The Vibrators' Pat Collier Has Passed Away

07-30-2024

(CR) Cleopatra Records joins the punk rock world in mourning the death, shortly after midnight on Saturday, of Pat Collier, founder member and bassist of The Vibrators - among the very first of all the first-wave UK punk bands back in 1976, heroes of the legendary 100 Club Punk Festival, and the first of all those bands to release a single, "We Vibrate." Yes, even before the Damned and the Pistols.

Collier left the Vibrators following their debut album, first joining short-lived power-poppers The Boyfriends, before moving into production, overseeing releases by The Stukas, Stiff Records hopefuls The GTs and Robyn Hitchcock's Soft Boys, and operating out of his own Alaska Studios set-up beneath the railway arches at London's Waterloo Station.

The studio was also in great demand among the era's unsigned acts, impressed both by its unique sound and its affordable rates as they recorded their first demo tapes. Ex-Advert TV Smith's Explorers, glam rock revivalists Sexagisma and former Bay City Roller Ian Mitchell's La Rox are among the many who took advantage of the ever-present Collier's production and engineering skills.

By the mid-1980s, Collier was working regularly with the Anglo-American sensation Katrina & The Waves, shockabilly heroes King Kurt, the Screaming Blue Messiahs and the Soup Dragons, as well as the now solo Hitchcock.. He still found time, however, to rejoin the Vibrators in 1982, with their albums Guilty, Alaska 127 (titled for the studio's street address) also being recorded at Alaska.

Alaska wound down in the early 1990s, but Collier remained in demand as a producer, moving on to Perry Vale Studios in South London, while still cherishing his past among the founding fathers of punk. As recently as 2020, he was Vibrating once again on their Cleopatra Records release Mars Casino.