Songs from the Coventry Underground - Trev Teasdel

Songs From the Coventry Underground.

In 2007 Broadgate Gnome (The Underground magazine of the Coventry Diggers - 1970) created the Gnome Label (an idea they had for an alternative record label in 1970 but which never came was reincarnated in the digital age). It's aim this time around was to published Coventry bands and artists that never got published back in the 70's. "Records we Never Made" was one of the slogans. I (Trev Teasdel) was busy documenting the Coventry Music scene of the 1970's on Vox blogs and also a site for my digital version of my song recorded on old cassettes or a portastudio and telling the song stories which related to the Coventry scene. Hench I was the first artist they published via CD and digitally via Amazon USA and I Tune Europe. The songs, being mostly working version recorded on cassette during the writing process and digitally enhanced, really had a bootleg feel to them - hence the title - Songs from the Coventry Underground. The CD was a limited edition and somewhat of a collectors item potentially, i'm told. The album was originally called Coventry Days.

This blog will tell the stories of the songs and some that never made to the CD.

This is the blurb that the Gnome Label used to promote the album.

"Songs from the Coventry Underground - Is a collection of the earlier songs from poet and performer Trev Teasdel.  It is very apt that he should feature at the very beginning of our Retro-Cov platform.
 This is the guy that played an important role in thedevelopment of  Coventry's musical conciousness. He kept an alternative voice alive with the production of Hobo magazine that continued the trail from where the fading footprints of the Gnome could still be identified. Taking over the booking of live bands at the Arts Umbrella, he continued the policy that allowed many of the new local bands an airing as well as bringing in some excellent but not often seen names from outside of the City.

He also created one of the cornerstones of the Coventry Music scene, with the inception of the open jam sessions at the Holyhead Road Arts centre.

He left Coventry to study and has since been as active as ever, with an impressive workload of teaching new writers, running poetry magazines and venues from his Teesside home while still writing and performing his own material.

But that's not the only reason for choosing his work for this release. He is a master craftsman of his artform. His lyrics are carefully honed with the occasional surprise. The working of the words "under the Speenhamland scheme" into the lyric of Captain Swing, written some 20 years before the arrival of Billy Bragg, is phenomenal and deserves a place in the record books.

Aside from that, his work reverberates with the angst and expectations that many living in Coventry at the that time will have felt. Often written on long walks home up the London Road after the last bus, or in tea breaks while working at the GEC. The collective lyrics paint a picture of youthful exhilaration and myriad inspirations with echoes of revolt. Some might suggest that they could have been written in and about any city in those times. No they could only come from one place....Our Coventry.

17 tracks on Songs From the Coventry Underground - Shortly After Midnight / Well I Don't Know / The Phoenix / The Isolate / Mrs Stress and Strain / Just Before Dawn / A Lotta Rain is Fallin' / Throw Down My Pack / Scarf / A Teardrop in the Tees / Tonight (Loneliness Surrounds me Like the Dark of Night / Back in Winter Town / With Someone Nice Like You / Captain Swing / Shortly After Midnight (Early version) / Postcards of China / Visions of a Brighter Day." Digger Dave - Gnome Label

Many of the songs are solo by Trev Teasdel but others include members of a recording band Trev had on Teesside in the 1980's who did some of his songs and whom he called Trev and the Collective Unconscious. This out fit consisted of Trev and Steve Gillgallon (who variously played synth, bass and keyboards and acoustic lead.) / Steve Ingledew who played keyboards and did some of the recordings.

The Gnome label published other Coventry artists too but digitally. These include Dave Pepper (former front man with the X Certs (c 1979), Kristy Gallacher ( a young Coventry singer songwriter), Culture Fuzion (Jim Pryal), The Is (Coventry's Al Docker's Cornish reggae band), Neil O'Connor (Hazel's brother) and more.

The original label back in 1970 was aiming to launch itself with a Live album recorded at the Lanch Poly (Now Coventry University in 1970 by Wandering John - one of the most popular rock and blues bands in Coventry at the time.

Below will be posts with the you tube versions of the songs - other drafts and the lyrics and stories. It will also tell you something about the Coventry music scene of the 70's at the same time.

Shortly After Midnight - Trev and the Collective Unconscious

There are two versions of Shortly After Midnight on the album - this is the earliest version recorded in Middlesbrough 1985 on a Fostex X15. The later version 1986 is more developed but i like Steve Gillgallon's Synth playing on this. Steve played bass and lead guitar and this was his first use of my new Yamaha synth.

 Shortly After Midnight final version 1986 

Shortly After Midnight (86) from Trev Teasdel on Vimeo.

Shortly After Midnight 85 Trev and the Collective Unconcious from Trev Teasdel on Vimeo.

SHORTLY AFTER MIDNIGHT

by Trev Teasdel

Quiet in the town

Darkness creeps around

Silence is a menace

Sleep cannot be found.

Tension in the town

Your heart begins to pound

Feet begin to itch

Toss and turn around

Feel you wanna cry

Burning of the eye

Explosion of the soul

Helplessly you lie

Feel the tension rise

Fear is in your eyes

Seems you want to scream

Then the feeling dies

Chorus

Shortly after midnight, shortly after midnight

Shortly after midnight, shortly after midnight

Stranger in the cold light, standing in the moonlight

There a knocking at the door

A feeling not quite right

That robbed the purse of hope

And left you naked in the night

It crept upon you unawares

Teased and tore you like a cat

‘Til you screamed out inside

“What the hell is that!”

(Chorus)

Shortly after midnight, shortly after midnight

Shortly after midnight, shortly after midnight

Stranger in the cold light, standing in the moonlight

(Bridge)

Emptiness was floodlit by the moon

As it crept through window into the room

Hand in hand with the darkness in the soul

Ushered in by the sound of a silent drum roll – oll etc.

Quiet in the town

Not a single sound

Moon turned out its light

In the darkest deep of night

The wind it made no sound

Sleep could not be found

Darkness did surround

Midnight in the town

...............................

This lyric began in Coventry 1979 while working at JJ Cash Ltd. The early verses began then and the song was finished off in Middlesbrough 1985. I wrote it on guitar but we recorded it with synths and keyboards. The first version featured a blistering synth solo by Steve Gillgallon. We recorded it on an Fostex X15 portastudio in 1986 and remixed at Studio 64 Middlesbrough for inclusion on a Cassette compilation album.



Trev Teasdel - Guitar, vocals, writer.
Steve Gillgallon - bass guitar, synth, keyboards, arrangement.
Steve Ingledew - keyboards, drum machine.

Well I Don't Know - Trev and the Collective Unconscious

WELL I DON'T KNOW 
The original lyrics 1970 by Trev Teasdel. Music by Johnny Adams (1973) for original version, Trev Teasdel, Steve Gillgallon, Steve Ingledew (1986) for the version below which has no vocal track!


Well I Don't Know - Trev and the Collective Unconscious 1986 from Trev Teasdel on Vimeo.



Well I Don't Know - Song Story

The days of OMD, Kraftwerk, Human League, the 80's. 1986, Palm Street, Middlesbrough, armed with keyboards, synths and an X15 portastudio, we spent our weekends creating music. This track featured, Steve Gillgallon bass / keys. Steve Ingledew keys, drum-machine programming. Trev Teasdel - guitar (hidden in the mix as a guide) & keys, began as a lyric in Cov 1970 after reading the 'Story of the Blues' and walking home from the GEC observing kids out of school throwing stones and kicking balls around! "Well I don't know, I got no stone throw, Well I don't know, I got no ball to catch. My friend the sun, fled to Australia, Oh please come back and dawn on me!". In 1973 Johnny Adams - who later was in the punk band Squad after Terry Hall left to join the Specials, put music to it on guitar, in a Ralph McTell picking style. It became folk not blues. In 1986, Middlesbrough, I played the song to my Middlesbrough musician friends. We began to redevelop it as a keyboard track, adding a new bridge and changing the melodic structure. After multi-tracking, there wasn't room for the vocals (bad planning) but i found it difficult to sing over as the melodies were too strong so I left it as an instrumental. I think it works. It appeared in 2007 on my Gnome album Songs from the Coventry Underground.

WELL I DON'T KNOW

by Trev Teasdel.

I don't know

I got no stone to throw

Well I don't know

I Got no ball to catch.

My friend the sun

Fled to Australia

Oh please come back

And dawn on me.

I don't know

Perhaps I'll leave here

Perhaps I'll go

Far far away ..ay.

I don't know

My soul's a star

Trapped in a jar

It all seems so far ..

(Bridge)

The road is calling but I

Can't go on

This restless feeling calls

Me on and on

The lake she sings to me

Says I have no fish to give.

The tree he watches me

With no place to live.

I don't know

I got no place to be

Oh I don't know

Oh I don't know

It doesn't worry me.

I don't know

I'm so alone now

Along ways from home.

I don't know

perhaps I'll lose my way

Well I don't know

why should I stay

but then again

I got no way to lose

All I possess

Is the blues.

(Bridge)

The road is calling but I

Can't go on

This restless feeling is calling

Me on and on

The lake she sings to me

Says I have no fish to give.

The tree he watches me

With no place to live.

I don't know

Guess I'll write a song

Oh I don't know

It all seems so wrong.

Lyrics by Trev Teasdel 1970

Trev Teasdel - guitar, lyric and music.

Johnny Adams - music

Steve Gillgallon - Bass guitar, keyboards, arrangement.

Steve Ingledew - keyboards, drum machine.

This audio/vid is a draft version we in rearranging an acoustic song for keyboards.

The Phoenix - Trev and the Collective Unconscious

THE PHOENIX 

Trev Teasdel Middlesbrough 1986

The Phoenix by Trev and the Collective Unconscious from Trev Teasdel on Vimeo.

After the planes came

With bombs for our city.

After the night-raid’s

Nightmare intensity.

In the wake of the heartbreak-

Life-quakes

Sorrow in the heart-shocked

Fear-shelled

tomorrow.

Chorus

You – must carry on – Rise from the ashes – Soar in the sky

You – mustn’t give in – have faith in your future – pride in your past

You – must carry on – Rise from the ashes – Soar in the sky

You – mustn’t give in – Just like the phoenix – Never say die.

The Sirens sounded

The scramble for shelter.

Survival in crisis

Fear jammed the senses.

The drone of the bombers

Descending like demons

Menacing our skyways,

Our streets are exploding

Sudden cadence of brick-fall

Operation – Moonlight Sonata.

Bridge

This is for those who fell in the moonlight

While the bombers raged and the ….

In the silence

Of heart-stopped

emergence

From shelters

The seeking of loved ones

In rubble hid carnage.

A spirit was rising

Hardened by hammers

That called forth the flames

In the shape of a future.

From the embers of darkness

......................

 This track was created in Middlesbrough in 2006 when my mother sent me a copy of a supplement from the Coventry Telegraph which featured people's memories of the Coventry blitz and surviving all night in the air raid shelters while the bombs fell all around and the dive bombing began. The stories were horrendous and Stephen Ingledew and i were working on a chord sequence on the keyboards and with Steve Gillgallon worked it up into the piece. The words, which came first, weren't added to the track in the end but we put the synth through a flanger in second half of the song to emulate the dive bombers.

The Isolate - Trev and the Collective Unconscious

The Isolate

©Trev Teasdel 

This is the backing track for the song recorded on portastudio 1986 in Middlesbrough. We didn't leave space for the vocal track but earlier version will uploaded. This was featured on the Songs from the Coventry Underground album in 2007.

The Isolate by Trev Teasdel and The Holy Grail from Trev Teasdel on Vimeo.

Under lock and key

In a room where no one goes

He sheds the tears

no one else will see.

In the recess of his mind

where troubles often hide

He feels the sorrow

felt by him alone.

Bridge 1

His eyes do not betray

the hurt that rots his soul

and his lips are sworn to secrecy

(his lips are sworn to secrecy).

Chorus

but he says it's alright

Daylight follows night

He knows to hold on tight

One day it will come right.

In a folder 'neath the floor boards

in a room where no one goes

are the words he wrote

to songs he never sings.

In the silence of his solitude

so void and unbenign

we witness how

his dreams are growing wings.

Bridge 2

One day his key will turn

One day his door will open

You'll see his dreams take shape

in the world outside his mind

And when his heart is sure

When his vision's clear

You'll see his dreams take flight

in the room outside his mind...

(To Chorus)

And his dreams are howling wolves

in the hopelessness of night

that beckon to

and herald in the light.

And his sorrow and his searching

are craftsmen of his dreams

chiselled in that rip n shred of life.

Bridge 3

His heart is pure and clear

like a stream that wanders free

He sees things as they ought to be.

And he climbs the stairs of life

with his visions running wild

and guides them as they grow

like a parent would a child.

..............

This lyric began in Coventry 1979 while working at J J Cash Ltd. While others had a smoke break, I used to have 'write' break. The only place to get any peace to jot down any lyric ideas that occurred to me was to lock myself away in a toilet cubicle! The job was a bit of an alienating one the cubicle was a bit like a cell! That prompted an idea for the first verse.A year later I was on a degree course in Teesside so I was probably plotting my escape from the mundane to something more fulfilling. I finished the lyric off in Middlesbrough 1986 and set it to music and did various arrangements with my musician friends Steve Gillgallon and Steve Ingledew using synths and keyboards.The version on Songs From the Coventry Underground is an instrumental as we left no spare track on the 4 track portastudio for the vocals - bad planning! However there are some earlier versions which i will add here.

Trev Teasdel - flanged electric and acoustic guitars and (on some tracks - vocals), writer.

Steve Gillgallon - Bass guitar, lead, keyboards, (synth on some versions), arrangement.

Steve Ingledew - keyboards / synth and drum machine.

Mrs Stress and Strain - Trev Teasdel

Mrs Stress and Strain - Trev Teasdel from Trev Teasdel on Vimeo.

MRS STRESS AND STRAIN
                                 
When the sun is out shining
Are you always ironing?
Does your Steven need new shoes?
And Mary have the lover’s blues?
As life all around gets tense
Do you ask yourself
‘where is the sense?’

Maybe the milkman hasn’t been
And your rooms aren’t very clean.
So many bills to be paid
On your mind they’re all weighed
Prices rising so much higher
And your state is getting dire.

Chorus –
Mrs Stress and Strain, 
To the kitchen sink you’re chained.  
Worry haunts your life, 
I see you are the wife
of Mr Toil and Strife.

They say “A women’s works is never done”
and the housework isn’t fun
Who else would work as hard as you
Such long hours, no rest due.
The stresses and the strains you bear,
The children and the mothercare!

And the beat goes on, day by day,
The isolation wears your soul away.
There’s nothing to show for all your work
Because you can’t stop a room from gathering dirt!
Do you feel you’ve got no life left of your own,
A permanent fixture, a doorpost in your home.

Chorus …

And though you’ll never make ends meet,
The adverts entice you to compete
With an image of an ‘all-mod-con
Trendy space age super mom.’
Should profiteers always hold the trump cards?
You’ve been dealt a hand of jokers –
Oh What a façade!

Sometimes slave means the same as mom.
Who does everyone fall back upon.
They don’t think there can be another side of you
Only see what they expect of you.
Locked into the family situation
With the pills to ease your aggravation.
Chorus…

Sit down, sit back, light up and sigh,
Does your position in society make you cry?
“How hard’s the fortune of all women kind,                   
Always in fetters, always confined.
Bound down by parents until made wives
Slaves to their husbands the rest of their lives.”

.........................................
The lyric was first written in Coventry, January 1969 and re-written or extended c 1976.
Song Story
This has an interesting song history! : I wrote the first version of the lyric when I was 17, & used magazines like New Society with its sociological articles or Psychology magazines with articles like "The nervy young housewife!" for inspiration. Those kind of articles inspired "The Ups and Downs in the life of Mr Toil and Strife" which Nigel Clarke of Coventry duo Cardinal covered and wrote this counter part - "Mrs Stress and Strain!" to go with it. In the mid 70's, with things becoming more political in Coventry, I  read a number of feminist books, Juliet Mitchell, Sheila Rowbothem etc. & articles like "To pay her is not to free her" which discussed the dicotomy between the "socialist and bourgoise feminists" on housework perspectives. After which I extended the lyric and set it music. In 1980 we had a little acoustic band with Andy Cairns on lead guitar,  and the upright string bass player was also a roadie / Van driver with The Selecter at the time and we had a female singer. We were acoustic not Ska but Andy skanked this one up a bit. However this version is my original humble cassette demo version before it got rearranged. The band split up when Andy and I went separate ways to do degrees so we never got to gig.

Just Before Dawn - Trev Teasdel

Just Before Dawn - Trev Teasdel from Trev Teasdel on Vimeo.



Just Before Dawn (1970) by Trev Teasdel
- Recorded on Cassette Player 1979

Breeze blowing through the trees,

Squirrels squatting on their knees

Breeze blowing through the trees,

Squirrels squatting on their knees

Trying not to freeze

In amongst the trees

Searching for acorns

Just before dawn - Just before Dawn

Just before Dawn - Just before dawn

And the wind blows free

of the ripples of the city

Just before dawn, just before dawn

Just before dawn, just before dawn.


Then silence vomits an almighty roar

A thousand vehicles and maybe more

Stampede the main arterial lanes

To face their daily stresses and strains

and engines sing to morning faces

bustling off to their work places.

Oh Oh City light - Oh oh City light.


Refresh your lungs in the morning smog

Find a patch of grass to walk your dog

Wander by in an urban dream

'long the banks of a traffic stream

Black birds nesting in the branches

of the local factories.


Oh oh City light - oh oh City light


Listen to cockcrow in the clock tower

announcing the arrival of another rush hour

(another rush hour, another rush hour.)


Oh oh City light - Oh oh city light.

..............................................

Wrote the lyrics about the morning rush hour while working at the GEC in Coventry 1970 and set it to a fast paced picking tune later in the 70's. The lyrics were compressed from a Moody Blues inspired concept album I had planned, looking at the working day and alienation and the environment.

A Lotta rain is Fallin' - Trev Teasdel

A Lotta Rain is Fallin' - Trev Teasdel from Trev Teasdel on Vimeo.

I wrote the lyric at the GEC Stoke works in Coventry June 1970. Pete Waterman, who back then was my shop steward and also the top Soul DJ in Coventry,wrote the original music on acoustic guitar.Pete took the lyric away and brought in a cassette player the next week with his voice and music to it. I don;t have a copy of Pete's version from1970 but i put my own music to it in 1980, and this version features Steve Gillgallon on acoustic lead and myself on vocals and guitar. pete liked the line "There's a lotta rivers flowin' but the sea's learned how to fly" and repeated it in his version.

A LOTTA RAIN IS FALLIN’

A lotta rain is fallin’, but the earth has moved aside

There’s a lotta bullets flying but the victim’s found somewhere to hide

There’s a lotta rivers flowin’ but the seas learned how to fly.

There’s a lotta clouds a wondering which rockets nicked the sky

‘cos the roads are moving fast but the cars are standing still

and so much is happening yet nothing’s ever done

Oh we want to see the light but we’re dazzled by the sun.

(Bridge)

And some people’s only sunshine

Are their Cornflakes in the morning time

And the age of instant sunshine

In packets of bright display

I know will be dawning, in some future day.

There’s a lotta tears a fallin’, and more are being cried

There’s a lotta people trampled on as man takes another stride

There’s a lotta smoke a rising but the sky’s learned how to swim

There’s a lotta faces smiling but their hearts are feeling grim

Cos a lotta tension’s forming and the bags about to burst

There’s gotta be an answer cos the world is getting worse.

A lotta help is needed to get that truck back on the road

Cos too many people are pullin’ too heavier a load. 

Trev Teasdel June 1970

Below a later version of the song with Ian Digby on keyboards,Steve Gillgallon on bass and lead and Trev on guitar and vocals.

...........................................

Song Story

I wrote this at GEC Stoke Works, Coventry (Telecommunications section) where i worked in 1970. I was 19 and my shop steward, Pete Waterman, who also worked there at that time, spotted me writing and asked to have a look. I had no idea who he was at that time, apart from the shop steward who sometimes called us out for meetings. Pete wasn;t yet the icon he bcame with SAW back then but was Coventry's Top Soul DJ and had sang and played Rhythm guitar in local R & B bands like Tomorow's Kind and before that, the Pilgrims.

Pete took the lyric away and a week later brought it back and played me his version, using 7th chords, on a single cassette playe (state of the art for 1970!). His version, played on acoustic guitar, sounded like a cross between Paul McCartney with the rough R & B edges of Bob Dylan. Pete didn't have his own company at that stage and so nothing further happened with it although he did run a progressive music venue at the Walsgrave in Coventry which i helped out with, doing the door and helping the bands set up their equipment at the gigs. pete was going to perform it on stage there but never did. he liked the line "There’s a lotta rivers flowin’ but the seas learned how to fly." and repeated it twice in his version for emphasis. pete got me to write lyrics for other bands at the time but with bands constantly breaking up and reforming, nothing permanent came of it. Later, in 1973, I was running Hobo, Coventry Music and Arts magazine and Pete had left GEC to set up his Soul Hole record store, selling Soul imports and Northern Soul material. He wrote an article for the magazine on meeting the Three Degrees and Bowie and advertised in the magazine. In 1981, having lost contact with pete after I moved to Teesside to do my degree, I put my own acoustic music to it, which is the version here with Steve Gillgallon on lead guitar. the song was partly influenced by King Crimson's Epitaph and we later did a version with keyboards on, of which I haven;t yet got a decent version onto the computer.

Throw Down My Pack - Trev Teasdel

Two versions in the video here. An acoustic version with Steve Gillgallon on lead and which is featured on Songs from the Coventry Underground and a later versions on which I play all the instruments.


Throw Down My Pack - Trev Teasdel from Trev Teasdel on Vimeo.

THROW DOWN MY PACK

Give me my pack; I’ll be on my way

The lakes of this land are now dry

It’s been a good soldier in its day

But its eyes have no water to cry.

The sun looks bright but the land is in shadow

Like madmen we tried to swim a tideless sea.

A sky full of planes but nowhere to land them

A head full of ideas that cried to be free.

Instrumental Break…

Throw down my pack; I’m bound for to stay

I think we can turn on the tap.

Turning the tap is like tugging Excalibur

We need all hands at the tap.

The sun looks bright; we’ll invite it to stay

Once we find a place to land our planes.

A hand full of ideas; a jug full of water

Reap the fruit of our aims.

Where has the love gone; we’re empty and aching

Where has the fun gone; it’s turned into violence.

Where are the people with words and no action?

Let’s have the action and less of the words.

By Trev Teasdel June 1973 (Coventry)

.........................................

SONG STORY

This song came about after we started Hobo (Coventry Music and Arts Magazine) early June 1973. I started the magazine with John Bargent (Bo) and John provided the cash for printing the first edition and was going to generate income via adverts to pay for the printing of what would be a community based magazine. However John left after the first issue to be the road manager with Coventry jazz rock outfit Khayyam who had a residency at Ronnie Scots and European tour lined up. John ran Rougestarr Promotions, management and disco and before we started Hobo, he was promoting me as a singer songwriter.

I couldn;t aford to put the second edition out , due in July as a result and the first part of this song, for reflects the disappointment - 

" Give me my pack; I’ll be on my way

The lakes of this land are now dry

It’s been a good soldier in its day

But its eyes have no water to cry."

But while interviewing another Coventry band Fission, in the Dive Bar (Lady Godiva) I met Babs Wainwright who offered to get the magazine duplicated at her office. The first issue had been offset Lithoed and duplicating was not as good but it meant I could get an issue out so i am eternally grateful to Babs (now sadly passed and featured in the video) for rescuing Hobo and for thus influencing the latter part of the song -

"Throw down my pack; I’m bound for to stay

I think we can turn on the tap.

Turning the tap is like tugging Excalibur

We need all hands at the tap."

For me, the song, metaphorical, is about those times when everything goes wrong and you feel like giving up but then things change and you are back in gear, feeling more positive. When the Gnome Label put the track on Amazon USA in 2007, Amazon added the track to a list of songs of possible interest to Back Packers! Well it could be seen that way but for me it was an internal journey.

Khayyam