Sunday 18 March 2018

Let's Do Rocksteady-Nicky Summers The Bodysnatchers/2Tone



Let’s do Rocksteady was our take on Dandy Livingstone’s People Get Ready-  Let’s do Rocksteady first released in 1969. 
We played it at a  faster pace than the original  and 2Tone/ Chrysalis wanted it for the first single though some of us were discussing whether to release The Boiler. However the powers that be in 2Tone/ Chrysalis felt The Boiler was too challenging for the public  so against our feeling and the fact that The Boiler was self-penned and not a cover  we agreed to record Let’s Do Rocksteady.
I / we had no say whatsoever in the recording or production of this song . I recall it took 26 takes as we were encouraged to constantly speed up our playing and to play it tighter than we were used to . It was also mixed to sound as commercial as possible and ’ good ‘ on the radio, I feel already losing credibility or authenticity .
However I am genuinely complemented and slightly taken aback when I hear recent ska bands cover The Bodysnatchers' version .

Thursday 28 December 2017

The Boiler

The Boiler.

Bodysnatchers songs came about with the music first . We would generally collaborate and  jam on pieces of music or someone would have a few chords, bass line , or keyboard line . Rhoda would then be inspired by our musical output and put the  lyrics to it. She would listen to us play in rehearsals and write while we played.

The Boiler - we used to jam around a 1960's sounding keyboard riff and gradually this piece of music grew . I remember coming out of Gaz Mayall's club , Gaz’ Rockin’  Blues,  one night and asking Rhoda to put lyrics to it. She came along to the next rehearsal and improvised over the music an experience of a rape.

The song title was called this because the manager of the Nips , a guy called Howard used to refer to women as ‘Boilers’  ..I think we were being ironic when we called the song that .

The audience reaction …generally stunned silence ..they didn’t used to even clap hardly after we played it , but they were always definitely transfixed by the song .

Jerry Dammers did a different treatment of the song and I re-wrote the bass line when we recorded it with Rhoda and the Special AKA .

I like both versions of the song , The Bodysnatchers version was more of a 60’s r and b thrash. It was powerful to play live , it is a challenging song for any audience , I think more powerful live than Dammer’s version which is manicured with production . 
The song itself had to be written, played and recorded  . I am glad and proud to have been part of it .

cc.  Nicky Summers
Rocksteady not Ska …


I didn’t want a ska band .I did not consciously form one .I was looking for some sort of musical hybrid of punk, reggae, bluebeat , girl groups ,Motown  etc …but that is just how we played , it came out to be a modern take on Rocksteady , we were new to playing so it came out slower…I have learnt from art that a piece does not always work out according to one’s intention . I am happy with the sound of  the Bodysnatchers ,  In context of the time and with hindsight we were a good band .  

cc. Nicky Summers

Girls in Audience, Girls in Bands

Girls in Audience, Girls in Bands  .

It was great to have girls in the audience from different backgrounds, it meant in a way that we had reached out and inspired young women , in a way to do something more with their lives , to take action for themselves.

I always think that when you are in a band that has some success that you have some sort of influence. even subtle, on the public , and I always think , what message to give ?, especially to young women . To be in a band is to maybe acquire a certain role... so what would you do with it  ? What is the best way  ?, how do you want to encourage, support and inspire other  women ?  to be independent , confident in themselves , creative , start initiatives , be more respectful of their gender ?

Also at that time there were very few all girl groups ( that were not stage managed by men /heavy management ) , since punk a few were emerging -  The Slits , Mo-dettes , and girl singers in punk groups,  Polystyrene in X Ray Spex and Pauline Murray from Penetration . These young women really inspired me and in turn I hope the Bodsynatchers could /can inspire women also . 

The thing about those times also was there was a different take on female style ,ie you could wear a binbag or have spiked hair , there was a different take on ‘femininity  and appearance and image …you were not dressing for men ,  it was always about creativity and expression , and what ideas were going on …and the guys at the time supported you in that.

I am disappointed nowadays that in the last 10 years women seem to be  tremendously limited in the mainstream as to their appearance , almost obsessed with ultra grooming as a kind of pastiche or augmented type of femininity as if to be feminine meant only one thing and everyone's visual appearance is similar and manciured/curated by  what they have been told to wear or what they should look like  by the media or peer group . 

It has never occurred to me that I had to take my clothes off  to make music.


cc Nicky Summers


Easy Life/ Too Experienced

The thing with Easy Life / Too Experienced ...
......was that it was put out as a double A side , with Easy Life being AA and Too Experienced  as the A side , consequently Easy Life got more publicity and radio play , but for me I always preferred Too Experience . Easy Life was received well because of its feminist lyric.



Jerry Dammers produced them both .  A couple of weeks after we had recorded them  he became fixated about the timing on Too Experienced and rebooked a studio for the weekend to add a tambourine (on the offbeat ). I recall he , Jane and I in the studio recording over the track , the other members of the band and gone off to the launderette.  Jerry ended up playing the tambourine himself, just ahead of the offbeat to speed up the song a fraction .

 Later I remember hearing Too Experienced for the first time on acetate , it was the closest thing to the original sound I had always had in my head for the band , I think Jerry did a great production on it . When it was reviewed in the NME they wrote that we sounded like a cross between PIL and the Supremes, recorded in an aircraft hanger. I think that was the coolest compliment . 

cc Nicky Summers

The Bodysnatchers

Nicky Summers The Bodysnatchers
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                                      The Bodysnatchers 

          Early Days and Anecdotes by Nicky Summers

I had been wanting to be involved with music since I was about 13 but frankly had no idea how to go about it .
In those days few people formed bands , and rarely did girls play electric guitars. In the early 70’s from around 12 and a half onwards , I had been into Marc Bolan and  David Bowie , then Lou Reed ( as Bowie produced Lou Reed’s album Transformer so those of us into Bowie were all intrigued to buy it ) and also from there The Velvet Underground . I also listened to Motown, Stax , Bluebeat and 60's girl groups and 1950's R and B .  I started seeing bands from quite a young age and saw David Bowie perform several times including all 4 nights of his final shows at Hammermith Odean in 1973. I have also seen Roxy Music ,the Rolling Stones and Mott the Hoople being supported by a then unknown Queen ( I remember thinking the singer had a good voice !) I was also always interested in lyrical content and although not a lyricist myself,  have always been drawn to artists who were lyrically meaningful such as Bob Dylan , Nina Simone and Van Morrison and from my own generation punk bands who had something to say socially.

The 70’s I remember was a ‘dark period ‘ musically and culturally .I wore 1930’s dresses from charity shops and Biba make up, (but I was very young , around 13).

Later , During the mid to late 70’s, teenagers, or anyone who questioned anything , were  actually tremendously bored by the musical output at the time .and we were bored socially as to what to do . It was either novelty bands or long haired relics from the sixties , playing prog rock , which still to this day does not appeal to me .
There were, I think ,only 2 or 3  channels on TV , no technology and no way of communicating  with others outside of your social group . News travelled slowly as there was no internet or social media .  However the music press such as the NME provided a weekly lifeline reviewing live bands and musical output , even for small bands who were just starting out . You didn't have to be a massive band or have a great following to get yourself a gig in those days , and frequently  pubs  hired out back rooms for gigs , and there were plenty of small clubs around in most towns.

I felt I was desperate for something incredible to happen and in early 76 you could almost sense it in the air, the restlessness of a generation.

I got into punk by accident in the autumn of 1976..The Sex Pistols had appeared on the Bill Grundy TV show …I didn’t watch it as I wasn’t into Bill Grundy ,but the next day it made front  page news  and people were talking about it at school …coming home from school  people in the street were calling me a ‘punk’….due to my dress sense and the way I had ‘doctored ‘ my school uniform in general …I had my hair in a crew cut, cut by a Soho barber , a knife pleat skirt and plastic sandals ...I think I was around 17 ….so as I was being referred to as a ‘punk’ in the street  I decided to check out some of the bands thinking the whole scene  might be something I might be into  .

 I remember the first band I saw was The Damned (late 76)..can’t remember where ..and I also went to the Roxy club a few times . I  had the great opportunity to see many bands including The Clash ( several times) Damned , Buzzcocks, Subway Sect ,John Cooper Clarke ,  X Ray Spex , Penetration , The Jam , and  The Slits .  I saw the Slits 2 or 3  times and found them really inspiring as they were female and challenged the general ethos of what being in a band and making music was about and for me , being a female member of  the audience, ..it was a different thing than watching a male band . 

The list of bands I saw in punk days  is endless . in London at the time you could go out every evening and there would be always be several bands playing , not necessarily well known , but there was always live music on . We would buy the NME and Sounds papers and read the listings to see who was playing that week .
 You could buy a beer and see a band for £2 a night !

The thing about Punk is that it gave a sense of empowerment to a young generation initially through music and subsequently art , fashion  film etc. Punk opened the doors for the future and the next decade. It kicked out the stale , dead stuff that  had to go. 

I saw the Clash on their White Riot tour supported by the Slits and later on in  1978 ( I think) the Clash did four nights at Camden Music Machine and I went to all four nights . For two of those nights they were supported by a band called The Special Aka who I thought were ‘interesting ‘, a bit art school to be honest .

                                                             Punk Days around 77-78

 Later in late 78/early 79 the music scene in London at least, was changing, and although still inspired by the ethos of punk I had moved on from it  .

 Around this time I purchased my first bass guitar. I chose bass because though I wanted to make music as part of a group I had no desire to be centre stage , so I thought bass guitar would suffice ,I was also intrigued by melodic bass lines and inspired by reggae bass rhythms.
 The first one I bought randomly while passing a guitar shop on Shaftsbury Avenue . I picked one off the wall , couldn't play it and asked the guy behind the counter to play it for me . 
It sounded ok so I bought it . 30 quid. 

I  rehearsed with a punk outfit but we had never gigged and I was looking to put an all girl group together .I was inspired by punk , reggae / dub , Motown, Bluebeat, 1950’s r ‘n’ b and Stax , 60’s girl groups and singers such as Aretha Franklin and Nina Simone,  but it was quite difficult to get together.


I was listening to Reggae more at this time  mainly dub such as Joe Gibbs’  Majestic Dub and African Dub , U Roy, Augustus Pablo and slower paced rocksteady as well as some early bluebeat and ska such as Don Drummond who I believe was way ahead of his time. I worked in Rupert St market in Soho and opposite was a record shop, now defunct, known as Cheapo Cheapo records that was filled with albums passed on by the nearby record companies and music journalists. The owner Phil would let me ‘borrow’ records , listen to them and if didn’t like them I could return them to him , I was able to be exposed to a lot of music this way and heard some rare sounds and short lived bands who never made the main stream .

Soho was different in those days, more like a small, multi ethnic community where everyone knew and supported each other , rather than the over crowded tourist affair it is today. 
There was a combination of sex shops, French and Italian delicatessens , two streetmarkets, an independent clothes shop run up by St.Martins students , a tiny kids primary school (!) a fantastic newsagent that sold every paper and magazine in the world and The Marquee and Ronnie Scott's jazz club. 
Gerard St ( China Town) had yet to be pedestrianised and at the east end of it was a large tenement block , virtually a slum filled with families from Hong Kong , in front of it was a rough unpaved patch known as Soho market where there was a record stall  where Shane Macgowan worked . Shane and I and a few other people such as singer Vaughn Toulouse and manager Howard Cohen used to meet up after work and go to gigs around London together.


If I have one regret it is not photographing Soho to capture it at that time . 


 In the meantime  a band called the Specials put  a few gigs on in London, the first was at the Hope and Anchor in Islington. Thinking they were the band I ‘d seen supporting the Clash previously, my friends and I went to check them out and they had really transformed into  an amazing live band- blew themselves off stage really and I went to all of their London gigs  one of which was the Moonlight. 

Apart from their music and animated performance I was also inspired by the ethos and ideas behind The Specials with relation to both black and white musicians and artists working together. I saw this as a positive direction forward both musically and socially.

Around that time I met up with Jane Summers ( no relation ) who played drums and had come up to London from Portsmouth to join a band . I met  her on the platform of  Highbury and Islington tube  and she was wearing a fake leopard skin coat and bright red lips and looked like a young Shirley Maclaine, she moved in and slept on my floor with her drum kit and stash of NME's, and the rest of the Bodysnatchers came together in  late summer 79. I  did place a few ads in the music press for band members , (as my girlfriends at the time didn’t seem to get it together to come to rehearsals or find instruments to play)….in the NME and Sounds..(not Melody Maker which in those days was for old fogeys and was anti punk).

My criteria to join the band seemed to be that you turned up regularly to rehearse with a musical instrument . Sarah- Jane and Stella joined via the music press ads , and Penny was  studying life drawing at Central St. Martins and she saw an ad we had put on the notice board there , Miranda was still at school and had acquired an ancient sax . We began rehearsing in earnest at some rehearsal rooms in Royal College St ,Camden .

Rhoda was the last to join us .I met her at a gig in Fulham and I was intrigued by her image
  ( and beehive !)  and asked  mutual friend Shane Macgowan  to introduce us.

The Bodysnatchers
The Bodysnatchers L-R Jane Summers, Nicky Summers, Rhoda Dakar, Penny Leyton, Stella Barker ,Miranda Joyce, Sarah Jane Owen.


We rehearsed for about 7 weeks and in November 79 did our first gig supporting Shane’s band the Nips at the Windsor Castle pub along the Harrow Road . It was for us a try out gig and we were fairly ramshackle , we were having a laugh. We were booked for two consecutive Saturday evenings and the pub was packed .Just about everyone turned up including  Gaz Mayall who was a friend of the band , Pauline Black from the Selector  and Jerry Dammers. Richard Branson was also there running around shrieking had anyone signed us yet .
I recall we always ended our set with  Booker T and the MG's ' Time is Tight' - our playing was so loose this number always fell apart - it was an anarchic version , when we improved our
 playing and tightened up, audience members were disappointed though we were more musically competent and improved with every performance .






After this we would gig fairly regularly around London including Debbie Harry's birthday bash organised by Chrysalis . We were offered several recording deals , one great offer from Richard Branson to record in the Stax studios in Memphis....  in early January we were offered a deal by 2Tone for two singles and the opportunity to go on tour with the Selector , as a band we would vote on important decisions and the winning vote went to 2Tone.
For roughly a year we toured consistently in Britain and Ireland and had the opportunity to support great bands such as  Madness and Toots and the Maytals as well as supporting The Specials on the Seaside Tour in the summer of 1980 alongside the Go-Go's. 



 We rarely had time off and I remember I wanted us all to take a break and write some new material, experiment more , but some members of the band were afraid we might lose the momentum we had achieved . We had signed to 2Tone but it seemed we were managed by Chrysalis ( the record company 2Tone was affiliated to ) who, for my part appeared to wish to market us as a pop girl band and for me I felt I was losing my original intention of why I had formed the band from a creative ( and social )point of view .

I felt there was a lot of pressure on us to 'perform' ,keep up a certain image, and churn out chart hits. We were not given space to develop. After one interview for a magazine I was reproved by a rep from Chrysalis for not wearing a short skirt (I was in jeans) .

 It wasn't what I'd signed up for .

About half way through 1980 several of the band were unhappy with Jane's drumming and voted her out of the band one evening .  I felt it was a great loss as we were good mates and I had always been happy with Jane's drumming and input in the band , though earlier in the year we had Sex Pistol Paul Cook  come to a few rehearsals to offer drumming tips .
We auditioned many drummers and a couple of months later were joined by Judy Parsons , who was a sharp drummer and good natured personality who fitted in well . But there was now occasional dissent in the group and tension between members who were falling into different camps.

Later during the year, around October 1980, during a sound check ,I recall, in Manchester (it was raining !) , a couple of band members fell out and it appeared to be irreconcilable differences . The band split up and we booked a farewell concert at Camden Music Machine in November 1979 exactly a year after our first gig .

Contrary to what has been published elsewhere I was not kicked out of my own band !  I was not  personally involved in any argument and found myself caught between Rhoda, who I understood had starting occasionally  singing with the Specials ( which I think destabilised The Bodysnatchers )  and the band members who became the Belle Stars who had different musical inclinations. There were several scenes, arguments and debates and after it all  I  decided to work with Rhoda ,and with her and Jerry Dammers, John Shipley ( guitar ) and Dick Cuthell ( trumpet), recorded a version of The Boiler , by what was then known as The Special AKA.

After making this recording I thought long and hard about what I should do with my life .
I realised I had spent about 4 years hanging out on the music scene and spending most of my time in clubs or recording studios and decided I wanted to see more of the world . I was still very young , about 22 . I played with a few bands briefly but over the next few years put more energy into travel , holistic healing , painting and photography - went to Art School ( Chelsea) and became a Buddhist . 
In 1986 I officially joined the Nichiren Buddhist group SGI-UK. 
I have chanted the mantra Nam-Myoho- Renge-Kyo ( The title of the Lotus Sutra ) daily ever since and it has answered all my questions about life and more, revealing the potential for personal happiness and world peace .  
Thank you so much for your interest and for reading !


                    Recent photo of me outside Taplow Court Buddhist Centre, Taplow , Berkshire.


                                                                       The Bodysnatchers

The Bodysnatchers

The Bodysnatchers -  Back row L-R , Miranda Joyce, Rhoda Dakar, Sarah-Jane Owen, Stella Barker,
Front row L-R,  Nicky Summers, Penny Leyton , Jane Summers.








cc Nicky Summers