Beer, Eugen. "Punks Keep Out - By Order." SOUNDS, no. July 16, 1977, pp. 12-13

Britain's burning

Cancelled, But who's to blame, the establishment or the media?

— Eugen Beer investigates the cancellation of The Clash's Birmingham Rag Market festival, banned by authorities citing punk's "obscene and disgusting" reputation fueled by media hysteria

— Reveals how police superintendent Clough orchestrated opposition using sensational NME headlines about a fictional "punk murder," while church officials mocked band names like Shag Nasty in court

— Details the coalition of objectors: 13 pubs led by Matador's licensee, St Martins Church fearing disrupted evensong, and upscale restaurant Lorenzo's despite being closed Sundays

— Features paradoxical comments from Labour councillor Gordon Biggs who called punk "pornographic" yet admitted: "We have failed our young people abysmally"

— Exposes promotional fallout for Endale Associates (organizers of the Anarchy Tour) after investing £1,100, with ads already printed for The Saints, Cherry Vanilla and Subway Sect

— Documents Birmingham's history of cultural suppression, from banning barefoot ballet in the 1930s to 1977's moral panic over punk's "axe to grind" against the system

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Sounds July 16 1977 15p

Britain's burning

Cancelled

But who's to blame, the establishment or the media?

(Poster)

Britain's burning

The last big event before we all go to jail

The Clash The Saints Cherry Vanilla

4.00-10.30 July 17 1977

Birmingham Rag Market

Tom Robinson Bad Subway Sect Stinky Toys Ricekids Smatch Slits Shag Nasty

Compere John J Pune

Endale Associates / B. Rhodes Proove

Craft Birmingham, Virgin Record Shops Coventry, Liverpool, Leeds, Manchester, also Re Chords Derby Music Machine - Worcester Music Telford, Terry Blood - Stafford, Graduate Records - Dudley - Sundown Wolverhampton, HMV Leicester Theatre bookings - London by post

To: Endale Associates, Rutland House, Birmingham 3

Sounds | 16 July 1977 | Page 12 & Page 13

Punks keep out — by order

Sunday's new wave festival in Birmingham is off — shot down by the establishment. But who gave them the bullets — was it the hysterical media coverage of 'punk violence'? Eugen Beer reports...

Birmingham is a weird place.

Before the war, the celebrated ballet dancer, Alicia Markova, otherwise known as Alice Marks, was to perform in this celebrated city. Part of the ballet required her to dance in bare feet. The celebrated Birmingham Council did not allow her to do so.

After the very same war, a council meeting was held to discuss the problem of certain bombed areas in the city. One eloquent councillor stood up and said:

"Why don’t we have two, they might mate."

The last story might sound like some sort of Irish joke. Unfortunately it is true. Some years later, it seems little has changed.

As soon as the word ‘punk’ was mentioned in Birmingham in relation to the Rag Market festival, all hell was let loose. The Evening Mail started to behave like a Birmingham News of the World. Rehashes of The Clash’s Rainbow concert story started to appear.

"Thousands of punks armed with chains..." were going to swarm into Birmingham. A police chief was quoted as saying that “If the Sex Pistols even come to tea and cakes on the day, the promoters will be behind bars during the concert.” ... and all this just because Endale Associates decided to hold a punk rock festival in Brum.

Mike Barnet and Dave Cork, alias Endale, the promoters

Dave ‘Corky’ Cork and Mike Barnet, from now on known as Endale, handled the abortive Sex Pistols ‘Anarchy’ tour, and the last Clash tour. As well as these tours they have promoted over two hundred gigs in the last year. They are not beginners.

With the help of Bernard Rhodes, The Clash’s manager, they set up this festival. It was to have been the first of its kind.

A bill was drawn up consisting of The Clash, The Saints, Cherry Vanilla, Subway Sect, Stinky Toys, Snatch, The Slits, and Shag Nasty. From then on, not a lot went right.

The main events in this story occur between Thursday June 30th and Monday July 4th. The last day of June was the beginning of the end. On that day the New Musical Express ran a front page headline declaring:

"Murder at punk festival: At this gig a fan was stabbed to death."

Meanwhile the directors of the Rag Market (where the indoor festival was to have taken place) decided that Shag Nasty was not a particularly ‘nice’ name. The name was duly taken off all the local adverts. That was not the end of their worries. Pressure was being exerted from above to call the whole thing off.

The epidemic of councils banning punk rock seemed to have sneezed its way into Birmingham. But the Market Directors, although a little unsure, wanted the festival. They wanted to set a precedent for possible future gigs. The hire fee of £1,100 probably helped to encourage them.

A few floors up the council hierarchy, angelic councillors were “horrified” at the prospect. So horrified that copies of the NME with the ‘Murder’ cover were bought, waved and pointed at. Endale were none too pleased. Understandably. Ammunition had now been supplied to anyone with even the slightest qualms about punk rock. But no one could have predicted how effectively it would be used against the event.

At 10 am on the Monday morning Endale applied for a music and singing licence with respect to a festival to be held in Birmingham’s Rag Market on Sunday July 17th. Objectors present included:

Mr Jordan, licensee of the Matador, he was also representing thirteen other pubs in the area around the Rag Market.

Mr Rhodan, the justices’ surveyor.

Superintendent Clough, from the local police station. He was represented by the police solicitor.

The rector of St Martins Church, with his solicitor.

Two objections had been sent into the court by post. One from The Dolce Vita, a Birmingham night spot. They objected to punk rock, to punk rockers, to the names of the groups and to the degradation of our society in general. The other came from Lorenzo’s, arguably the best restaurant in the city. They are not even open on Sunday evenings, but they objected.

There was only one person there whom Endale could call upon to say anything good about the festival and punk rock in general. He was Roy Evans who, as head of West Midland Security, has had over fifteen years’ experience of rock concerts. He was the only person really qualified to say whether the festival should be granted a licence or not. But it wasn't up to him.

From the beginning of the hearing it was obvious that the sense of camaraderie among the objectors had spread to the clerk of the court, who grinned incessantly, and even to the two magistrates. The objectors were all of a comparable age with the magistrates. For Endale, things looked pretty bad. They got worse.

The first objector to take the oath was Mr Jordan, who has a daughter “and she knows all about these things.” He began: “What type of person would play in a group called Shag Nasty. They must be sick.” Sick was a word that cropped up many times in his tirade. He objected to the musicians, “because they vomit on stage and behave in an obscene and disgusting way. You can’t even call it music.” He objected to the fans, since they just went around smashing places up and being “obscene and disgusting.”

All through Mr Jordan’s testimony, Superintendent Clough had been shuffling through his briefcase. Since I was sitting next to him it was easy to see inside. It contained no less than four music weeklies. He pulled out the ‘punk murder’ NME and handed it to his solicitor.

Next it was the turn of the church to voice its objections. The solicitor, Mr Brian Cove, started by assuring the court that their objections were not founded on any dislike of the music or the people, but that they were objecting because the festival would clash with evensong.

And there's the rub. The church lies just fifty yards away from the market, and any loud music outside the church would probably put the Canon and the choir completely out of key. They also feared that the four or five hundred people, many of them aged, who come to the Sunday evensong would be inconvenienced by any crowds that might be in the area. This was obviously a legitimate complaint.

He didn't restrict himself to these points though, and went on to read out the names of the groups appearing. This was done in such a fashion as to reduce the two magistrates to discreet chuckles. The clerk could hardly contain his giggles...

"Er. Cherry Vanilla your worships, is I believe, some form of ice cream.”

This ridiculing of the groups went on for some time. But once the laughter had died down he launched an attack on the promoters for their lack of courtesy. It was impolite of them not to have consulted with the church before fixing the times. Endale claim they had rung up a week before in order to try and secure a meeting with the Canon. He was away and they were not referred to anybody else.

Mike Barnet of Endale was then asked to try and explain what was going to happen. He was first asked whether Endale was a limited company. Replying that it was a partnership, he was then confronted with several newspaper cuttings which gave the name as Endale Ltd. However hard he tried, the solicitors did not seem able to accept the fact that confusion was caused by the newspapers in making a mistake as to the nature of Endale. They thought this confusion to be highly important and ended up by saying that Mike Barnet was confused.

The solicitor representing the police went on to question Endale’s competence, their age... “You are a young man after all.”

There was now very little that Endale’s solicitor could do. The superintendent had his say. “There will be dancing.” Therefore a licence for dancing was needed. No dancing on Sundays. He stuck to points of law. Dwelt a little on crowd nuisance and so on. The whole hearing lasted nearly four hours. It took the magistrates ten minutes to decide. Fifteen seconds to refuse the licence. The objectors were over the moon. Cigarettes lit. Jokes galore about the names.

"Don't you think you're being shortsighted?

"It is a question of doing what the public demands of us and protecting the public.”

'We have failed our young people. We have failed abysmally' — Cllr. Gordon Biggs

Four hours had produced a result that had been decided upon long before the courts opened. Endale had originally applied for the licence some weeks before. The hearing was set for Monday June 27. Endale say that Superintendent Clough had asked them to delay the hearing for one week in order that he could go into the matter more thoroughly. He assured them, they say, that the delay would not affect their chances. In the week that followed Clough made sure that there would be a strong body of objectors in the court. The Canon said that he had no idea about the festival until Clough came to see him. The same goes for some of the publicans.

Endale, realising that time was running out, and having been assured by various quarters that the licence would be granted, went ahead with adverts and announcements. In court, this was seen as impolite, irresponsible, and speculative. The whole application for the licence was denounced by the church's solicitor as “a purely speculative application based on bad organisation.”

Even if the licence had been granted, it is unlikely that the festival would have seen the light of day. The day after the hearing, Councillor Gordon Biggs, Labour councillor for Northfield, proposed to bring up the whole question of the festival in a council meeting. Since the council own the Rag Market, they have ultimate control over any use of it.

Cllr Biggs claims to have had the support of ninety per cent of the council. From reading his quoted comments in the local papers, it would be easy to regard him as the usual redneck councillor. He does believe that punk rock “is plumbing new depths in feeding off the vulnerability of young people.”

He believes the music to be "provocative” “erotic” and “pornographic”, and yet, when pressed he admits to having more than the usual amount of sympathy for the kids. As a member of the Youth and Community Committee he comes into close contact with the problems of young people. And he doesn't know the solution.

“Ninety per cent of the council are do-gooders who are simply tools for the government, high ranking civil servants and capitalists. Simply a tool to take the public's mind off what they are doing up there. We are to blame for any problems the youth confront us with.

“We have failed abysmally,” He leaves the council next May, and is joyous at the prospect. But he doesn’t see the future being any better.

“The young kids need an axe to grind, they need to throw out the rubbish that is smothering this country.

Perhaps punk rock is their axe. I only hope they use it to their own advantage, and not to the advantage of the system.”

July 16, 1977 Sounds Page 13