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Downstairs at Erics, Upstairs at Probe

Sharon Jones

Thursday, December 9th, 2021

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 1980, 16 years old, and when not at Anfield
I would be posited in Probe Records
And once when deciding to buy an old vinyl of The Cramps
Pete Burns muttered “good choice that”
And I floated down Mathew Street
In my ragged stitch-pulled mohair best
Strutting the coolest of the cool
Bowie was king when The Cavern was a car park
“Bigger vandals than the Luftwaffe!” moaned me Dad about Merseyrail
But we had our own cave, roared our own “barbaric yawp”
Through the echo of the bunnymen and Allerton adenoids
We made heaven down here
Art school adidas and loquacious Lacoste
Wedgie hair and silks wristies
The devil never had all the best tunes
Because Pete Burns did
Downstairs at Eric’s upstairs at Probe
Music came wrapped with a sneer and a snarl
And we scruffy scouse youths scribbled our soul
Carbon copied poetry stapled and stuffed inside gatefolds
No money but we had reason
When the Reds were away
To run breathless into that mecca of music
This Liverpool record shop we snarked Thatcher
And like boss militants
We learnt all we needed to know
About football, faith,
And the soul of rock and roll.

Notes

Great memories of a boss music scene; Bob’s reds, Pete Burns a legend.
Probe Records (which Pete ran in 1980) our 2nd home after Anfield.

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/probe/?shared=email&msg=fail