'If you would understand anything, observe its beginning and its development.'
Aristotle
Although it may seem difficult to believe thanks to our collective youthful exuberance and childish enthusiasm for shiny things, offbeat is in fact a very old society – formed way back in the days of yore (or 1984 if you’re using a normal calendar) it is one of, if not the, oldest university based music societies in the country! Which is nice. For our 25th anniversary an old offbeat alumnus (Mark Sturdy) put together an amazing history ‘zine documenting the birth of the society and its various ups and downs over the years – it makes for fascinating reading, and so we thought we’d put it up on here so people can learn about what the society was/is! The original was full of amazing posters from over the years, but sadly we can’t host them all on here - we’re looking at ways to host the pdf so you can ‘experience’ the whole thing, but for now, we hope you enjoy this taster of offbeat history:
Early days - 1984-87
In the autumn of 1984, a group of friends, disillusioned by the conservative range of most student discos at Warwick yet inspired by the eclectic range of music they were hearing on the John Peel show and events such as The Smiths’ gig at Warwick Arts Centre (in June 1983, a matter of weeks after their first single came out), decided to get together and start their own society to fill the gap. The first disco takes place that term in a venue at the top of the Students’ Union, then known as The Elephant’s Nest…
ADAM KING (Offbeat member 1984‐85 and president 1985‐86):
The founding fathers, and mother, were Jagdish Patel (or Dougie, as he was known), Mark Oxley and Mandy Groom. Myself and Simon Bernstein were also heavily involved, mainly in the heavy lifting department. Dougie and Mark were the main DJs. Mandy, I think, came up with the name, and her profoundly uncomfortable Citroën 2CV carried the records back and forth from Leamington.
MARK OXLEY (founding copresident, 1984‐85):
There were two main motivations for starting the society. First, at that time there wasn't much of a choice as far as being able to strut your stuff to some decent music at the university was concerned. If I remember there was the usual type of disco offering your bog standard fare of the time, and there was something along the lines of an alternative music society. The existence of this latter led to some heated opposition from the President of Entertainments or whatever his title was as he accused us of being more or less the same as the alternative society, or mutton dressed up as lamb or something like that. But quite frankly dancing along to the likes of Clock DVA, You've Got Foetus on Your Breath, 23 Skidoo and their ilk was a bit beyond Dougie and myself. We wanted to do a disco where the music was eclectic but always danceable. The second reason was to be able to get our sticky paws on a minibus so we could organize trips to gigs. As far as I can remember we only got round to organizing two, both at Leicester Uni or Poly: R.E.M. and Billy Mackenzie. We also put on a gig ourselves at Warwick by Slab! Whose singer, Steve Dray, was at Warwick when we were there or at least he was hanging around there after graduating.
ADAM KING:
It was essentially founded as a place where Doug and Mark could play music that they liked, play it loud and play it in the company of their friends. Their tastes were magnificently eclectic and ranged from mainstream rock to the most obscure World music and everything in between. Stuff that no conventional Warwick disco, in the era of 'Thriller' and during the regrettable ascendancy of Kid Creole, would touch. There were occasions during their first event that they were loudly booed, but then they gave Simon and I our own slots, so we shut up. Offbeat did around two or three nights per term. Momentum gradually built during the year and by its end we were getting a dedicated, if modest, following. Gates were respectable, but not spectacular. Mark and Dougie’s philosophy was that if a record was good, then people would dance to it. As quickly as they could fill a dance floor, they could empty it. And not care. They were almost heroic in their indifference to audience reaction. It was one of their many admirable qualities. In response to the booking of largely crap bands on campus – this was year when Lanchester Poly [latterly known as Coventry University] ruled in that sphere – the boys booked, in the late autumn of 1984, a trip to see a small, but not yet very popular beat combo, R.E.M., at Leicester University. It may not seem much to relate now, but then it was a characteristically imaginative and enterprising thing of them to do. For some reason, which must have sense then, though it makes little sense now, every event ended with the playing of R.E.M.’s ‘Don't Go Back to Rockville’. In 1985/86 the others had graduated. I was still a postgraduate and the boys allowed me to continue using the name, so myself, Debbie MacDonald, Simon Rosenberg, and a few other children of John Peel, continued the pattern of the previous year. We didn't have elected officials or titles like President etc, given our lefty bias, because if we had mine would have probably been 'bloke who tries to prevent the record boxes from falling off the bus seat on the way from/to Coventry'. The new collective turned Offbeat into a vehicle for music that we loved, predominantly indie music, with jingly jangly guitars to the fore. It was more mainstream, in many ways, than the previous year, but even so there was still only a minority following among the student population. Mostly we used what was then called the Elephant's Nest ‐ the room right and the top of the building, anyway ‐ as the venue. We got full houses for every event, including one with a band called Mighty Mighty, currently residing in the where are they now file.
SIMON ROSENBERG (Co‐president 1986‐88):
I became involved in 1985 while Adam and his future wife Debbie McDonald/King ran it and then I was President in 1986, and jointly with Gabriel Sterne in 1987. Actually you call us Presidents but we were more of a left wing cooperative built on love and mutual understanding and Gramsci's third edict, except Debbie always wanted to play obscure stuff while Gabe and I understood the value of the crowd on the dancefloor. We ended up falling out over Debbie playing Test Department And The South Wales Miners Choir at 11:50 just after we finally got the 6 people to dance to Velocity Girl (which I would say is my ultimate Offbeat song along with Bigmouth Strikes Again) – and the ethics of being given 50 quid by the Student Union to spend on records. Where are those Wedding Present 12 inches now?
ADAM KING:
There was lots of good music to play and the dance floors were always full. I know that it wasn’t me that got the Wedding Present twelve inches. I also know that every Offbeat we did was great fun. I once got to play the full version of The Wild Swans’ 'Revolutionary Spirit' and got to say into the microphone "fades in", a la Peely, at the beginning of the record. We never lost money, in fact there was always a healthy balance after every event. I left in 1986 and Simon, Debbie and co continued to run it as a flourishing concern. Clearly Offbeat continued to flourish and never faded out. Mark, Dougie and Simon will be pleased to hear that.
SIMON ROSENBERG (Co‐president, 1985‐88):
Our Offbeat was right in the middle of the 80s, still drunk on that punk and more importantly post‐punk DIY ethic. It was all about being different and standing out from the mainstream. To this day, I still have never heard a Led Zeppelin record, preferring some 2 minute, 1 chord energy rush. I'm thinking Dead Kennedys for some reason. We were indie. But indie really meant independent. It wasn't a genre, it was a way of life. It was off beat! So we had an unspoken duty to ‐ in the words of our 1988 favourite, That Petrol Emotion's ‘Big Decision’ ‐ Educate, Agitate, Organise! We were forever educating campus beyond Michael Jackson and Wham! by playing obscure jewels like Mighty Mighty who we liked so much we booked them as our first band. Whether the 5 people who were in attendance at Ele's Nest on a cold November evening in 1985 appreciated this, I cannot say. As far as the agitation bit went, we were all (and still are) as far as I know into all the left‐wing causes of the day ‐ Anti‐Apartheid, Amnesty, Trade Union fights ‐ and so we came up with this brilliant idea of holding benefit gigs and then asking bands to play for free. This allowed us to approach some of the major names of the day, none of whom, I'm afraid to say ever made it big – which to me symbolizes the futility or importance of what we were doing. But you can't imagine what a big deal it was for us to get a reply from the Woodentops’ manager to our request for a benefit gig. We were organised, no doubt. Going around campus delivering information to every Offbeat member about our next Offbeat night. Such dedication, such a lot of time on our hands. No Facebook groups. No internet. We also came up with brilliant ideas for marketing to promote our nights and our gigs – though we never called it that but I know what it is now I'm a proper grown‐up. My genius idea was to put posters up in places you weren't allowed to but places that I knew everyone we cared about would see them over the 2 hours or so the poster would be up. I loved the thrill of standing in the library lift and then suddenly sticking my poster on the wall while everyone stared at me. And it worked, our membership increased and our nights started to sell out. And then of course there was the music. In my time 1985‐ 88, it was mainly jingly jangly guitar – ‘Velocity Girl’ (Primal Scream), the Mighty Lemon Drops, ‘Like an Angel’, The Weather Prophets ‐ early Creation, you know. The Smiths obviously. New Order. And in those early years, stuff from our adolescence like Teardrop Explodes, Buzzcocks and Echo Beach by Martha and the Muffins. Then in 1987, just as we had gone from 10‐people nights to selling out every evening, the more left‐leaning amongst us wanted to play more hip‐hop and house and for a while I knew all the words to Eric B and Rakim's ‘Paid in Full’ just as I knew Teenage Kicks. However, for reasons I still don't get, no one would dance to the hiphop/ house stuff and we would fill the floor with ‘Big Mouth Strikes Again’ and empty it with Pump up the Volume. This I think is the saddest thing because the best thing about music is the mixture of styles and genres (cue Happy Mondays/Stone Roses era) and I find it so boring and dull these days to listen to bands that sound like we played them at Offbeat in 1986. Sorry Franz Ferdinand, the Cribs, the Kings of Leon and 1000 others. Everyone says that music was best when they were young. I was just fortunate to be young in a great and truly creative era.
There's loads more, including some truly amazing posters in the full 'zine, so keep your eyes peeled for that when we find a place to host it.
Big love,
Alex x
