The latest news relating to the Bridge House and the artists that played there.
We intend to bring you regular updates regarding interesting news and stories.
Bridge House Legends Vol.1
Dave Edward a legend of the Bridge House. Going through my collection of Tapes I was pleased to discover a live tape of Dave Edwards the Remus Down Boulevard front man. Dave played for me for the whole 7 years I was at the Bridge House, indeed the only one from all the bands to stay the whole course. The first tape features Dave as front man on guitar and vocals, Gerry McAvoy on bass, Lou Martin on piano, Ted McKenna on drums (The Rory Gallagher band) and also Graham Foster on guitar.
It is a great tape, but being an old tape some definition is missing and as with all of us the tape has slightly eroded with age. This is obvious mainly on the first but rather than edit if out we have included it so the whole live gig is as it was recorded some 30 years ago.
Bridge House Legends Volume 1 will be released and available from the shop from 7th August.
The last Bridge House brick
Terry had arranged to meet Lee Dury (Erazerhead, Corvettes) at the site of the old Bridge House, after seeing him again after 10 years at a party round son Darren's house.
Lee informed us that when they were raizing the Bridge House to the ground, he was working for the gas board opposite the pub, so in he goes down to the celler, showing his identity from the gas board to the inspector who thought he was there on official business. He went over to the wall and digs two bricks out, puts them in his bag and walks out, saying thank you.
He told Terry he could have one of them so he arranged to meet him at the site of the Bridge for the official handover, Jeff was there to take some pictures and meet up with an old mate. In the picture can be seen the pylon that became our logo for the record company and now they are our main source of describing where the mighty Bridge House once stood.
Dogwatch - Penfriends
BHCD1002 Released April 08. In the Bridge house shop NOW.
The last of the Bridge House albums has now been remastered to CD.
The master tapes of this live album have been missing for years so this took longer than most to get finished. It has been remastered from vinyl and declicked to improve the quality.
To make up for this Penfriends now includes seven previously unreleased studio tracks supplied by Roy from the Dogwatch archives. Cutouts, Life on the Line, Mornington Crescent, Dangerous Game, Dicopath, Ice Cream Man and the Last Picture Show. A must for all Dogwatchers. Roy's Wooden Lion are putting in regular appearances at the BH2 venue in Canning Town.
The Bridge House Book signing & Reunion DVD
BHDVD02 Released March 08. In the Bridge house shop NOW.
The film of the Bridge House book launch and reunion gig from the summer of 2007.
The reunion gig features the first and last band to ever play the Bridge. Remus Down Boulevard, featuring Dave Edwards and Dennis Stratton plus a special guest performance by Chris Thompson who sings some of his biggest hits. The film also incorporates rare archive footage from the last days of the Bridge House and a special feature on the release of Jab & Move, a Bridge house single written by Terry's son Glen.
Cut together to give a fly on the wall view of what made the Bridge special and put E16 on the rock 'n' roll map.
Gerry McAvoy Bassics on CD
BHCD1005 Remastered and released Feb. 08. In the Bridge house shop NOW.
We have been in the Studio re-mastering Gerry McAvoy's Bridge House Records Album BASSICS and believe me it sounds great. The lyrics on Gerry's songs are mostly about his time living and growing up in his home town of Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Half of the album was recorded in the studio and the second half was recorded live at the Bridge. Gerry wrote eight of the songs. We have the ledgendary Steve Waller on vocals singing 'Its all over now', the hit by B/S Womack. Dave Edwards sings 'Many Rivers to Cross' and sounds better than the original hit song. He also sings on Remus Down Boulevard favourite 'Railway Station'.
There will also be bonus tracks including the studio version of Streetalk, there is a live recording of this on the album.
What you have on this album is great musicians from the Bridge House era. When you listen to Railway Station there is some outstanding piano playing by Lou Martin, who with Gerry McAvoy and Ted McKenna and drummer Brendon O'Niell played in the Rory Gallagher Band.
Credited with being the guitar players on the album are are Dave Edwards, Lawrence Thompson, Steve Waller and one of the best in the world Grahme Foster who first played at the Bridge in Blitz with Robbie McIntosh. They then had hit records when they formed The Foster Brothers.
Then you had top class performers Dave Smythe and Mick Eve on Saxaphone, Ron Cartney on Trumpet and Little Stevie Smith on Harmonica, Stevie was also leader of the famous SALT band. Well thats the list of the band, well as I say band but it was more a rock orchestra and a damn good one at that. Have a listen and see if you agree.
Regards, Terry Murphy.
Finger of Suspicion
Terry has just been asked to be the co-producer for the film Finger of Suspicion. Glen Murphy is the producer, attached to the film are Ray Winstone, Glen Murphy. Julie Walters & Monica Bellucci have also been approached.
The film is based on the last year in the life of Freddy Mills the former light heavy weight champion of the world and the brutal ending to his life when he was found dead in his car at the back of his club, in the west end of london.
Glen Murphy MBE
Ex Bridge House bar manager and Terry's son Glen was named in the Queen's Birthday Honours list and awarded an MBE for services to charity.
Glen became a household name with TV hits such as The Bill and London's Burning and has made a big hit with his West Ham Celebrity team raising hundreds of thousands for charity.
This award follows past achievements such as being made a Freeman of the City of London a few years ago. Glen is currently working on a new film script and all going well should begin production by the end of the year.
Congratulation to Glen from all the Bridge House punters and staff.
The Bridge House Book
Terence Murphy has written a soon to be published book about the Bridge House and the bands that played there. Titled “The Bridge House, Canning Town - Memories of a Legendary Rock & Roll Hangout”, exlusive signed copies will be available from this site. Also, watch this space for news of a special book launch gig.
The book is to be published as a hardback in July by Pennant Publishing and will be available from this site and all good booksellers.
The book dedicates chapters to all the Bridge House favourites and has many rare photos.
Read the Press Release.
Pre-order a signed copy of the book from the shop for only £15.
Paul Ballance - MBop Records
Bridge House regular Paul Ballance who fronted some of the weirdest bands to play at the Bridge has launched a new MP3 download store on the web called MBop Megastore.
Paul also featured in a recent article in the Independant newspaper on March 29th entitled "From punk to profits: MBop founder has seen both sides of music business". Paul also got a write up in a recent copy of Music Week.
Paul has fronted many bands at the Bridge House such as The Warm Jets, The Electric Eels, Dogwatch, The Pope and the Sperm Wails. He was well known for his intense and weird stage persona. The Warm Jets were the first band to release a single on Bridge House Records called 'Sticky Jack'. Paul is rumoured to be working on some new versions of some of the old tracks.
Terry recently met up with Paul at the central London offices of his MBop empire and there is likely to be a deal struck to get the Bridge House back catalogue converted to MP3 and appear in the MBop megastore. Watch this space.
Dennis Stratton - The Maiden Years
Bridge House regular Dennis Stratton, who played in Remus Down Boulevard and later Iron Maiden as well as Lionheart, Praying Mantis and many jams including the Old Man Going Downhill Blues Band has a series of DVD's coming out.
The first one released is 'The Iron Maiden years (pictured) and includes footage from the Marquee Club in London. It can be purchased from www.guitaristtv.com
This is part of a series of four DVDs. The second will cover Dennis' start at the Bridge House in Canning Town with Dave Edwards and RDB. The other two will be about his band Lionheart and also Praying Mantis.
Terry recently met up with Dennis to film some interviews for the Bridge House DVD and should include live footage of RDB at the Bridge. More details soon.
Wasted Youth - Distribution Deal
Bridge House Records are pleased to announce a distribution deal for Wasted Youth's latest Memorialize CD with Jungle Records.
This new release of the CD will be available from 30th October and has a new catalog number FREUDCD089.
This edition of the CD is a full commercial release and has slightly updated graphics to allow for Jungles logo and cat. numbers.
The new edition will now also be sold through the web site and the original pressing is now out of stock.
The original release can now be seen as a collectors edition as only a llimited run was made.
NEW - Bridge House forum
We have started a brand new aspect of this site, the Bridge House forum
This is a space where you can post notices and quetions relating to the Bridge House and maybe meet up with a few old friends as well.
Current subjects include The Bridge, Wasted Youth and Mods @ the Bridge. There are also polls to vote on your favourite bands and songs.
Have a look around it and join up to participate. Add your own topics or email us with suggestions.
Bridge House Forum
Rocco in Town
Rocco Barker, ex guitarist of Wasted Youth was in town recently. So Darren Murphy (bass player) and Terry Murphy (manager) met up with him at a pub in Rainham.
Terry recalls, "It was nice to see him after all the years that have passed, so for a couple of hours it was non-stop stories and memories."
Rocco now resides in Spain but for many years was a resident of LA, mixing with the stars such as Snoop Dog and John Lydon.
After a few drinks, Terry presented them both with copies of the recently released DVD 'Survivors' and the singles collection 'Memorialize'. They were both over the moon and could not wait to see the DVD so Terry persuaded the publican to put it on the big screen. Needless to say, they loved it and Terry also got a few orders in from the customers in the pub.
Thanks to Trish for the photo.
Wasted Youth - The Singles Collection
This brand new release is due out 1st June on CD.
**LATEST** - The booklets have arrived from the printers. We will be shipping all orders from Wed. 7th June.
Titled 'Memorialize', it features all the singles and flip sides from 1979 to 1982, plus a few bonus tracks. The 16 track CD also comes with a booklet containing notes on all the releases written by Bridge House owner Terry Murphy.
A lot of care had to be taken in bringing this project towards release, as the original master tapes had degraded quite a bit in the last twenty-five years. A lot of time has been spent restoring the audio quality to match the original releases.
The Missing Bridge House Single
Sharp eyed Bridge House website vistor Timothy Charge, spotted that there was one single missing from our list on the site.
BHS 15 was a limited edition run of Paris France credited as being by Tom Lucy, now a famous stunt co-ordinator.
Read more about this rare record in the 'singles' section of this site.
Adam Seiff on TV
Adam Sieff, the Producer of Wasted Youth's third single 'Reach Out' was recently featured on TV in a show about when Tony Blair wanted to get into rock 'n' roll.
Adam, who is a grandson of Lord Marks, one half of the Marks & Spencer creators was in a band called Jaded that were promoted by Tony Blair before he got into politics. Tony was putting gigs on at the Vineyard, Inverness Square Gardens in Richmond.
In the eighties Adam played guitar for another Bridge House favourite, the late Alexis Korner. Aside from Wasted Youth he also produced for Big Country, Splodgenessabounds and Matumbi. Adam is now Head of Jazz at Sony Music UK.
Rocco on Channel 4
Rocco Barker, ex-Wasted Youth and Flesh for Lulu guitarist stars in a new Channel 4 reality tv show called 'Casa Jetset'. The show follows Rocco and his girlfriend Dawn to Spain where they attempt to set up a new home and business.
The date set for the first show is set for June 22 at 8:00pm on Channel 4. More info about them and the show can be found at their website www.dawnandrocco.com
New Wasted Youth DVD
There is a brand new Wasted Youth DVD being released by Bridge House Music called Survivors. This contains rare video footage shot at the Bridge House of two gigs, one from 1981 and extracts from another recorded a year earlier in 1980.
This DVD is a Bridge House exclusive and is not available from anywhere else. Costing £15.99 and available from the site Shop this DVD has been produced as a small run so it can be regarded as a limited edition. More details avaialble on the DVD web page.
Depeche Mode on BBC Radio 2
Dave Gahan of Depeche Mode was on BBC Radio 2, in October promoting his new single Angels. He talked about how he met Daniel Miller the owner of Mute Records at the Bridge House where they were playing with Fad Gadget.
Dave was proud to tell him that they had a residence at the Bridge and he came down to all their gigs. Daniel made an album with them, without a contract being signed as they had promised to record for Bridge House records.
Bridge house records were unable to get them in the studio in the end, so it was not to be. A big loss for us, Depeche remained good freinds when they made it and they came and played a secret gig when the Bridge House was closing and gave the revenue to Terry Murphy, to keep the pub open for a while longer.
Gerry McAvoy Book
Bridge House regular Gerry McAvoy has a new book out called 'Riding Shotgun' that chronicles his time playing bass for Rory Gallagher and Bridge House favourites Nine Below Zero. Gerry also played at the Bridge with many other well known musos in his popular jam sessions. The book mentions the Bridge House a number of times and includes photos taken there.
Midge Ure OBE
Congratulations to Midge Ure on recently becoming an OBE. The Old Bridgehouse Entertainer used to play at the Bridge with his band The Misfits that also featured Rusty Egan on drums.