The road manager for the group at that time was Mel Brookes (Mick's brother) and he recalls after the show at the Gaumont in Wolverhampton:

"After the show at the Gaumont, everybody went down to the Kingfisher and jammed together. Jimi Hendrix was up on stage with Roger Allen and the other lads. Roger knew Noel Redding from Germany when he was with the Loving Kind. I bet there aren’t many people who realise that Jimi Hendrix played the Kingfisher in Wall Heath."

"I held on to the programme from that tour and it had Jimi Hendrix’s autograph on it. I contacted Christie’s and asked them about the value of the programme. It fetched something in the region of 700 quid. We used it to buy a new cooker, so I can genuinely say 'Jimi Hendrix bought our cooker! The best part of it was that my mother later found an autograph book which also had Jimi Hendrix’s autograph and the others from that tour."

Recording contracts and participation on national package tours brought a greater likelihood of media appearances and performances. All of the more successful local groups appeared a number of times on several of the BBC's 'pop' radio programmes, firstly on the Light Programme and later on Radio One. Those same groups also appeared on the 'pirate' radio stations, especially Radio Caroline.

It might be expected that the BBC would possess equipment far superior to anything possessed by the groups. Mel Brookes gives a different impression:

"The Californians did many recordings for BBC radio programmes, like Jimmy Young, David Symonds etc. The Musicians' Union demanded that the music was live so the lads would go along one morning and record about five numbers which could be played throughout the week. The recording was done at Walker Hall which was housed in a former school. It still had recording equipment from about 1947 which hardly compared favourably with the equipment that the Californians' owned. Walker Hall was replaced by Pebble Mill, I think."

Keith Evans remembers recording many radio programmes, although he feels that the Californians were not the major local group to be heard on radio:

"We did quite a number of radio programmes like Pop North, Saturday Club with Brian Matthew and Monday Monday but we never did anywhere near the same amount of radio as the Montanas. They were on radio far more often than us. But they were definitely the most successful of the local groups, at least in terms of their sound being more appropriate to radio. They ultimately became the ideal Radio Two group, I suppose."

If the Montanas were the ideal Radio Two group, it was on Radio One that they made their radio appearances, as Johnny Jones remembers:

"When groups first set out, their main objective is to record and gain record success. The majority of records do not get into the charts but several are successful in a different way, they are airplay hits. That means that the record is played a great deal on radio. We made a few airplay hits and as a result we got to do a number of appearances on radio programmes like David Symonds, Saturday Club, Easybeat etc. We did so many that we became almost blase about it all."

Dan Robinson reckons that Herbie's People did about 36 broadcasts on radio. The majority were on BBC (Light Programme or Radio One), while others were on Radio Luxembourg or 'pirate' radio:

"Appearing on radio became quite commonplace. We did about 36 broadcasts in all. That included most of the popular BBC programmes of the time like Saturday Club which seemed to be listened to by the vast majority of the younger adult population. We did at least one live broadcast from Wolverhampton for Radio Luxembourg. I think it was the Cadbury’s Lucky Numbers Show."

"We appeared on TV on shows like the Golden Shot with Bob Monkhouse which was recorded in Birmingham at ATV Studios. The group was just required to perform their latest record. That used to go out on a Sunday afternoon. We were on early evening programmes like Five 0 'Clock Club as well. It was one of those programmes designed for youngsters and the group would be on to add a little pop music."

Len Beddow found working on radio a real pleasure:

"It was the people involved, they were all so very nice. When we did Saturday Club, Brian Matthew was a really nice bloke. The programme had to be a single taping, no double tracking or anything like that. It was all on one roll and had to be done quickly. The professionalism of the people involved meant that it worked most times very well."

"It was interesting that Brian Matthew took the time out on one of his Sounds Of The Sixties programmes to relate the whole story behind our recording of Semi-Detached Suburban Mister Jones and the controversy surrounding it. As I said he was a really nice bloke."

For example, groups like the Black Diamonds, Californians and Montanas could be heard in Germany, the Ebonies (Wolverhampton's first successful black group) were heard in Denmark where they were very successful and Light Fantastic made a 'dynamic' and somewhat 'memorable' appearance on RTE in Ireland.

Light Fantastic was renown as a group because of the individuality of their stage act. Their lead singer was the outstanding Roy Dripper Kent but it was the 'horror' features of the act which is particularly remembered by fans. The Express & Star described the act as follows:

'Light Fantastic produced a show which had the girls rushing away from the stage rather than towards it. It was caused by their special rendition of Monster Mash, which involves a real monster, in the form of bass player Ron Dickson. He leaps about in the audience and looks enough to scare the living daylights out of anyone, including Boris Karloff. He threatens girls with blood running from his mouth, smoke and flames belching out from under his cloak. He can create near panic and mayhem. In the year since the act started about 40 girls have fainted.'

It was this act which the group took to Ireland to appear on RTE's Like Now (equivalent to BBC"s Top Of The Pops). They were booked for a Halloween special. RTE hired a coffin for Ron Dickson to use and arranged for him to have monster finger nails and fangs. They even insured the studio audience for heart attacks. The act was even discussed on an adult discussion programme called Talkback. Apparently the majority opinion was that the act was sacrilegious and obscene. It was still deemed to be a great success.

Requests for live appearances by many local groups increased from venues further and further afield, especially from those clubs, ballrooms and agencies with links and reciprocal agreements with the Astra Agency in Wolverhampton. It became quite usual for Wolverhampton groups to start appearing in Scotland, the South West, Yorkshire, the East Midlands, Manchester and all other points west! While such arrangements increased as the decade continued, it had been happening almost from the start of the group scene, as George Maddocks describes:

"The Strollers had not really been together that long when we were offered the opportunity to do a fortnight on the South Coast accompanying an up and coming singer called Paul Raven. He was to become somewhat better known as Gary Glitter some years later. He expected a big rounded sound, something like Tommy Burton, so he was none too impressed with a simple four piece like us. Still, it was good experience. It was arranged by Astra and a West Country agent called Lionel Digby."

One venue which became quite a common port of call for Wolverhampton groups was the 400 Ballroom in Torquay. It was at the 400 that the 'new' 'N Betweens really came together, as Jimmy Lea tells us:

"The booking at the 400 Ballroom was made before the group changed. It had become an arrangement between Astra and the 400 that local groups went down there. Steve Brett and the Mavericks had done it before us. The management from the 400 demanded that John Howells sang with the group. It was great because at least it meant that we had a guaranteed week’s work."

"It was during that week that we were able to work on things because John did not perform the one night when we went to play in Plymouth. It was in Plymouth that we decided that Noddy was ideal as the group singer. By the time we had finished doing the 400 over the next few years we had become the most booked group there, beating the record of Dave Dee and the Bostons (later Dave Dee, Dozy etc.). We were there in the flower power and the skinhead days."

The 400 Ballroom was played by most of the Wolverhampton groups during the second half of the decade, as was a number of other venues in the South West.

Once again Jimmy Lea recalls a time when the group was playing in Newquay:

"It was while we were playing in Newquay that we first came into contact with an up and coming group called Queen. Roger Taylor told me that they used to sneak in and check out our equipment because they really liked the sound we were making. They couldn’t believe it when they found we just had AC 30 amps, although we did have treble boosters."

"When we became the Soul Seekers and changed from Graham Walker to Maurice Jones as our manager, we became part of the rapidly growing Astra 'empire' which seemed to extend in some way all over the country. We got to play in a wide variety of venues, stretching from London, Scarborough, Nottingham, Sheffield, Manchester etc. There did not seem to be any area or region where Astra did not have some sort of link."

"It was all very exciting for us. We were still young and there we were travelling extensivel, getting paid reasonably for something we loved doing. We were getting to meet a wide variety of pretty interesting people as well."

Dan Robinson does not feel that it was necessary to have links with Astra to secure success:

"We did a lot of work for other agencies, other than Astra. We worked for Nita Anderson and for Terry Matthews in Walsall, both women had quite a number of close links with some pretty good venues. We did some work for Roger Allen also. He was a good bloke."

"In the later 60s we played on the college and university circuits which really developed from about 1966. We got to play alongside a lot of really good groups and were always able to give a really good account of ourselves. I remember us playing King’s College in London with the Animals and getting a much better reception than they did."

Another group which played quite regularly on the college circuit was Varsity Rag (not too much of a surprise, considering the name). The lead guitarist with the group was Brian Nicholls:

"We realised that one of the big growth areas was the university and college scene so we opted for a name which we hoped would open some doors for us. It worked reasonably well and we got to play at a lot of colleges. That scene was one of the most lucrative during the last few years of the 60s."

"One development which I feel probably came out of the college and university circuit was the all-nighter which involved a number of groups playing throughout the night.

The groups often varied in style and nature so that they could attract a wide audience. It was rather like the festival idea but indoors. We played in a few all-nighters at places like Bingley Hall."

The Soul Seekers was another group that played at a number of these events, although it was not without some cost to the group, as Roger Bromley explains:

"The image of the group underwent a number of changes, especially in sound and appearance. We had gone through the suits, to the leathers, to the hippified appearance and some of the lads found the changes too much, especially when the all-nighters began. We were getting older, some of us had steady girlfriends, if not wives, and we were entering into the mortgage stakes. As a result a couple of the fellers left the group."

"We started to play venues like the Casino in Walsall or the Twisted Wheel in Manchester. Often the gig went on into the early hours and we were often getting back home around breakfast time, if not later. All in all such a schedule was too much for some of the group to take. It was probably such things which started to undermine the group’s solidarity and ultimately led to the demise of the group and the onset of firstly Cross-Cut Saw and then later, Travelling Redwing."

The London club scene had become the focal point for popular music and most of the other features of the 'Swinging Sixties' scenes during the second half of the decade and so it was hardly surprising that most of the groups saw the opportunity to play at any of the 'major' London clubs as a very significant step on the road to stardom. For one local group it certainly was significant, as Jimmy Lea recalls:

"Having met Jack Baverstock, changed our name to Ambrose Slade and joined Fontana, it was felt that we should have a London management. Jack arranged for John Gunnell to come and see us at Rasputin s club. It was there that we first met Chas Chandler who was to become our manager and become responsible for a whole series of changes which ultimately led to us becoming a No.1 band."

When Zyder Zee released their first record Soul An Inspiration it was recorded at CBS Studios in London and the group stayed in the capital for some time while they plugged it. Their stay included appearances at some of the London clubs, as Clive Mountford tells the story:

"The recording was done at CBS and was supervised by Keith Richard and Bill Wyman from the Stones, which in itself was a fantastic experience. The record was quite good rendition of the number and came out a week before the Righteous Brothers' version. Ours was reasonably successful, making the Radio Caroline charts."

"We stayed down in London for a few weeks, trying to plug the record on Radio Caroline and in the clubs which we got to play. My most vivid memory of a London club was Tiles in Oxford Street. It was one of the very popular nd in places of the time. It does not exist any longer but as featured regularly on a German TV programme called eat Club."

"While we were not earning too much, the important thing was to get to know people and get your face known. We would spend time in the clubs, drinking water from a glass, pretending it was gin or vodka. The more people you knew the better or so it seemed.Talent was all very well, but it was a wonder how much could be achieved by personal contacts."

Varsity Rag played at another of the more famous London clubs, Scotch of St. James, as Brian Nicholls describes:

Once you did your set, they wanted you out of the way as soon as possible. We actually mingled with the crowd and enjoyed it. Mick had been most put out by being virtually asked to leave."