A while back I wrote a post about a Half Man Half Biscuit song which referenced the Staffordshire town of Leek. I said Leek was well known to me as the birthplace of my Dad but that other than the HMHB tune the only other time it had popped up in song was in Joe Strummer's wonderful reggae tinged At The Border, Guy. Recently a reader Sam Sherratt has left a couple of comments on the post adding further detail and deepening Leek's rock 'n' roll connections. This was too important to be left dwindling as comments below a post and I feel deserved a posting in their own right. Sam wrote...
Can help with the Leek reference in the Strummer song. Joe’s pre-Clash band the 101ers had a couple of members originally from Leek (incidentally Joe at the time was known as Woody). This included drummer Richard Dudanski (aka Nother), who later went on to drum with PiL. The 101ers played in Leek at a club called Samantha’s (not Leek Town Hall) and on another occasion came to a party. I was in touch with Richard a few years’ back and he said he asked Joe about this reference and said that he must have been confused.
Nice to tidy up a little corner of rock trivia!
and added afterwards...
Leek was also responsible for poisoning the Rolling Stones on Christmas Eve 1963, which is mentioned in Bill Wyman’s diaries – I know the man who bought the pies!
The Stones played there on Christmas Eve in '63.
ReplyDeleteI've had many a good night out in Leek
ReplyDeleteI can recommend Den Engels Belgian beer bar which I reckoned would last 6 months about 6 years ago.
I have it on good authority that Thin Lizzy played Leek High school in the early 70s
This sort of thing is exactly what the internet was invented for. Top work all round.
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