Postcards From Scotland by Grant McPhee – The North London Poly Riots
Thanks to Grant McPhee for sharing this extract from his new book Postcards From Scotland: Scottish Independent Music 1983-1995 available now from Omnibus Press and all good bookshops. An oral history of the era’s DIY music scene, Postcards From Scotland is constructed from over 100 first-person interviews with musicians, record labels, venues, promoters and journalists central to the landscape of 1983-1995.
“This is a brilliant account of one of the most fruitful periods of Scotland’s musical heritage. The cast list is longer than Norman Blake’s hair circa 1992. Devour!” Marc Riley
“Compelling and dynamic oral history. The characters come to life on the printed page.” Louder Than War
1984: The infamous North London Poly Gig showcasing Creation’s Scottish roster – The Mary Chain, The Jasmine Minks and Meat Whiplash.
Douglas Hart (Bass, The Jesus and Mary Chain): That year was insane, really, you know, incredible momentum, forward momentum, and incredible energy, including the riots at North London Poly.
Michael Kerr (Drums, Meat Whiplash): We were on first . . . and it was typical Meat Whiplash style. We didn’t have a clue about anything. We were meant to travel on the night before so that we’d be there in the morning and whatever. There used to be a bus from East Kilbride that left for London at ten o’clock at night. We turned up to get this bus and it was full so we couldn’t get on and we basically had to go down on the morning of the gig. We knew that the North London Polytechnic was on Holloway Road because the advert in the NME said it was. We didn’t know where that was so we ended up getting an A–Z to find out exactly where.
Stephen McLean (Guitar, Meat Whiplash): Looking back at that night, it is actually quite frightening but at the time it was a mix of fear and exhilaration. It feels now as though the whole night had been building up to that, there seemed to be tension from early on. I think that the promoters maybe sold too many tickets and there were also loads of people outside without tickets so there was a bit of an atmosphere from the very start. I remember Bobby and Douglas letting folk in for free through a fire escape as well.
Michael Kerr: We turned up with our equipment at the venue . . . The Jesus and Mary Chain were already there. When it came to our soundcheck, Paul, our singer was nowhere to be found. At that time the JAMC didn’t do their own soundchecks. Basically their roadies did their soundcheck for them. We couldn’t find Paul McDermott because he was in the toilet taking speed with Douglas Hart so Jim Reid got up and did our sound- check with us. We did ‘I Wanna Be Your Dog’ by The Stooges and Jim sang it with us . . . I just remember seeing all these people thinking, ‘Why’s he up there with them doing their soundcheck when he doesn’t even do his own?’ I’d like to have recorded that!
Stephen McLean: It pretty much started badly and deteriorated from there; we were getting things thrown at us from the first few minutes and there were guys down the front making threats towards us. We had been drinking beforehand and I took umbrage at the stuff being thrown at us and I lobbed an Old England Sherry bottle into the crowd; thankfully it never hit anyone but, not surprisingly, it just made them even angrier. Shortly after that a couple of guys ran on stage and attacked Eddie, I managed to get them off of him and we left the stage. Alan McGee thought this was brilliant and it was then that he said we would be recording a single. He then encouraged us to go on and make a noise for the next 10 minutes.
Michael Kerr: Anyway . . . we started drinking, as everybody did, and went out on stage. Now we were not one of the greatest bands in the world so we just went out . . . I think we only had about four or five songs – ‘Don’t Slip Up’ hadn’t been written at that point – so we went out and started playing and there were some guys in the audience who were throwing things . . . then Paul did the ‘come on!’ to one of them . . . and one of them came on. Paul ran off the stage and the guy ran after him. Eddie Connelly tried to stop him and the guy punched Eddie. At that point Stephen just threw off his guitar and went for the guy. Now, when this was happening the guy’s friend got up on stage so we had the two of them up on stage causing bother . . . Stephen had managed to fight them both off stage. Now I’ll go back a bit because I’m trying to think when the bottle incident happened . . . Eddie and Stephen were getting fed up with people spitting and throwing things. He’d bought a bottle of Buckfast at the off licence and he’d been drinking that and when he finished it he walked over between two songs, went up to the microphone and said ‘DUCK’ and tossed the bottle out. It wasn’t throwing it at somebody but it was a throwing it in the air and see where it lands. That got everybody a little riled!
Jim Shepherd (Guitar, The Jasmine Minks): I saw one member of Meat Whiplash punched full in the face as he played onstage.
Paul McDermott: Eddie always played his bass with his back to the audience. He was oblivious to what was happening and got punched on the jaw. He dropped his bass and came off.
Douglas Hart: One of best things that North London Poly did was a support band from East Kilbride called Meat Whiplash, named after a Fire Engines song. They were kind of getting booed, and Bobby just whispered something into the singer’s ear, and the singer walked out and said, ‘This is the last song,’ and everyone went, ‘yeh!!!!’ and then he said, ‘And it lasts twenty minutes.’
Michael Kerr: We went off and Alan McGee said, ‘Just get back on and play a ten-minute song of just noise’. So we did. It might have been based around something but we just played and that riled them up even more . . . We went off and down to our dressing room and Alan McGee burst in and said ‘WE’RE GOING TO DO A SINGLE’ and then just left the dressing room. There were some other people we knew there and I can remember seeing their faces thinking ‘What’s he thinking, releasing a single with them?’
Paul McDermott: The A&R guys from Warner’s just looked at Alan as if he was fucking nuts. We finished, came off stage and were completely buzzing. Stephen and I headed to the student bar for a few pints and were greeted by the four guys that he booted off the stage. They were Geordies, shook our hands, bought the beers and congratulated our spirited performance. Bizarre.
Jim Shepherd: We went on after them. I was terrified. It felt like being thrown to the lions. I don��t know why but the crowd didn’t invade when we played.
Michael Kerr: After that The Jasmine Minks went on and one of them had put a hammer in his back pocket and as soon as the first song started he turned his back to the audience to show he had a hammer as if to say, ‘If you want to try something then try something’.
Jim Shepherd : We had a claw hammer as part of our tool kit, used to nail Tom’s drum kit to the stage (he hit them so hard that they wandered around the stage if we didn’t) and Adam had it showing clearly from his jacket pocket as we walked to our places on stage. I had a suede-head and wore a Crombie coat, so I assume they thought we were tougher than we really were?
Stephen McLean: The Jasmine Minks set passed without incident but when JAMC came on it just went mad. I can’t recall exactly the order of events from then, but the whole place erupted, anything that wasn’t nailed down was thrown or smashed and the PA was destroyed. The crowd were completely out of control and that’s when it became really frightening. We managed to get out in one piece but the hall looked like a battle- field in the aftermath.
Jim Shepherd: There is so much written about the riot at North London Poly, JAMC and Meat Whiplash. The place was trashed and the PA was turned into kindling. And remember that back then PAs were made from huge wooden cabinets towering high in the air.
Michael Kerr: Then the Jesus and Mary Chain came on and did their usual 15-minute set . . . and madness ensued. We were down in the dressing rooms underneath the stage and you could just hear this mayhem that was going on upstairs. Stephen had got his guitar nicked and before you knew it the police were turning up and we made statements . . . yeh . . . that was our introduction. That was the second time we’d ever played live.
Alan McGee: We’d conjured up madness.
About the author: Grant McPhee is a filmmaker and music writer from Scotland. His feature-length documentary, Big Gold Dream was adapted into book form as Hungry Beat with co-writer, Douglas MacIntyre.
Grant McPhee