Welcome to Sleep Town.....Vance Anderson

 Welcome to Sleep Town.....Vance Anderson 

By Geoff Veasey

Post supplied by Pete Clemons

......" Dream Carefully," Vance Anderson and I would sing together, during the happy days when he was the drummer and I was the singer in a Coventry based Rock combo called Black Parrot Seaside. I just heard the devastating news that Vance has now actually begun his final journey to Sleep Town, over in the USA. What a talent. What a career. What a great band member to have. RIP brother.

Vance was the first musician we recruited by interview, having parted with several of our previous percussionists. His "audition" was astonishing. We'd never seen anything like it. We wanted to go heavier: we had bought a big P.A. We were growing our hair out. We wanted a bass player and drummer who could drive our songs-many of them our own compositions-and project us into the top drawer of Rock Goddery.

That actually never happened: not even close: but for a while Dave Anderson (as he was then known) was our distinctive, flame haired talisman. He was the only one we auditioned: we didn't bother with any more. He downed half a bottle of brandy before launching into an accompaniment which immediately fitted the music. His time keeping and mastery of the kit just blew us away. Working by day driving a truck delivering tyres for Dunlop by night he would don leopard skin pants and woolly waistcoats to go ever so slightly bonkers from behind stacks of high hats and snares. In the grainy old photo below Vance is second from the right. Wearing slightly less than usual. Alas, three of this line up are now no longer with us.

I have only croaky old fuzzy recordings of Vance's fiery work on songs like "Brutus" "Sleep Town" and "Small Maladjusted and Mean," but all those years later on it remains amazing. Vance (as he soon re-christened himself) bought into the whole BPS thing. All of us had silly stage names like Ted Explosion and Orville Cosmo. We dressed up. We had stage props. And so Dave became Vance Ectomy. (See what he did there?) and joined in enthusiastically.

We performed angry, waspish, loud songs with vitriolic lyrics. We lampooned Punk, Rock, Folk, Country & Western and Reggae. We got "paid off" (i.e. asked to leave usually via a back entrance) before the end of an evening at a few gigs where we had antagonised the management or wound up the audience with what is nowadays called attitude.

All this was right on the cusp of the Punk Revolution although we were not really aware of that at the time. We were more influenced by other angry bands like Heavy Metal Kids, The Sensational Alex Harvey Band and Edgar Broughton. We also shared a great fondness for the Bonzos. In one song we staged a mock fight. It was all choreographed: a regular part of the act but one night upstairs at The Golden Cross we forgot to warn the Guv'nor beforehand. When I grabbed Vance round the neck and dragged him off his drum stool, bar staff came out from behind the bar with a baseball bat and unleashed the pub Doberman. It took a while to calm things down.

We developed a bit of a reputation. At a very early Godiva Festival some of our followers assured us that such a prestigious appearance would be enhanced by some pyrotechnics. What we didn't anticipate was a huge rocket going awol and detouring through the Police tent. Mercifully, no-one was hurt, the audience thought it was part of the act and the bobbies were very understanding as we apologised profusely.

In Cov we played pubs like The Climax, The Craven Arms in The High Street, The Dive Bar, The Campbell The Dog and Trumpet and The Smithfield. We played The Lanch (later Coventry University) and Warwick University. The students also greatly enjoyed Vance and I play fighting. A few joined in and suddenly an armchair found its way off a balcony and onto the stage. We also played a Melody Maker audition at Warwick, where for reasons I cannot remember, we destroyed a full sized mock up of a grandfather clock on stage.

We ranged further afield. Birmingham University. Nottingham University. Bogarts-a popular club right in the heart of Brum. We started getting support gigs. To Rocky Sharpe (later The Darts) at Hitchin Poly. Opening for East of Eden at another infamous gig in Nuneaton.

We were doing all right, the audiences were mostly getting our cryptic weirdness and we knew we being scouted by an agent or two. We even had some proper photos done at locations like Sutton Stop and Brandon Woods.

Throughout, Vance kept us tight. He could improvise when necessary but could also be very disciplined. We knew that we could not hang on to him for long. He was talented, ambitious and keen to progress. We could not satisfy his hunger for gigs and for performance so in a totally amicable parting, he joined another Coventry band The Flys, They were getting far more gigs than we were. We were signed up and briefly were on the same label. Vance's departure could have broken us. He was irreplaceable and so we slid gracefully into Folk. We never had another drummer: barely even mentioned percussion again.

BPS continued to slumber and awaken in various formats until 2014 when we played our last gig together and finally went our separate ways. Vance lost the "Ectomy" and became Vance Anderson. He was known as that for the rest of his life. He continued to keep in touch, taking an interest in what we were all up to. When I started doing radio he sent me promos of the bands he was discovering out in Florida and I played them on air (Still do: The Well Pennies is one example).

Abroad he thrived and achieved his ambition to work in music full time. Vance worked ( I think ) with Diana Krall, Stevie Wonder and many other well known acts. He clearly had an affinity with Tony Bennett and was distraught when he died recently. I bet they are having a gas up there together now.