The STIFFS on stage in late 1979
LEFT TO RIGHT : John McVittie (Bass ; vocals) ; Phil Hendriks (Lead vocal ; Guitar ) ;
Tommy O`Kane {(Background) Drums} ; Strang ( Guitar ; vocals) ;
The Stiffs played a handful of gigs in early 1978, mostly a mixture of covers
of tracks by bands such as the Vibrators ,Saints,Ramones while they developed
their own original set and saved up to record ademo !
It was not until Spring 1978 ,when John McVittie replaced 'Ozzie' Young
on bass guitar, that the band felt confident enough to enter a recording studio.
THE FIRST RECORDINGS - JULY 1978
In July `78 the band entered Pennine Sound in Oldham for the first time
to record early versions of "Inside Out" and "Volume Control". The guys
didn`t have enough money to buy the master tape and left with a single cassette
copy of the tracks. It has always been believed that the master had been lost.
However , 22 years later, recording engineer Paul Adshead found the
original 'quarter- inch' master tape among a pile of unmarked reels which had
been earmarked for the bin !!
These are not the released versions of the tracks , incidentally.
THE "Standard English" SESSIONS
In December of 1978 and early January 1979 the band once again braved the recording
studio, although this time they chose a small demo studio in the unlikely village of Great
Harwood in Lancashire.
The band set about recording 7 original songs, although in these early days neither band
nor recording studio was capable of producing the powerful sound the Stiffs wanted to
achieve. Overall , the sound was thin and the group sounded nervous and inexperienced -
not surprising as the eldest member was only 17 years of age.
Undaunted, the youths selected three tracks for issue as their first record, the now sought
after "Standard English"/"DC-RIP"/ "Brookside Riot Squad" maxi 7" single.
They called their label 'DORK' records and with some financial help from Phil`s father
pressed up 1,000 copies in April of 1978.
Future Stiff, Nick Alderson,
had a small screen-printing business and helped design the
DORK records 'company
sleeve' although only a couple of hundred were ever printed.
"The
sleeves had to be printed individually by hand , left to dry on a rack
etc. and by
the
time we`d made a couple of hundred we were well and truly sick of the idea
!" says
Phil.
"We thought we`d finish the job later but never went back to it - that`s
why the
covers
are so scarce !"
As soon as the band had
paid back the money they`d borrowed to make the record
they ' withdrew' it from
sale and hid the remaining copies !
"INSIDE OUT" / "KIDS ON THE STREET"
Learning from the mistakes of their first record The Stiffs decided once again to splash out
on the luxury of Oldham`s 'Pennine sound' 8- track studios . So it was, that in July 1979
the band booked into 'Pennine' to record their second single, "Inside Out" / "Kids on the
street". This time the band was well-rehearsed and firing on all cylinders. They had to
be, as ,at a princely £10 an hour ,our hapless heroes could only afford 6 hours recording time.
" I don`t think we ever intended
to release these tracks as a single -
It came out after a great
deal of deliberation , as we didn`t want to
make another record until
we were quite sure we`d got the recipe right.
The record wasn`t
released until five months after it was recorded."
"Inside Out" / "Kids on
the street" , the STIFFS second D.I.Y. single was released
on DORK records in December
1979. Over the Christmas holiday period the record
began to pick up national
airplay on BBC Radio One`s John Peel show.
By some quirk of fate
most of the copies had the labels on the wrong sides -
a blessing in disguise
as DJ`s inadvertantly played the flipside by mistake and,
realising that both 'sides'
were strong songs ,continued to play both sides.
John Peel announced "Inside
Out" as the
'..greatest record in the
entire history of the universe...!'.
It looked like 1980 was
gonna be the year for 'Stiffmania'.
HOMEPAGE