V2

A band from the Manchester punk scene along with the Fall, Buzzcocks and Warsaw and containing ex members of the Nosebleeds and Panik. Evolved from the early days of the Electric Circus and definitely erred on the glam side of punk!

Marc Standley takes up the story…

I formed V2 in December 1976, when I had just got myself out of the RAF. My best friend from school, David Wilks (Jonathan E) and me were regulars at a club called Pips, which had a Bowie/Roxy room. When punk first appeared in Manchester, this is where a lot of the bands emanated from.  I had wanted to be in a band for a couple of years but had no idea how you went about it. After a few attempts at finding suitable people, we asked another Bowie fan Stan the Man to join. He had never played an instrument in his life, but he had good hair! He turned up with a cheap bass one Saturday morning, and I just showed him where to put his fingers. I didn’t have any notion that I could write songs until punk. The first song I ever wrote was Speed Freak.

As I mentioned, we were brought up on a diet of Glam Rock, particularly T.Rex, Bowie, Roxy and Lou Reed. That along with the Damned and Slaughter is where we were coming from. We just took it a bit further! There was a kind of love them or hate them attitude to us. We had a lot of girl fans (which annoyed the other bands a bit!)

V2’s second gig was supporting Slaughter, then The Drones and Fastbreeder at Middleton civic hall, a big place. We all liked Slaughter, and were in fact quite influenced by them. It was the Bowie-esque glam aspect that appealed to us. Stan had known them since they started and used to follow them around to gigs before he joined us. I liked most of the Manchester bands, but as we started to get more known, there was a lot of rivalry which spoiled it a bit.

Yes, all the gigs were to punk crowds, we used to come off stage totally covered in gob and beer. We used to fling an open bag of flour over the crowd during the encore. It went all over us too. So we looked like ready to bake cakes when we left the stage when it mingled with the beer and gob.

The worst gig for thrown objects, was the Marquee with Slaughter in 78 I think. It was packed and I had just literally began to walk out of the dressing room when a full can of beer hit my guitar and broke a string. We only managed about 4 songs before we legged it back into the safety of the dressing room in fear of our lives!

V2 played there again the year after, with the Dickies. This time, someone hurled a piece of metal at Stan so hard it stuck in his bass! In the end, two of the Dickies roadies (Big Californian Surfer types) jumped in the crowd and beat the tosser up. I think we managed 6 songs before retreating that time. (James Stevenson was on that tour too, in Chelsea)

The time in Carlisle, when one particularly obnoxious twat was throwing loads of beer on us. Dave whispered to me that he was going to pretend to get an electric shock to see if that would stop him. He suddenly threw himself backwards and lay still on the floor. We kept playing for a bit then stopped and I knelt over him looking worried. Suddenly, the crowd turned on the beer thrower and started to beat the shit out of him! I literally saw his teeth leave his mouth. I was whispering to Dave “”Stay down for fucks sake, it’s gone off””. We had to play it to the end. He got up looking dazed and we pulled the rest of the gig. Another repercussion was that the PA firm said that we didn’t have to pay them and that they would check the PA thoroughly before they used it again! so we eat well on the way home.

Another one is when we played Wythenshaw forum with Slaughter in 77.  There was a lot of rivalry between us by then, and it was their home town. As we started, the drummer hit his drums and they all collapsed. Slaughter had loosened all the nuts. The crowd was hostile to us, and when one of our female fans passed up a box of chocolates to us, they started to hit her. Stan took his bass of and lifted it over his head charging at them. Luckily the security intervened and it was stopped. 2 minutes later, Dave leant into the crowd singing and someone grabbed the mike, cut the wire with a knife and ran of with it!. When we came off, I went and de-tuned Mike Rossi’s guitar and took the battery out of his foot peddle, ruining their big entrance. Stupid stuff really, but we were all young boys. These are just a couple of the daft things that went on.

Our first ever review in NME by Tony Parsons, for the Speedfreak EP. I remember meeting Dave outside the Dickinsian dole office. It was raining. He handed me the paper. It was a right slagging. He said we ‘packed the aural punch of a fart in a rust corroded baked bean can’. He accused us of ripping of some Led Zeppelin thing (Which I hadn’t heard in my life!) We went and got pissed.

Punk77 says –

Great single Speed Freak / Nothing To Do / Thats It on (Bent Records 1978). If you think the chorus in Nothing To Do sounds naggingly familiar then play I’m Mad by Slaughter & The Dogs and see if there is a similarity? The single is mega rare so pick up the 21 track retrospective on Overground called simply enough V2 but which is excellent and well worth checking out.

I don’t think they did a bad job on record. V2 had a lot of good ideas and songs and I reckon could have survived punk. It’s a shame they split and never got further. Check out Man In The Box and When The World Isn’t There to see the possibilities.

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