Suffer Machine at LRAG

Click image for more photos ....

The photo album at left includes some color pictures of Suffer Machine and some BW pictures of other bands at an all ages event held at the London Regional Art Gallery (LRAG) sometime in either late 1984 or early 1985. I've shared to Facebook and asked for help.

It turns out there is some debate about exactly when this happened. Mark Favro (the Mr. Luba of LubaTunes who loves beans) has a video of the "Great Gallery Event 1985" posted on YouTube and the notes on that video clearly say it was 1985. I agree that the video matches the event I've captured some of in these stills. But Mark thinks the date on the video is in error and the event would have been Friday Dec.7 1984 — he has a poster of the "Great Gallery Event" (1984). See the poster at his BOF page.  Unfortunately that poster headlines Sheep Look Up rather than Suffer Machine so something is wrong. The other explanation is that what happened doesn't match what was advertised. And that's not uncommon.

Frank Shaw, the voice for Bits of Food at this event, wrote "Suffer Machine headlined with Dormant Checker Effect, LubaTunes, Bits of Food and Omerta. It was called the Great Gallery Gig and cost I think 2 or 3 bucks. Can't remember the exact date. There were a couple posters of the event. Mark Favro has video of it. Fun times!" Frank's recollections seem to match mine. Although I don't recall LubaTunes playing that night — Mr. Luba (Mark Favro's personna) usually performed with an ugly rubber face mask — Mark has provided video evidence that LubaTunes were there!

Pete Tangredi, who was the voice for Suffer Machine, writes that there aren't very many pictures of his band. I am happy to share what I have here. He thinks the event was in 1984 so perhaps it was. He is able to provide some details though and writes, "Always very cool to see old photos surface. I’m sorry I can’t help with dates (I probably didn’t even know the date when it was happening). I am also clueless as to the other band. I do however remember the names of the other players in my band: Patrick Eynon (guitar), Stephan Beckhoff (keys), Greg Rinehart (bass), Chris Serratore (drums)." 

There's a picture of Pete in full voice from this event that Brian Lambert used in Graphic Underground: London 1977-1990 (2013). There's quite a few of my photos used, with permission, in that excellent book about those misspent days and nights.

The other bands (I'll assume it was Dormant Checker Effect, LubaTunes, Bits of Food, and Omerta) were clearly part of a collective of young teens who were well connected to the London art scene and especially the infamous Nihilist Spasm Band — their music was, in some measure, an update of the NSB.  The Curnoe and Favro names are part of the NSB and the London Arts landscape. That helps to explain why this event was held at the LRAG! Mark Favro has a "Bands from the BOF Shelter" web page which documents some of that early history.  I have some photos of Bits of Food and others from that group of young people performing in a Wortley Village church hall (St Stephens now long gone) at around the same time. We lived nearby and attended with our teenager foster child as it and this were all-ages events.

Daniel Rudbal provided some more information on Facebook about one of the bands. He writes, "..though I never saw them play.. 2 members of OMERTÀ, John Dillabough and Steve Gardner ..were also members of the very first line-up of the BLACK DONNELLYS".

I have included some photos of a C90 released by LubaTunes and correspondence that accompanied the tape. Mark Favro (Mr. Luba) who would have written the note to us writes on the Facebook thread: "You must have owned a copy of the LubaToons magazine. We put an ad in there to buy the audio tape. Actually you probably bought the magazine at the Great Gallery Gig as we were selling them there" and he included a link to Mr. Luba and LubaTunes playing at at the event.

After posting the above, thinking that I had researched this as best I can, I went looking through my scanned band photos and found more color pictures from the event including the other bands mentioned (but not LubaTunes). I've added them to the photo album.

Many thanks to all who responded and helped me with this blog.

This blog page composed during April of 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic.