PHK: Much of my social life throughout the 1980s and well in to the 1990s was indirectly influenced by legendary Mod DJ Tony Class – from the early Nationals, to the Phoenix Rallies to the Classic Club International (CCI), Tony was the central figure in rallies, club nights and allnighters that shaped a generation. I had the huge privilege of catching up with Tony for an hour or so in Stoke-on-Trent in March just before the Northern Soul Allnighter started at the King’s Hall.
Paul Hooper-Keeley: When did you first get involved in the Mod scene?
Tony Class: what happened was that in 1979 my younger brother Robin, who started DJ’ing with me in 1974, he decided in 1977 to buy himself a scooter, and he was visiting friends down in Hastings, The Teenbeats. Come 1979 Robin said that there’s loads of gigs on, but it’s just bands playing – no one is playing records. So I said to him, why don’t we put on a Mod club? So we put on The Hercules in Lambeth North on November 9th 1979 and we must have had 30 or 40 scooters outside, which looked absolutely incredible. And from that moment on, that was my calling, not just a calling but a chance to re-live my youth. I felt I’d missed out because in 1966 I was 15 and was not old enough to get a scooter. All my friends were a bit older and they all had scooters – by the time I was old enough to have a scooter, it was dying out, so it was like I’d missed it. So when it came along again in 1979 I thought right, this is it, I’m doing this. We had a lot of trouble at these early gigs, like the Red Lion in Westminster Bridge Road. The 3rd pub we moved onto was the Walmer Castle in Peckham. And sometimes it was Mods fighting Mods – that’s how stupid it was. The excitement was just so much; my brother said to me “Tony, we’re going to get a bad name with the venues because wherever we go, there’s a fight.” I said, “I’m having the time of my life, I can’t give this up. To me, this is my lifeblood.” And from that moment on I kind of saw it as my baby, because no one else was doing clubs. So I thought right, I’m going to do clubs. By late 1980/early 1981 I was doing 7 clubs a week in London. At one point I was doing 2 clubs on a Saturday night, one in Shepherds Bush and the other in Vauxhall. That went on for about a year and it was like being at a party every single night. The buzz was incredible. In 1981 I bought a video camera and thought right, I’m going to film a load of this for posterity. Then I spent two and a half grand buying a 6ft screen so that I could show the footage in the clubs. Come 1985 I thought I’d start doing ride outs, because back at that time no-one else was doing ride outs. No one else bothered because you can’t make money out of ride outs, but I thought sod it because ride outs are the best way to advertise Mods and scooters; all the little kids are standing on the side of the road looking at these Mods and these scooters going “Mummy, Daddy, I want one of those one day”. It’s the way to keep it all going. That was always my goal, to keep it all going. You’ve got people who’ve gone away, had families, come back, brought their kids back, their kids are into the music. Back in 1979 someone said to me, “Tony, this is a great buzz, how long do you think it is going to last?”, and I said probably a couple of years, and I kept saying probably a couple more years up to ’85, ’86 maybe ’87 until I thought no, this is going to last forever. It’s like the Isle of Wight; the A23 Sabres started the IoW in 1981 and only got about 300 people there. My sister was there, I didn’t go – but in 1982 everyone said it was such a brilliant rally I said that I’m going to go and do something at Smallbrook Stadium in 1982. And I’ve put on a do or DJ’ed at the IoW every year from 1982 to the present day. Even when the Scooterists were banned from the island, I carried on there doing Mod rallies and to me I’m so proud of that and I really think it is a great achievement. The ride outs were such a buzz and they still are now – we do a ride out from London to Southend every year. I said to Wolfy let’s do something different, let’s go down to Carnaby Street and fill it up with scooters – and that’s what we did. It’s never been seen ever before, and it will never be seen again – we just filled the whole street (the photo are on my Facebook page and look absolutely brilliant. The buzz is still there – I’m 60 now, but in my head I haven’t gone beyond 25.
PHK: Going back to the early days of your clubs, what records were you playing back then?
TC: Most of the time, in 1979, I was playing mostly Tamla Motown and two tone; I played a bit of Trojan although, back then, we had a lot of trouble with the skinheads. But I still played Trojan - my favourite record of all time is “54 46” and I was playing it back in ’79. People said it was a skinhead song, but I said it’s a good song and I’m going to play it. Plus a bit of Who, Kinks & Small Faces. Early 1982 a guy called Simon Sento (real name Simon Preacher) came down to the Phoenix in Oxford Circus and he brought a box of Northern Soul records. I started playing some of these records and it just blew me away, I was hooked from the first moment to Northern Soul and played loads of it from 1982 on. A lot of it was very commercial Northern Soul, but everyone had to start somewhere. And it got all the newbies into Northern and then they went into it more deeply and sought out the rarer records. People came to the 64 clubs that I held in London to listen to the Northern Soul that I was playing, and I feel quite proud that I got some many people into it. It’s not very well documented, and it sometimes gets up my nose because everyone knows how hard I have always worked for the scene (because of my love for the scene), yet the various books on it barely give me a mention, two lines at best.
PHK: The last of the great Mod national rallies was in 1982, we then had the TAMSCA rallies and then the Phoenix rallies – how did this all evolve?
TC: The first rally I did was Margate in early 1980, I can’t remember exactly when it was, (it might of been Easter), but it was definitely a bank holiday weekend. Everyone said we’re going down to Margate, so I said OK. I didn’t have a scooter at that time so I went down in my car. So I said, what we’ll do is all pull up just outside of Margate and congregate at a disused garage and then we’ll all go in together in slow procession, and that’s what we did. I had a Daimler, only an old one, but it looked really good. I’m driving in with about 300 scooters behind me and it was such a buzz. I didn’t intend to put any music on, I was just there to enjoy the rally like anybody else, but we were in a pub when someone came up and send we’ve found a club where they say you can play some records and this was at a lunchtime. He said, “Have you got any records with you?”, and I said funnily enough I have a small box of records in the boot of my car. The word went round like wild fire, I’ve gone in the club with my records and started DJ’ing and within half an hour, the club, you couldn’t move in there – it was rammed. The stage was about 10-12ft high, the highest stage I have ever seen. Everyone was jumping around and having a great time to ‘Louie Louie’ and I just thought that this is the way forward, doing rallies, not just clubs in London. That was a proper Mod rally in 1980, that was Mods. I did a couple more in 1980, and in 1981 the biggest one I did was in Brighton, and we got The Sun newspaper down – the venue was the Royal Artillery Hall. The Sun photographer said “Someone’s just jumped off the balcony but we didn’t catch it – can you get someone to do it again? I said I didn’t have to tell them, someone would do it again. Someone did do it again, no one caught them and they hit the floor but The Sun got their photograph and they were really pleased about it. For some reason, half way through the night the crowd parted and just split in two. I don’t know what the argument was about, but one side threw a glass, then the other side threw a glass, then bottles and eventually every glass and bottle was thrown between the two crowds – it didn’t make any sense, this tribal things. I said to them, what are you doing fighting each other when you’ve got so many other enemies – let’s face it, it’s never been easy, being a Mod. I could have given it up there and then, but I thought sod it. Everyone was frogmarched to Brighton seafront, everyone was laughing about it like it was a comedy caper, I’ve never seen so much broken glass in one hall. They filled up one and a half industrial dustbins just with broken glass. I’d been hiding under the table with my microphone in my hand calling for the Police who were waiting outside and they said that they were not going to come in until every bottle and glass had been thrown. So I’m waiting under the table with my decks for every bottle and glass to be thrown, and when they had, the Police came in. Then in 1982 I though I’m going to put on six rallies, Mod rallies, and I filmed every single one of them. And it was Mods, just Mods – it weren’t Scooterists, it was Mods. And that was fantastic. Then in 1983 you got a few scummy people, you started getting scruffy people who wouldn’t dream of spending their money on clothes because it was all going on their scooters, and also a lot of them revelled in violence, thought it was great to have a go at the Mods because they were an easy target. In 1983 I remember getting to the IoW and thinking, this isn’t good but let’s see what happens in 1984. Done the IoW again in 1984 with Edwin Starr who was great, but there was a bit of trouble again and I thought this is going the wrong way. I did it again in 1985 and that was it for me – I just wanted to do Mod rallies, not rallies where anybody could come. There was hell of a lot of hangers on and to me they had no interest in scooters, no interest in Mod – a lot of them were just like football hooligans. That was spoiling things. I picked all the bands in 1984 and we had Edwin Starr etc, but in 1985 my co-promoter Chris Burton decided he wanted to pick the bands and there was like Combat 64, The Meteors, King Kurt, and I said this isn’t right. But Chris said this is what I am being asked to put on. And that’s where it really went pear shaped. There were so many hangers on who had no interest in the scene that they just ruined the scene. The scene was lucky to survive after that, and that was why I had to distance myself and had to say no, I am just going to do Mod rallies – smart dress only, and the stick I got from some Scooterists for the smart dress only policy. People used to say to me, “If you let them in then you’d make more money”, and I used to say listen, get it into your heads, it’s not about the money, it’s about me having a good time. If I’m having a good time, I’ll carry on; if I’m not, I’ll leave.
PHK: The Phoenix Society – how did that come about?
TC: I’d done those 6 rallies in ’82, then another 6 in ’83, culminating in the IoW. At Weymouth in ’83 this American guy came up to me and said, “Hi Tony”, I didn’t know him from Adam, and he said, “My names’ Mark Johnson, blah, blah, blah”. I took him with a pinch of salt, just some yank coming over here ever trying to do something. Then, later in the year, he said, “I’m going to do some patches for the IoW” to which I said, yes, whatever. He was trying to get the glory for Phoenix Rallies and I can tell you now, categorically, there was never ever a Phoenix Rally that was organised by Mark Johnson. I single handedly organised every single rally, didn’t want help from no one else because that’s when problems occur. I took it on board because I had done so much up till then, I had it off pat. So I didn’t want any interference from anybody else. These Phoenix Rallies were utterly and completely done by me. I thought I’m going to organise it, and I’m going to DJ it, and that’s it. Come 1986, he put on the first International Ska Festival and that was something I wasn’t involved in, then ’87 he was getting heavily into Ska and leaving the Mod thing behind. I said to him, “Mark, your interests don’t lie in Mod anymore and there’s so many things been said about you, that you’ve been taking advantage of your position, and I’m not putting up with that anymore”. I sort of dismissed him – I told him that I didn’t want him anyway near me and that I was just going to carry on doing rallies. The best thing that Mark Johnson ever did was the Phoenix List which really helped communication across the scene. The Phoenix Rallies then evolved into ‘Class Presents’ in 1986 and then CCI (after the Lowestoft Mod Meeting). I gave everyone free membership to start with and in 1987 we had 3,700 members.
PHK: Happy memories for me, I first met my wife at the Lowestoft Rally you put on in March 1986.
TC: Bloody hell, that’s fantastic, that’s lovely. And having membership cards kept it exclusive and kept out the people we didn’t want there. We had decent people.
PHK: And at the Sunday Alldayer, my band, The Threads, supported The Rage. We were Mods who formed a band so we would be at all of the events across the country (rallies, allnighters, gigs etc.).
PHK: One endearing memory of the CCI events is of the excellent lunch time dos – if the weather was good we would see you in your white Fred Perry shorts, and if it was cold you’d be in your trademark sheepskin coat. Do you still have them?
TC: I got rid of the sheepskin a few years ago but I’ve still got the shorts. Maybe I should dig them out when I do a CCI reunion. And get another sheepskin and say this is the original one.
PHK: There were some great rallies and some great venues – which venues to do you recall the most fondly?
TC: The Ocean Rooms in Gorleston – when the guy done that laser of the scooter running around the room, I thought “That is the bollocks, that is so good – I was blown away by it”. I put the James Taylor Quartet on for that one PHK: yes, I was there – that was only their second ever gig and they were awesome. TC: Yes, they were fantastic. PHK: The new Heavy Soul fanzine has just done a piece on that in his new issue, along with the fun & games we had with the casuals on the Sunday night (which I remember vividly).
PHK: Who were the bands you put on to the rallies the ones you enjoyed the most?
TC: Well I liked the bands who were true Mods, like The Threads, you were all true Mods – it wasn’t like you’d got a band together just to play a Mod rally. You were there; you were Mods before you ever formed a band. To me, that meant more than anything else because it was, like, keeping it in the family. And to me that was always very important. Cos anyone can jump on a fucking bandwagon, can’t they, but to me it doesn’t work – your hearts got to be in it. My favourite band ever that I put on was Fast Eddie – although they did all covers, they were such a fun band and they’d interact with the audience, and to me that made it so much fun. Which to me is what it’s all about, having fun. Everything I’ve ever tried to do, at the back of my mind I am thinking is it going to be fun to do it? Are we going to have a laugh? When it came to the breakaway with The Untouchables and I saw them all, I thought you know what, they’ve forgotten how to have fun.
PHK: That split came around 1990 – how did you feel about that, did it damage CCI attendances much?
TC: Well no, not significantly. I carried on for another 10 years after that. People said why did the Untouchables start – I can categorically say that it was about money. Nothing else. They turned against each other eventually and then formed the New Untouchables. It’s a very small outfit; they only do one significant thing, ‘Crossfire’ on Great Portland Street. Even the thing they do in Brighton on August Bank Holiday is quite small; they don’t pull many people down there. Nowhere near as many as they did when they were on the IoW. People have said to me that the music’s changed and they’ve forgotten how to have a good time and it is such a serious thing. It wasn’t until 1999 that I put on a rally in Great Yarmouth and I thought to myself that there’s a lot of Scooterists now and not so many Mods so it became very difficult – when you’re trying to cater for one type of person and there aren’t so many of them around anymore. I had to stand my ground with the dress policy, although I did eventually relax it to include smart jeans, because this was my baby.
PHK: Rob Bailey says that you gave him his first break as a DJ and for that he will always be grateful.
TC: Well it wasn’t quite like that. What happened was that Rob asked me to go in with him and get a venue, the Queens Hotel in Brighton, so we both went down there to get the venue. I was the mouthpiece and did all the talking then he phoned me a couple of days later to say that he was pulling out so I said OK then, we’ll forget it, and then he went behind my back and booked it. You can print that. That’s gospel – and that was his first promotion, the Queen’s hotel in Brighton. I can’t remember what year – ’89, maybe ’90, round about then. And for that, I don’t think he’s a very loyal person.
PHK: You had some great DJs over the years though. Dom Bassett, Ian Jackson etc.
TC: Yes, I employed round about 60 DJs over the years. A lot of them did kind of turn against me, thinking we’ll go with so and so, and it did leave a bad taste in my mouth, it really did, because I think these DJs I’ve given them breaks, and then they put on a do in direct competition to me. It’s off, I don’t know how some of these people sleep at night, I really don’t. I can hold my head up high, I’m a pretty decent person, and I have got a lot of respect from many thousands of people who I have brought a lot of happiness to over the years.
PHK: Of the DJs you brought to the scene, who do you rate the highest?
TC: Ian Jackson – guaranteed because he enjoyed it more than any other DJ and he was playing it for the people, not himself, whilst a lot of the other DJs were playing the records for themselves. I forced them all into using microphones; they didn’t want to use them but I said if you’re DJ’ing for me then you have to use a microphone. And they’re all completely indebted to me for making them use a microphone.
PHK: I recall there was a rally that took place at a Holiday Camp – how did that go?
TC: 1989 at Brixham in Devon – we called it the ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ and it was on for a week – it’s the best thing that I have ever done in my life. It was funny from beginning to end; it was like being at a party for a week. Every single night it was party, party, party. After the venues shot at one o’clock it was parties in all the chalets. We had our own TV channel and we set up the kids cinema as a studio and everyone was watching the channel – we had a clipboard and had a list of who was shagging who with a right of reply (you had to come and knock on the back door). We had loads of people banging on the door, but that was just fun. Fun, fun, capital F. For a whole week. I did it again in 1990 up near Great Yarmouth. No one else has ever done that in the UK – and I did it twice. I wanted to cram as much into it as possible – we did ‘Game for a Laugh’, we did ‘It’s a Knockout’, we did snooker competitions, tennis, darts etc. I gave out loads of trophies, 6 bottles of Champagne every night, we did a toga night and had 200 people at the first one – 199 turned up in a toga as I said it was compulsory, Rob Bailey turned up in his suit – I made him go back to his chalet and get a sheet and put it on.
PHK: You’re still a DJ in demand. Do you have any regular club nights these days or are you more ad hoc, whatever comes up?
TC: More whatever comes up as I don’t want to promote any more – promoting is hard work and I leave that up to other people these days, but my phone rings constantly. Last year I did 47 gigs, near enough one a week, and that’s enough for me. That suits me down to the ground. I create my own party every week. I DJ’ed last night down in Croydon and I still get so much adoration, lovely ladies coming up and telling me that I’m the dog’s bollocks. And that spurs me on.
PHK: What records are in your set these days, and how has that changed since 1979/1980?
TC: Well I play a lot of Rhythm & Blues stuff these days, ‘Voodoo Working’ etc., plus a lot of lesser known stuff. I always go with my own instinct and if I think a record is good then I’ll play it. If I think it’s shit but others are saying it’s great cause it’s rare, I won’t play it. A good record is a good record.
PHK: You recently appeared on the TV show, ‘Coach Trip’, with your mate Wolfy – how did that come about?
TC: Wolfy rang me up one day and said, “Do you want to go on Coach Trip?”. I said yes, it sounds good – what is it, as I hadn’t seen it? He told me all about it so I said yes, it sounds like a laugh. So we got the application form and we filled it out together, and said that we were a pair of complete lunatics who would do absolutely anything for a laugh. We went for an audition and we were in straight away. We were the first 2 on that coach for that series (series 7). We had such a laugh, but we were too rock & roll. The people said this isn’t a party bus and the producers through us off. We never got voted off.
PHK: It seemed unfair when you got kicked off.
TC: Well Paul, the thing was that I fell out with the main director, Joe, because I argued that they hadn’t stopped at a shop for 3 days to get any provisions and every hotel we stayed in was in the middle of nowhere and the beers in the bar were like £8 a pint and I said to Joe that this is wrong, you’ve got to stop at a shop. He apologised, but I think after that my card was marked. I fronted him and he didn’t like it. That was the main reason for that. But to be honest with you, we’d been on there for 8 days and I’m not sure that we really wanted to stay on there any longer. You’re being directed constantly and a lot of it was staged – the ripping it out of Brendan, and Brendan getting the right hump was the sound men telling me to shout out. “Say it again Tony, shout out, wind him up, wind him up” – that’s no problem, I can do that.
PHK: How did you get on with Brendan?
TC: He was a nice guy, actually, a very, very nice guy. Because he was gay I thought I might not get on that well with him but he is such a genuine guy, and what you see is what you get – I wouldn’t have a word said against him. When he told us we had to go, that wasn’t him, that was the director. Brendan was just the puppet – because he enjoyed our company, because we made him laugh.
PHK: Have you got any projects or events that you are currently working on as there is a rumour via the CCI Lovers group on Facebook that you might be holding a CCI reunion event?
TC: I will do it but it will either be at the end of summer or the beginning of next summer depending how quick I can move as I want to give it loads of advertising cause the words got to get round; the grapevines not as good as it used to be. I really want to get a venue where I can get everyone in – I’d be really sad if I had to turn people away.
PHK: Location wise, is it likely to be somewhere in the middle of England so everyone can get to it easily?
TC: I’d like to do the Ocean Rooms at Gorleston, but someone has said that it is being demolished. I’d love to do the Winter Gardens in Blackpool, and The Rocket on Holloway Road in London is a good venue – although it’s got 3 rooms, and I don’t want to do 3 rooms, I want to do 1 room. And there’ll only be 2 DJs – it will be me and my brother, back to the beginning.
Note: The CCI Reunion has been confirmed for 20th October at the Ocean Rooms, Gorleston-on-Sea from 2pm to 2am with Ian Jackson appearing as a special guest DJ.
Tony Class was pure class,I miss him every day.Rest in noise top cat!Love Wolfy
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