NC Radio Mothers – The heart of the Midlands Underground scene (1968 – 1971)
Written by NC Radio on 27 May 2016
Trying to define the Midlands is like trying to define “the underground”, and so it can be appreciated that defining the Midlands underground is extremely difficult.
But even the complete geographical idiot would appreciate that Birmingham is in the Midlands and that a club that featured groups such as Ten Years After, Canned Heat, Soft Machine, Jethro Tull, Chicago, The Who, The Nice, King Crimson, etc, were not putting on local hops to raise money for a new church organ.
Therefore, it can be safely said that Mothers club of Erdington High Street in Birmingham was on the Midlands underground scene. In fact, between 1968 and 1971, it was the Midlands underground scene, and with a membership of around 45,000 regular visitors from London and even further – and many foreign visitors – it would be difficult to overestimate its national importance.
With the demise of UFO in Tottenham Court Road and the subsequent rise and fall of Middle Earth, the underground scene largely evaporated into the respectability of the Lyceum and seemed to have lost its focal point.
Mothers Club, although over a hundred-mile motorway trip from London, was already pulling music appreciators from the metropolis and putting on the much-needed consistent attractions.
The club (located above a furniture shop and originally called the Carlton Ballroom) became “Mothers” in 1968. Although Birmingham had had blues club scenes and back-of-pub freak-outs, there had been no permanent scene for aspiring Middle Earthers.
John “Spud” Taylor and Phil Myatt – the full-time half of Mother’s four directors – saw the potential for a club in Birmingham which would not only draw from the city itself but become a national attraction, and along with John Singer and Gary Surman they turned the former ballroom and dancing school into a shrine of progressive music.
Without them, Birmingham rock fans would have had to be content with the concerts put on at the Town Hall in rather unprogressive conditions or return to the pint-in-the-hand, elbow-in-the-face existence offered by the Elephant & Earwig on Sunday nights.
The artists who appeared at Mothers were as impressive a list as any of the Fillmores, and it’s almost easier to list those who didn’t. Well, there were The Beatles and The Monkees . . .
Outside Birmingham, though, the Midlands scene was very different: Frank Freeman was doing things in Kidderminster, music tours graced the local ABCs and Odeons once in a while, and there was Radio One.
The fact was that to merely cover expenses, in many cases requires an audience of some size.
An audience not to be found in most Midland towns – as the Badge Club in Northampton found out. Here, audiences and money trickled away until the club had to close. Some nights, the club looked like a party due to start in three hours.
It must have been saddening to start a club in a supposed scene-craving town of pseudo-art students and drop-outs and find they would only come in if they could slip past the doorman.
Maybe a lot of the hip talk about groups was just a trendy whim, and active participation was limited to borrowing the last but one LP by The Plastic Flying Bedstead.
Footnote: Mothers eventually closed its doors on 3 January 1971. Well-known live recordings made at the club include those released by Pink Floyd on Ummagumma and parts of Facelift by Soft Machine.
Phil Myatt died on 15 November 2008, aged 72. John “Spud” Taylor passed away on 10 March 2021.
A Blue Plaque was unveiled at the former Mothers building on 13 July 2013.
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