This is your chance to own a unique piece of Punk Rock history, the original camera I used to take the only photographs of the Sex Pistols when they played their first iconic gig at Manchester’s Lesser Free Trade Hall on 4th June 1976.
The Yashica Electro AX camera comes complete with 2 lenses, filters etc along with three 8″ x 10″ prints taken on the night plus an exhibition flyer.
The camera is being auctioned by Omega Auctions on 23rd Aprril 2024 as part of their music memorabilia auction commencing at 9am.
The camera is lot #569 with an estimate of £2,000 – £2,500, for further details visit the Omega Auctions website where you can also follow the auction online.
A chance to escape from all the rubbish that is going on in this mad world and an opportunity to celebrate Christmas and the winter season, best of all lots of chocolate, alcohol and of course, mince pies!
Hi there pop pickers, if you are into pop memorabilia from the 1970s have I got news for you because I’m consigning some of my treasured possessions to auction. It’s the second time I have decided to do this, the first to great success but this second time there is some top stuff, I will now let you know a few of the items I’m selling.
This ultra rare Tyrannosaurus Rex poster from 1969 is one of my lots, a style of poster that you just don’t see these days, a beautiful work of art.
Second, and even more rare this Pink Floyd poster also from 1969 advertising their gig at the Free Trade Hall, Manchester with the Azimuth Co-ordinator.
Now, how about this, a Tyrannosaurus Rex programme from 1969 signed by Marc Bolan, Micky Finn and John Peel!
‘But Paul, with these items you are spoiling us’ I hear you say, well how about a first edition copy of Marc Bolan’s poetry book ‘ The Warlock of Love also from 1969.
Gasp! How about a Hawkwind poster from 1971 and a couple of Hawkwind tour programmes filled with photos of the band.
I could go on all night but I won’t…there is a first edition Pete Sinfield (Genesis/ELP) book of lyrics and poetry signed by Pete Sinfield himself, very rare indeed.
Maybe you would like the original Warpig poster designed for Motorhead with a swastika on the second spike which was removed almost immediately, that is why this is so rare, a must for a true Motorhead collector.
I could show you more but I’ll let you discover the rest yourself if you are interested, the auction is on 28th November 2023 at Omega Auctions, the catalogue can be viewed online, just Google Omega Auctions. You can register as a buyer and bid online on the day itself, commences 10am.
Below is one last item to tickle your pickle a rather rare first edition Sex Pistols File, full to the brim with photos of the band front stage, back stage and under the stage, 64 pages of punk mayhem.
I first saw Hawkwind in 1971 at Manchester University, that gig changed my life and led to me eventually publishing my own magazine, Penetration. The second interview I conducted for the first issue was with Nik Turner, I became good friends with Nik and the rest of the band and they became Penetration’s ‘house band’. We had many adventures with the band, most of them under the influence of mind altering substances of one kind or another.
When it came to the Space Ritual I was totally blown away, the best live show I’d ever seen and it has never been equalled by anyone since although, as Dave Brock has said, listening to the recordings now in parts it sounds like everyone is playing a different song at the same time.
Of course, when Lemmy was sacked by the band Penetration supported him all the way, and we followed Motorhead around the country habitually. Motorhead and Lemmy were a joke as far as many people were concerned, how Lemmy proved them all wrong.
Of course, the original members of both Hawkwind and Motorhead have gone off to join the great gig in the sky and yet Dave Brock, who is currently 81 years old, is still the space captain in control of the mighty Hawkwind and he still looks like he’s enjoying the trip. I caught their recent show at Manchester’s Academy, just two minutes away from where I first saw them back in ’71 and the audience, many of whom were not born in 1971, were enjoying every last second of the show.
The band played many of the old classics like ‘Assault and Battery’, ‘You’d Better Believe it’, ‘Utopia’, ‘Spirit of the Age’ and of course, as an encore. one for us all to go fucking crazy ‘Brainstorm’. It was like being transported back in time and the lightshow was superb and finally, I must mention The Crazy World of Arthur Brown. I caught Arthur Brown again at Manchester University around the same time that I first saw Hawkwind. The God of Hellfire is still as crazy as ever and he gave a great performance with a remarkable number of costume changes.
People who have seen Hawkwind recently have enthused about just how amazingly good they are, if you missed them check out the live recordings on YouTube and enjoy!
Clubland live was due to visit the AO Arena in Manchester, Cascada were on the list of acts appearing on the tour and my wife really wanted to see them live. The Venga boys were also due to appear, I mean, really? Despite the threat of the Vengas I agreed to join my wife on the night and try to enjoy the show.
As soon as the opening act Rezonance Q hit the stage with an in yer face version of Someday, my preconceptions were blown away, the atmosphere was set and you just knew that the night was going to be massive.
I’d never managed to catch Kelly Llorenna live before and so when she took to the stage it was a blast, clad in black inconspicuous under a large black hood True Love Never Dies top tune. Tell it to my Heart a classic and the audience were really up for it. The volume and the energy was already bringing back memories of many Happy Hardcore raves from back in the nineties.
Karen Parry along with Flip & Fill/Ultrabeat Kept the party on track, Dancing On My Own, Pretty Green Eyes, and many more of their classics followed. I won’t mention the Venga Boys who delivered a set that was like something you would catch on a Cruise Ship cabaret stage. They were on far too long, five minutes would have been five minutes too long!
Thankfully Darren Styles was ready to take the music faster and harder, a really banging set with all his own tracks plus many more, this was what I was hoping for, Hardcore!
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The visuals were good all night long as well as the non-stop dancers, the MC then announced that they’d saved the best until last, my wife began to get excited Cascada? No, unfortunately it was Basshunter, sorry, time to go home.
I was so happy, it had been a really exhilarating evening with one or two exceptions, lots of my favourite tunes and a chance to see a couple of acts for the first time live. For my wife however it was a different story, no Cascada and all that was left for her to do was to evacuate the dancefloor, that was the closest she’d got to them all night!
I read with interest your article ‘Smells Like Zine Spirit’ by Hamish Ironside RC 540. Being the former editor of Penetration Rock Magazine which was first published in early 1974 featuring rock bands like Gong, Hawkwind, Pink Fairies etc. I also covered American punk bands from the very first issue which featured the duo Suicide.
In late 1976 whilst talking to Tony James and Billy Idol in the Electric Circus I was introduced to Mark Perry who had travelled up to Manchester with their band Chelsea. Mark told me that he used to read Penetration and that it inspired him to begin publishing his own Sniffin’ Glue fanzine.
Local Manchester punk fanzine Ghast-Up which was included in your feature directed their readers to Penetration #10 in orderto read my feature on Iggy and the Stooges for more information.
I also gave Paul Morley his writing debut in Penetration #7 after his continual persistance over several weeks which he went on to document in his book The North and Almost Everything in it.
I conducted the very first Motorhead interview at the Roundhouse one week before their debut gig at the same venue, we supported them through the hard times when they really needed it. I wrote about it extensively in my book Hitting my Head Against the Wall! Lemmy and Motorhead – The Early Years which was reviewed by Kris Needs in Record Collector Magazine.
My photographic exhibition ‘Anarchy in the Manchester Central Library – Sex Pistols at the Lesser Free Trade Hall 04/06/1976’ recently finished its three month run at the Central Library. The first and only time that the entire collection of photos taken on that night were seen together. There was also a number of other images taken for Penetration as well as a potted history of the magazine. The exhibition was visited by thousands of people from across England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales as well as a further 20 nationalities, it was a great success. The Exhibition Visitors’ book was packed full of messages thanking me for finally putting the images on display.
Forty nine years since the first issue Penetration Magazine is still creating interest as demonstrated by sales of my self-published Penetration Rock Magazine Compilation book featuring every issue in full. The book has accrued a number of five star reviews including one from Martin Ryan, Ghast-up’s joint editor who described it as an indespensible book.
As far as I was concerned Penetration was a rock magazine, to others it was a fanzine to Malcolm McClaren it was a little pamphlet, however, if my magazine/fanzine/pamphlet hadn’t inspired Mark Perry to start publishing Sniffin’ Glue would there have been a punk fanzine explosion?
Your guess is as good as mine.
Anybody interested in purchasing a copy of the complete collection of Penetration Rock Magazine will be able to find it on Amazon.
This book is one of the best autobiographies I’ve ever read concerning somebody involved in music, it is hilarious in parts, touching in others and just jaw dropping all the way through. Like a British Iggy Pop only more outrageous, the book covering his life story is addictive, you just can’t put it down, you just want to read what happens next.
There is the story of his band John’s Children with Marc Bolan before T-Rex, his time with the band Jet and also his stint with the punkish band Radio Stars. His band John’s Children supported the Who back in the days when Keith Moon was on drums and the Who found them to loud and too violent. ‘Like puppets on pills, they out Who’d the Who’ John Entwistle remarked ‘The bastards! Blood, chains, chairs, feathers, fights…….the crowd went nuts.’
The stunt part of the title referring to Andy’s daredevil stage act which see’s him hospitalized more times than I’ve had hot dinners! The music is great as well, some top tunes appear in his back catalogue including my all time favourite ‘It’s been a long time’ which I first heard back in the sixties on the soundtrack of the film ‘Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush’ starring Barry Evans.
Andy is still going today and still as outrageous as ever and he’ll keep going until the day that he dies, probably falling off the stage into the audience with a smile on his face. One hell of a read, try and get a copy yourself and enjoy.
Today we went over to Manchester’s Central Reference Library to take down my ‘Sex Pistols at the Lesser Free Trade Hall exhibition’ after its three month residency. It was visited by thousands of people and the visitors’ book was full of positive messages of thanks and love, thank you to everyone who visited the exhibition and enjoyed it.
I was initially quite unsure of how the exhibition would be received but I needn’t have worried, the library staff told me that many people were desperate to see it.
People have visited from right across the UK including Wales, Ireland and Scotland and taken from the visitors’ book here is a list of other countries visitors represented:
Italy – Canada – Germany – Japan – Australia – France – Ukraine – Argentina – Iceland – Singapore – USA – Portugal – Mexico – Spain – Finland – Netherlands – Pakistan – Algeria – Venezuela and New Zealand and they all loved it.
Now the display will spend the rest of its days in my loft unless somebody steps forward with the offer of another exhibition, if you missed it then I’m afraid you probably won’t get another a chance to view it.
All that remains for me to say once again is thank you to all the people who came to see it, thank you for your kind messages of support and the enjoyment you got from seeing what that gig actually looked like.
Christmas 2021 I purchased a copy of a CD that had been around for a good ten years, it was by faux Russian lesbians tATu.
Now, when I first heard about this duo, reading about them in a magazine, I can’t say that I was interested in what they had to offer musically, it all sounded a bit contrived, put together to create controversy.
Towards the end of 2002 I was in the HMV store in Stockport when ‘All the Things She Said’ came over the PA system, ‘What the f###!’ I thought to myself, ‘this is amazing’ I immediately purchased the CD single. I then went on to purchase their two albums which were just as good as the single and then, nothing, it all went very quiet The duo eventually split, there followed some dodgy cosmetic surgery for one of them with both of them also giving birth and starting families.
However, I’m not interested in their private lives, unknown to me they had recorded the album ‘Waste Management’ and that had passed me by, that was until, as I said, last year when I bagged a copy.
It was with slight apprehension that I approached the album, was I about to be disappointed, was it just going to be mindless pop music? After all, as far as I was concerned the album hadn’t really been promoted over in the UK back when it was released, the fact that they had left their record label Interscope for TA music was probably the reason so maybe I was about to be disappointed. However I listened to the CD and let me tell you something, this album is superb, it immediately went into the list of my top albums of all time, possibly top 5! I’ve been listening to the CD virtually non-stop for the last year.
However, it is tATu’s least successful album, the style is more electronic than their previous albums and with a new production team it is a new direction. Most notably composer Eugenly Matveitsey helped create what the girls call a concept of continuity. All the tracks are linked by Matveitsey’s music which creates a concept style album and tracks like ‘You and Me’, ‘Little People’, and ‘Fly on the Wall’ are incredibly good. The album demands to be listened to as a whole experience and not as individual tracks.
Basically ‘Waste Management’ is worth seeking out, it’s exciting, innovative and beautifully conceived, worth buying if you’d like to give your ears a treat. Okay, this is just my opinion but I fully believe, just like me, anybody coming to this album for the first time will love it.
Just in case you’re getting suspicious, no, I’m not on their payroll……. check it out!
When you set up an exhibition you want to try and let as many people know about it as possible otherwise it might pass them by.
I had posters and flyers printed but I was hoping for more publicity from the media and with that in mind I contacted every music magazine in the country as well as radio stations, TV companies and local newspapers. I contacted over twenty different places and only four replied, Uncut Magazine, Cheshire Life, Altrincham Today and BBC TVs North-West Tonight and thank you very much to those four outlets for their support. However, it is rather pathetic that just four replied, don’t forget the Sex Pistols first visit to the Lesser Free Trade Hall in Manchester is seen as a groundbreaking event, one of the NMEs 50 gigs that you had to be at. This exhibition was the very first time all the photographs taken on that night were to be seen together, a one-off opportunity and yet, apart from Altrincham Today who actually interviewed me, the rest of the local media couldn’t be bothered. Manchester Evening News? What a joke!
At least the BBC sent a reporter down and camera crew to interview me at the exhibition which appeared on the TV. The exhibition is still on until the 31st of December at the Manchester Central Library and it is proving very popular, if you fancy calling in to see it you won’t be disappointed and if you are, remember it’s free!
Paul Welsh Writer 