Coventry Music Articles by Pete Clemons: Cycle - A Band with Teesside and Coventry Connections

Cycle - A Band with Teesside and Coventry Connections.

By Pete Clemons with Prologue by Trev Teasdel.

Cycle second generation — from left to right, Jim Broughton, Norman Smith, John Whittingham, Andy Chisholm, and Malcolm Harker.

Photo from Andy Chisholm's website for Cycle - Here - for more information and photographs -

https://www.chisholm.nl/cycle/cycle.html

Prologue by Trev Teasdel

There's a little back history that led to this article.

Coventry 1971, I was putting on bands at Coventry Arts Umbrella and doing the door for Pete Waterman's Progressive night at The Walsgrave.

Pete Waterman (long before SAW) booked Coventry top progressive band - Indian Summer for the Walsgrave. They'd just recorded an album for RCA Neon - a short lived progressive label, via their manager Jim Simson, who also managed Black Sabbath. Indian Summer who also comprised Bob Jackson - later with Pete Brown and Piblokto, Ross, Badfinger and The Fortunes. Paul Hooper who now drums for North east group Prelude who had a hit in the 70's and Colin Williams - a first class guitarist.

Indian Summer 1971 - L to R Collin Williams / Malc Harker / Paul Hooper / Bob Jackson.

I asked Malc Harker, the bass player, if Indian Summer would play the Umbrella - they had in the past, but Malc told me he was leaving the band to join his father's Engineering business - Harker and Sons and the band would be without a bass player for a while.

I had assumed Harkers was in Coventry and in 1980 I moved to Teesside to do my degree and while I heard about Harkers Engineering in Stockton on Tees, I had no idea it was connected to Malcolm until Pete Clemons interviewed Malc for an article on this site published in 2021. It was a revelation to me but Malc had already sold Harkers by then and moved to Seattle band.

I learnt via the article that Malc had bought a property not far from where I now live in Great Ayton, up near Chop Gate on the moors called Chisel Hill Mill where he had recorded Chris Rea and also North East band called Cycle.

Chisel Hill Mill

I was up there recently a friend and the views are tremendous and I Googled the band 'Cycle' and discovered Andy Chisholm's great website on the band's with lots of photos of the time at Chisel Hill and then put Pete Clemons in touch with Andy with the idea of writing this article on and in doing so I discovered there were more coincidences - Pete already had Cycle's album and it was produced by Coventry musician Lee Dorian and here it is.

Malc Harker "Music had to take a back seat when I took over my Father's firm - but I was still playing. Haywire was the first Teesside band I joined, playing acoustic folk-rock at venues such as “The Kirk” and The Lion Inn, Blakey Ridge (home of Back Door). One day I saw an advert “Cycle needs a bass player” - so I went along."

You can read Pete Clemons 2021 article / interview with Malcolm Harker here and it compliments this new article - https://coventrygigs.blogspot.com/2021/03/malcolm-harker-ex-indian-summer-musical.html

CYCLE - by Pete Clemons

This particular article began as a chat between Trev Teasdel and Andy Chisholm. Andy had, I think, spotted an article I wrote about Coventry band Indian Summer. Andy spotted Malcolm Harker's name who, later, became associated with a band up in the North East called Cycle. Having had the Cycle CD in my collection I asked Malcolm Harker for his recollections and memories on that period. His reply follows............

Greetings from Seattle. What an amazing coincidence!

The story’s true, I’m here to say

I was driving that Model A

I left Coventry in '71 and went back north to join the family business. But I still wanted to play bass in a rock band. So I replied to an ad. in the Teesside Evening Gazette:

'Cycle needs a bass player'

Being newly-returned I didn’t know that Cycle were a heavy metal band from the original land of heavy metal - blast furnaces, shipyards, pit villages and all the other heavy jobs. Cycle had a reputation - and volume to make themselves heard above all this.

Unlike Indian Summer, they were also heavy drinkers. All the local bass players were intimidated, so there were only 2 applicants - me and a guy who had just been released from jail for something druggie. Perhaps surprisingly, I've never been in a druggie band.

So I got the job - but on 1 condition: I had to buy the old bass player Ronnie’s Laney amp. The WEM amp I had just wasn’t up to such heavy lifting. I subsequently discovered it also covered the hole in the van floor where the rain came in - another task my wimpy WEM couldn't handle.

Since you have the Cycle album, you know the other band members. Norman was a great powerful drummer and a rigger at ICI chemical works. John the guitarist (RIP) was really good, but I took that for granted as I was used to playing with Col. Williams. John was also a powerful singer and Special Needs teacher - exactly the skill set required to manage a hall full of drunken coal miners. Andy Chisholm, who became a life-long friend, was the roadie and sound man - with the first back-of-the-hall mixing desk of any local band.

We also had a serious PA with reflex bins. - another local first. Andy sang harmony vocals from the desk - including the Major Tom parts on Cycle’s pretty good version of Space Oddity. There were several Heavy covers - but no Bloody Sabbath!

And we were loud - VERY LOUD. But at the steelworks and pit village Working Men's Clubs no one cared how loud it was - unless we interrupted the bingo!

I’m on the title track, 'Cosmic Clouds', also playing the vibes, which featured on a couple of the Indian Summer album tracks. 'Walking Through the Darkness' and 'Dawn of a New Life' were recorded at my studio, Chisel Hill Mill. Incidentally, Chris Rea recorded some demos at Chisel Hill Mill.

Chisel Hill by Chris Rea

The funky influence was my fault as I liked Steely Dan: 'Reelin’ in the Years'?. We didn’t play it - but Paul Hooper does in the West Coast Band, which still plays the same North East Working Men's Clubs - even though all the pits and most of the heavy jobs have gone.

Andy Chisholm: Sadly of the list of Cycle members, John Whittingham, guitar, Ronnie Patterson, bass, Norman Smith, drums, Malcolm Harker, bass, Andy Chisholm, sound and synths - (we all did vocals), Dave Stokes, roadie, and Jim Broughton, roadie and keyboards, only Norman, Malcolm, Jim, and myself survive. There can be no revival of the band now without the others.

And the Coventry connection doesn't stop there. The reissued Cycle album came out on the Rise Above Relics label a specialist subsidiary label of the Rise Above Records run by none other than Napalm Death vocalist Lee Dorrian

My thanks to Andy Chisholm and Malcolm Harker