The bands I never saw. And some I did.

As an experiment, I read the following text in what I hope is a convincing and meaningful manner on the hour-long Mixcloud show you can stream from the link at the end. Songs by most of the artists mentioned are played: Dean Ford and the Gaylords, The Gospelfolk, Argent, Greenslade, Gryphon, Russ Ballard, Nicky Murray, Ashton Lane, JJ Gilmour, Stiff Little Fingers, Gun and Jill Jackson. It’s a kind of hybrid music show/podcast/audio diary.

Dean Ford and the Gaylords, before they became The Marmalade (or just Marmalade)were stalwarts of the early 1960s Troon beat scene. The boy from the butchers who delivered our string-and-waxed-paper-wrapped meat on his bike was in a band, but I never found out what they were called. He had Rangers tattoos on his forearms.

The only band I really knew anything about, the only rock music I heard live (in our living room at a youth fellowship do, at enormous, gut-wrenching volume) was my uncle’s group The Gospelfolk (later just Gospelfolk, then National Debt). They were Christian, played evangelically in the Beach Café, then caused secular complaints in the sedate environs of Ottoline Drive. Their album Prodigal is worth a not-so-small fortune nowadays, ‘Jesus psychedelia’ being A Thing.  It was recorded in Strathaven, in John McClarty’s Emblem Studios, later to host Orange Juice and James King and the Lone Wolves. And the model, allegedly, for Eddie Clockerty’s tailor shop/music empire/studio in John Byrne’s Tutti Frutti.

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I’m in Troon at the moment, thinking about the past, retracing steps, listening. The Ayrshire accent is incredibly soothing. It’s what I learned to speak from, grew up with. Nobody’s knappin’ (speaking proper English for the soothmoother’s sake). I’d forgotten how simultaneously thrilling and reassuring I find the sound of heavy jet aircraft low overhead, lumbering in and out of Prestwick. And there’s the red brick edifice of the Town Hall, the Municipal Buildings, municipally administrative no more. I wasn’t allowed to go, but sometime in about 1972, a local newspaper hack tried to become a rock’n’roll promoter and booked the bands Argent and Greenslade for gigs, the latter supported by crumhorn-wielding  prog medievalists Gryphon. I had read about these glamorous entities in the New Musical Express, and seen pictures: there was a lot of hair and Afghan sheepskin. The idea of these entities being just along from the Ballast Bank and Tog’s! As I recall from the reviews in the Troon and Prestwick Times, hardly anyone turned up. At home I played my cheap Selmer acoustic guitar until my fingers bled. Second year at school, Alistair Webster and Richard Goodwin tried to get me to join their band, Tangerine Heaven. I was in, if I agreed to buy Alistair’s pickup (magnetic guitar amplification device, not a Toyota HiLux). It was £1. Mum wouldn’t lend me the money. And besides, Tangerine Heaven? Blasphemy!

Oh, and Russ Ballard, singer and guitarist with Argent, left the band and became a hugely successful songwriter for hire and solo artist. Since You’ve been Gone, later reworked by Rainbow, is just one example of his work. He always wore dark glasses and played a Fender Stratocaster with holes cut in it.

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The South Beach Hotel has an excellent collection of golfing memorabilia, but the only time I’ve been inside was about 10 years ago when I was asked to curate an evening of music in the function suite  there. It was the first time I’d been back in Troon for years, and I told an unfortunate story about my one and only game of tennis at Marr College, when the elastic on my shorts failed. Scarred for life. I bet that never happened to Andy Murray.

At the South Beach I chose for the gig the wonderful, still woefully under appreciated Nicky Murray, JJ Gilmour, formerly of the Silencers, and Ashton Lane, featuring Esther O’Connor, her husband Tim  and Esther’s  dad, my old pal Graeme Duffin. It was midsummer, and I was just recovering from my first heart attack. In retrospect, a fish supper probably wasn’t the healthiest of choices that night. 

I think the same promoter was responsible for the long running Winterstorm festival of rawk, some of it heavy, some of it punky, and including the likes of Stiff Little Fingers and Gun. It’s still going. But the last gig I attended in the town was actually at the venerable Town Hall, and the first time I’d been inside since the Marr College senior Christmas dance of 1972…or was it that road safety poster competition I won in 1973, when everyone thought my winning entry was by an 11-year old, not a hulking prefect? Anyway, Glasvegas were at their most chemically hypnotic, and they were supported by Jill Jackson, who was terrific. She has tattooed forearms but has never, as far as I know, worked in a butchers. 

Dean Ford and the Gaylords — He’s a Good Face, But He’s Down and Out

Gospelfolk — No Sad Tomorrow

Argent — God Gave Rock’n’Roll To You

Russ Ballard — Since You’ve Been Gone

Greenslade — Bedside Manners are Extra

Gryphon — Kemp’s Jig

Nicky Murray — Plenty More Weeping

JJ Gilmour — Smile

Ashton Lane — One Kiss Later

Stiff Little Fingers — Guitar and Drum

Gun — Word Up

Glasvegas — Holiday and Travel Brochure

Jill Jackson — Last to Know

All the above tracks, with me reading the text above, can be streamed as a complete show here:

https://www.mixcloud.com/tom-morton2/troon-my-rocknroll-city-of-south-ayrshire-wellsort-of/