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Research blog Liverpool Stadium: Investigating a Hidden Chapter of Liverpool’s Popular Music Past.
‘Big, dark, noisy and full of Scousers’. Liverpool Boxing Stadium opened on October 20th 1932 and was the ‘most advanced boxing arena in Britain’. However, between the thirties and the eighties (it was demolished in 1987) many musical events were also staged there. Throughout the 1950s, the Liverpool PhilharmonicOrchestra presented a popular series of concerts there. American Jazz musician Louis Armstrong appeared there in 1956 and Gene Vincent headlined there in 1960; possibly the ‘biggest rock show that had ever taken place in Liverpool’ up to that time.In 1968, the venue hosted the KaleidoscopeFestival, with Pink Floyd headlining. It then continued to specialise as a rock music venue into the seventies thanks to pioneering music promoter Roger Eagle. The first of Roger’s concerts featuring Free and Mott the Hoople, took place at the Stadium in autumn, 1970. The Stadium was not a mainstream music venue in the seventies. In fact, much of the music performed there could be described as underground, or even avant-garde rock. Arguably more challenging, certainly less fashionable than contemporary commercial rock, but which nevertheless attracted large audiences in the early to mid-seventies. Liverpool Stadium was the nucleus of a community of regular concertgoers with a strong sense of their own identity based around specific genres of music. More formal venues such as the Liverpool Empire and the Royal Court did not inspire the same loyalty or the same sense of belonging.Roger Eagle’s mission was to provide excellent music for a discerning audience, and to make sure that the musician did not get ripped off in the process. He was a maverick in a music industry more concerned with ticket and record sales. Although unburdened by any business acumen, his passion for music had a profound effect on those he chose to mentor and his ideology impacted on the Stadium, creating a unique communal space. Since its demolition in 1987, the Stadium’s significance as a popular music venue, and a cultural hub has been largely overlooked. Liverpool Stadium’s regular entourage of music fans would queue from late morning onwards on the day of a concert. The traffic free location of the building and the relative informality of its regime, allowed the assembled fans to watch bands arrive, socialise with each other and share youthful rites of passage. So strong was the camaraderie and the feeling of affection for the place itself, that when a former Stadium habitué, Craig Mackintosh, created a website celebrating its memory, the site attracted thousands of hits, and contributions from hundreds of former audience members, and from musicians who used to play there. Engaging with the online community presents a unique opportunity for an ethnographic, socio-cultural and historical thesis. With the support of Craig and the website initially, I propose to interview former concertgoers, musicians and management, to compile an oral record. I will analyse local archival records, and other media sources, in order to corroborate witness statements. The evidence collected will accurately document the musical events that took place at Liverpool Stadium, and will also reveal its cultural significance. Although much has been published about the Liverpool music scene of the 1960s and later 1970s, the omission of this important venue renders previous works incomplete. Punk’s high media profile and its hostility to earlier rock music has contributed to an historical bias. The punk movement, with the complicity of much of the popular musical press, declared a desire to erase what had gone before describing 1976 as ‘year zero’. The now hackneyed opinion was that rock music, typically the virtuoso big bands of the early seventies, represented ‘overblown self indulgence’ and alienated their audiences, whereas punk made music accessible. But prior to punk’s elevation of the amateur, other genres of rock music with a greater emphasis on skills and stagecraft had, apparently, been a thriving concern and, away from the media spotlight, may have remained so. Although no official record of all performances exists, an academically orchestrated oral history presents an opportunity to utilise a primary research resource; the eye witness, and by using an ethnographical methodology to analyse research data, produce an accurate account of period, place and performances. As Liverpool is European Capital of Culture in 2008, the time is right to challenge accepted mythologies about the city’s soundscape and to reveal the cultural significance of happenings at Liverpool Stadium by investigating its history and musical legacy. A thesis based upon oral history and archival research, presents a unique opportunity for a partially hidden history of Liverpool’s performance past to be brought to light through primary and secondary source material. Selected bibliography Cohen, Sara (1991), Rock Culture in Liverpool. Popular Music in the Making, Oxford: University Press Cohen, Sara, (1993), ‘Ethnography and Popular Music Studies in Popular Music12/2, pp.123-138, Cambridge: University Press Leigh, Spencer (2002), Sweeping the Blues Away. A Celebration of the Merseysippi Jazz Band. I.P.M., Liverpool Leigh, Spencer (2004), Twist and Shout! Merseybeat, The Cavern, The Star Club and the Beatles, Liverpool: Nirvana* Middleton, Richard (1990), Studying Popular Music, Milton Keynes: Open University Press* Negus, Keith (1996), Popular Music In Theory, Cambridge: Polity Perry, Mark (2000), Sniffin’ Glue. The Essential Punk Accessory, Sanctuary Publishing, London Physick, Ray (2007), Played in Liverpool. Charting the Heritage of a City at Play, English Heritage, Manchester Thompson, Paul (1978) The Voice of the Past, Oral History, Oxford: University Press Thompson, Phil (1998), Best Of Cellars, Liverpool: Bluecoat Press* Email from Jimmy Hibbert of Alberto Y Lost Trios Paranoias to Joan Bimson 08.01.08 http://www.answers.com/topic/rory-storm-the-hurricanes December 7th 1968. The Pink Floyd Concert Appearances Page, http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepage/PFArchives/tourdate.htm#1967 Roger Eagle’s promotion company: a three way partnership called Triad It is alleged on the Stadium website that Free and Mott the Hoople played there in September 1970 Liverpool Empire, for example, was policed by ‘doorman’ style security and in city centre venues, the police would discourage early queuing. Roger Eagle effectively policed Liverpool Stadium and though formidable, was more likely to empathise with the music fan. Perry, Mark (2000) Sniffin’ Glue, the Essential Punk Accessory, Sanctuary Publishing, London, p.81 Mark Perry the founder of punk fanzine Sniffin’ Glue had been a fan of ELP (Emerson, Lakeand Palmer) in 1973.Such was the antipathy to the earlier rock scene – in particular anything associated with so-called ‘progrock’- that the NME (New Musical Express) printed a former letter of his in which he describes ELP as ‘the eighth wonder of the world’. Perry describes their publishing of the letter after he had become well known as a punk as ‘a kind of blackmail’ which would undermine his credibility as a spokesperson. Perry, Mark (2000) Sniffin’ Glue, the Essential Punk Accessory, Sanctuary Publishing, London, p.73 Perry, Mark (2000) Sniffin’ Glue, the Essential Punk Accessory, Sanctuary Publishing, London, p.81 Email from Jimmy Hibbert of Alberto Y Lost Trios Paranoias to Joan Bimson 08.01.08 Physick, p.15 Physick, p.159 Leigh, p.77 http://www.answers.com/topic/rory-storm-the-hurricanes December 7th 1968. The Pink Floyd Concert Appearances Page, http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepage/PFArchives/tourdate.htm#1967 Roger Eagle’s promotion company: a three way partnership called Triad It is alleged on the Stadium website that Free and Mott the Hoople played there in September 1970 Liverpool Empire, for example, was policed by ‘doorman’ style security and in city centre venues, the police would discourage early queuing. Roger Eagle effectively policed Liverpool Stadium and though formidable, was more likely to empathise with the music fan. Perry, Mark (2000) Sniffin’ Glue, the Essential Punk Accessory, Sanctuary Publishing, London, p.81 Mark Perry the founder of punk fanzine Sniffin’ Glue had been a fan of ELP (Emerson, Lakeand Palmer) in 1973.Such was the antipathy to the earlier rock scene – in particular anything associated with so-called ‘progrock’- that the NME (New Musical Express) printed a former letter of his in which he describes ELP as ‘the eighth wonder of the world’. Perry describes their publishing of the letter after he had become well known as a punk as ‘a kind of blackmail’ which would undermine his credibility as a spokesperson.
Hard Wired for Heroes: A Study of Punk Fanzines, Fandom, Contents - pdf Images from Hard Wired for Heroes - pdf Hard Wired for Heroes: A Study of Punk Fanzines, Fandom,and the Historical Antecedents of The Punk Movement - Abstract Using the England’s Dreaming Archive as a primary research resource, this thesis aims to investigate the importance of the role played by Punk fanzines in the promulgation of a youth culture. It argues that fanzines were an attempt by the Punk community to retain autonomy and authorship of their movement and to prevent its appropriation and adaptation by mainstream culture. Jon Savage’s book, England’s Dreaming. Sex Pistols and Punk Rock describes a youth movement engaged with style, sedition and agit-prop art: counter-cultural Punk. However, an investigation of the movement via Punk fanzines offers a different interpretation of Punk. Sub-cultural Punk was anti-intellectual and reactionary. Unlike counter-cultural Punk, its primary focus was music. Eloquent and highly visible, the claims of counter-cultural Punk have overwhelmed Punk’s narrative and this thesis contests some of the central claims. Jon Savage's England’s Dreaming Archive provides the research with a unique and largely unmediated set of primary source material documenting Punk in the 1970s. The research examines subsequent interpretations of the material and questions why one should supersede another. This thesis argues for a revised reading of Punk and sub-culture by evidencing material from Punk fanzines. It argues that the underground community of fans, via the medium of the fanzine, gave Punk its support and greatly aided its viability as a youth movement suggesting that Punk was a paradox - a collusion of counter and sub-cultures subsequently elevated to art via counter-cultural affirmation. Finally the thesis contests the rhetoric of subsequent media commentators proposing that without intellectual validation, music genres remain an underground phenomenon.
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