45 45s AT 45 : NUMBER 38

Younger readers (if there are indeed any – I imagine my readership is mostly the 35s and over) would be astonished to learn that up until maybe 20 years ago, it was really difficult to find music on your television screen.

Here in the UK, what we had was an unmissable 90 minutes every Friday at 5.30pm on Channel 4 with The Tube. Other than that, it was a weekly dose of Top Of The Pops on BBC1 which, if you were lucky, might have 2 or 3 songs that you liked mixed in with a lot of dross. Over on BBC2, we had a weekly dose of The Old Grey Whistle Test which, if you were lucky, might have 2 or 3 songs that you liked mixed in with a lot of dross. And that was just about it if you don’t count bands appearing on Saturday morning kiddies shows.

In reality, I’m being unfair to OGWT, or Whistle Test as it became known sometime in the 80s. It was fronted for a few years by Mark Ellen and David Hepworth with regular contributions from Andy Kershaw as well as a woman whose name I forget but who had sort of modelled herself on Muriel Gray from The Tube (help me with a name someone please….)

OGWT was a mixture of bands, promo videos and specially made short films. There was one belter of a show in the mid 80s when the two live bands were PiL and The Smiths – the former playing Round and Home, while the latter unveiled Bigmouth Strikes Again and Vicar In A Tutu. Whistle Test was also where I first saw the video for Levi Stubbs’ Tears in which Billy Bragg sang live and Dave Woodhead joined in on a trumpet solo at the end, while there were a number of great one-off specials that went on for 24 hours at a time in which some of my all time heroes turned up and played live – and not always sober.

And it was on the show that I first saw and heard Martin Stephenson. It was love at first sight and sound. He played a great little instrumental on acoustic guitar called A Tribute to The Late Rev Gary Davis. He then went to change his guitar for a song to be played with his band The Daintees, at which point his guitar strap gave way and he had to fumble around sorting things out. He gave a sheepish look at the camera, said ‘God Bless’ into his microphone and then strummed the opening notes of one of the a truly gorgeous and heart-rendering song.

I went out the next day and purchased the debut LP entitled Boat To Bolivia. With eight weeks, I had to replace it as it had been played so often, usually in a drunken stupor in which I tried to play particular tracks but only succeeded in dropping the needle and causing damage and carnage…

It’s a truly amazing debut with all sorts of musical styles to the fore. It’s also an album that deals with a lot of personal issues for Martin, including miscarriages that his mum had suffered, his sister’s lesbianism, and his reaction to the hypocrisy of people at a his grandmother's funeral. It was the last mentioned that he played on Whistle Test as it was also the single from the LP:-

mp3 : Martin Stephenson & The Daintees – Crocodile Cryer
mp3 : Martin Stephenson & The Daintees – Louis

It was few years later that I met the now Mrs Villain. As you do when you meet someone special with an interest in music, you pass on some of your own tastes in the hope that the special person will grow to like them. Mrs V didn’t know anything about Martin Stephenson & The Daintees. But they soon became a favourite of hers and we’ve been lucky enough to see the band, as well as Martin play solo, on quite a few occasions over the years.

Prior to seeing him live, Mrs V thought Martin was the Geordie equivalent of Leonard Cohen. She still thinks he is every bit as talented as the great Canadian singer/poet, but that Martin is a million times better looking and charismatic. And I’m not going to argue.

We last saw him just over a year ago play one of the best gigs we can ever recall in the clubhouse of a tennis club in Glasgow, courtesy of Alan Hendry the promoter of Sounds In The Suburbs. He came back later that year for another small gig, but sadly, the Villains were out of the country on holiday.

Alan has arranged for Martin to come back to Glasgow on Saturday 14th June. Yet again, your humble scribe will not be able to be there. And it’s a pathetic excuse really….and I’ll hang my head in shame by saying that instead I will be overnight in St Andrews as part of a golfing weekend with a crowd of mates. How uncool is that???

But if anyone reading this really fancies what I guarantee will be a night to remember, click on this link and get yourself a ticket. Forget Radiohead at Glasgow Green and T In The Park (aka Nedstock) – there’s only one Scottish gig that is a must this coming summer….

Oh and incidentally, the mp3 is from the original 7" single and comes in at about a minutes less than the version on Boat To Bolivia. You'll also be able to see the Whistle Test clip right here.