The Saturday List #473 - My Top Ten benefit gigs!

Yesterday I went to perhaps the most incongruous gig I've ever been to. Let me start the story back at the beginning. When I was about fifteen, my brother Laurie was living in Montrose Avenue in Burnt Oak. He'd pay me to babysit his son Christopher. Chris was the perfect kid, I'd play silly games with him for an hour, then he'd trot off to bed. Laurie would leave me a bottle of cider and use of his record collection. He'd also give me recommendations. I'd often ask my mate Pete Conway to come around to keep me company. We'd listen to the albums and try and be inspired to write songs. Laurie's collection was amazing, with all manner of weird and wonderful album. He was into The Velvet Underground before anyone, and there were other gems such as The Electric Prunes, The Who and The Steve Miller Band. On the day in question, he said "You must listen to Electric Music for The Mind and Body by Country Joe and The Fish, it is the best debut album ever recorded".  We were punks, so you may think that a slice of hippydom would not go down too well, but he was right. It was amazing and I instantly became a fan. Anyone familiar with the work of Country Joe McDonald will know that he is a huge figure in sixties counter culture. The lead guitarist was Barry Melton, a genius, who went on to become the public defender for the state of California. Of all the bands I ever listened to, CJF were the most, to me, exotic and unfathomable. I saw both Joe and Barry a few times over the years. Joe has retired and has become a world expert on Florence Nightingale. I'd sort of forgotten about Barry until Thursday. A mate of mine, Pete Williams nipped into the shop to hire a guitar amp. I asked Pete what the gig was. He said "Barry Melton is playing a benefit gig for the An Cat Dubh animal sanctuary in Co Clare at the Leytonstone Ex Servicemens club".

I just had to go. The chance to see a Woodstock legend, in Leytonstone ex servicemens club for a donation to an animal sanctuary. What is not to love. Not only that, there are a couple of great pie and mash shops in Leytonstone to try. It was great to see Barry. He is a very senior citizen now. He can still play guitar and has a great voice. As you can imagine, he is none too happy with his new President. People like Barry should be running the USA, not the Gingerbread moron! The sheer incongruous nature of the gig got me thinking about the benefit gigs which The False Dots have done over the years. When we started the band, we made it a principle that we'd play suitable benefit gigs for what we considered good causes. We've done a few. Here are some of note!

1. 13 December 1980 - The Harwood Hall, Mill Hill - Our first gig was officially a benefit for Rock Against Racism. We put it on ourselves and got Stylo, a local reggae band led by Kenyan guitarist Roy Nkoji, a good mate of mine, to support. It was a great success. When I rung up RAR to ask where to send the money, they told us to keep it and use it to put on more gigs for good causes. They also sent us a load of badges and posters.

2. 13 March 1981 - Hendon Rugby Club (supporting The Chevrons). This was a benefit for The Friends of The Earth. The Chevrons were allegedly a big local band. The promoter was a guy called Alan Grote, who promoted lots of gigs. For us, doing this seemed like a big deal. The Chevrons were really unfriendly and got the soundman to knobble our sound. A local Hells Angel, saw this and politely explained to the sound guy that this was unacceptable. After that, the sound improved. Afterwards, I bought him a drink and it began a good relationship between us and the local bikers, that lead to us playing a bunch of bike festivals over the next few years. The guy was a Lou Reed fan and we did a cover of Sweet Jane, which was his favourite song. 

3. 18th July 1981 - Harwood Hall, Mill Hill. A benefit for CND, the worst gig we've ever done. Mind you, we raised £29 for CND and got a nice thank you letter. 

It was meant to be a real triumph, we had replaced Craig Withecombe with mercurial guitarist Captain Ubungus. He didn't learn the songs and didn't tune his guitar. We got Boz Boorer of the Polecats to come down and jam with us, you can see him in the doorway with the quiff. I ended up hitting someone around the head with my guitar after they spat in my face. Oddly, the audience seemed to think it was OK. We sacked Ubungus after and got Craig back. 

4. 30th June 1984, Bald Faced Stag, Burnt Oak. One of the more incongruous gigs we did. A benefit for Greenham Common at The Bald Faced Stag in Burnt Oak. Perhaps the most notorious pub in the Borough of Barnet. It was an amazing gig. The last in our series of gigs of our residency at The Stag. It was even video'd for posterity, although I never saw the video! Clarence Mitchell at the Barnet Times was a big champion of the band. He is now the Conservative leader of Reading Council. How times change!

5. 13 December 1985, Old Bull Arts Centre, Barnet. Another CND benefit. Notable as the first time my parents came to a gig. My Dad thought CND were idiots, but he wanted to support me. He brought some of my young nephews and nieces. The act before us was a feminist lesbian dance troop who appeared nude, daubed in green paint, under a polythene sheet. I doubt they had quite the effect that they hoped for on the male members of the audience. After the gig I asked Dad what he thought of us. He replied, he hadn't noticed us because he was still thinking about the dance troop. My 12 year old nephew rather liked it. 

6. 20th April 2002, The Red Lion, Colindale. The saddest benefit gig we did. It was in memory of Ernie Ferebee, who had been the manager of Mill Hill Music Complex 1994-2001 and died of pancreatic cancer leaving three children under six. It was our first gig for twelve years. Mixed emotions

7. 3rd November 2006, Mill Hill Sports Club (Kate Nash was support act). A gig for MacMillan Cancer Relief. Kate was brilliant, one of her first gigs. Six weeks later, she was in the charts with Foundations. 

8. 3rd March 2008, The Bull Theatre (supporting Lee Thompson & Chris Spedding band). Another gig for MacMillan. A brilliant night. Notable in that it was the last performance with The False Dots of Paul Hircombe, who quit after 28 years to become a career criminal. When Paul was being sentenced, a couple of years later, I met with his brief  to be a character witness. I told him Paul was a great guy who'd gone off the rails. I mentioned all the benefit gigs he'd done for free and the thousands he'd raised for charity. I was told not to mention this as "it was not credible, given his record". I felt really guilty, as it was all true. Pauls brief said I'd get torn apart by the prosecution if I came up with such a "cock and bull story". Paul got three years. 

9. 15th December2009, The Claddagh Ring, Hendon. This was a benefit for Barnet Unison trade union and their fight with Barnet Council, trying to get them to reverse their plans for outsourcing the council to Capita. History proved us right and them wrong. I did what I could!

10. 29th January 2011, The Arts Depot, Finchley (supporting The Foundations). Rock against the Cuts (with a silent N). Again organised by Unison to raise awareness of the Tory council's planned cuts to services. It was a brilliant day, with a march from Finchley Central to The Arts Depot. It was packed..

I'm proud of the benefit gigs we've done over the years. When we started it was mostly political causes, more recently it's been for cancer charities etc. We are probably well overdue one for a cat sanctuary!

And to finish, here is a video from the Harwood Hall gig. This was 1981, not 1979 as labelled on the video. This was the Vektors from Edgware supporting us at the above mentioned CND gig at The Harwood Hall. Proper Mill Hill rock and roll history!