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IMPORTANT INSTRUCTIONS FOR NAVIGATION This site is designed to be viewed in full screen mode toggle F11 key to flip between the two modes, As this site is constantly being updated so please press F5 key from time to time to view any updates, You may use anything from this site for personal use but please put a link back to my site. Thanks. Any text which is colored yellow,is bold and underlined Like This is a link to another page containing more info on the current paragraph. The site is divided into three sections, This one which is a biog of my life on the road and in the studio throughout the years, It contains many tales, some funny, some scary, It also contains music from the year in question and can be download for FREE. "The Elevator" is what is what it says on the tin, Press the "Call Elevator" on most pages and the Cab will appear to whisk you off to any part of the site/sites. "Dark Side Of The Earth" is a separate domain devoted to my new album, here you will find samples of music animation and video from the album Which will be available soon. Another part of the site is called "Bradshaw Hall", This is based on a real place where my band used to live and rehearse, It is a house of with many rooms and is my virtual home on the net. |
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Finally, This is a huge site and often things are not what they seem, Just because you have read a page does not you have seen all the content, More often than not it will contain links to other pages and sites, These links can either be text or graphics, In the the case of graphics don't assume that because is is animated or even moving across the page it is not a link, it just means you will have to chase it around the page with you're mouse!!!, Bradshaw Hall it is a labyrinth of tunnels and secret passages leading to Gardens where you will find the hunting tower which houses the Eleport which can transport you to a 1951 Soho jazz cellar. |
You will now start to see our new Magic Media Player appear on some pages, To listen to a track mouseover the player, LEFT click and select the track, To continue reading whilst track plays, Tab "Magic Wardrobe or Minimize the Windows Media player to your taskbar". If you would like to download the track then RIGHT click and select "Save Target As". Any Probs feel free to mail us at "phil@darksideoftheearth.co.uk" Thanx. PP |
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The track on our player is: "Rise Above The Flood, It's from the album "Tin Of Snakes" and features Manchester's "Lennie Zackson" on Tenor Sax. If you have visited my site before and need to know what's new check my news sheet for updates and additions, Please click here: "Online Magazine" |
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| "WHO IS PHIL
PLANET?" A good question, one thing is for sure is that I have been on and around the Manchester music scene in one form or another for longer than I care to remember, What follows is my story of all these years in music, words, pictures and art. All the design and content and music on this site is my own work, Where it isn't the contributor is credited. I first picked a guitar when I was about twelve years old, never really took it that seriously until one day coming home from school I heard the sound of The Rolling Stones singing "Come On", "I Never really liked the Beatles much because my Mum and sister liked them", Even better Mum and Sis HATED them, This was when I decided what I wanted to do. Me and my best mate Pedro ordered an electric guitar and amp each from Ped's sisters catalogue, (A week before she moved to Scotland) I also sold my beloved "Triumph Bonneville" to buy a P. A. system, Hey presto my first band was born "Here and Now", This was a four piece which could hardly play anything at all!, In short we were all just crazy, In fact Andy Mac from Revolution Studio's in Cheadle Hulme actually renamed our band "The Crazy Gang" The link provides an insight to a typical band weekend. |
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"Here And
Now" My first band "Here And Now" is pictured on the left, Left to right on the photo, Stu Law, Pete (Ped) Jennison, Phil Planet and Ronnie Lightfoot, (Brian is missing from this photo as he took it ) Pictured on the right is the business card which my Dad payed for, WEDDINGS!! Imagine hiring this bunch to play on your special day, And where is the other member of this five piece group? "I think he had a very important darts match to attend at the local boozer" if I remember rightly, Needless to say "Here and Now" were soon "Dead and Gone, After being together for around three months we had got 2 songs half together and had played the grand total of "0" gigs!! |
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| "Young And Renshaw" Circa 1970/71 |
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Around this time it turned out that my neighbor at my new flat (Graham Harrop), heard me Jamming and knocked on the door, You play guitar? Graham said, How do you fancy being our roadie on our next tour? I just said: OK when do I start, It turned out Graham was the bass player in a band called "Young and Renshaw" (Formaly the "Young Brothers".)called " |
| " The deal was that in exchange
for roadying I would get singing lessons off the late great"Paul
Young" (Later of Sad Cafe and "Mike And The Mechanics" (I included
this link as it contains a fitting tribute to Paul and his amazing talents) I
also got guitar lessons off "Frank Renshaw or (Young)", (Toggery
Five, Hermans Hermets) All this and £5 a day!! I learnt more about Rock and Roll, hard knocks and dirty socks whilst on the road with these guys than anywhere else, It was amazing, we just toured around the college circuit and then stayed in London for two weeks whilst the guys recorded an album in Air Studio's, Pink Floyd were recording in the studio next door, Even the hotel was full of bands, This was the Madison or "Madhouse" in London, We were up drinking and smoking all night with "Caravan" and "Medicine Head", Their roadie would take the back off a small amp to reveal shelves full of drugs inside, "They don't call us Medicine Head fer nothin boyo, It was incredible really I was only about twenty, Hanging around with heroes, I must have pissed my mates right off when I got home, "Hey have you heard the new Pink Floyd album Phil", "Heard it! I f#####g watched em doing it". |
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I suppose I learnt
how to mix music on these tours too, One day Frank and Paul picked me up to
start a small tour down South, Normally we would stop off at Didsbury to pick
up Davey Jones, (He was the sound engineer, I just helped carry stuff into the
venues), The van just went straight onto the motorway, "Hey you forgot to pick
Davey up" I said, "Davey's Jones is in the the locker man, he got busted last
night" Paul said, "Who is going to engineer then?" said I "YOU ARE" Paul and
Frank snapped in harmony, That was it, talk about the deep end, Way to go
though!! That was about it for the early seventies apart from a glam rock band me and some of my mates put together called "Captain Video" all glitter, plastic pants and see through flowery shirts, (Ballroom Blitz), What a gas, all the women thought we were the real thing, We just toured around England and lived at party's, I do have some pics of this band but they are really poor quality and unusable, (Honest). |
| "SHADOWS IN THE SUN" Circa
1971/72 After the demise of "Young and Renshaw" I decided to retire to my bedroom at my Parents house to learn to play his guitar properly, It was during this time I first started writing songs, At this time it was an odd thing to do really, You just did not write songs in them days until you were famous, until then most people did covers. The first song I ever wrote during this period was called Shadows In The SunIt was kind of a hippy folk thing really, The you can see the original words by clicking on the red link,(Please give it time to load), Most people said that it was a bit naive at the time, but lets face it when you read the words it was 35 years ahead of it's time!! It was never ever recorded properly for this reason. It's the worst thing in the world to go up to four or five musicians with your latest song and ask them to play it, Believe me if they don't like like it they wont even entertain it, It was even worse in 1972, I will be recording a brand new version of the song and it will be included on his new album "Dark Side Of The Earth".. |
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| After my self imposed imprisonment I then went out playing the "club" circuit around the North East of England with Hedgehoppers Anonymous, Art Nouveau, Civvy Street and loads of others I can't even remember, I even did a stint with a magician called Clive Webb, and worked as his assistant!!You can read this hilarious story by clicking the yellow link above. |
| "The Shed" Circa 1973 |
| Another band around
this time was called "World War Three", It was so called because of an article
in the local paper about residents complaining about the noise we made, One
neighbor told the press, "It's so loud I can't even hear the guns on "World At
War", Of course we just thought that was cool, I used to be a joiner at this
time and had more or less built The
Shedon my own with a little help from John our drummer, Brian
Johnstone my best mate and Bass player was a postman and he supplied any money
needed, All the timber and nails etc. I had stolen from a massive building site
I was working on, When at work it was always a problem to get a tractor or
dumper to move floorboards, Me and Ped (see above) used to use my van instead,
What happened was that every so often when we loaded the van to take it to the
job, I would simply drive off the site with it! This band also never got to see
the light of day, In fact it ended in a massive dispute, Brian and myself
against John who was our drummer, After the place was built "John" decided he
did not want to be in a Rock band after about three rehearsals, He decided he
wanted to be in a "Jazz" band, Funny because he never mentioned Jazz while I
was slaving away knocking nails in, nicking the wood and Brian was spending his
hard earned cash, So what was the problem? The problem was we made the mistake
of building "The Shed" in John's garden. There is a lesson here and this is a mistake which I was to make again in the future, When you are truly passionate about something you have to be very careful because passion makes you blind to reality, Believe me there are plenty of ass holes like John who who will have no hesitation exploiting you, Poor Brian died in a motorcycle accident a few years later, Me, I just carried on making this same mistake over and over, My song "Tea and Poison" relates to this: "The price of passion never was cheap, It comes from within the soul" and "Where are you now the weathers broken?" You can hear this track by selecting it on the player above, As I said earlier I was blinded many times, If you can be bothered to go through all my site you will see it happen again and again, If you want to succeed in life it's easy, Just carry on reading what I did and then do exactly the opposite!!! |
| "Captain Video" Circa 1975/76 |
| That was about it for the late sixties/early seventies apart from a glam rock band me and some of my mates put together called "Captain Video" all glitter, plastic pants and see through flowery shirts, (Ballroom Blitz), What a gas, all the women thought we were the real thing, We just toured around England and lived at party's, The only pic I have of this band is shown below, Even then the pic is very poor quality, Trouble was in them days everybody did not have a mobile video studio in there f*****g phone, Come to that the only phone you did have was attached to a small table in the hall at yah Mam and Dads house, (If you were lucky). Ahhhh, them days are gone forever....Unless Gordon Brown gonna bring em back!! Whoops!. |
| The band were:
Martin?: Lead Guitar, Me: Rhythm and Vocals, Al Duffy: Lead Vocals, Tony
Roberts: Drums, (Tony later played on the "Jilted Johns" hit single, Mike
the drummer from (See One Way Street) was asked to play on this and REFUSED!, I
remember Mike saying, "I'll never refuse to do anything again"And last but
not least my good mate Brian on Bass, This was a full on party band, we lived
in our 6 wheel transit and we were music Gypsys and the girl's loved us, Whoo
Hoo, Wham Bam Thank you M' am, Wild and free and out on the road 5/6 days a week.
(Take a look at this old contract for Germany."Contract Capt.
Video" Alan Duffy was also a good friend of mine going back to junior school, He was a mad case and a proper hard man, I remember one night at a Disco in Millom in the Lake District, Some nutter jumped up on stage and grabbing Al's mic off him shouted, "Last time I seen a mouth like his it had a hook in it, Alan just snatched the mic back off him and without further adue threw a mega punch which sent this guy flying right off the stage and on to the dance floor, Then he just said casually down the mic, "Hah, Last time I seen a face like his it had a fist in it!", (It was a bad idea to mess with our Al, many tried, all failed). At some point rod Mayall joined up with us, He was was the brother of the now legendary "John Mayall" Rod was a brilliant keyboard player, Rod and I also go back a long way. |
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| "One Way Street" Circa 1976/77. |
| ONE WAY STREET Were: Myself: Lead Vox and Guitars, Mike Doherty: Drums (Best known later with The SmirksRonnie Poole: Bass Guitar, (Later joined John Cooper Clarke) and Phil Simpson: Saxophone, (Later left the stage to drive a bus for Stagecoach). As you can see from the ticket on the left, (Supper Dance?) this was also a cabaret band, Again it was a lot of fun because our manager lived in an early 15th century manor house called "Bradshaw Hall" and he let us all move in, It was top, 12 bedrooms and in the middle of nowhere, We had out own rehearsal room and a bedroom each, It was surrounded by grounds and had a pond in the front garden, We had so much fun and so many party's , We mainly just played clubs around NW England at first until one morning............................................................... |  |
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Mike Doherty came rushing into my
bedroom shouting hey Phil wake up our agent just rang, he explained that they
wanted us to go to Copenhagen for a month, What do you reckon Phil? I just
said: "I reckon I better go look for my suite case", We had never worked abroad
before and the idea that they were going to give us tickets and pay us to do it
was cool, As far as we were concerned we were now pop stars, Following in the
steps of the Beatles and the Stones, It didn't bother us that we had to be
there in a weeks time. Friday morning we drove down to Dover and we were all pretty exited as you can imagine, We were in my old 6 wheel transit, We painted it specially for or trip using some ORANGE paint out of my Dads shed, Trouble was it ran out half way and we couldn't get any more, As a result one side of the van was a yucky orange and the other side was YELLOW!!, Even worse it still had "Didsbury 1st Scout Group" painted in tacky letters on the yellow side, Still at least all the roof was all black and it was fitted with a row of coach seats in the back. So there we were English Mega stars on our way to Denmark. |
| "FOUR GREEN APPLES" |
| The The Journey took about three
days and included two ferry crossings, I remember leaving Dover all four of us
leaning on the rail at the stern to watch |England disappear, When ever I
conjure up that picture in my mind |It always comes with the words: "Four green
apples hanging of the boat", It was Phil Simpsons turn to drive when we got to
Copenhagen, I was sleeping in the back when there was a bang, Phil, (The Sax
player) had drove right in to the back of a car, Fully laden Transit V Fiat =
very irate Danish chap, Nobody could understand each other so it got confusing,
In the end I offered him our last fiver and he took and went off quite happy!
All the back of his car was mashed up and he accepted a fiver!!, (They looked
liked they might be worth something in them days!!). We finally arrived at the club, It was called The Jamfrubet or something, It translated as "The Virgin Club" and was situated at the far end of Eastergarde (East Street) We soon found out that East Street was the red light districts sex show motorway, This club was where all the girls from the shows came for a drink and a dance after they finished whatever it was they did. We were just looking forward to unloading our gear at the club and getting back to the Hotel for a much needed sleep. When we found the manager he just said: Where have you been you are late, You were due on stage at 9:00pm (It was now 9:30), We just could not believe we had to go on, We tried to explain about our long journey but he was not interested, OK we'll just have to load our gear in then, No need gear its provided and set up just get instruments, When we looked on stage all the amps were SCREWED to the stage floor and wired up with dodgy two pin plugs, (No earth), Whilst eating some sandwiches I asked a barmaid why the other band quit, "The singer was killed she said", What happened to him I asked, "He was electrocuted on stage"........................... |
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 Above:
Left to right: Phil Simson: Saxophone and backing vocals, Mike Doherty: Drums,
Phil Planet: Lead vocals and guitar, Ronnie Poole: Bass guitar, This photo was
taken at Bradshaw Hall, Cheadle Hulme, Notice how we chose to pose in front of
a load of rusty old farm machinery instead of choosing one of a hundred other
great places around the grounds or even in Bradshaw Hall itself, When I look
back on these photo's now my my just boggles at the lack of thought. (Note my
gold imitation leather pants left over from the Captain Video days, Yeeks, More
flares than the RNLI Hah Hah Hah. |
It turned out that what had
happened to the singer from the previous band is he had touched the microphone
with his beard whilst having his hand on the metal strings, There was a fault
in one of the clubs amps and because the club had no earth it earthed through
him, I refused to go on, Can't you chance it" the manager said: Chance what? I
replied, In the end he agreed we could use our own amps. I think it was around 10:30 we went on for an hour first spot, The place was packed and we were doing cabaret stuff, Drifters and shit like that, I was the longest hour of my life, The place was full of Arab sailors and working girls, They all just sat staring at us and nobody danced or clapped, When we came off I then had to escape to the dressing room because the Arab sailors fancied me! (Young blonde boy with blue eyes), We just all sat in the dressing room wondering what on earth we would do for the next month, We also had that night to get through, The deal was we should go on at 9:00pm till 10:00pm then half hour on half hour off right through to 4:30 am (5am on Sat/Sun). Just then a Danish girl came in she was gorgeous, She said hello my name is Sue, I live at the Hotel where you will be staying and I will come back with you and show you where it is, She then said you play the wrong type of music for in here they like heavy stuff, I said what like? She said, You know "Smoke On The Water" stuff like that, We could not believe it, This was what we knew and played best, (We hated cabaret we just did it for money in the UK because that's what they wanted), We went on for the second show and Mike started the drum intro to Smoke On The Water, I brought in the guitar, Bah Bah Baaah,Ba Ba Bah Baaah, Ronnie came in with the pumping one note bass line and by this time the whole club was dancing and jumping around, It was surreal, We all looked at each other smiling, That's the first hurdle over with. |
| "Sin City" |
| As far as the
music went we more or less went down a storm every night, We even had top local
bands coming to see us after they had played the Tivoli Gardens, English and
American bands had a raw energy that other countries could not emulate. It was
really hard work as we had to play for four hours every night (Five
Friday/Saturday), I remember when we were a few nights into it I was loosing my
voice, I started putting guitar solo's where there should have been vocals to
spare my voice, I think a couple of nights were more or less all instrumental,
This was OK but one night I looked down at my Strat's maple fret board and saw
it was covered from top to bottom in blood, All my fingers were bleeding, When
we finished the spot I croaked to the other guy's, This is f#####g crazy man I
just can't carry on I need a break. Just like magic (Like life is), an English guy came in the dressing room to say hello, We all got talking (I could hardly speak), I showed him my fingers, He said "Hey I used to play in here last year but when the band went home I wanted to stay, He had met two Danish women who offered him a room in a penthouse, loads of cash and a car and they just wanted to whip him and have sex a few times a week, (I kid you not, he even showed us the whip marks on his arms and body), Anyway he said he would be glad to stand in for me for a few days so I could heal my voice and fingers, He said you want me to take over tonight, I handed him my guitar and said "I sure do" I decided I just wanted to chill out for a few nights, I explained to this guy I had the hot's for the barmaid, He said she would be impressed if I asked here out in Danish and taught me what so say to ask her out, I remember going up to the bar, ordering a bourbon and asking her out in Danish, She started howling with laughter and said in broken English, "I would love to" Then she said do you know what you say to me? I must have looked puzzled, She said: You say "Will you suck my b~~~~~ks please!! Hah I could have died on the spot, ........They don't call Copenhagen "Sin City" for nothing you know bands had a raw energy |
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It didn't take us long to find
out why they could afford to bring bands over from England, We were on roughly
£700 a week (between us) and they paid for food and Hotel, However the
Danish equivalent of us were on £700 per NIGHT, Even worse Copenhagen was
one of the dearest city's on earth to live. I even had to hold our Danish agent
up against the wall by his throat to get an advance on our One Way Street
Letters. We had given our last fiver to the guy in the car
and we were still skint seven days later, The Danish people were cool and
looked after us with drinks, fags and food at the club. Once we had our first advance it was time to go mad, It turned out that Sue who took us back to the Hotel on the first night was the English bands groupie, All the bands who played The Virgin were from the UK and they were all put up at the Pension De Robert on Ny Kongesgarde which was where she lived, We asked her where we could buy some Drugs and she took us to this guys apartment, He started making a huge water pipe up and it took him about half an hour, He lit the pipe and passed it around, We started sucking hard on this thing just like we would do in Manchester, Sue kept protesting, no, no you should take it easy it is very strong, We can handle it we bragged, were Manchester Boys, It was a bad move we were on stage in three hours............. |
| I remember the conversation on the way back to the Hotel, Where are we? errrrrr I think were in Copenhagen, What are we doing here? ermmmm We have a gig in three hours, WHAT!! WHERE? SH1T!!, By the time we got to the club we were off our faces still, We went on for the first spot and I just started sniggering, (You know when you are laughing down your nose trying to keep it in) Mike started doing the same which made it worse, Then we both burst out in full blown laughter and then Mike was laughing so hard he fell off his drum stool and off the back of the stage, This was to much for me and I fell to my knees head down in complete hysterics, When I finally got the strength to lift my head up I just looked at the audience at the front, All these sailors and working girls just staring at us in disbelief!! |
| Zee Danish Girlsnish Ladies |
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It has to be said the "Danish
Women" were just something else, Most of them came in from the
strip joints and shows on Eastergarde, These story's are not for everyday
consumption so you will have to click on the link above and input a password,
(If you don't have a pass you can get one by emailing us: (Just put password in
the Subject box) You can leave the body blank if you like, You should get one
almost straight away.
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| Last update 00:12am 03rd June2009 |  |
