Title: Bovver
URL: http://www.amazon.co.uk/
Description: An adrenalin-packed look at the heady days of the 1970s. Chris Brown was in the front line of the wave of soccer violence that typified the sport in those days. His life was dominated by those violent Saturday outings, and by the pop music of the day. This book tells of his memories of the time. You can read more about Soultrain and some of its djs in this book.

The following is an authorised extract about the early days of the Guildhall from Chris Browns book 'Bovver'.

If the football was proving to be an anticlimax at least the music was going from strength to strength, 1975 saw some cracking music, not least from the Average White Band doing a passable impression of James Brown’s musical sidekicks Fred Wesley and Maceo Parker. The AWB’s February hit Pick Up the Pieces, belying the fact the band originated on the mean streets of Glasgow rather than the mean streets of Chicago, at least it proved Scotland wasn’t all Bay City Rollers and Rod Stewart. Other home-grown bands to get in on the act were the Northern Soul imitators Wigan’s Chosen Few with Footsee and Wigan’s Ovation with Skiing in the Snow, paying homage to the home of Northern Soul, the legendary Wigan Casino.

The year and the music progressed, couples across the country bumped in tune to Van McCoy’s The Hustle, a lame disco hit which nevertheless filled the dance floor as did Bill Curtis’s Fatback Band with Keep on Steppin’. James Brown and his ‘above-average black band’ The JB’s enhanced his ‘Godfather of Soul’ reputation with Sex Machine, a cracking follow-up to his superb Payback of the previous year, even the moody funk poet, Gill Scott-Heron followed up his success from twelve months earlier with the thought provoking Johannesburg, which proved that funk could make bold, political statements as well as being decidedly danceable.

BT Express’s Express was a huge hit in the clubs and the single featured Parts 1 and 2 on the A and B sides which enabled the deejays, who were becoming as well known as some of the artistes, to mix two discs on separate turntables to extend the length of playtime, this was specifically aimed at the emerging dance culture and ultimately paved the way for the extended 12 inch dance versions which were to become the norm in later years. Express featured a wonderful string and brass combination, something that was to become synonymous with the disco/funk music of that era. Always There, a beautiful brassy instrumental by Ronnie Laws, just oozed laid-back coolness. The obscure Oliver Sain was back with his jazzy instrumental Bus Stop, a track that was amongst the first to feature whistles, it wouldn’t be long before every disco hit seemingly included them and every serious dancer sported them. George ‘Bad’ Benson, with the mighty Supership even managed an appearance in the UK top thirty, Hamilton Bohannon had no less than four disco hits in the space of eight months, Donald Byrd and the Blackbyrds had two hits with I Need You and their first and only British chart entry with Walking in Rhythm, the list, like the new 12" records went on and on.

The most unexpected dance hit of the year however was Makes You Blind, what made it so surprising was that it was a B-side and even more astounding was that it was made by the Glitter Band, now thankfully liberated from their embarrassing ‘leader’ Gary Glitter. Even my first musical love reggae made a comeback with Susan Cadogan sweetly singing Hurts So Good and Bob Marley and the Wailers with their live recording of No Woman, No Cry opening the eyes and ears of a completely new audience, if the football was no longer giving me the adrenaline rush the music certainly was.

The music itself was still relatively hard to come by, for while the trendy kids of the 70s were listening to the funkiest street sounds around, Radio One was still churning out its daily diet of hackneyed, bromidic pap that appealed as much to your parents as it did to your kid sister. 1975 saw number one hits for Tammy Wynette with her country and western hit (or was it some cunt from Weston as Aggie so eloquently put it) Stand By Your Man and Hold Me Close by David Essex, hardly uplifting anthems.

The Abba phenomenon had kicked off the previous year when their atrocious Eurovision Song Content winner Waterloo rocketed straight to number one, the four members of the group looked like they were straight out of a Swedish blue movie with Agnetha and her perfect arse being the star turn. Amazingly by the end of 1976 Abba had become the world’s best-selling group, Otis Redding must have been spinning in his grave.

While the unitiated listened to Dave Lee Travis, who was as amusing as a dose of clap, the cognescenti amongst the nation’s youth religiously tuned in to Robbie Vincent’s Soul and Funk show at six every Saturday evening which provided us with our weekly fix from across the Atlantic. If it wasn’t for his show I would have been as ignorant as the rest of the country, until then I had thought the magnificent Ohio Players were an American baseball team.

The Ohio’s first album on the Mercury label after spending many years on Chicago’s Westbound, was the quintessential Fire - which, if released by a white rock outfit would have been known as a ‘concept’ album - its menacing title track being perhaps their most recognisable song: a heavy guitar riff and simple, ominous, yowling lyrics featuring the vocals of lead singer Leroy ‘Sugarfoot’ Bonner. The Ohio Players’ trademarks from their earlier Westbound recordings were all there, uncluttered, doom-laden sounds, naked, provocative women on the cover and a no-star approach, all the tunes were listed as written and produced by the whole band. The single, Fire was destined to become one of the all-time funk favourites and before the year was out the band had released the equally impressive album Honey which included their biggest hit to date, Love Rollercoaster, (which was successfully revived in 1996 by The Red Hot Chilli Peppers), plus the seriously funky Fopp and the magnificently deranged ballad Sweet Sticky Thing. The obligatory naked babe on the cover, this time sensuously dripping with sweet, sticky honey, simply added to the band’s appeal. The Ohio Players were one of the most innovative and imaginative bands of this era, their music would influence numerous acts who followed in their funky footsteps.

The only other national radio deejay of note was the eccentric Emperor Rosko who, since the 60s had been at the forefront of bringing American soul music into Britain. Rosko’s style, heavily influenced by the Californian deejay Wolfman Jack, couldn’t be further removed from the Hairy Cornflake (as DLT insisted on calling himself) if he tried.

More closer to home deejays such as Paul Russell, Seymour, Superfly, Paul Alexander a.k.a. Maceo and the evergreen Jason did their best to bring the sounds of Chicago and New York into the pubs and clubs of Bristol. For sheer fanatical promotion of funk music in Bristol however, none were more zealous than the Ashby brothers, Adryan and Steve.

I remembered Steve from the Elephant several years earlier, where Aggie consistently wound him up with his request for the non-existent Funky Milkman by The Nurdlers. Steve’s funkiest record then was Higher and Higher by Jackie Wilson, he led a precarious existence then, keeping one eye on his precious records and the other on the not so precious clientele, the threat of a major ruck never far away. By the Spring of 1975 Steve and Adryan’s weekly appearance at the new Guildhall Tavern in Broad Street was bringing in a veritable army of young soul boys and girls. The two brothers had always appeared under the name of ASA Enterprises, but taking advantage of a teenagers natural desire to belong, kept the initials and changed their name to form the Avon Soul Army.

New recruits for the Army signed up every week, the only qualification required was to have soul coursing through your veins, not difficult for me when I had been reared on the Stax and Atlantic labels of the 60s. The alternative, well there was no alternative, Status Quo, Suzi Quatro,10cc or Queen versus Isaac Hayes, James Brown or Marvin Gaye, no contest. We even had our own tee-shirts, natty white or yellow with a helmeted soldier squinting through the sight of a rifle, complete with the Avon Soul Army logo. Thankfully, the ASA crossed the football divide, the tee-shirts were as popular on the Tote End as they were at Ashton, it didn’t quite unite us but at least it gave us some common ground, the Soul brothers even laid on Saturday lunchtime sessions specifically for the football fans, trouble was rare, due to the fact that we were more interested with listening to the music rather than kicking lumps out of each other, which was more than could be said for what was happening at the football grounds of our green and pleasant land.