User Contributed Dictionary
Noun
mothers- Plural of mother
Extensive Definition
Mothers (formerly the Carlton Ballroom) was a
club in Birmingham,
England
during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Mothers opened above an old
furniture store in Erdington High
Street on August 9,
1968. The
club, run by promoter Phil Myatt, closed its doors on 3 January,
1971. Between
these times, more than 400 acts performed there, many of whom went
on to greater success.
Possibly the most significant of the live
recordings that took place in Mothers was Pink Floyd's
Ummagumma, a
double-album on EMI's new label
Harvest. It was released in October and featured two live sides,
part recorded at Mothers on April 27,
1969 and part
at Manchester College of Commerce in June 1969.
The Who performed
Tommy
and Traffic's
world debut took place at Mothers along with fledgling rock bands
like Black
Sabbath playing some of their earliest gigs there.
Some of the better known rock bands to
play Mothers include: Family, Fleetwood
Mac, The
Edgar Broughton Band, Traffic,
Free,
Roy
Harper, Blodwyn Pig,
Strawbs,
Quintessence,
Steppenwolf,
Black
Sabbath, Deep Purple,
Jethro
Tull, Jon
Hiseman's Colosseum,
Skid Row (with Gary Moore),
The
Nice, Tyrannosaurus
Rex, The
Who, Fairport
Convention, King
Crimson, Led
Zeppelin, Soft
Machine, The Chicago
Transit Authority and the Bonzo
Dog Doo Dah Band.
Mothers was voted number one rock venue in the
world by America's Billboard
magazine and John Peel, a
regular DJ at the
club, was quoted as saying: "People are amazed to hear that for a
few years the best club in Britain was in Erdington."
Roy Harper
later told The
Amazing Pudding magazine: That was the first club outside
London that meant anything at all and that's why there's been this
long association [of Harper] with Birmingham. I played there about
six times between 1968 and 1970. I have always enjoyed playing
here.