Alarm, The
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Information
Website: http://www.thealarm.com
Genres: Rock
Styles: Alternative Pop-Rock, Dance-Rock, College Rock
Buy Alarm, The Music on Ebay
UK Charts (Updated Until December 31 2005)
Highest Place In Charts (Albums): 6
Total Weeks In Charts (Albums): 29
Highest Place In Charts (Singles): 17
Total Weeks In Charts (Singles): 65
Members (Alphabetical Order)
Discography
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Lyrics And Music Videos
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Posters
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Ringtones
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Buy Music Online
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Alarm, The Biography
History Of The Toilets
Mike Peters happened upon the Sex Pistols in late 1976 at a club called Quaintways in Chester, England. The visual and musical expression that he witnessed that night, changed him forever. He had been drifting through his teenage years when this cathartic musical experience brought his whole life into focus. He knew, somehow, he had to start a band of his own and approached local musicians, (amongst them drummer, Nigel Buckle and bassist Glyn Crossley), to join his then unnamed punk band. No one was interested.
Finding sympathetic musicians in Wales was not easy and upon visiting Manchester, England, on May 8th 1977, he saw The Clash at the Electric Circus on the White Riot Tour. Rejuvenated, this made him redouble his efforts to get a band off the ground. During the summer, Mike bumped into Glyn Crossley, who had just returned from London and had experienced Punk Rock. Glyn had seen The Stranglers and was now able to understand Mike's ideas and so needed no persuading to join Mike's band. A drummer was recruited from an advert in the local paper, and another friend and fellow punk, rock acolyte, Gaz Hughes, enrolled as vocalist. A rehearsal was set for the following Saturday at the Bee Hotel in Rhyl. On the preceding Friday night, Mike and Glyn were having a drink in the Victoria Hotel, Prestatyn, (future venue for The Alarm's first ever show). Mike noticed a sign on the wall, directing customers to The Toilets, and the name of the band was born. The two then went on to The Bistro, (a late night drinking establishment in Rhyl), to find that Gaz Hughes, the singer, had not turned up for the weekend and so, a new singer would have to be found urgently. The D.J. was playing The Sex Pistols 'Pretty Vacant', when Mike spotted an old school friend, O'Malley, pogoing in the middle of the dance floor. Above the spikey volume, Mike asked him if he would like to sing for The Toilets. O'Malley agreed instantly.
The atmosphere for the first rehearsal was shaky and nervous. The drummer, who didn't know that he was being enrolled in a punk band, was reluctant, but stayed anyway, to help the band find it's feet. Only covers were played that first day: The Pistols 'Anarchy In The UK', the Buzzcocks classic, 'Breakdown' and The Ramones, 'Sheena Is A Punk Rocker', amongst others. The owner of the bar, shocked by the band's appearance and sound, banned them from any further rehearsals. This was followed by the bemused drummer, who left, never to be seen again. However, a local professional musician, Mogga, had called in to see what was happening and offered the band the use of his own private rehearsal room, a converted garage at the back of his house, in Elwy Street, Rhyl.
Punk rock idealism was based on self expression and Mike Peters instinctively knew that a band playing covers would be a betrayal of the ethics of the movement, and so set about writing his first series of songs. The first to appear was the prophetic 'Alarm Alarm' followed by 'Nothing to Do', 'Office Jobs' and 'Social Security'. Peters burst into The Toilets new 'garageland' rehearsal room, full of songs and ideas. Glyn had persuaded drummer, Nigel Buckle to give it a shot and O'Malley, with his own set of lyrics to sing, grew in confidence immediately. In an instant, a powerful band came to life and like moths to a flame, an entourage of local punks/friends soon attached itself to the band and their garage rehearsal room.
One of these friends in particular was David Kitchingman, a friend of Nigel's, who had recently returned from a voyage overseas with the merchant navy. Dave had been a guitarist with Nigel and Glyns' previous band, Quasimodo, who had also featured Karl Wallinger (now of World Party). Dave was immediately struck with the punk rockers in and around the band and soon became immersed in the culture. One night, around 2 a.m., he awoke Mike Peters at his parents' home, by throwing stones at the bedroom window. Mike looked down into the garden to find a drunken Dave shouting, as quietly as he could, that he had secured a gig for The Toilets the very next night at the Palace Hotel in Rhyl.
The next day as excitement spread, the band and entourage decided to give themselves stage names to celebrate in true punk rock style. Mike Peters became W.C. Smith, Glyn Crossley became Steve Shock, Nigel Buckle became Des Troy and O'Malley became Bo Larks. (David Kitchingman changed his name to Chuck Burial and went on to form a short lived punk band called Chuck Burial and the Embalmed. He eventually settled on the name Dave Sharp and the rest is history). The show at the Palace was a triumph. Even the band were shocked at the power of the performance. Entering the stage to a series of smoke bomb explosions which shook the hall, The Toilets finally unleashed themselves on stage, and fuelled by their new punk rock personas, lost all inhibition as they tore through a set of Peters' spit fire compositions. The audience was shocked. It was over before anyone knew what had hit them. The Toilets had arrived.
The aftershocks of this first gig were enormous. Firstly, great reviews all along the North Wales coast appeared and secondly, local night club entrepreneur, Louis Parker (who was attempting to cash in on the punk rock band wagon), had booked female punks, The Slits, to play at a punk rock night at his club, The Stables in St. Asaph, North Wales. Obviously aware of the local angle, Parker booked The Toilets to open the show. The Toilets ripped into their set and blew all the unsuspecting l ocals away. The spikey anthems of Peters' songs instantly hit home with the 'virgin' audience. The Slits, by comparison, were too vague for the audience and their own original punk rock style, tinged with reggae overtones, was not what the locals expected, and calls to "bring back The Toilets" could be heard throughout The Slits' set. After the show, during an interview with the Rhyl Journal, Peters is quoted as saying, "All the punk rock groups are trying to make it themselves. You've got to make it on your own songs."
The Toilets returned to The Palace for their third and fourth shows on Friday, 23rd September and September 30th 1977, respectively, adding new songs like t he memorable 'Media Girl', 'James Bond' and the seminal 'Ice Cream and Rock.' The audience following the band continued to grow and it was during this time that Mike Peters met a gang of punks from nearby Prestatyn. Led by John Sox ( who Peters later wrote about in the autobiographical 'Spirit Of 76'), a friendship formed, and Peters found out that these Prestatyn punks had been driven across the Mersey by the lack of local interest in punk, to the legendary Eric's club in Liverpool. It was the emergence of The Toilets that aroused Sox and friends' interest in the local scene. Sox soon regaled Peters with tales of Liverpool and Eric's club in particular, where Sox reckoned he knew Roger Eagle (the owner of the club), and could arrange a show for them during their Saturday lunch-time audition sessions. As luck would have it, The Clash were due to play there in a couple of weeks time and Sox suggested he drive Mike to Eric's to buy tickets for the show and to secure an audition for The Toilets. Peters needed no persuading.
Eric's was situated at 9 Matthew Street, Liverpool, directly across the street from the abandoned sight of the Beatles' infamous Cavern Club. In fact, the main entrance for Eric's was directly below The Beatles' memorial which bore the legend 'Four Lads Who Shook The World.' Eric's had become known for it's brave music policy towards new, international, cult and local bands. True to his word, Sox did know Roger Eagle, who readily agreed to put The Toilets on the following Saturday lunch-time, on the 22nd October, (which coincidentally, was the same day as The Clash were due to play). Sox and Peters bought their tickets for The Clash show at the same time and drove back to Wales to tell the rest of the band.
Saturday, 22nd October, finally arrived in the lives of the Welsh punks. All sorts of arrangements had been made to ferry the group, their equipment and fans, to Liverpool. Nigel Buckle by this time, had overcome his initial reluctance to become involved in the punk lifestyle, but as events gathered pace he became wary of the direction that he was being asked to move in, and on the morning of the show refused to leave Rhyl, unless someone paid for some new drum skins. At this point, the band had not earned any money for the shows, (beyond a few beers and the opportunity to play), and this demand threw everything into turmoil. Peters offered to pay for the skins and a dilemma was averted and everyone set off for the big city. The Toilets were booked to play first, on a two band bill; the other group was the New York Dolls-influenced Shattered Dolls. The Toilets took to the stage around midday and immediately shook up the tepid lunch-time atmosphere. The venue became charged by the nervous energy of the North Walian band and attracted all neutrals to cram around the stage to witness this hitherto unknown group. Amongst the neutrals that day, was one Bob Geldof, who had played the club the previous night with his band, The Boomtown Rats. Immediately after the set, Geldof came onstage to tell the band how impressed he was with their set. He wasn't the only one; Roger Eagle came up next, to say that The Clash had no opening act for their show later that night and provided Joe Strummer and The Clash did not object, The Toilets could support.
Peters was ecstatic. For O'Malley and Crossley this was a dream come true. For Buckle this was confirmation of all his fears. While the others had felt completely at ease with the atmosphere, with the weird and wonderful people hanging around Eric's, Nigel felt intimidated and wanted to go home to Wales. The band frantically pleaded with Nigel to stay, and after much cajoling, a deal was struck that if the band paid for all his beer, he would stay on. No sooner was this tentative agreement struck than The Clash's equipment started to arrive, and The Toilets and their friends were enrolled to hump the gear down the one flight of stairs into the club. The Clash had been in Northern Ireland the night before and had originally been set to play the 3,000 capacity Boxing Stadium in Liverpool which had recently lost it's music licence. Instead, a secret show had been arranged at Eric's. The Clash never arrived for a soundcheck so The Toilets never secured one either and when the doors opened, the club became full to capacity in no time, as all the young punks gathered in the darkness. The Toilets, aware that hundreds had been locked outside, were faced with the biggest audience of their lives, and fuelled by a 100 mile per hour adrenaline rush, launched themselves onto the unsuspecting crowd. The Toilets blitzed the venue. Instantly, there was mass pogoing and intense heat. In twenty furious minutes it was all over. After the show and two encores later, the band felt drained, burnt out. They had also unknowingly burnt out their fifteen minutes of fame. In true punk rock style, this would be The Toilets' finest hour.
Punk rock was changing into the new wave, and from here on in, things never had the same excitement about them. The band hitched up with Chris Harrap, who was the D.J. at Eric's. He became manager and took the band on an ill fated tour of London, which proved to be a disaster. The band ended up playing no shows at all and no record company showed any interest. Roger Eagle booked them as support to the Buzzcocks at Eric's, but this failed to live up to the excitement of The Clash show, and soon interest in the band started to dry up.
Once the group started to take a serious view of it's future, the bleak reality of their situation soon became apparent. Buckle was uneasy with the financial structure of the group, mainly because there wasn't one, while O'Malley was increasingly reluctant to sing the newer Peters' songs which were more melodic in structure and had deeper lyrics than the earlier shouted punk protest songs. O'Malley wanted to hold on to his Punk roots while Peters wanted to move on.
One night at Eric's, Mike Peters saw an early show by a new group called The Rich Kids. Formed by ex-Sex Pistol Glen Matlock and ex-Slik star Midge Ure, The Rich Kids described themselves as 'Power Pop' and their agenda was to break free of the confines of the new established order of punk. The focus of their sound was based in tight harmony and melodic structures that could break free of the angry three chord thrash and rant that had already become a punk cliche. Peters could instantly relate to the ideas and sounds that the Rich Kids put forward. This was a style that reflected the direction of Peters' own songwriting.
Back in North Wales, the alliance that was The Toilets, was showing signs of disintegration. The stagnant pool of their career was beginning to take it's toll. Peters was struggling to come to terms with the new direction his songwriting was taking him and he found it hard to communicate his ideas to O'Malley, who in turn could not relate to the new ideas that Peters was putting forward in the songwriting department. Glyn Crossley was also becoming disillusioned with the standstill that surrounded the band and was thinking of a move back to London. To counter this negativity, Peters and Sox decided to promote a new wave club in Rhyl. The club in question was the 1520 in the west end of Rhyl. Promoting itself as anti-disco disco, the club got off to a great start, with a brave music policy and the best local bands like The Cellophane Boys, The Fractures and a group called Amsterdam which featured one Eddie MacDonald on guitar.
It was during Amsterdam's show that Peters found he and MacDonald both shared the same view of The Rich Kids. Peters and MacDonald had grown up together as children in Edward Henry Street, Rhyl but had lost touch during their teenage years. MacDonald intimated to Peters that he was becoming frustrated within Amsterdam. He went on to explain that he had written some songs but his band, who were led by keyboard player Steve Allen Jones, would not entertain giving them a chance. MacDonald then went on to explain that given the opportunity, he would like to join Mike's band, The Toilets. Peters, recognising MacDonald's plight, suggested that he and MacDonald get together and write some songs. However, before MacDonald and Peters could meet, Glyn Crossley took fate into his own hands and announced to The Toilets that he was moving back down to London and was going to leave the group.
Rather than search for a replacement, Peters and the group decided that The Toilets should disband and so, an announcement was made to the local press, that on Friday 27th January 1978 at the 1520 club in Rhyl, The Toilets would play their final show. It was during the soundcheck that Peters and MacDonald got to play together for the first time and jammed their way through some embryonic new songs. Peters sang for the first time and with MacDonald's guitar deftly handling the counter melodies, the two could immediately sense the dynamic possibilities that lay ahead. The Toilets went on to play their last show but for Mike Peters it was not the end, it was only the beginning.
By Trashcan
| Artist | Alarm, The + |
| Artist Type | Band + |
| Genre | Rock + |
| Page Type | Main Info Page + |
| RID | 1,145,740 + |
| Style | College Rock +, Dance-Rock +, and Alternative Pop-Rock + |
