I was an art student that got kicked out. I played bass and then I was on the dole and then hey! Let’s get labelled P-U-N-K! Sod PUNK. That’s when it all stopped moving on; when it got labelled
Yes I used to know Marco when he had a quiff; another very friendly guy of Italian descent. As for ‘the scene’ it twas an intimate affair that became public…and I am so resentful…bastards taking our scene away from us blah blah.
The reformed Nipple Erectors at the 100 Club 2009
How did the Nipple Erectors end and what did you do afterwards?
The Nipple Erectors never had a stable lineup. It was always me ‘n’ him plus a variety of guitarists and even more drummers who would leave or disappear dramatically so there were plenty of break-ups. In 1981 I decided to try and mix up my music; I was in love with Cretan/ Greek music. Soo bored with ‘rock’. We tried out a fiddle player and a standup drummer (John Hasler – Madness-the man I was with at the time.
Shane wanted to go more Irish and I didn’t want to join in mainly because at the tender age of 19 Shane’s dad had intimidated me for many hours with Dubliners records in their smart Tunbridge Wells living room. Though one of the first songs we ever did in the Nips was ‘Poor Paddy Works On The Railway.’ I decided to concentrate on my baby daughter Sigrid, finding somewhere to live, that type of thing for a while. Then I joined up with Cush and Swill to form the Men They Couldn’t Hang and later played with Wreckless Eric and a cast of millions
Anything you want to add?
Scooby scooby doo where are you?
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