To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Alternative Sounds
The vibrancy of Coventry’s music scene in the early eighties had a lot to do with the success of local icons The Specials and The Selecter of course. That wasn’t the whole picture however, for bringing the local scene together was the fanzine publication and guiding light Alternative Sounds.
The fanzine was the brainchild of local music fan Martin Bowes, I asked him how he came up with the idea? “I was swept along by the whole punk thing in 1977. It totally changed my life. It really did. It was just what I needed as the young man disillusioned and angry at this crazy world he found himself living in. It was the music. The politics. The do-it yourself attitude. It was an inspiring and positive movement that is often thought of as destructive but really it was much more an attitude of “tear it up and start again…” there WAS a future and it was ours. Along with the music there were the fanzines. One of the first in the UK was Sniffing Glue and I got hold of that, but soon every city with a music scene had their own fanzine taking this music and message out onto the streets…Except Coventry didn’t…. and it was already late 1978…. punk scene took a year or so to spread round the country and it was now Coventry’s turn. And we were starting to experience I would say the most exciting period of local music we have ever had. The Specials were just getting somewhere… there were a lot of local bands…the scene was starting but it really had no focus yet…I had some thoughts of becoming a musician. I had something to say. But I knew nothing about making music but I’d been doing art at college and I thought I could start a fanzine… yeah. That sounded like a good way to go. Early 1979 and I was talking with Dill, from Gods Toys, about it they were another band starting to get somewhere. We started on the idea together. It was good, as Dill knew a lot more of the local bands than I did at the time…and the first issue came together really quickly. I was taking the first issue round in February to the record shops and alternative bookshops and anywhere that would take it. We had started something!”.
The first 100 copies of Alternative Sounds sold out almost immediately, followed by a second print of 100. At last we had some information and pictures of the bands we had been following. Gig guides kept us up to date with the whereabouts of the next big thing. It was rough, and often the pictures wouldn’t have looked out of place in a “guess what it is” competition, but never the less it was ours. I personally appreciated it, as it was the publication that made me want to write about local music. And despite the fact that Two Tone was hitting big time, it was never allowed to overshadow other bands, The Specials were treated with just the right amount of respect, but never received any “Special” treatment.
The first issue we financed ourselves from our dole money”, reveals Martin, “God knows how we afforded to do that but kept selling them so we kept going back and photocopying more. I then heard about the Princes Trust. I applied and was duly awarded £100 to fund the fanzine! So this changed things and we started printing it properly from then onwards…with more pages and photos and we ran off 500 copies… eventually getting to 1000 copies at it’s peak in 1980.
Months later I was invited to a special event in Birmingham where Prince Charles came to meet recipients of his immense generosity. I went with my girlfriend at the time Julia, who had become involved after Dill left due to Gods Toys commitments. The press went mad” to quote the Clash! Well the local press and radio were calling us all the time for a week or two and running stories about the “Prince and the punk”!
“We survived. For most of its 18 issues it never made a penny. I remember when I finished doing it I had £100 left! It did a lot for Coventry and me than any money couldn’t. It got me for free into places like Tiffany’s and the Coventry theatre to interview bands like The Stranglers and Gary Numan and I got a lot of free records, but all the time I was unemployed, financially at least, as this had turned into a full time occupation and I always used to worry when I went to sign on or if there was a picture of me in the paper that I would get in trouble. We expanded what we were doing and started running a series of live events at the Old Zodiac pub (now a really useful car park..!) and I even contacted Cherry Red records about putting together an album of local bands…which eventually came out as the “Sent from Coventry” album…It included a special edition of the fanzine inside. I also started a short-lived series of cassette releases of local bands. Later on I was contacted by the BBC who were doing a series of programmes on local “youth culture” called “Something else”…each edition was based on a City and Coventry was going to be one…. I did a piece on running a fanzine, and even wrote a guide to doing one that you could pick up free from the BBC… I got Gods Toys on the show and Siouxsie and the Banshees and we spent a lot of time hanging out at the BBC watching the filming, doing voice-overs etc…. that was a “glamour” of sorts…I would love to get hold of a copy of that programme but it was from a time before anyone I knew even had a video recorder!”
I asked Martin what was the most rewarding thing about publishing Coventry’s first fanzine? I could talk about meeting famous people or getting free stuff but you now the real thing was that as a teenager, especially me and especially then, I felt like I had so many things to say. So much I thought was wrong with this “grown up” society I had just found myself in since leaving school. It made a difference to the Coventry music scene at the time, it helped it grow a lot and that I am very happy about that. I met someone a few years ago…he was on one of my courses at Tile Hill College … and he had been in a band that had got a bad review in a copy of Alternative sounds all those years ago and he was still angry about it over 20 years later! We laughed about it in the end
but it showed me what influence Alternative Sounds actually had!”
Alternative Sounds Trivia
For more Backbeat information go to www.covmusic.net
Contact Pete at backbeat@covmusic.net
You can hear Pete Chambers “Backtracking” every Friday at 3.00pm on
The Bob Brolly Show on BBC Coventry & Warwickshire.