Eric's Club Liverpool
1976-1980
"Everyone played best at Eric's.
If I gave marks out of ten for towns, then Liverpool would get 13."
Lux Interior, The Cramps
The club was given the name 'Eric's' by Ken Testi as an antidote to aspirational disco clubs with names such as 'Tiffany's', 'Samantha's’ and 'Cinderella's'. He also designed the sign.
Roger Eagle had previously booked bands and DJ'ed at the Magic Village and Twisted Wheel in Manchester before moving to Liverpool where he booked bands from 1970-76 at the Liverpool Stadium, a 3500-capacity boxing arena. These continued through to December ending with Ultravox and Eddie & the Hot Rods.
The advertised penultimate Stadium show on Saturday 11 December was under the Eric's banner and part of the Anarchy in the UK Tour featuring the Sex Pistols, Damned, Johnny Thunders & the Heartbreakers and The Clash. Under pressure from the city council the Stadium refused the booking, with alternative venues not wanting to risk renewal of their license if they ignored the city-wide ban.
Ken Testi started booking bands when still at school, tour managed Deaf School and pre-Queen Freddie Mercury.
Initially Eric's operated on Friday nights out of Gatsby's and The Revolution, two clubs in the same building, a former Fruit Exchange.
The main acts would appear at ground floor-level Gatsby's followed by the support going on stage later downstairs at The Revolution.
The entrance to Gatsby's was on Victoria Street with The Revolution entrance on the opposite side of the building in Mathew Street.
For Eric's Club Nights, a Gatsby's fire exit further down Mathew Street became the main entrance to both venues with a temporary 'Eric's' sign propped-up on a chair beside the door.
The club officially opened with The Stranglers, but had a pre-opening with Deaf School on 3 August 1976.
The Stranglers were followed the next week by The Runaways and then the Sex Pistols. There was so much smashed glass in the dressing room after the Sex Pistols played that Gatsby's owner Roy Adams forbade any further acts upstairs.
The Revolution then became the sole Eric's Club Night venue with the entrance reverting to The Revolution's main door further up Mathew Street.
From January 1977 Eric's Club nights expanded to Fridays & Saturdays. Roger Eagle and Ken Testi were joined by Pete Fulwell in March 1977 and the trio took over the freehold of Cavern Enterprises, which included The Revolution, and the club was renamed 'Eric's' with bands now playing most, if not every, night of the week.
The club's ethos was to showcase music of all kinds; dub, reggae, jazz, folk, blues, rockabilly, psychobilly, R&B, zydeco, punk/new wave, etc, as well as hosting travelling theatre groups.
Acts such as Elvis Costello, Buzzcocks, The Clash, Joy Division, Ramones, Siouxsie & the Banshees, Talking Heads, John Cale, Generation X, John Cooper Clark, Stanley Clarke, John Cale, Robert Gordon & Link Wray, Richie Havens, Colliseum II, Split Enz, Rezillos, The Darts, Undertones, Pretenders, The Cure, Prince Far I, Tapper Zukie, Steel Pulse, Aswad, Steve Hillage, John Martyn, Bert Jansch, Ian Dury, Iggy Pop, The Selector, Madness, The Jam, Joy Division, The B52s, Devo and The Cramps.
To comply with licensing laws, Eric's was a members-only over-20s venue (dropping to over-18s when Eagle, Testi & Fulwell took over Cavern Enterprises), with an annual membership fee of 50p when it opened. The addition of alcohol-free Saturday matinee performances allowed under-18s the experience of seeing their favourite acts live.
The matinees were supported by the bands, welcomed by the under-18s and provided a networking venue for some of the city's future musicians. 'Special membership' for under-18s was free, rising to 10p in 1979.
Myth-busting - Blondie, advertised for 14 May 1977, did not play. In the words of Chris Stein "When I investigated, I saw that we didn't play a Liverpool show on the first UK tour with Television" (see Chris Stein/Negative: Me, Blondie, and the Advent of Punk).
The 'supergroup-in-reverse', Big in Japan, was formed by Eric's regulars whose members later went on to form Frankie Goes to Hollywood, The KLF and The Lightening Seeds, with Budgie joining Siouxsie & the Banshees and Jayne Casey becoming a cultural ambassador.
Other successful acts from the Eric's stable include Dead or Alive, Echo & the Bunnymen, The Teardrop Explodes, Wild Swans, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD) and Wah! Heat.
For bigger acts Eric's would use larger venues such as Mountford Hall (Liverpool Guild of Students), Liverpool's Empire Theatre and Philharmonic Hall, Newcastle City Hall, Golden Palms Blackburn and the Top Rank Suite Sheffield.
To launch Yachts debut album in May 1979, Eric's booked the MV Royal Iris, a pleasure boat on the River Mersey, for a show featuring Yachts, Clive Langer & the Boxes and a surprise set from Elvis Costello.
From May 1978, in collaboration with Alan Wise ('Wise Moves'), Eric's booked Factory Nights at the Russell Club in Hulme, Manchester often showcasing acts in each city on consecutive nights.
Following the 1977 release of the Big in Japan / Chuddy Nuddies' double A-side single Brutality, Religion and a Dance Beat on the Eric's label - and the success of the early Eric's Factory shows in Manchester - Eric's suggested to Tony Wilson extending the collaboration to 'Eric's Factory Records'. Pete Fulwell provided the costings and business plan, but Tony Wilson decided to take the plan and continue the Factory Records project without Eric's.
On Friday 14 March 1980 Eric's was raided by police. A number of reasons were given - drugs, violence, breach of membership rules (none of which were apparent or substantiated) - and a handful of arrests were made, along with accusations of planted drugs.
The police had opposed the renewal of the club's license in 1979 and had made it clear they would oppose more forcefully at the next renewal application in September 1980. With mounting debts and the threat of further police raids, the management reluctantly took the decision to close immediately.
It has never been clear why the police chose to raid the club that night as its closure was scheduled for the following week with Siouxsie & the Banshees as the final act.
Eric's: Here for a good time, not a long time
Ken Testi discusses Eric's, National Museums Liverpool Podcast
Watching The Detectives - Elvis Costello & the Attraction filmed at Eric's
The first Eric's & So it Goes collaboration for Granada TV, August 1977
Liverpool Music Heritage Trail Playlist - Eric's (1976 to 1980)
Spotify
LIVERPOOL MUSIC HERITAGE TRAIL | Lightning Strikes (not once but twice) – The Cavern and Eric’s, Mathew Street
“It is the interstellar ley line. It comes careering in from outer space, hits the world in Iceland, bounces back up, writhing about like a conger eel, then down Mathew Street . . .”
Bill Drummond, 1981
Celebrating 50 Years of DIY Music & Creativity in Liverpool
Studio Show at Dorothy, 9 October to 20 November 2026
Pool of Life at 50 / Parts 1 - 16
Grant McPhee Substack, September 2026
Mathew Street and the 'Pool of Life'
Bryan Biggs in Liverpool People’s History, May 2026
The Pool of Life: A new documentary tells the story of Liverpool's bohemian underground
Laurence Thompson in The Post, April 2025
Holly Johnson takes 'trip down nostalgia lane' as Relax turns 40
Jess Molyneaux in Liverpool Echo, September 2023
The end of Eric’s, 1980 - I fought the law, and the law won
Penny Kiley in Penny Kiley's Music Writing, March 2023
Eric's, Probe and The Armadillo: The Story Of Liverpool Music, 1976-1988
Patrick Clarke in The Quietus, April 2018
Nostalgia - Eric's Club through the years - Gallery
'What's On' Gallery in Liverpool Echo, July 2017
Iconic venue Eric's Club to be honoured with Blue Plaque on Mathew Street
Ellen Kirwin in Liverpool Echo, June 2017
Sit Down! Listen to This! The Story of Roger Eagle
Penny Kiley in Confidentials Manchester, July 2012
Eric's was King
Jim Keoghan in Record Collector, March 2012
The man who had it covered from Pepper to Zeppelin and beyond
Mike Chapple in Liverpool Echo, September 2007
The Last Trumpet issue 6
Roger Eagle's pre-Eric's zine, June 1976