In 1982 Frankie Goes to Hollywood line-up was quite unstable. Holly Jonson and Peter Gill (a.k.a. Ped, drums) had just left the Sons of Egypt (see relevant post) and teamed up with Mark O’Toole (bass) to form a new band, FGTH, using the name of Johnson’s former band (with Steve Lovell, guitar, and Ambrose Reynolds, bass). At this point they started looking for a guitarist. Johnson recalls: ‘We tried out a few guitarists from the echelons of Mark [O’Toole]’s family. There were two brothers who could both play, Vinny and Ged, the latter becoming the guitarist for the first performances, though neither was a very important part of the sound which was dominated by the rhythm section. Ped and I had tried to get the guitarist fro the Jazz [a.k.a. Jass] Babies to join, but without success.’
(Holly Johnson, A Bone in My Flute, 142-43).
After having tried for a short period of time a female singer, Sonia M, Johnson finally replaced her with Paul Rutherford (former Spitfire Boys, English Opium Eaters). This line-up would eventually perform at the Larks in the Parks festival, in Sefton Park. These are Holly Johnson’s memories about the event:
‘Soon the Larks in the Parks, an annual open-air event for the local bands, came up. We made sure we got a place on the bill, and planned our appearance down to the last detail. We should have a delayed start when we would play car crash sounds from the Mad Max soundtrack which Paul provided. I wore a pair of old leather chaps with G string, which meant that my arse was exposed at the back, and I got someone to paint one cheek pink and the other blue with oil pastel crayons. A black-and-white publicity photo by John Stoddard of this mad it look as if my cheeks had been whipped with a riding crop.
‘Paul and I each dragged a Leather Pet on to the stage pulling at a chain attached to a dog-collar around their necks. The sisters from Kirkby (the Muscatelli sisters, Julie and Marie) posed as captive slaves for us. Slowly we chained them to the drum kit, then launched into ‘Two Tribes’ […]. We had only about eight songs at the time, if that. We sometimes did an impromptu version of the Mickey Mouse Club song to lighten things up a bit: ‘M.I.C. See ya real soon. K.E.Y. Why? Because we like you – M.O.U.S.E.’
‘I walked down the ramp on the lake during one of the first songs. When I turned to return to the stage there was an audible gasp from the audience, provoked by my exposed arse. Near the end of the set I asked the audience if we should release the Leather Pets. We did, and they came gyrating to the front of the stage. Dancing wasn’t their strong point we realised, so for subsequent shows we kept them tied up for as long as possible. People left the park bemused, but still talking about what they had seen.’
(Holly Johnson, A Bone in My Flute, 146-47)
Larks in the Park - Sefton Park, Liverpool (29 July 1982)
- Two tribes
- Welcome to the Pleasuredome
- Relax
- Disneyland
- The World is My Oyster
From an No.1 issue (21 September, 1985), here’s the O’Toole family’s recollection of that afternoon:
‘The first time Mark’s family saw Frankie play was at Sefton Park. Liverpool, three years ago in the annual Larks In The Park festival. At the time Mark’s brother, Jed, was still the guitarist and their dress was completely outrageous. By this time Holly had joined the group and singing with him was Paul Rutherford.
"Their appearance was atrocious," Mark’s dad reckons. "Musically… sound as a pound but their, er, look left a lotto be desired.
"Holly was outrageous. That first time he had just a G-string on. Good job he did, cos when he bent down you thought it was a cat looking at you."
Josie takes up the tale: "After the gig, we were walking around and we had to lend him a coat, cos he would have been arrested for indecent exposure!"
(http://www.zttaat.com/article.php?title=97)
From Uncut (July 2004):
‘Liverpool-born photographer John Stoddart chronicled such ramshackle beginnings from 1982. “That was when they were just a pathetic band on the pseudo-Bowie/Roxy gay scene,” he recalls today. “But they developed fast once Paul joined, and they looked terrific. I’m a witness to the fact they were better and had more raw energy before Trevor Horn got his hands on them. I saw them at Larks In The Park, in Sefton Park, when they had these secretary sisters called the Leatherpettes [Julie and Marie Muscatelli] who dressed in stockings. Paul and Holly whipped them with their arses hanging out. It sounds naff now but in 1982 it was like, ’Hang on a minute!’”
(http://www.zttaat.com/article.php?title=144)
larks
(see also: http://www.zttaat.com/search.php?search=larks )
Steve Charnock (guitar) and Greg McGraw (bass) got together with Phil Rice (guitars) and Geoff Stalford (a.k.a. Stinkfoot [as in the Frank Zappa's song], drums, later Flashpoint) who replied to an ad in a music magazine, around September 1977 . (About their first meeting, Charnock remembers Stalford and Rice coming into the Black Bull one of them carrying a Santana LP so that McGraw and Charnock would recognize them.)
HAVANA- 12/7/78
