Blackpool: From Ballroom Blitz to Post-Punk Dissent

Part One – Riding the Punk Wave

Blackpool’s reputation as a glittering northern seaside resort is well known: ballroom glamour, illuminations, sticks of rock, stag and hen dos, deckchairs and donkeys. But beneath the shine of its piers and the nostalgia of the Tower Ballroom lies a cultural undercurrent that has been just as vibrant—if often overlooked. Beyond the beach and bingo, Blackpool has quietly fostered a lineage of outsider music, DIY energy, and post-punk spirit.

The town’s status as an entertainment capital means it has always punched above its weight in the performing arts. From variety shows to punk gigs, and from the Opera House to upstairs rooms in pubs, Blackpool has given rise to—or at least shaped—the careers of a surprising number of artists. The Rockin’ Vicars, a 1960s garage beat group fronted by future Motörhead legend Lemmy, were among the first to channel the resort’s theatrical sensibilities into something raw and wild. My own earliest contact with this world came in 1975, when I operated the lights for the local progressive rock outfit ISIS—a band whose drummer, Jon Blacow, would later appear again in an unexpected context.

Though more mainstream names like Ian Anderson (Jethro Tull), Robert Smith (The Cure), and Chris Lowe (Pet Shop Boys) have Blackpool connections, their stories are well documented elsewhere. What’s less widely explored is how the town’s grimy alleys, crumbling amusements, and fading seaside glamour gave rise to a defiant underground that found expression in the late ’70s and beyond.

By the time I left Blackpool Sixth Form College in 1978, I had already been part of a short-lived musical experiment called Stag (1976) with Dave Hall, John Mather, and Pete Howarth while we were at Warbreck High School. It lasted only a couple of practice sessions, but Pete went on to become a member of The Hollies. Meanwhile, John Robb – a couple of years younger than me – formed The Membranes in 1977. John started at Blackpool Sixth Form as I was leaving for Manchester, and while he was there, had the idea for a music ’zine.

The college itself was just what you’d expect: long-haired introverts sheltering Popol Vuh and Tangerine Dream LPs beneath their denim coats. A kind of twilight zone between Prog and Punk—soft focus, with little relevance to day-to-day life in a half-deserted seaside town on the North West coast.

Punk was already gnawing through the surface, of course. Peter Hammill’s Nadir’s Big Chance dropped on 1st February 1975—arguably the first true punk record. A ragged, snarling thing released two full years before Never Mind the Bollocks. Hammill’s previous album In Camera was dense and complex, laced with musique concrète. Nadir, by contrast, was a messianic tear through the wall. John Lydon certainly thought so. In a 1977 radio interview, he played two tracks from the album and called Hammill “a true original… I’m damn sure Bowie copied a lot out of that geezer.”

Lyrics from Nadir say it best:

“Now’s my big break – let me up on the stage,
I’ll show you what it’s all about; enough of the fake,
bang your feet in a rage, tear down the walls and let us out!

Smash the system with the song!”

Peter Hammill – Nadir’s Big Chance

This isn’t a piece on the origins of punk—there are whole libraries on that, many written by Robb himself. Punk Rock: An Oral History is the place to go if you want to feel the spit on your face. Others might argue for the Velvets, the Stooges, or the 13th Floor Elevators as punk’s ur-source. But for raw sensibility, the Neon Boys – Richard Hell and Tom Verlaine’s proto-punk outfit—had the sound, the attitude, the aesthetic. Their split is telling: Hell went on to form the Voidoids, snarling and direct. Verlaine built Television, all tangled thought and ragged poetics. If punk spat, post-punk smirked.

Part Two – And back in Blackpool…

In the wake of the Sex Pistols’ infamously destructive appearance on Today with Bill Grundy in December ’76, the game changed. Punk had entered the mainstream by smashing right through it.

Amidst this, Robb and his fellow agitators launched what was initially a one-sheet flyer at Blackpool Sixth Form – a cut-up bulletin of protest, polemic, and outsider noise. That first salvo came in 1977. But it was 1978 when Blackpool Rox formally emerged: music-focused, photocopied, and limited to 100 scrappy copies. It was fanzine as manifesto.

John Robb:

“There were about 30 issues altogether. We started the fanzine in 1978… it was initially done in tandem with another fanzine that caused an outrage at the local sixth form college (Blackpool Sixth Form – then Collegiate)—an A4 sheet pointing out a few things about the school in cryptic language. They went mad and tried to track down the ringleaders! When I got kicked out on the last day it was inside my school file! Rox, on the other hand, was more about music and very much based on Perry’s fanzine Sniffin’ Glue, which someone had brought to school.”

Sniffin’ Glue (1976) had itself been initiated after founder Mark Perry saw the Ramones live. He used a children’s typewriter and felt-tip pen for the headlines, before photocopying it and selling at gigs – and, crucially, persuading Rough Trade to stock and distribute it.

John’s decision to emulate Sniffin’ Glue in Blackpool became a key catalyst in documenting – and shaping – the scene. As a forerunner to his work with The Membranes, Goldblade, and his authorship of Punk Rock: An Oral History, the zine chronicled local gigs, bands, and culture with wit, passion, and punk spirit. After Robb moved on, the fanzine was kept alive by Andy Higgins under the Rox moniker, reflecting an ongoing commitment to regional creativity. Robb himself has credited the zine as integral to his growth – not just as a writer but as a documentarian of counterculture.

I was keen to ask Andy about continuing the ’zine, and about the politics underpinning the punk ethos:

Plus One:
“How did you get into music and fanzines? Was it after reading Rox?”

Andy Higgins:
“I got into music aurally via the radio and aesthetically / visually via TOTP and magazines—Blackpool Rox was the first fanzine I read. It inspired me to write my own, Eat The Rich, which only amounted to two issues.”

Plus One:
“To what extent do you agree with Mark Perry (Sniffin’ Glue founder) when he said:
‘For me, punk died the day The Clash signed to CBS in 1977.'”

Andy Higgins:
“I agree with the sentiment about not signing to a major label, but there’s more to punk rock than any one band.”

Plus One:
“You’ve been in many bands—from the initial explosion of Erase Today to the more post-punk leanings of the Karima version of Litterbug (Speaking Through The Gaps), and now your latest venture, Magic of the Marketplace. Where does your heart lie musically? I get the impression it’s about delivering a political/philosophical message, a la Crass?”

Andy Higgins:
“It’s the feeling the music stirs in me that attracted me to it (and the words that often made it), and as a result, certain bands stick. I’m curious about meaning, so music without words is a half measure.
Yes, I’ve still got my Crass records and memories… it was a new and interesting perspective to a young me. The memories will probably outlive the vinyl, which is quite something.”

Andy also told me about his involvement in the new band stage at Rebellion and rejected the idea that punk had become purely nostalgic or pastiche:

Higgins:
“The interweaving of nostalgia, spectacle and authenticity are everywhere and forever in competition with one another. That said, often these ideas and belief systems are built on oppositions and dichotomies. Maybe that’s how some things come to ‘exist’. For instance, without knowing death, would a concept of life exist?

From my experience, punk and counter-culture are ephemeral and impossible to define—they morph and reinvent themselves in opposition to the ‘everything is quantifiable’ and ‘everything is based on data’ worldview. Counter-culture could be seen as an opposition to the idea of a prevailing or dominant culture… I’d better stop here as I can predict I’m about to go down a wormhole with this question, which would only twist my blood even further than it already is.”

While Higgins continued with Blackpool Rox, Robb had moved to Manchester. His take on the major label question was more pragmatic:

Robb:
“At the end of the day, everyone needs to make money—I don’t blame bands for signing to majors.”

While Robb’s journalistic and literary achievements eventually took centre stage, The Membranes – his band – had been laying sonic groundwork since the late ’70s. Known for their blend of noise, post-punk angularity and conceptual flair, it wasn’t until their later output that they truly reached the heights they’d always hinted at. Albums like Dark Matter/Dark Energy (2015) and What Nature Gives… Nature Takes Away (2019) represent their creative peak: dense, thematically ambitious works that explore life, death and the cosmos with a heavy, dynamic sound that echoes the grandeur and decay of Blackpool itself.

Part Three – Fear and Loathing in a Tatty Seaside Town

That sense of contradiction – of faded glamour and raw authenticity – is perhaps best encapsulated by Ceramic Hobs, one of Blackpool’s most unpredictable and enduring underground acts. Chaotic, confrontational and cathartic, they emerged in the mid-1980s and became notorious for performances that mixed absurdity, costume, cross-dressing and catharsis. Guitarist Stan Batcow (who now runs Pumf Records along with recording and performing as Howl in the Typewriter) recalls early sessions, offbeat gigs, and the strange alchemy of an ever-mutating lineup. Their records—Straight Outta Rampton, Shergar Is Home Safe And Well, and Psychiatric Underground—blended punk, outsider art and mental health commentary into something utterly sui generis. As Stan puts it:

“We played some truly abysmal shows, but on a good night we were something to behold.”

The band dealt with issues close to home both metaphorically and literally (Simon Morris, the band’s unappointed frontman, left us far too early at 51), and other band members – as noted in the excellent Black Pool Legacy retrospective album – are recorded as having died, disappeared, or been permanently incarcerated.

Is it something about the town? In The Wire magazine, Phil England reflected on their brutal realism shortly after Morris had been discharged from hospital:

“The rendering of harsh reality along with songs like ‘Blackpool Transport’, which includes samples of 20 local bands, ‘Does He Take Sugar?’ with an improvised and cut-up Morris vocal reminiscing about the tourist attractions of Blackpool Pleasure Beach, and album credits such as ‘socially engineered by Blackpool’, make it tempting to think of Ceramic Hobs as the authentic voice of the town.”

Converse to that raw image is a beauty that is hard to describe, a delicate beauty perhaps evoked most ostensibly in the song Flower from the above compilation, with a Jane Appleby vocal:

“You made me bloom like a flower… Who’d have thought such a gentle man could break my heart with such graceful ease… Love always comes to an end, but life has to go on and that’s a tragedy to me.”

Again taken from The Wire article, Appleby continues:

“I think altogether we recorded about 13 songs. I wrote all the lyrics, did the vocals and chose most of the samples. Occasionally I made vague suggestions about the music, so for ‘Kaleidoscope Girl’ I said I wanted it to sound fairgroundy, circusy, like a carousel music box, and Stan knew what I meant. I always saw it as being Simon and to an extent Stan’s band—they were the ones making all the major decisions. All the guys have been lovely to me and very easy to work with. It’s such a wonderful gift to let someone express their creativity in a way they didn’t think they could and for it to turn out so well.”

Ceramic Hobs were just one node in a wider DIY circuit, much of it now centred around Pumf’s godspunk compilation series—now up to its 27th volume. These compilations became a platform for musical outliers whose work defied easy categorisation and outlasted passing trends. Noise, psych, lo-fi pop, comedy, spoken word—it all rubbed shoulders in the godspunk universe, united by its rejection of the bland and the commercial. Stan’s mission statement says it all: “possibly the strangest music on the planet.”

This underground network included the likes of Tunnelvision, Sign Language, an early Blackpool post-punk band whose echo-drenched sound and striking visuals marked them out as natural contemporaries of bands like Section 25 or Crispy Ambulance. Their legacy, though cult, still resonates among collectors and crate-diggers drawn to the northern end of the post-punk map.

Section 25, perhaps more than anyone, inadvertently became the band pressing a case for Blackpool. “Those clever bastards from Blackpool” as Tony Wilson famously christened them. Larry Cassidy (the band’s frontman at the time) was aware of what was going on in Manchester and Liverpool, and Factory Records in particular. Larry’s recollections are documented in the sleeve notes to Section 25’s Always Now box set:

“Me and Paul (Wiggin) and Vin (Cassidy) went to Eric’s in Liverpool for a Joy Division gig in July ’78. We often did this. We thought Joy Division were out of the Salvation Army or something, but I was completely mesmerised… The Manchester music scene had always been a bit of a mystery to me, being based in Blackpool, but I saw some other bands at The Factory Club, and Throbbing Gristle—that was a particularly good night out. Paul spent most of the night in a huge bass bin while TG did their stuff.”

“At that time we also promoted gigs in Blackpool. We hired the Ballroom of the Imperial Hotel in July 1979 to raise money for The International Year Of The Child, and put 5 bands on. Joy Division, Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark (who had just released Electricity on Factory), Glass Torpedoes, Final Solution and ourselves. All the bands got £30 and we opened early to let the kids in. In the evening it was more of an adult do. Rob Gretton seemed to like what we were doing and said he would get us some work supporting Joy Division.”

I remember that gig well myself. I’d just heard the Joy Division session on John Peel and particularly liked New Dawn Fades. As it happens, I was living round the corner from the Imperial, so I went round—and that’s when it hit me that something huge was going on. Section 25 and Joy Division were completely different to anything I had seen before.

I asked Vin Cassidy for his thoughts on the early days in Blackpool:

“My recollections going back to ’77–’78 onwards were of a very vibrant full ‘music scene’ around the Fylde area, with quite a few bands trying to do something very different in terms of playing their own music…

There were two layers to the Blackpool scene…

Top layer: On the surface, there were so-called pro/cabaret players doing the working men’s clubs and nightclubs… They advertised a kind of ‘West Coast Sound’ that was basically covers—this was well before the tribute phenomenon. They mixed chart stuff from different bands as opposed to aping a particular band as they do now… but as now, they would NEVER dream of playing a tune of their own.

Lower layer: A bunch of kids inspired by what little they had heard of punk/post-punk to try and do their own ‘thing’. I use the term post-punk advisedly because at the time no one had any idea what post-punk was… it was just people developing their own ideas. The management of venues in the area did not want to let the ‘lower layer’ play on their stages… so we had to self-promote—the Old Library in Poulton, Bispham Community Centre, a room at the Imperial Hotel and other makeshift spaces. Bands like Section 25, Tunnel Vision, The Membranes, The Fits and One Way System had to fight to survive and be heard. But we did this, and began to play and start to take our spirit outside the Fylde area because we would not be ground down to the level of all the crap cabaret on offer.”

I was in a band called The Communion, heavily influenced by Manchester, Factory and the prevailing backdrop of Thatcher’s systematic attempt to destroy the country. We mostly played our gigs in the Manchester area, but the lower-key Blackpool scene did draw us in for gigs at Jenks and The Evening Gazette Rock Battle. When we played at JR’s once, I noticed John Robb in the corner. We went down terribly, even though it sounded okay through our single monitor. After the gig I asked John what he thought.

“Really good” he said.

John always supported you, however terrible you sounded.

Then there was Vee VV, a band that also took shape in the very early 1980s and blurred the line between funk-driven new wave and icy minimalism. With connections to Manchester’s underground and a sound reminiscent of A Certain Ratio or The Passage, they remain one of Blackpool’s most polished but underrated exports.

Wry and literate, The Container Drivers blended cultural critique with lo-fi post-punk, their name a knowing nod to The Fall. Their releases, filled with literate lyrics and a sardonic worldview, offered a satirical take on modern life—with more hooks than their lo-fi setups would suggest.

Much of this early period was thankfully documented by Andy Higgins with his The Ugly Truth About Blackpool CD series. Among others, volume one featured The Membranes, Sign Language, Ceramic Hobs, Container Drivers, Litterbug, Tunnelvision, Zyklon B, Erase Today and Thee Transmissions.

Some of the venues are mentioned above, but perhaps the focal point- at least aesthetically – was the Stanley Park Bandstand, where I clearly remember The Membranes and Section 25 sharing the bill at one of the regular summer gigs staged there. For a brief moment, that green expanse in the heart of Blackpool became the epicentre of something raw, strange and utterly vital.

Part Four – Lambs to the Slaughter

Into the nineties and beyond, I was putting on regular music nights at The Ruby Lounge and Dry Bar in Manchester, where I met Maurice Murray. I’d arranged for the Blackpool band Lotus Circle to play The Dry bar and the full house got me thinking about doing something in Blackpool. Maurice and I had connections with the Canadian music scene — I’d just been over there with The Marble Index, who were playing a sponsored series of events (I think it was called the Skoal Bandit Music Series or something similar). Maurice was a publican, but more importantly, a massive fan of Slaughter and the Dogs – and now their official archivist. He’d just been moved to Blackpool, as he was getting a name for his success in promotion and the brewery wanted him to bring that magic to Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

Maurice takes up the story:

“I became very good friends with Brian Grantham, the drummer from Slaughter and the Dogs. When I became homeless at 16, he talked his parents into letting me rent their spare room, where I stayed for a couple of years. I shared the space with Brian’s pride and joy: a golden wood-and-fiberglass Pearl drum kit that he’d bought with the advance money from signing to Decca Records.

“Growing up in Wythenshawe in the early ’70s was all about turf wars — getting into scraps with lads from other parts of the estate. Then, amid the chaos, word came out about a group of local lads who had formed a band doing Bowie and Roxy Music covers. They called themselves Slaughter and the Dogs — the name a combination of Slaughter on 10th Avenue by Mick Ronson and Diamond Dogs by David Bowie.

“They started playing local pubs and clubs, but at 13 or 14, most of us were far too young to get in. That changed in 1976, when Slaughter put on a show at The Forum in Wythenshawe. That was it – my first proper gig. When they took the stage, they were the coolest thing I’d ever seen, and they sounded fucking great. I have to mention the support band, V2 – they were from the other side of Manchester, and we gave them a horrendous time. Looking back, I feel bad, but this was Wythenshawe – our town – and our territorial instincts were out in full force.

“I went into the pub trade in 1990 after years of running ice cream vans. My first pub was The Farmers Arms in Burnage. I then moved to a bigger place in Northenden and gained a rep for putting on live bands. Greenalls, the pub company I worked for, had a large venue in Blackpool called Uncle Tom’s. They were investing heavily to turn it into a proper live music venue, booking acts like The Bay City Rollers and The Sweet. They wanted me to take over the venue – but first, they had to persuade the then-manager to move on.

“A plan was hatched: I’d be temporarily moved to a pub in Fleetwood (The Rossall Tavern), which was soon to be sold to tenancy. Then, we’d do a switch – I’d take over Uncle Tom’s, and the previous manager could receive redundancy. But a few weeks after my family and I moved into The Rossall Tavern, Greenalls was bought out, and all plans were put on hold for 12 months. I never got the move. Instead, I ended up taking on the tenancy of the Rossall, where I stayed for 10 years.

“On the plus side, it gave me the chance to pick up drumming again and form my own band with some of the pub regulars. What started as a bit of a jam turned into the realisation of a long-held dream. We began with covers – Oasis and other indie stuff – then started writing our own songs and getting paid gigs. My personal highlight? Playing The Hard Rock in Manchester and spotting Brian Grantham – my one-time drum hero – standing in the crowd watching us.”

When Maurice was running the colloquially named Tav, I asked him about being one of the host venues for a Canadian-style live music series, alongside The Liquid Lounge on Topping Street in Blackpool. In 2005, we put on ten gigs featuring bands like Higgins++, Litterbug, Aron Paul, Rush to the Yukon, The Logicals, Stormy Weathers, Lupus In Fabula, Y’r Impossible, Devil2Pay, Garland Green, The Unknown, Jelly’s Last Jam, Triphazard, 13 Backwards and many others. I also helped Maurice with a Slaughter and the Dogs gig at The Tache around the same time.

Getting a crowd into a venue in Blackpool was like pulling teeth but credit to all those venues and promoters who have done their best over the years.

Also active at this time were Sinister Footwear, who played a unique blend of Beefheart and Zappa-inspired funk-infused rock. Despite releasing a clutch of CDs and playing live around the country, they remained cult figures before dissolving in 2008.

The inavisedly named Goonies Never Say Die also made waves, bringing an anthemic post-rock sound that saw them signed to Deep Elm Records.

Lastly, we come full circle to Fred Laird — former member of Thee Transmissions and founder of Earthling Society, whose drummer was John Blacow (mentioned way back in the first paragraph). Earthling Society was formed in 2004, with Fred and bassist David Fyall (who also occasionally played with Ceramic Hobs) recording their debut Albion in the back room of a double-glazing factory in Cleveleys. That album caught the attention of Julian Cope, who made it his Album of the Month. The band would go on to perform with Hawkwind and Arthur Brown, releasing a string of acclaimed psych-rock records before dissolving in 2018.

Fred has since recorded under the name Empty House and is currently collaborating with Paul Wiggin of Section 25 on a dub-influenced project. Their new album, No-Sword, is due in 2025.

Meanwhile, Howl in the Typewriter continue to blaze their own trail with some of the most innovative and politically driven material you’ll hear. Their one-track, 64-minute diatribe against consumerism – Manifesto – deserves a place in every serious music collection. (Also see our review of HITT – Shut Your Mouth and Open Your Mind )

Section 25 continue to evolve and impress with the recent album Move On. (See our review here)

Blackpool’s contribution to British underground music is both eclectic and essential. It might not always receive the same attention as Manchester, Sheffield or Liverpool, but in its shadows, arcades and sticky-floored venues, it fostered a raw creativity that was unafraid, unfiltered and unashamedly strange.

It’s a story of bands that refused to follow trends, labels that championed weirdness, and artists who turned seaside decay into a sonorous canon of intrigue and wonder.

Thanks to Vin Cassidy, Moz Murray, Stan Batcow, Fred Laird and Andy Higgins who all supplied contributions for this article. Read Part Two here.

References:
The Wire – https://www.thewire.co.uk/news/57326/ceramic-hobs-simon-morris-has-died
Section 25 – Always Now boxset booklet
Just Say No To Government Music https://jsntgm.com/
Section 25 website – https://www.section25.com/

Links:
Ceramic Hobs and related:
https://pumf.bandcamp.com/
http://www.batcow.co.uk/pumf/pumf.htm

Section 25 and related:
https://www.section25.com/
https://www.ltmrecordings.com/

Vee VV and related:
https://veevv.bandcamp.com/album/crackerjack

The Membranes and related:
https://membranes.bandcamp.com/
https://louderthanwar.com/

The Communion and related:
https://thecommunion1.bandcamp.com/
https://laisve.bandcamp.com/

Earthling Society and related:
https://emptyhouse.bandcamp.com/music
https://www.headheritage.co.uk/unsung/album-of-the-month/the-earthling-society-albion
https://riotseasonrecords.bandcamp.com/ (for Earthling Society and Taras Bulba)

Higgins++ and related:
https://jsntgm.com/