The word 'DIY' is synonymous with 'underground'. But for 64 Brighton bands, their scene was literally subterranean.
Listen to The Golinsksi Brothers' frontman Darris Golinski explain what life was for Brighton's first wave punks in the grim vault they practiced in.
Scroll down to read the extraordinary history of the people and a place which came to define DIY music in Brighton and its legacy today.
Helen Reddington arrived in Brighton in 1975 to reinvent herself. Growing up with strict parents in Newcastle and being incredibly shy, she enrolled at Brighton polytechnic to study fine art and print-making.
For her, Brighton in the late 70s was a town of extremes. One the one hand, it was characterised by a large elderly population and dominated by semi-criminal antique, boxing and drug fraternities. On the other, it was full of subcultures thanks to a large population of students like herself.
Upon realising she had entered a finishing school for rich Londoners with unhelpful tutors, Helen dropped out. But living in a seafront squat with 17 others inadvertently created an opportunity that changed her life:
“I never wanted to be in a band. I was told I had to be in one. There was a punk band called the Molesters who used our basement to rehearse. They were so loud we banged hammers on the floor to shut them up. We got them a gig at the Resource Centre to get them out of the house but they bottled out. My then-boyfriend and a couple of friends decided we would we would play the gig instead. We bought a load of tabloids, went through them looking for stories for songs and two days later, played the gig. We were absolutely dreadful but we got loads of gigs because we were so awful.”
From that moment, she became known as Helen McCookerybook, bassist in the Joby and The Hooligans, The Smartees and later, The Chefs.
THE RESOURCE CENTRE
Next to a disused Presbyterian church, the Brighton Resource Centre hosted tap dancing classes and women's group meetings. After acquiring the printing and video facilities, it became a focal point for the nascent Anti Nazi League and Stonewall.
A key figure was Vi Subervsa, lead singer and guitarist with anarcho-punks, Poison Girls. Aged 40 at the time, she helped persuade the Resource Centre's trustees to open the crypts beneath the church as a practice space for local bands like the ones Helen played in:
“She had a way of absorbing people’s aggression and fronts and just being a facilitator. She supplied our snotty band with her son as a drummer, I borrowed a bass off Bella Donna who was Poison Girls’ bass player. She encouraged us to play, and never tried to force me into being a feminist even though she was one. The bottom line with her is that she was someone you could trust. Everybody felt that. She was the closest I ever had in my life to a mentor,” says Helen.
THE VAULT OPENS
The Vault opened its doors in 1977 and quickly became popular. 64 bands took advantage of the space with three to four groups sharing each 12' by 6' arch to practice. One band even lived there and slept on an old examination couch.
Inside the main area was a rudimentary stage. Gigs would happen if someone was willing to carry a PA down the narrow stairs from the Reseouce Centre. But the atmosphere at those shows was far from glamorous:
“It was an absolute dump. There were no toilets so people used to wee down an arch. The cost was tiny but nobody paid because nobody had any money. There were skulls lying around too. A baby in a coffin emerged out of one the arches once. We used to get people to do the door who sometimes had a knife. If people didn’t want to pay, the knife came out and they put their money in a baby’s coffin. It was completely lawless,” says Helen.
For almost 250 years before the doors were opened to bands, the Vault was a resting place for 500 bodies. Most of them were children. Rik Child, director of Brighthelm - the church occupying the site today - believes they were Nonconformists who fell victim to an outbreak of smallpox.
This might seem like ancient history, but it had a curious parallel with the Vault's biggest claim to fame. On 7 August 1980, Britain's front rooms were treated to a new look Top of the Pops during a high point of the Cold War. Opening that show were the Vault’s Piranhas with their hit, Tom Hark.
Its lyrics responded to the government's bleak Protect and Survive campaign which instructed citizens how to deal with the practical realities of nuclear war. Including how to bury your dead. For the band, this top ten success seemed the pinnacle of years of hard work and ambition. But it ultimately backfired on them.
Darris Golinski fronted the Golinski Brothers whose single Bloody became one John Peel's most treasured records. He believes this episode exposed the common denominator for all those who congregated there:
“I was living off benefit then. So were most of the musicians, including the Piranhas until they got caught. They appeared on Top of The Pops and someone from the DHSS spotted them on TV and stopped their money.”
John Peel stopped playing the Piranhas after that appearance, but their influence continued. Without them Peel and the public might not have heard of Madness, who adopted the Piranhas' reggae infused sound after being snubbed for support slots. For Darris, the relationship between his band and the Piranhas summarised the powder keg of creativity, idealism and aggression that occurred daily in those corridors:
“On the surface it was all bonhomie, but underneath were intense rivalries. You were always looking for faults because you felt very insecure about your own music. The whole idea of success was anathema. Because it was so democratic, we believed there shouldn’t be any distinction between those who were good at music and those who weren’t. There were some bloody awful bands but you had to treat them with the same respect as the bands who had talent.”
Conflicts within Brighton's punk scene often spilled over into violence. At one point Helen feared for her life after seeing death threats from a tall punk girl spray painted on hoardings across town:
“It was frightening. If somebody says they are going to kill you, there’s no reason for you to believe that they’re not. Especially when you’re in a subculture.”
SHAKIN' STEVENS, PROPHET OF DOOM
Vault bands lived in constant danger from beyond the scene too. When London was still chanting 'no future', the Vault punks' surreal humour and activism made them outsiders even amongst Brighton's milieu of subcultures. Even laddish groups like Peter and the Test Tube Babies played benefit gigs for Rock Against Sexism.
Ultimately, it was the combined forces of fashion, politics and pranks like leaving skulls in telephone boxes which turned them into Brighton’s pariahs:
“I remember going to see Shakin’ Stevens. Me and the band were wearing plastic sandals and they belonged to the Ted culture who were all into 1950s looks. We were alright until they saw our feet and I remember having to scarper upstairs because there started to be a really heavy atmosphere. Teds used to storm the trains too. I had to jump off them and run down platforms The skinheads didn’t like punks, everybody hated punks. The police hated us and chased us. If violent stuff happened the police were not going to look after you. You had to look after yourself. We were just as demonised as young people are now,” says Helen.
So why did the musicians continue? For Helen this was linked to being one of 600 applicants for a job and being turned down after making a shortlist of 20:
“At the time, you did it because there wasn’t anything else. Punk let me shout. Bass is the most noisy, powerful instrument and you’re actually shaking people’s feet and hitting them in the chest with it. It was incredible to have that sonic power after being so quiet that I couldn’t even walk across a room.” AN END OF AN ERA
Whilst sat in Gardeners Arms pub in the autumn of 1980 Darris heard the news the news that would change the scene forever. A friend of his ran in telling him the Resource Centre was on fire. For Darris it sparked anger, others were in tears.
When Helen found out she knew the scene was over. The blaze ripped through the building. Investigators never found out how it started or who was responsible, but Helen, Darris and Rik, all blame the far-right National Front.
The Vault wasn’t just connected to the Resources Centre and its left-leaning politics by bricks and mortar. Brighton’s punk scene formed a big part of the Anti Nazi League and Rock Against Racism. According to Rik, the Vault bands were the least of the Presbytarians' problems. At the time the church was englufed in internal divisions of its own. The building on North Street was dilapidated before the fire so they met at the Central Free Church on the corner of Air Street.
Increasing pressure from authorities and money from selling Central Free Church meant the writing was on the wall for the Vault: “The council said to them: ‘look this has to stop and you, the building owners, have to take care of it' which dovetailed with them eventually wanting to build over the site," he says.
The result was a four storey brutalist grand design by John Wells-Thorpe who also conceived Hove Town Hall. To realise this, the church had rip the Vault from the ground:
“It was a health and safety disaster. You couldn’t build anything on top of it so they had to dig everything out and start from the basement. I suspect this was a way of dealing with what had become a problem although those who used it may not perceive it that way,” explains Rik. THE LEGACY OF THE VAULT
With few visible signs of Vault left today, what was its impact on Brighton? The Golinski Brothers split up soon after the fire. Darris went on to run a business training social workers and probation officers. He also became a Quaker and stood for parliament for the SDP-Liberal Alliance. With hindsight he sees the end of the Vault was a blessing in disguise:
“I was lucky to get out of there. When you’re standing on a stage and you’ve got a four piece brass section pumping out behind you, people going nuts in front of you and people wanting to buy you drinks, give you coke and sleep with you, its impossible for that not to go to your head. Had I stayed in that world I would have gone in the way that I’ve seen lots of people who did stay.”
Helen McCookerybook is better known to young people as Dr. Helen Reddington, senior lecturer in music technology, performance and cultures at the Universirty of East London. 35 years on, the Vault’s DIY spirit and Vi Subersa's mentorship remains at the forefront of her mind:
“One the one hand my job is to uphold academic standards. But on the other side I have a strong feeling that someone doesn’t have to be an instrumental genius to be a really valid and exciting creative force. It was very odd for me coming into teach pop music at university where as far as I always knew that type of music was completely against uni. So that’s something I’ve always struggled with. If the students don’t like what they’re being taught, I just think ‘well go off and do your music.’ I think that’s what they ought to be doing although I shouldn’t say that.”
Helen and Darris say the friends they made in those grim arches are practically family. They also believe Rock Against Racism resulted in the equality laws passed by the Labour governments from 1997 onwards.
But where does the Vault sit in Brighton’s social history? Rik believes there are parrallels between the Nonconformists who founded the 19th century Presbyterian church and the punks who eventually colonised its basement:
“The Nonconformists who were pushed out of the Church of England were persona non grata. They would have been excluded from jobs, and were mocked and persecuted. People may not perceive it now but Nonconformism gave rise to movements like the Levellers, the Quakers and the Diggers who were espousing radical social justice.” Depsite being ripped out of the ground, The Vault's mix of humour, eclectic influences and progressive poltics survives in the sound of Brighton's DIY scene.
Related links: Helen Reddington The Golinski Brothers Punkbrighton (an online history of Brighton punk with lots of photos) Brighthelm BNDIY is not responsible for the content of external site. Cover promotional photo of Joby & The Hooligans coutesy of Helen Reddington. Want to know which Vault band you are? Play our quiz to find out! Got any memories of the Vault? Leave them in the comment box below. BACK TO TOP HOME
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