RIP July

RIP
Kids today!! They wouldn’t understand. Class waiting for NME and Sounds to come out and kerrang
Alan Lewis obituary
Editor and publisher who oversaw a series of hit music magazines including Kerrang! and Vox, and started a new publishing genre with Loaded
James Brown
Alan Lewis, who has died aged 75 of Parkinson’s disease and cancer, was a widely respected magazine editor and publisher, who launched Kerrang! and Loaded. He had an ability to recruit new talent, sense emerging trends in publishing and music, and marry the passions of readers and writers to create some of the most influential music publications of the late 20th century.

Across a 45-year publishing career, he launched the genre-defining magazines Black Music and Kerrang!, he edited No1, Sounds and the New Musical Express,and as publisher he launched Vox and Uncut. By altering the results of focus group research he persuaded IPC magazines in 1994 to launch Loaded, the first mass-market magazine for young men.

Alan was a hands-on editor who would happily lay pages out himself, and entrusted his younger writers to seek out new bands to champion. He believed as much could be learned in the pub as the subs room, and was popular with his staff for both policies. His ability to create successful launches and turn declining titles around also made him popular with his bosses at Spotlight and IPC.

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Alan Lewis, left, with James Brown, accepting an award for Loaded in 1995
He was born in Hillingdon, west London, to Silvan Lewis, an engineer, and his wife, Doreen (nee Gordon), who had met during the second world war at EMI’s research unit at Hayes. Alan went to Hayes County grammar school and wanted to join the military, but after failing the Sandhurst entrance interview he went into local journalism as a reporter and subeditor on the Middlesex Advertiser, alongside Greg Dyke and Raymond Snoddy.

In 1969 he joined Melody Maker as a subeditor and started a soul music column, an under-represented genre at the time. He interviewed James Brown, Tina Turner, Stevie Wonder and Al Greenand witnessed Lionel Richie writing Three Times a Lady on a hotel bar piano in the US.

In 1973 he became the founding editor of Black Music, which ran until 1984 and was the first British print outlet to cover reggae and Afrobeat. Alan helped launch Sounds, becoming editor in 1975, after which the circulation grew from 70,000 to 170,000. It was the first of the weekly “inkies” to champion punk by hiring a new generation of writers, including Jane Suck, John Ingham, Vivien Goldman and Garry Bushell.

After an unintentional picture caption slight, Led Zeppelin’s notoriously heavy manager, Peter Grant, called Lewis and threatened to have him kneecapped. He also rued the day he missed Debbie Harry visiting the office with the intention of giving him a kiss to say thank you for Sounds’ support for Blondie.

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The first issue of Kerrang!, published in 1981
In 1981, working with the writer Geoff Barton, Alan launched Kerrang!, championing the “new wave of British heavy metal” – Motörhead, Iron Maiden and Def Leppard. It quickly became the fortnightly bible of heavy metal, and no other music title would ever be as synonymous with its subject matter. Kerrang! continued to grow and change through thrash metal, grunge, nu metal and metal core, reaching its sales peak 20 years after launch.

In 1984 Alan “retired” from journalism for the first time and with his wife, Carolyn, bought the Blue Ball pub in Asheridge, Buckinghamshire. When the Frankie Goes to Hollywood label ZTT advertised for a press officer successful applicants were required to know the pub’s name.

Tiring of being on what he considered the wrong side of the bar, Alan returned to edit the pop mag No1 in 1986, and a year later moved to the editorship of the NME, which was experiencing notable circulation decline.

I had joined the paper shortly before and Alan promoted me to features editor at the age of 22, allowing me to bring in a new wave of writers including Barbara Ellen, Stuart Maconie, Mary Anne Hobbs and Steve Lamacq.

Lewis encouraged a broad church of content and the NME championed Morrissey, the Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, the Charlatans, Blur, the Wonder Stuff and PJ Harvey, alongside the rise of Balearic beats and acid house. Hip-hop acts including Beastie Boys, Public Enemy and De La Soul sat alongside mainstream front covers featuring Def Leppard, Bros, Iron Maiden, Bananarama and T’Pau.

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Alan Lewis with the wrestler Kendo Nagasaki in 1978.Photograph: Ross Halfin
The title saw a 60% sales rise over four years, during which Lewis was promoted to editor-in-chief and launched the music monthly Vox, voted the British Society of Magazine Editors launch of the year for 1990.

In 1994 he convinced IPC that my idea for a magazine combining music and football was worth publishing, and when at the last-minute lawyers made us remove a spread on Rod Stewart, Lewis suggested we include photographs of an unknown actress in see-through underwear called Elizabeth Hurley. He also insisted we include fashion to help ad sales. Loadedwas launched, and the mainstream men’s magazine sector was born.

After just three issues – featuring Gary Oldman, Leslie Nielsen and Elle Macpherson on the covers – Loaded paid in its first pound of profit, against a break-even target of three years. The title was voted magazine of the year by the PPA and went on to receive numerous other awards, selling some half-a-million copies at its peak.

Alan subsequently oversaw the launches of Uncut, Muzik, Eat Soup and Later, and ran Record Collector between 2003 until 2011.

He is survived by Carolyn (nee Sear), whom he married in 1970, and his sons Simon, Ben and Luke.

Alan Edwin Lewis, magazine publisher, born 2 July 1945; died 23 June 2021

 

Jeff Barmby.

 

Shocked to hear this. Knew Jeff well from his days as the Boothferry Park Spark to him owning the sweet shop on National Ave.

RIP Jeff.

 

RIP Jeff
Only saw him a few weeks ago on Bricknell. Gutted.

 

Really sad news

RIP Jeff

 

R.I.P. Jeff

 

Jeff Barmby 78. Scarbourgh's all time favourite player, scorer at Wembley where he played four times for them. Probably the most famous ex footballer in Hull never to play for City. Spent a lifetime ( or so it seems) at the helm of the Ex Tigers who will miss him, his work and his networking tremendously.
I've known Jeff since 1970 and I have had the pleasure of playing against him four times ( he was playing for the Ex Tigers)
He was fast then so he must have been some player in his prime.
Spent many an hour in his company always discussing City on which he always had an opinion on every decision made by everyone at the club.
One of Hull's character's and a huge part of football in this city, a friend to many. He will be sadly missed. RIP pal.

 

Bloody hell Jeff, the lights went out?

That's your job.

RIP

 

Very sad news. RIP Jeff.
I still have a team photo + clipping from The Hull Green Sports mail of the ex-Tigers where his son Nick was sitting in front of the team - he was maybe about 7 or 8 at the time. Team mascot. Must search it out and scan onto this thread.

 

Tom O'Connor 81
R.I.P.

 

I knew someone who rented their house to Tom O'connor when he was doing summer seasons in Brid. It was few miles outside. He liked it that much he kept going back. They said what a lovely bloke he was and he always kept in touch with them.

 

Was the bloke you knew a taxi driver who played pool at the golf club?

 

No.

 

I worked for Butlins for a while and Tom O’Connor did a show one night. After the show he waited around until everyone who wanted a photo or autograph had what they wanted. Happily chatted away to anyone who cared listen. I spent a little time with him that night and he really was a genuine bloke and very funny live. RIP

 

An old school legend RIP


CHESTERFIELD LEGEND MOSS WAS PROLIFIC HERO OF A BYGONE ERA

They were called Match Facts. To my knowledge, the first comprehensive marks out of 10 that were ever awarded to participants in English football. Now it would be unthinkable to not be told that the left back for Norwich was only worth 5 and the striker 7, but back then, roughly 40 years ago, it was groundbreaking.

The publication was a new magazine, Match Weekly, and the collation of all this information across four divisions was done by Hayters Sports Agency, where I worked at weekends, while still at school.

Saturday evening, the cramped office upstairs in Gough Square was given over to copytakers in archaic headsets, taking down a list of names and numbers from every game in the country. It was easier then, because almost all football took place at 3pm on Saturday, even if Manchester United and Manchester City were both drawn at home in the FA Cup.

My job was to use the squad lists in the Rothmans Football Yearbook to check for spelling mistakes or other tiny errors from typists who could hardly be expected to be across every nuance of Exeter City's back four. It left me with an encyclopaedic knowledge of a specific, brief time in English football. If I hear the name of a player, I can have a fair stab at whether he played for Tranmere Rovers or Halifax Town. Utterly useless, of course, but I know this: Ernie Moss always scored.

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+7
Ernie Moss (L), who died last week aged 71 from Pick's disease, scores a typical header for Port Vale against Sheffield United
At the time for Chesterfield, but then for Port Vale and after that, well, I lost track. I didn't do the ratings shifts any more and Moss moved — to Lincoln, to Doncaster, to Stockport, to Rochdale. And back to Chesterfield, of course, where he was as revered as Bobby Charlton at Old Trafford.


He died last week, aged 71, from Pick's disease, a form of dementia brought on, no doubt, by his prodigious talent in the air. All of his clubs, 12 as a player, plus seven more as a coach and manager, paid tribute. All did his memory, as a man and professional, proud.

I don't know if I ever saw him play, but I saw his numbers. No penalties, either. In my imagination, he's rising above two defenders to power home another header at Saltergate.

A true hero of a game long passed.

 

One of those players whose name always stuck in the mind for some reason. Aware of him despite him not playing for big clubs. Don't think I would be as aware nowadays of players who played for the clubs he did.

 

Is that Bob Hatton in the picture? Looks like him?

 

Could be. They were at Port Vale and Sheff Utd respectively at the same time for a couple of seasons in the early 1980s. Can remember Ernie Moss playing against us.

 

Ernie Moss scored twice for Mansfield against us in October 1977 - the defeat that caused the demise of John Kaye as City manager.

That was the only time he ever scored against City, which surprised me. He played another eight times against us after that double.