Jimmy Coull (vocals), Lucas Fox (drums), Andy Colquhoun (lead guitar), John Walker (rhythm guitar) & Chris Underhill (bass).
Warsaw Pakt formed in Spring 1977 around Ladbroke Grove, London. Guitarist Andy Colquhoun had been in a London R & B band called The Rockets, which played support for The Clash a few times and proto punk band The Zips. Lucas Fox had previously been drummer in Motörhead’s first incarnation. They could obviously play a bit, unlike many overnight punk bands, but to the best of my knowledge, they weren’t session men.
John Manly, Wolf and I built a rehearsal room out of concrete blocks in the basement of Forbidden Fruit on Portobello Rd, called it The Bunker. And started Warsaw Pakt. Instrumentally we wanted to be The Who/MC5 of the scene. Ace up the sleeve was Mick Farren’s lyrical output. Lucas Fox was a local lad and fitted in well. Good times. After Motorhead Lucas had a point to prove, and we’d play for hours a day in the Bunker. We got pretty fast, and when it came to the adrenaline rush on-stage we got even faster. Still every note was in place.
We played the Red Cow, the Nashville and Dingwalls a lot. Our last gig was at Dingwalls with Ian Dury and was truly great. I think we played all the London venues and some Colleges out of town. Yeah the gobbing became tedious. When we played Enfield College, Jimmy Pursey stopped Sham 69 mid-song and read some version of the riot act to these gobbers. It was very effective. I’d never seen it done before. I think he kept on doing this and eventually the phlegm abated all over town. We were all grateful for that.
We played the Marquee and they were wild gigs. Of course there’d always be the odd gig where we’d be met with utter bafflement. The Rockets had a residency in Germany for a while, and with 5 sets a night me and Jimmy had got some pretty instinctive stuff going. When we were with Warsaw Pakt it was really a continuance of that. Other bands reaction? Hard to say. We’re all doing this strange performing thing. We may be competing. Obviously we had some great times with other bands. There may have been this slight suspicion that as we had Lucas on tubs we were seasoned session guys. Absolute crap. It was John’s first band.
Andy Colquhoun, Punk77 Interview
I saw Warsaw Pakt in late 1977 supporting Siouxsie & The Banshees at a very bizarre gig which took place in the Refectory of Exeter College, Oxford. Imagine, if you will, an ancient gothic university building right out of “”Inspector Morse””, steeped in tradition, its wainscotted hallways decked with the portraits of former Professors stretching back to Tudor times: suddenly invaded by upwards of 500 local underage punk rockers, of whom I was one.
Needless to say, the place got well and truly trashed. Warsaw Pakt were good, definitely out of the punky pogo-a-gogo mainstream. The gig was marred by flurries of violence, as the “security staff” (consisting of the college rugby team) tried vainly to keep a lid on the barbarians who’d invaded their sacred grove of academe. Andy Colquhoun’s abiding memory of the gig is having to dodge the stream of bottles hurled stagewards by the crowd; but, as he puts it, “it made a change from gobbing.”
The album “Needle Time” was recorded for Island in November 1977 and was indeed recorded, mastered, produced, packaged and distributed within a 24-hour timeslot, from 10 p.m. on Sat 26 November to 7 p.m. on Sunday 27 November – the band were trying to make a point about the way technology, etc. had opened up the potential for music to be truly immediate.
NEEDLE TIME SESSIONS. Island Records 26 November 1977 Trident Studios
Vocals sound very like Malcolm Owen of The Ruts.
The album sold 5000 copies in its first week. Unfortunately, its first week was also its last: at the end of the week Island Records decided (for reasons not made clear to the band) that they would press no further copies, and shelved the master tapes. The Pakt soldiered on for a few months more, and even managed to release a set of outtakes from previous recording sessions (called “See You In Court”) but, faced with such record company capriciousness, it was inevitable that they would fold.
Island approached us through Mim Scala to make an Instant Album. We’d achieved a lot in an 8 hour session at their Hammersmith studio, so we were booked to record an LP with no overdubs or mixing. Side one, break, tune up. side two. Straight to mastering vinyl. Bloody technical considerations. Goldfish bowl. Crowd hangin’ in there. 3 takes of both sides..In the shops the next day. Guinness book of records. 15 minutes. We were warned it was all experimental. They treated us well, but they didn’t hear us. It was a bit like being a contestant on a Game Show. This was at a time when some of their bands were still getting it together in the country for a few months. We said we’d do it and we did. They paid us off and haven’t called us in 23 years. We were also talking to Miles and wanted to go on Illegal, but somehow it didn’t come through in time, and we were in a hurry to get recorded.
Andy Colquhoun, Punk77 Interview
After Warsaw Pakt, guitarist Andy Colquhoun joined Brian James’s Tanz Der Youth, and subsequently played with the Pink Fairies and ex-MC5 star Wayne Kramer.
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