The next Granareunited gig at the Lion will be on Sunday 24th August.

Join us for a night of classic rock which will certainly kick ask anybody! Our last Granareunited was in April and was huge fun for us all. Here are a few pictures.

DJ Ade the First nimbly presses the "Stop Al Talking" button

Granareunited DJ team

Details sheet for the gig on Thursday 9th November 1978 sent to WILD HORSES . Wild Horses featured former Thin Lizzy guitarist Brian Robertson and former Rainbow bass player Jimmy Baine.

GRANARY ON ONLY FOOLS AND HORSES

The famous comedy TV series used locations in Bristol for many of its scenes.

Here’s a screen shot of Del and Rodney in the doorway of the Granary which, for the night, became a casino. They also filmed the famous scene where Del falls through the bar in the wine bar in the cellars underneath the Granary.

NEWSLETTER FEBRUARY 2014

LOOKING FORWARD TO OUR NEXT GREAT GRANAREUNITED EVENT

We wanna see your face in the place!

VOW WOW AT THE GRANARY MARCH 1987

Japanese heavy rock band. Early 1987 the band had already relocated to the UK in a bid to crack the western hemisphere and had changed its name from Bow Wow to Vow Wow. They recruited ex Whitesnake bassist Neil Murray and the commercially successful album “V” was recorded in Ibiza. At this point Vow Wow were regularly featuring on the Friday Night Rock Show hosted by Tommy Vance and were responsible for most of the shows Jingles. Pictures supplied by Gran Fan Jezza Locke. a good shot too of “The Home of Rock”banner.

DANGEROUS LIASON - LES & WEAPON!

Hard rock band Weapon played the Granary twice - Saturday 10th January 1981 where they posed for this picture with Les and again on Saturday 8th August 1981. .                                                Another one for the Granary archives.

This year there are three Granareunited events planned. Each will feature the original

Granary DJs bringing back vivid memories of the brilliant nights spent at the Granary.

Make a note in your 2014 diary of the dates and be sure to be at the Golden Lion for each one.

The April and August dates are on a Sunday preceding a Bank Holiday Monday.

FASCINATING DOCUMENT FOR THE GRANARY ARCHIVE

This gig information sheet was supplied by Gran Fan Jezza Locke who obtained it from

Steve Hall who was part of the road crew for rock band SPIDER.

It’s for a gig at the club on Sunday 5th August 1984 which turned out to be SPIDER’s

fourteenth appearance at the club and, unfortunately, their last.

Thanks for this Jezza and good luck with the “Spider Boogie Fanwagon”.

If you do have any Granary memorabilia or photographs, do let us know.

NEWSLETTER DECEMBER 2013

There’s just a few weeks to go to our Christmas event for 2013. Join us at the Lion where we will be

CELEBRATING THE GRANARY CLUB’S FIRST ROCK GIG 45 YEARS AGO

It’s going to be a great evening full of rock classics re-creating the glory days at the Granary.

Free entrance to all to this Christmas gig of epic proportions!

Note : The first rock gig we organised at the Granary late in 1968 featured two bands “Griptight Thynne” and “Obsession”

Members of Griptight Thynne went on to form the successful band “Stackridge” whilst “Obsession” was a one off put together

for the night. Bass player with both bands was Duncan Graham who was very much part of the Bristol scene at the time.

He is now resident in Canada and, as a recent pic shows, is still playing!

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LIVE RECORDINGS AT THE GRANARY EMMERGE FEATURING ACE BAND VARDIS

Vardis first appeared at the Club in March 1980 and impressed everyone with their outstanding rock. Guitarist Steve Zodiac

was the perfect front man and their musicianship and showmanship immediately made them club favourites. They appeared at

the club six times between 1980 and 1984. At their gig in December 1983 several tracks were recorded and can be heard on Sound Cloud.

Vardis “The Worlds Insane” live at the Bristol Granary UK. 10/12/1983
This cassette tape was sent to Vardis by fan D Watkins from Gwent. This was the first ever live performance of this song which is the title track of the 1981 album.

Vardis “Radio Rockers” live at the Bristol Granary UK. 10/12/1983
This cassette tape was also sent to Vardis by fan D Watkins from Gwent.

This was the first ever live performance of the song “Radio Rockers” later to be recorded in the studio for the Vigilante album.

NEWSLETTER OCTOBER 2013

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CELEBRATING THE GRANARY CLUB’S FIRST ROCK GIG 45 YEARS AGO

We are looking forward to seeing you at the Lion for our Anniversary event celebrating an amazing 45 years

since our first rock gig at the Granary on Sunday 30th December 1968. It’s going to be a great evening full of

rock classics re-creating the glory days at the Granary. Free entrance to all to this Christmas gig of epic proportions!

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BBC RADIO BRISTOL FEATURE ABOUT THE GRANARY NOW WITH VISUALS

BBC Radio Bristol were at the August 2013 Granary reunion to record our memories of the club. The result was a splendid

radio feature which was broadcast on 17th September 2013. You can hear it again along with a slideshow of images from

the Granary archives on You Tube- GO

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AL SELLS HIS LAST COPY OF THE GRANARY BOOK

The Granary book is no longer available from the Granary Club web site as our stock is now completely sold out. Copies both

new and used are available on Amazon books and on Ebay. On Amazon prices range from £7including post and packaging

for a secondhand copy and £12 for a new copy. You can also pay £49.80 if you’re as daft as a brush. On Ebay copies

for auction can be found for a starting price less than £5 whilst “Buy Now” copies are around £15. Rodney Matthews,

the Granary teams resident artist back in the Seventies who is now internationally famous,has signed a copy of the book

which is available on his web site for £100. We would like to send congratulations to Paul Dowse of Poole,

Dorset who bought the last copy in October 2013 almost 10 years after its publication.

You’ll find the shop on the Granary web site has the “Closed for lunch” sign up at the moment but hopefully

I can get some more stock soon and we can open up the shop again!

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NEWSLETTER AUGUST 2013

There are just two weeks to go to the 25th Granary closure Anniversary gig at the Golden Lion! Today I was rummaging through my classic rock CD collection puzzling whether I should feature”Touch too much” by AC/DC or should it be “Don’t Fear the Reaper” by Blue Oyster Cult? Then it hit me….it’s the Granary, play both! Yes it’s going to be a night of amazing rock tracks. Recent posts on the “Granary-Bristol’ group page on Facebook have been tracks by AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, Thin Lizzy and Whitesnake. Bet most of these tracks turn up on the 25th. As well as the mass of marvellous music we will throw in (literally) a number of air guitars and a free raffle when you can win a unique Granary t-shirt. A special one off design featuring the many punk and new wave bands that played at the club.

We will get underway at 7.30pm so don’t be late or you’ll miss some brilliant tracks. It is also likely that BBC will be there as they are planning a radio documentary aboutthe Granary and would like to include Granary fans memories of the legenday rock venue.

See you there on the night, Al & Ed.

NEWSLETTER MAY 2013

Splendid picture of the Granary building featured recently on the front cover of the Clifton Life magazine. Very nice!

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THE LAST NIGHT OF HE GRANARY WAS ON SATURDAY 27th AUGUST 1988.

We will be marking that special day with our 25th Anniversary of the closure on Sunday 25th August 2013.

We hope you can join us.

Gran Fan A.J.Samuels was at the club on the final night and luckily had his camera with him.

He captured the scene as the last few members left.

Andy Samuels told us ” The whole night is a bit hazy, for obvious reasons. The main things I remember are that firstly the bar pretty much carried on serving until the beer ran out, by which time it was well past the normal closing time. Also I can clearly remember walking into the gents at some point late in the evening to find that all the toilets had been removed from the cubicles, leaving just holes in the floor. Presumably someone had taken them as souvenirs…. I’ve no idea about the disappearance of the ‘House of Rock’ banner though, I don’t remember noticing if that had gone. Eventually it would appear that somebody decided to clear out everybody who was left, and so I end up standing on the pavement outside the front entrance with my friend Adrian Clay, still with pints in hand. By this time it was probably about 3.00am. As we’re stood there finishing our drinks, Les appears out of the entrance and gets chatting with us. He takes us down to Charlotte’s bar in the basement where he produces a crate of beer bottles from behind the bar and invites us to help ourselves. We stay there drinking and talking to Les for another hour or two before staggering off home. Unfortunately I have no recollection of what was said! So I think we were almost certainly the last to have a drink in the Granary and the last to leave that night. A few weeks later, as I recall, there was an attempt by a group of ravers to break into the building and hold an illegal party. I think we heard about it in the pub and went down to have a look but something happened to stop it before we got there, probably the police turned up or something. I’m not sure of the exact date of this but I think it may have been mentioned in Venue at the time.”

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PICTURES OF STORMTROOPER AT THE GRAN

Stormtrooper were a favourite at the club in the middle 70s with 5 gigs recorded in the Granary book though they are sure they played many more gigs there.

Back stage at the Granary Colin Boggy Bond from Stormtrooper takes his life in his hands sat under a dodgy roof that needs supporting by an acro prop. Also pictured in action on stage.

IT’S THIS SUNDAY GRAN FANS!

IF YOU AIN’T ROCKIN’ THEN IT AIN’T CHRISTMAS

We’re geared and ready to that classic rock thing from 7.30pm till late this very Sunday. Masses of those classic rock tracks that made the Granary Rock Disco famous will be brought to you by the original Granary DJs. And it’s not just the music. Surrounded by Granary memorabilia you can drink at pub prices, take a dip into Santa Ed’s goodie sack. There’s a free raffle as well where you can win an original Granary framed poster from the early Seventies. Tell all your friends, be early, let’s make it the night of the years. The Granary lives on!

THE CHRISTMAS GRANARY GATHERING IS JUST 12 DAYS AWAY

Including all those classic tracks you remember so well from the legendary Granary rock discos. FREE admission and a FREE raffle to win a framed authentic Granary poster from the 1970’s. We’re pulling out all the stops, we’re turning it up to eleven, we’re going all the way, we’re on a highway to hell! We want to do it with YOU! Classic rock from 7.30pm till late, don’t miss a minute!

MORE PICTURES FOR THE GRANARY ARCHIVE

A.J.Samuels has been reworking some of the great pictures he took at the club during the glory days including this superb shot of Marillion on stage on Tuesday 23rd November 1982. Thanks a bunch A.J.

Paul Merrell posted this on our Granary Facebook page. He’s doing his thing as lead vocalist of the band Stormtrooper who played at the club at least 5 times between 1976 and 1979. They were favourites as proven by the fact that DJ Al Read had stayed in the DJ box (top right) to watch them instead of his usual routine of rushing off to the bar. Nice one Paul!

Thanks to Keith Hill for this post of two nameless Granary  drinking buddies, one who thinks it’s hugely amusing that his mate has passed out on the seating around one of the pillars.

FOPP SUGGESTS THE GRANARY BOOK FOR CHRISTMAS

Granary book (to right) on display in the window of music shop FOPP in Bristol. There aren’t many copies of the book left now so now is the time to pick one up. FOPP have them at a very reasonable price as well. If you do buy one for a Christmas present, bring it along to the Granareunited gig and get it signed by the author and the Granary DJs. There will also be copies of the book available at Granareunited on 16th December.

That’s it for this newsletter, we look forward to your company on Sunday 16th December at the Lion. Keep the Granary alive and rockin’, Al & Ed.