The Preston punk and post-punk scenes…

From seeing Joy Division headline Warehouse to loving The Fall at Preston Poly, music memories of growing up amid 70s and 80s Preston.

A new book recalls life in the city’s music scene through the 70s and 80s as Paddy grew up in Fulwood.

It took me decades to realise how lucky I was to spend my teenage years in Preston – and now I’ve written a book about them.

Not JUST About The Fall: 50 adventures in a post-punk paradise is a love letter to the forgotten heroes of the music industry – the fans – and a local scene which included classic gigs in venues such as The Warehouse, the old Preston Polytechnic Students’ Union and Preston Guild Hall.

I became a teenager in 1977, and used to feel I had been two or three years too young to be able to fully embrace punk rock – but I was so lucky to have a brother, Guy, who was (and still is!) almost two-and-a-half years older than me, and who brought the thrilling sounds of the Sex Pistols, The Clash, Buzzcocks, the Ramones and so many others into our home in Fulwood.

Then, one night in August, 1979, John Peel changed my life when he played Rowche Rumble by The Fall – the group’s third single. I was in love. The Fall’s second LP, Dragnet, soon followed, and then I got the chance to see them for the first time, at Preston Poly, on November 12, 1979.

Even better, me and Guy were put on the guest list because they were being supported by The Voice Of, a group which included two of our then near-neighbours, Steve Bennett and Jon Hibbert (future Hacienda DJ Jon Dasilva). But I’m still kicking myself for missing the gig The Fall played down the road at The Warehouse just 10 days later.

It wasn’t JUST about The Fall, though – there were so many other great groups and gigs to enjoy during my teenage years. When I was still only 14, in 1978, I was so lucky to be able to see The Clash with Suicide at Blackburn King George’s Hall, and Ian Dury and the Blockheads with Matumbi and Whirlwind, and Elvis Costello and the Attractions with Richard Hell and the Voidoids and John Cooper Clarke at Preston Guild Hall. 

Later, I would see The Cure at Preston Poly and Lancaster University, The Chords at Preston Poly, The Jam in Blackburn and Buzzcocks in Blackburn – twice, the second time with Joy Division, who I later saw headlining at The Warehouse in Preston. Then there was U2 with Altered Images at Manchester Poly – well, it was only £1.20! – and, of course, there were more gigs by The Fall, in Chorley, Bolton and Blackpool.

I felt enormous local pride in premier Preston post-punk band Blank Students, who had two tracks on the first of the three Earcom compilations released by the pioneering Edinburgh-based label Fast Product in 1979, before releasing their own single in 1980 and landing a John Peel session in 1981. This was all a very big deal, and they were from PRESTON – yeah! I loved the band, and saw them several times – including at Preston Poly, The New Brunswick and Gaiety pubs and in Avenham Park.

I also looked up to Andrew Hobbs, a real mover and shaker on the Preston punk and post-punk scenes. He produced his own fanzine (Here Come the Martian Martians), his own cassette compilations (A Classic Slice of Teenage Angst, Volumes One and Two) and wrote for Zigzag magazine. I didn’t know him then, but we became great friends from 1984 when we both attended the same journalism college in Sheffield.

There was a thriving independent cassette scene in the early 1980s and, as part of this, I made a terrible racket in one of the worst bedroom bands of all time. We called ourselves The Ambitious Merchants and the tapes we released (the first, in a nod to The Fall, was called Eating Apple Crumble Whilst Listening to Rowche Rumble) even made it into the charts…the Obscurist Charts, which featured in the national music paper Sounds. I also launched my own cassette label, Apple Crumble Tapes, which released several cassettes – including a speech by the then Labour MP Tony Benn, which Sounds writer Dave McCullough gave a five-star review.

Heady and halcyon days – as The Undertones sang: “Teenage dreams, so hard to beat…”

'Not JUST About The Fall: 50 adventures in a post-punk paradise' by Paddy Shennan will be published by Earth Island Books on November 14. You can pre-order it here Not JUST About The Fall: 50 adventures in a post-punk paradise by Paddy Shennan | Earth Island Books

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