Norman Graveney - Vocals. Paul Urmston - Guitar. Willy Williams - Drums. Addy Adams - Bass
Martin & the brownshirts striking a pose
Martin and the Brownshirts were (they say) formed in 1977 on the car park of 'The boat house' in Chester. They were from the more Arty side of punk, with their influences of The Tubes, Zappa, New York Dolls etc. The local skinhead cavemen lead by a grunt named 'Welshie' took exception to the band spray painting "martin & the brownshirts" on what they thought of as their pub wall. But back in those days just wearing straight leg trousers instead of a pair of 'bags' (Oxford or Birmingham style) could get you beaten. So Willie wearing a slogan painted boiler suit, dog callar and lead, would have had pensioners screaming and beer monsters snarling. The band were public enemy number one to the skinheads. Though the skins stupidity often meant they were laughed at themselves behind their backs. A local scene character and friend of the band by the name of Nicky Binks, made a badge out of the Skinhead Moonstomp album by Symarip. The album cover had a band of skins on the front and one of them looked the spit of Welshie. So Nicky cut the face out and put it on a badge. He rememembers Welshie spotting it and coming over to take a closer view. He glared at both the badge and Nicky several times, from one to the other, before walking away very puzzled.
Trouble seemed destined to follow them though. The very name of the band attracted some Nazi idiots to their gigs. Culminating in what Martin described as "At one time I thought I was in a surreal version of Springtime for Hitler, by Mel Brooks". This hapened in a very rough Liverpool venue called The Swinging Apple. The band looked on in amazement as a guy walked into the toilets and got changed from his Wigan Casino clothes straight into a Fully fitted out SS uniform! Needless to say the gig broke out in violence when peopple actually started goose stepping about, but the Sieg Heils from the NF were met with the band stopping in mid number, Willie says "we were so pised off we stopped playing" and standing on his drum stool he shouted "Why dont you lot suck the shit out of my bowlels" The club manager then told them they had ten minutes to get out the place or they would die!.They were on the top floor of a three story building that housed two other clubs on the floor below. (one of them bizzarely a Reggae club)
Soon after, the band met an Exeter man named Graham Sclater, music publisher and producer. He invited them down to Exeter to record a few demo tracks. It got off to a bad start when the band were attacked after a gig in Exeter. A few songs were taped in Exter though. Soon after, their manager got them some recording time in London. Tracks such as 'Dan Dare' and 'Piccadilly schoolday' were recorded at a Studio in Stoke Newington. Their first taste of real recording studio life gave them an imputus to write new songs and get them down for the sake of posterity.
The single was released on Lightning records. The A -Side of this single is based on the clasic movie Taxi Driver. It has singer Norman Graveney playing the role of Travis Bickle and repeating over and over again “you talkin’ to me?”. Both side A & B were recorded in one session (leaving their guitars untuned in true 'punk style') at Gooseberry Stuidios in Gerrard Street in Chinatown London. Whilst grabbing a bite to eat between takes, they met the man himself Johnny Rotten. Unfortunately for punk legend he could not be persuaded to get off his arse and take part.
Whilst the band were in London they took advantage of playing several dates down there including the two most famous (infamous) punk venues at the Roxy and the Vortex. Williy remembers "The Roxy gig was great but nobody came, and The vortex, well it was so quaint after the gig to have those nice National Front skinheads helping us up the stairs with our equipment!" Following the success of the Taxi Driver single a session was booked at Decibel Studios in Stoke Newington to record an album. Unfortunately this was never released. Those twelve tracks are however still avaialble, so maybe in the not too distant future they will see the light of day. The band had decided to change their name to “The Co-Starz” due to the problams it was causing at their gigs. Also at the same time they changed musical direction and decided to not promote the album as counter productive..
I also remember a later band named Peter, Paul, & Marty, that i'm sure was something to do with Willie the drummer. ? I am going to be meeting up with a few old mates over xmas and new year, so I will tax their brains for info on this and other matters. Such as, who on earth was the drummer in WSS? (Im reffering to WSS second incarnation here) I know Mark Bailey (Dross) was on vocals, Timbo Wilday on lead and i think Tony burns on bass. Anyone out there remember? email me at daz dot green at gmail dot com if you know, or want to comment or add to anything on these pages. I will be expanding in the new year with several other little known short lived Chester garage bands of the late 70s to mid 80s.......
cheers.
DAZ
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Whatever happened to Sven Harding from Kinnerton. Used to play bass in The Jiving Daleks then went to Liverpool to study Computer science (long before anyone had PCS) Probably living it up in Silicon Valley? Lets hope so. Contact me if you are out there Sven
The single was released on Lightning records. The A -Side of this single is based on the clasic movie Taxi Driver. It has singer Norman Graveney playing the role of Travis Bickle and repeating over and over again “you talkin’ to me?”. Both side A & B were recorded in one session (leaving their guitars untuned in true 'punk style') at Gooseberry Stuidios in Gerrard Street in Chinatown London. Whilst grabbing a bite to eat between takes, they met the man himself Johnny Rotten. Unfortunately for punk legend he could not be persuaded to get off his arse and take part.
Whilst the band were in London they took advantage of playing several dates down there including the two most famous (infamous) punk venues at the Roxy and the Vortex. Williy remembers "The Roxy gig was great but nobody came, and The vortex, well it was so quaint after the gig to have those nice National Front skinheads helping us up the stairs with our equipment!" Following the success of the Taxi Driver single a session was booked at Decibel Studios in Stoke Newington to record an album. Unfortunately this was never released. Those twelve tracks are however still avaialble, so maybe in the not too distant future they will see the light of day. The band had decided to change their name to “The Co-Starz” due to the problams it was causing at their gigs. Also at the same time they changed musical direction and decided to not promote the album as counter productive..