A good year for the Roses?

This was The Piranha Bar in Central Square, Birmingham and on almost every Sunday for two years from September 1987 it was the home of The COD Club, a venue for live music from local (and not so) bands whose Birmingham/west mids fan-base was not likely to exceed 300 - this being the nominal capacity.

Most weeks we never got near that number and on the two occasions we did - The Wonder Stuff/Fuzzbox and Inspiral Carpets/Elizabeth Jane - it was a very tight squeeze. Generally the audience was below 150 but as with everything it is sometimes about the quality rather than the quantity and we had a regular crowd of around 15-20 people who became The COD Club family.

A lot of the detail has escaped me in the intervening years, the result of keeping an incomplete diary or not keeping a complete one. Consequently I have no idea why we chose that venue and how it came about - you can imagine the central Birmingham location had a large part to play but it was probably more important that the licensee gave it to us free of charge as long as we could pull an audience. Sometimes this was harder than it should've been.

I was initially dragged back into 'promoting' by a chap called Richard 'Dick' Scrase, he'd been working at Brum Beat (for whom I also wrote) and then moved to run another local publication. He was very keen. I'd previously promoted local acts - as a labour of love - at a pub called The Punchbowl which (unlike The Piranha) still exists at the bottom of the Wolverhampton Road in Quinton. There were some great bands in the area at that time - Kit Form Colossus, The Wardrobe, Pavlov's Dog - but it was always hard work.

The work eventually did for Dick, that and the fact that he chose to independently put on another gig one Sunday in Birmingham with Martin Stephenson and didn't see that it was a problem. Eventually I ended up running it by myself with the help of dedicated and unpaid friends like Kev and Lloyd (below in his guise of singer-songwriter) alongside the ever-smiling Rob and crusty-lothario Ian on the PA.

It was the assistance of another promoter, Dave Travis, who co-ran The Click Club at Burberries which led to the COD's most celebrated and remembered event. The story of Dave's legacy may be for another time but as we did Sundays he did Tuesdays, with Steve Coxon. further up the road on Broad Street. They had a larger capacity up there and he would occasionally put bands my way if they weren't 'big' enough for The Click. They had a similar back-story, being photographer and writer respectively prior to a very successful run as promoters and I'd frequent their nights as regularly (if not more so) than they would mine.

So it came to pass that on November 20th 1988 The COD Club hosted the debut Birmingham performance of soon-to-be Manchester legends, The Stone Roses. At the time they were on the cusp of greatness, Elephant Stone had either just been released or was about to be, they'd just performed a major show at the International in Manchester and they were rocking up to a disco bar on a cold Sunday in Birmingham.

In retrospect it's surprising that any 'out of town' bands didn't turn and run on sight of their surroundings, in the shadow of the alpha tower and the wind blowing tornado force as you loaded gear across the plaza with the bewildered old folks often queuing outside to get into a filming of Bullseye at Central TV next door. Perhaps they were just relieved to get indoors in spite of the horrifying décor.

I guess we were a friendly bunch, a sense of humour was compulsory and we were all putting in the effort - not in the understanding that we were part of something bigger (heaven forbid, a 'scene') but because we all believed in the music and that Birmingham needed a place to host great bands - the city had been haemorrhaging venues at that point and if we hadn't done it, who would?

I wish I was able to remember more of the gig, the songs played and the performance itself. This set list from the same tour will probably give an indication. I recall that they were good but with not a major sign of the status and brilliance they would achieve. Perhaps I was distracted, there was always something else to do - whether it was taking money on the door or putting on tracks between the acts.

Of the under-100 people present (83 paid at £2 a ticket) there were a fair number of people from the midlands music scene, people who were clearly more aware of the Roses' potential. The band themselves were paid £50 for the privilege, I suspect that when next year's 75,000 capacity Heaton Park gigs take place that fee will be suitably inflated. It may have been the last time they were paid so little money - maybe it explains why they didn't come back to Birmingham much.......

My major recollection of that night was of going to see them in the 'dressing room' to check if they were OK or needed anything. The term 'dressing room' is about as adequate as the concept of the 'stage' at Piranhas, it was anything but. In fact it was a cupboard that more often than not contained cleaning materials, a mop and bucket and various solvents. I add no joke here, it is not needed and I'm not exaggerating for comedic effect either.

I suspect I remember it as most bands rarely used it, being entirely unfit for purpose. The Stone Roses were all sitting in there though, cramped together, smoking. They seemed oblivious to it all and probably unaware of the year(s) they were about to have and how much they were on the cusp of greatness. They were in a cleaning cupboard though so it's hardly a surprise.

A year later the club was closed, a discovery I made at The Reading Festival when I literally bumped into the guy who ran the club upstairs from The Piranha. He told me the owner had gone into receivership and I should go in and get my gear back. Seven years later on the same site The Stone Roses would also call it quits, naturally unaware of the parallel and with a pronounced absence of mirror balls.