Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Content
- Foreword by Suggs
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Tramcar to Frankenstein
- 2 Didn't You Have a Beard?
- 3 ‘It Was the Death of the Loon’
- 4 Bunny Money
- 5 The Invisible River: A Liverpool Interlude
- 6 Hypertension
- 7 America Was Our Hamburg
- 8 ‘Sound of Rock Fades for Deaf School’
- 9 The Stopped Clock
- 10 That Thread of Affinity
- 11 In Town Tonight!
- Epilogue: Deaf School and the Icelandic Constitution
- Appendix: Liverpoem, by Tim Whittaker
- UK Discography
- Sources
- Index
- platesection
10 - That Thread of Affinity
- Frontmatter
- Content
- Foreword by Suggs
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Tramcar to Frankenstein
- 2 Didn't You Have a Beard?
- 3 ‘It Was the Death of the Loon’
- 4 Bunny Money
- 5 The Invisible River: A Liverpool Interlude
- 6 Hypertension
- 7 America Was Our Hamburg
- 8 ‘Sound of Rock Fades for Deaf School’
- 9 The Stopped Clock
- 10 That Thread of Affinity
- 11 In Town Tonight!
- Epilogue: Deaf School and the Icelandic Constitution
- Appendix: Liverpoem, by Tim Whittaker
- UK Discography
- Sources
- Index
- platesection
Summary
The Second Coming – Suggs in the House – Remembering Tim Whittaker and Sam Davis
In 1988 a short tour brought Deaf School back together, ten years after their last show. Team spirit seemed miraculously restored and their audience were no less committed. Where 1978 had been a year of frustration and resignation, 1988 revealed new creative energy. It brought a dawning recognition that being in Deaf School – rather as Derek Taylor had said of the Beatles – brought life membership.
Ken Testi, the band's old mentor and tour manager, had by now returned to his ancestral calling and was running a pub in the Cheshire village of Eaton. But he was restless. It was more than a decade since he'd left Eric's, and la vie en rock was calling once more. ‘I was on to my second pub now, the Red Lion, and I hadn't had a breather. I had a four-acre site in a nice country village and I got the itch for another Deaf School show. I said to Clive it was time to do this and amazingly he said “Right. Brilliant!”’ To make the reunion viable they would need more dates. A few small shows were set up in London, beginning at Camden's Dublin Castle on 14 June; two bigger shows were booked at Hardman House in Liverpool and finally a marquee in the field by Ken's pub, on 25 June.
Clive: ‘The ‘88 thing's weird, because I was very busy. But obviously I had a few months free. It was the anniversary, ten years since we'd finished. I just thought, What a great idea. Let's do it. Why not? Everyone seemed to jump at it. Tim couldn't do it, because he'd been in a car accident and so we had to get a different drummer. But everyone else could apart from Ian, and wanted to.’ Sam Davis, by now teaching art full time, recalled the obstacles:
Clive just phoned me up, drunk: ‘Get your guitar out, you're playing.’ So I said OK. I was still working at the time so the rehearsals were a bit difficult, cos I'd go down to London and have to drive back through the night to go to work the next day.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Deaf SchoolThe Non-Stop Pop Art Punk Rock Party, pp. 210 - 225Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2013