Punk in Portsmouth.

Punk happened because it needed to happen. In Portsmouth it was a matter of some urgency
Expectations lowered as the dole queues got longer and rarely has so little fun been had by so many.

When school gates closed behind them for the last time in 1975, kids could see that old certainties no longer held good.

Portsmouth once had a thriving local scene but by the mid seventies there were only depressing pub bands playing dull rock, blues and progressive rock.. It was awful. Desultory groups of teds, skins and bikers smoked cigarettes outside cafes. Something had to change.

In September 1976 pure luck led me to see the Sex Pistols and Clash play live, suddenly life became clear, I had to Do something…anything.

There was a new ethos in town. “Here’s a chord, here’s another, .now go form a band.” This was a more radical idea then than it might seem today. I returned to Pompey and purchased a guitar and amplifier from a junk shop in Southsea. and learned to approximate some chords, then recruited others to form The Fence, a name selected since it was marginally less ludicrous than other suggestions. Learning to play, even badly takes a few months and there was no instant transformation from consumer to participant.

1977 was the Queen’s silver jubilee year and I marked it by dangling a sheet from our balcony spray painted with the words “Sod The Jubilee” My mother worked for the Navy and was gratifyingly outraged. A band can only go so far in a members’ bedroom and in a densely populated city like Pompey there’s always a neighbour who doesn’t appreciate one’s muse. Thanks to a media keen to jump on the punk=trouble bandwagon, pubs and clubs were hostile to any bands playing or even practising on their premises, There were two other bands of a similar mindset to our own, Again Again and the Church Daubers, and it was thanks to Again Again we found somewhere to rehearse. It was a disused shed at the rear of the Museum Gardens pub opposite St Mary’s church. The room was equipped with

one single power point and one light bulb dating back to the fifties. When we played, plaster fell off the walls and the brickwork shook. It was perfect for our needs. Practices at the Museum Gardens almost became mini-events in themselves One other rehearsal room of note and some infamy was provided by the Irish Club in Elm Grove. Situated in the club’s basement, this made Museum Gardens look a paragon of Health & Safety. It was a death trap with a single set of wooden stairs as the only escape from the ever present danger of fire.

Again Again were older than many on the scene and had actually been together for some time before us. They were tight as hell and could definitely play but with the possible exception off the singer, Rob Hutchings, one would not automatically have identified Again Again as a punk band. Yes, they played fast 3 minute songs and included credible cover versions of Velvet Underground songs but…the Sex Pistols they weren’t. The only band Portsmouth band who ticked all the media led ‘punk’ boxes were the Church Daubers, who played up to every cliché, from dress sense to song selection to encouraging a fan base of trouble-seeking reprobates. Were it not for the fact that the band were nice guys with a keen sense of irony, one might simply dismiss the Daubers as punk by numbers. There was more to them that met the eye.

We debuted at the Rotary Club in Landport, and performed our final gig at the same venue some 9 months later. After eight gigs we had achieved all we were going to so splitting seemed the only decent thing to do.

I joined the Frames and saw two iterations of the St John’s College faves. before departing in search of greater power and autonomy. I formed Dance Attack who provided neither. Few Pompey bands have met with so much indifference or been so misunderstood, yet years later people claim our tracks to have been personal favourites. I suppose our two singers’ inability to sing in tune live was part of the problem but in their defence they were attempting some quite complicated harmonies.

Portsmouth never had a punk band scene. What we had was post-punk, an indie scene, and in indie’s best traditions six bands united to release the South Specific compilation. Alongside the six paying bands, two bands were invited to contribute free of charge. Hell, this was almost socialism in action.

Recorded for the most part at the local Telecomms studio. bands perhaps spent too much time recording and not enough engineering tracks, so the sound on the album is often tinny. One aspect that was, for me an issue at the time was there was no uniting ‘feel’ to the album. Each band seemed from a different universe to the others. In fact, this was an accurate reflection of the scene and in retrospect, perhaps the album is all the better for it since it doesn’t sound ‘stuck in a moment of time’. In my opinion South Specific sounds better now than it ever did. The way the album was conceived and executed should be a matter of pride to all who were involved.

I look back with a combination of pride and frustration, perhaps a better album title than South Specific?

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