Rock memorabilia #2 - Marillion (part a)

"The Web" - Marillion fanzine - issues 1-3 (from 1982)

I'm guessing most people who know me now won't be aware of just how much of a Marillion fan I was when I was a lad. You see, you have to understand... I was already a Genesis fan and it was, oh, ages (well, a few years) since Peter Gabriel left them for better things and he was definitely the Factor X, the magic ingredient in the band as far as I was concerned. Then up popped this weird band of loon-pant wearing young musos, with a giant Scotsman as their frontman and motormouth, "behind a greasepaint mask". And he was called Fish (for an obvious alcohol-related reason). And he was from my part of the world, well Dalkeith which was just up the road, and then he moved down to East Lothian where I grew up, which was just the coolest thing for us. Still in school, pretty well reviled as hopeless progrock heads by most of the new romantic or punk fans in our year at school and here was a new band which played music like the music I already loved - progressive rock, with very theatrical live performances from Fish, backed by an ever-so musically tight band. We LOVED it. I loved their music so much, it ACHED. They were OUR band - me, Pete, Simon, Dougie, John M, Mun and a few others from school. I was a fan of Marillion before they had a record deal, when they were just playing live, living on tour out of a wee van and selling their own tapes.

We first heard their music on a late night Radio Forth show called "Forth Bridges" (Lonesone Kate, where are you now?). I can't remember if Chris John was still the DJ or if it had moved on to Dave Stewart by the time Marillion appeared but I still have a treasured cassette recording of an interview by Dave Stewart of Fish and bass player Pete Trewavas in which a pre-release version of their first single, Market Square Heroes was played. We were SO excited at the prospect of the first single and then the album to come, I can barely tell you!

Anyway, to memorabilia - more Marillion memories another time. I find I still have the first six copies of Marillion's fan club magazine "The Web"(did the word fanzine exist in 1982? I have no idea), produced by Tim and Stef in Aylesbury, the band's home base (that's home base, not Homebase). When I sent off my Stamped Addressed Envelope, I was hoping (so it seems, from the reply letter I received) to obtain a load of tour posters and tapes, all of which were sold out. Instead, I got these six copies of The Web, plus a "Christmas 1982 Special", plus this great signed photo of Fish in full "greasepaint mask" and wearing a horned Viking helmet which I can only imagine he used to wear during their live version of the 18-minute song "Grendel" (yes, 18 minutes); if so, it was replaced later by a helmet that looked like a replica of the famous one from the Anglo-Saxon treasure hoard at Sutton Hoo! Much more authentic (as you can see below!).



If I could make my scanner produce pdf documents instead of just photos, I would post these fanzines up in full on a side page for fanboys and fangirls to enjoy!


"The Web" - Marillion fanzine - issues 4-6 (from 1982)

Happy hippy days!!! Prog rocks!

Rock memorabilia #1 - Rory Gallagher

A new thread for my blog. Looking back at some of the little bits and pieces of rock memorabilia gathered over years of fanhood and listening to and watching bands live.

This first one is a fragile and much treasured piece of paper:


A ticket for a Rory Gallagher concert at the Apollo in Glasgow which I managed to get the great man to autograph. it was the only piece of paper I had when we met him!

Pete Mill and I were on study leave for our school "Highers" exams and took the train through to Glasgow on the afternoon before the gig. We were hanging about outside the theatre in the late afternoon when Rory and the guys from the band turned up. We had a quick chat and he signed this ticket, which I've managed to hang on to for the last 28 years! The gig was fabulous, as I recall.

Rory G was a stunningly good blues rock guitarist from Ballyshannon in Northern Ireland who died too tragically young in 1995 at the age of 47 following complications after a liver transplant operation. You can read more about him here. I was introduced to his music around the age of 10 or 11 by my mum's brother, my Uncle David, the source of so much of my early musical listening inspiration. I remember the first time I ever heard him (Rory, not Uncle David). I was on holiday at my Gran's in Irvine and Uncle David was watching Rory on TV perform live on something like the Old Grey Whistle Test - even at that relatively tender age, it blew me away and Uncle David raved about him. I quickly learned to love his music (as well as learning to love my Uncle David's LP and tape collection!). Even though there were occasional "heavy" tracks that were and are too much for me, his playing still gives me goose bumps today. Rory was a consummate talent on guitar, both electric (his beloved and much battered Fender) and acoustic, as well as on the mandolin and harmonica. What else do you need?

Here's a link to a TV studio live performance of one of my favourite Rory tracks, Out on the Western Plain (which, incidentally, he performed at that Glasgow Apollo gig and the other time I saw a full show, on 27th August 1986 at the Queen's Hall in Edinburgh).

A couple of years ago, when my wife and I took the old campervan around Ireland for a fortnight in summer, we made a wee pilgrimage to Ballyshannon to pay homage to the Ballyshannon Man, talked to a guy who claimed to know him, etc. I found it quite moving really. There is a small "shrine" to Rory up a wee alley beside where he lived in the town:



Tribute to Rory Gallagher in Ballyshannon. This was next to a laundry, which seems to be as good a reason as any to put in a link to Rory performing his classic "Laundromat"!

Finally, it's impossible not to love this and to lament a talent lost far too young. This is classic Rory G. Sit back and enjoy "Going to my home town"!

Addendum: When I posted a link to this on Facebook, my oldest friend, Dougie, reminded me that we had been to yet another Rory gig together, at the Playhouse. I found I still have the ticket (with his surname on it, so I presume he booked them)- it was on a 3rd of October sometime between 1982 (my first Rory gig) and 1986 (my last) (but the ticket, annoyingly has no year on it!) and we had front row seats in the stalls, not that the crowd stayed in their seats, so we were right down at the front - Dougie reminded me that Rory shook our hands about five times that night! And he also remembered that Rory's band included Mark Feltham, astonishing harmonica player. I'd forgotten all this (well, it was probably 25 years ago!), so many thanks to Dougie for that!

The rest of my Rory G tickets