Ferocious Apaches
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Rob Cross - circa 1987
Photograph courtesy: Mark Mortimer
The Gallery |
Rob Cross - Fuzz guitar (Amington Heath)
[Also in Herb Garden, Big Muff, Liberty Caps, The Hamilton Hammond Extension]
John Hodgkiss - Lead Vocals (Handsacre, Armitage)
Mark Hynds - Drums (Glascote)
Bob - Bass
Mark and I were swept up in the ‘original indie’ movement that was led by such acts as the Shop Assistants, Soup Dragons, 3 Johns, June Brides, the Pastels and of course the Jesus and Mary Chain (the latest in a long line of media tagged ‘new Sex Pistols’). It was a time when anyone who could be vaguely similar to the Velvet Underground or the Ramones could have a career - or at least a mention in the NME, hell that was good enough for us, the sky was the limit maybe even a Peel session, top of the world Ma!
From Mark’s art school connections, John (who could actually play guitar and even sing in tune – almost a red card offence in C86 circles) completed what was to be the core of the Ferocious Apaches, Bob the original bass player came to us from the ether (or was it Austrey?) and after the original anoraked attack, fell away just as mysteriously. We were blatantly in the shadow of the Jesus and Mary Chain, Loop and of course the Velvets, fortunately living in Tamworth meant that 5 possibly 6 other people knew of these bands, one well meaning member of the Tamworth music scene even tried to complement us with the ‘new Sex Pistols’ tag! Unfortunately blankets of feedback and 2 iffy chords endeared us to few; semi-legendary PA man Denis Byfield claimed that we were ruining his business because people thought he was fucking up and making the ‘terrible noises’.
Fortunately (again) we enjoyed the patronage of ‘tonight Matthew I’m going to be Bob Geldof’ all round good guy Ian Gibbons. Ian was the proprietor of the Rathole along with Chippy, the fourth Fabulous Furry Freak Brother.
 A moment should be taken to explain the Rathole. The Rathole was like someone had taken all the legendary stories about what a dive CBGBs was, stuck them on a boat and transported the lot across the Atlantic, halfway across the boat caught fire and sank into the water, Jaques Cousteau found the remains and sold them to a guy that owned a seedy night club on Church Street in Tamworth, the seedy night club owner stored the rotting remains in the loft above his club at which point Ian and Chippy (possibly with the help of some of Chippy’s special reserve) came across the whole sorry mess and said “This would be perfect for an alternative club, if we made the toilets a little less classy”. Bang! The Rathole, 2 quid in, try not to throw up on the band whilst they are near the electrical sockets.
We were allowed a hand in the Rathole, suggesting bands, designing posters, DJing, using the photocopier to print our crappy fanzines and of course getting a few (what we considered) plum support slots. It was at some point in one of these ‘getting our chops’ shows (TM a lot of dumb people who miss the point of playing the blues – hello Mr. Clapton) that the fabulous M decided (possibly whilst drunk or high) that we should go into Expresso Bongo studios and record our schtick for future generations. Whatever the deal we held him to this and were the first band to utilise the brand new 16 track desk. 16 tracks back then was a big deal to a small band and thus we utilised every track, tracks 1+2 for drums (we only had 2 drums) 3 for bass, 4+5 for guitars, 6 for vocals, 7+8+9+10+11+12+13+14+15 we filled with layer upon layer of feed back (which in the final mix sounded like a layer of feedback – go figure?). Under Mr Spear’s instruction we kept the last track clear just in case we needed it – as we didn’t we got Hamilton Hammond to put his magic fingers to our last track, to this day we owe him his fee.
We played the Tamworth Rock Festival to some derision including an infuriated bellow from a member of Spirit Lake as we left the stage:
“MOY SON CAN PLAY BETTER THAN YOUS AND HE’S FOOKIN NINE YEARS OLD!”
Our offering his son a job in the band went down poorly.
Along with Emma Gibbs Loves Badges we had achieved notoriety (the new sex pistols – honest!) so we staged the Uptight evening – 6 bands 50 pence in, no guest list, no press. The idea being that £3 for 2 bands was an outrage (£3 for 2 ‘local’ bands was an outrage!). We had a fabulous evening and as egos demanded we went on last (schmucks that we were) we thought that the increase in audience numbers as we were playing was due to our popularity. As it turned out the doors were still open and beer was still being served after licensing curfew – hence the audience increase and the shouts for “Down Under”.
Around this same time we got in another recording session which was simpler but all the pop had gone – we were now a noiserock band man, a damn good one. So that’s where we left it.
Thanks to: Rob Cross
Ferocious Apaches
Line-up (left to right): Rob Cross (fuzz guitar from Amington Heath), John Hodgkiss (lead singer from Handsacre, Armitage), Mark Hynds (drums from Glascote), Bob (bass). Thanks to: John Hodgkiss
Rob Cross circa. 1987
John Hodgkiss and Bob
John Hodgkiss
Mark Hynds
Rob Cross and Mark Hynds
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