We visited Max’s Bar on Queen Street to speak to Norry who runs the Lost Glasgow Facebook page to chat about the history of its former site the Rock Garden, what it was like for young people in the 80s and how culture has evolved.
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00:00The Rock Garden became, and again it's this, it's strangely, there was, you have to think,
00:0778, punk happened in London in 76, it didn't really get to Scotland until 77.
00:14By 78, we're already into what they would call new wave, post-punk, starting to head
00:22into the sort of new romantic era, but you also had disco going on, you also had a sort
00:28of old punk revival going on, and all the tribes used to gather in here on a Friday
00:33night, to see what each other was wearing, to hear what each other was listening to,
00:38and at the end of the night, folk would go, there was about half a dozen clubs then you
00:43would go to, and we used to sit over in that corner, that was our sort of gathering spot,
00:51so much so that we called it the gang hut, and then usually a Friday night we'd always
00:58end up in Maestro's, in Scott Street, which is sadly no longer there.
01:03It was just absolute nirvana, because again, I'd be about 16, 17, shouldn't have been in
01:09there at all, but the music was so good, and as long as you looked the part, the bouncers
01:15would look you up and down, and either let you in, or just give you a knock back and
01:19say, sorry, not tonight son, but so long as you dressed well, and looked the part,
01:24in you come, you're part of the gang.
01:26Fair enough.
01:27So that was my introduction to the rock garden, and it sort of went from there, and you sort
01:34of grew into the place. As I say, I started coming in when I was about 16, and before
01:39you know it, as the sort of age groups ahead of you sort of moved on to become other, all
01:45of a sudden you became the sort of elder statesman, because you'd been drinking in here for four
01:50or five years, and all of a sudden you're now 21, 22, and you're turning around and
01:56going, hang on, that's so-and-so's wee brother, and he's only 15, he shouldn't be in here,
02:01and then you think, well hang on, I was doing that as well, so you never grasped them up.
02:05You'd give them a look, as if to say, I know.
02:08And by that point of course, I knew all the doormen as well, and all the bar staff, and
02:13again, half the bands in Glasgow, many of the members did time behind the bar, to put
02:20it mildly. Two guys that I was at school with, that I'm still in touch with, Ted Howie and
02:28Grant Rennie, were the two big tall doormen, and they looked the part, they were both about
02:336 foot 4, neither of them would have hurt a flea, but they were big enough, and tall
02:38enough, and cool enough, that folk would go, alright, if they said no, you took no
02:43as an answer, because they were big guys. And of course, there was a sort of, how would
02:51you call it, when you add two and two and make five, a sort of synergy going on, because
02:56also, directly across the road, was Flip, which was anyone that was about in the late
03:0670s, early 80s, it was all American import clothes from the 50s and 60s, so the first
03:12place you could get Levi 501s, second hand, second hand leather jackets, second hand 1950s
03:19shirts, suits, silk ties from the jazz age, and prior to Flip, if you wanted that sort
03:26of gear, you had to go to Paddy's Market, or the Barra's, and quite often, it would
03:32be really nice, but it would be filthy, and you'd literally have to hang it outside the
03:36house for a couple of days to make sure you didn't buy a jacket and end up with a jumper,
03:41because I certainly, a couple of times, ended up with fleas from stuff that I bought out
03:47of Paddy's. Those days, you'd go to Paddy's, or the Barra's, you'd buy something seriously
03:54cool for 50 pence, 75 pence, you'd wear it in here that night, and then all of a sudden,
04:00you've got this huge shop directly opposite your favourite bar, you'd go in there on a
04:05Saturday afternoon, you'd get something, come in here for a pint, go home, get changed,
04:09back in again that night, wearing your, I'm saying your new threads, new to you, but quite
04:17often, 30, 40, 50 years old, so everyone in here had a certain look, we all had flip bags.
04:25How would you say then that it's influenced the wider music scene in Glasgow, and even
04:30how it exists today?
04:34It's a strange one, because when it first opened as the Rock Garden, this was the Rock
04:39Garden, the bar up the stairs, and downstairs was a diner called Rocks, late 70s, early
04:4580s, you've got a generation of young earners, you've opened their first jobs, or a couple
04:51of years into their career, who have got a bit of spending money, and I think at that
04:56point you could still use, young folk won't understand this, luncheon vouchers, some jobs
05:01used to pay you a proportion of your salary in luncheon vouchers, which was a blank cheque,
05:07I think they were worth 25 or 50 pence each, and a lot of bars and restaurants would advertise
05:14in the window, luncheon vouchers accepted here, so as I say, food-wise, it totally changed
05:20everything as well, because you had young chefs who had ideas from beyond the Glasgow,
05:28I mean, historically, you went out for a meal in Glasgow, and it would be prawn cocktail,
05:35steak and chips, and a Black Forest Gattle, and all of a sudden, folk are coming up with,
05:41what's that? Parma ham with melon? Of course, Italians think nothing of that, but in Glasgow,
05:47what the hell's that? Bacon with melon? What's going on? That tastes bloody brilliant.
05:54So it opened, not just your eyes, but your taste buds as well, and again, even your drinks menu,
06:02all of a sudden you're seeing imported American beers, which you'd only ever seen in films
06:07or televisions, Schlitz, which was absolutely ghastly, things like Pabst Blue Label, all
06:15these things that you'd probably seen in Happy Days with the Fonz and all the rest of it,
06:20but you'd never seen them in Glasgow, and it was, I think it was Alloa Breweries that
06:28ran the taps in here at that point, but they were giving young importers their head and
06:35saying, well, bring us ideas that you think younger drinkers might want to, rather than
06:40being associated with a pint of heavy or a pint of 80 shilling. No, here's a really
06:46interesting lager. Classic would be Red Stripe, Jamaican lager. We'd never seen that before.
06:53This place used to, must have gone through thousands of gallons, because practically
06:57every second guy would be either, and at that point it was just cans of Red Stripe, and
07:04the reason it's called Red Stripe in Jamaica, it was originally brewed solely for the Jamaican
07:09police, who have a red silk stripe up the side of their trousers, and yet when other
07:17folk in Jamaica got a taste for it, it was supposed to just be for the police, and all
07:21of a sudden Red Stripe said, well, everyone likes it, so we're going to let everyone drink
07:25it, but it was originally brewed specifically for the Jamaican police force. Moving faster.