Radio Sussex Turn It Up Listener Charts 1987 – ‘Orsham Loses Its Beer Money
Turn It Up Listeners Chart
Listening to Turn It Up on 12th December 1989 is was something of a shock to find us joint third for the County.
Admittedly Sussex was not a hot bed of internationally successful recording artists, The Popguns and 14 Iced Bears were the bands ahead of us, but most of the other acts in the chart were what we’d consider ‘real’ bands as opposed us gentleman amateurs.
And given our incompetence at getting gigs I can only think it was the Radio appearances that did the trick where we were perhaps a little lighter in tone than some of the local groups.
It was also a rare placing for a Horsham band as usually Crawley represented the north of the County.
Interesting to note the dawn of The Levellers who were tenth in the Poll.
Some tunes from the top 10 acts are here.
Radio Sussex Turn It Up Interview
Having found out that the local music program had played us in recent weeks we made contact was made and we headed off to Brighton on a Sunday afternoon for the first of two interviews on the program at Marlborough Place.
The Gits (UK) – Radio Sussex Turn It Up Interview Part 1 (1989) [in BBQ]
The Gits (UK) – Radio Sussex Turn It Up Interview Part 2 (1989) [in BBQ]
A little about the interview, Turn It Up and Radio Sussex here.
We’ll have to thank Jimmy Young for the appearance as it was partly the out-take of him, amongst others, that were on the Chris Morris cassette that picked the interest of the shows presenters.
The Punter
Based on the release date of the Gits Chris Morris cassette and the review of the 14 Iced Bears album below it this appearance in the Brighton magazine The Punter was probably at the very end of 1988.
Mike Bradshaw, the reviewer, was a presenter (and engineer) of Radio Sussex’s Sunday evening local music program Turn It Up and can now be found at Totally Radio.
I never really got the Smiths comparison as the only thing I can think of in common was that Johnny Marr also liked Nils Lofgren. All my attempts to work out how to play their songs ended in dismal failure, which was actually a huge advantage of the pre-internet era when TAB books weren’t so common. You couldn’t easily just copy someone and had to develop your own style through trial and error, particularly if like me you were completely self taught.
They may have spoiled repeated listenings of the cassette but the clips between songs paid off yet again by catching peoples attention.
It would appear that it came as some surprise to The Gits.
This recording was made at the hub of Horsham’s alternative music scene, The Bear Public House, and is most likely from early January 1989. The first voice is Adrian De’Ath of No Geraniums & The Loveless with later accompaniment by Chris, Ben, Rob and Jim of The Gits.
In Local News…
Horsham / Crawley band Bitter are back on the gig scene with a new vocalist. The man on the keyboards Alan Stubbs said she was called Nicola but he couldn’t remember her last name.