An oral history of Flowered Up and the untold story of their infamous Debauchery mansion party…

Cast A-Z:

Anna Haigh (Singer, toured with Flowered Up, starred in ‘Weekender’ film)

Barry Mooncult (Flowered Up)

Bobby Gillespie (Primal Scream)

Clive Langer (Producer of ‘Weekender’)

Des Penney (Flowered Up manager)

Push (Melody Maker journalist)

Ruth Enfield (Partygoer)

Stewart Moss (Partygoer)

Tim Dorney (Flowered Up)

Wiz (Director of ‘Weekender’)‍

History has not always been kind to Flowered Up. Born to an unprecedented amount of media hype – the band received front covers from the music press before even releasing a single. When the group couldn’t deliver on their early promise, releasing a debut album, ‘A Life With Brian’, that failed to capture their incendiary live performances, retribution was swift. However, the band – four Camden chancers (magnetic singer Liam Maher, his guitarist brother Joe, drummer John Tuvey and bassist Andrew Jackson), a reprobate from Elephant & Castle (dancer Barry Mooncult), the ‘sensible one’ from Windsor (keyboardist Tim Dorney) and led by Liam’s partner in crime, manager Des Penney – were more than baggy also-rans. Their last single, ‘Weekender’ showed they could have gone onto musical greatness.

Born of the dual acid house spirit of possibility and hedonism, their twin pursuits came together one night in November 1991 in a south London mansion. Full petal racket indeed…

Des: “Acid house and club culture was our springboard. The band and the idea was born out of clubbing.”

Barry: “First time I met Des and Liam and Terry (McQuaid – Flowered Up’s tour manager) was at some party in Kingston, Surrey. Big house. I was sitting at the back of the garden with Steve Mayes (Boy’s Own) – he knew them. I said: ‘Who the fuck are these paraffins?’ They looked well out of place. The following week, Gary Haisman had a do at The Raid on Shaftesbury Avenue. I was sitting in a banana plant off me fucking tits making monkey noises. Des and Liam walked past and jumped in the bush with us. We were in there all night, just having a fucking laugh. Completely off our trolley.”

Des: “Liam was getting noticed by people. The likes of Jeff Barrett. People would come up to me and say Liam should front a band. He looked amazing. He was just my mate and I never looked at him like that. But they were right, Liam had something about him. Liam’s younger brother Joe and his two mates, Andrew Jackson and John O’Brien [the band’s original drummer] played bass, drums and guitar together. They were incredible. We used to put them on at house parties around our estate. Fully instrumental. It was a bit of surf, a bit of Hendrix; it was incredible. They were so fucking good.”

Barry: “Des said they were forming a band. He said join us. I said I can’t even blow a fucking whistle, let alone a musical instrument. But he said come and join us for a laugh. He said their name was Flowered Up. At the time you had these dancing sunflowers playing guitars in these flower pots. I thought I can do that. That’s a piece of piss. At the first gig in Paddington, I turned up in a green leotard with a freshly-painted flower on it. I just cracked on from there.”

Des: “Liam came up with the name Flowered Up. It all happened very quickly. Very soon we had three songs on a demo. We had a name; we had a band. I had these badges of the logo made up. We dished them out everywhere. We didn’t tell people what the band was called – just gave them this green badge with a little flower on. I approached Jeff. I knew what Jeff did and I mean, let’s say I worked in the pharmaceutical industry in distribution. And Quality Control. I told him we’d got a band together. He asked what the band was called. When I told him, he went: ‘Do you want to sign? Should we put a record out?’”

Des: “We knew we could create a stir by going into the clubs. It’s where we wanted to aim the music. We wanted to be able to carry on the party. Primal Scream did it better live, with the DJs and everything because they had a few more resources than us at that point, but that was our idea. The gigs would be raves rather than traditional gigs.”

Barry: “It was just pure chaos. The gigs were pure madness. We would get out of London and just look to cause as much chaos as possible. The second gig was at the ICA. Topper Headon (The Clash) played bongos. The first gig up north was somewhere in Liverpool. That’s where we met Keith Allen. He used to come to all the gigs.”

Wiz: “Liam wasn’t a natural musician. The best front people often aren’t. After a dozen gigs he started to realise that he had something that fired people’s imagination. He had this innate, uncontrived, I won’t say charisma, that’s a bit lame, but you believed in this person onstage. He had fire in his eyes. There was something very potent about Liam that his audience wanted to be part of.” 

Barry: “I remember Liam saying to me: ‘Baz, as soon as we stop having fun, we’ll call it a day.’”

Wiz: “There was this unspoken sort of romantic, ideological view of the future. That something was going to manifest. No one knew what that was but there was a sense of possibility and a sense of conviction: of being in the right place at the right time. As well as just pure hedonism of course.”

Tim: “It was such a band of brothers. Barry says we were bandits and they absolutely were. In my first rehearsal Liam and Joe kicked off and nearly punched each other’s lights out. It was right in at the deep end for me. I’d never witnessed the like. They asked me to come back the next week. And then we started rehearsing. Two, three times a week.”

Bobby: “They were very much of the moment. There was, as we know, in 1988, 1989, 1990… there was a real utopian promise in the air. In the music, in the clubs, amongst people, very collaborative. There was an openness that hadn’t existed. And Flowered Up came out of that moment. It was a moment of possibilities. I think they were on the cover of the music press before they’d even had a single out. The expectation might have been too much for them.”

Anna: “I sang with Bocca Juniors. Des was friends with Andrew Weatherall and he told Andrew that he wanted to get me in to sing with the band. I sang on ‘Egg Rush’. I walked into the studio, I’d never met them before, and Des came up to me with his Lou Reed eyes and scared the hell out of me. I quickly realised they were really nice guys. At the end of one recording, Terry McQuaid said: ‘Right, we’re going on tour tomorrow. Do you want to come?’ I was like: ‘Yeah, all right.’ Why wouldn’t you at that age? The next day I was on tour with these nutters. It was really exciting, really crazy and fun. Barry Mooncult, I don’t think he’ll stop at anything. It was insane. Not just because of the band, the amount of people that would follow them around. Every gig was packed.”

Barry: “Nobody expected it to go as far as it did. Des and Liam knew Jeff Barrett and a few others and we got hyped up so much. And one thing led onto the next. For me I just loved causing chaos. Any opportunity I used to get I would take it by the horns and go for it.”

Two days after a spectacular performance at the Reading Festival, the band’s debut album, ‘A Life With Brian’, was released to little fanfare in August 1991…

Barry: “The album was a complete pile of dogshit. Fucking pony. There was nothing that got you moving or gave you the same excitement as when they were playing live. It was like black and white.”

Push: “The songs were great, the album wasn’t.”

Tim: We didn’t know what the fuck we were doing. We all thought, brilliant, big studio, we’ll have this on there and that on there. No, shouldn’t have done that. We should have gone into a small studio and played it like we did live. The producer (Nigel Gilroy) had his dreams of being Trevor Horn. Mistakes galore all down the line.”

Des: “I wouldn’t mind it being polished if it was more dynamic. It was all dull. It was damp. And crap. No life, no sparkle to it.”

A disappointing album notwithstanding, spirits were high (literally and metaphorically). Not least when Mooncult – a glazier by trade – got asked to fix a broken window at a house in south London…

Barry: I got this call from an estate agent down in Blackheath. This geezer would not stop rabbiting on about how nice his house was. I said just give me the keys and I’ll go round there and fix the window. I’ve gone in and this house was fucking amazing. It had been repossessed from this crook – some tax fraud or something. I knew it was vacant and thought this was a perfect opportunity to do something. I went back down to the estate agent and told him I couldn’t fix the window straight away. Told him it was a special type of glass – that old bullshit. I got a spare set of keys cut. I then took me pals up there: Des and Liam came up. We’re all sitting about, off our tits and someone said: ‘Let’s have a party in here’. I thought we’d never get away with it.”

Des: “I get a call from Barry: ‘Des, you won’t believe what I’ve got.’ I’m thinking he’s gonna talk about some mind-blowing drugs or something. ‘I’ve got a £3m mansion down in Blackheath.’ He explained to me what had happened. I went straight down. Lo and behold it’s this nutty place – a gated road. All top notch. You had MPs down there. It belonged to a guy called Terry Ramsden, a bit of a spiv. Involved in various sort of things, trying to run a second division football club and race horses. We found receipts for £92k Porsches – for cash. £50k cash for a Range Rover. It was incredible. A great big stairway going up to great big double doors, a circular staircase going up as you walk in the door and curtains made of quilts. It was nuts, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, very tacky, but incredible. We were just running around the place. We found his Ascot day suits and top hats. He’d been extradited to America on Japanese bond fraud. So, the house was in the hands of Midland Bank (now HSBC). It had been repossessed. Because we hadn’t broken in we put the legal squat sign on the fence. We were sitting in the oyster-shaped bathtub and we decided to have a party.”

Barry: “We squatted the place for about two weeks before the party. We did 1,000 tickets and knocked them out for a cockle (£10) each. The week before the party the boys moved in. The neighbours started asking questions. We told them we were part of a production company and we were making a music video. I honestly don’t know how we pulled it off.”

Des: “I used the cover of a book [for the flyer/invite]. I can’t remember what the book was called. The cover had bondage gear, the boot and the whip… I can’t remember what it is. I used that image. We called the party Debauchery and sold all thousand tickets for a tenner each.”

Des: “Andrew (Weatherall) didn’t want to play. He thought it was gonna be a shambles. I remember being quite pissed off with him and surprised by his dismissive attitude. He was first choice for me. I wanted him, Terry (Farley) and Oakey. I thought the party would be going for 48 hours minimum. Had the sound system been hired accordingly, not told it will finish at 6am Sunday morning, the party could have continued freely.”

Bobby: “I remember parking up in Blackheath, loads of big mansions and walking down the street. We walked in – a couple of people on the door. It was quite quiet from outside; it wasn’t like there were loads of mad people on the street at that point. We walked inside and it was a different matter. It was a phantasmagoria of acid house revelry.”

Anna: “I remember a big spiral staircase. It was absolutely huge; just unreal. I started drinking very quickly. I got drunk way too quickly and fell asleep and kind of missed the party. When I woke up annoyed that I missed the party I had a look around and all the furniture was in the swimming pool.”

Tim: “Why didn’t I go? I was convinced they were all gonna get nicked. There was a habit around that time. With the tours leading up to that we had a few issues with the boys in blue nicking people. Turning up and doing things and pulling the van over and slamming everybody in jail overnight, that sort of thing.”

Wiz: “I didn’t go but I was certainly there in spirit.”

Clive: “I knew all about it. They were talking about it leading up to the party. I went with Kirsty MacColl and Steve Lillywhite. They were still married at the time. And I think Suggs and his wife.”

Push: “There were certainly a lot of people there. It was quite open plan as I remember. A big open space. It wasn’t like a rave. I mean it was, but it was more like a party than a warehouse thing. I didn’t see anything getting smashed up. A lot of that happened afterwards. What I witnessed was a respect for the place. People were wandering around and opening cupboards.”

Clive: “It wasn’t debauched or decadent in the sense that loads of money had been spent on champagne or anything. It wasn’t like going to a society party. It was a big fucking Essex take on a Las Vegas-style house. Which wasn’t in Essex or Las Vegas. It was naff. A lot of bad taste. Over the top. There was a big swimming pool with chandeliers above it, but they were clearly cheap chandeliers.”

Bobby: “None of us had been in a house that big. For me, what I took away from it… I mean I was partying, but I was pretty together that night. I remember Andrew Innes was swimming in the pool. He was in a good mood. I’d never do that in public! How uncool!”

Push: “There was a lot of water about. Nobody had brought anything to change into so people were jumping into the pool, getting out and they were soaking wet.”

Barry: “I know a lot of the music press say it was for the release of ‘Weekender’, but it was months before that was released. We had a white label and I think we gave it to Oakenfold or Farley and they played it. But the party had fuck all to do with the release of ‘Weekender’.”

On top of the 1,000 tickets sold, those on the door let in (or took money off) another 1,000 partygoers. And then there were the ‘celebrities’ rumoured to have been there. Members of the Happy Mondays, one of the Guildford Four, Gerry Conlon, author Hanif Kureishi, Suggs, Primal Scream and Kirsty MacColl were said to be in attendance. Plus, an elfin-like pop star by the name of Kylie…

Des: “We had a guest list. Gerry Conlon wouldn’t have been invited and probably wouldn’t have bought a ticket. He came rolling up with about 30 people. Kylie, I doubt very much we’d have put her on the guest list. Personally, I can’t say I saw her. I don’t know if it’s a complete myth, a legend or whatever… But then again I couldn’t tell you that I saw Jeff Barrett there, but I know he was.”

Bobby: “I never saw Kylie. I’m sure a lot of people claimed to be there.”

Barry: “At about four in the morning, one of the Guildford Four turned up, Gerry Conlon. I remember him wearing a black, three-quarter length leather coat. He looked like something out the Nazi Party. Hanif Kureishi was there. I think he wrote about it in his book ‘The Black Album’. Anyone who was on the club scene in the early-90s was there. People were getting wind of the party over in the West End and coming down to south London.”

Stewart: “I was at a party in King’s Cross and word got round there was something going on in Blackheath. I saw a friend who was milling around outside with Kevin Rowland and I hopped into Kevin’s car, a nice open-top convertible and off we went.”

Barry: “We had a VIP room. There was a circular bed which had a motor. Must have been ten-foot circumference. After a couple of hours, you’d walk in and see maybe 20 or 30 bodies lying on this bed just going round and round and round. I’ve never been to a party where there were so many people mangled.”

Ruth: “Word went round that the police were raiding the party. Which we seemed to think would be great fun. My friend and I got ready on the revolving bed – as soon as they entered the room we pressed ‘go’.”

Clive: “I stuck with the people I arrived with and we all left together. We had a nice time. I did visit Des, Barry and Liam in their private room. Their idea of a party was to throw this massive party and then hang out in this room with the doors locked. But I think that’s the nature of heroin.”

Bobby: “There was a joy and a look on certain faces like: ‘How have we fucking pulled this one off?’ There were all these lads, these working class lads from a council estate in Camden and they’d pulled off this party. I remember this was in the heart of where the establishment lived. I was told that Kelvin McKenzie, the right-wing editor of The Sun lived on the street. I also heard that his daughter attended the party. I was also told that Margaret Thatcher had a house in Blackheath, I don’t know whether it was true or not, but it felt a wee bit, not revolutionary, but it felt subversive and naughty. Like this really shouldn’t be happening here. It was kind of like we had invaded or occupied this forbidden space in this forbidden territory of power and money and wealth. Which is the real debauchery, you know. I think what we were doing was quite innocent compared to possibly some of the inhabitants of that area." 

Bobby: “I think we stayed until about 7am, and then Barrett said he was off. I had no way of getting home [Brighton], so I guess we got a taxi to his. I don’t think I slept much. Barrett’s instincts were pretty good. ‘Let’s get out while the going is still good.’ I had a great time. I believe the police raided the house at 10 or 11 in the morning. I heard things were being thrown all over the place. Drugs were flying about. Stuff in the swimming pool.”

Barry: “By the end of the morning the staircase had completely gone. Anything that could be picked up was floating in the pool. There were gold leaf toilets, washing machines, sofas, you name it… anything that could be picked up or ripped off was in the pool.”

Des: “The place was practically destroyed inside. Only the walls that separated rooms were still in place, although several large holes had appeared in them. The indoor pool spilt over with what was once furniture of some kind. The oyster shape bathtub in the master bedroom had been removed and left on the landing. A drugged-up brain wave to take it home obviously hit a comedown before seeing it through. The outdoor pool had become a garden feature Hieronymus Bosch would have been proud to paint.”

Barry: “It went on until about 6pm the next day. The thing I remember most is this estate agent who I’d picked the keys up from, standing in the doorway with his head in his hands in absolute fucking disbelief. He was standing in the doorway of this house and it was completely trashed. He had the Old Bill with him.”

Des: “At around 7pm on the Sunday, the police knocked on the door to finally clear the property. Scant few remained inside. My friend Arnold, a six-two, skinny black lad answered the door, naked save for one of the curtains as a robe (think Roman senate), saying ‘How can I help you?’ They all left shortly after…”

Barry: “This was something special because of the way we got hold of the property. It had the right people there, the right amount of drugs. And just the atmosphere – alongside the way it had all been set-up. It just worked.”

Des: “Everyone knew that it wasn’t hired out. Everybody knew that it didn’t matter if you spray-painted your name across the wall. I think that element gave it that extra sort of level. That’s probably why it was so much freer. The beauty of it was that we were just on the cusp of that point where the Es were still good. Everybody was still pretty much in love with each other. It was just starting to change a little. Some of the pills were starting to get a bit trippy, a bit narky. More cocaine was being used, and it was just starting to sort of flip. I don’t think we could have done that again a year later and there not been any trouble.”

Wiz: “It’s a party that actually lives up to its myth. It was, an illegal ‘rave’, but it wasn’t a Tony Colston-Hayter Sunrise kind of thing. There was a quality to it. Oakenfold DJing. There was a good system, some celebs and it wasn’t ridiculously big. It was an anarchist event with a small ‘a’. Meaning a kind of autonomous, independent, illegal, celebratory event where a great time was had because it was this collective thing. This was absolutely special because it did feel like a big fuck off. It was super cheeky. That Boy’s Own, cheeky chappie, urchin kind of blagger-type persona? It was epitomised in that party.”

Bobby: “I think it was the end of something. Because everybody had been through ecstasy and then the cocaine came in and then there was heroin. That was creeping in. It definitely crept into that band and their entourage. I could see the euphoria of the preceding years was changing. The music was also changing. People like Weatherall were getting into harder stuff. He was starting to play darker, harder, unforgiving stuff. I’m sure in certain parts of the scene, and people like Terry Farley would be able to tell you way better than me, there was still that positivity there, but at some of the nights I attended in London heroin was around.”

Des: “Me and Liam probably felt that change a year, 18-months before that within the acid house thing. The band for us was a way of extending the party and keeping the vibe going because we knew we could create our own parties. It was all very idealistic at the beginning, because obviously the darker drugs weren’t involved at that point. But once the darker drugs started to get involved you start not caring. You’re not as passionate about stuff. All you care about is that and you fall out of love with everything pretty fucking rapidly.”

Despite the release of the momentous ‘Weekender’ in the spring of 1992, by the end of the year the writing was on the wall, the group splitting up in 1993. In 2009, Liam Maher succumbed to his heroin addiction. His brother Joe died three years later. The sense of ‘what-could-have-been’ remains palpable…

Wiz: “A Life With Brian could have been a ‘Bummed’. When you look at ‘It’s On’, that’s an incredible, unique record. And then songs like ‘Phobia’, ‘Weekender’ – they’re up there with [Happy Mondays’] ‘Wrote For Luck’. That illustrates the breadth of Liam. To me, Liam’s like John Lydon meets Robert De Niro via Joe Strummer with a bit of Pete Townshend in there. Unfortunately, that album is the lion’s share. It just didn’t land.”

Push: “‘Weekender’ is the best record any of those bands put out. I think it blows away anything The Stone Roses did; it blows away anything that the Mondays did, it probably blows away anything the Primals did. ‘Weekender’ is the best thing that came out from any of those bands, by a country mile. Because they got produced properly for the first time. Clive Langer understood what they were about. He got it out of them.”

Des: “Meeting Clive Langer was the defining moment. His knowledge of songwriting was incredible. Given the way he worked with Tim and then with myself, Liam and the rest of the guys, it could have been phenomenal. And it would have put to bed all of those Happy Mondays comparisons and baggy and all that stuff, and the band would have come into their own.”

Clive: “They were entering this new world. Their last two recordings [‘Weekender’ and ‘Better Life’] were epics. They were finding their own style. They’d stopped trying to write a pop song and they were making music that they really liked. There was nothing in common with the Happy Mondays or anyone else by that point.”

Wiz: “It’s very easy to dismiss Flowered Up, particularly in light of the underperforming album, that they weren’t great shakes, but they were incredibly powerful live. And this isn’t damning with faint praise, but they could really play. That kind of sound, it’s not punk. That sort of funk, you have to be really tight to pull that off. And of course you’ve got Liam free-forming on top. You’ve got to be really solid. One can only wonder what Liam would have gone on to do… his creative journey and kind of insight. Not to mention Joe. An autodidactic. One of those guys who could hear a tune on the radio and play it on the guitar in 30 seconds.” 

Anna: “Joe was such a talented musician. We did a recording for some Keith Allen radio show. We were messing about in the studio. Joe was just tinkering around on the piano. He was playing some sort of jazz piano.”

Tim: “Joe’s still the best guitarist I’ve ever worked with. Amazing player. Difficult as hell; nothing but trouble, but an amazing player.” 

Barry: “They were immature at the time. No proper leadership. We were all pals, but there was no one telling us what to do. It was all: ‘Let’s get off our tits’ and we’d all follow each other. If someone had told us to knock it on the head, this was our future… the discipline was missing. Saying that, if we had someone trying to discipline us, the way we were brought up it wouldn’t have fucking worked anyway.” 

Bobby: “If it’s a cautionary tale, it’s only a cautionary tale in the context of after euphoria there’s always going to be a comedown. And you’ve got to be tough to get through that comedown. I was there. I was present. I saw it happen in real time. I was part of it, but I think our band had stronger foundations than they did cause we’d been going a lot longer and been around the block a few times. It’s easy to get carried away, especially when you’re young. It was just the times, you know. I think they burned brightly and then they crashed – the age-old tale. It was the times. There’s always a dark side to every utopian youth revolution. Acid house wasn’t any different.” 

Des: “I firmly believe there was loads more in store. At that point we were talking about only using Barry every now and then. Becoming a bit more serious, taking away that sort of joke element. Liam was talking about wanting to actually sing. There was so much life left in it. Fucking loads, really.”

Tim: “The last gig we did was at the Mean Fiddler. We did two nights over New Year in 1992. That was with a different bass player and different drummer. With a band like that once the chemistry has gone it gets very hard to keep everyone interested.”

Barry: “It was only going to end one way. When I got told of Liam’s death I was in jail in Brixton serving an eight-year jail sentence. It was a bit hard to take. One of the geezers that you spent some of the best times of your life with and you couldn’t go to his funeral. And then a few years later, Joe.”

Bobby: “I loved that band. I loved some of the characters around the band. I saw Liam quite regularly not long before he died. We were both in recovery. He was struggling. But he was always a good guy. A lovely guy. A gentle soul.”

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This article first appeared in the fifth issue of Disco Pogo. Which you can buy here.