The Velvetones: The Story Behind "Skinhead Girl"

You may remember this video:



Just over a year ago I was able to exchange emails with Mike Montez of the Velvetones. I then edited them down to one continuous interview.
Then I lost it.

Today I found it.


His real name is Mike O'Brien and he is still involved in music on occasion as you see by his version of House of Fun which was performed under the name LEGENDS OF POP





In his own words:

In the mid 1980s, whilst I was in the Velvetones, I worked in a place called "The Warren" in Hull. It was then labeled as "a drop-in centre for the young unemployed". It still exists and now boasts loads of facilities including its own recording studio (see Warren Records).

In those days I ran an art area with a darkroom and stuff. Often the room would just get full of lads just wanting to compare tattoos and play loud music. One afternoon this lad came in with close cropped hair, an armful of ink and an album by a band called the Oppressed. On that album was a track called Skinhead Girl.
This lad was really into the song. He played it to me four or five times that afternoon.

As a result, the chorus got stuck in my head, and that night at a Velvetones rehearsal, I sang it to the rest of the lads. I was all for getting a tape of it and getting the band to learn it, but they were not keen on doing a straight cover of an Oi! song. Dave Rotheray (of Beautiful South fame) said something along the lines of "you could write something much better anyway", so I took up the challenge and wrote my own lyrics, some of it was from bits I could remember of the original lyrics and tune, and I made the rest up. I never heard the Oppressed version again until
I looked it up on the net a couple of years ago.

Keith (of the saxophone) wrote the sax tag, and Dave and the band put the backing sound together around my song.

It quickly became a favourite at gigs, we would save it until the end, or do it as an encore.
The audience used to dance and sing along.

Mike was married last year and he performed Skinhead Girl at his wedding.

The new version was done by someone at this website...http://www.mycustomtracks.com
It took him a bit longer than he said it would, but when I pleaded a wedding party to him, he responded with a big effort, and got it to me with a week to learn... But once I got into it.
It was surprising how soon I got the hang... it all came flooding back.

Not got any video or audio of me singing it as yet.. but you never know. If you want to post the backing track on your site, feel free. It would be fun to think of other people having a go, and there's no copyright problems. I bought it from that website with all rights.

"Skinhead Girl (karaoke version)"


Lyrics:

There she goes, just walking down the High Street
Marten boots and short cropped hair
How I wish she was walking down my street
How my heart would bleed to see her there
Then she'd be my skinhead girl...

She smokes Marlboro fags from a battered tattered packet
Once she pressed one into my grimy fist
How I wish she'd write my name on the back of her jacket
And wear my cheap tin bracelet on her wrist
Then she'd be my skinhead girl...

Then I saw her one Saturday night at the pictures in the cheap stalls
She was kissing with a biker and it made my toes all curl
And I felt the tears well up in my big tough eyeballs
As I realised she would never be my girl...

(hold on... who's this coming up the Old Kent Road?)

There goes another one, just walking down the high street
Same old Marten boots and short cropped hair
How I wish upon wish upon wish that she was walking down my street
How my heart would bleed to see her there
Then she'd be my Skinhead girl...

I did the lyrics for all the Velvetones stuff. Believe it or not I was (and still am) a big fan of
the group Sparks. I loved the way Ron Mael turned out his lyrics, and tried to emulate him for original
subject material and quirky humour. I reckon my stuff was often a bit more romantic leaning than his
(I was young) and as far as I know sparks never covered any Oi! (but there is a rare track called "We are the Clash" that was released on a magazine cover a few years back). My personal favourite velvetones lyric was "Tweedledum" because I felt it got closest to Ron Mael quality.

The idea for much of the lyrics and tune of "How can I lose the Velvetones" and a fair bit of "Montez is Dying" (and indeed the idea for much of the Montez/Velvetones personality) came through listening to a 1930s band called Nat Gonella and the Georgians, in particular a track called "Old Man Mose". Just looked it up... found the lyrics but no track...
Its been a while since I heard it. Meanwhile: Here's a version by Betty Hutton.


(It was apparently banned in the 30s because of the risk of listeners mishearing the word "Bucket" - or maybe that was this version by Eddy Duchin


Talking about original lyrics. My mate Eddie of that other Crap Hull band (ironic self abasement is an endearing quality of the best people in East Yorkshire - big heads can bugger off to London!) the Gargoyles, wrote some marvelous stuff in addition to "Ferry Across the Humber". None of it was Tone and Wave type material, but I will make some available to you for your listening pleasure. They had two albums out. I have transferred one to mp3s and have a few tracks from the other, but will get the rest done at some time in the near future. Hoping that I will be joining them in some capacity later this month. Will see what
happens, there will probably be a live recording I imagine.

At the wedding there was some talk of forming a "Crap Hull bands of the 1980s supergroup" - It would be just like Cream... only crap and from Hull! To do stuff by the Gargoyles, Pink noise and the Velvetones as well as some choice selections from other bands, some of which would be only half remembered and may need my ability to re-imagine the lyrics. Unfortunately I live some distance from Hull and am a bit of a lazy sod, but i really fancy that idea and would love to give it a go.

The Velvetones original lineup will never happen. Too many milions were made in the Beautiful South to make it a worthwhile proposition for Rotheray, who has lost touch with all his old buddies. Hemingway who still trades under the name of "the New Beautiful South" - I could imagine him having ago for a lark, but I only see him about once every four years. The other lads... I have lost touch with, I suppose they might have a go for a one off if the opportunity (might see them at a CHULLBOT1980s gig). If I could get other musicians to play the songs...
I would love it! but I can't see it happening.

The Velvetones must have been together for around three or four years. around 1984 to 1988. By '88 Dave Hemmingway had already left to replace Hugh in the Housemartins, and when they split, Dave Rotheray joined him and Paul Heaton in the fledgling Beautiful South.

I could and probably should have put a bit more effort into the band, the two Daves were really keen on success and earned it. I really just wanted a laugh and a hobby. Now I am envious of all my friends who have continued with music and managed to survive by being musicians. There are a few of them, most of whom survive quite well with gigs, the occasional recording and having a good time without being famous. Hugh Whittaker himself is a real role model. He played drums occasionally for the Velvetones and more regularly for the Gargoyles, before achieving fame with the Housemartins and promptly retiring when the band were at their peak, but still gets by playing the drums in all manner of bands including, hopefully, the Gargoyles in their latest reunion gig.

If I had been more serious, and worked a bit harder, we may feasably have made some real releases.
Our earliest demo tape was "Red Roger/Ice cold Joe, "not what our record company is looking for at the moment but best wishes for the future..." Skinhead girl was always very popular and might have made a good single. If not for the Beautiful South bursting onto the scene, then we may have put more effort into promoting "Beautiful mams" and "Tweedledum" They were probably the last two songs we wrote together and I felt that we were moving in a good direction. But then maybe we had overstayed our welcome in the places that we played. We didn't really write too many songs and didn't change the set enough over those 3-4 years. But what the Hell. We had some good times, and it has been nice to remember them as I have composed this e-mail. (probably my longest email ever!)


I asked some more questions in the next email:



How is it that a band with no actual releases gets around to making a video?
What was the story behind the opening and closing scenes?
What is the Church of the Divine Magnet?

Back to the art room at the Warren and a guy whose name escapes me (to my shame) He used to come in and help me with my then obsession of taking apart old radios and cassette players and tarting them up with paint and mad wiring and stuff. (I knew nothing about the electronics but thought they looked better with the circut boards on the outside and a touch of spraypaint. He knew all about electronics and stuff like that. He even offered to wire my parents house for cable free of charge, but my dad wouldn't allow it!
Anyway, he got really interested in the fairly new art of video, and went to do a media course at college.
He needed to make a video for some assignment and offered to do one featuring the Velvetones and the Gargoyles.

We did "Skinhead Girl" as you know, and the Gargoyles did one called "The Magnificent Church" which was a
single off their second album "Steamflapper".
The song was based on the idea of the Hippie Convoy, which me and Eddie had joined briefly as it organised a rock festival down south somewhere. The Chorus went "A Church so big and daft and mighty - Do what you wanna -
to be a mamber of this church boys - is indeed an honour" The whole video was called "The Magnificent Church", The Church of the Divine magnet being the church in question.
As to the storyline. I haven't got a clue. We made it up as we went along. We found an abandoned housing estate
and had that in at the beginning. The police bit filled some obligation to involve some official organization for the lad's video assignment. I can't remember a thing about the cinema. I think that it may have been a mock up in one of his lecture theatres.

Who was on the other side of the doors during the pamphlet scene?
That would have been Ted. Then, as now, a shameless self-publicist.


Who was the skinhead girl?
I can't remeber who the main skinhead girl was. but the one at the end was Sharon. Now Sharon Clay, wife of Nick "Crap Hull bands of the 1980's" Clay.


Any anecdotes about the filming of the video? (At the end there some of the passers-by seemed like they knew
something was going on and they didn't want to be bothered while others seemed unaware that anything was going
on at all)
Really, honestly, I can hardly remember a thing about any of it. Like most of my youth, it is all a collection
of vague memories. Eddie made me laugh in the police station when a woman copper introduced herself "Hello I'm WPC Yvonne Smart" or something. Eddie said "Oh really? I thought that you were WPC Pepper Anderson". (who was from a 1970s TV series called "Police Woman"). No -one lauged at the time (Embarrassment and scared of what Pepper might do - she did nothing) ) but I recently told Eddie about it and he said that
he thought that no-one had found it funny and wondered if anyone had actually heard.

Did you ever do any acting outside of this? You seemed to have taken to it like a natural. Looking absolutely
crushed while curling your toes. Pure comedy.
Wish I could say I had, but no. One of these days.. I Was talking to someone the other day about my long held ambition to work in a museum, playing a historical character for kids (I had a mate who was once Robert Stevenson - of rocket fame in a museum in London) Apparently the term is "Costumed Interpreter"


Download the unreleased Velvetones "album" as well as House of Fun, Skinhead Girl karaoke version, and this full interview.
http://www.mediafire.com/?3apqeo3vcjra4nw


The Gargoyles album "Mrs. Two Dinners" can be found here:
http://napomm.blogspot.com/2010/01/gargoyles-mrs-two-dinners.html