Nottingham punk era band GAFFA

Some members of Nottingham punk band GAFFA have recently visited the Leicester exhibition, and it has taken them back to the 70s. Here they share some of their band reviews and music links.

If you were in a band in Leicester, Nottingham or elsewhere, then please send in your photos and stories and we will happily publish them.

GAFFA Timeline Points/Press and Airwaves

From the start, Gaffa set the bar very high: their seminal impact on UK music came in the latter third of the last century when their first recorded work, ‘Normal Service Will Never Be Resumed’, made NME’s ‘EP of the Week’.

Their following album, three singles (on their own Gaffa ‘N’ Products label) and gigs gained great reviews across the music industry press.

Another key notch in the longevity stake came when Henrik Bech Poulson’s definitive 2005 new wave assessment ‘77 The Year of Punk & New Wave ‘placed them squarely in place with the great and good of that pioneering rock era.

Songwriting /Music

Gaffa’s song writing individuality comes through the Nottinghamian vocal style and incisive lyrics of frontman/bassistWayne Evans enfolded into music writing shared by guitarists Clive E Smith and John Maslen. Underpinned now by the committed stick power of drummer Pete Clark, latterly of Cherry Red artists C-Cat Trance, the compositional ‘beat’ goes on.

‘Beaks and Bones for Buttons’ song themes range from the inspirational times of the 1960s ‘, ‘The Beatles Went Weird’; through to the disquieting momentum of the current pandemonium, ‘The Glitch’; with still oases of human frailty, of loss and loneliness, ‘Middle Distance’, ‘My Dad’s Front Door Key’ and ‘When Mary Gets Back to England’.

Production Elements

Significant to the band has always been self- production with initially their own label ‘Gaffa-N-Products. ‘Beaks and Bones for Buttons’, continues this tradition: issued under their own steam and with guitarist Clive Smith’s highly-wrought design and packaging. It features production and instrumentation by Spiritualized’s mainstay guitarist and MD, Tony ‘Doggen’ Foster: long association with Tony has almost made him ‘the 5th gaffa’’.

Critical Response

Beaks and Bones for Buttons

“Over a musical lifetime, the best bands make what they do seem so easy, and the effortless charm and unflagging energy of ‘Beaks and Bones’ places it in a long tradition of homegrown voices, and to this listener at least, it is easy to imagine the four marvels of Gaffa pulling up a chair in rock and roll’s house of mavericks and rubbing shoulders with the likes of Ian Dury, Elvis Costello, the late Kevin Coyne and John Martyn. In these turbulent times, you should do yourself a favour and grab a copy of ‘Beaks and Bones’: eight polished gems from one of Nottingham’s greatest bands. “

Malcolm Heyhoe

former NME writer.

Gaffa’ are a Nottingham phenomenon…i pricked up my ears as soon as the album started…. the sonic quality, the quality of the playing, the originality of the music and lyrics….no sign of advanced years, they bristle with the same energy as in their heyday…. a band that definitely slipped through the cracks………..”

Bill Fay: singer/ songwriter Uk

(Dead Oceans records: USA )

“That said, the Imperial did have a bit of Liverpool’s Cavern Club about it. Nobody danced. I usually got there in time to get a chair with my mates but there’s be lots of people standing, too, as well as those who sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the stage, which was mostly what people did when gigs took place on dancefloors. The big back room held 300 but was often over-sold. The queue would stretch down the street, sometimes round the corner into the square. Admittance was 50p.”