VENDETTA RECORDS
In 1978 the record industry in the UK was controlled by major record labels whose A&R departments were difficult to impress. Unknown bands had little chance of being signed up which Vendetta always felt was the final hurdle to getting heard. For this reason Vendetta Records was formed with the intention of signing up unsigned bands from around Great Britain and getting them on the Radio Stations. Vendetta were ‘Jack Roberts’: Executive Producer, ‘Neil Richmond’: Studio Production, ‘Eric Gavin’: A&R and Art Direction, ‘Val Baker’: Photography.
Vendetta Records placed an advert in the Melody Maker asking for unsigned bands to send in cassettes of Demos with the proviso that they had not been signed to a label. We received over two hundred band’s efforts from around Great Britain and eventually picked the bands that are on the album that was to be titled:
“BEST OF BRITISH STREET ROCK”
This was then shortened to “Best of British”
We recorded the bands at “The Village” studio in Hounslow. The cover photo was painted on the neighbours wall behind the studio without his permission. He was furious about it but eventually began to like it.
We decided to release Seventeen’s Bank Holiday Weekend c/w Don’t Let Go first. What impressed us was their playing ability and tightness and we thought their music could get airplay. They had a good following in Rhyl, their hometown, North Wales. They were a very young band, in their early twenties and managed by the drummer’s father. They were well-behaved and professional. We managed to pick up airplay on John Peel’s show but couldn’t get it play listed and consequently it didn’t sell many copies. To get airplay, Eric had invented a secretary named Mandy Enytime who wrote to the Radio stations and had inadvertently left her shopping list in the letter, on it many personal feminine items and a copy of the Seventeen’s single. The record code was VD001 and the catch phrase we used was:
“Get a Dose of This”
Their manager however called us to complain about how we had besmirched the clean characters of his boys and was up in arms about it. However, it caught John Peel’s attention and he even quoted the catch phrase when introducing the record on his show. The manager actually called us up and apologized. About 2500 singles were sold to fans and friends of the band.
The next single to be released was by the band “THE MEANIES” from Bracknell. They had a dirtier sound similar to Lou Reed’s with a kind of bitterness about their lyrics. The songs were very catchy and also very radio friendly. They only made local radio airplay and the single was disappointingly not a hit. We saw them play once in Bracknell playing at a youth club. That afternoon Eric and Val Baker, his girlfriend, were walking up the High Street in Bracknell and Eric noticed that 'Bentalls' were re-dressing the windows with naked mannequins being re-clothed. He managed to persuade the manger of the store to do a photo shoot in the window. The cover photo, shot by Val, was done in the park behind an old broken down fence that made them look like caged animals. Melody Maker reviewed the single and described it as:
“Sounding like it was recorded in a bathysphere 20,000 leagues beneath the sea”
The third release was by the Runs called “Bun in the Oven”. As we were beginning to be over budget, we approached Hansa Records where Eric met George Gluck who had been working with Boney M. He licensed the Runs off us and arranged a release on Carrere Records in the UK and on Rocktopus in Germany. H wanted to change the intro of the record to sound like it was in a pub with the singer being confronted by the pregnant girl’s father and accusing the singer of getting her pregnant. We went up to Bishop’s Stortford where the guitarist lived and recorded them in his front room accusing one another. Neil overdubbed this onto the intro. George had played the track to people at the BBC and the play list director who was a woman objected to the words “when the lump begins to grow”, saying it was derogatory to women. She banned it. George was delighted. To get by it he beeped out the profanities and it was released as a double-sided version with the edits on one site. The German release featured a photo of the band with Martin Spencer, the lead singer, holding a gun to his head. Val Baker and Eric set this scene up in the toilets of the second gig we went to. The drummer was pretty crazy and at one point in the shoot he grabbed the toilet brush and began to clean his teeth with it!
As a band, they were a complete riot. We went to see them twice, once in a pub in Buntingford where they were based and the second time in a club in Bishops Stortford. The pub was absolutely packed full of punks and skinheads and general nutters. The Runs really were natural show-men. The drummer’s kit was so minimal yet played with such energy. This combined with the guitarist’s flanging cutting edge got the whole place heaving. More of a brawl slam dance. The track actually was a good reproduction of the feel they exuded. It the studio they were the only band to have recorded their track on the first take. Eric went on to record more material with the Runs who had put together all the bands in Buntingford as a project. This was titled “The Buntingford Album” released on their own white labeled Smalltown Records.
Vendetta ran over budget and never released the album as a result. Jack Roberts a dentist, whose brainchild it was, moved away from London to Leeds and continued to practice dentistry. Neil Richmond continued to produce and engineer various bands and artists until 2003 when he emigrated to Trinidad. Eric Gavin, also a dentist and singer, was signed to WEA records in 1982 and had a turntable hit with “Poverty Line”. He still records and produces bands in hi studio in Suffolk.
©Detour Records