Norris “Noz” Easterbrook

NORRIS “NOZ” EASTERBROOK

To the surprise of the folks at Record Collector, numerous Klubs fans responded to the mention of the band; they were even contacted by one of the original bandmembers, Norris “Noz” Easterbrook. Within months, Tenth Planet Records rushed a vinyl-only album called Midnight Love Cycle to market; the 1,000 discs in the pressing were nearly sold out when Record Collector justly named the record “Album of the Year” for 1999, ahead of releases that year of albums by much better known bands like Fleetwood Mac and Small Faces.

* * *

In 2003 and/or 2004, Phantom Import Distribution and then Wooden Hill Records put out a CD also called Midnight Love Cycle that included the tracks from the Midnight Love Cycle LP plus five songs from the 2000 concert by the Klubs at the Cavern Club; two of these live songs – “Train to Nowhere” and “A Simple Song” – were not among the 12 songs on the original LP. Rounding out the bonus tracks are four very nice post-Klubs songs: “Unknown” by Strife from 1972 (featuring John Reid), two songs called “We Will Always be Together” and “One Last Time” by the Lettermen (not the American band called the Lettermen, needless to say) that included Trevor Griffiths (also from 1972), and a 1999 demo of “I Wonder” by John Reid that featured Norris Easterbrook on bass.

* * *

The Klubs formed at the Birkenhead Institute for Boys, located in a borough called Wirral, which is across the Mersey River from Liverpool. Originally a band by the name of the Klubs was put together in just two days so that they could enter an R&B contest on the Isle of Man in September 1965 – and they actually won the contest.

By the end of the year, the line-up had settled into a sextet: Paddy Breen (vocals), Alan Walker (vocals, harmonica), Trevor Griffiths (lead guitar), John Reid (rhythm guitar), Norris Easterbrook (bass) and Kenny Marshall (drums). In the early years, they were a hard-driving rhythm and blues band that performed a lot of covers of Rolling Stones and Pretty Things songs.

* * *

Norris Easterbrook recalls that, after one gig, two New York kids enthusiastically approached him backstage while he was still in his make-up and girlfriend’s dress. He didn’t give the encounter much thought until several years later, when he saw the proto-punk band that had been formed by these two fans, New York Dolls in their first British television appearance. He immediately recognized the band’s guitarist from that meeting many years earlier: future punk stalwart Johnny Thunders who was all decked out in full drag-queen regalia.

* * *

The Klubs’ popularity had begun to decline by 1969, and the band eventually trimmed down to a power trio: John Reid (vocals, guitar), Paddy Breen (vocals, bass) and Peter Sinclair-Tidy (drums). They recorded two songs that year, a stripped-down version of “Can’t Ebenezer See My Mind?” plus “the Stripper”; neither was released, however. Both are also included on the Midnight Love Cycle CD and are quite good, though they suffer from production issues. Briefly called the Klubbs, they later performed as Warhog; Norris Easterbrook now calls the latter group “a heavy metal dirge band”.

* * *

(left to right: Trevor Griffiths, Pete Tidy, John Reid, Paddy Breen, Norris Easterbrook)

Anyway, word’s out now about the Klubs, even if no one has gotten around to putting anything in Wikipedia or Allmusic about them. The band has a website – http://www.theklubs.com/ – and they also have a listing on the online British Music Archive: http://www.britishmusicarchive.com/K/339-the-klubs .

(July 2013)