The Nightmare the story (or some of it)

1978

The band light Fantastic had finally split myself Ron Dickson decided to take the successful format of the horror finale I acted out in the band, one step further and form a show based around this popular theme, with the help of record producer Ron lee (lee sound studios) Jacki Stamp (Dickson) help from the musicians of light Fantastic Keith Locke, Joe Dignam, Colin Owen, Fred Reeves and many other Musicians, in fact anyone who we could get our hands on in Lee sound studios including Roy Wood (Wizard) & Daniel Boone (beautiful Sunday) I set about writing the music for the backing tracks (with a little help from my friends) the idea was to take a horror illusion or scene and write a song or some music around it, as we did.

The format was to be myself, the front man, and 2 dancers, the first being jacki Stamp (Dickson) who did the choreography for the songs and Claire Reeves.

The main illusion was to be a witch hanging I needed help with building the illusions and props so I called on Brian Gorton a cousin of my ex wife for his help he was a brilliant all rounder in wood or metal and he set about building the props and working on the illusions some of which still survive today 27 years later,

After many laughs, many scares and much hard work we were ready to take to the road in Oct 78 one of the first gigs we did in north Wales was a disaster and Claire crashed down through the gallows when the rope snapped in the witch hanging finale, I left my brother Malcolm (Bruce) to drag her out and did a sharp exit, so it was back to the drawing board with that illusion. Claire left shortly after though returned on numerous occasions to help us out.

79 saw us touring all over uk and Germany & France bloody big countries and spending much time having the best and worst of times as all working acts in the real world do.

The end of 79 Nightmare released a record produced by Del Spence & Ron Lee on PVK Records (Creole) a rehash of the classic ‘Great balls of fire’ and we set off on a seven week tour of gigs, record shops, and radio stations in a 1960s Austin Princess Black Hearse, a coffin from the Hammer horror studios, a Bedford van and a Ford Granada along with two people from the record company Janet, and Geoff whom I accidentally ran over in the hearse (it was an accident honest) unfazed he gave us our itinerary for the rest of the day then took himself off to the hospital with a broken arm dressed in a black undertakers outfit complete with black top hat.

During that tour we had to go to record shops and radio stations dressed in our stage costumes, and makeup, also with one of our roadies dressed in a gorilla suit, promoting the record that was great fun but very tiring, gigging and then getting up a few hours later to do the promos then on to a gig once again.

In Oct 79 I married dancer Jacki stamp in Full horror costume with all our guests in fancy dress it was a riot and we made every national news paper, later that month the record entered the charts at number 78 in the days when you had to sell records, our record sales then would have put us in the top ten, in today’s charts.

I thought at last after all the years on the road I was going to make it but not to be with typical bad luck that had dogged us the record started to slip back down despite being record of the week on Simon bates BBC radio show.

The record was released in about five other countries Italy being one, were did some TV, the Italian equivalent to top of the pops we got into trouble because my dancers had bare legs (strange times) it was released in Europe, and also Mexico, I know this because someone tracked me down on the net from there recently

Asking if I could get him another copy of the record it’s a small world.

We did have success in south Africa in January 1980 it reached no 7 and was in the charts for almost 3 months unfortunately we never got there to promote it, a big regret of mine

.We have carried on through the past decades having many adventures good and bad. We were once stuck in a remote part of Bavaria Germany for three weeks when our van broke down and we were unable to get parts for it we were taken in by a good Samaritan Night club owner ‘Hardy’ and lived and slept in his disco till we were able to get parts for the van during that time the whole village of snaid population 300 got to know us and waved us off when we left.

We have worked in every type of venue some completely unsuitable from catholic clubs to concerts, from fetish and tattoo to gay venues, military (still got the scars) bikers, (Hells Angels) To royalty, The duke and Duchess of Cumbria who employed us to do a show for the children of their staff, she wanted us to frighten the crap out of them, which we did.

All over the Uk , Holland , Germany , Italy , Belgium , France , Corsica , (the only warm Place) Denmark , Norway , and Finland (26 Degrees Below) and we are still gigging today although at a much slower pace.

The present line up is Myself Ron Dickson, Wendy Culling Mannix, John (Jack) Thomson (they have both been with me for 18 years) and new boy on lights Ross lockey.

We also have Nightmare 2 (our own tribute act) Malcolm Dickson, Stacey Dickson, Kurt Dickson (sometimes) to double up on those busy Halloween Periods.

Even after this amount of time on the road i am glad to say the act hasn’t dated and still has some shock value to modern audiences.

Although today’s audiences are much more tolerant of our distasteful comedy and shock illusions I am glad to say we can still get into trouble occasionally

Wouldn’t want to become boring.

Discography

Great Balls of Fire /Witch Woman’ PVK Records.

‘Evolution/ Ruth /Ellis’ PVK Records.

‘ New Orleans /Drac’s Back’ Swoop records

‘I wanna be shot / Ruth Ellis ’ Swoop Records

Album

Children of the night Zarg Records (Album still available complete with a DVD video single Witch Woman & Children of the night)

Contact: ron@nightmareshow.co.uk

Obituary

In Loving memory of Jacki Dickson

Founder member of Nightmare, for the great times
shared in many countries the memories will live on with us all rest in peace.

19.3.57-17.10.06