The Pitiful
The Pitiful formed in late November 1976. The line up at the time was Jim [JARRETT ] on Bass Guitar, ’Mazzo’’ [Steven Mason] on guitar, Steve [HOPPO] Hopkins on Drums [Mark pauses for a sip of …Wine] …… and there was Tony [Cunningham], on vocals at that time. I wasn’t in the band then. I knew the guys but didn’t get involved with the band until late in 1977. TONY [CUNNINGHAM] just lost his nerve, couldn’t get it together to do a gig in front of a real crowd and walked off, and then the drummer left so the band was at the point of splitting at the starting blocks. The others wanted to try and keep the band going so they asked around and then I got involved.
What was the motivation for THE PITIFUL to form in the first place?
Well everyone was seeing bands all over the place and really it was just that everyone just thought, Oh I could do a better job or just as good. You really didn’t need to play anything particularly good. If you knew how to bang a drum or hold a guitar and go TWANG [Mark moves his arm in an arc as if to mimic striking the guitar strings] then you could form a band and be playing in a local pub or somewhere, SOMETIMES, literally at the end of the week of even deciding, Ooh lets form a band! It was about having a laugh and just having a go. The girls liked it too to think you were in a band [He laughs ]
When did you get the place of being the singer in The Pitiful Mark?
That would have been about November 77’.The band were having a bit of a problem. The singer Tony Cunningham, lost his nerve, he just couldn’t sing in front of an audience which is fundamentally quite important being the front man! The band had their very first gig at the Roxy on MONDAY the 16th of DECEMBER, that was the ROXY audition night, and just 50p to get in.
On that occasion we were playing with a band called THE FURS. They later become that band the PSYCHEDELIC FURS. That gig felt quite a big deal for us to be playing straight in at the ROXY. I was so new as THE PITIFUL front man that I didn’t even have time to learn any of the lyrics and so was pretty much destined to be a nightmare from the word GO!! I had to read the lyrics as I went along. They were pasted into the pages of a dirty magazine with the most pervy pictures facing out into the audience [MARK laughs in an adolescent manner as if slightly embarrassed just thinking about it]
In fact, the place [The Roxy] was a dump, with probably half of the bands that filed through the doors barely worthy of the name, and a bunch more still a few months-worth of rehearsals short from mastering their first actual song….On a bill topped by the immortally named Jesus Savage…the Psychedelic Furs would be duking it out with the similarly unknown, equally obscure The Pitiful… it really was a dreadful show.
Beautiful Chaos: The Psychedelic Furs – Dave Thompson
We did get another chance at playing THE ROXY again, how I dunno. It was 1978 and the FAREWELL TO THE ROXY album was being put together at that time. It was like a real big thing to be asked to do the gig. As kids, we thought WOW, we’ve made it. Hello LONDON, we’ve arrived kinda thing …The gig started off really well.
On a real high note as we stormed through our signature song, FAITH HEALER but it rapidly went down hill from there on. Our Drummer ‘’HOPPO’’ [Steve Hopkins] decided in his infinite wisdom, half way through the song to go for a piss. Just getting up and walking off. Leaving his drumming duties… to a dumb struck member of our audience. Yeah a member of our audience was given the job of drumming until ‘’HOPPO’’ came back. On his return ‘’HOPPO’’ took over his drumming stool again. He was clearly and very obviously half cut, but we soldiered on only for ‘’HOPPO’’ to loosen his grip on one of his drum sticks.
Like a dream, one of those slow motion scenarios, the stick sailed through the air and whacked the sound guy right on the head. Because of that we didn’t get included on the final FAREWELL to THE ROXY album. We were told straight that we were too amateurish. We didn’t have a chance after that mishap. Oh well, it happens doesn’t it? That line up carried on for about another 6 months. It was inevitable that a change was going to happen, after that ROXY gig.
How did the lyrics get put together. Did you all play a part in writing the songs or did you have one person who did the job of putting lyrics together?
Mazzo’’ [Steven Mason] did all the lyric writing. It was far from intelligent stuff, it wasn’t meant to have a message or anything. There were songs about heartbreak and stuff. You know I’ve still got the lyric book. [Mark pulls out a notepad from a carrier bag and hands it to me.]
First verse from a song titled ‘’Faith Healer’’ from the notebook.
We got a feeling deep inside,
I think it is a stomach ache,
or could it be indigestion
or could it be CANCER-R-R-R
Mark says this song is actually about a broken heart. OPTIMISTIC STUFF indeed! Other songs included I Remember You, Barbara Anne, Move It, Elvis, Working Class and Schoolboy. Recordings exist of live gigs but may be too rough to be ever released.
What highlights do you have from all the memories that you have about being with the Pitiful and what are the darkest points?
Well, the highest point really was having the opportunity to do the ROXY thing, even if it didn’t get used. We turned up at the ROXY in Neal Street in this big, I mean massive Mercedes Van. We parked up and all the people around were like, mmmm I wonder who this is getting out. And we opened the back and removed the gear. All we actually had in the back was this VOX GUITAR AMP, a HARMONICA and a GUITAR in it. It was so funny.
The gig itself was a bit of a disaster. Getting to play the ROXY for THE FAREWELL album was exciting. That was a good memory. It was like a kid’s dream for us to get a gig anything like a high profile. It’s just a shame it all went tits up for us. As I said earlier to say we didn’t get used for the FAREWELL to the ROXY album is an understatement really. We didn’t have a chance. We were told we were too amateurish . . . Us and GOATS TEETH were the only two bands to not be included. We thought we might get the chance to be famous and all we ended being is infamous failures. [Mark Laughs]
And the low points for THE PITIFUL?
The low points . .mmmm, well there were no real low points really from that time. The low points that stick out for me was being told that JARRETT [Jim] had died a couple of years ago. That was really sad. That was in March 2006. I’d got in touch with an old friend from way back, a couple of years ago .And I asked about the whereabouts of Jim and what he was up to. He said ’’Oh you wouldn’t have heard Jim hung himself back in 2006.’’ Well that hit me like a ton of bricks. Very sad.
Do you have any recollection of Kevin St John?
Kevin St John was the most creepy of individuals you could ever have the misfortune of meeting. I always thought of him as being a Gay thug. A very unpleasant and unsavory character. He seemed to have this unhealthy interest in me, which always scared me shitless. You just tried to stay clear of him and his lot. He used to have John Conte’s brother as one of his bouncers. The bouncers there were real unsavory people too. You didn’t mess with them. Kevin St John was the second of the ROXY owners and was just someone you had nothing to do with if you could help it.
Other than the ROXY album recording, was there any label interest in THE PITIFUL . It was the pretty much the thing to get a seven inch single out then, Did anything get released by the band?
No not really. Nothing like label interest really come up until something else that I was doing after the demise of THE PITIFUL. The FAREWELL to the ROXY was the nearest we had to getting anything released. But that never happened! We just weren’t good enough.
You were thought of as quite a notorious band. Why was that?
Where ever we went, usually ended up in a huge fight. I still have recordings where the gig is cut short by a punch up. There is these sounds of the guitar being whacked over peoples heads and glass smashing. Utter chaos! I think we were probably thought of as notorious because most of us. Well, all except me had done time in PENTONVILLE. We were all pretty handy. I had a punch up with Adam Ant once. He come off worse! When I was 17 maybe 18 I was real tear away. Coming from Leeds I learned how to look after myself from an early age. I did boxing and so wasn’t shy of getting into a punch up. That’s all behind me now. There was incident where I was jumped by Colin and Big John of Conflict and they got pretty beaten up. Sorry guys. I will say that me and Colin actually became very good mates after that incident. I still don’t know what it was all about.
Who else did you hang about with in those days?
WELL, I don’t know about hung around with, because you met different people all the time and made really good friends. I was real good friends with members of RED LIGHTS, THE SWORDS and had sort of made friends with bands who we played with like, THE BARRACUDAS, TESCO BOMBERS and the MODETTES. TESCO BOMBERS were formerly called the VINCENT UNITS, who we played with both bands. You just made friends all over the place.
What happened to THE PITIFUL? I mean how long did you stay together and when did you split up and why?
I joined in 77’ and then there was another line up change in 1978 which was actually the original line up, pretty much. Me on vocals and then there was ‘’MAZZO’’ Steve Mason on guitar, Jim Jarrett still on Drums. On Bass Guitar we had Morris [MOLE] Chesterton from the 101’ers. That was a good name check. We had a few guest musicians too – Richard Dudandski from the 101’ers played on drums a few times, so did Palmolive from THE SLITS. Big John of CONFLICT came and did a gig with us too. Just the once. That line up of Jim, Morris, ’’MAZZO’’ and me stayed the same until late 78,early 79, when the time bell rang and we split.
The split was just a natural progression of things. We were growing up and starting doing different stuff and getting bored of what we were doing. I carried on playing music in a band called MARK AND THE MYSTICS, which was me, my sister and a guy named Martin. We played a skiffle type proto Rockabilly type sound. I had always been into ROCKABILLY and BUDDY HOLLY. Pretty much all the way through my PITIFUL days I wore glasses, BUDDY HOLLY t-shirts and had a flat top – apart from the odd grease back or spike – but mainly I’ve had my flat top. I’ve stayed pretty much true to my love of that era. Right from being a little kid. MARK AND THE MYSTICS had all those traits. We were sort of like YIP YIP COYOTE and THE THE FORREST HILL BILLIES.
Rockabilly is something that is a passion and so the music with MARK AND THE MYSTICS had a lot of that element.This was when IRS RECORDS wanted to do something with us and was a very, very did nearly. The biggest nearly I EVER had. We did have the chance of playing with JOE STRUMMER. JOE actually came and played guitar with us for a benefit gig we did and Den Hegerty of DARTS fame came and played tenor sax.
Saying about all the friends we made and had over the years along with chance meetings and such was mainly because of the fact that a lot of these people rehearsed at the same studios. You would just chance meet in the stairwell or in the corridor and then end up playing together either as a gig or a jam session type situation. They would come into a rehearsal of ours and then occasionally we’d drop in on one of their rehearsals. It was lovely times.
Do you still have contact with any of the old members of THE PITIFUL? Do you know what they are up to?
Unfortunately I don’t have really have any regular contact with any of the guys. Well apart from finding out about Jim [JARRETT] dying in 2006,I don’t know what the other guys are doing right now, but I know TONY CUNNINGHAM became a CARETAKER at ELTHAM HILL all girls school and later went on to become a male nurse; well it wouldn’t have been a female nurse would it? [MARK laughs] Steve Hopkins became the LANDLORD of the CASTLE pub in ELTHAM and Steve Mason, he became a telephone engineer.
And what is MARK TATE doing these days?
I’ve been a CAREWORKER for the past couple of years but ill health is getting in the way of that. At the moment I’m taking some time out to get my fitness back up to speed. But I’ve got some work in the coming weeks being a SUPPORTED CARE WORKER to an elderly infirm lady. I’m looking forward to that very much. I’ll be just helping her around the place, cooking for her, a bit of cleaning and making sure she takes her medication etc.
Me wrapping stuff up ‘’MARK,thank you so much for taking time to speak to me today and I wish you all the best in your health and new job prospects.
MARK . . ‘’ My pleasure. Its been great remembering all this stuff. I don’t get much chance to relive this life. Things are a bit different these days. I like to forget the bad stuff I did and make life a positive thing. Helping people. A lot of that bad stuff is like a different person now. A different life, best forgotten, well most of it . . [Mark smiles].’’
We shake hands and the sound of the squeaky pub door sounds again as Mark Tate of the Pitiful disappears, out into the cold breezy Friday afternoon.
Interviewer: Brian Dennis. Date: Friday 27th March 2009
TalkPunk
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