THE SIE PEPPER POSTER
WHO MANAGED TO GET ONE?
THEM KINDA MONKEYS CAN'T SWING!
It was obvious to us all at Slade In England that the most important recipients of the poster after the membership of the Facebook group itself, would be the band members, Noddy, Don, Jim and Dave!
Plans were put into place with SIE members who had direct contact with the former members of Slade. Chris Selby, whom Slade In England had christened the 'Official Slade Historian way back in 2001 on the All Singing, all dancing, fab and groovy Slade In England massage bored, was tasked with getting the posters to Don Powell and Dave Hill. The late Dave Kemp would take care of the posters that were reserved for the brothers Lea, and Nomis, a long standing 'friend' of the band from his time when he was a fixture on the road with Slade would take care of Noddy Holder at one of the many public appearances that he was making at the time promoting something or other...a book, a talk or charity, I can't remember which it was!
Don Powell was the first to receive his Pepper Poster at his home in Denmark. We had decided that anyone and everyone who was to get one of the posters would send us back a selfie of themselves holding up the poster, and Don duly complied with the request and became the first former band member to be seen proudly displaying what was to become an iconic piece of Slade fan artwork!
Don is someone who is proud to display his awards that he has collected over his long career as a rock legend, his many gold and silver discs occupy large sections of his home and I do know that the Pepper poster was framed and displayed on the wall outside his toilet! A good as place as any.
The next former Slade band member to be pictured with his personal copy of the poster was diddy Dave Hill, Chris Selby caught up with him and presented him with his poster which he was more than happy to be pictured with. Dave Kemp managed to get the posters to both Frank Lea, who qualified as a VIP and therefore eligible for a poster by virtue of the fact that he had been the stand in drummer for Slade in 1973 at the Isle Of Man music festival when Don Powell was recovering from the serious injuries he sustained in the fatal road accident in which his then fiancee Angela Morris was tragically killed.
According to the feedback both Frank and Jim found the posters and the characters depicted on it entertaining as they tried to work out who most were and what the tenuous link to the band was! some were easier than others but some had them completely stumped and that is no small wonder!
Frank was the first to send us in a photo, no nonsense, no frills as one would expect from a no nonsense no frills man, Jim on the other hand took a while to get his photo in to Slade In England, but it was worth the wait, carefully taken in his home sitting at his grand piano with Cello and violin in shot. It was a nice touch and much appreciated, after all, can you imagine the mithering that he must have had over the decades from anonymous fans who want this that or the other!
The final piece of the jigsaw was to get a poster to Noddy Holder, who despite his good ol' uncle Noddy image that has been carefully and immaculately generated over the years, he isn't that easy to get a hold of and guards his privacy and that of his family fiercly as he has every right so to do, but all celebrities who still use their name and image to flog records, books, plug talk shows or charity events are fair game when they are out and about promoting something or other, and Noddy Holder was presented with his poster by Nomis and Stu Rutter at Harrogate where Mr Holder was giving the latest of his theatre talks to an assembled crowd of fans and theatre goers.
Noddy Holder is the consumate professional and Stu Rutter, an artist of some note, had previously arranged to present Noddy with some original artwork at the event. Noddy was of course happy to be photographed holding the poster and Stu later wrote a brief precis of events which is worth noting here.
"Just back from Harrogate, still a bit woolly from true Slade style celebrations of all the hoped for proceedings working even better than hoped. I'd made prior arrangements with the event organiser to have our own time with Nod for both the Pepper Poster and my portrait prints that I wanted personalised by Nod. I lubricated that by offering the last of the 6 prints to the event as a future fundraising prize which they readily accepted to the tune that we could have as long as we needed at the end to get whatever we wanted done. Nomis has some cracking pics on his camera but it currently enjoying AC/DC with the same, his pics are far far better than my phone's effort above, so we await with baited breathe. Suzan H was also extremely helpful and wanted to know all about the Pepper project so David and Peter received specific mentions in despatches.
As Nom says, Nod was very interested in the poster and spent quite some time poring over it, some he was puzzled by but was determined not to use the crib sheet. (Suzan btw correctly worked out "One Eyed Jacks With Moustaches"!!) Once the picture signing was done for me (Thanks again Nom for being on hand for pics) Nod went back to the poster with a helpful crowd of about half a dozen trying to work them out too. There were also several requests of "where can I get one?" I'd also printed out the pics of D,D & J with their posters which they had a look at, though no comment made other than Jim looks a little ill in his. A great great night, I was much relieved when we left. SiE - you know it makes sense!
The poster has proven to be a resounding hit with all who were lucky enough to receive one. My thnks in particular are reserved for Peter Farrington, without whom the poster would never have become a poster at all, it would have been a decent image residing within the closed confines of Slade In England's Facebook group. Peter not only funded the limited edition poster print run, but also sent them around the world to those who wanted one all at his own expense. Thank You Peter!
In addition to the membership of Slade In England, other VIP's included Rock N Roll journalistic royalty in the shape of former Melody Maker journalist Chris Charlesworth. Chris wrote the now famous sleeve notes on Slade's seminal 1972 LP Slayed? and has been a long time champion and friend of the band, also responsible for the brilliant 'Feel The Noize' biography and therefore a worthy recipient of a poster! Chris's excellent blog on all things Rock N Roll can be found here 'Just Backdated'
Chris also bumped into Noddy Holder a few weeks before Harrogate and tried explaining the concept to him ~ ...."I saw Nod a couple of weeks ago at a music biz gathering and told him about the Slade In England Pepper photo. He seemed unaware of it so I had to try and explain what it was all about. He seemed genuinely ticked pink...."
Another VIP worthy of special mention must be reserved for film maker extraordinaire Alan Parker who came up with the idea of using 'Them Kinda Monkeys can't Swing as the drum logo' it was rather inspired and took him a few seconds if not instantaneously to proffer it up! Other notable mentions must go to the late Graham Swinnerton, long time road manager and friend to the band. The poster was also given to Mike Hamblett and is displayed in the Robin 2 in the Bleak Country, just down the road in the Royal Exchange, known to one and all as The Trumpet there is another copy of the poster for all to see.