SpiThe Rattlers came from Bradford, West Yorkshire.O'Brian
Spike O'Brian played with a band called The Dingoes in Bradford in the late fifties and early sixties.
I first heard about them when I was still at school. Spike was quite well know in the Bradford area.
He played in a pub in Douglas, Isle of Man in 1963 and his claim to fame that year was that he had been out with one of Ivy Benson`s all girl band!
I remember waiting in the queue outside St George's Hall, Bradford, a year earlier with a pal of mine Geoff Green, Billy Fury was top of the bill but we weren't there to see Billy but to see one or two of the new wave of sixties bands, including Manfred Mann.
These guys came along walked past the queue, and were shown straight in, Geoff informed me that the crowd included some of The Dingoes, including Spike! Also present was Bradford DJ Garth Cawood who I was to back professionally years later in the seventies.
I met Spike about six months later in 1963 and he asked me to play bass in a group called The 003. We were fortunate to have met Joe Meek, Telestar instrumental creator, that year in his Holloway Rd recording studio where, unfortunately, he turned down our record `The One I Love`. Up to then I had been doing the working men`s clubs in West Yorkshire for nearly two years with a young band called Jeff And The Bandits (quite a macho band name in those far off days).
Strangely enough I don't actually remember meeting Spike.
We did a few of the Yorkshire working men's clubs over the next few months and the group then disbanded.
I was having a drink, with Spike in Viv`s bar, downstairs in the now demolished Majestic pub in Bradford city center in late May 1964 and I was approached by Bradford drummer Harry Stott who offered me the job at the Villiers Hotel in Douglas, Isle of Man starting two weeks later!
He said the Leeds agent Ralph Fidler who booked musicians into The Villiers had also hired a keyboard player and Harry and I set off to Leeds on the bus on the following Saturday to audition him.
Keith Barrett.
To be continued.............
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