EARLY DAYS: It was a gloomy afternoon in Gateshead in the early 1970s. I was sorting through a dusty pile of old 7 inch records in a junk shop in the High Street, looking for Rock’n’Roll singles for the AMI Lyric juke box I’d just bought for £50 at Juke Box Sales and Rentals on Scotswood Road, but all I could find was Sixties comedy songs and Anne Shelton ballads. Eventually, I asked the shopkeeper if he ever got Fifties rock’n’roll records in stock. “Loads, mate,” he replied, “but you’ll have to be quick to find any. There’s this Teddy Boy who comes in regular as clockwork, he buys up all the Rock’n’Roll I can get my hands on. That’s his card in the window.” I looked at the card. It was in coloured ink and it read: ‘BUDDY HOLLY, EDDIE COCHRAN, GENE VINCENT, THE BIG BOPPER - ALL DEAD, BUT THEIR MUSIC LIVES ON AT THE NORTH EAST ROCK’N’ROLL SOCIETY. Contact Rockin’ Jim Newark.’ It gave an address in Felling

 Rockin’ Jim was at our flat, because my wife Lynn had offered to make him a waistcoat out of some jazzy material - he’s wearing it in those famous pictures of the teds lined-up outside the Aventine Club in Bensham. I was in the next room, practicing, when Jim burst in and said “Who was that?” “Me,” I replied. “Right, well the club’s got a band then. You want to talk to Dave Heslop and Chris Magee and get on with it!” And that’s how the Hot Rod Gang was born. Rockin’ Ron Lewis joined on bass, Alan ‘Speedo’ Tulipa phone number, which I wrote down.Dave and Rockin’ Jim were able to book acts like the Dave Dee Sound, Freddie Fingers Lee and eventually touring acts such as Shakin’ Stevens & the Sunsets.Tragically, Rockin’ Jim died far too young. He’d had TB when he was younger, then he had a heart attack on the dance floor one night, when he was saved because one of the teds had been a pit head nurse. He was a huge loss to the club, and to me as a friend. He and I briefly took over editing ‘New Rockpile Magazine’ from its founder, Eddie Muir of Brighton, but it was very costly to put out and I was getting much busier with the band. Later, the job was done much better by Trevor Cajiao, with the fantastic ‘Now Dig 

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Words From Martin Craig 

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