NACK-ED-EN
(1970) (John Bradbury - drums)
A tasteful heavy rock band for 1970.
Lead Guitar - LOZ NETTO (later with Tsar / Love Zeus / Sniff and the Tears (Now solo) and more.
Bass Guitar - NEIL RICHARDSON - formerly with Acorn later with Drops of Brandy.
Drums - 1st drummer STEVE HARRISON previously with Mick Green Blues Band later with Concert / Railroad
Replaced by JOHN (BRAD) BRADBURY (later with The Original Selecter and Transposed Men with Neol Davis) Joined The Specials 1979.
Trev Teasdel's recollections of Nack-ed-en.
Steve Harrison, who was drumming for the Mick Green Blues band with Tony (Mojo ) Morgan on bass asked me to write some lyrics for the band. However the band split up not long afterwards and the lyrics not used. Mojo put music to one of my songs Elusive Metallic Idol . When Steve joined a new band - Nack-ed-en he again invited me to bring some lyrics to the rehearsal at the Queens pub in Primrose Hill Street (next to what is now the Kashbar).
The band were in full fling rehearsing some heavy blues numbers but Steve wasn't on the drums. He'd been replaced by John Bradbury. It would be another nine years before Brad would make his name in the Specials. The lead guitar was Loz Netto who later joined Sniff and the Tears, playing on tracks like Driver's Seat. The bass player went on to play with drummer Ted Duggan in Drops of Brandy, delivering pretty good covers (think 10cc) and who toured the Rank circuit and airbases. They seemed to have their material sorted out so I didn't push the lyrics.
My attendance wasn't entirely in vain. After the Queens rehearsal we went to the Dive (Lady Godiva pub) and met up with blues guitarist Chris Jones whose band The Chris Jones Aggression often played the Umbrella club. John Bradbury read through my lyrics and asked who I was (I'm not sure if that was good or bad!) but John was always friendly and around the scene and was a popular drummer. The band mentioned that the Queens Hotel was expensive to hire. I ran the band nights at Coventry Arts Umbrella and told them they could rehearse there free, which they did. We also featured them on one of the Umbrella band nights.
John Bradbury was a great accomplished drummer and had a good sense of song structure, taking the songs apart section by section. I got to watch them rehearse.
Later in the year at the Umbrella both Loz and John Bradbury took part in an all night jam session organised by Neol Davis. It was the first time Neol had played with Loz and I think John Bradbury. Later, in 1977, John Bradbury would later play on the Original Selecter track, written by Neol Davis and featured on the B side of the Special's first single Gangsters.
I don't know where Nack-ed-en played apart from the Umbrella but Jim Twyneham of Silk disco recalls putting them on at the Sunday night Plough Club bottom of London Road.
Loz Netto now has a great site updating his some of his impressive work down the decades) http://www.loznetto.co.uk/
You can also download his albums and find his work on You Tube.
My personal memories of Loz from those times -
Not long after we went over to the Warwick University Arts Festival, with its mix of Street theatre, poetry, bands. On the final night - a Sunday I met up with Loz at a concert with the Pink Fairies and local bands Asgard, The Sorrows, Kevin Harrison's Whistler.
Loz was after a go on Twink's (of the Pink Fairies) guitar. Twink had a ceramic guitar. He finally had a go on it in the changing rooms and taught me my first lead guitar licks. Meanwhile the Pink Faries stuck a condom over the tap which exploded just as two university officials in suits walked in!
On another occasional, we went to see ELP at the Lanch Poly and after the gig, met Greg Lake and Carl Palmer at the Hotdog van that waited outside the Lanch after a gig. Loz, keen to learn more about Bob Fripp of King Crimson, struck up a conversation with the pair. Loz asked about what it was like working with Bob Fripp, Greg said something to the effect that Bob was a genius but sometimes geniuses are hard to work with, hence the split. Carl Palmer told us he came from Nuneaton or Bedworth and was pleased to play on home ground again. Greg and Carl mooched off in the direction of the De Vere Hotel.
Loz was also studying drama at Brooklands Annexe at this time as Paul King did later on . From Nack ed en, Loz joined Tsar and then Love Zeus at the Umbrella with Al Docker drums, Tony Cross - keys and a violin player. They played the Belgrade Theatre, Lanch Poly and Umbrella Club. Finally he left Coventry for London and turned up in Moon and then Sniff and the Tears c 1979 - with Ron Lawrence - former bassist with another Coventry band - April.
Neil Richards joined Drops of Brandy with Ted Duggan after Nack ed en and played with them for most of the rest of the decade, touring the country at one stage for the Rank Organisation. Their set was entirely covers, but they did them well and were highly popular (think 10cc whose numbers appeared in their set a lot).
Loz Netto solo 1986
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Sniff+of+US+success+for+Loz+in+the+Drivers+Seat%3B+COVENTRY-BORN+Loz...-a0197824856
So you were Coventry born, tell us about your formative years? "I was born in Coventry. In my grandmother's bed at Clifford Bridge Road, to be precise.
"I started playing guitar when I was 13. I eventually became quite fanatical and practised so much that my fingers bled.
"My father could not afford to buy me a guitar so he made one for me; a solid body electric with two pickups which he also made himself! "Literally the only thing that mattered in my life was music to the point where one day when I was 16, I was ushered into the headmaster's study at Caludon Castle School and was asked to leave. I met the drummer John Bradbury (Specials drummer).
We used to rehearse above a pub, then later we were involved with a little four piece band. We did a couple of gigs but nothing much came of it. We were just mates really and I have some fond memories of that time".
You joined the band Moon who had a strong Coventry connection I believe. How exciting was it to sign to CBS? "I reluctantly joined various showbands to earn some cash and it proved to be a very good musical education indeed.
"I eventually secured a job with Ben E King (ex Drifters) as his guitar player.
Then I got a call from a friend Noel McCalla, also from Coventry. He had got a gig with a new band in London called Moon and they were holding auditions for a guitar player and bass player. So Ron Lawrence and myself went along, got the gig and started playing the London pub scene.
"We played pretty much every major town in the UK and Wales, travelling up and down the motorways in our bashed up Transit van. We also played The Butts College in Cov and The Lanchester Poly.
"We were doing lots of live radio shows for John Peel, I guess all that helped us get signed to CBS records.
"We recorded two albums for the label. We were then doing bigger venues like The Hammersmith Odeon and The Fairfield Halls in London, The Glasgow Apollo, Odeon cinemas etc, supporting bands like War, Thin Lizzy, Boxer, Crawler, Gill Scot Heron and many others.
"I guess the band was together about three years before we called it a day." Sniff 'n' Tears, Drivers Seat, a superb song, does it bug you that it never did the business in the UK? What was the best part of being in the band? "I then got a job as house guitar player for a now defunct label called Imagination records. I did a bunch of albums before becoming one of the original members of a band called Sniff 'n' the Tears.
"The first single Drivers Seat became an international hit but the UK public were a bit sniffy, excuse the pun.
"Despite Steve Wright continuously playing it and appearing on Top of The Pops, the single never took off here.
"The band also played The Old Grey Whistle Test. We did a fair amount of TV in Europe plus tons of touring in Spain, Franc , Germany and the US. We were managed at this point by Bud Prager who was also Foreigner and Bad Company's manager.
So what is the Loz Netto up to at the moment? My main job at present, other than running my website www.loznetto.co.uk, is composing and recording soundtracks for film and TV..
Loz Netto trivia ONE night in Coventry Loz stumbled on a rock band playing at the TUC building to a rather unappreciative crowd. The band turned out to be Black Sabbath. However the Irish show band the TUC had actually booked that night, were wondering what they were doing playing at a Satanist convention.
That's agents for you.
Drivers Seat got to number 15 in the US charts in 1979..
Another interview with Loz Netto here http://www.popculturemadness.com/interview/2010/Loz-Netto.html
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