eBay

Adam Mole's 'The Mrs. Won't Pay For A Caravan Fund'

Hello and 'welcome to my world'. Every two weeks I plan to auction (via eBay) 'Pop Will Eat Itself' related 'lots' in a quirky, experimental, mildly amusing, most unlikely scheme to raise enough cash to purchase a nice cosy vintage caravan... for myself!

This conceptual extravaganza is also described in glamourous literary fashion at James Brown's 'Sabotage Times' website.

http://www.sabotagetimes.com/music/adam-mole-needs-a-caravan-so-hes-selling-his-pwei-memorabilia/

Here for auction is lot ‘PWEI006’.

‘Late 1980’s original posters’, all pretty rare by now I’ll wager, primed for framing and showing off to friends.

You are bidding on all four classic PWEI posters, dating from 1986 to 1989.

Poster 01. Birmingham Burberries gig (40 x 30 inch), good condition/few small rips at bottom.

I reckon the earliest poster is the ‘Burberries’ gig with support by ‘Yeah God’. This venue was fantastic around 1986/7 and was home every Tuesday night. It would never reach such glorious heights as the original Dudley J.B’s which was my Hacienda but on occasion came close. We regularly played the 70’s style glitzy Broad Street niteclub. The stage was no higher than six inches and centred in the middle of the dance floor.

The Burberries gig supporting ‘Primal Scream’ on a nationwide tour was pretty memorable as any member of PWEI talented enough to jam something in the right key shared the stage with Glasgow’s finest. I stayed well away, recently becoming very aware of my limited musical talent. A few nights earlier in York, some kind student punter offered to put both bands up in his house after the gig. In those days this was pretty common although a few of us would usually sleep in the van to protect the equipment from ‘robbers’ and ‘baddies’. On this occasion both bands took their equipment inside the house. Many beers later amps and drums rocked to the sound of ‘Pretty Vacant’ and various ‘Stooges’ intros. I recall Bobby Gillespie playing drums halfway up the stairs, there were about five guitars on the go and I think I was shaking a tambourine around a bit. The following morning it turned out the tambourine was still in the van and I had merely been rattling the van keys a bit...and in a most un-rhythmical fashion...apparently!

Unsurprisingly  the neighbours and more importantly the North Yorkshire constabulary were no fans of either the ‘Sex Pistols’ or ‘Iggy Pop’...least of all at three in the morning on a school night!

Every Tuesday Burberries was promoted by Dave Travis who also shot our first official photos including the infamous ‘You Prats’ snap. He supported us from the start and gave us many of our first gigs in Birmingham. He was a general face on the Birmingham indie scene back in the day and still promotes the long running ‘Cheeky Monkey’ and ‘Blast Off’ club nights in Wolverhampton. He has done ‘more than alright’! His flamboyant entrepreneurial business acumen is legendary, in fact we marvelled at how many beers he would donate to the fledgling, relatively unknown but highly thirsty ‘Pop Will Eat Itself’. We treasured the moment he arrived with copious cans labelled ‘Oranjeboom’. Quite acceptable actually with a comforting mature taste...about two years out of date!

He seemed to have an endless supply! Cheers though Dave, nice one and thanks.

Poster 02. Hamburg Markthalle gig (33 x 23 inch), perfect condition.

I think the next poster chronologically is the Hamburg Markthalle gig. It would have been one of our first gigs outside the U.K around the time of ‘Sweet Sweet Pie’. Hamburg was always a very ‘colourful’ and vibrant city full of sailors with ‘needs’ and thus ways to ‘entertain’ them. We played this historical venue at least three times and although the gigs were not particularly memorable the trips to Hamburg always were. We were mesmerized by the fun-fair at the end of the Reeperbahn and the bar at the end of Herbertstrasse. We witnessed many interesting sights but one I remember with most fondness was something a good eight inches across. Yes, that’s right a metal badge celebrating Hamburg’s finest footballer, heroically capturing his famous grin and curly perm with the priceless words “My friend Kevin Keegan”. If only one of us could get three darts in the ‘ace of spades’ it would be ours! It never happened!

Can’t think of much else to report really!

Poster 03. ‘Beaver Patrol’ single release (23.5 x 11.5 inch), near perfect condition/fold across middle.  

This poster announced our version of ‘Beaver Patrol’ upon an unsuspecting world and the rest is history.

Steven Wells (Seething Wells) confronted his inner turmoil with a front cover feature for the NME. He wrestled his love of the song with his political beliefs, sense of fair play and a fervent desire to ‘do the right thing’. At the time PWEI were pretty young and gave little thought to any consequence or indeed any ability we had to make a difference to a person’s life, either in a positive or a negative way. In short we were immature. The tone of the piece definitely criticised ‘PWEI’ and consequently set our ‘career’ back, a pretty unusual thing for an NME front cover piece to attempt!

Robert Gordon had produced an amazing beat and bass line which we loved and definitely milked on extended versions. This helped give rise to our perceived ‘ guitar/dance’ cross-over genre.

Other acclaimed journalists struggled to pitch their love/hate of ‘Pop Will Eat Itself’ but the track found its way into many NME writer’s (including Steven’s) ‘Top 10 Songs of the Year’. 

In 2012 I wholly pitch myself in the Steven Wells camp of being responsible for your actions, taking a step back, thinking for a minute and ‘doing the right thing’ although its often tough.  Thanks for the ‘shout-out’ ‘Swells’ and RIP, another good man taken from us well before his time!

Poster 04. Can U Dig It? single release and UK tour (23 x 16 inch), near perfect.

This poster shouts out the first RCA release of Pop Will Eat Itself. ‘Can U Dig It?’ entered the top 40 (just!) and this poster advertises a short tour to coincide with our first major record company release!

The artwork really encompasses a great infinity we forged with ‘the Designer’s Republic’ and stands out as a distinct highlight in their early aesthetic techniques. In short it’s f.a.b!

Really like it!

The short tour was not as smooth! I remember the first date at Northampton Roadmenders was a furnace. All the doors were kept ajar and the will to play or jump up and down by both band and crowd was sapped out of us. It was roasting in there.

The second night was the big London gig, the first headline sold out show that was supposed to showcase RCA’s stellar new signing and herald a portfolio of songs not witnessed since the glory years of ‘Elvis’ or the ‘Spiders from Mars’.

All the RCA ‘top brass’ were present. We definitely put on a show!

We had an amazing stage set with backdrop and stage flooring courtesy of the amazing ‘Designers Republic’. Thing was the highly stylised vinyl flooring representing a map of the world resplendent with stars and nuff cool was by now covered in liquid refreshment lobbed enthusiastically at a band that wasn’t Pop Will Eat Itself. It was an ice rink!!!

To us our hardcore following always seemed quite gentle, a mixture of ‘goths’, ‘indie kids’, students and ‘good time fellas’. However, occasionally the kids in their desire to dance, drink and party often went a bit mental.  Around this time (maybe even this gig) the seminal, cool as f**k American band ‘Suicide’ who had successfully ridden abuse supporting ‘the Clash’ had left the stage unable to continue amongst such extreme derision. The toilets were trashed and the stage was set for PWEI to conquer the world!

 We burst onto stage and all hell broke loose. The intro tape reached its crescendo; it duly stopped just as we lurched into the opening chords of ‘Grebo Guru’. We retreated to allow road crew to re-set ‘Dr. Nightmare’ as we now called our vital backing tapes, the ones we were now so dependent upon. More beer and jeers were thrown on stage and as we finally got the show on the road the vinyl flooring was like a ski slope covered in shiny plastic and laced with ‘fairy liquid’. We were all over the place and totally lost our cool. Clint offered the whole audience ‘out’ and it was quite frankly a disaster. This was only emphasised by the unholy dubious and repugnant character that was Jonathon King deeming it one of his top 10 gigs of all time in his column in ‘the Sun’. Ouch!

 Our poor manager C.J not only had to deal with the RCA ‘big-wigs’ but also had to fend off our protestations as to why the big London gig had been scheduled second night of the tour, thus not providing any valuable time or experience to iron problems out, find our feet or determine our optimal alcohol intake prior to taking to the stage.

The next few gigs suffered from our London ‘comedown’, Trent Poly was  memorable for a police raid on the show and a charging copper having his tit knocked off in the crowd by a wicked throw from a ‘Poppies’ fan who was purely aiming for the bin with his empty...ish can of Vimto!!!

Portsmouth was always our favourite gig, early gigs at ‘Basins’ were legendary and my first dreams of being in a real band were cemented there. Loved it!  As always, on this tour we stormed it and in response Pompey ‘played up’. It gave us the confidence to end the tour in Birmingham on a real high. Thanks Portsmouth. Never forget ‘Basins’.

Happy bidding!