(Photo: H is for Half Man Half Biscuit on YouTube)
Geoff Davies (1943–2023) was one of the most important figures in the Liverpool post-punk music scene. He will be much missed by everyone with memories of his record shop, the Probe Plus record label and his extraordinary personality.
The obituary we were hoping for
Journalist Paddy Shennan may have left the Liverpool Echo three years ago, but he was the first and only person to turn to for a newspaper obituary about Geoff. Tributes in the piece come from Geoff’s second wife, Anne; HMHB Merch Stand stalwart Miles Holmes; and of course Nigel Blackwell. Read it here.
Tributes online
There have been far too many to list. Here was one of the first.
So sad to hear that the founder of @ProbeRecords Geoff Davies has sadly passed away – (soon after his ex-partner Annie) – they were giants of the Liverpool music scene – may they rest in peace pic.twitter.com/owY1kRHrho
— TheFarm/PeterHooton (@TheFarm_Peter) September 12, 2023
Listen to Geoff’s story in his own words
“Stop me here if I keep waffling away and give you my whole life story!”
Here’s Geoff talking about Probe and playing tracks from the label on Radio Lancashire’s On The Wire in 2009. A tremendous hour’s listen.
Read more about Geoff’s life
“The King of Liverpool’s Punk Rock Counterculture”
– Interview with Geoff by Nige Tassell in The Word magazine, 2011.
A few words on Geoff’s retirement
– A tribute written by Paddy Shennan for the Probe Plus website when Geoff retired.
warden Hodges
RIP Geoff.
12 September 2023
Bad loser
Ah no. This is a tough one to take. Life wouldn’t be as enjoyable if Geoff had never been around to make his contribution. Never realised as I made my way into his store to buy early HMHB records and a copy of The End how much great that contribution would be. R.I.P. Sympathies to those close to him.
12 September 2023
Gav
R.I.P. Geoff – thanks for greatly enriching my life with Probe Records, Probe Plus and especially for releasing Half Man Half Biscuit records and all
his work with them, he seems to be the driving force behind them. Gigs haven’t quite felt the same without a quick chat with Geoff on the merch desk.In to the pre-internet days I was bored at work and decided to ring Geoff as his number was on the most recently released CD to ask when the next one was out,if there were any live dates etc and ended up chatting to him for over an hour about the band and music in general. Condolences to all his family and friends, he was an absolute Legend.
12 September 2023
MULDOON LIVES!
Rest well Geoff.
12 September 2023
Transit full of Keith
Cheers for shepherding HMHB towards an unsuspecting world… Sad news indeed.
12 September 2023
Tonto’s expanding waist band
Sad news indeed…
RIP Geoff
Never met him, but when a CD of a new album (ordered from the Probe Plus site) arrived in the post, there’d be a post-it sticker on the cover with a message along the lines of “Thanks for your order! Hope you enjoy! Geoff”
What a gent 😎
12 September 2023
dr DEsperate
Geoff’s initial impression of the band:
“Nigel and Neil came into the Probe Records and left us with their demo tape. I had learnt not to listen to tapes in front of the bands, so I said to them “I am not listening to that now!” Later on I looked at the titles of the songs and I thought if the music is as good as the titles then I’m interested. Annie and I listened to the tape in the car on the way home from work and the first track was ‘God Gave us Life’. I listened to the lyrics which were: “God gave us life, so that we could take sweets off strange men in big cars and get driven to the woods to stroke non-existent puppies but he also gave us Una Stubbs, Little and Large Keith Harris…” and the list went on and on. I said to Annie, “Did I hear that right?” and Annie said, “Yes.” I replied, “Fuckin’ hell, isn’t that wonderful!” By the time I had listened to the second track I thought I have got to do something with this band. So when they came back to the shop a few days later I said, “It is just great. I want to do an album with you.” There was nothing like it. The lyrics were great, there were some great tunes. It was just smashing really: you had just not heard anything like it!”
12 September 2023
two fat feet
@tonto
When I ordered Bisodol on CD from Probe I was also sent the vinyl for free (possibly in error) but I’m sure that had a post-it or something wishing me well. Next time I’m in my loft I’ll have to dig it out and ponder it poignantly.
12 September 2023
parsfan
My new albums would come in an envelope with something like “go pars” written on it.
Many chats at gigs. The only specific thing I can remember, Brampton I think, is how dismissive he was about everything else on the Colours Are Brighter album (he wasn’t wrong – though Go Go Ninja Dinosaur was both quite good and a kids song, unlike the rubbish that wasn’t good enough the bands’ own albums that made up the rest of it).
Also a phone call where he had a rant about his boring Canadians are.
RIP Geoff & thanks for The Biscuits.
12 September 2023
warden Hodges
He’d even pay for postage and throw in a few freebies-mainly posters.
Thanks Geoff.
13 September 2023
BAD LOSER
I live 1-2 miles away from Geoff’s home but never managed to spot him in Sefton Park, a possibility for which my eyes were always peeled, especially given how Nigel would join him there.
Being that close, meant CDs would be hand-delivered. How many copies I received was a different matter, with successive albums seeing 0 and 2 copies put through the door. Apart from the disappointment of having to wait longer to hear the new songs, I accepted it in better spirit than I would normally muster. That’s just the way things were.
Once, in the days when you could still turn up and pay on the door, we saw Neil outside The Leadmill wondering what the turnout would be. ‘Geoff booked us in when all the students are at home’ he said. They wouldn’t have changed a thing.
13 September 2023
AudreY s. EuphemiSMS
Sad news. Strange how a man I’ve never met, who owned a record shop I’ve never been in, could indirectly have had such a huge effect on my life. Condolences to those who knew him well.
13 September 2023
IRISH NIALL
@Dr Desperate:
“By the time I had listened to the second track I thought I have got to do something with this band. So when they came back to the shop a few days later I said, “It is just great. I want to do an album with you.”
I’m pretty sure I’ve seen or read an extra bit/post-script/epilogue to that conversation that qualified the endorsement a bit and which ran something like…
Geoff: “But, we’ll have to re-record it. Because, y’know like …it’s shit”
Nigel: “I can’t be bothered.”
🙂
But it’s very sad news indeed. Got to meet him a couple of times at HMHB gigs and had a long and fascinating phone conversation with him years ago, mainly about Half Man Half Biscuit, after which he sent me a bunch of St Vitus’ Dance CD-Rs.
A great guy who’ll be sorely missed.
Slán Abhaile Geoff.
13 September 2023
Chris The Siteowner
Worth listening to the On The Wire show above to hear Geoff’s version of the story.
13 September 2023
IRISH NIALL
Listening to it now @CtSO while tidying my office.
Some insight to quite a life.
13 September 2023
Paul F
I recall him sending me the wrong album once (which I already had), and when I pointed it out to him he sent me the correct one and told me to give the spare copy to a friend.
13 September 2023
Geordiepaul
A wonderful and important man who probably never thought he was either.
RIP Geoff
13 September 2023
Steve Nicholls
A wonderful gent.
I only met him once – at a Radio Merseyside ‘Streetlife’ session for Probe folkies Gone To Earth in the 1980s (listeners were invited to attend). I was a teenager and there was this old fella in the studio who had a brilliantly sharp wit and kept me laughing. It wasn’t until afterwards that I realised it was Geoff.
Anyway, that’s a rather pointless anecdote. What I really came on here to mention was the pisspoor coverage in the Liverpool Echo about Geoff’s death (none whatsoever so far at 5pm on 13th Sept). It’s not as if there aren’t enough tweets about it for them to weld an article together.
(They got there eventually – CtSO)
13 September 2023
Nick walters
So sad to hear this. It’s often said that people are legends but this is entirely true in this case.
His vibrations will live on of course.
13 September 2023
Pirx The Purist
“No one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away, until the clock wound up winds down, until the wine she made has finished its ferment, until the crop they planted is harvested. The span of someone’s life is only the core of their actual existence.”
The vibrations will continue for as long as there are people who listen to the music he promoted. Ave atque vale, sir.
13 September 2023
CARRIE ANNE
Lovely tribute to Geoff by Paddy Shennan for the Echo
(Thanks – now linked above – CtSO)
13 September 2023
dr DEsperate
Nice quote, @PtP. GNU Geoff Davies.
13 September 2023
Lee Gillingham
Goodnight Sir.
13 September 2023
Lord leominster
Now on the BBC news site
13 September 2023
parsfan
Louder Than War
Without Geoff, most of post-punk Liverpool probably would not have happened. Every scene needs a kingpin and connector. Every scene needs a wise elder, and every scene needs someone to join the dots and someone to build the playground for the creative droogs to run amok.
14 September 2023
EXXO
Someone’s obituary wrote that it was impossible to overstate his influence, but I think John Robb’s managed it there!
14 September 2023
Pirx The Purist
“Nice quote, @PtP.”
Except that I forgot to attribute it. You, Dr.D, clearly spotted it as one of Terry Pratchett’s, but others may not be aware.
14 September 2023
Stuart
I thought AUDREY S. EUPHEMISMS’ comment above summed everything up rather well:
“Sad news. Strange how a man I’ve never met, who owned a record shop I’ve never been in, could indirectly have had such a huge effect on my life. Condolences to those who knew him well.”
My only alteration to that would be that I did meet him once, at the Manchester gig in 2009. I’d turned up ludicrously early, so had a decent chat with him an hour or so before HMHB rolled up (preceded by a band who were so bad they were actually brilliant!). He seemed to be the lovely and down-to-earth man that I’d expected, and I’m so sorry that yet another good ‘un has left us far too early.
19 September 2023
EXXO
I’ve been surprised about how difficult it’s been to gather my thoughts properly after last week’s sad news of Geoff’s passing, which has taken me down all kinds of personal avenues of nostalgia, necessary reflection and significant regrets. How much stronger then that must be for those who were close to him, and they have my sincere condolences. I owe Geoff a bit of a tribute, and thanks. [Warning: may include self-indulgence].
I met Geoff many times, always briefly before or after HMHB gigs, and spoke to him on the phone on many more occasions. He was always helpful, warm, funny, direct and no-nonsense, reminding me so much of all my grandparents’ brothers and sisters from the Toxteth/Aigburth side of my family – outspoken, often sardonic. But at the same time Geoff was a proper beatnik, with all the trappings of the hippy trail – there weren’t many of those in our family, though we had a few who had sailed the seas. I remember once being advised not to tell Geoff I was a keen fisherman, as the outspoken hippy side of him was very much on the fish’s side, and he had more than once been witnessed shouting as he passed a fisherman on the canal “Leave the fish alone! What have they done to you?”
The regret is of course because I always wanted to talk to Geoff at greater length, but never took the chance. I asked Geoff several years back if I could go round for a chat so that we could try to compile a list of all the HMHB gigs played from 85-86 and 90-95, after which there are fairly complete records thanks to Gez’s old website of course. He said “yes, no problem”. Geoff tended to say “yes,” except of course when he was saying “probably not” on Nigel Blackwell’s behalf. The idea was that we would then have a fuller, possibly even complete list of gigs here on the Lyrics Project, which in turn would hopefully trigger others to contribute their memories of those early gigs. I was sure it was going to happen (and who knows, it still might, by other routes). There were emails and phone calls over a few years, but the timing of my proposed visits to my ancestral Liverpool 17 postcode was never quite right. I felt like I was asking something big – for the gift of time spent with someone special – and didn’t want to push it. When I last spoke to Geoff in the glorious June sunshine before that Holmfirth gig on Midsummer Night 2019, he was still very positive about meeting up for my little project and it still seemed possible. But soon after that I was told by others close to Geoff that it probably wasn’t going to work, for health reasons, and then anyway Lockdown arrived. I then realised that I’d not only missed out on all that invaluable information, but on the chance to probably hear plenty of priceless anecdotes as well, and perhaps (if granted permission) share them with a wider audience. The feeling that I should have somehow seized the day has come home to me hard since I heard the news last week. I hope that somehow in someone’s memoirs one day there will be more great tales of Geoff and more stories indirectly from Geoff.
I can’t imagine what kind of stories I would have heard, but I know that for example I’d always wanted to hear Geoff’s side of a tale I’d heard wherein Geoff was onstage during an early 90’s HMHB gig in Newport, Gwent (or possibly in the Valleys?), and was cheerfully chucking a non-stop wave of young, smiling stage invaders back into the crowd. I also remember that Geoff’s attitude to anyone moaning about pushing and shoving form over-exuberant moshers at HMHB gigs was always that they should just go and stand somewhere else if they didn’t like it. He was truly the sixties hippy who embraced the seventies punks and understood how a lively crowd can lift a gig performance.
Clearly, Geoff Davies seized the day in many unique ways of his own, freeing himself from the rat race to do exactly what he wanted, where he wanted, and with whom he wanted. He was an example to us all in that respect, the epitome of independence. But it must be emphasized that Geoff Davies was an accidental facilitator of post-punk action. He and his then wife Annie just happened to move their wonderful shop in 1976 to the precise spot where the young punks would naturally come to hang around on Saturday afternoons, when the Eric’s matinee scene exploded later that year, just up Matthew Street. Much serendipity. From one or two of the tributes to Geoff last week, you’d think he’d been responsible for founding Eric’s too and for the way those narrow streets and their pubs and clubs funnelled crowds into that space outside the shop!! And I do think he might have made that sardonic remark if he was reading the tributes himself.
He founded his record label in 1981, just too late to catch the main wave of Liverpool post-punk, the wave that some of his former shop staff like Julian Cope, or Saturday afternoon customers like Ian McCulloch, would ride to glory. Indeed Geoff was downright disparaging (and therefore IMHO downright wrong) about the wonderful sounds of early Bunnymen, Teardrops, etc. He signed what he liked, never particularly what he thought other people would like and buy, but what he thought they should like and buy. And of course he employed shop staff who were equally opinionated.
So, as everyone always says, Probe could be an intimidating place for a shy teenager to buy records, and I knew it was definitely the wrong place to buy some of the music I liked, which I purchased instead from HMV or that place in Church Street that had piles of dodgy Portuguese pressings stacked on the floor. Anyway most of my teenage Saturdays in Liverpool were about the match, not the music. But as a seventeen year-old I insisted on buying the first Bunnymen and Teardrop releases from Probe, just because it seemed right to buy them where those young songwriters had found much of their inspiration (little did I know how this act would be mirrored for half of our lives by the act of always insisting on buying HMHB records direct from Geoff, so that the band got more of the cash). I can still remember buying the Bunnymen’s ‘Heaven up Here,’ from the fabulously scary Pete Burns I think, on its release day in 1981 and being glad there were no old school punks around outside to take the piss, as there was just a mod revival gig at Eric’s that afternoon. Then me and Barney sat in the Grapes in the Matthew street, at the same table the Beatles had often sat around, and had the usual conversations about how we should have started a band while we had the chance. But I digress …
Geoff didn’t “miss out” on those Liverpool bands or have any ‘Decca moments’ with them, but he was wrong about them, and that was our good fortune as future HMHB fans, because if he’d gone looking for their successors he would probably have found some – there were plenty around – and then we might well have missed out on a lifetime of Half Man Half Biscuit. When he did “sign” his genius act, there was much about HMHB he didn’t really get – like sporting references, and much of the up-to-the-minute cultural stuff. Geoff seemed to just feel it instinctively, got fifty percent of it (including, thankfully, those strange men with their non-existent puppies that made such a massive first impression on him), so there was again much serendipity. If Nigel had brought Geoff ‘Back in the DHSS’ much before 1984/85, then Geoff wouldn’t already have established the kind of relationship with John Peel that made sure the great DJ really listened when it arrived on his desk. “Friends [meaning Geoff & Annie] have sent me this album,” Peel said the first time he played HMHB in 1985. Let’s repeat that – he considered them friends.
One fan in his tribute last week mentioned that Geoff seemed to be the “driving force” behind HMHB, and clearly he was exactly that in 1986 at least, pushing the exploding HMHB phenomenon out all over the country, booking as many gigs as they could cram in, Cornwall one day and maybe Northampton the next, seemingly for as long as Nigel Blackwell could stand it. The ultimate serendipity for us, he HMHB devotees, is that after the re-start in 1990 neither Geoff nor Nigel seemed particularly bothered about making loads of money (though it would have been nice of course) as long as they could keep the wolf from their respective doors. A “driving force” was clearly the last thing Nigel wanted, and Geoff recognized that. They kept the wolf from each other’s door just enough, at just the right times over the years, for it all to keep on keeping on, against all the odds, and thereby enabling Geoff to champion plenty of other fine musical acts along the way. All of that without a proper contract, apparently. And it would seem that nearly 40 years on, when Geoff had to pack it in, the two were closer friends than ever. Can anyone show me another artist-manager relationship like that? Can anyone else make any claim to have been the absolute epitome of an independent label? Only Factory comes close, and that label lasted less than 15 years. Was it Geoff Travis who famously nicknamed Geoff Davies ‘ET’ because “everyone likes you, but you’re too soft? ” Well his softness in the business context was perfect for Half Man Half Biscuit, and was serendipity as far as their fans are concerned [Geoff was so laid back about some things that I’ve just noticed, when looking back through communications to ‘research’ this piece, he put up with the wrong spelling of his surname on his email address for years].
So yes, this past week I’ve wandered down such avenues of nostalgia, timely reflection and significant regrets. Looking down on myself and episodes from my life as if it were one of the life-changing acid trips Geoff described so vividly in a famous interview. Maybe such stock-taking in the stilt emporium can have some benefit for me in my sixties as it did for Geoff Davies in his late twenties. Seize the day – but only for what you truly want to do, and only with great people around you. Thanks for exemplifying that, Geoff.
20 September 2023
paul f
Nice tribute Exxo. I agree that the location of Probe was a fluke, but having an independent record shop with eclectic stock so close to Eric’s certainly turned that area into a proper hang out for musos, which the presence of Eric’s on its own would probably not have achieved.
(I also hadn’t thought about that music shop in Church Street with the dodgy stock for years. I recall that the name of the band and album that you would expect to see down the spine of their records would typically appear along the edge of the face of the album due to the imprecise way the covers had been copied and folded.)
20 September 2023
EXXO
Totally agree about the Eric’s/Probe axis, Paul.
Those imported pressings from the Church Street shop were very hit-and-miss. Some were fine, some horribly muffled. I think they did used to exchange them if you complained.
And of course there’s an erratum: by 1981 Eric’s was no more, and it was fleetingly called ‘Brady’s’.
20 September 2023
paul f
Eric’s was a bit before my time so I hadn’t appreciated that it hadn’t actually overlapped with Probe. But the Eric’s crew were definitely hanging out in that area still in the early-mid 80s.
21 September 2023
EXXO
Eric’s founder Roger Eagle advised Geoff to move his shop to that area – maybe Eagle had the vision of how the scene would pan out – Eric’s opened after Probe moved. October 76 to about Feb 80 were the legendary days of the Eric’s-Probe axis. Probe Plus the label started in 81, around the time that Eric’s had been temporarily re-opened as ‘Brady’s’.
21 September 2023
EXXO
Because we need more Geoff stories, here’s a fine tribute that writer Frank Cottrell-Boyce posted as a Twitter thread last week:
“Geoff … a little thread. Everyone has a story about Geoff chasing them out of the shop for asking for the wrong kind of record. I used to think that was to do with taste and cool but came to realise that what he was teaching us was the importance of integrity. When we came to do our own work we all had the ‘Geoff test’ in the back of our minds. We all also had a story about him or Annie chasing us from those steps – sometimes using a bucket of water to make the point. Those steps thus became a legendary place of anecdotes and meetings. Creative moments need such spaces. So he gave us standards and he gave us space. He was also one of the very few people I knew to talk about the privilege of getting old. “I feel privileged that I am old enough to have looked forward to the next John Ford movie / to remember the Cavern before those long hair hooligan guitar bands came along. I also thank him for the breadth of his taste. He was our punk rock salesman but he was also an afficianado of movie scores, classical music and regrettably jazz. A teacher, a setter of standards, a man who – with Annie – gave us somewhere to sit, a great example. Nothing great happens without such people. They are often unsung. But happily HMHB sing him all the time. Thank you Geoff. My lengthy anecdote about the day he moved house – complete with my note perfect imitation – available on request. Rest in peace rise in glory.
Anytime you’re ready with that anecdote, Frank.
21 September 2023
EXXO
And some classic Geoff stories – I especially enjoyed the Matlock Bath one – from a Cathy Long on twitter:
This is just the worst news. I can’t even explain the impact Geoff’s friendship had on my life. We bonded when I was a teenager shopping in Probe and it’s one of the best friendships of my life. I used to help out in the office, he taught me so much. I loved him dearly.
One of my loveliest memories of Geoff isn’t from our Probe days. It’s his second wedding, to Ann, many years later. A simple, happy ceremony in the town hall with a few friends and family. Just perfect.
One time Geoff borrowed my dad’s beloved grand piano (he got it for free and restored it) for an Ex Post Facto live gig / album recording at Pickwick’s. Bundled it into a van. I couldn’t believe my dad let us do this. And on the album cover you can’t even see it.
So many memories of Geoff are flooding back. Like going to a HMHB gig in Matlock Bath that they cancelled last minute and Geoff didn’t say. So I sent him a daft postcard just saying “Wish you were here”. He loved it. And now all I can think is Geoff I wish you were here.
(and Cathy long replying to Frank’s Tweet above)
Oh I need the anecdote about the house move! I was at his when the bailiffs came once. He took it all in his stride of course, came back and sat down in the living room like nothing had happened.
And Sue McBride:
Such sad news. I remember recording a vocal track for The Revolutionary Army Of The Infant Jesus It wasn’t quite right. Geoff made me do it again. And again. And again. Until it was just right. He said “ 50 year old Sue will thank me for that. “ He was right.
21 September 2023
paul f
Ah right – sorry Exxo, I’d misinterpreted your erratum.
21 September 2023