![[NME article, August 1984]](nme.jpg)
New Musical Express, 4 Aug, 1984
In Bradford there’s pubs choc-a-bloc with t’lads. Casual? Fila Lacoste and Pringle may have replaced the cloth caps and mufflers but the attitudes remain pretty constant. There are mate-markets disguised as discos where the main-stream kulture cattle are herded by gibbering Radio One clones called Chris or Steve. There are clubs that welcome you with open palms during the summer vac, but spit in your eye when the students come back. Late-night watering holes blast reggae n soul. All life is there including the pimps, prostitutes and their clientele.
But if you are young. free and possessed of a modicum of taste, if you don’t shop at Wally at C&A, if you're not rolling in oodles of ackers, if you’re not possessed of that precious NUS card, if you have style but lack brass, it’s The One in Twelve Club.
The name comes from HMG’s estimate that one in 12 of all claimants are on the fiddle, unemployment being very close to the heart of this club, which sprang from the hearts and minds of activists in the Claimants Union in 1981. Gary: "Price of gigs these days - you’re talking about £1.50 to £2.00 at least. It seems stupid that we can’t afford the gigs at St. Georges Hall and the University. There was a hell of a lot of local bands breaking-up every week ‘cos there was nowhere else to play."
You pays yer 50p and yer takes yer choice; The Membranes, The Three Johns, New Model Army, The Sisters of Mercy. Bands are paid on a 25% - 75% door split. With a capacity of a few hundred, nobody plays here for the money. They play here because, as a venue, it is unique. . . and a lot of the time because there’s nowhere else to play.
There’s no grasping promoter to whine "I’m only doing this for the kids!" There are just the kids themselves. There’s over a thousand of them in the co-operative (including me), several hundred of whom are active in running the club. This pool includes photographers, typists, sound and lighting engineers, journalists, humpers, printers and layout artists. Everybody that a self-respecting club can utilise but would never exploit.
The club has been shunted from pub to pub as landlords attempt (and fail) to move upmarket and attract the non-existent hordes of upwardly socially mobile.
Tammy: "The Hacienda? Where’s that? Manchester? That’s miles away! All this stuff about working class kids swanning round in taxis is total shit, they’re making it up! This place is 50p to get in and we run it".
The 1 in 12 album is being pressed and the club is in receipt of a £63,000 council grant to buy its own premises. A fanzine of stunning verbosity - Knee Deep in Shit - is produced at irregular intervals.
Downstairs the DJ smashes the eardrums with splattered selection of noisy row from three generations of punk, pop and soul. Upstairs conversation ranges from squatting to striking to the price of hairdye. The atmosphere is refreshingly drug-free. Junkies and dealers are shown the door.
The 1 in 12 club is run upon lines so idealistic that many would have predicted a cot-death. The black/red logo, the miner’s collection box and the ‘Bradford Militia’ T-shirts are not Clash-style graspings at elusive credibility but a reflection of the club’s recognition of the inseperability of politics and music.
There are no poxy, pouting prats, no 90p a pint. no two page spreads in The Fake. Every Tuesday and Thursday night at the Market Tavern. A night out in Bradford means taking control of your culture.