Liner Notes: Trev Teasdel. An album of early work , mostly from his days in Coventry Songs from the Coventry Underground Is a collection of the earlier songs from poet and performer Trev Teasdel. It is very apt that he should feature at the very beginning of our Retro-Cov platform. This is the guy that played an important role in the development of Coventry musical conciousness. He kept an alternative voice alive with the production of Hobo magazine that continued the trail from where the fading footprints of the Gnome could still be identified. Taking over the booking of live bands at the Arts Umbrella, he continued the policy that allowed many of the new local bands an airing as well as bringing in some excellent but not often seen names from outside of the City. He also created one of the cornerstones of the Coventry Music scene, withe the inception of the open jam sessions at the Holyhead Road Arts centre. He left Coventry to study and has since been as active as ever, with an impressive workload of teaching new writers, running poetry magazines and venues from his Teesside home while still writing and performing his own material. But thats not the only reason for choosing his work for this release. He is a master craftsman of his artform. His lyrics are carefully honed with the ocassional surprise. The working of the words " under the Speenhamland system" into the lyric of Captain Swing, written some 20 years before the arrival of Billy Bragg, is phenomenal and deserves a place in the record books. Aside from that, his work reverberates with the angts and expectations that many living in Coventry at the that time will have felt. Often written on long walks home up the London Road after the last bus, or in teabreaks while working at the GEC. The collective lyrics paint a picture of youthful exhilaration and myradiacl inspirations with echoes of revolt. Some might suggest that they could have been written in and about any city in those times. No they could only come from one place....Our Coventry. Trev has posted many of his lyrics and the thought and activities behind their writing on his Vox space