Discussion Forum

World Cup songs and the Who Live at Leeds

Posted by Taweakame
Saturday, June 17, 2006

Songs for the World Cup and the Who Live at Leeds: Tenuous Links

So there is a big fuss being made about the famous Concert and resulting Live LP "The Who Live at Leeds". An actual Blue Plaque is being erected and The Who are reprising their performance.

There was an interesting Andy Kershaw program on the BBC (Radio) recently celebrating the contribution made to live music by the college, polytechnic and University Live Gig scene. Andy focused quite a lot on the Who gig and also on his role as students union entertainment's officer at Leeds University. Although they were not at the same time.

Andy mentioned the Trad Band, Folk and Rock music scenes. But he left out a genre of music that was also pretty well represented at Higher Educational Establishment Gigs in the sixties and seventies. That was the Improvised, Free and New Music scene represented by groups like The People Band, Spontaneous Music Ensemble, Scratch Orchestra, Third Ear Band, Anarchic Chamber Music and many others.

Another band with Hebden Bridge Connections also played at the same venue where The Who recorded "Live at Leeds" the University of Leeds refectory hall. That was the Leeds based band The Bippys (1979-1984). The Bippys started out in Leeds and moved to Hebden Bridge in 1983 where they metamorphosed into Bogshed in 1984.

Bringing it all round to where we started: songs for the world cup. Well elements, or remnants of the Bippys / Bogshed have a song contribution to make to that genre of music known as the football song. It is My Name is Sven and can be downloaded at www.forkeyes.co.uk.


Posted by Danny Thompson
Sunday, June 18, 2006

Good to hear mention of Bogshed ("John Peel's favourite band" as was) after all these years. I was listening to Spencer Travis just the other day.

Being in my late 30s I find that much of the music I have loved over the years is on disintegrating cassette tapes (usually home-taped somewhere on Broughton St whilst babysitting). With each house move, and with the passing years much of it gets lost, or the tapes break.

I did find a tape of the still brilliant Mothmen's 'Pay Attention' album the other day, and have digitised it. On the other side was a very poor quality bootleg of 'Reflex' and 'Mysterious Footsteps' recorded by Tristan King at Bradford Uni during an overnight stop by the European Nuclear Disarmament (END) trans-pennine march in 1981(?). I never heard of them before or since.

Talking of Tristan King, if he is one of the 'remnants', does he still have my Doc Martens, and the Ruts singles that he borrowed a quarter of a century ago? :-)

I would be interested to see a Hebden 'Rock Family Tree' over the years. Because of family connections I particularly remember 'The Magnetos' supporting John Martyn at the Picture House, and 'The Stuffed Badgers'.

I look foward to listening to My Name Is Sven!


Posted by Tim
Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Danny Thompson? John Marytn? Live at Leeds???


Posted by Taweakame
Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Yes do have a listen to Sven, but don?t get your hopes up too much. It after all is a football song, and a very off the wall one at that, but possessing a bit of raw charm. If England do win the World Cup it ought to be a minor hit really. But how likely is that?

John had a lot of favourite bands and it is true that one of them was Bogshed. Certainly while they were around. But surprisingly none of their discs were in his famous record box when the BBC did that show about the Peel Collection or if so they were not mentioned. A pity really because most of the Bands Mentioned were pretty famous and of course JP played a lot of Bands who didn?t achieve major success. It would have been nice to see those bands represented also and Bogshed would have been a good choice to represent the hard sloggers of real music.

Ah the Mothmen what a fabulous band. They played at the Trades. You may want to check out this page.

Tristan is certainly a Bogshed remnant but not involved in "My Name Is Sven" or indeed the Bippys. In the Midlands possibly Leamington Spa.

Rock Family Tree for the Upper Calder Valley? Now there is a project! When are you starting on it?


Posted by Chris Dellen
Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Dan, I still have a couple of your Ruts singles. Mum X