Dag 1387: lost+found

I have been getting more and more obsessed with that period of my life that encompasses a couple of years either side of 1980 (though I'm sure no one would have realised from anything I have written here recently).

I found myself thinking about some of the things I used to own. I knew that I had disposed and/or lost some of them over the last 25 years, but I decided to have a search and destroy mission (but without the destroy bit) on Sunday to see what I could recover of the things I thought I should still own from that period.

I used to buy a lot of records, mainly albums, but also bought quite a few singles around that time and some of those are pretty valuable now. Unfortunatley, I can remember taking them to a record fair some time ago and selling up my complete singles collection for the princly sum of £100, without me doing any haggling. That was a pretty large sum when I sold them, though now I suspect some of those singles may well be worth that amount on their own. I seem to recall I spent the money in Sheffield on a sony recordable walkman (£96) with clip on microphone, with the intention of using it to record concerts. Unfortunately I never actually used it for recording anything and just used it as a standard walkman. If only I had kept the records instead.

This bunch of singles included:
Siouxsie and the banshees - Hong Kong garden with gatefold sleeve
Soft Cell - Mutant moments ep
I'm so hollow, Clock DVA, Vice Versa - 1980 the first 15 minutes e.p. (this was always one of my favourite singles and I have no idea why I ever decided to part with it).
Destroy all monsters - destroy all monsters
Genesis - Twilight Alehouse
David Bowie - Ashes to ashes complete with stamp set
The prefects - Going through the motions
Television - Marquee moon 12"
Various TG singles
Plus plenty of others I can't remember

I also had the Neural Circus exit e.p. but I am pretty sure I would not have sold that as a) I bought it from Liam when they first brought it out and b) as it was a self financed e.p. I wouldn't have thought many people would have heard of it so I wouldn't have thought it was worth selling.

So I climbed up through the attic trapdoor and hacked my way through the cobwebs to see what I could find.
The answer was not a lot. I found my collection of LP records and had a look through those. They consisted mainly of Peter Hammill and VDGG records, but I also found a couple of bootlegs in there that I didn't remember owning, which was a nice surprise. I couldn't find any sign of my Neural Circus single or any other singles. I did find a forgotten collection of photo albums that dated back to my wedding, but there were none from before that. I used to have a photo album containing photos I took at some of my early concerts and it also contained a number of autographs. The most precious of these was an autograph of Siouxsie and the Banshees. I seemed to remember taking that one out and putting it in a photo frame, but I could find no sign of this photo album or the frame containing the Siouxsie autograph.

I eventually gave up and moved onto the garage. After much rummaging around I still couldn't find that photo album, but I did find an old green photo frame with 3 signatures on a bit of fading/yellowing creased paper. I can't remember when I had last seen this, but it left me with a great feeling of relief, as I had been beginning to think that I had lost all my old treasured possessions.

Siouxsie and some of the Banshees

The three signatures are Siouxsie, Steven Severin (who plays bass) and John. At first I assumed the John to be, the late, John McGeoch (who had previously been guitarist with Magazine). He was in Siouxsie and the Banshees from 1980 until 1982 so I guessed this must have been signed within that period.

half a flyer

However, once I looked at the front of the flyer I was able to get a bit closer to the truth.
The flyer gives dates of a few gigs and, unfortunately, no year, but it did tell me that October 29th was a thursday and a quick go with the old unix cal command showed me that October 29th fell on a thursday in 1972, 1978 and 1989. I knew it couldn't be 1972 or 1989 so it must have been 1978 and therefore the John must have been John McKay (who was guitarist until the 1979 tour).
A quick look here showed me that they played in Leeds on the following occassions around this time:
10th November 1977 - Leeds Polytechnic
6th December 1977 - Leeds Fan Club
12th April 1978 - Leeds Fan Club
21st October 1978 - Leeds University
So from the other gigs listed on the flyer I would guess this was probably signed at the Leeds University gig, though I guess I can't be 100% sure.

The other gigs shown on the flyer (in case you can't make them out) are as follows:
Thusday 16th October - Wayne County and the Electric chairs + Agony Column
9th November - The Skids + Sheeny and the Goys
16th November - Penetration + Xpelaires
Dec 2nd (at Hofbrauhause) - Wilco Johnson’s Solid Senders