Invisible to You - Mick Roberts Talks about the Bridewell taxis
By East Leeds Magazine Editorial Staff, December 2009
Most people of a certain age around here have heard of The Bridewell Taxis, along with the Abrasive Wheels they're probably the biggest band to come out of this side of Leeds. They formed in 1987 and played their first gig at the Astoria supporting Avaris, fronted by Dave Varley who ran a greengrocer's in Crossgates.
The Bridewells singer, Mick Roberts takes up the story: 'We promoted ourselves, we must have handed about a million flyers out and put posters up all over Leeds. Bands don't do that now, they seem to just rely on promoters and the internet. We were well known with the football lads and about 500 turned up to see us, Avaris were a sort of Queen tribute band which our audience were never going to like, they all left when we'd finished. We built up a good local following and then linked up with the Farm and Real People. We had about two years like that, It was just a matter of helping each other out.
The Madchester scene was happening about the same time and then it exploded. We got our first big support slot with the Stone Roses at Leeds Uni. We played with Happy Mondays at the Warehouse and were supposed to support them on tour but we had a bit of a row over chucking beer at them and that was it for quite a while as far as they were concerned with us. With the reputation they gained, it was a bit rich they found us a bit too rough. We toured with the Inspiral Carpets but we were never comfortable with the whole Manchester scene. Close up it was a bit phony, a promoter once gave us and the Inspiral Carpets 200 cans of lager to drink, their drummer kept disappearing,we wondered what he was doing so one of us followed him and watched him filling his can with water and then pretended to be off his head..And that's what most of that scene was like, with the exception of the Mondays, they all seemed to be acting- acting drunk, acting stoned, pretending to be out of their heads chucking eggs out of hotel windows and thinking they were rebels. Both the Mondays and Stone Roses had ego's like Elizabeth Taylors. Bez was ok, everyone gets on with Bez but I could take it or leave it with most of the others. Ian Brown was a nightmare and I couldn't click with Sean Ryder though I see him from time to time now and we're alright. The Inspiral Carpets were a nightmare to tour with, they held the purse strings and it was a battle to get any food out of them. They had a roadie who used to knock about with us because we were a better laugh. He was a guitar technician, we used to watch him tuning up and practising his own stuff which was brilliant, we couldn't understand why he wasn't fronting his own band, he reckoned he wasn't good enough. One time he had to get back to Manchester from Glasgow and my cousin Carl Roberts gave him the money. His name was Noel Gallagher.
The whole idea with the Manchester bands was to support them and hopefully nick a few of their fans and it worked to a certain degree. The Liverpool bands were better, I've already mentioned the Farm and Real People, but also the Icicle Works, The High, Pete Wylies various incarnations of Wah and The La's who later became Cast. We were recording a lot as well as touring, we put singles out which sold ok, we were high up in the indie charts but didn't make enough impact on the main charts. Just Good Friends should have done for us what Happy Hour did for the Housemartins but it never quite happened. The touring was hard, most of the time we were sleeping in the van, or I used to ask during the gig if any of the audience could put us up for the night. We were paid a pittance as a support band, when we headlined we were paid £30 a gig. But I wasn't bothered about that, the money we made from touring went in recording and videos. We did a few sessions for John Peel as well. He was good to us, he opened up his show for about three weeks running with Just Good Friends.
We played Reading festival one time. There didn't appear to be too much interest in us so we all got out of our heads backstage. What we didn't know was John Peel who was on another stage had announced we were playing and told everyone to get over and see us. So we came on stage expecting one man and his dog and there was a crowd of about 3000 there. We just about got away with it but I couldn’t remember the gig the next day. Kipping in the back of vans for 2-3 months at a time and hardly any money took it's toll. Most bands cite musical differences for splitting up, we just hated each other. With the exception of Chris, none of us were trained musicians and sometimes we were sloppy, different members of the band wanted to move at different paces, and it could be frustrating when not everyone showed for rehersals. Later, away from the intensity of the music and touring we became mates again but I think we just burned out.
In 2005 we got back together for a few gigs. We had to recruit a couple of new members and we played a few sell out gigs. But...let's say we had musical differences from the start. My opinion was if I was in a band in 2005 I wanted to do things different. And it seemed to end up me against everyone else who wanted to carry on just churning the old stuff out in the same old way. The thing was, first time round we were always experimenting with different styles and sounds and that was the whole essence of the band. To me, not to carry on doing that was criminal. If it hadn’t have ended then it probably would have nine or ten months down the line, so it probably was a blessing.
And now I'm hoping to bring a new double album out. It's a mix of various sessions both with the Bridewells and with other musicians. I’m also doing some low key stuff with some local musicians. If the album does okay I’d like to think we can do some new stuff, it’s just a matter of seeing if the market is still there. I went over to Ireland a few weeks ago to do backing vocals for a guitar version of Frankie’s ‘Power of Love’ for the band Aftermath. It’s released as a single first week in December, they’re quite a big band over in Ireland and are touring the North of England.
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