The Flowers of Romance
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The Flowers of Romance - A Punk Rock Celebration!!!
Nick Sheppard - Guitar / Vocals
Tom Fisher - Bass
Mitch Benson - Drums
Williams Stoker - Vocals
Pistols, Clash, Damned, Ramones etc. etc. - an appreciation of the 50 year anniversary of Punk.
Fifty years ago (!!!) Something truly life changing happened to me…
The summer of 1976 in the UK is legendary for its record-breaking heatwave and severe 16-week drought, lasting continuously from late May through August. Water shortages, crop failures, political upheaval - you name it.
But none of that mattered to me at 16 - I just felt the world I lived in relax, open up and breath. The heat brought people out onto the streets, into the world, and thawed the normal, stifling great British reserve…
I was out of school for the summer holidays, which stretched before me for what seemed like an eternity. I had a band, a girlfriend, a bit of money from my paper round, and time. Lots of time. It was marvellous!
The band I was in was called The Cortinas; named after a crappy Ford car. We played speeded up versions of Chuck Berry songs to confused Hippies at free festivals. We listened to, and covered songs from, Five Live Yardbirds, The Nuggets compilation and bands like Dr Feelgood. We were ripe for the picking…
Something else was happening though. All around the world kids were picking up guitars and making noise that was short and fast and loud. We were hearing this noise, and we were starting to see that there was a way forward… our hair was already short and our trousers straight; but where to now?
And then half way through this incredible heatwave, on July 4th 1976, some of us went up to London, stayed at my girlfriends Grandmothers flat in Pinner, and went to see The Ramones play at The Roundhouse in Camden Town. And right then and there, my future was re-written!
To see this power, anger, violence even, in the flesh was for me truly life changing! The Ramones were hip, clever, cool and incredibly exciting. And they wrote their own songs!!!
And - when I looked around at the audience in the room, I could see more than a few of the crowd looked like us - coming from a sleepy provincial town called Bristol, this was a big deal. We realised we were part of something. Something new…
In the 50 years that have passed since that night, a lot has changed, in my and all of our lives, but that feeling, that light bulb realisation and resolve has never left me.
So here we are. Half the world away. Fifty years later. And I want to mark this moment. I want to acknowledge that 16 year old kid and the music that changed the course of his life. So - I’ve gathered up three other misfits that somewhere along their journey have experienced a similar feeling and taken a sharp left turn, and we are going to dive back down into the basement and celebrate the life affirming power of…
PUNK ROCK!
THE FLOWERS OF ROMACE - JULY 4TH 2026 - RODNEYS BAIT AND TACKLE.
Nick Sheppard - Guitar / Vocals
Tom Fisher - Bass
Mitch Benson - Drums
Williams Stoker - Vocals
Pistols, Clash, Damned, Ramones etc. etc. - an appreciation of the 50 year anniversary of Punk.
Fifty years ago (!!!) Something truly life changing happened to me…
The summer of 1976 in the UK is legendary for its record-breaking heatwave and severe 16-week drought, lasting continuously from late May through August. Water shortages, crop failures, political upheaval - you name it.
But none of that mattered to me at 16 - I just felt the world I lived in relax, open up and breath. The heat brought people out onto the streets, into the world, and thawed the normal, stifling great British reserve…
I was out of school for the summer holidays, which stretched before me for what seemed like an eternity. I had a band, a girlfriend, a bit of money from my paper round, and time. Lots of time. It was marvellous!
The band I was in was called The Cortinas; named after a crappy Ford car. We played speeded up versions of Chuck Berry songs to confused Hippies at free festivals. We listened to, and covered songs from, Five Live Yardbirds, The Nuggets compilation and bands like Dr Feelgood. We were ripe for the picking…
Something else was happening though. All around the world kids were picking up guitars and making noise that was short and fast and loud. We were hearing this noise, and we were starting to see that there was a way forward… our hair was already short and our trousers straight; but where to now?
And then half way through this incredible heatwave, on July 4th 1976, some of us went up to London, stayed at my girlfriends Grandmothers flat in Pinner, and went to see The Ramones play at The Roundhouse in Camden Town. And right then and there, my future was re-written!
To see this power, anger, violence even, in the flesh was for me truly life changing! The Ramones were hip, clever, cool and incredibly exciting. And they wrote their own songs!!!
And - when I looked around at the audience in the room, I could see more than a few of the crowd looked like us - coming from a sleepy provincial town called Bristol, this was a big deal. We realised we were part of something. Something new…
In the 50 years that have passed since that night, a lot has changed, in my and all of our lives, but that feeling, that light bulb realisation and resolve has never left me.
So here we are. Half the world away. Fifty years later. And I want to mark this moment. I want to acknowledge that 16 year old kid and the music that changed the course of his life. So - I’ve gathered up three other misfits that somewhere along their journey have experienced a similar feeling and taken a sharp left turn, and we are going to dive back down into the basement and celebrate the life affirming power of…
PUNK ROCK!
THE FLOWERS OF ROMACE - JULY 4TH 2026 - RODNEYS BAIT AND TACKLE.
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Where is it happening?
Rodney's Bait n Tackle, 598 Stirling Hwy, Mosman Park WA 6012, Australia, Fremantle
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