97-05-04 External Menace

gig organised by ‘Foekie’ Christophe Delplace

‘External Menace’, a punk-rock band from Glasgow, was formed in 1979 with Wullie Hamill (then 13 years old) as singer. He died in 1987 when he was hit by a car. Around the time of this gig here the line-up must’ve been Billy Dunn (bass, ex ‘Exploited’), Bobe Copeland (guitar), original member John ‘Sneddy’ Sneddon (guitar), Stu(art) Davis (drums) and ‘Welshy’ Ian/John Welsh (vocals; ex ‘Swine Flu’). A second Euro tour followed in ’98 with Chris ‘Criss Damage’ Baker behind the drums. They did a few 7”s in the 80s, a split-7” with ‘Rectify’ ‎on Suspect Device recs in 1997, the 7” Seize The Day on Negative recs in the same year and The Process Of Elimination LP on Epistrophy (1998).

Brob

pic courtesy of John Welsh: “External Menace & roadies, and 6 punters – the guy in black [2^nd from the left, standing : Jan ‘Doomy’ Claus] that took us for a meal…”

Vort’n Jan enjoying the life… (L: ‘Welshy’, R: driver Keith)

We remember this as the worst attended gig we ever played! Ha ha. I think maybe 4 paying punters turned up! There was 5 of us in the band at that time (+2 roadies), 3 ? bar-staff… BUT it was a great gig!! We had a great time. We just turned it around on its head and had the whole band sitting on bar-stools on the stage, blasting out our version of the punk-rock… Had the roadies and punters stage-diving! We took a request from the bar-staff to play Anarchy In The UK!!! We’d never played this song before (and haven’t since) and never rehearsed it, but we did it, somehow!!! The upstairs sleeping-quarters was the filthiest cess-pit we’d ever seen in our lifes, so we declined that and slept on the stage (which was crawling with insects too) and on various chairs in front of the stage. We got taken for a fantastic meal, by a couple of Belgian guys (can’t remember names) and we got our picture taken at the fountains near the venue… We all stood beside a fountain of water and it looks like were all pissing 15 feet into the air! Wahey!! We used that pic on the insert-booklet of our album Process Of Elimination. It’s also in Ian Glasper’s book Burning Britain. Superb. I also recall our band-name was spelled wrong on the gig flyer… “ExteNDal Menace”!! I still have it somewhere and photos from the gig. No other bands played!!! So it’s a one we will never forget and we loved playing there. Great memories. Our bassplayer at the time – Billy – got a Vort’n Vis T-shirt at the gig and wore it to a few gigs we played.

There was a guy – Xavier??? [Martin Vantomme: “Xavier Benoit, nowadays tour-manager of ‘Jon Spencer Blues Explosion’ and others.”] – who helped me when I was in ‘Swine Flu’ (in 1995) with a gig in Kortrijk – an all-dayer in the town-square with all different kinds of music. I think it was him that I asked to help me get a Belgian gig in 1997 for ‘External Menace’.

John Welsh

excerpts from the V.V. guestbook:

Jan Claus, Jan VDB & Steph Quintens

I thought it was Jan VDB; who was late so they played the set again for him…

Stephen Quintens

If I remember well that lost Sunday-afternoon the telephone rang and 3 hours later they were on stage: a 77 punk band from Great-Britain. They performed twice that evening because I was called away during their show. Great guys, marvellous times!

Jan VDB

 additions wellcome!…