Steel Town

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Around 1996 I started teaching music composition part time at South Tyneside College. Here I met poet, playwright and local historian Tom Kelly. Tom had written many songs too and over the next 3 years or so we exchanged stories and anecdotes in the staff room. I told Tom of my early days in a rock band whilst serving an apprenticeship at Consett Steel Works and how I “escaped”.

Then one day passed me a note “Steel Town…a new musical..a young man dreams of escaping, to be a rock and roll star…”

Of course I was hooked and we embarked on what was to become quite and adventure for me.

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The Burgundy Cobbler – Whitley Bay circa 1978/79

The Steve Thompson Band Posted on by

In the late seventies I was producing bands and running a record company in Wallsend (UK). At night I played in the Mick Whitaker Band. We played the Burgundy Cobbler in Whitley Bay on Tues and Wed nights. I lived in Manor Court Next door, a block of bedsits owned by the Sid McCulloch who also owned the Cobbler. So the Cobbler became my living room. A whole gang of musicians and muso type people hung out there and for a few years there was a great “Cobbler Community”.

Now here are some sounds from the recording session that spawned this line-up. It is a studio session but it is all live with no overdubs. Typical of the stuff we were playing at the cobbler. Sorry it’s in REALmedia but if I get the time I’ll dig the tracks out again and MP3 them.

Long May You Run -|- I want To Be Loved

Whitaker Band 1

Onstage at the Cobbler Left to right (above) Carl Gustaffson, Mick Whitaker, Arny Watson, Phil Caffrey
Whitaker Band 2

Onstage at the Cobbler Left to right (above) Keith Gustaffson, Steve Thompson, Carl Gustaffson, Arny Watson

The View of South Parade from my Attic Room in Manor Court

Thompson And Whitaker in the Cobbler Cupboard Dressing Room


Of Course you can’t spend your entire life just having fun so I got married (just kidding) With such proximity it was bound to happen – I married one of the Cobbler barmaids – Molly (that’s my Gran in the Picture)

WMDJ Urban Grit

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In 1999 I worked with Poet Tom Kelly on a CD called “Urban Grit”. We called the collaboration WMDJ. There is a WMDJ site at www.wmdj.org.uk and specific details of Urban Grit HERE

This me working in my Studio at around the time of the WMDJ Urban Grit collection. There number of things you don’t see anymore: Pony tails (not on Stevie T anyhow,) Atari Computers,Floppy Discs, VHS Machines, Akai Samplers,TX7’s – still have mine – no idea if they still work

John Verity Band

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Live at the Marquee Club Wardour Street.

That’s me on the far right playing keyboards. This was a blast for me because I never got to play the Marquee and this gave me the chance. Can’t remember when this was but it was knocked down soon after.

John V  (left in top pic) was in Argent for many years so naturally “Hold Your Head Up” was in the set. I had not rehearsed with this band so when I arrived at the gig I asked the guys about keys for different songs and they seemed fairly uncertain about many of them. When I got down the set list to “Hold Your Head Up” I was pretty ok on that one but there is a middle section with a bunch of funny chords in it. I asked the guys to give me a rundown and none of them knew the chords.

So I go into the dressing room and say “hey John, your band don’t know the keys to half of these tunes and the definitely don’t know the middle section to Hold Your Head Up Norman (in joke) Anyway, John just looks at me and he’s white as a sheet so I thought it best not to bother him. It was a great gig though. Jon and Neil of the Tygers of Pan Tang were there and the said it was too loud for them —  Rockkkkin!!

Me, Neil Sheppherd and Jon Deverill (Tygers Mk2)

Bullfrog

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My first band. Second line-up Top left to R Pete MacDonald, Jim Harle. Bottom Left to R, Robin Hird, Steve Thompson. The picture to the right is the Freemasons Arms in my hometown, Consett. it was around 1969/70 when I played my very first note in public with these guys. Jim has a website that tells the whole story with pictures and sounds. www.thebullfrogstory.com

I’ll be writing more later

Pointless Excesses

The Steve Thompson Band Posted on by

Came across this pic of me in my archive. Don’t remember where or when it was taken. My brother dug it out and sent me it.

So – what excess. Well, behind me are four 4X12″ speaker cabinets driven by two amps. Clearly we had roadies in those days, I wouldn’t want to carry that lot. But that’s not the end of it. The Rickenbacker I’m playing was known as a “stereo bass” What !!!!! – Well there were two pickups and two jack outputs. So I plugged each pickup into a different amp. Stereo huh? I don’t think so!