I wanna see some History....

The beginings of the Bunker Date back to the late summer of 1980. A meeting was held at the East End Community Centre on the town moor in September of that year. The purpose of this meeting, which had been organised by a scruffy looking youth worker from down south called Andy Gibson, was to bring together young unemployed musicians from the town to organise and run a self help group. This was pretty appealing as at the time, rehearsal space was expensive and gigs were hard to find. Funnily enough, Andy still works with young people, doing similar stuff to what he did back then. He said that was a bit sad when I spoke to him recently, I think its admirable.

Anyway, it was brought to the meetings attention that a small room was available for rent as a possible rehearsal room. It was above Hendon Community Transports garage on Borough Road. Its gone now, but was just down from Pheonix house where I signed on, which was handy. As a result of that meeting the Sunderland Musicians Collective was born. We elected a chair, secretary and treasurer, built some stairs to the top floor and we had our first rehearsal room. We painted lots of lovely things on the walls but didn't bother with any soundproofing. So environmental health closed us down due to the noise generated. We then went looking for an alternative, which ended up being the top floor of the old Green Terrace School in Sunderland town centre. So, bizarre as it might seem now, at nineteen years old I found my self holding the keys to a Victorian school in the middle of Sunderland where my punk band could practice!

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