We’re sorry to listen to of the demise of the good Geoff Davies- the previous boss of Probe Data and key driving drive within the Liverpool put up punk scene. It’s particularly unhappy to listen to the information two weeks after the lack of Ann – his former spouse who took over the store after the couple had separated with Geoff taking on the label.

Geoff (and Ann) was one of many true architects of the Liverpool music scene. A kind of mavericks who appeared to stay by means of each popular culture era and facilitate the motion. Each music scene is about area. An area the place issues occur. Probe was a type of areas. The area the place the freaks got here to play and go dwelling with new sounds of their baggage and new buddies to make artwork and music with.

Geoff was the facilitator.  He made the area the place issues occurred. That’s its personal artwork from.

He based Probe Data on Clarence Avenue, near Liverpool College on 16 January 1971 by means of to its basic spot the town centre the place it grew to become some of the well-known document retailers within the UK.

Within the punk and post-punk interval the steps main as much as the store’s entrance door have been stuffed with the unique natural world of the Liverpool music scene sat of their post-punk finary. The unique punks and proto goths used the store as their base for years. Inside, Pete Burns presided behind the counter, being hilariously impolite to everybody and hovering within the background was Geoff presiding over the insanity and the gorgeous beat power of the area – an extension of his personal persona.

Geoff was one in all a sort in addition to being form, he took the thin punk youngsters, like our mini Blackpool crew, beneath his arm and bonded over a love of music and home-spun tradition. He would flip you onto a lot music simply past your attain – he was a font of information with eager cultural antennae, and the document store’s personal label – Probe Data – someway survived pushed by enthusiasm and never enterprise. Each launch was pushed by intuition and never money. This was the final word in DIY – a scouse Good Vibrations or Manufacturing unit and the house of Half Man Half Biscuit – the right dwelling for the idiosyncratic band.

With out Geoff, most of post-punk Liverpool in all probability wouldn’t have occurred. Each scene wants a kingpin and connector. Each scene wants a clever elder, and each scene wants somebody to affix the dots and somebody to construct the playground for the inventive droogs to run amok.

Godspeed Geoff, you constructed the tracks for the soundtrack, and your maverick spirit presided over one of many nice music scenes.