Ray Rockafeller Jones-vocals
Jock Negative -vocals/dancer
Stuart Miers -guitar
Jon Smythe-Murray -saxophone
Huw -percussion
Sarah Richards -oboe
Steve Gagsy -drums
Dr Richard Normal -bass
Trevor F -guitar
And featuring: Bone Idle, Hywel Batley, Manda Richards, Jan Green, Rhian, Carolynne, Ceri
Sounds Like
'What was your worst moment?
As student union social secretary I briefly became Wales’s number one reggae promoter and we had some brilliant nights. I once however had the choice of two unknown bands; one was to become the Eurythmics with Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart. I chose the Yachts. This was eclipsed when I foolishly put on a punk band called ‘Page Three’ - in what was to be their last-ever gig - whose members were to become the anarchist agitation group Class War.
This band included a lady of ill repute involved in the so-called ‘sex for luncheon vouchers scandal’ in the ‘70’s. Their act included doing rude things with jelly babies and feeding them to the front row of the audience. It got worse: the night ended in chaos with police and fire brigade called out, the College Safety Officer beaten up, and my dear mate Bertie Mathews getting thumped.
My abiding memory is when cleaning up the mess at the end of the night. This big Welsh guy stood in the hall with his posture indicating he was going to make some negative pronouncement but declaring, in his broad valley’s accent: “Smutty, but good!” I learnt that you can at least please some of the people some of the time!
Andy Green- Sail Magazine, (the magazine for alumni of Swansea University.)
"It was variously named Dirty Doras... Pandoras... Circles... The Pit... Marina Nightspot and was a fantabulous fleapit which had hosted the Sex Pistols, Slits, Buzzcocks and Sham 69 as well as spawning every legover in the town. It was all managed with massive indifference by Howard. It was the only venue in which Swansea home grown punkers -The Next Step, The Autonomes, Venom, the Urge and The End, plus Llanelli's greatest ever export, the utterly brilliant Andy Pandemonium -could get to play outside the usual Top Ranksville wankdom
I'd put Crass and the Poison Girls on there. When Howard turned up, there was a queue of tiny 10 year olds trying to get in with their "Fight war" T-shirts. "They can't come in, she only looks about eight," said Howard to the door staff. Steve Ignorant hid the offending eight-year-old in the back of a speaker and carried her past the door gorillas. I was talking to Howard later when the eight-year-old walked between us swigging a pint like a veteran alkie. Howard shrugged and hid in his office.
But tonight was Page 3's debut gig... much fucking hyped. Howard told me the Dutch band Focus - no, me neither mate - had pulled a record crowd of 900, but we were pushing it fucking close. We had stippers "fucking good-looking ones," enthused Ray Jones, our singer. He was right. They were supposed to strip seductively when Ray burst into his Troggs cover version of Can't Control Myself. instead they just raced on stage naked and and danced about before rolling around on top of each other laughing hysterically. The surge from the back towards the stage was almost of Hadj-like proportions.
Page 3 had started in the Coach and Horses a month or so earlier. Beer talk - start a band. "Porno Rock," that's what we'd be - songs all about sex - but political, funny, subversive like. Our strippers would subvert the idea of stripping, wouldn't they? Well, yes... doubtlessly accounted for the Doras surge.
I wrote about ten songs all over one weekend, hummed the tunes to Ray and Stuart who worked out the music. "Every one a fucking winner Ian," enthused Ray moonlighting from his other band, the Dyfatty Flats. We recruited everyone else from the pub regardless of musical ability - punk as fuck or wot? Jock McVeigh (exotic dancer), Glenn, Hugh, Trevor, Jonathan, Carolynne, Gaggsy, me, Ray Jones, Rhian, Stuart, Sheralee, Sarah Bewara, Amanda Bewara. Three rehersals up at Cockett Studios and we're off. Our set included such classics as Sexist Twat, Bitches on Heat, Premature Ejaculations, Swallow it Down, Can't Get It Up, One Of The Boys, Clap Clap I Wanna Get The Clap, Prostitutes World, John Bindon, plus the evergreen singalong God Bless You Queen Mum and a couple of Reg Presley covers. Ray was a bit dubious about singing the impotence song Can't Get It Up but accompanied by Sarah on oboe, he did it proud.
The gig was a storming success - musically as well as sexually. I'm not sure our congent analysis of the commodification of sex and the reification of emotion in the society of the spectacle was appreciated, or understood by all, but Howard seemed to buy into it because he immediately rebooked us in a back office overflowing with cash.
I decided to help our notoriety a bit further. I phoned the Evening Post and told them that Jock "Negative" McVeigh had been tragically killed in a car accident in the south of France. The Post's front page ran "Page 3 Exotic Dancer Killed In French Crash" - which sounded both glam and tragic! Oh how we laughed. Jock had never been further than Brion Ferry in his life and to see this lovable, tattooed, gay proletarian Swansea ne'r do well described as an "exotic dancer" in print was mirth inducing. When up before the Swansea bench in the future, Jock would always give his occupation as "exotic dancer" then argue he was "dead" so couldn't be charged, producing the crumpled Post front page as conclusive evidence. I followed up with a further call to the Post complaining the story ws untrue - cue another front page "Band Victim Of Cruel Hoax" and giving full details of our next Circles' gig naturally. Jock now describes himself as a 'living legend' in the town -a name the band was later to take .. one gig, we were indeed living legends in the pretty shitty city.
We'd chosen the name Page 3 by sticking a pin in a book agreeing to be called whatever it stuck in. But now with the strippers, it became obvious there was a connection in some crazed Swansea minds between us and The Sun's Page 3 girls. So I decided to exploit this as well:
Dear Editor,
I recently went along to see a concert at Circles nightclub in Swansea. Advertised as Page 3, I naturally thought it would be sponsored by The Sun and feature your delightful Page 3 glamour girls. Imagine my horror to see the crudest pornography, vile lyrics, live sex and a song wishing the Queen Mother would die of cancer etc etc.
The hope behind the letter was that The Sun would run a sensational article on the band denying any connection and spreading our noteriety nationally, but it didn't work out like that!
Our second gig was at the Highwayman Nite Spot in Ystalyfera - a ponderosa-style scampi-in-a-basket club but temporarily managed by Gwyn 'Bomber' Dawe, one of my Welsh Republican acquaintances anxious to spread the porno-rock message up the Lower Swansea Valley. The gig was a total fucking shambles on all counts. Our stripper had been chatted up by a camera-toting 'merchant seaman' by the bar and was posing for photos. Later, she breathlessly told us that the 'merchant seaman' ws in fact a Sun journalist. The poor unfortunate, hoping that the journo line was more likely to get her into bed than than the merchant seaman ploy, had blurted out the truth.
Our two roadies - famed Townhill hardmen Ianto and Ado Craven - took his camera off him and threw it in the river. Ado then performed a perfectly executed head-butt on him which stretched him prone on the ponderosa floor as we headed home."
LIVING LEGENDS - punk band fronted by Swansea anarchist activist and Class War founder Ian Bone - once described by the News of the World as 'the most dangerous man in Britain'. Played performed with Crass in Swansea and rel debut single 'The Pope is a Dope' . Gigs were always chaotic with Ian Bone being arrested after one particularly memorable gig at Abergavenny Town Hall . By this time the band was Cardiff based. A 2nd single 'Better Dead Than Wed' followed and surprisingly topped the UK Indie charts for 3 weeks.
You'd have to discuss this this a tracker mod but I doubt it's viable. If you have a look around the help forum, or ask around the site, there's lots of ways to improve your ratio!
