The Nosebleeds
Ok so why all the fuss over The Nosebleeds; a band that released one single? Simple. Like The Killjoys and Users there’s more to the story than just a song. Edmund Garrity AKA Ed Banger’s story criss crosses through vital moments in punk in Manchester that features bands like Slaughter & The Dogs and personalities like Billy Duffy and Morrissey that makes it impossible to ignore and at times so improbable that a film script could or should be made.
Ed Banger & The Nosebleeds Facebook Page
Wythenshawe Manchester spawned two sets of mates in bands enjoying a friendly rivalry – Slaughter & The Dogs and Wild Ram. Wild Ram (I keep thinking of Bill & Teds Wild Stallion!) were formed by Ed and Toby in their kitchen originally playing Beatles covers before moving on to play heavy metal complete with long solos and legs apart quo boogieisms!
Ed Banger Me and Toby and Pete, were at school together in Wythenshawe and had been jamming Slade T Rex and Bowie songs in Toby’s kitchen. Occasionally I’d nip over to Mike Rossi’s house and get chords for Bowie songs as Mike was a big Ronson fan and we’d talk about forming bands.
Mike said he was doing something with Wayne, so me, Toby and Pete formed Wild Ram and Mike and Wayne formed the Dogs. Wherever the Dogs played we’d get a gig a couple of weeks later and we would all go and watch each others sets and nick bits that would appear in our next shows. So a bit of friendly rivalry built up between us with the Dogs always being one step in front. When Vini Riley joined us we started to do some Iggy Pop with tracks from Raw Power. Punk77 Interview
It was late 1976 and these two bands going nowhere were about to change: Having played the Lesser Free Trade Hall Manchester once to about 30 people the Sex Pistols were returning again but this time with more publicity momentum and a buzz about them. While Slaughter & The Dogs managed to get on the bill, Ed failed and instead was roadie for the Dogs.
Ed Banger I think we had moved ahead of them until they landed the support slot with the Pistols and we ended up being their roadies for the night just to be part of it. So after that gig we decided to have a stronger name after I’d been bottled on the head side stage and someone had punched Pete giving him a nosebleed so we came up with Ed Banger and the Nosebleeds. Johnny Rotten being a concerned citizen said I’d better get some stitches in that and Jonesy said bollocks to that have another beer. Cool. Punk77 Interview
On the night violence flared and Edmund bleeding from a head wound from a bottle and his mate Pete with a nosebleed the immortal lines were uttered by someone: You’re a right bloody mob aren’t you? Headbanger here and him with a nosebleed. And so the band’s name came into being.
Following the Pistols visit and the emergent punk rock scene Wild Ram became Ed Banger & The Nosebleeds who, like so many other bands, changed and adopted a more punk look and sound. As Wild Ram they had been unable to get gigs or played to 15 people. Now as a punk band “We ….had a single out, it was like 400 people at a concert.”
How serious were they about punk? In a documentary about the band, Toby the drummer interviewed recounts how they changed for the money and gigs and how “I don’t like punk rockers. Personally I hate them…everyone has some hecklers…ours is the whole audience!”
Ed in the Punk77 interview saw it differently and recounts
‘After spilling our blood for the punk cause damn right we regarded ourselves as true punks but we still got labelled bandwagon jumpers. Virtually every band after the Pistols suffered the same but in a sense everybody but the Pistols were bandwagon jumpers you know what I mean.’
Rock Against Racism gig at Crystals nightclub in Bury. The Nosebleeds were with John Cooper-Clarke and Fastbreeder.
Places to play
Early on there was the Oaks who had on Johnny Thunders, the Banshees, Wayne County, the Dogs and EB & the Nosebleeds. Then Rafters on Oxford Rd and the Electric Circus opened up and Manchester Poly started putting on punk bands. A lot of punks hung out at the Ranch Club – a real mix of punks, drag queens and other fetish groups pretty cool eh!
There was a tendency for gangs of disco cavemen to hang about outside to give the freaks a good kicking unfortunately I got kicked half to death one night and another bottle smashed on my head. I was beginning to regret being called Ed Banger. I still have got the lump on my head to this day. A real momento of 70s punk, top man. I was into having a good time so I never stopped to analyse anything but looking back it was a real cool time to be around all those happening bands.
And of course an obligatory visit to London and the Roxy Club
Ed Banger I remember it being a classic toilet gig, the smell of vomit, weed, glue, and graffiti everywhere – perfect – we got there late for the gig. As it was just a single doorway entrance on some side street, we must have passed it 5 times or more so when we eventually got in Sham 69 were on stage and Mr Pursey was doing one of his legendary rants between songs to about ten people.
Most of them were other bands waiting to go on there was a definite feeling of sleaze in the air with the sight of two leather clad mini skirted punketts sticking their tongues down each other’s throats in the middle of the dance floor – superb. There was some top dub reggae played by the dj between bands and by the time we went on there was another twenty odd people in the place which made look quite full with the venue being the size of the average front room.
So we blasted through our set at double speed with Mr Pursey leading the crowd in community pogoing finishing the set with a frantic version of Music School and proceeding to the bar to get steamed with our new found friends. Overall a right dump of a place but an important place in punk history. Punk77 Interview
Vini Reilley …. “I’d told the rest of the band that we’d be confrontationalists.” Vini counters. “So for example when we played the Roxy in London, which was the venue to play, even though we had a full set of songs, I said ‘No, we’re just going to play two songs all night, that’s it, and keep playing the same two songs and wind them up’ which we did. The audience went absolutely beserk, and consequently we were asked to play again and again, because that was what was required.
But I would also do things like sit with my back to the audience and play a very melodic guitar piece, which was what I’d always been doing all my life anyway, and the punks were totally confused by this, and baffled and maybe hostile, but at least it was a reaction, and I thought that was valid.”
A one-off single with Rabid Records (1977) with I Ain’t Been To No Music School / Fascist Pigs, a spot on Tony Wilson’s TV programme So It Goes and gigs in the capital at venues like The Roxy should have been a springboard to success. Instead, it wasn’t. There was no money and no one got a penny for the single despite it selling 10,000 copies. The band started to argue, Vinnie Faal their long-time manager was sacked and Ed and Vini left the band.
Ed Banger Me and Vini Riley didn’t like the way the band was being run so we opted out and started our solo projects. There was a whole set full of Nosebleeds songs ready to record but we never got there. There’s a tape knocking about of a live session we did for Piccadilly Radio in Manchester and there’s a video we did with a video workshop with live footage and interviews about the rise and fall of the Nosebleeds. Someone should put it out. Punk77 Interview
From the Rise and Fall of The Nosebleeds Video
With Ed and Vini gone two new replacements are tried out – local New York Dolls fanatic and regular letter writer to the NME Stephen Morrissey on vocals and Billy Duffy on guitar. They play a couple of gigs and include Morrissey’s self-penned songs such as I Get Nervous and (I think) I’m Ready For The Electric Chair.
Left NME 3.6.78
One gig was reviewed favourably in the NME before they call it a day. Billy Duffy then leaves to join the Studio Sweethearts comprised of one half of Slaughter & The Dogs. They made one single before splitting and the Dogs reforming in 1980.
Later of course Morrissey finds fame and fortune with those indie favourites The Smiths while Duffy will become beloved first of Goths with Southern Death Cult and then rockers everywhere with The Cult. Later on Toby played with a variety of bands including Primal Scream.
Ed Banger I wasn’t aware of them following us about, but they might well have. Yeah they did one gig at the Mayflower Club in Manchester before deciding it was a waste of time trying to follow in mine and Vini’s footsteps. Obviously a talent less bunch of no hopers who would only notch up 10s of millions of sales pathetic. They were considered for Slaughter but were found not to be up to it ha ha. The Sweethearts yes they definitely were a right pair. Punk77 Interview
That should have been it but the story takes another twist. Ed reforms the band with only himself as an original member. They play the Lyceum London as support to Penetration receiving a hail of beer cans etc and are bottled off stage.
Ed Banger Worst gig was as Ed Banger supporting Penetration where for some reason the audience took an instant dislike to us. (after I’d said “”your all a bunch of southern softies”” – we disappeared under a hail of cans and bottles) so after driving all that way down there for an 8 bars set, the van then broke down on the way home. Spent the night freezing our bollocks off by the side of the road. Then it took most of the next day to get the van fixed. On top of that it cost a small fortune for the repairs and we’d not been paid for the gig. So yeah that rates as a pretty shite gig. Punk77 Interview
I Ain’t Been To No Music School / Fascist Pigs
(Rabid Records July 1977)
Of course the single had to come out on Manchester’s Rabid Records same as Slaughter & The Dogs. It’s a great punk single if not fairly predictable in its speed and attititude. The one thing you notice though is that the opening guitar phrases that are repeated are not your bog standard barre chords and that Vini could actually play!
Apparently sold well – 10,00 copies – but of course the band saw nothing.
TalkPunk
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