Supertogether Band

 Discovering Supertogether, together

In the late 1980s I got introduced to a band called The Seers by one of my school friends.

 The moment I put the needle down on the 12" vinyl of  Freedom Trip I knew this was the band for me.

When they broke up in 1992, around the time of their second album, Peace Crazies, it left a gap in the lives of many music fans. Personally, that gap was made worse by the fact I never got to see them perform live. 

Having seen many bands I enjoyed my teen years get back together, I always hoped The Seers would do too, but as the band approach their sixties it seems that won't happen. 

A while ago, I discovered some of the members of The Seers have been in other bands since then, so, this post is about one of those bands and I'll probably do something on the other bands too (though, I'll probably include them in here too.)

My main reason for doing this is to save myself having to dig around for material when I want to listen to them. This is the cased with Supertogether, because I haven't found any of their music for sale or to stream. 

Supertogether are a band put together around 2011 (possibly earlier), fronted by Steve "Spider" Croom of The Seers, and include Billy and Richie from The Heavy Drapes (both are now in The Godfathers). 

Material first started appearing on the internet via Bandcamp in 2011, but with members of the band far apart as Scotland and Bristol it seemed difficult for them to get things done. The last post (at the time of writing) on their Facebook page was 2018. It's now July 2022 and their debut album, Bitterness and the switch, still hasn't materialised. 

It's a shame because the tunes that have been shared to date are awesome.

So, let's start off with the videos that are out there. Here you go.

There are a few places to listen to audio tracks too. Probably the place with the biggest selection of Supertogether's material is Reverbnation with 9 tracks (includes 2 versions of Powder Blue). If you pop over to Steve Croom's Soundcloud page you will find 3 more (okay, one of them, Loveless, is on Reverbnation), Here you will find more of Steve's tracks from his other bands, Zoomer, Teenage Girls and some of his solo stuff.  Their bandcamp page only has one track, Powder Blue again. 

So, that it really. Well, all I can find out about Supertogether. Will they ever put the finihsing touches on the debut album and perhaps play some gigs? Who knows. I hope so. 

Dissident Citizen - The King (of the Slums)

Following the sad passing of Charley Keigher (aka Charlie Keighera) on 28th November 2021, I've had the album Dandelions on loop in my car.

I wanted to post something, some way on honouring Charlie (yes, the spelling was varied over the years), but all I could think of doing was sharing some videos from YouTube to perhaps spread the word. 

Up until recently I've kept my King of the Slums (K.O.T.S. were initially called Slum Cathedral User) fandom to myself. I discovered them in my early teenage years in the late 80s, hearing Sarah Curtis'  screeching raw violin and Charley's northern poetic lyrics on BBC2's Snub TV/Reportage. They were my band, part of my teenage identity. Yes, I was too young to see them live, but I felt connected. 

I tried to get my high school mates interested, but they were too busy listening to goth . When I moved to sixth form everyone was listening to shoe-gazing indie. In all fairness, I was too, but I kept K.O.T.S. close. After they split following their 3rd album, Blowzy Weirdos, I though that was that but I kept looking, hoping. 

It was a long wait. And then another long wait, followed by an even longer wait before they finally came back in full force. Discovering Machine Gun Witchcraft album in 2005 was joyous, 2009's The Orphaned Files even more so. 2017's Manco Diablo brought a full return, with 2 more studio albums to follow. I was one happy K.O.T.S fan.

To fans and music lovers, Charley's passing came out of the blue. Lots of great artists have come out of Manchester, but Charley was the most under-appreciated. Perhaps like all great artists he will be appreciated even more in years to come. I know I'll still be listening. 

Thanks for music, Charley. I consider it memorable.

Fanciable Headcase

Barbarous Superiors

Weirdo

Virgin Mary/One Trick Fairy

Churchbells over Enlgand

Salt of the Earth

104 Words

We Are Albion

The word "Albion" has long fascinated me. 

Why? Well, it's the suffix of my football team, West Bromwich Albion. 

There are a handful of suffixes used by football teams; United, City and Town are the most common. There are a few Rovers, Wanderers, Athletic, County and Albion teams. And there are a bunch of teams with unique suffixes (e.g. Tottenham Hotspur, Accrington Stanley and Preston North End) and then a few with no suffix at all (Everton and Liverpool, for example). 

These suffixes have meaning to them. City and Town being the most obvious. United less, obvious, but I understand it may have originally being from more than one team or location coming together. Albion as a word has a historic meaning that many may not know of. A quick flick through the dictionary and it is defined as a name for England or Britain, especially the England or Britain of ancient times. That makes sense, with Alba being Celtic word for Scotland and there are similar Irish, Welsh and Cornish words too. I didn't study latin at school (too young and not posh!), so I have to go on what I can research about the etymology, and there is a suggestion that it may come from the latin words for white (albus) or hill (alb). 

Coming back to the topic of football monikers, these suffixes are often used locally in place of or in addition to nicknames. Where you live you might refer to your local team by the suffix as well as the nickname. (FYI, in addition to Albion, West Brom also have the nicknames of The Baggies and Throstles).

In some instances these suffixes can become synonymous with one club. United? Man United. City? Man City. Rangers? Glasgow Rangers. Real? Well, it's not going to be Real Salt Lake is it? Sorry, to the Claret and Cobalts. It's always going to be Real Madrid. And Albion? West Bromwich Albion.

Such global association of a suffix to your club comes with history. By history I mean both being the first, but also footballing success history too. I'd like to add that perhaps that success should be before the Premier League money started sloshing around and ruining the game and skewing the odds.  Take a look at the domination of domestic trophies by a handful of cash-rich teams since 1992, and compare to the previous 100 years. Sadly the league is the play thing of billionaires....

Modern football fans have a very short attention span, and get all of their information from the internet. Sadly, all it takes is for one false article or a mischievous (or malevolent) edit on Wikipedia for incorrect information to become fact. These incorrect facts can then get referenced elsewhere. Just ask comedian Dave Gorman! I think it's sad that people no longer take the time to explore and learn about the culture and history and evolution of our beautiful game, and all their information comes from their phone or TV. 

I've seen several poorly researched articles incorrectly suggesting Brighton & Hove (who I understand were the 5th team, behind WBA, Witton Albion, Albion FC [in Uruguay] and Albion Rovers) as the first team to use the Albion suffix - nope, wrong answer! Sorry if that sentence is a bit clumsy - I was cautious to not phrase it in such a way that it could be misconstrued by some search bot.  I suspect the people who wrote these articles only skim the internet and watch just Premier League* on the telly.

* WBA ("The Albion") have spent the most seasons in  top flight football (even just the Premier League) out of all of the Albion's. Read to the end for more on this fact.

Fun fact: I keep tabs on every team that has dropped out of the EFL. Teams shouldn't be forgotten by football fans just because they're not on the telly every week or on social media channels. Seriously, if you love the game then go beyond the glory of the top flight leagues. Watch out for Rayo Vallecano instead of Real Madrid (incidentally, Albion and England legend Laurie Cunningham played for both of these clubs), take in grass roots games, look at the history of your club, their rivals, their influences (for name, kit, badges etc.) For example, do you know why Juventus play in black and white stripes? I bet not many modern football fans do. 

Formed in 1878 as West Bromwich Strollers (cool suffix, right?), Albion changed to West Bromwich Albion in 1880. Albion, were one of the 12 founding members of the Football League, along with  Accrington, Aston Villa, Blackburn Rovers, Bolton Wanderers, Burnley, Derby County, Everton, Notts County, Preston North End, Stoke (they didn't have the City suffix at the time), and Wolverhampton Wanderers. The league commenced in 1888. When it was formed it didn't need to be known as the English Football League because it was the first. It wasn't until 2016 that for some reason the powers that be decided to rebrand the Football League. 

So, West Bromwich Albion were the first team in the whole world to be known as Albion. And they're the most successful too.  

Here's some other Albion facts for the uninitiated. 

• West Brom were founded by factory workers. Their initial name West Bromwich Strollers came about because they walked to Wednesbury to buy a ball. 
• Albion have worn their famous blue and white striped home kit since 1885.
• The bird on the club badge is a Throstle (a song thrush), which is perched on a hawthorn branch. 
• They have been champions of England once (1919–20), and have been runners-up twice.
• They are the only team to win promotion and win the FA Cup in the same season.
• Albion have won the FA Cup 5 times, having made the final 10 times (prior to the Premier League era WBA were 5th most successful team in the FA Cup).
• They are 11th in England's all-time top flight table (the next nearest team with the Albion suffix are 49th with only 10% of  The Albion's point tally).
• The ground is named The Hawthorns because the location where the ground was built was covered in hawthorn bushes.
• The Hawthorns is the highest ground above sea level of all English professional clubs.
• They reach the quarter finals of European Cup Winners' Cup in 1968-69
• WBA reached the quarter finals of the EUFA Cup in 1978-79
• They lost in the English Final of the Anglo Italian Cup in 1995-96
• West Brom were the first English club to sign a player for over £1/2M (David Mills from M'boro in 1979).
• On 23/01/22 Blackburn and West Bromwich Albion set a new record in the Premier League by fielding players from 22 different nations in the same game among the 27 players used in the game.
• Players from 64 different nations (at the time of writing) have played for WBA
• 700+ players have played for West Brom, with player surnames starting with every letter in the alphabet except X! 
• They were the first team to avoid relegation in the Premier League having been bottom at Christmas (and the only team to avoid the drop whilst being bottom on the final day)
• Out of all the clubs to provide players for England, West Brom are 10th position, having provided 45 players to date (Spurs have provided the most with 78 at the time of writing).

Okay. I've got other things to do be doing, so I'll draw this post to a close.

I guess I wanted to make you think a bit more about the names of football teams, understand the history a bit more, not take things at face value or take what you see written on the internet (except this post, obviously, as it is bona fide 100% accurate at the time of writing) or social media as facts without doing your own research.

And in case there was any doubt:-  West Bromwich Albion were definitely the first football team to use the Albion suffix moniker, and are the most successful Albion team in the world. So, yes, we are Albion. The Albion.