Howlin' Wind

Take a trip to a lost world. A world permeated by the odour of stale tobacco and overflowing toilets; a world where your feet stick to the carpet and the walls are covered in peeling flock wallpaper. The Watneys Red Barrel is warm, but the band on stage is hot. Welcome to the world of 1970s pub rock. Groups disillusioned with mainstream music - such as Eggs Over Easy, Brinsley Schwarz, Kilburn and the High Roads, Joe Strummers' 101ers, Chilli Willi and the Red Hot Peppers, Ducks Deluxe and Ace - sought refuge from a musical landscape ruled by stodgy prog rock heavyweights and fluffy glam lightweights. The pubs provided the venues they, and a thirsty public, needed. Jake Riviera and Dave Robinson (the latter has given a lengthy exclusive interview for this book) managed some of these bands before starting Stiff Records, where they turned pub rock caterpillars into new wave butterflies. Elvis Costello, Ian Dury, Dave Edmunds, Nick Lowe and Graham Parker were at the vanguard of Stiff's revolution. Meanwhile, Dr Feelgood and Eddie and the Hot Rods were placing Southend-on-Sea at the centre of Britain's musical map. Here are all their stories. With eye-witness accounts from those involved, John Blaney explains perfectly how pub rock started, flourished and reinvented itself as the new wave: 'A Howlin' Wind' that blew away the cobwebs from a moribund music scene. If you were there, you'll love this book. If you weren't, read it and marvel at an era where the music still mattered.