Deeply Vale Free Festival - 1976-1979

Evening News, September 19, 1976

Burys rain hit "Free People's Pop Festival" looked like turning into a giant flop festival today. No more than 100 rock fans were sitting round their smoldering camp fire this morning. The three-day festival being held at Deeply Vale, off Walmersley Old Road, has not been the hit organisers expected. "

Well " the People" eventually proved the evening news WRONG. Despite the relatively small numbers , the first Deeply Vale festival- put together by friends in a matter of weeks , still manged to attract around 300 to 400 people in 1976 and the next year around 3000, gaining a review in the NME . By 1978 however, things were a little different and in July , 20,000 hedonists descended on Deeply Vale for a week long extravaganza . Chris Hewitt, manager of Rochdale Hippy band Tractor and provider of all things hardware and music wise at Deeply Vale , had made strong links with Nik Turner of Hawkwind , Steve Hillage and Here and Now ( the link with Nik Turner exists to this day .

The 1978 line up included over 50 acts including Misty in Roots , The Ruts, The Out, Here and Now , Nik Turner with Sphynx and Steve Hillage . The timetable itself makes interesting reading . Anthony Wilson compared the new wave afternoon which included near the foot of the bill , a little known Manchester Whitefield band called The Fall, appearing at their first festival, who were followed on stage by Durutti Column , who had just tied up with Factory records , As well as Anthony Wilson, his fellow Granada TV presenter Trevor Heyett compared and performed at the folk afternoon . The next year a similar size crowd saw a new band Frantic Elevators , containing an unknown frontman with red hair - Mick Hucknall . All this entertainment was put on with donations from the crowd and fundraising events.

CITY LIFE 1996.

Latest News May 2004

The good news is that Ozit records are now releasing a DVD which features a recent full length performance by Tractor. There is also a section about the history of the Deeply Vale festivals, which features music by a variety of bands such as Misty in Roots, Fast Cars and The Trend as well as many stills from the festivals. You can purchase the disc from May onwards , its well worth the cost if you were there and want to relive the occasion .

In addition, ITV is making a TV documentary to be called " Truly,Madly,Deeply Vale ". This is to be broadcast on Granada regional TV on Friday 19th November around 10-30pm . Also you can get more details at the Ozit records Deeply Vale site

Also check out the new astounding Steve Hillage release from Deeply Vale 1978

As you will see, despite early bad press from local newspapers the festival managed to overcome its soggy debut and build in strength for four years , becoming the major event in the free festival scene of the late seventies, which was no mean achievement . In its heyday it managed to attract far more than the original 100 people and became something of an institution for freewheeling Northerners to attend in the latter half of the 70s .

Deeply Vale Free Festival - September 1976

The inspiration behind the first Deeply Vale festival was another free festival held locally in the summer of 76. 'Basically we had had a good summer ' recalled Andy Burgoyne, one of the originators of the festival ' We'd been to a free festival at Rivington Pike , Horwich and we just thought , lets have our own '. Fortunately , they had a pool of ready made talent to call on , as Rochdale band Tractor and their manager Chris Hewitt were keen to be involved , with members of the band Steve Clayton ( drums ) and Dave Addison (bass ) getting stuck in improving the access roads and helping build the stage . Chris Hewitt also had a great PA system that was made available for the festival.

After only a few weeks frantic planning the dream was a reality and in the woody region of Ashworth Valley , Deeply Vale played host to a gathering of musicians and fans alike , peacefully enjoying themselves and generally being at one with Nature . The brains behind it were understandably jubilant when after only three weeks of planning and with a stage built the night before ,there were several hundred attendees and the overall organization proved to be successful.

Rochdale is not only birthplace of the Co-op and home to two Nobel prize-winners and Don Estelle, it has a crucial place in the genealogy of modem music. Gracie Fields aside, it was also the site of the North-west’s own Woodstock, at a place called Deeply Vale, an unfeasibly beautiful natural amphitheater on the borders of Rochdale and Bury. In four years in the late Seventies, the festival was transformed from a gathering of local youth into a Stonehenge with black pudding. With its eventual mix of punk, new wave and hippie it gave birth to the proto-crustie.
The origins of Deeply Vale reads like a social history written by Vic Reeves. Chris Hewitt, who owned the only hippie music shop in Rochdale, also managed a prog-rock band from Rochdale called Tractor, signed to John Peel's Dandelion Records label. Hewitt had the business acumen and the hardware that allowed the first festival to take place.


A group of hippies in a commune in Rochdale decided they wanted their own Glastonbury. But because there was no money,this small group got on their bikes, hustled, and became experts in stage construction, electrics and lighting. And above all else they would go round each year to the local farmer, Frank Turner (left ) get him drunk and persuade him to sign a contract to rent out the land.






The Independent. 1996

The first festival attracted only a few hundred people, which the straight world would see as a failure , but who gave a damn, no one was in this free festival business to turn a profit anyway, that was the whole point , to prove that it could be done outside the normal set of rules . What mattered was that the seeds of the idea were sown and it was sufficient to inspire the organisers to do it again and to do it bigger and better .

The Organisers



Above :John Clarke and Chris Hewitt, 1978 .
Centre : Dave Edwards and Eddie Kledjys.
Right: Andy Burgoyne

If the values of the free festival permeated Deeply Vale, what gave it it’s unique sensibility, what made possible the creative clash of styles and the mutant crusty culture it spawned was Rochdale itself and the Rochdale satellite towns and villages Wardle, Littleborough, Whitworth, Heywood and Bacup- where many of the original organisers and musicians came from. The sublimely wild landscape of the moors that surround Rochdale constructed a mental geography where hippies had bite and punks had soul. Henry Kledjys [ brother of the late Eddie Kledjys] now working as a producer in television on programmes like The Bill and Phoenix Nights, was involved in the Deeply Vale Festivals, both Henry and Eddie became involved in Deeply Vale from a Street Theatre aspect but three years later they had learnt everything there was to know about staging rock events.
Henry recalls returning from university in the mid seventies to one of the wildest places in England –Rochdale !!.It was a major cannabis centre and was also the home of one of the highest circulation alternative magazines in Europe- Rochdale’s Alternative Paper- RAP survived quite a bit longer than a lot of the other underground press. Chris Hewitt first met Pete Farrow and Trevor Hyett at a RAP Garden Party , Chris was a student at the college,used to help fold RAP for the early issues, had just started road managing Tractor and within two or three years would be working on quite a few left field musical events with Trevor Hyett often compereing and Pete Farrow doing one of his superb acoustic sets.
All those involved claim that for a moment there was a “synchronicity” in the Rochdale music and arts scene and Deeply Vale.
Grant Showbiz gives Rochdale”maximum points for madness”

Chris Hewitt

'The original 1976 organisers were Dave Edwards, Dave Smith, Andy Burgoyne,Chris Hewitt [manager of tractor and tractor music shop and rehearsal rooms] , Steve Clayton [drummer of tractor/the way we live] Jim O'Neill, Patrick O'Neill, Cliff Jackson, Andy Sharrocks, Gordon Tilstone etc etc. This increased with the involvement of Henry Kledjys and Eddie Kledjys in 1977. They came along with street theatre in 1976 and got involved in 1977. '
Right : poster for Tractors original single.

Dave Smith

Jim O'Neill


Some of the organisers and offspring today

Cliff Jackson

The nice thing about Deeply Vale was that, because the festival organisers had permission to be on the land ( unlike Stonehenge and many others ) they could actually own up to being in charge, as they were not constantly dodging writs hurled at them by the authorities. Thus we can actually give them their due . Unfortunately some of the prime movers have now passed on, but we can at least acknowledge them for their contribution to the free festival scene and celebrate their lives by remembering all the joy they gave to those who attended the events. R.I.P Dave Edwards ,Eddie Kledjys and Andy Burgoyne .

A few of the Rochdale Deeply Vale people that went on to do other things in the entertainment industry:

Andy Sharrocks: DJ and also musician in Accident on the East Lancs went on to work in tour production

Henry Kledjys:street theatre organiser and stage builder- went to work in television
Nigel Lord: drummer in Frogbox- now a journalist writing for music magazines
Chris Hewitt: Deeply Vale production 76/77/78-runs the record company that produced this cd
and manages Tractor and the Deeply Vale archives
Jim Milne: Tractor’s guitarist
Steve Clayton :Tractor’s drummer- Also writes and paints
Nick Ashworth: bass player in Frogbox and Accident on the East Lancs- still a bass player and also actor seen in TV soaps etc
JK: John Keegan of the Silver Hill String Band-Now runs the Amateur Astronomy Centre
Dave Bottomley of Alchemist plays in a Toto tribute band TotoRecall

A few non- Rochdale people who had connections with Deeply Vale

Roland Lumby of Mitrex worked with his equipment alongside Tractor Music for 77 and 78 and then supplied the PA in 79- now the best retired amp repairer in Manchester
Grant Showbiz: was at Deeply Vale with Here and Now as their soundman- he now produces albums- has worked with the Smiths,The Fall and Billy Bragg
A little guy with red hair did an early Frantic Elevators gig at Deeply Vale- he went on to be Simply Red
In 1978 a local TV presenter fronted the new wave afternoon at deeply vale- he went on to found Factory Records
Mark E Smith and The Fall featuring Mark Lard Riley [ of Radio One] on bass did their early gigs at Deeply Vale
The list goes on…..

Deeply Vale Free Festival - July 22-24th 1977

'Sounds' - July 2nd 1977

A free festival is scheduled to be held at Deeply Vale near Bury , Lancs , from July 22-24th. The festival will be a mixture of rock, street theatre, poetry and folk music. Acts due to appear are Tractor, Cry Tough, Mudazanas, Gin-Seng ,Pegasus, Physical Wrecks, Body , Alchemist, SFW, Frogbox, Starfinder, Snapper, Moonchild, Bashful Alley, White Fire, Welcome Leviathan, Sanctuary, Trigger and Movement Banned.

Does it always rain in Lancashire ? It was my first visit there for many years and it was wet the whole time .The pre-arranged site turned into a bog and the three miles of pot holed dirt track was enough to put off the most hardy and acclimatized festival goers . Yet 1000-2000 of them turned up, bringing with them their fair share of welfare problems.

These problems weren't the fault of the festival organisers- they were very together people. They had made very good toilets made from 40 gallon oil drums sat on the ground with a hole in the top and a seat, surrounded by a canvas shelter. They had supplied plenty of plastic rubbish sacks and water was obtainable either from a nearby stream or from the heavens . The local farmer too was very helpful and he spent much time towing cars out of the mud, bringing cinders for the track and he helped to clear up the site after the festival.

Home office report.

Music press report.

All along the Watchtower is getting to be something like the theme song for 1977s burgeoning free festival movement. Several bands and ( slightly better but still uncomprehending )several solo folk singers sang it like NOW it meant sense at this Northern (near Rochdale ) festival in picturesque Deeply Vale. .Are these anarchic Aquarian happenings the blueprint or perhaps the vanguard of a bright and golden new age ? . Or are they merely degenerate drug orgies for disordered redundant hippies?

And what does it mean when the music is uniformly basic and dreary too ? Seventeen different bands played versions of Jumping Jack Flash . Twelve played Route 66. The recorded sound favored 1972-ish post acid downer sounds like Aqualung, Paranoid and Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters. DJ Emperor Gordino and the stage manager maintained a constant argument/dialogue over the PA occasionally interrupted for up to date bulletins on OD's , epileptic fits, cars turned upside down in the river, rip offs and plugs for the rough cider pub the Frog and Coathanger.

Some 2000 attended Deeply Vale- the second year the festival has been held. The weather was terrible . Northern freaks are better organized and down to earth ( as in practical, rather than indicating a close kinship with the sod ) than their Southern counterparts. Whereas at Stonehenge and Glastonbury things had come together just like that (and they had ) Deeply Vale was set up by local dealers and record companies , complete with administration site ( The Magic village ).

Tractor - a local band with a single (No More Rock and Roll ) were heavily advertised, but they will have to ease up on their " only here for the beer" attitude. Two adept space bands- Body and Quasar , promised well for the future- the former an especially thrilling three piece. Nothing more then music to drift off to- and none the worse for that.

Deeply Vale Free Festival - July 20-27th 1978

Although the poster reflects a hard core hippie attitude , by 1978 the festival was becoming far more cosmopolitan in its mix of music and in the people who were attending the festival . The influx of punk bands -such as the Ruts and The Fall, attracted a new audience with different perspectives and experiences. However, the atmosphere was peaceful and tolerant and the freaks and punks got on pretty well overall.

The free festival of the late 70s presented a very different face to that of just a few years before . Tipi people, hard cord punks and freaks mixed freely and despite the major differences in attitude and lifestyle, they generally got on well enough. Although " new wave" music or style was not accepted by all hippies , there were sufficient numbers of freaks who did gradually warm to the music - especially to those bands who took their music past the basic three chord punk thrash , as did both the Fall and The Ruts.

The Ruts in particular were influenced pretty heavily by dub music ,which would have appealed to the stoner element in the crowd who were always partial to bands that could mash it up dubwise. However, not all the new Wave bands were of such high caliber. Wilful Damage ,( left ) illustrated one of the main problems of the free festival, under prepared novice bands who play because they want the exposure.

Drummer Phil O'Dell of the Damage recollects ' We'd only been been together for three weeks . I couldn't even play, we used the same guitar riff for very song with different words '. One guy in the audience did not approve, he threw Damage singer Wayne off stage . Undaunted. Wayne returned and finished the set.

Running order of artists who played during the 1978 festival.

Steve Hillage was the headlining act in 1978 , and his presence probably explains the crowd attendance of around 20,000 . Hillage flew in from Finland and was paid expenses to cover the flight, a fact that was to cause dissension amongst the organisers in 1979.

The 1978 festival featured the highest quality bands in the history of the festival . Durutti Column, Here and Now, Nik Turner and the Fall were amongst the bands who played. Chris Hewitt had this to say regarding booking the bands.

'Nik Turner rang me up and so did Here and Now.That started a friendship with Nik and Grant Showbiz- the Here and Now soundman, later producer for The Fall and Billy Bragg.'

The 1978 line up included over 50 acts including Misty in Roots , The Ruts, The Out, Here and Now , Nik Turner with Sphynx and Steve Hillage . The timetable itself makes interesting reading . Anthony Wilson compared the new wave afternoon which included near the foot of the bill , a little known Manchester Whitefield band called The Fall, appearing at their first festival, who were followed on stage by Durutti Column , who had just tied up with Factory records , As well as Anthony Wilson, his fellow Granada TV presenter Trevor Heyett compared and performed at the folk afternoon.

However the festival organisers uncompromising stance on contentious issues was beginning to create a faction of enemies within the local hierarchy ,as Chris Hewitt remarks, it wasn't all peace and love as far as the authorities were concerned.

Chris Hewitt

authorities did not like deeply vale- especially when we did things like escorted drug squad officers off the site and declared a no go area to drug squad. uniformed police were ok. but the councils were out to stop us too after the success of the steve hillage year, with its rock against racism and legalize dope messages -we were too left field for them . 20000 people under the influence of my microphones and no authority figure or harvey goldsmith there. thats why thatcher made sure in the end only harvey goldsmiths could organize large scale crowd gatherings.

Deeply Vale Free Festival -1979

The campsite 1979. photo© mark kupsz.

In 1979 , the last year of the festival, there was a change of management , with Chris, Dave Andy and Eddie deciding to let others be the prime movers . This was due to some disagreements over the direction the festival was to take, both in philosophy and of a practical nature. In 78 there had been some problems with people overstaying their welcome after the festival, Also, as the event became more popular,the usual issues of cleaning up the site, just how free a festival could be in terms of drug use and other illegal issues became a major issue which was not easily resolved .

Here and Now Deeply Vale 1979.
©mark kupsz.














Stephen Sharpstrings
©mark kupsz.









Unfortunately , the change of management was not successful on all fronts. There were big problems in clearing up after the festival, when vital equipment was not returned to the hirers , as well as basic hygiene issues not being addressed . This souring of goodwill, combined with the change in ownership of the land, was enough to ensure that the Valley was not made available for a free festival again and the venue was changed to the far less salubrious Pickup Bank.

There was also another difference in opinion regarding whether name bands expenses should be paid for by the festival .Chris Hewitt , Dave Edwards , Andy Burgoyne, Eddie Kledjys , Henry Kledjys and " the camp of hippies with an attitude of lets think of the long term consequences of what we are doing " were supporters of this strategy .

Keith Da Missile
©mark kupsz.

Stephen Sharpstrings
©mark kupsz.

Chris Hewitt; regarding the payment issue in 1978
"I rang Steve Hillage's manager Steve Lewis and we negotiated . I gave him £500 for Steve ,Miquette and David Id their sound man ,as well as the rest of the band ,to fly back from Finland [ where the band were appearing at the Festival of the Midnight Sun ] and appear at Deeply Vale. This was the best night ever "



left to right ; The Fall. Here and Now bassist Keith 'Da Missile' and a dancer from Here and Now.

In retrospect this made made better sense in terms of the quality of event rather than quantity of bands who would play for free . In 1979, there were fewer top quality bands , so the event took a downturn in musical quality . Perhaps coincidentally there was a downturn in community spirit , with fences being ripped up to be burnt and a rape on the site. This caused a major fallout between Chris Hewitt on one side and John Clarke and Jim O'Neill on the other. Now, in hindsight , John Clarke, the main mover behind the 1979 and the Pickup Bank event, has come to the conclusion that Chris Hewitt and co were right . He now works closely with Chris to keep the archive and memories alive . John now maintains a firm anti heroin stance -another bone of contention between the sides in 1979.


It was the same old story that dogged the alternative society throughout its existence,and which was to cause problems at Stonehenge in the 1980s- differences in philosophy about just what was acceptable behavior. Some wanted the freedom to do anything , no rules no matter what the affect was on others . This attitude too often proved to be self defeating - as it ignored the fact that there were authorities out there who were only too happy to have an excuse to clamp down on free festivals - and the anarchists and hard liners provided them with one .





photo©Gary Heaford

Unfortunately, this attitude often overwhelmed the other main tenet of the hippie creed, which was the far more reasonable "do anything , but think of the consequences of your acts and if it hurts someone else, then don't do it," philosophy which the majority tended to adhere to . However, in a contest of which made a better news item it was always going to be the more extreme acts that got into the spotlight ,so ultimately , the irresponsible fringe minority stuffed things up for the majority and that's one reason we don't have so many free festivals anymore.

For all that, Deeply Vale was one of the most successful of the free festivals of the 70s, it had the best organization and featured some of the best bands to appear at a free festival in the late 1970s. Let Grant Showbiz, who played at Deeply Vale and later became producer of The Fall, Billy Bragg and the final Smiths album,have the final word

"Deeply Vale was created out of nothing by disaffected and discarded people with no influence. The organization was brilliant from people who had been thrown away, thrown out of school, told they were shit and could never do anything. Deeply Vale was one of the first punk festivals. You had punk kids with no tents or festival experience collapsing when they could no longer move. On the other hand, there were festival veterans with long hair and their kids and bloody flowers everywhere and this whole thing when punk met hippie turned into crustie ".

The festival was moved in 1980 under rather contentious circumstances to Pickup Bank. and you can follow its history at that site by clicking on the link .

photo© Gary Heaford

Festival Welfare service reports on the 79 festival reflect some of the concerns felt by the organisers of the earlier events .




Diary entries made by Cliff Jackson about bands scheduled to play during the 1979 festival .

Deeply Vale Values

Extract from John O'Reilly writing in The Independent in 1996 about Rochdale and Deeply Vale.

If the values of the free festival permeated Deeply Vale, what gave it it's unique sensibility, what made possible the creative clash of styles and the mutant crusty culture it spawned was Rochdale itself and the Rochdale satellite towns and villages Wardle,Littleborough,Whitworth,Heywood and Bacup- where many of the original organisers and musicians came from.The sublimely wild landscape of the moors that surround Rochdale constructed a mental geography where hippies had bite and punks had soul. Henry Kledjys [ brother of the late Eddie Kledjys] now working as a producer in television on programmes like The Bill and Phoenix Nights, was involved in the Deeply Vale Festivals, both Henry and Eddie became involved in Deeply Vale from a Street Theatre aspect but three years later they had learnt everything there was to know about staging rock events.

Henry recalls returning from university in the mid seventies to one of the wildest places in England -Rochdale !!.It was a major cannabis centre and was also the home of one of the highest circulation alternative magazines in Europe- Rochdale's Alternative Paper- RAP survived quite a bit longer than a lot of the other underground press. Chris Hewitt first met Pete Farrow and Trevor Hyett at a RAP Garden Party , Chris was a student at the college,used to help fold RAP for the early issues, had just started road managing Tractor and within two or three years would be working on quite a few left field musical events with Trevor Hyett often compereing and Pete Farrow doing one of his superb acoustic sets.

All those involved in claim that for a moment there was a "synchronicity" in the Rochdale music and arts scene and Deeply Vale.

Grant Showbiz gives Rochdale"maximum points for madness"
Grant Showbiz was soundman and Mr fix it for Here and Now when he came to Deeply Vale - he went on to work as a tour engineer for steve hillage, a producer and engineer for The Smiths,The Fall and more recently Billy Bragg

A few of the Rochdale Deeply Vale people that went on to do other things in the entertainment industry

Andy Sharrocks DJ and also musician in Accident on the East Lancs went on to work in tour production
Henry Kledjys - street theatre organiser and stage builder- went to work in television
Nigel Lord- al equipment magazines
Chris Hewitt- Deeply Vale production 76/77/78-runs the record company that produced this cd
and manages Tractor and the Deeply Vale archives
Jim Milne- Tractor's guitarist - still is
Steve Clayton -Tractor's drummer- still is
Also writes and paints

Nick Ashworth- bass player in Frogbox and Accident on the East Lancs- still a bass player and also actor seen in TV soaps etc

JK- John Keegan of the Silver Hill String Band
Now runs the Amateur Astronomy Centre

Dave Bottomley of Alchemist plays in a Toto tribute band TotoRecall

A few non- Rochdale people who had connections with Deeply Vale

Roland Lumby of Mitrex worked with his equipment alongside Tractor Music for 77 and 78 and then supplied the PA in 79- now the best retired amp repairer in Manchester

Grant Showbiz- was at Deeply Vale with Here and Now as their soundman- he now produces albums- has worked with the Smiths,The Fall and Billy Bragg

A little guy with red hair did an early Frantic Elevators gig at Deeply Vale- he went on to be Simply Red

In 1978 a local TV presenter fronted the new wave afternoon at deeply vale- he went on to found Factory Records

Mark E Smith and The Fall featuring Mark Lard Riley [ of Radio One] on bass did their early gigs at Deeply Vale

The list goes on…..

I wasn’t going to do this. I’ve read the rules and they’re good rules. To be “unsung” a record needs to have rattled around your head for a number of years and been ignored by everybody else for the same period. It’s just... Well, it was Julian’s Tractor review in the wake of the immense loss to our world of John Peel that made me think this a suitable case for treatment. (That and the fact I’ve packed 25 years worth of listening to this disc into the one year of owning it, and even the cover puff describes George as “Mister Unsung personified” and if that’s gonna have any chance of being rectified we need to act NOW). The Tractor connection? Comes in the not inconsiderable shape of Chris Hewitt - a sort of Rochdale mish-mash of Bill Graham, Timothy Leary and Wavy Gravy - who roadmanaged the Tractor boys back in the early 70’s, beadled about in the latter half of that decade with the Deeply Vale festivals, the 1978 line-up featuring fest faves Misty in Roots, The Ruts, Here and Now, Nik Turner and Steve Hillage along with new kids - The Fall, Durutti Column, Frantic Elevators AND ‘The Out’ (George’s band), and in the last few years has been promoting little package tours under a slightly cheeky ‘Greasy Truckers Party’ banner with Spaceritual.net, Tractor, Pie and the George Borowski Band, as well as releasing recordings new and old by a selection of the above and others on his Ozit record label (named in homage to those now toppled twin towers of the Underground press, Oz magazine and International Times). I went to a couple of Chris’s “Greasy Truckers” gigs in 2003. Spaceritual.net (Hawkwind in all but name, ie: Dave Brock wasn’t playing and had taken the name with him) space-rocked with a vengeance - Nik Turner, Mick Slattery, Thomas Crimble and Dave Anderson powered along by the thundering drums of Terry Ollis and son Sam. Hell, even Del Dettmar turned up and twiddled some knobs... Tractor did their big man strumming ’n’ singing and little fella dervishing around the stand up drums thing (The dynamics of this partnership are kinda Soft Cell in reverse)... Pie provided us with the sight and sound of a man playing pedal steel on a cast iron Singer sewing machine... and George...?

Look, let’s get this out of the way - George Borowski is the man who inspired the Dire Straits lyric, “Check out Guitar George, He knows all the chords...” blah blah, yeah yeah, we know, IRRELEVANT! IRRELEVANT! So frigging what... except that this pre-knowledge doubled the stun effect George had on me ’cos I was expecting some smelly old jazzer and what I got was chugga chugga guitar propelled pop song heaven of the Heartbreakers / Pretenders / Cars / La’s / Elvis (Costello when he was good), variety. Some of the more psychotic psychedeliacs amongst you whose mantra is “The riff, the noise, the riff, the noise, the weird lighting” will probably want to leave at this point and that’s cool. Wait! What if I said Big Star? Put it this way, if George had been doing this in ’76 Jake Riviera and co. would have been falling over themselves trying to sign him.

So... George ambles on stage - long, grey, split-ended hair, centre parted to reveal a leer that stays just this side of the “What a nice man / Children! Come away” divide - and starts quietly strumming his old guitar. Chinga ching chinga ching chi chi (That’s the guitar, the top strings buzzing on the fret a little), “She finds me...” (That’s the vocal, the Borowski burr playing up the lovelorn reprobate), cha chinga cha chinga cha chi chi, “...slumped behind the door... She finds me... Rolling round a motor home... She finds me... About seven shillings short... of a train ride home” and with winks from George the band file on one by one to join him and fill out the sound - rimshot drums, a lovely melodic bass, cello sound organ and, get this, a trio of brassy northern luvlies, one of whom could be Chrissie Hynde’s sexy, younger (just) sister, to sashay and fingerpop the while but primed for Ladybirds/Thunderthighs action later. “...She finds me... In a state of some distress and it makes her cry”, and SHE FINDS ME enters the pantheon of great three word titled SHE songs: ‘She Loves You’, ‘She moves me’, ‘There she goes’, ‘She’s not there’. It should by rights be the opener on this album. It’s not. It’s track three and it’s a beautiful thing. George’s team obviously like to get going from the get go, no fannying about with a slow build up, so they kick off instead with the punkpop rush of CALL ME, a song that could follow on neatly from The Undertones ‘You’ve got my number (Why don’t you use it?)’. Contact has at least been made here, the frustration now is with the quality of the lines of communication - “And if you ask if I love you, I want to shout out 'YES I DO', But you can never hear a word”.

I find myself listening to this record last thing at night when everyone’s tucked up in bed, just meaning to play a couple of tracks but I’m still there hours later, bleary eyed, unable to take the damn thing off. As as one song ends - ba da da blannggg... BLAM! the next one begins, catchier, hookier than the previous. There’s barely a split second between tracks - You can’t escape. JUST SURVIVING takes seven lines, 20 seconds, to get to its massive exhilarating hook. Incidentally the “Toast Rack of Dreams” mentioned in line four is a campus building of Manchester’s Metropolitan University down the Wilmslow Road. The building looks like a giant toast rack. It sits next to another that resembles a huge poached egg. And a stones throw away? The red bricked back to back, face to face “reality” of Manchester southside. As Kurt Vonnegut or indeed Nick Lowe would say...So it goes. So George’s preoccupations, the albums parallel themes, are established two songs in: LOVE - A love that has to survive in the face of distance, disappointment, bad choices, inadequate communication, domestic violence, etc; and SURVIVAL - or at least keeping your head above the low life fussin’ and fightin’ duck and dive that is life as we urbanites know it. George has obviously had a bit of experience in both, he’s as old as rock ‘n’ roll itself (‘Rocket 88’ released 1951?) and he still cares! See I could have said LOVE and HATE - Songs of Love and Hate? But George doesn’t hate. He’s a lover not a fighter. BY YOUR SIDE (“Everyone’s been watching you, From Bolton to Le Lavandou”), BEATS HIMSELF (“Beats himself again, With every cigarette, Each new glass of wine, Stops him falling down, Won’t admit defeat, She's never coming back, Beats himself again”) and THIS IS NOT LOVE (“If this is love, Why are you here? You should be out there dancing, Not tear after tear after tear”) are all Love songs... obviously, the latter a McCartney Beatley thrang that replaces thumbs-up chirpy scouse with down in the mouth sarky Manc. Stylistically ‘Check out Guitar George’ runs the gamut of pop emotion, from the amphetamine anger of Costello’s “Welcome to the Working Week” (TRUE INDIVIDUAL) to the grand semi-operatic hurtin’ of Abba’s “The Winner Takes it all” (the magnificent SAY YOUR PRAYERS), these last two firmly in the SURVIVAL camp upon which George is handing out paternalist advice to wasted youths - “All he/she’s gotta learn, is how to think and feel... instead of drink and steal”, and the backing singers attacking the end of each line like those girls going “Sha-la-la-la Push Push” on Mott’s ‘Roll away the Stone’ - “Y’a! troooo individ-U-AL! Why can’t you be? Y’a! troooo individ-U-AL!”. SAY YOUR PRAYERS is a further kicking against the pricks, the drugged up hit-and-runners who “just laugh and take another” and whilst you might properly expect a real rock ‘n’ roller to be DRIVING the stolen car, (Springsteen made it sound SO romantic) George puts himself in the position of innocent bystander: “...‘Cos you’ve got nothing upstairs, You’re a bungalow man, You take the beans from my mouth, Cut my throat with the can, You steal from the rich, And spit on the poor, You put stones through my window, And you beat on my door, You are the president’s mistress, And the cardinal’s what for, You’re the worst I ever saw...” and don’t confuse this with idle reactionary red top rant, George is offering redemption, or is it retribution? “...And when they say your mother’s gone, You'd better say your prayers, And when they ask ‘Is this your son?’, You’d better say, You’d better say your prayers”.

The ‘guitar’ moniker is a misnomer really? There’s some poignant licks on here sure enough, a searing bottleneck on the rousing STRAIGHT TO THE MIDDLE, the big americana jangle and Hammond organ you knew were coming finally arrive on the ALL AMERICA anthem and there’s all manner of riffage and strummery in between, but a guitar’s just an instrument at the end of the day, what defines George is the SONG and how he tells it. To be fair I’m not sure the title was George’s idea. This package was originally mooted for release at the back end of 2001 on Townsend records and called ‘12 Cecil Road’ after the song of the same name (one of those lives behind the closed doors / hopes and dreams songs, a darker version of something that might bring Ray Davies to mind). A number of copies must have escaped before the aforementioned Mr. Hewitt got hold of it, had it remixed - bringing George’s voice to the fore, added four more tracks (one a refreshed version of WHO IS INNOCENT? a Peel fave from ‘The Out’ days). and peppered the sleeve with glowing testimonials from the likes of Teenage Fanclub’s Norman Blake, Doves’ Jimi Goodwin, who celebrates Borowski’s “righteous howl” and the Pixies’ Frank Black who says: “I have never seen a rock and roll performer so completely connected with what he was doing on stage”, and that’s FRANK BLACK FRANCIS saying THAT for fucksake! With the ‘Check out Guitar George’ retitling, Chris (promoters hat on) was probably hoping to shift a few copies to followers of Knopflers Expanding Headband and fair enough, but this is worth a whole lot more than some Q magazine urban myth trivia throwaway. George is this very month plying his trade doing Sunday lunchtime half hour solo slots in Stockport market place, and not for a moment that I’m knocking that - Keep music LIVE (or EVIL as my old Fatima Mansions T-shirt used to say) and all that - but if there was any justice a major label would be flying George and his pals, at great expense, to some plush studio on the Californian coast with Basher Lowe along as producer, chucking out a couple of stray ditties to whoever’s being Diana Ross and Curtis Stigers this season, to record the next Borowski opus. This is pure pop for NOW, people! Or is it just me? In which case this is a personal crusade, “Once more, dear friends... ENGLAND and SAINT GEORGE!!!”