Paul Weller’s words in tribute to Rick Buckler, mentioned the early days in Woking and made me think of the old place. That’s where I grew up, y’know.
I was at a gathering a few months ago here in Auckland NZ and a young chap (by which I mean under 40) asked where I was from in England? I replied “Woking – it’s just outside London”. I always say that. His eyes widened and confirmed with some gusto that he knew exactly where Woking was and started to talk excitedly about Paul Weller and The Jam. He’s a big fan and one day he’d really like to go to Woking. It’s on his bucket list! I counselled him not to get too excited because there’s not a lot to it – but I was inwardly quite pleased that this person from the other side of the world views Woking as such a special place.
One of the many reasons I fell for Depeche Mode was the fact that they grew up in Basildon, a similarly unremarkable commuter town so I could identify with them. The Mode’s very good friends from The Cure hailed from another similar town again – Crawley in Sussex.
I’m sure all three towns have benefited from the association in some way, although Woking’s main tourist efforts centre around HG Wells, who chose nearby Horsell Common as the place where the Martians landed. What are the chances of that, eh?
So tell me about your local patch and who came from down your road?
There was a map on here or its previous incarnation where you could place musicians who came from your area, alas I can’t find it.
Anyway here’s mine. Robert Palmer, Black Lace, the drummer from Embrace (I live in his house, he doesn’t) and John Curwen of the tonic sol fah scale
I think I did a Google Map or something similar way back when. The subject came up a year or two ago and I managed to find it then. I’ll see if I can find it again.
Here it is
https://goo.gl/maps/LiVoLXt9zjexxKJW8?g_st=ac
I don’t know if it’s accessible – let me know.
Didn’t open at first but it did eventually.
Well done Sal
Wow – it’s almost exactly 10 years old. Have we been yacking away so long? Longer, of course…
That’s somewhere in Yorkshire isn’t it? @hubes
Batley, Liversedge and Heckmondwike.
Aka the Yorkshire Byrds.
Greg Lake, Robert Fripp and the chap who took over as guitarist in Suede.
Where’s that then?
That’d be Bournemouth / Wimborne Minster
I’ve said before that I lived around the corner from Steve Morris and knew him fairly well at school. My sister knew Ian Curtis a couple of years later plus someone or other from A Certain Ratio. Macclesfield’s contribution to post punk.
As some of you know, I went to the same school as Twang, albeit a few years later, but the Joy Division connection was still present. And let’s not forget the eponymous Macc Lads. But I would argue the finest denizen of Macc was the lately departed John Mayall.
Myself, I am from and still live 12 miles to the west in Knutsford, which seems to have become the home of choice for boyband talent, including several members of Take That. In terms of ‘benefitting by association’, nearby Holmes Chapel has a veritable cottage industry focussed on Harry Styles. There’s a visitors’ book and a photographic display in the diminutive waiting room at the station, and that visitors’ book reveals addresses from around the world, while the rather fine Grade 2 listed railway viaduct has received the unwanted attention of others leaving their mark. Check this out https://www.networkrailmediacentre.co.uk/news/network-rail-unveils-new-harrys-wall-at-site-of-iconic-holmes-chapel-landmark
Just a few miles further west again, Northwich was home to The Charlatans though, folkie that I am, I am more inclined to celebrate one of our finest artists, Pete Coe.
Of course! John Mayall! Went to school with my mate’s dad. His mum lived next door to my first girlfriend.
Another alumnus of our school and former Knutsford resident is Pogue-founder Jem Finer. He grew up on one of the grandest roads in the town, and that’s quite a high bar. Put it this way, if they ever place a blue plaque for him, it will be in the company of another that announces the house where met Charles Rolls and Henry Royce.
The benefit by association is there. As an artist, he has created installations in Tatton Park.
I’m from Glasgow, which is just too easy. In my teens when I would have been excited about this sort of thing I lived in Wrexham which is as barren of music stars as any other kind (they have to import movie stars from the States). These days I’m in Colchester, so here’s a nice story about Damon-from-Blur helping to fund repairs to a church clock which i pass on the walk into town.
https://www.gazette-news.co.uk/news/24749442.colchester-clock-repaired-donation-blurs-damon-albarn/
You could always narrow it down a bit, Gatz: I mean, if you were from Kinning Park, you could mention Alex and Les Harvey.
On the other hand, if you were from Clarkston (like me!) you could suggest Stuart Murdoch and Brian Robertson.
So who comes from Patrick? My first address was Chancellor Street, which adjoins Stewartville Street, Billie Connolly’s childhood home.
After a very quick search, I see your point – loads and loads of footballers and politicians from Partick, but not so many musicians…
You could make a case for Billy Connolly – he was in the Humblebums before he was a stand-up?
ILtL(BMBLtD)HM Tina Charles lived in the road at the top of mine and Billy Ocean was rumoured to be a local boy too, but I never saw any hard proof of that.
We did however live right next door to a Pearly Queen. I just did a google for her and was amazed to see that she’d been featured on an American TV show:
I was even more amazed to see that my own bedroom window was featured on that programme! I’d have been 15 in 1981 when that would have been broadcast, so those bedroom walls would have been plastered with NWOBHM regalia. Thank heavens for net curtains.
Another enigmatic post on the thread. Where?
Hainault. Birds of a Feather territory. On the very edge of East London, where it meets Essex. Our postal address was Chigwell but it was the Hainault estate really, built after the war to house the Cockney diaspora as the East End was redeveloped.
Can you tell me something – is it pronounced “hay-no” or “hay-nult”?
It’s Hay-nawlt…if that makes sense….you hear the l and the t. I lived in Wanstead when I was young and that was where the tubes went to on our bit of the Central line.
Via Newbury Park.
The latter, with glottal stops present and correct.
From my town (or having lived there for a considerable length of time):
LTJ Bukem, drum & bass musician, producer, DJ
Ray Cooper (boo!), ubiquitous percussionist
Gallows (me neither), hardcore punk band
George FitzGerald, electronic artist
Geri Halliwell, singer, Spice Girl
Kyla La Grange, singer-songwriter
Gerald Moore, classical pianist
Rak-Su, boy band, X-Factor winners
The Staves, singer-songwriter trio
Jakko Jakszyk, guitarist, singer, songwriter
Terry Scott, actor, comedian, made a record once-long ago.
Just down the road a bit:
George Michael
The Zombies > Argent
Elton John
Ashley Beedle
Micky Groome
LadBaby
John McKay
Jon Poole
Andy Powell
Dave Vanian
Steven Wilson
That’ll do for now.
Gallows are probably best known for being Frank Carter’s previous band.
Me neither, to be honest.
I know Elt is from Pinner and I have it in my head that Geri is from Watford. Amirite?
Yes.
The Zombies started up in St. Albans.
Andy Powell, Dave Vanian and Steven Wilson are all from Hemel Hempstead.
George Michael’s dad had a Greek restaurant in Stanmore.
The Staves are all from Watford.
Jakko Jakszyk was brought up in the Watford area.
The actor Terry Scott was an old boy from my grammar school. Had a minor hit long ago with “My Brother”.
I grew up in Ballymun, Dublin the home of the “7 towers”, Bono could see from the nice houses down the road in Glasnevin where he grew up and the horse in the lift scene from the Commitments.
Our local star who was also one of the Commitments is Glen Hansard of the Frames, a much loved band in Ireland. I really like them. I’m not sure they’re well known in the UK. Glen has also recorded a number of excellent solo albums and as the Swell Season with Marketa Irglova. Together they starred in and wrote the songs for the lovely film Once going on to win the Best Song Oscar for Falling Slowly.
Glen’s father and mine were good friends – drinking buddies. My sister and I hopped into a Dublin taxi once and the driver said his son was in a band. Turned out it was Mr. Hansard. We had to stop him telling stories about my late father. We Ballymunners are proud of Glen. He went to the same schools as me and always represents the place and references it in a positive way.
Bracknell. Where to start. Tracey Beaker actress Dani Harmer is probably the most famous.
Percy Bysshe Shelley recovered from a laudneum overdose in Bracknell once.
Andy Hill, songwriter, was born in Bracknell. Pete Sinfield, his sometime songwriting partner lived in Bracknell for a while.
Mike Batt’s mum used to live in Bracknell (I delivered their newspaper – the Times).
Jeff Brazier was also born in Bracknell (you look him up).
Band wise, there was the skinhead band The Skrews and the surf punk band Surfin’ Lungs in the 80’s.
Cambridge has a list you can easily Google (Pink Floyd – me, neither), but closest to me is Don Airey, who lives in the next village and organises a “Later”-style gig in a big top on the village green every summer. I’ve never been – not my cuppa, musically speaking – but my mate’s micro-brewery supplies the booze.
Without stretching to Newport or Cardiff and within about 10 miles. Manics, Man, Tom Jones. Can’t think of too many others right now, but I am sure there are a few more
A friend of my wife’s husband came from the same area as the Manics and knows them and their families quite well.
Surely you’re your wife’s husband? (Modern families are so confusing!)
My area is a good one for (left wing) politicians and snooker players. Ray Reardon, Mark Williams, Doug Mountjoy etc, Nye Bevan and Neil Kinnock. Some very good male voice choirs too if they count as bands or singers.
Dorothy L Sayers and Michael Gambon both died in Witham – I’m not sure what that says about the coaching station on the way from London to Norwich.
No need to be so modest about Olly Murs, Sal.
Never heard of him! He went to school in Braintree – they can have him to balance out the shocking privilege of being the hometown of The Prodigy.
Digging deeper into my past, Worcester had Edward Elgar, Dave Mason and Karl Hyde – none too shabby, while Droitwich can boast of Rik Mayall.
Radiohead went to school where I went to school. Not the same school though but the same town. They went to the posh boys public school in Abingdon and I went to the lowly comprehensive.
Later I studied Fine Art at the University Of Newcastle where Bryan Ferry went to learn about pop art from his mentor artist Richard Hamilton.
In Oxford we had the Zodiac club that was owned by Ride, it became an O2 later on. I discovered Supergrass at the Hollybush pub. Wild scenes.
Remember the Zodiac when it was the Co-op Hall. Many happy memories including seeing Ride there, plus 1000 Yard Stare, Gaye Bykers and the rave club nights of the late 80s. I remember it had a wooden floor that was always absolutely filthy.
Sarfend and vereabouts – Robin Trower, Gary Brooker and the rest of Paramounts/Procol Harum, Viv Stanshall, Dr Feelgood, Kursaal Flyers, Eddie and the Hotrods, Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly, Legend, Micky Jupp
Done a bit of digging and found more, viz John Fowles, Simon Schama, Rachel Riley, Tory MPs James Brokenshire and James Duddridge, Roy Hay out of Culture Club, jazzer Digby Fairweather (was at school with him), Dave Mattacks (ditto), the none-more-nominatively-determinative drummer Bob Clouter, Jack Monroe…
Wikipedia claims that jazz singer Buddy Greco was born in Southend, when in fact he was born in Philadelphia. Easy mistake to make.
@black-celebration Basildon is – or used to be when I conducted buses through it – a shithole. The only bright spot was the Carreras cigarette factory – if you scored the early morning route to the factory from Sarfend and points west the free fags were showered on you.
It still is. I once went to a day of meetings there with a colleague, and when we had an hour gap between two of them we said we would go to the pub on the corner for a coffee. ‘Best not,’ we were told. ‘If they see two blokes in suits in there they’ll assume you’re CID.’
Birmingham being quite big, and bleeding into the Black Country here are the bands that have a Kings Heath/Moseley connection:
Poppy and the Jezebels (met at Swanshurst school round the corner)
Broadcast
Bentley Rhythm Ace
Ocean Colour Scene
Pram
Plone
My Darling Clementine
That’ll do. Probably a few more.
My hometown Northampton gave the world The Paper Dolls and Sir Malcolm Arnold, which I’m very proud of.
And The Celebrated Ratliffe Stout Band named after a local brew.
Tom Hall played with his band in my local pub. Quite a colourful character.
@noisecandy did not the mighty Bela Lugosi’s Dead hitmakers hail from the Shoe Capital of the world? We last year as part of our Lower League Odyssey had a wonderful day out which involved visiting Northampton Town’s ground, a pint and a trip round the museum which told us more about shoes than we ever realised we needed to know, and a whole exhibition on the punk/goth scene in Northampton which starred the BLDH’s? Or is there some local micro-geography we should be aware of?
I’m also from Northampton and indeed the SIP hitmakers are from around these parts. I think I mentioned in a thread last year that my old favourite pub was also a regular haunt for Jazz Butcher, various Bauhaus and Spacemen 3 types as well as Alan Moore. Apparently one of Steps is from Northampton, but I’m not aware that she ever drank in the Racehorse pub.
@pawsforthought I use to drink in The Racehorse in the late 70’s and early 80’s. I also used to go to the Das Bunker nightclub where all trendy folk went!
@noisecandy I was a 90’s-00’s patron. Went in again recently (now the Black Prince) and it’s still about the same, just with less 80’s indie pop stars.
@moseleymoles yes, the Bauhaus boys are from Northampton. I was once on the back of a motorbike with Daniel Ash and my mate at 2am riding through the streets of the town. We were drunk and not wearing crash helmets. We played David Bowie and Roxy Music albums till 6am drinking my mates mum’s sherry. The next time I saw him he was with Bauhaus on a TV show called Riverside performing Bela Lugosi’s Dead.
From the jewel of the East Coast, Great Yarmouth (technically its Gorleston) I give you Catherine Wheel. Rob , the lead singer, has done rather well for himself
https://singervehicledesign.com/
Mylene Klaas also came from Great Yarmouth.
Im another Woking boy (well Woodham to be exact) … Rick Parfitt was born in Woking. Pete Ham lived in Woodham. The lesser known Squire were from Woking too.
We lived in a house in New Haw for a few years – literally down the road from you. Woking was the big smoke.
We lived in Scotland Bridge Road … address was New Haw but I think it was more Woodham. I went to the grammar school along with Katzuo Ishiguru and Nick Park of Wallace and Gromit fame.
Yes, that was on my paper round! I lived round the corner from there, near the All Saints church by the motorway bridge.
I used to fish in the weir at the white hart about 4 in the morning before anyone got up 😂
*Namedrop klaxon*
My friends the Eno brothers grew up here – my late Mum taught at Roger’s primary school, though I can’t recall whether she taught his class.
And off the top of my head (there’s not much else there beyond an impressive scar), Nik Kershaw grew up just down the road in Ipswich, while Ed Sheeran is from Fram*, slightly farther in the other direction.
*common local contraction – who has time for those two extra syllables?
I was born on/in the next estate to Mick Ronson. Trevor Bolder also came from Hull of course, and Woody Woodmansey is an honary Hullensian.
The two drummers from the Housemartins, Hugh and Dave, are the local contingent of ‘Hull band’ The Housemartins; Dave Rotheray was the other Hull lad who joined up when the ‘Martins morphed into The Beautiful South.
Indeed, many of our favourite sons and daughters who found pop fame as ‘Hull artists’ didn’t originate in Hull – I’m thinking of Heaton, Cullimore, Cook, Gift etc.
I always found it hilarious that the Hull Daily Mail latched on to any old tenuous city connection to declare the current flavour du nos jours as a Hull act – see ‘Hull band Sade’ (featuring Hullensians Stewart Matthewman and Paul Denman, who talented though they were, were not at all the focus of that group – can’t imagine why) and Cutting Crew (drummer again, Hull’s Martin Beedle).
Sade herself went to the less than glamorous Clacton County High School.
Everything But The Girl were a ‘Hull band’ too, weren’t they?
Uni there and they met there but I always think of them as an arty/West London and Hertfordshire suburbs fusion.
My mate (currently editor of a broadsheet) lived in the flat below them in Hull.
EBTG apparently took their name from a shop run by the mum of Roland Gift of Fine Young Cannibals who kicked in the front window of my house in Morpeth St during a party while I was at Uni
Red Guitars were another Hull Uni band
Pretty sure Wreckless Eric and Lene Lovich are either from Hull or have strong links to the town.
His mum kicked in your front window? No wonder her son turned out to be a cannibal.
Just looking at LL’s wikipedia page and confirm that she did indeed live in Hull, after her family moved there from Michigan when she was 13, which sort of rung a bell. What came as a real surprise though was learning that she wrote the lyrics to Cerrone’s Eurodisco smash Supernature!
All the above-mentioned were cunningly included in the ‘etc’, of course.
Sunbury On Thames…absolutely no-one well known actually born here, off the top of my head, but David Gilmour’s houseboat studio is about 2 miles downriver, Mungo Jerry, Tom Jones and The Walker Brothers lived here for a bit, and Hard-Fi were from just up the A308 in Staines, whereas Gary Numan was from somewhere localish too, possibly Stanwell or similar.
Re Numan – I know he lived next to Heathrow which may help explain his aviation interest.
I grew up in Telford, famous only for T’Pau who had their moment with China in Your Hand when I was at secondary school. I still remember the furore in the local paper when Carol Decker gave an interview slating Wellington as being a “dump” (tbh she wasn’t far wrong) and recounting how she and her mates would all go out in Shrewsbury instead.
Carol’s gone from railing about provincial towns to the general state of everything, as a fully paid up right wing nut job conspiracy theorist
That’s a shame – I thought she was the opposite of that.
Deep Purple apparently rehearsed in the old Woodford Men’s Club before boring the world. Not a lot of the world, just some of it.
Of far more interest, Woodford Golf Club c. 1962 held a do where a pianist brought the house down. Turns out a rep. from EMI was in the bar and asked if Decca had been in touch with the lady! Her name was Mrs. Mills.
Loads of Beatles’ records were subsequently bashed out (by Paul) on the piano she used at Abbey Road.
Ian Curtis, Manic Street Preachers, Ocean Colour Scene, Mrs. Mills… I categorically claim my prize*.
[*No, really, not on a willy wind-up].
Coventry – home of in reasonably chronological order – Frank Ifield, Vince Hill, Don Fardon, The Sorrows (two of whom ended up running a car respraying place at the bottom of our road.
More recent names include The Specials, Hazel O’Connor and – not sure about this one – The Primitives
Lonnie Donegan lived in South Woodford and I often used to walk past his house.
Can’t be sure, but didn’t Lonnie have guitar-shaped gates or some such, which Galton and Simpson referenced in the Hancock episode (the best episode) ‘Fred’s Pie Stall’?
“Have you seen Fred recently? Talk about ostentatious, having a roof in the shape of a pie crust!”
According to my mate, Animal Kwackers lived in Woodford, in a big shared house like The Monkees, near the station.
Wow! I can’t remember that, how did it evade me? Any more information?
Tony Robinson was definitely local, and that kind of enterprise sounds a bit like his thing.
The Monkees in Woodford!
Going off in a bit a tangent.. my local area – a mile radius – had Winston Churchill’s hideaway (don’t ask where), the principal Suffragette’s last home, a place where Ghandi stayed in the 1930s, and the Greatest PM the Country has ever had lived right by the station… his name was Attlee.
Tony Robinson went to my school – Wanstead County High. He was a few years ahead of me but I do recall him.
I remember being lifted up on my dad’s shoulders to see Winston Churchill arrive at Wanstead Conservative Club when he was our MP, and their are pictures of me there at a garden party…the building is now a pub and I am a Labour member, so the place has clearly gone to the dogs.
All I can remember is that he lived just off Hillside Avenue and the houses he pointed to were parallel to that and facing onto the railway track, which would make it in Madeira Grove. I’ve no idea how he came about such knowledge but it’s hardly the sort of thing anyone would make up, I wouldn’t have thought!
Actually, doing a bit of Saturday morning research, I didn’t realise they were quite so interesting. Peter Eden, who put the Kwackers together, even used to work for Deram, managing The Crocheted Doughnut Ring, among many other things. I’d love to know where his Southend record shop was – we often used to go on record hunting trips to Leigh on Sea and Westcliff back in the nineties and noughties so probably used to frequent his place.
https://www.loudersound.com/features/the-managers-that-built-prog-peter-eden
I’m sorry but I’m finding it very hard to believe that “the Kwackers” lived together in the same house in Woodford. Very much the kind of lie told by older siblings to a gullible 5 year old.
I’ll ask him and see if he has any further thoughts on the matter. We would have been about 16, I’d guess, and he wasn’t a wind up sort of bloke, but who knows?
Despite not having spoken about it for the best part of 50 years, he replied immediately and confidently, claiming that they did most assuredly live in Madeira Grove!
All right then. I am of course assuming they were in full costume at all times.
I’d certainly hope so.
Meanwhile, this just in from our Woodford correspondent…
Ah, Crocheted Doughnut Ring…they started life as the Whirlwinds, beloved of Canvey Island teds, who used to turn up in droves at their gigs at the Elms in Leigh-on-Sea of a Saturday night and scare the shit out of me. The Whirlwinds were a good rockin’ covers band, and their reinvention as CDR, via a spell as Force Five, was possibly the least convincing prog conversion in rock history.
That’s interesting as I wasn’t sure CDR were a real gigging band. The first single at least is good UK psychedelia.
It gets more interesting. The b-side of Maxine’s Parlour, as weedy a bit of over-Mellotroned pop-psych as you can find, is this shouty banger, which at least gives a clue to their rockin’ roots.
One of their number, all the way through from Whirlwinds to CDR, was called Bert.
That was on the recent, excellent compilation “Psych!” (a selection of cool Decca releases, 1966-1973). Thought it sounded nothing like “Two Little Ladies”, but now it makes sense. Cheers!
Reading:
Geoff Goddard – Joe Meek’s partner in songwriting. Many hits, but a relatively unknown name
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoff_Goddard
Mike Oldfield – his father had a doctors surgery just outsider the town. Went to school here too, until his family moved out to Essex.
Marianne Faithful lived in the town with her mum who ran a cake shop/cafe in the town
Vincent Crane – Hammond Organ bloke from the Crazy World Of Arthur Brown and Atomic Rooster, and latterly played with Dexys Midnight Runners on Don’t Stand Me Down
Recently departed guitarist John Sykes was born, and spent much of his childhood here before heading north to the bright lights of Blackpool
Must be something downward looking in the air, as both shoe-gazy bands Slowdive and Chapterhouse are from round here
And also the band with possibly the worst ever name: Does It Offend You, Yeah?
(named in deference to David Brent / Ricky Gervais who is also from these parts)
Marianne Faithfull lived with her mum on Milman Road, opposite the primary school. I have a photo of Mick Jagger posing with his E-type Jag outside the house in 1964.
In 1989/1990 I had a girlfriend who lived a little further up Milman Road near the doctors surgery. I didn’t know about the SFTDHM connection at the time, though.
Wasn’t Arthur Brown at Reading University? Does that count as local?
He was indeed, which is how he met Vinncent Crane and formed the Crazy World.
Andy Mackay was at Reading University too
As was Jazz Hobbit Jamie Cullum
I once met the Jazz Hobbit at the Reading university student union. He’s 9 years younger than us, but I sometimes used to go back to the Monday night Jazz Club (which I used to book) in the SU bar, because, before I met Mrs F, I used to step out with a post-doc who lived on Kings Road. He was tiny and already a talented little bugger.
I wasn’t very good at the Jazz bit. My best two bookings were Average White Band and Tori Amos. Not together.
Well, in my part of the western suburbs of Brisbane several members of Powderfinger lived nearby (and used to borrow my guitar and amp each weekend). Just up the road from where I grew up is the hall at Chelmer train station where I took theatre classes in early primary school, right around the time when The Saints performed their first ever gig there. They were from the much rougher Inala/Oxley neighbourhood a few suburbs away.
Two bus stops before my school was Mount Temple school where Larry Mullen formed a band with some school mates. Larry lived in Artane, on my bus route, so it’s quite possible he and his band were on the bus with me at some stage. The sister of a friend of mine attended Mount Temple and I remember her coming home wearing a badge one day and saying a band in school were playing a gig in the hall that weekend – ‘The Hype’ .
I’m not sure where “I grew up” – or indeed if – but if I pick Bisley, and going to school in Guildford, I’m also claiming The Jam.
But The Stranglers and The Vapors…both have members who went to my school.
Yes to The Stranglers – definitely from Guildford.
I worked in Guildford from 83-85 and Level 42 were, locally, a really big deal – this was before they had hits. They were all actually from the Isle of Wight though.
Did I read somewhere that Andy Latimer is from Guildford?
And Kate Westbrook?
When I lived in Chiddingfold, 91 – 94, there were still people who remembered when The Stranglers had a squat there.
That might explain why I saw Hugh Cornwell there solo. Pretty sure it was Chiddingfold anyway.
Probably at The Home Guard Club in the hall behind the bar. Genesis used to rehearse there before going on tour and Gary Brooker put on annual charidee gigs around Christmas.
Essex calling! I grew up around Gidea Park in Romford, so we had our own eponymous Beach Boys tribute band. Romford in the 80s also included Five Star on the one hand and The Wolfhounds on the other. If you extend it to the London Borough of Havering, then you have Ian Dury from Upminster (where I went to school) and Suzi Quatro was living in Hornchurch at one point. There may be subsequent pop idol local heroes but I don’t know.
The Wolfhounds! Did you used to go The Rezz?
I was the wrong side of 18 to get into the Rezz: I tried to see The Shamen play there.
Shame, the Rezz was great, although I was more of a regular at the Legion in Manor Park, which my mates ran. Looking back, it was amazing the bands they got to play in those sorts of places.
Ian dury’s Upminster tenure was somewhat exaggerated.
He kept very quiet the fact that he was born and lived as a small child in Harrow Weald, also spending time in Mevagissey, Cornwall in WWII and in Switzerland when his father was working there as a chauffeur.
He doesn’t seem to have spent a lot of time in the Upminster area, where his mother moved after splitting with his father. After contracting Polio at a Southend bathing pool he was hospitalised and then a boarder at Chailey Heritage School in East Sussex and then at High Wycombe Grammar before attending Walthamstow Art College and the Royal College of Art. He then had art teaching jobs in Luton and Canterbury.
At Canterbury art college one of his pupils was Viv Stanshall.
From Ruddington, a biggish village about five miles south of Nottingham where I now reside, Rob Birch of the Stereo MCs.
Not a band or singer obviously but I went to the same school as D H Lawrence in Eastwood. He ended up at Nottingham High School. I ended up at the local comp.
Harrow, where I grew up: Terry Lee of Adam and the Ants and Mick Allen of The Models were at secondary school at the same time as my brother. No one of any note when I was there later.
Worthing, home now: Billy Idol (briefly) and Royal Blood.
Andy Roberts of Plainsong, Liverpool Scene etc was born in Harrow.
Ian Dury was also born in Harrow. His dad, a bus driver at the time, was based at LT’s Harrow Weald bus garage.
Not an artist, but I think close enough for this: the next village down the road from me, Eynsham, is the birthplace of Richard Anthony Crispian Francis Prew Hope-Weston, otherwise known as Tommy Vance.
Closest to my own birthplace (Oxford) and era would be Ride. They’re a year or two younger than me, and I knew a few who’d been at Cheney school with them.
I suppose, whilst growing up in Bracknell, I have lived in Yateley for the last 20 years so I should do that as well. It can’t be duller than Bracknell can it?? Strap in…..
The Monster Raving Loony Party used to be headquartered in Yateley at the Dog and Partridge pub.
Sonny Black/Bill Boazman lives in Yateley.
Breathe, the HTHHs, went to Yateley School and one of the members dad used to work for my father in law.
Alexa Goddard (singer) is from Yateley. I know her father in law.
We are also only 4 miles down the A30 from Camberley, home to the extremely underrated The Members.
Laura Marling from just up the road in Eversley
Bloody hell – that’s a proper claim to fame. Even beats Will Carling living in Eversley Cross and shopping at Reeves Butchers.
That explains why she attended the same school I did in Reading. I used to spend weekends in a village not far from Eversley.
Lichfield is where, as everybody knows, Tony Christie currently lives. But I had to resort to wiki to find any homegrown talent.
Apparently, thus:
Julian Arguelles, sax jazzer, Charlie Barnes from Bastille, Richie Edwards from The Darkness, John Hinch, once of Judas Priest. Hmmm.
It doesn’t mention Tony Martin, sometime Black Sabbath vocalist, who was living in a caravan behind his repossessed house, just up the road from me, until about 2015.
St. Helens, Merseyside
Jacqueline Abbott (Beautiful South)
Budgie
Rick Astley
Sir Thomas Beecham
Jeffrey Walker (Carcass)
The Lancashire Hotpots
Paolo Mojo
Nick McCabe (possibly)
Budgie are Welsh (Cardiff)
Unless it is the Budgie also known as Peter Clarke. Him who banged pots for the Banshees
Oh yes
Used to frequent The Ship Inn in Sutton. I think he was entertained by the regular fights. One summer, I worked down the road on a building site. I made sure I made my excuses early before too many pints were sunk.
Then, he nabbed the woman I considered the sexiest alive at the time. 😣
And also Michael Pennington aka Johnny Vegas.
I was once, after a Bjorn Again gig, on the last Central Line tube train back to Epping, which broke down near Loughton (something to do with the power). A pre-fame (and very drunk) Johnny Vegas got out of his seat and did an hour routine to keep us all entertained in the gloom. I’ve had a soft spot for him ever since.
Some of the act was about his girlfriend, who was squirming in her seat.
The young Bee Gees lived in my brother-in-law’s house in Clovelly, Sydney
The even younger BeeGees lived in a house in Douglas, just a mile or so from where I currently bide…hence the statue on the prom!
And even younger than that they lived on Keppel Road in Chorlton, Manchester. Also home to Badly Drawn Boy and Doves. And Morrissey lived just up the road in Whalley Range, about 300 yards from where I am currently sitting. A number of other bands and musicians have also come from Manchester I think.
Also, at least one member of Ocean Colour Scene was a few years below me at school in Solihull.
I regularly walked past the Gibbs old house during my time in Chorlton in the late 70s
St. Albans, Herts.
Rod Argent is from St. Albans, and the Zombies formed at St. Albans School (although Colin Bluntstone was from nearby Hatfield).
When I worked as a Saturday boy in a record shop in St. Albans in the late 70s, Rod Argent used to come into the shop sometimes. No, honestly – he did.
Martin Carthy came from Hatfield, originally.
So did DONOVAN.
Who was managed by the same Peter Eden who managed Animal Kwackers.
I’m down in my wife’s old patch of Muswell Hill at the moment so taking honorary status I can add
Ray and Dave Davies
Fairport Convention (reason I’m down)
Viv Albertine born in Sydney grew up here.
Peter Ross (of Cross and Ross)
I’ve just seen that Alvin Stardust is from here too.
New Malden, a comfortable if dull part of suburban south west London, was where I spent the first 13 years of life. Not just me, but it also gave the world John Martyn.
I went to school in Wimbledon. Now, there probably many big names who have lived round there, but it was the birth place of Sandy Denny. Oh, and Marcus Mumford too but locals try to forget that.
Well, there are plenty of famous pop stars etc from Stockholm, but you’d probably not know many of them…
If I look even more locally, to Mälarhöjden, the residential suburb where I grew up, I can only remember hearing about a single band from there (or at least partly), and I can’t even confirm it through internet research…but I remember reading that possible fact about the quite bland pop “sensations” Pontus och Amerikanerna back in the 90s (?) when they had a few hits for a short while. Some other things I read about them made me think that I knew one of them from school, but he didn’t look anything like that kid all grown up, so I was never sure if it was him or not!
I come from Gosport and when I was growing up the most famous musician from the town was Mike Hugg of Manfred Mann, whose family ran Hug’s the Jewellers in the High Street (that is the original spelling of his surname.) Simon Dupree and the Big Sound came from Portsmouth, but their original drummer, Tony Ransley, who left before they became Gentle Giant, became a successful barber in Gosport, and I used to go to his shop. Phil Shulman from the band also took refuge in the town, opening a gift shop there after his music career.
I suppose the best know name now is Joe Jackson, who again was brought up in Portsmouth originally, but his family moved round to Gosport when he was a teenager. His book is a very good read, but if you were local, it does have the bonus of nostalgia – you are not going to read mentions of Highbury Tech, Fareham bus station or The John Peel pub in many places. I was also surprised reading it to find the odd mention of people I knew in passing – Andrew Barfield, who was a few years above me in school and I knew played bass, turns out to have become a successful songwriter with Paul Young and others. And Joe’s long term bass player, Graham Maby, was a local.
The only other one was the comic actor, Kevin Eldon, who used to be in a band called Virginia Doesn’t under his real name of Robinson. I saw them a few times, at the John Peel in fact, as a friend knew them, and I could see why he became an actor – he was quite a good singer, but he had real stage presence.
Welcome to Ipswich, home of the least successful chart act ever* The Adicts, sheep-bothering KFLmongers Extreme Noise Terror, Road to V2009 winners Underline the Sky, Hardcore skate-punkers The Stupids, and the eleventh worst band of all time**, Bleach.
(Other bands are available – https://www.discogs.com/release/3007809-Various-The-Ugly-Truth-About-Ipswich-1981-2011)
*One week at number 75
**According to Ranker.com
I once bought a Bleach single. Note: I bought a Bleach single.
Did you mistake it for a Nirvana album?
In a @fentonsteve -esque twist of fate, your friend and mine Mr. Steve ‘Wendell’ Constable did their first demo on his portastudio.
I’ll bring my copy along next time and he can sign it. I seem to recall, they had spiky hair.