Edweena Banger obit

Edweena Banger Former Member of Slaughter & The Dogs Has Died

 

She was not on the list.

Edweena Banger, who some will know as Eddie Garrity, former member of Slaughter & The Dogs, has passed away.

A great friend of Louder Than War and a core member of the Manchester music scene, Edweena was the frontman of The Nosebleeds, whose ‘Ain’t Been To No Music School’ was an underground punk classic in 1977. She went on to join Slaughter & The Dogs and perform and sing on the band’s 1980 album, Bite Back.

She was a on the cusp of releasing her own new album which she had recorded at the end of last year.

Our hearts go out to Edweena’s friends and family. Rest In Peace.

Interview: Edweena Banger

Life and The Nosebleeds on the eve of a new album

A true character of the Manchester music scene who now goes by the name Edweena, having fully embraced his feminine side. Nigel Carr and photographer David Gleave met with the former Nosebleeds front man to discuss times past, present and future.

Eddie Garrity formed Ed Banger & The Nosebleeds after the legendary Sex Pistols gigs at the city’s Lesser Free Trade Hall in Summer 1976. The band were described in Mick Middles’s book “Factory, The Story Of A Record Label” thus:

“They were genuinely, completely, utterly crazed – Ed in particular, who , with absolutely no sense of self-preservation would think little of jumping on to a table mid-performance, grabbing a guy’s beer and pouring it over his girlfriend. Other such actions would result in near tragedy”

“I have no idea how we managed to stay alive” – Vini Reilly

After a short photo shoot at the back of his house in the leafy suburbs of South Manchester, we head upstairs to talk about his life, troubles and struggles as an original progenitor of the Manchester punk scene. Eddie now prefers to be addressed as Edweena after starting to cross dress in the early 80s,

The Nosebleeds consisted of Eddie on Vocals and guitar, future Manchester luminary Vini Reilly on lead guitar, future Primal Scream drummer, Toby Toman and Pete Crookes on bass. Later members included Morrissey and future Cult singer/guitarist Billy Duffy. As bands go there are few that can boast of such a heady line-up of future names.

Louder Than War: I have read a lot about your history as there is a lot out there already. How did you got in to music which lead to the formation of Wild Ram?

“Well that was Glam Rock, we used to go and see Slade, David Bowie and T Rex then. That’s why we picked up guitars and I learnt to play because you want to emulate your heroes don’t you? Mike Rossi out of Slaughter and the Dogs got the first guitar. He was ahead of the game – we we’re 12-13 at St Paul’s School in Wythenshawe. My brother played guitar, he was in to The Rolling Stones and I learned a little bit of him.

I was at school with Toby, and Pete, (Showing Edweena the cover of the band’s first single ‘Ain’t Been To No Music School’), This is our old school, this is the music room. I actually got a U in music! Although Vini Reilly hasn’t done bad out of his classical training has he? So that’s how we formed.

Our first gig was at the school disco, 1974. We were playing Slade and T Rex – bit of everything really – we were called Solid State. I’d seen it on the amp and thought ‘that’ll do’. We didn’t have much imagination in them days!

We changed in to Ram after the Paul McCartney album. We started doing Social Clubs and things and kept getting thrown off. Until we got good. It was that pub rock circuit. Then we got Vini Reilly, he joined the pub rock band. Ian Gray left and Vini replaced him. Vini was on another planet to us. All them chords, you’d never seen anything like it!”

Louder Than War : You look at Cook and Jones the driving force behind the Pistols, nobody played guitar like Vini!

“No, we missed the boat there didn’t we? We went to the first Pistols gig in June. Ian Gray had seen a little piece in the NME about the next big thing. He said ‘we’ve gotta go’, and I’m like ‘no I’m watching the telly’ haha. He actually dragged me out the house and said ‘we’re going’. Pete Shelley was on the door and they were awful basically, they couldn’t really play. They were just coming out and making an impact with the noise. We only stayed for four or five songs and went ‘oh it’s crap that’.”

Louder Than War: Steve Jones was a pretty good guitarist wasn’t he?

“No I don’t think so, he sounded pretty awful. Then the second gig was on July 20th, he must have been locked in the rehearsal room for that! When they came back, they were a different band. He had turned in to this punk legend! All ramshackle and a shambles the first gig and then the second one, everything was spot on. So yeah, unless Glen Matlock pulled ’em all together, yeah. I think it was them locked up in a rehearsal room for a month.”

Louder Than War: Why were you roadying with Slaughter at the Pistols second gig?

“We used to follow each other round, we were all mates. We’d do Waiting For The Man one week and Slaughter and The Dogs would do it the next. They’d do Sweet Jane and we’d do it the next week.

After that second gig we became ‘Ed Banger and The Nosebleeds’. This punk thing was taking off and we needed a punk name and that was the old story with the roadie, I got a bottle on the head and Toby, he got punched in the nose. The roadie said ‘Look at you, ‘head banger and the nosebleeds!’ So that comes from the Pistols gig,

The first time we went to London as the Nosebleeds it just erupted as soon as we got on stage, (At The Roxy). Bottles started coming and I’m just beating people up with a mic stand from the stage, Vini Reilly hiding behind his amp! We never really got to play it was just a massive big fight and we came home.”

Nowadays all the punks are a lot older! We did Blackpool and they all just collapsed on the stage from drink. They’re not beating each other up these days, they are picking each other off the floor and holding each other up!”

Louder Than War: There is a film on YouTube with interviews and a performance at Rafters. (Film by John Crumpton and Bob Jones). It shows an electric live performance but a band starting fall apart.

“At the time of the film we were due to go in to record the album and we all fell out about money. It was the old rock ‘n’ roll story, there were loads of potential great bands that fell out before they got anywhere.

Me and Vini were writing the songs, some of which were old Wild Ram songs, speeded up a bit and more punky, so we knew the chords already and Vini put his magic on top. I wondered how it would have sounded if I’d just kept playing the guitar. It might have been a bit more ballsy.

The reason that The Drones, (Fellow Manchester Punk band), can come in a different direction to us now is because they had their album, (Further Temptation), out in ’77. If we’d have had an album out then we could have commanded more money on the circuit. It was generic punk though wasn’t it? It’s like we all started writing songs the same, as a punk band, I wonder who started it first?, it might have been them. They were a great band and a great live band. We used to do a lot of gigs with them and they were great lads, we really got on well with them.

We used to play at the Electric Circus and it was the worst venue in the world. We’d get there and there’d be all these Alsatians running round and dog shit everywhere and stuff like that. There was no health and safety in them days.

If we’d have released an album it would have been quite a big turning point. I had some savings which were from the fly posting and I was the only one that did any saving, so I was the only one with any money. We’d had the single out, (Ain’t Been To No Music School), and I was like, ‘Whatever we make on that we’ll spend on the album’ but Rabid had spent the profit on other projects. The others were spending theirs on nights out basically, pissing it up the wall. I’m like ‘well I’m not paying for it! so If everyone chips in then it’s alright’. They’re all, ‘we’ll give it you back’, and I’m, ‘no you won’t’, so it was basically just that.”

“I could make £150 a week on the fly posting in them days and my building society book was in the back of the car and it was ‘Look at this!, you can pay for that’ and I’m ‘well that’s my money, it’s not Nosebleeds money’. We were getting a fiver each a gig So I said ‘Where’s all your money gone? so we all put in the same and we’re there aren’t we?’ Basically that’s what it was.

Tosh Ryan, (Head of Rabid Records), used to run The Music Force, running the fly posting and putting gigs on. They’d got all the contacts and they’d do the Midlands, The North East and Scotland. There were guys in London fighting over it all the time because there was a lot of cash. It still goes on, I did some a few months ago.”

Louder Than War: Vini was playing amazing punk guitar back then so it was before he’d developed his unique technique he used in Durutti Column. It was a big difference, what happened when he left?:

“He played straight rock and roll. We were going to form another band after the Nosebleeds and we’d had a few rehearsals. We’d got Mike Doherty out of the Smirks and a guy on bass called Budgie and that was sounding great. Then Vini came under some pressure from a few close associates and had to walk away which was a shame.

That’s when Morrissey joined The Nosebleeds with Billy Duffy. Morrissey had been knocking around some other bands at Tony Davidson’s rehearsal rooms and Vini Faal would have heard us rehearsing the new band. Billy Duffy was a roadie for the Nosebleeds. They lasted two gigs. They did the Mayflower and The Ritz supporting Magazine. I was supposed to go down and see ’em but I never did.

I have actually got a tape of one of the songs that we recorded. Somewhere! I’m sure it’s safe but I can’t find it now.”

Louder Than War: Paul Morley had a bit of a dig at you when Morrissey joined, saying that, ‘Finally the Nosebleeds have got a singer with personality’. But you were Mr Personality jumping around in front of the band, so why did he do that?

“Well that’s because I booted him wasn’t it? He came up to me at the Electric Circus saying that ‘You’re not real punk you’re just a made up punk band’, and I said ‘ave some fucking punk’ and booted him in the face. That’s why he said that, he was getting his own back there.”

They always used to be sacred of us because we were from Wythenshawe so they used to give us a wide birth.

Then Mike Doherty, I’m not sure if he was already in the Smirks. He just went ‘Why don’t you come and support us?, we’re playing Sale Hotel’, so I just made up some songs on the spot.”

Louder Than War: So then you become a solo artist and called yourself just Ed Banger??

“Yeh, then it all went surreal, avant-garde, stand up comedy and made up stuff yeh, I didn’t really have any formatted songs at the time. I’d just go on and see what happened.”