~ Liverpool's Boomerang Club ~

Jazz to Rock and Roll

When we first started I got in a local modern jazz group that were as good as anything you would hear on radio. They were all middle-aged men with day jobs and we only had to pay them two pounds each per night (about 4 dollars). We even had some bosses from Manchester television come to visit and listen to the group but they were stuck in their ways and were happy with their lives as is. One night the Benny Goodman orchestra turned up in Liverpool to play in the Philharmonic Hall and after it was over half a dozen very tall men turned up at the club with long boxes under the arms like they were out of a 1930's movie. One of them asked if they could come in. I'm only 5 feet 4 inches and... what the hell... they seemed nice enough. About ten minutes later I heard this oh so sweet clarinet sound mixing in with the jazz group. When it finished the place erupted. We were open all night. It was a jam session for them and was sheer magic for us.

Rory Storm, Swinging Blue Jeans and Early Beatles

My partner thought we would make a lot more money by having rock groups and packing more people in. I lost on this argument and so we were invaded by hordes of young very noisy teenagers listening to very noisy music. You will gather by my tone that I didn't approve. I lost all the nurses and the university students who came for the Jazz. There were many groups that came through the club. Rory Storm I remember well because he had this incredible stutter when speaking with him and you had this uneasy feeling that it would be embarrassing if he got up on the stage. The stutter disappeared the moment the music started and he grabbed the mike!. He was actually a very good showman and should have gone a long way. There was a group called the 'Swinging Blue Jeans' or something like that?. They played a few times. The Remo Four was a group I tried to get as often as I could because I thought they had real talent (according to my limited knowledge). The members of the Beatles played there but I think they had some other name or they were split up and one might sit in with a group to make a foursome. Ringo was always there just sitting around and looking miserable most of the time. He looked a bit out of it as I remember. The girls on my staff used to feed him coffee and hot-dogs as he seemed to be part of the furniture.

Visitors Cilla Black and Brian Epstein

Cilla Black used to come with groups that she used to hang around with. We never paid her any money but she would just spontaneously get up and sing her heart out at times for the fun of it. There was a song with the words 'Dont Jump the Broomstick' in it that I thought she did very well. I thought she was talented and told her so. I remember saying to her one night that I thought she was going to be famous. I wasn't wrong. One night a man turned up at the door and said he wanted to see his daughter and I asked him who he was and he was her father. I think he wanted to take her home because she was only about 15 then. One night Brian Epstein was leaning on the bar drinking coffee and chatting to the staff and I knew who he was because I'd been to his shop. I didn't ask why he was in such a den of iniquity but I guess now he was casing the joint. He was often there but I cant remember any of the conversation we had. One thing I do know is that he never gave any hint of what he was there for.

Allan Williams and the "Jacaranda"

Another night a little fellow was at the bar drinking coffee and he wanted to talk to me. His name was Allan Williams. He said he was going to rent an old watchmakers shop round the corner in Slater Street to do up and open it as a coffee club like mine. I'm a good natured soul I think and I wished him well. Then he asked me if I would be a guarantor for him with the Coca-Cola company and with Nestles coffee so he could get started. I didn't see anything wrong with that either. So he duly opened up some weeks later and it was also very popular from the start. He called it the Jacaranda.

He had a West Indian steel band that was crash hot. I loved the music myself. Allan was very much the entrepreneur. He saw the potential of the times. I didn't. I hated what I was doing for a living. He started getting rock groups together and renting church halls around Liverpool and putting the groups in. Then he started getting them jobs in German clubs. He did so well at it that he bought a three story house close to the club and converted it into flats. I took one of them for myself. It's the difference between someone like him and his little chinese wife who worked all the hours of the day and night to get on in life and someone like myself who thought it was all so vulgar. They opened up yet another club while I was there. Years later, someone told me that Allan Williams had written a book about those times entitled "The Man Who Gave the Beatles Away."

Rough Times as a Club Manager

But it was a terrible life for me. I hated the noise of it all. I was out of my element. I used to stand at the door and 'vet' everyone coming in... a sort of 5 ft. bouncer. You can imagine the respect I commanded. The club was down in a cellar and I had to stay at the top of the steps to vet people. As soon as the pubs closed at ten 'o'clock there was such a queue of people around the door that it looked like a riot going on and it attracted the police cars to cruise by and slowly do a turn and have another look. Everyone was smelling of drink and belligerent and I would stand there all self important and naively thinking I was going to control this lot . Some hopes!. I was kicked down those stairs so many times that I would have easily got a job in Hollywood as a stunt man. I bought a black evil looking Alsatian dog and thought I would train it to be vicious. I turned my back for a few seconds one night to deal with someone and the dog vanished!.

Memorable Moments

It wasn't all bad. I was one of the best known people in Livepool at the time. No kidding. I had a big posy Healy Tickford Saloon car that is as rare as hens teeth now and was invited to every party in town. The club was a phenomenon at the time. Literally hundreds of people packed into space that should have allowed only 80. It was an old stone wine cellar and had those arched sections for the old barrels. Flagstone floor. Only one entrance and no fire escape. We were just lucky I guess. We were not licensed to sell alcohol but the girls used to bring bottles of Whiskey in their handbags. They ordered coffee and then 'topped' them up. It didn't take long for the place to be like Bedlam. The music got their hysteria going and then the boys would get jealous over another boy dancing with his girl and...well, you know how it is. I would be outside and hear this massive eruption of girls screaming. I'd rush down and turn all the lights on and that would usually stop the fighting for a few minutes. It got to be like this every weekend and I had police there with Alsatian dogs to break up the fights at times. Not a very nice way to make a living. The police inspector told me one night that I would have to close it down or if they had to come again they would close it for me . So that was the position. I closed it.

The Zodiac

My partner opened it up again about three months later and after a lot of renovation. He put in a glass dancing floor with signs of the Zodiac etched in the glass and re-named the club as the Zodiac Club. I never saw it again. I left Liverpool for good. hat would have been about 1960. I still can't believe I was involved in all that sort of life. Stan Pierce. Brisbane.

Article Submitted on July 4, 1999