Profile /
Paradise West / Saigon
by Pete Clemons
As I remember, I first crossed paths with bass player Steve Barney, around 1982 ish. He had just begun life as an apprentice at the GEC. I guess that apprenticeship curtailed his musical activities for a while. But not fully and, certainly, never diminished his ambitions as he currently turns out for The Ramrods alongside Danny Cunningham.
As soon as we met it did not take long until we discovered our shared love of music. Although he was on a slightly different level as he was, playing in a band whereas I simply listened to it.
Something I have been meaning to do for a while now is to put together a blog that, in some way, detailed Steve’s achievements. So, after a chat with him, that’s exactly what this will attempt to do.
Steve’s first band was Profile. Profile was formed around 1977 I think. But at the time Profile were the youngest bands around the city in terms of age range.
Steve mentioned ‘We were all school mates. Guy Surtees the creator, singer and guitar. Rich Elson guitar and me bass. We were all at Woodlands School together. We had various drummers Steve Russell, the late Chris Drew and Mad Steve from Squad and the Tearjerkers who guested for us in the studio. We were very young but got to do supports in town at the standard venues. This was when alternative sounds magazine was going on. The single was Guys idea. We could not afford to do it all ourselves so we came up with the idea for several bands to appear on one single and share the costs. Six bands were involved in the project and the result was the ‘Boys and Girls Come Out to Play’ EP’.
Once the cost was calculated to make the record and sleeve, each band had to contribute 1/6 of the costs. The idea was for 3 different bands to feature on each side. As the bands contained both male and female singers there became a blue side and a pink side. Profile were on the blue side and contributed with the track ‘Vince’. Profile originally wanted a different song, ‘Nuclear Future’, to feature on the EP, but had to settle for a shorter one as their preferred choice was too long and wouldn’t fit. So, the final ‘Boys and Girls Come Out to Play’ EP looked like this……….
Pink Side:
Human Cabbages – The Window’s Broken
The Clique Syndicate – Cism
L’Homme de Terre – Get a Grip
Blue Side:
Profile – Vince
Famous Five – Take Over
First Offence – Hammer and Sickle
Steve continues ‘Each band had to design their own part of the sleeve which became a big poster when it unfolded. Guy was the instigator of the idea but, as we were so young, Human Cabbages took over the running of it. When Human Cabbages releases a solo single later... the label was Boys and Girls 2’. ‘Once the EP was released I remember playing in the school assembly at Woodlands School and then selling some records there. While this was going on I think we encouraged a lot of others, the same age as us, to form bands so other local bands appeared - Sedition being one who went on to become Criminal Class. I left Profile in around 1982. They then changed their name and style and became ‘Beachmantango’ with Anthony Harty on bass. I then had a brief spell playing for Criminal Class when their ‘Fighting the System’ record was released’.
Fast forward to around 1986 and another of Steve’s bands, ‘Paradise West’, were formed.
Steve recalls ‘I had just bought a drum machine that connected to my spectrum computer and used that to help write songs at the time. The band at that time consisted of just myself and Gez Moran. We were then joined by guitarist Mark Quinn quickly followed by Craig Grant on drums. Our first proper gig was at New Star in Tile Hill. It was absolutely packed. We then went into the recording studio and did three tracks – Guy Surtees from ‘Profile’ came in to help and did some keyboards and harmonica. We played some great gigs. With Gdańsk at ‘the Venue’ was a particularly good one. And this is how I got to know Danny Cunningham. For whatever reasons, after that gig, Gez decided to change out the drummer and guitarist. They were replaced by Dave Vallely on drums (who had originally been in Fridays Angels) and Colin Hankinson on guitar. I remember lots of enjoyable gigs with that line up. We supported ‘Havana’ at the Lanch (The Clash’s Paul Simonon’s band). We also did several gigs at the Dive (Lady Godiva). We even did one for the Coventry Carnival in a float. Another that comes to mind was a great one at the General Wolfe which was supposed to be for a ‘battle of the bands’ competition. But as we had so many people down there to see us they let us do our whole set. I left Paradise West, along with Dave and Colin, around 1992/93 I think. I then did a one-off gig playing for ‘Squad’ at Busters as Gus Chambers was visiting from America and wanted to do a reunion gig. Absolutely loved that one’.
Paradise West did change their name for a while. They became known as Saigon who also played many times around the city. The core of Saigon was still Gez, Dave, Colin and Steve but, additionally harmonica player Bryan Lea Bradford would add his talents. Legendary local guitarist, Roy Butterfield, would also join Paradise West / Saigon on stage at many gigs. Steve particularly remembers his amazing guitar solos and slide guitar playing.
More recently, the Profile track ‘Nuclear Future’, which happens to be Steve’s favourite Profile track, has cropped up on a compilation album called ‘A Tale of Two Cities’. Originally, ‘A Tale of Two Cities’, was supposed to be an album, like the ‘Sent to Coventry’ album. The two cities featured were Birmingham and Coventry. But it failed to materialise at the time. However, the digital age has seen a CD version of that album recently surface. The profile track ‘Vince’ also surfaced. That appeared on a CD compilation called ‘Messthetics’.
Steve finished off with ‘And now I’m currently playing in Ramrods with Danny and Barney Cunningham who have both been good friends since those early days’. ‘I keep hassling Guy about doing a 40-year reunion gig, but he has so far, failed to take the bait’.
As I have said many times - Who knows what the future holds.
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Additional information
BEACHMANTANGO " Featured multi-instrumentalist and super-session player Anthony Harty (who also played on the Grammy Award winning album Jamaican ET by Lee 'Scratch' Perry. He later played in the Flying Tortellinis with keyboard player from King - Mick Roberts and The Supernaturals with Hazel O'Connor, Paul Weller's Style Council and Box of Blues with Neol Davies and Horace Panter. . Both had been in Walnut Conspiracy. Source - Pete Chambers Godiva Rocks.
Profile (See Solid Grease) John Hewitt's band - later drummer with King.
Profile - Vince
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