Shouting from the Hop

Gary Crowley

Not everyone's cup of tea, but I really liked Gary, and we got one quite well. He followed Danny Baker into the receptionist's chair at the Carnaby Street offices, but whereas Dan could write very well, Gary, quite frankly, couldn't.

What Gary could do very well was talk, and talk and talk and talk for hours! About music, mainly, though he wasn't completely one dimensional.

When he started at NME, in about 1980 I would think, he had a very attractive girlfriend named Niamh (Irish spelling, pronounced Neve) Fahey. Maybe the thought of getting a job at the NME went to his head a little, but for some reason, he soon dumped her (in The Dog and Trumpet pub at the end of Carnaby Street, it's now an O'Neill's) one evening, for no apparent reason. I had walked in for a beer and a few games of pool and there she was in tears...shame. Niamh had a soon-to-be more-famous sister called Siobhan, who's group I went to see, thanks to Gary, a year or so later.

Gary loved The Jam, and was good friends with the band. Through Paul Weller's dad, John, who managed them, he arranged for NME to play a football match against them one summer evening, at the height of their popularity. The pitch we had was just the concrete and fenced off six-a-side space in Lower Hatfield, on the south bank not far from the River Thames, and near to Kings Reach Tower where I worked. It was to be a low-key event, or so we thought. Unbeknown to me, the music/showbiz page of the London Evening News had published a brief notice in the paper that night, saying that the game had been arranged, also giving the time and venue, and that The Jam would be playing.

We hadn't even booked the pitch (it wasn't something you could do at that time, it was whoever was on it kind-of owned it!); I went down after work at around 5.30, and started kicking a ball around on my own. A couple of other players then came down, and we messed around waiting for the band to arrive. It was getting busier though, and I was getting worried about being kicked off the pitch due to the sheer weight of the number of people who seemed to be hanging around - twenty or thirty by now. Eventually, one lad came up to me, and asked me "if the Jam were playing here tonight?" I told him yes, but he then confounded me by asking where the stage would be then? I slowly explained that they would only be playing football!

Getting enough players wasn't a problem, especially as we only needed six! Gary brought a few friends along, so we had about ten willing to play in the end. The Jam lads all turned up and we had such a crowd (I reckon a couple of hundred at least) watching us at kick off that some of the NME staff onlookers came inside the gates so they could see! We played about ten a side, mainly at walking pace.

We had a good game; Wendy got very jealous when Bruce Foxton put his arm around me and leant on me as she fancied him rotten! I think we won easily - 11-0 springs to mind, but it was fun! (I also seem to remember scoring from a shot the length of the pitch while The Jam changed their goalie!!! Sneaky I know!) We went to the pub after, but with the crowds and the autograph duties that the lads had willingly carried out, they thought best to shoot off quickly.

Gary also introduced me to Vaughan Toulouse, who was the singer with Department S. I went to see them a bunch of times, and they were really good live. They had a big hit with the anthemic "Is Vic There?", but never really made it after that. One gig of theirs that Gary gave me tickets to see had a support band featuring the sister of his ex-girlfriend. This was the debut gig of Bananarama , and I saw them! They sang three songs, to instrumental backing tracks, and they were OK! Another time, I went to see Dept S when they supported The Jam at a live BBC radio recording in Golders Green; the bad news was that the guitarist broke a string during the second song, broke a string on his spare guitar when they tried again and after that it just descended into chaos. They only had fifteen minutes to make it, live on radio, and blew it completely.

Another person that Gary introduced me too was the owner of a shop just around the corner from the NME offices. He too was just breaking into the music biz... I'd been over at the editorial offices working, and had to get back to the South Bank; Gary was off somewhere too (Parker Street I think) and asked if he could cadge a lift in my expenses paid-for cab. I said yes, but he said he just needed to pop in to see someone around the corner on our way. We walked out of Carnaby Street into Broadwick Street and Gary beckoned me to follow him into a shop. There stood a tall man, with very long hair, wearing (relatively) lots of make up. The shop was busy so we went back out into the street to talk and Gary introduced me to the man - "Pedro45," he said "This is George. George, meet Pedro45". That'd be Boy George then! And he was a complete gentleman! (A girl - Karla - back at the advert offices was madly badly in love with George O'Dowd at that time and when I told her I'd just met him she couldn't stop "touching" herself there and then - absolute truth!) At this time, he had released White Boy, his first single, but it was a couple of weeks before Do You Really Want To Hurt Me came out and the fame that went with it.

By now, Gary was on his way out of NME; I think he worked for a PR company initially once he left. He also picked up work on one of the Saturday morning teenager TV shows that replaced TISWAS. His motor-mouth style suited well but he didn't enjoy it much, and he got sacked for allowing his mate Vaughan from Dept S to say "Bollocks" on live TV (Gary - "What do you think of the show Vaughan?" "It's Bollocks Gary!").

Subsequently, he has made a good name and healthy career out of radio, and is currently at BBC Radio London 94.9 FM.

Nick Kent

I never liked him, and I didn't really ever have anything to do with Mr Kent - he wrote, didn't come along to the printers, so we had little contact. He always wore his leathers - jacket and trousers, whatever the weather, and looked awful much of the time with an omnipresent fag in his hand.

I only include him because he is the only person in my whole life that I have crossed the road to avoid! I was walking down Stamford Street one afternoon and saw him coming toward me; I didn't even want to acknowledge him, so I crossed the road, carried on walking until I was passed him, then crossed back...

David Swift

One guy that worked in the art room at NME for a few months was a tall Kiwi called Dave Swift. He is most famous for being the drummer with Razorcuts, a decent but short-lived band who had a minor hit single with Storyteller.

Dave tried hard at everything, but couldn't quite reach any summit he aimed for. He told us he could play football, and as we were in a five-a-side music business league during 1984/5 we got him along to play. The bad news was he turned up with no trainers, the match was on concrete and he couldn't turn or stop when he ran in his leather day shoes. He gave away a penalty in his first match for running into the goalies area (not allowed in 5-a-side) so was subbed at half time; we scraped a draw I think. He didn't play for us again and left NME soon afterwards.