‘Room Thirteen’ Interview Bristol Archive Records

 Mike Darby Questions

Link: http://www.roomthirteen.com/features/745/Interview_with_Mike_Darby.html

Q: What was the inspiration behind releasing music by old Bristol punk bands and what did you hope to achieve in doing so?

Bristol Archive Records is a record label dealing in Bristol post punk 1977 onwards.

We aim to showcase music from the diverse Bristol Music scene and provide a historical account / document of all things Bristol that should never be forgotten. Many of the artists and releases are rare, unknown or never before released. The material has been lovingly digitally remastered from vinyl, ¼ inch tape, dat or cassette. The original vinyl releases would generally have been limited to runs of 1000 copies or less.

We would like to thank the original label owners and/or the artists for allowing us to share with you their forgotten works and provide a statement of how brilliant bands have always been from the city of Bristol and the surrounding areas.

Enjoy and never forget the talented ones from the past, they deserve to be recognised & remembered.

The Archive started in 2001 when we released ‘Western Stars the Bands That Built Bristol’ on cd, featuring acts form 1978-1981. The record didn’t sell very well so there was no follow up until a friend of mine Dave Bateman, Vice Squads guitarist died two years ago .It started me thinking that somehow there ought to be an historical account, library of all the people that have made up the Bristol music scene.

To me Punk or Post Punk was the starting point and therefore there must be a record of how it all started and who was influential at the time.

Q: Were you already aware of all the bands and records that you have released or have you had to do a lot of hunting around?

All the recordings from 1977 onwards that were released originally on Vinyl I had copies of, but there are loads of rare previously unreleased material that we found on cassettes under peoples beds or up the loft. There are also lots of recordings taken from ¼ inch tape that Simon Edwards has kept for 30 years in his office at home.

Q: Does the label mainly release punk rock music from Bristol or are other genres included?

All genres of Bristol music are released on the Archive. We also move through the decades from the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s. It’s a never ending mission to catalogue the history of the Bristol music scene and as many people as possible that were involved. We start in 1977 with The Cortinas though and there is no better place or band.

Q: At the end of the ‘70s, punk rock made a huge impact on the whole country. In comparison, what was the punk scene like in Bristol at the time?

I was in a band 1n 1979/1980 and the gig scene was amazing, you could catch 3 or 4 gigs a night. Here’s a list of some of the famous or not so famous venues:

1.    Exhibition Centre, Anchor Road – SHUT DOWN

2.    Colston Hall – STILL OPEN

3.    Brunel Technical College – STILL OPEN BUT NOT PROMOTING LIVE MUSIC

4.    Locarno – SHUT DOWN

5.    Barton Hill Youth Club – STILL OPEN BUT NOT PROMOTING LIVE MUSIC

6.    Students Union, Bristol Uni – STILL OPEN BUT NOT PROMOTING LOCAL LIVE MUSIC

7.    Granary - SHUT DOWN

8.    Tiffanys – SHUT DOWN AND KNOCKED DOWN

9.    Hope Chapel - STILL OPEN

10.  Ashton Court Festival – STILL GOING STRONG

11.  Stonehouse – SHUT DOWN AND KNOCKED DOWN

12.  Hillfields Youth Club – STILL OPEN BUT NOT PROMOTING LIVE MUSIC

13.  Romeo and Juliets – SHUT DOWN

14.  St Mathias – STILL OPEN BUT NOT PROMOTING LIVE MUSIC

15.  Bristol Bridge Inn – STILL OPEN BUT NOT PROMOTING LIVE MUSIC

16.  Trinity – STILL OPEN

17.  Arts Centre – STILL OPEN BUT NOT PROMOTING LIVE MUSIC

18.  Carwardines – SHUT DOWN

19.  Redland Site, Bristol Poly – STILL OPEN BUT NOT PROMOTING LIVE MUSIC

20.  Crystal Theatre Warehouse – SHUT DOWN

21.  Avon Gorge Bar – STILL OPEN BUT NOT PROMOTING LIVE MUSIC

22.  Green Rooms – SHUT DOWN AND KNOCKED DOWN

23.  Dockland Settlement - SHUT DOWN

The scene was very much a cross over between the Black and White parts of the city as they were in those days. Reggae and Bristol reggae bands were at the top of their game with Talisman and Black Roots being the biggest and the best. 

Q: Did you have much involvement in the scene back then?

As I’ve said I was in a white reggae band called The Rimshots, we played with the Beat, Hazel O’Connor, The Body snatchers and all of Bristols finest. Our second single released in 1980 is just about to be rereleased by www.1977records.com in Japan.

Q: Apart from yourself, who else has been involved in Bristol Archive Records?

Steve Street – legendary Bristol recording engineer from GBH, SAM Studios

Mike Crawford – Singer in The Spics, The Viceroys, The Nitecaps and Apache Dropout guitarist.

Simon Edwards – Head of Heartbeat Records and Riot City Records

Thomas Brooman CBE – Head of The Bristol Recorder, Wavelength records, Womad and drummer in The Spics, The Media and The Sidneys

Shane Baldwin – Vice Squads drummer

Paul Whitrow – Recording engineer from Channel house Studios

Q: Who were the most important Bristol bands to come out of that scene and who were your personal favourites?

The most important from 1977 – 1980 were:

THE CORTINAS

THE POP GROUP

GLAXO BABIES

TALISMAN

BLACK ROOTS

ELECTRIC GUITARS

SHOES FOR INDUSTRY

THE X-CERTS

My favourites were:

THE VARIOUS ARTISTS

ELECTRIC GUITARS

TALISMAN

Q: Do many of the old venues still remain from back then?

See the list above for evidence of the destruction of the inner city and the venues that we all enjoyed in the late 70’s

Q: A new compilation album ‘Bristol The Punk Explosion’ is to be released soon. Is the album meant to provide an overview of the whole scene?

It’s meant to plot Punk from 1977 – 1983 in Bristol and all the great bands that have come out of the city. There are fantastic sleeve notes written by Shane Baldwin following interviews with members of all the original bands – 4000 words and loads of great pictures.

Q: What is your opinion of punk rock music these days, both within the UK and outside?

Punk for me was a 1977 thing which evolved into New Wave. The 1980 Punk scene in Bristol was more squat punk fuelled by Cider and other substances. I see modern day Punk as Rock and I’ve released many of these records on my other label Sugar Shack Records.

Q: Do you think that the Bristol punk scene of the past has had much of an influence on the city’s music in more recent years?

That’s the point really! Bristol is known world wide for Massive Attack, Portishead, Tricky, Smith and Mighty and Roni Size quite rightly because of their global success. The scene though has produced many fantastic bands that would have influenced some of the above bands but they remain largely unknown. Many of the musicians who play in the bands listed started off because of the Punk scene and played in bands in 1978 and onwards.

Q: Although Bristol has become known for other types of music recently, do you think there is much of a punk scene there now? If so, what do you think of the bands that there are?

There has always been a great underground Rock / Punk scene but there hasn’t ever been a guitar band to make it on a Global level like Massive have. Many of the Sugar shack bands come from this scene, Redefine, Two Day Rule, Grebo, Mea Culpa, Left Side Brain, Anemic.

Q: Bristol was recently named “Britain’s most musical city” in a survey. Do you agree with this statement? If so, do you think that the punk scene had an effect on this?

There is a web / a jigsaw of musicians that make up the scene now and from the 70’s. It has always been a great place to live, to much weed though to make bands active enough like other less attractive cities but yes it might be reasonable to call Bristol ‘Britains most musical city’

Q: You also run another label, Sugar Shack Records. What is the history behind that?

Started in 1985, still releasing records but hot any where near as prolific as in the mid 90’s and into the 2000’s. Our biggest success is still Redefine although our best selling records were Septembre (ex Vex red) and Crashland – check www.sugarshackrecords.co.uk

Q: What bands on Sugar Shack should people be looking out for at the moment?

LEFT SIDE BRAIN

DARKHORSE

FULL SCREAM AHEAD

Link : http://www.roomthirteen.com/features/745/Interview_with_Mike_Darby.html

Mike Darby

April 2010

www.bristolarchiverecords.com

www.sugarshackrecords.co.uk