The definitive history of Passion Spent – by Patrick (the parrot)
PART 9: ‘the creatures set their sights‘
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Readers who have a more immediate familiarity with the band’s history (who were perhaps following events as they unfolded—in real time, so to speak) will be able to point to the sketchy nature of this history. So, in this section, I’ll try to pull together a few strands to set things up for events and incidents yet to be discussed.
In the early days, gigs were arranged by individual members of the band hustling pub and club landlords or managers for bookings—this role was primarily (and enthusiastically) undertaken by Mick Douthwaite. Then, when word began to spread about the type of material the band was playing and the following they were building, venue managers began to specifically seek out the band in order to directly book them at their pubs.
In general terms, after they’d played a venue for the first time, the band were invariably invited back. This led to regular recurring bookings, but the pool of appropriate venues was somewhat limited.
It must also be noted that when the band made moves to secure bookings in local clubs (as opposed to pubs) via local Entertainment Agencies, there was some resistance due to the contemporary nature (for contemporary read “too modern” and “too loud!”) of the material that formed the majority of the band’s sets. Therefore, it was decided (well before any change in the original line-up of RIO) that the band should submit themselves for the local Variety Artists Association (V.A.A.) auditions in the hope that being V.A.A. members would result in more ‘club’ bookings. After all, Jim had responded to an advert for the position of singer in a ‘Pub/Club Group’.
Rio‘s V.A.A. audition evening was held at the Raine Club on 28 June 1983, and the band was duly admitted to the Association. (Jim informs me that after the band had played their audition pieces and were clearing their equipment off the stage, one of the female artists who had auditioned earlier in the evening, came on stage and gave an extremely convincing impression of trying to chat him up; Jim’s wife, Julie (keenly observing the situation from the side-lines) mounted the stage, put her arm around his shoulder, and said: “Can I give you a hand, love?” The female performer took the hint and swiftly removed herself from the stage.
However, having passed the audition, gaining V.A.A. membership had a negligible effect on the band’s bookings: in the six months following, the band had only two club bookings at venues they’d never previously played. Of the twenty-six bookings over that period, twenty-four were at venues where the band regularly appeared, such as the Ferry Boat Inn, the Bricklayers Arms, and the Endyke Hotel.
Although local agents McLeod Holden Enterprises, Dannistan, and Newland Artistes all had the band on their books, the total number of bookings that came the band’s way from those agents could be counted on one hand.
I think I can illustrate this with an example: on 27 February 1985, with both Ben and Gav still in the line-up, the band won the Stan Robinson award for Hull’s best group. The publicity in the local paper observed: ‘Passion Spent are Hull Clubland’s top group. Not bad for an outfit that’s only played the clubs four times in the last couple of months’. It went on to report: “This was a real surprise,” says Jim. “Local agents don’t seem to bother with us. We find most of our bookings ourselves.”
At one point, later down the road, the band were even asked to do a student magazine interview (I’ll save the arguably ‘revealing’ responses to some of the questions they were asked, for a future section).
Anyway, back to 1984—the gradual increase in both the band’s following and the frequency of pub gigs provided them with validation and publicity, which resulted in increased local media coverage (this would lead, later on in the 1980s, to interviews with Radio Humberside’s Steve Parkes and Viking Radio’s Diana Luke); and the validation also gave the band confidence in their own material. This confidence was boosted when—during a band meeting at Jim’s house, towards the end of 1984—Joseph Melotte from the A&R team at EMI phoned to say he’d been listening to Pride or Ego? (the band’s first four-track cassette) and would be interested in seeing them play live. Jim told him that they didn’t have—and had never had—any gigs in London, but he provided a list of upcoming local gigs. (In a later conversation with Joseph Melotte, the band discovered he never came to see Passion Spent live—apparently, he’d hoped to see the band play live in London!)
In response to the circulation of the same four-track cassette, the renown Country music publisher Acuff Rose (Hank Williams, Roy Orbison, etc.) offered the band a publishing contract for ‘Someone To Talk To’. As this song was written solely by Jim, tensions arose surrounding songwriting credits more generally, and a document was signed by all members of the band confirming agreement about who had contributed to the writing of each of the band’s songs written up to that point.
The rhythm section of Ben and Gav was in place for three of the four notable Passion Spent gigs at Hull’s popular Tiffany’s nightclub (with its striking, revolving stage) between February and April 1985, with Mark sitting behind the kit for the last of those four gigs, on 23 April.
Another prestigious gig for the band, this time with Mark and Ben forming the rhythm section, was the Lord Mayor’s Parade at the city’s East Park on 8 June 1985, which followed on from the Miss Lord Mayor’s Parade gig on 26 April, at the Goodfellowship Inn. The band were invited to play at both of these gigs by the legendary local radio presenter and promoter, Tim Jibson.
All these prestigious appearances, served to increase the band’s profile and reputation and thereby increase its earning potential. However, as the band had opened a joint Building Society account within months of it forming in 1983, to save up for professional recording studio time, with new members being added to the account (replacing former members) whenever necessary, individual band members saw very little of the money they were earning as it was all going into a pot to fund future recording expenses. This, of course, affected those who didn’t have a day job more than those who did.
Further, around the time ‘Someone To Talk To’ was released, it was stated in a press-release to local media that the band’s main songwriters, Jim and Dave, had sent some of their songs to Alison Moyet. The local press wrote this up as if Jim and Dave had already secured some kind of a deal with Alison Moyet, which didn’t go down at all well with the other members of the band.
In short, there were a number of contributing factors—right along the way—that led to discord within the band and hampered progress to a not insignificant degree. So, to survive as long as they did is testament to the underlying friendships that were created among band members.
In the next part, we take up where we left things at the end of Part 8—what had the 16-year-old Mark Johnson let himself in for when he joined Passion Spent?
…please be patient, there’ll soon be more…when we continue, with Part 10