00:00The Rock Garden became, and again it's this, it's strangely, there was, you have to think,
00:0778, punk happened in London in 76, it didn't really get to Scotland until 77.
00:14By 78, we're already into what they would call new wave, post-punk, starting to head
00:22into the sort of new romantic era, but you also had disco going on, you also had a sort
00:28of old punk revival going on, and all the tribes used to gather in here on a Friday
00:33night, to see what each other was wearing, to hear what each other was listening to,
00:38and at the end of the night, folk would go, there was about half a dozen clubs then you
00:43would go to, and we used to sit over in that corner, that was our sort of gathering spot,
00:51so much so that we called it the gang hut, and then usually a Friday night we'd always
00:58end up in Maestro's, in Scott Street, which is sadly no longer there.
01:03It was just absolute nirvana, because again, I'd be about 16, 17, shouldn't have been in
01:09there at all, but the music was so good, and as long as you looked the part, the bouncers
01:15would look you up and down, and either let you in, or just give you a knock back and
01:19say, sorry, not tonight son, but so long as you dressed well, and looked the part,
01:24in you come, you're part of the gang.
01:26Fair enough.
01:27So that was my introduction to the rock garden, and it sort of went from there, and you sort
01:34of grew into the place. As I say, I started coming in when I was about 16, and before
01:39you know it, as the sort of age groups ahead of you sort of moved on to become other, all
01:45of a sudden you became the sort of elder statesman, because you'd been drinking in here for four
01:50or five years, and all of a sudden you're now 21, 22, and you're turning around and
01:56going, hang on, that's so-and-so's wee brother, and he's only 15, he shouldn't be in here,
02:01and then you think, well hang on, I was doing that as well, so you never grasped them up.
02:05You'd give them a look, as if to say, I know.
02:08And by that point of course, I knew all the doormen as well, and all the bar staff, and
02:13again, half the bands in Glasgow, many of the members did time behind the bar, to put
02:20it mildly. Two guys that I was at school with, that I'm still in touch with, Ted Howie and
02:28Grant Rennie, were the two big tall doormen, and they looked the part, they were both about
02:336 foot 4, neither of them would have hurt a flea, but they were big enough, and tall
02:38enough, and cool enough, that folk would go, alright, if they said no, you took no
02:43as an answer, because they were big guys. And of course, there was a sort of, how would
02:51you call it, when you add two and two and make five, a sort of synergy going on, because
02:56also, directly across the road, was Flip, which was anyone that was about in the late
03:0670s, early 80s, it was all American import clothes from the 50s and 60s, so the first
03:12place you could get Levi 501s, second hand, second hand leather jackets, second hand 1950s
03:19shirts, suits, silk ties from the jazz age, and prior to Flip, if you wanted that sort
03:26of gear, you had to go to Paddy's Market, or the Barra's, and quite often, it would
03:32be really nice, but it would be filthy, and you'd literally have to hang it outside the
03:36house for a couple of days to make sure you didn't buy a jacket and end up with a jumper,
03:41because I certainly, a couple of times, ended up with fleas from stuff that I bought out
03:47of Paddy's. Those days, you'd go to Paddy's, or the Barra's, you'd buy something seriously
03:54cool for 50 pence, 75 pence, you'd wear it in here that night, and then all of a sudden,
04:00you've got this huge shop directly opposite your favourite bar, you'd go in there on a
04:05Saturday afternoon, you'd get something, come in here for a pint, go home, get changed,
04:09back in again that night, wearing your, I'm saying your new threads, new to you, but quite
04:17often, 30, 40, 50 years old, so everyone in here had a certain look, we all had flip bags.
04:25How would you say then that it's influenced the wider music scene in Glasgow, and even
04:30how it exists today?
04:34It's a strange one, because when it first opened as the Rock Garden, this was the Rock
04:39Garden, the bar up the stairs, and downstairs was a diner called Rocks, late 70s, early
04:4580s, you've got a generation of young earners, you've opened their first jobs, or a couple
04:51of years into their career, who have got a bit of spending money, and I think at that
04:56point you could still use, young folk won't understand this, luncheon vouchers, some jobs
05:01used to pay you a proportion of your salary in luncheon vouchers, which was a blank cheque,
05:07I think they were worth 25 or 50 pence each, and a lot of bars and restaurants would advertise
05:14in the window, luncheon vouchers accepted here, so as I say, food-wise, it totally changed
05:20everything as well, because you had young chefs who had ideas from beyond the Glasgow,
05:28I mean, historically, you went out for a meal in Glasgow, and it would be prawn cocktail,
05:35steak and chips, and a Black Forest Gattle, and all of a sudden, folk are coming up with,
05:41what's that? Parma ham with melon? Of course, Italians think nothing of that, but in Glasgow,
05:47what the hell's that? Bacon with melon? What's going on? That tastes bloody brilliant.
05:54So it opened, not just your eyes, but your taste buds as well, and again, even your drinks menu,
06:02all of a sudden you're seeing imported American beers, which you'd only ever seen in films
06:07or televisions, Schlitz, which was absolutely ghastly, things like Pabst Blue Label, all
06:15these things that you'd probably seen in Happy Days with the Fonz and all the rest of it,
06:20but you'd never seen them in Glasgow, and it was, I think it was Alloa Breweries that
06:28ran the taps in here at that point, but they were giving young importers their head and
06:35saying, well, bring us ideas that you think younger drinkers might want to, rather than
06:40being associated with a pint of heavy or a pint of 80 shilling. No, here's a really
06:46interesting lager. Classic would be Red Stripe, Jamaican lager. We'd never seen that before.
06:53This place used to, must have gone through thousands of gallons, because practically
06:57every second guy would be either, and at that point it was just cans of Red Stripe, and
07:04the reason it's called Red Stripe in Jamaica, it was originally brewed solely for the Jamaican
07:09police, who have a red silk stripe up the side of their trousers, and yet when other
07:17folk in Jamaica got a taste for it, it was supposed to just be for the police, and all
07:21of a sudden Red Stripe said, well, everyone likes it, so we're going to let everyone drink
07:25it, but it was originally brewed specifically for the Jamaican police force. Moving faster.
Comments