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Two Tone

LimelightMagazine

The Hollyhead Youth Centre

The Hollyhead as it is usually referred to, was the only facility for young blacks in Coventry when it was established in the 1970’s. It served as a magnet for the local  black youth, who organised themselves into the West Indian Youth Council and lobbied for a place where they could be free to do their own cultural thing. This resulted in them acquiring grants from Cadburys Trust to refurbish the basement of the building. The building is now space for an arts group, Art Space.

Music was the highest priority for the youth, the idea being that they could play their sound system as loud as they liked with no complaints from residents living around them. The birth of the centre enabled a Coventry black roots music scene to develop for the first time.  Now there was a place which was somewhere to go where young musicians could come to express themselves without any constraints on them. The centre enabled the development of many young Coventry artists both black and white who went on to enjoy considerable success in many fields including bands, computing engineering, college lecturers, DJs, and a variety of performance artists.

The band Chapter 5, were among the first talented members that emerged from the Hollyhead Youth Centre, while others members of the centre went on to achieve considerable success through the academic fields. An example Courtney Griffiths, is an original member of the youth committee, now barrister at law in London and a member of Coventry University Business Advisory Board.

Neville Staples of the Specials a former toaster and DJ with Coventry sound systems, got his first major stage experience when he jumped onto the stage with his friend Hector at the Police Ballroom (then a venue and did some shuffling a West Indian dance style) to the crowd cheering him on.

Four other members went on to form the Selecter a band that recorded on the (B) side of the Specials hit record Gangster.

Amos Anderson first met Charles Anderson of the Selecter at the youth club. Amos had arrived in Coventry from London to work with British Leyland management in Longbridge Birmingham testing the new models of motor cars.

Amos and Charley formed a partnership, with Amos writing a technology course for a new breed of sound engineers using digital format. The two subsequently formed Glasshouse Productions, a recording studio, production agency and home of the Democracy record label and publishing company and centre for new music technology training partnership with Access2 for young people to master digital recording.

Dj ET Rockers (Trevor Evans) and long time associate of Neville Staples (Specials)  were both DJs together in the early Hollyhead Youth Club scene. They were the main DJs for Jah Baddis, Coventry’s first youth sound system, and Sir Baggy Hi Fi veteran sound system operator.