Every Picture Tells A Story
We got some great letters, EMails and reminiscences about Printshop posters; there’s good material in the Arts Workshop book [see end for links]; some things we remember ourselves; some of it needed a bit of prompting from a web search.
If you’ve got something to add about posters we already have – or a photo/scan of one we haven’t seen – we are making this an archive that will remain online, let us know and we’ll add it!
At this moment, in particular, this page is a Work in Progress and being added to as we go. Come back later to see what we’ve added!
Linton Kwesi Johnson – 1985 Bookshop gig
Design: Dominic Fox
One of the bookshops best sellers was a book of poetry, Dread Beat an Blood, by the pioneering Reggae poet Linton Kwesi Johnson. Published in 1975 and followed by a musical album. This was poetry with a driving reggae beat tackling themes, such as “wrongful arrest, the “sus” (section 4 of the Vagrancy Act 1824, which allowed police to stop, search, and arrest individuals deemed “suspected persons” loitering with intent to commit a crime. Used heavily against Black communities in the 1970s), urban violence and the need to engage in hard political activity (Guardian). The poster represents a gig that never took place. LKJ couldn’t make the date, so we rescheduled and because demand for tickets outstripped the capacity of the Longacre Hall we presented at a later date in a nightclub next door to the Theatre Royal.*
Design was inspired by vintage boxing match posters from the 1960s and 70s, featuring bouts with Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, with yellow background, black and red lettering and photo cut outs of the fighters.
* The subsequent replacement gig would have been at ‘Tiffany’s’, later ‘Chemies’ and now demolished [7 Dials, Sainsbury’d Local, Thai Balcony, etc.]
1985 Bookshop Gigs
Dominic Fox
Apart from sales and an initial grant from the Arts Council we needed to organise benefit gigs like most local organisations to keep going. Reading your website made me a bit sad that nothing much has changed in financial terms all these years later. I am Chair of a SE16 organisation, Surrey Docks Farm (surreydocksfarm.org.uk/) which celebrated its 50th anniversary recently!
Walcot Sunshine Festival 1976
Rocky plays to a huge crowd at 1976 Sunshine Festival [from the Arts Workshop book, see below]
Corinne D’Cruz writes: On the last evening there was a rock concert on the stage at the bottom of the field. Top of the bill was our own Rocky Ricketts and the Jet Pilots of Jive, featuring (of course) the fabulous Rockettes. Phil Shepherd was the hippy promoter with his mane of red hair who appeared naked onstage to introduce the band to a huge crowd. At the end of the show Vince Pube, Rocky’s seedy manager, took to the microphone and announced: “Well, that’s the end of the festival. We won’t be organising it next year so you can do it your fucking selves’’.
Ralph Oswick (Vince himself) describes the fall-out: The comments were directed at the audience, but it was a powerful sound system so people as far away as Camden Road heard it and complained. The council was not amused and wrote to inform me that even though they presumed it was a joke, I could be ‘prosecuted for obscenity’. The festival did go ahead the following year but the organisers were required to submit an event plan in advance. The plan ended with a proposal for a concert involving ‘one loud awful pop group, swearing and drugs from 3pm-9pm’.
Rocky Ricketts and the Jet Pilots of Jive
Rocky Ricketts was born out of show, Spotty Blelb, and was created originally as a character in the show but then went on to front a band and eventually to take on a life and story of its own, with quite a large following of its own and went on to spawn various other bands and even make an LP for Crescent Records. This was a Live recording titled “Live At The Pav”.
It was great fun and satisfied all our desires to be rock stars!
Brian (Rocky Ricketts) Popay
We had a gig at a dockside bar in Rotterdam named The Flaming Star club. Ralph as usual insisted that we wore clean, ironed shirts and white makeup. This evidently rubbed some of the tough thugs in the audience up the wrong way, and as timid arty types we were feeling distinctly nervous. Unti the landlord, twice the size of any thug, came onstage with a crate of Dutch beer, saying “Hey, Rocky and the Jets -what a great band -let’s give them a big hand!” Once we had the support of the gigantic landlord, everyone cheered and danced till closing time. I remember thinking “This bar must be very like the Star Club in Hamburg”
Mike Godwin aka. Brian Damage, guitar