A MONTHLY TRIP THROUGH
MUSIC'S GOLDEN YEARS1980

JOY DIVISION
Words of strength

STARRING...

PINK FLOYD
THE SPECIALSTALKING HEADS
.ral

CA

US!

EEFHEARTE BUNNYM

CRAMPS I IRON MAIDEN DEXYS KATE BUSH JOHN LENNON

Welcometo 1 80
THE REAGAN PRESIDENCY and imminent nuclear war
notwithstanding (both on the minds of NMEwriters), as the
new decade begins, the music press finds plenty of reasons tobe optimistic.
The Specials are taking their 2 -Tone aesthetic to America,

while a passionate, cross-cultural ethos is on the rise in the
shape of two other bands from the Midlands: Dexys Midnight Runners andUB40. Heavy metal, to the amusement of some, is in rude health. In Liverpool,
psychedelia is enjoying a revival.
After a year of litigation, one of the major energies behind punk, Malcolm
McLaren is also back with a vengeance. Some of his plans are actionably badtaste. Others - like the relaunch of Adam And The Ants as piratical pop stars are stylish, eloquent and full of future possibilities.
Possibility, or at least what might have been, is at the heart of two tragic eventsof 1980. The death of Ian Curtis in May and the murder of John Lennon in
December give the music press pause to reflect, and conclude that at the root ofeverything, music exists in order to celebrate life.
This is the world of The History0fRock, a monthly magazine that follows eachturn of the rock revolution. Whether in sleazy dive or huge arena, a territory

Pink Floyd are invading and colonising with The Wall, passionate andincreasingly stylish contemporary reporters were there to chronicle events.

This publication reaps the benefits of their understanding for the reader
decades later, one year at a time. Missed one? You can find out how to rectify
that on page 144.

In the pages of this 15th edition, dedicated to 1980, you will find verbatim
articles from frontline staffers, filed from the thick of the action, wherever itmaybe. Comparing tartan with Spandau Ballet. Observing the rise of Tom Petty
with Bernard Manning and Manchester City FC. Overtaking a truck at highspeed, in a car driven by Captain Beefheart.
"Why aren't you nervous, sir?" asks the Captain of the reporter.
Because in spite of the attendant peril, the ride is still so exhilarating.

HISTORY OF ROCK 1980 13

Contents
6News

The Dexys Midnight Runners
manifesto. Robert Wyatt returns
to the fray. Introducing Durutti
Column and Killing Joke.

10

Leonard Cohen
It's taken awhile, but the

songwriter has finally regained
the strength to talk about his
experiences recording with
Phil Spector.

la Clef Leopard
The newwave of British
heavy metal, as personified by
Sheffield group the Leppard.
Punk, rock, the future... allcovered after the pubs shut.

CrampsLux Interior and Poison Ivy,
long a scurrilous rumour, makethemselves flesh. Their music rubs
some the wrongway- which is why
they like it. "Of course it offends."

22 he
p.

2g re

Curtis. Introducing Iron

V February 8. Joy Division
play University Of London Union.

Maiden. RIP also, Bon Scottfrom AC/DC.

Tom Petty

28 Having been sued by hisrecord company and won, Tom
Petty is in ebullient mood when
he arrives in the UK to promote
Damn The Torpedoes.

3

!RIMS

4 Iwo maverick talents

return. Big Star's Alex Chilton
offers Like Flies On Sherbet.

Captain Beefheart presents
Shiny Beast.

40 The Teardror

to the USA. Lifting the lid, among
other things, on Jerry Dammers'
art school past.

42 RIP, Joy Division's Ian

56 Bunnymen

3 6 I aking t he .2 -Done mission

111. M.N. ON.4

ORC MEN TALKDUTCH COUR AGE-I

BUZZ COCKS

54 Albums
Emotional Rescue,anew album fromthe Rolling Stones.
And the third self titled album fromPeter Gabriel.

iecz

ExplodesA short, strange trip
in the company ofJulian Cope and his
band. As the year
goes on, however,it turns out this is
not anyone's idea ofa summer of love.

Echo & The

Camouflage nets arehung on the frontlineof the psychedelic
revival. A meetingwith Ian McCulloch
and his band.
Pink Floyd

62 Bob Marley triumphs
over muddy terrain with aninspirational set at Crystal Palace.

74 Life behind The Wallwith
Bob Ezrin. Nick Mason loves todance. Roger Waters... doesn't.

Albums65

Letters
Ian Curtis mourned.

Thoughts on Floyd, Hynde andbootlegs from the mailbag.

80 Joy Division's Closer.
Live

82 Dexys Midnight Runners
and Squeeze, caught in the capital.

NewsDavid Bowie retu rns withan album and a stage show.
Pressing record on home taping.
Introducing... Bow Wow Wow
and a revitalised Adam Ant. RIP,
Malcolm Owen from The Ruts.
The post -Tusk Fleetwood Mac.

66

Stray Cats

84 The pomade isn't the same
-but the American band still bring
their take on authentic rock'n'roll
duringtheir stayinthe UK.

88 John"WSLennon is murdered.
Malcolm McLaren launches
a controversial magazine.
RIP, John Bonham.
UB40

92 A multiracial reggae bandwith political edge and an LP
recorded in a front room. Why
wouldn't they be on their way
into the charts?

1

90 Talking Heads
Inside the expanded,funkier Heads. Murmuring in theranks: in his creative love affair
with Brian Eno does David Byrne
always give cre lit where it's due?

and live performance. Later,
Weller suggests what the futureholds for The Jam.
Albums

The fast-moving London club
scene assumes musical shape ina band championing, say theirdetractors, style over substance.

Captain beCiiitcli

12 8 The legendary artist

John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

returns with a new LP and arevitalised Magic Band. What to
do when Johnny Rotten stands you
up at a lunch date, and more.

140 NME's editor writes

Malcolm McLaren's
134 Live

an obituary mourning Lennon's
death, but also revisiting his words
and celebrating his life.

Kate Bush

118 The artist found at workon the European promotional trail.
Still down-to-earth, she reveals
the vulnerabilities behind hertheatrical presentation.

108 Weller meetsAn awkward summit between thechippy youth and the conciliatory
elder statesman. Punk andgodfather discuss career longevity

and drugs .

116 DoubleFantasy, bySpan lau Ballet

104 Adventures in tartan.

..,.°4,"'^.-..
skinheads
withMadness
A periodically madcap
trip to Europe with the Camden
band. Revealed: a curiously darkside -and unexpected problems

122

protégés Bow Wow Wow and areconfigured Selecter play live.

13a111;,1ris

ti Jim herrandhisband
play political dance music for an

uncertain future.

\t1/A
John Lennon

Letters

145 The mailbag reels withshock after the murder of John
Lennon. In defence of Pink Floyd,
lately attacked by MM's Allan
Jones. Curtains for the music biz?

kTime Inc. (UK) Ltd, 3rd Floor, Blue Fin Building, no Southwark St, London SE) OSU I EDITOR John Mulvey, whose favourite song from 1980 is
There, There, My Dear by Dexys Midnight Runners DEPUTY EDITOR John Robinson Shoot You In The Back by Motiirhead ART EDITOR Lora Findlay
Nerve Pylon by The Lines PRODUCTION EDITOR Mike Johnson A Means To An End by Joy Division ART DIRECTOR Marc Jones A Forest by The
Cure DESIGNER Becky Redman 9 To5 by Dolly Parton PICTURE EDITOR George Jacobs I Could Be So Good For You by Dennis Waterman COVER PHOTO
Pierre Rene -Worms THANKS TO Helen Spivak, James Hanman MARKETING Charlotte Treadaway SUBSCRIPTIONS Letitia Barry GENERAL MANAGER
Jo Smalley GROUP MANAGING DIRECTOR Paul Cheal COVERS AND TEXT PRINTED BY Wyndeham Group I WWW.UNCUT.CO.UK

Time Inc.

Subscription rates: One year (12 issues) including p&p: UK 0119.88; Europe E129.40: USA and Canada $203.88; Rest of World E159.29. For
enquiries and orders please email help@magazinesdirect.com. Alternatively, from the UK call 0330 333 1113, or overseas .44 330 333 1113
(lines are open Monday -Friday GMT. 8.3oam-5.3opm ex. Bank Holidays). Back issues enquiries: Tel: 01733 688 964. www.mags-uk.com

0,recyde

HISTORY OF ROCK 1980

3

LEONARD COHEN, THE

CRAMPS, DEF LEPPARD,TOM PETTY AND MORE

March1980:Kevin Rowland(front) and Kevin "AI" Archer(far left),whoco-founded
Desys Midnight Runners in1978 after playing together
in punk group The Killjoys.
with bandmates in theirhometown, Birmingham

"I wouldn't insult theaudience'ss intelligence,
NME JAN 12 introducing... Uexys Midnight Runners. -'Wt

than t want to become part of anyone else's movement,"
says "Carlo Rolan". "We'd rather be our own movement.""I've got no respect for anybody or anything... I'm not talkingabout worship,
I mean RESPECT What I'm talkingabout is feelingandsoul power. Knowingthat something is real and feelingit. We get called arrogant... sometimes you
know you're right, but that doesn't make us arrogant. We can feel the power .
some of you here tonight can feel the power... but there are loads of people whojust can't feel it. I feel sorry for them. But take men like Biglimmy, he plays thetrombone, drinks a bottle of whiskya day and is goin' to be dead in a year's time.
But it's alright, Jimmy, 'cos you've got RESPECT... you can feel the soul power...
you know what it is... RESPECT!"Anextractfrom Carlo Rolan's onstage "Respect" rap

IT'S THE TH I R D day of Christmas at the Electric Ballroom, and a numberof kids cocking an ear to Carlo Rolan's righteous rhetoric haven't got the
faintest idea what he's going on about, but judging from the generalreaction they're outnumbered by those who have.
From the outside looking in, events seem close to overtaking the eight
Birmingham -based blue-eyed soulsters calling themselves Dexys M idnight

1980

ARAI - OfiCH

Runners. In less than amonth, Rolan has cut thelife expectancy of Big
Jimmy- Dexys' lanky crewcut Scots 'boneman- backfrom five years to just one,while collectively they'vegone from the warm-up sloton the recent Specials/
Selecter 2 -Tone trek toconcert -goers- they'd go
and see Mott The Hoople
or Bowie. Me, I rarely everwent to gigs.""It's because wehold back on thevisuals that we'vebeen marked ascold and distant"currently mapping out thenown headlining tour.
However, there are
a number of pressing
problems still to be
surmounted- Big Jimmy's
obsession with drowninghimself in his country's most popular liquid
export and the breaking -in of both a neworganist and drummer being the least of them.

During the last six months, while their BlackCountry blue -beat brethren have firmly
established themselves as a force to be reckoned
with, Dexys have intentionally been keeping avery low profile, in an attempt to avoid being
categorised as either 2 -Toners or Mk 2 mods.
As various sweat -soaked Dexys rummage
through the pile of debris they call theirpersonal effects in a cupboard dripping withcondensation that also serves as a dressing
room, Rolan and his diminutive guitarist Al
Archer set about clarifying a few points.
The fact that anything carrying the 2 -Tonebrand name is currently synonymous withinstant chart success while their first single for
Oddball, "Dance Stance", is still bubblingunder isn't causing them undue concern. In
fact, in July, Dexys passed on a 2 -Tone deal to8

sign with the EMI -distributed Oddball set-up.
"We didn't want to become part of anyone
else's movement," claims Rolan. "We'd rather
be our own movement.""If we had seriously wanted to jump on thecurrent bandwagon," says Archer, "we could
have been Secret Affair ages ago. But we werevery conscious of the fact that we might
become too closely associated with that verystrong 2 -Tone image, when in fact we're into awhole different approach. A lot of people havealready come to expect a certain type of music,
a particular beat and a most definite image
from every new band signed to the label, andautomatically it's all down to whether or not
you're as good as The Specials."
Fair comment. but I'm more interested in thefact that so early in Dexys career, Rolan feels he
has to defend himself against accusations ofarrogance in his onstage raps. This turns out tobe a rather grey area of conversation.
"Maybe," Rolan ponders, somewhat unsureof how the rumours originated, "it's because onstage we give the appearance of being slightly
cold and distant. Speaking for myself, I feelquite isolated from other musicians outside ofthis band, simply because I don't seem to haveanything in common with them.
"Even before we started this band, Al and I
used to hangout in discos listening to things
like James Brown's 'Sex Machine' and War's'Me And My Baby Brother, whereas all theother musicians in Birmingham were regular

Whatever theirindividual backgrounds,
Dexys Midnight Runners
are another in what seems
like an endless successionof Birmingham -areabands using the '60s as aspringboard into the '80s.
Whereas their neighbours
have excavated the bluebeat/ska motherlode, Dexys

are reclaim ing some of thelong -lost civilisation.
Rolan might display respect for the Stax,
Atlantic and Motown label triumvirate, but
surprisingly he claims to have been equally
influence by such British progenitors as
Georgie Fame, Cliff Bennett, Zoot Money andGeno Washington. "The greatest soul singer inthe world," is how Rolan refers to Washington
when introducing the band's song "Geno".
Rolan defends Geno's talent with as muchvigour as The Osmonds defend Marie's
virginity. It transpires that when only 11, notonly was Geno Washington the first live act heever saw -his older brother took him along to a
gig -but when the idea of Dexys Midnight
Run ners was first conceived in January 1978,
Rolan turned to the recorded output of theflamboyant sou lster.
"I was totally fed up with everything else atthat time and so I started listening to all of
Geno's old records and any other soul single
I could pick up for 10p around the markets."
By July '78 the first lineup was rehearsing andexactly a year ago began playing arou nd local
youth clubs, where they built up a strong 14-15
year -old following.
"They were the kind of places where they only
sold lemonade and crisps," Rolan recounts.
Since then it's been a gradual process ofphasing out the oldies quotient in favour of
their own material, gaining st rength throughthe course of numerous personnel changes. In
particular, the brass team of two saxes and Big
Jimmy's gut -bucket trombone combine to
produce a rich, raspy blast which no other
British soul band has previously attained.
As a front man, Carlo Rolan is quite subdued.
In fact, he spends a large part of the set
strapped to a guitar. The group policy seems tofavour a slow burn rather than an instant flash.
"Sure," explains Rolan, "I could go out there
and do that 'Are you having a good time? I

wanna see everybody clappin' their hands'
routine while the band just pumped out a Stax
bass riff, but what's the point? I wouldn't stoop
so low as to insult the audience's intelligence.
"If it ever seems like we're holding back it's
because we're trying to avoid that kind of
approach. We couldn't do that and ever hope
to retain whatever integrity we possess. And
it's because we hold back on the visuals
that we've been marked as bei ng coldand distant!"
And arrogant?
"Could be!" RoyCarr

Dexy's: Funky Butt Fassst

Death bymisadventure
RIP, Bon Scott,
AC/DC singer dead at 33.
NME

SOMETIME BETWEENTUESDAY night andWednesday morning of last
week, AC/DC's vocalist Bon Scott diedwhile unconscious in the back of afriend's car. The cause of death wasacute alcohol poisoning, an inquest was
told later in the week, before recording
a verdict of "death by misadventure".
Scottish -born Scott had been with
AC/DC since1974, and appeared on all
six of their UK -release albums.
Along with a musician friend called
Alistair Kinnear, Scott had been at
London's Music Machine until the earlyhours of Wednesday morning. Afterleaving the club, the pair drove toKinnear's home in East Dulwich, by whichtime Scott was in an alcoholic stupor.
Kinnear decided to leave him in the car
to sleep it off, and returning to find him
still unconscious later that day, he drove
to King's College Hospital, where Scott
was pronounced dead on arrival.
Despite the death of Scott, aged 33.
AC/DC promise that they will continue.

Return from exile
MM MAR 8
ROBERT WYATT RETURNS from his

self-imposed musical exile with aseries of singles to be released by
Rough Trade. The first, Wyatt's
interpretation of "Caimenera", the Spanish
original of "Guantanamera", is released ina fortnight, with Bill MacCormick on bassand Harry Beckett on flugelhorn. The
B-side is Violetta Para's "Aracuna" sung andplayed by Wyatt with MacCormick on bass.
One of the other singles will be Wyatt's
versions of Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit"and Chic's "At Last I'm Free", and anotherfeatures his a capella cover of the Golden
Gate Jubilee Quartet's "Stalin Wasn't
Stallin'". All the singles' tracks....sill=11110..were recorded over the
A iNhik
last few weekends, andan album is beingtC1 A6E

considered, though
there has been no
discussion yet
about Wyatt
playing live.

"And the production,"says Jaz, "a fat sound.

We're gonna get that,eventually. But we'regonna have noise on topof it: mangled, distorted,searing noise."
Otherwise, theirintentions are vague.
"You have to keep going
forward, and there's notmany bands that do that,"
explains Youth. Needless
11101111110.
to say, despite musical
Killing Joke: (I -r)
NMEIntroducing... Killing Joke. "We play the way
Paul Ferguson, Kevinsimilarities to the likes of"Geordie" Walker,
we feel, we don't pose," they say, but NME isn't so sure...
Wire, PiL and Gang Of
Martin"Youth" Glover
Four, they feel no affinity
andJazColeman
for other bands. "We're alldifferent, y'see? We're notlike all the other bands, all clones who all like
LET'S PUT IT this way: everybody's
point of being handed the standard. So close,each other." Jaz is not in a generous mood.
so quickly, and so slickly, that suspicions havelooking for something to fall back on.
"Whereas we all hate each other," adds
been aroused. The previous weekend theyThree years of rock iconoclasm have
Youth. "We've all got different ideas andproved that no sooner is one poster torn down
played to a Lyceum full of people who had
out of that we've got a general direction.
than another appears to take its place. There'scome to see Joy Division, after ads had given
Someone will write a song, then it'll be passed
Killing Joke equal if not greater prominence
plenty of room on the hoarding, and lacking
to someone else, censored, and passed ona piper to call the tune, we pay our moneyon the bill. It turns out the promoter had
again. Sometimes it gets to the point where
and take our pick. Punk, heavy metal, mod,naively entrusted the advertising to Killing
one of us will walk. If it gets past that point wemodern, rude... they sound as hollow as I feel.
Joke, who'll take what they can get too.
usually end up with a good song."
For a time this fragmentation seemed
They're not so much unscrupulous as plain
They all agree they want to provoke, butguileless. But experiences such as their shorthealthy. Now it just seems like it's crumbling.
what they want to provoke is vague.
Each style gives its adherents an elite
lived and acrimonious liaison with Island
Youth attempts some sort of definition:
Records will teach them cunning.
status, a reason to look down on the"Changing the attitude to looking forward
rest. So they use that excuse to
Meanwhile they kick out hardinstead of back; doing something different
nosed modern riff structures
take it out on each other instead of following something else."and spew out harsh,
instead of on the system
psychotic lyrics with
But they don't want to dictate, northat causes their
foster violence, nor provide merely token
sufficient conviction to
discontent and theiraggression: "We play the way we feel all the
make a dent in therevolt and finally closes
time. We don't pose."in like a fog on all thepervading apathy, but
No, they don't. They're genuine. Genuinely
frail, frustrating
not quite enoughlimited. But they are good within their
originality to be wholly
aspirations of teendom.
limitations, capable of generating some heat
What a sad andpersuasive. Nonetheless,and sounding energetic and purposeful. So
terrible waste of all thata new single on Roughpurposeful that you're forced to ask what theTrade called "Wardance"
healthy, honest, confused
purpose is. The answer lies in a tangled messmakes a predictably
and ill -directed rage. Shaveof handed -down ideals and private drives.
your head, wear a bum -flap,
abrasive noise.
Jaz says he had the idea for this group ages
They don't want tobuy a suit or stitch logos
ago. What was the idea? "To form a group."
provide you with anotheronto your back if you must
Youth grapples a little more patiently withentertainment. "No," says
compensate for feelings ofthe question. "It's like with the skinheads.
their founding member,inadequacy, but don't"we want to fuck them up
They stand there looking around, then they'llsquander that rage.
decide to start bopping up and down. After
And don't wait for yourin the process." His
about six or seven gigs they'll start to wonder"leaders" to define it for
nickname is Jaz, he plays
why -and then perhaps they'll start
you either, because all you do by following
keyboards and sings, and he's given to tersechanging, and that'll be worthwhile. But instatements. About a year ago he and Paul, thethem is compensate for their feelings ofthe meantime you feel like asking them what
drummer, put an ad in Melody Maker that put
inadequacy, often in cash, which only helps
the fuck are you here for? Why are you doing
them onto a guitarist called Geordie, andturn them into the very thing they -or someit? You can see they're not doing it becauseof them - set out to turn you against.
soon after they found a bass player bearing
an uncanny resemblance to Sid Vicious,of the reasons you're doing it."
But people need something to identify
Confused? So are they. I ask if they know
with, and these days they'll take what theycalled Youth. In 1977, Youth was "posing about
the significance of the red and the black - thedown the Roxy", Geordie was at school failingcan get. Last Tuesday I found myself amongst
international anarchist colours - used on
his A -levels, Jaz was living in a "hellhole called
the bondage division, watching them trickle
their logo. Youth does, the others don't.
into a sorely under -advertised Killing Joke
Cheltenham" and playing with Paul in a band
"We're not into politics," someone mutters.
performance at the London University. An
run by someone called Matt Stagger.
The top -dog at CBS Records walks out"It was a good band," says Jaz, "but it was
operative of Killing Joke's Malicious Damage
halfway through their gig that night. "Good,"label pointed out a dim and stubborn
his show, and towards the end it got sickly
says the Malicious Damage operative.
regional punk crew who follow the bandcommercial and we just didn't fit. It wasn't"That'll keep CBS off their back."
obsessively. "They're looking for a leader,"being very honest, and when it comes down
As I leave, a member of Killing Joke asks
he observed dryly. "Like everybody else."
to playing, if you lie, it sounds like it."me to write something nice about them for
Killing Joke's ambitions lie in the sphere
In the few months that have elapsed sincea change. I lie and say I will. These daysof rhythm and noise. Youth cites Chic as an
Killing Joke released their "Nervous System"
EP, a virulent cocktail of after -punkexample of the rhythm. "All that sugar shit on
expediency comes cheaper than integrity.
ingredients, they have come close to thetop, forget that, but the rhythm's there."
PaulRamball"When it comes toplaying, if you lie,
it sounds like it"

HISTORY OF ROCK 1980 19

1980

JANUARY -%1`11011.

"The music
is incredibly
SIM. Pie"
Introducing Durutti Column,
new on Factory Records, home of Joy
Division. "I don't want to be on the dolemuch longer," says main man Vini Reilly.
TONY WILSON, GRANADA TV
producer and Factory Records majordomo, picks me up at Manchester
Piccadilly for the drive out to Didsbury.
"The thing you have to remember about
Vini Reilly is that the boy was very ill. He's had

this problem with the stomach... He suffersfrom bouts of anorexia nervosa, where he
can't eat anything for months. Sometimes
you have to talk to him before five o'clock
because that's when he eats. Afterwards he's
usually extremely sick. I look at my watch. It's still only midday.
Wilson continues, his customary brusquely
cheerful self.
-Actually, we had to make him step out of
his illness to work on this Durutti Column
album- - we being Wilson and his partner Alan
Erasmus:It was a risk. If you'd seen the boy,you'd know. I thought, 'That boy is either
going to die or he's got to get better', and as
people don't age... Opening the door on the terraced house
where Reilly lives with his ma, we're greetedby a small, frail figure with bony fingers. Reilly
is in his mid -twenties and is obviously
extremely thin for his age. On the other hand,
he doesn't look like he's about to shuffle off
this mortal coil.
Wilson accepts a late Christmas gift from
Vini, a small charm, with much thanks and thendisappears back to Granada where he does
whatever producers do for TV programmes
like World In Action. He is also finishing off theediting for a film constructed from an
improvised jam with Reilly, keys player Steve
Hopkins and bassist and general knob twiddling wizard Martin "Zero" Hannett(shown on Granada's Celebration arts
programme last week).
These three are sometimes better known
as The Invisible Girls, John
Cooper Clarke's back-up teamon both "Sleepwalk- and aforthcoming muse -and -music
production that will be theword -man's third long -player.

"IestIwkMdofthMg
thattakestimetosink in": Vini Reilly of

The DuruttiColumn
in Manchester,January17,1980

Reilly, by his own admission, is not at all
well. For the last three years he's sufferedperiodically from the psychological disease
that stops him eating and the debilitating fitsof depression that accompany this state. Now
he seems relaxed and lucid, occasionallystaring off into the corners of the room withan intense expression.
"The doctors can't find anything wrong withme," said Reilly softly. "All they do is give me
tranquilisers and they make me go to sleep. The Durutti Column has been functioning
on and off for as long as Vini has been sick,although it's evident that working hard has
been one way of staving off depression. The
original Duruttis were a band with a part-timesinger (Colin, an actor) who played melodic,
newish wavish music with a bizarre swagger
that now appears incredibly
dated (witness theircontributions to the"Factory Sample- double
EP, FAC 2).

him 20 tracks and he selected the ones hecould work with best. I didn't really hear thealbum from playing the pieces until thefinished plastic. -As the original Duruttis fragmented into
lethargy and Reilly's health lapsed, he had
assumed that was the end of his musicalcareer. But Wilson was adamant that he would
work, and visited Reilly with a proposition fora solo album.
"I thought they'd go on without me, but
Tony said, 'Look, you are The Durutti Column- now go ahead and do it.Factory's success with Joy Division has
meant that the label can afford to nurturetalents like Reilly's or A Certain Ratio's withouthurrying them into unnecessary deadlines.
"They have a lot of schemes now. There's
an idea for a fun film, Too
Young To Know, Too Wild To"I don't know why
anyone would wantto listen to myrecord, because I
made it for myself"Vini's debut album,
The Return Of The Durutti
Column (FACT 14) is quite
unlike the Durutti Columnof "Factory Sample". It's
mostly a solo guitar album
classically flavoured,tipping and modulating between themeswith an appeal that haunts back to times past(childhood, personal reactions to the deathof a parent, tune for lovers) and lightly
structured sketches that have an electric
flamenco propulsion. The music is Reilly's
own, occasionally assisted by bass and drums
but always translated through the able handsof Hannett.
"Martin reproduces echoes; finds arhythmic pattern on the synthesizer. I gave

Care, which I'm scoring.
Reilly confesses that
he was terrified of being
boring on his record
and thinks that somepeople will buy it for thewrong reasons, either
because they collect
Factory artefacts
regardless, or because
it's got a sandpaper sleeve.
"The music is incredibly simple, but I'd likeanyone to listen to it and enjoy it, to getsomething out of it. It doesn't hit you; it's thekind of thing that takes time to sink in. WhatI really like is when aunties and uncles hear it
and you see them tap a foot, or when a friendsays they went to the pub and came home andgot stoned and put it on. That's what it's for."
Reilly gently resents some claims thatthe record is ambient, or that it's a less

THE EMACIATED LINE
BETWEEN ART AND AMBIENCE

10 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1980

WILSON, Granada
roducer andimaginative version of an ECM album;
cerebral music for washing-up.
"That's an insult. I could havebeen mathematical about it all, butevery piece has a raison d'être, aninspiration. Some people, rock critics
I suppose, listen to music in a false
situation. I like Keith Jarrett, but
I think all other ECM music is crap."
Steve Reich?
"Incredibly boring. You begin to suspect
people's motives for liking that kind of thing.
The whole elitist thing in music is desperately
wrong. Truthfully, I don't know why anyone
would want to listen to my record, because
I made it to interest myself, but I do thinkmusic should have a place in society.
"It isn't fair that opera can get Art Council
grants - though I have nothing against opera-when rock music, which is equally as
important as an art form, is considereda lesser form of expression."
To my surprise, Reilly says that he likes tomeet up with some friends "to thrash about
with rock'n'roll, 'Jumping Jack Flash' and'Johnny B Goode'."It's obvious that he's happiest with a guitar
in his hand. Reilly practises constantly, using
a piano for ideas and studying composition
from records and books. He's as interested in
Benjamin Britten as he is in Ry Cooper, but inthe words of the old Ed Banger & The
Nosebleeds song which Vini co -wrote with Mr
Banger while playing guitar for that combo,
he "Ain't Been To No Music School".
Vini is anxious to play live again. He misses
the honest reactions of a club audience.
"I started off playing sort of jazz rock with
The Wild Rams, but with the Nosebleeds Ed
would get a real response jumping acrosstables and confronting the people. Then I was
asked to play on TOTP with Jilted John, but I
don't respect anybody involved in that.
"With John Cooper Clarke I don't knowwhat will happen. He's been greatly
misrepresented. People pick up on theswearing, but there's a lot of very sad stuff too."As the afternoon sinks in, we walk over toHannett's house in a smarter part of Didsbury.
The rest of the day is spent at Cargo Studios
in Rochdale where Hannett is mixing A
Certain Ratio's contribution to the Science
Fiction Festival album. It's good to see suchan informally mischievous person with suchsupple rolling fingers behind a desk. In thestudio Zero can go totally indulgently insane.
But that's another story. Vini Reilly didn't
come to Rochdale anyway. He had to go andcollect his dole.
"It gets a bit difficult to tell them you can't
come on a certain day because you're doinga television programme. 'You on television?'
I get funny looks; I don't want to be on thedole much longer. If these things all work out,maybe I can earn enough to live without allthat. The great thing about Factory - I want
you to put this in - is that they never gave up
on me."
And then he adds, maybe as anafterthought: "Factory can seem very
serious. It gets taken very seriously. Really,
though, it's just like a very good game."
Accentuate a very good game. It isn't
played to lose. Max Bell

Indiscriminate
prescriptions
MM FEB 2

tiUtAui

auptiiii6u wpm practice.

The Nipple Erectors
at the lashville inWest Kensington,
London, in1978

ELVIS PRESLEY'S PERSONAL

physician, Dr George C
Nichopoulos, appeared before
the Tennessee Board Of Medical
Examiners last week on charges of
misconduct in his treatment of the King.
Since his death in 1977, rumour has beenrife that Elvis died from an overdose ofdrugs and not from heart failure. "Dr Nick",as he's affectionately called, admittedprescribing vast amounts of drugs for Elvis.
He was found guilty of indiscriminately
prescribing and dispensing controlled
substance for 10 patients, including Presley,in the 20 months before the singer died. The
good doctor has been suspended frompractising for three months and has beenplaced on three years' probation, but theboard determined that he had "noinvolvement" in Elvis' death.
Dr Nick, however, gave an insight into
Presley's state. He portrayed Elvis as a
"psychological" addict. When he went out
on the road with El, Dr Nick said he carried
three suitcases of drugs for the singer andhis entourage. At the time of his death, Nick
had prescribed 680 pills and 20cc ofliqu id
uppers, downers and painkillers to Presley.
As far as the record goes, though, Elvis stilldied of heart failure, although there weretraces of several potentially dangerous
drugs inhis body atthetimeof
his death.
Harry Doherty

Two final gigs
MM MAR 8'6

Lors, disband.
Shane will form his own L
11-1

Elvis wasa pill -head

THE NIPS HAVE disbanded
after disagreements anddisillusionment about the way
their current single, "Gabrielle", washandled by their record company.
The band have blamed Chiswick, who
licensed the single from The Nips' Soholabel, for its lack of chart success, and havedisbanded "in protest", playing two final
gigs at London's Rock Garden on Monday
next week, and the Music Machine withThe Purple Hearts on Marchi4.
Chiswick's Ted Carroll told the MMthat promotional problems came when
the band insisted on it being released justbefore Christmas - traditionally a badtime to try and break a new act -andcoincidentally at the time when EMI's
now -defunct Licensed Records Division,
which handled Chiswick's promotion,
was in its death throes.
The Nips' founder members, singer
Shane and bassist Shanne, will go on toform their own bands.

"A skinhead symphony

51 MM JAN 5 lAore exciting

activity...

THE RELEASE DATE for The Specials' live EP "Too Much Too Young" has now been set for

Friday next week, the day after the band sets off for a European tour. The EP was recorded
at London's Lyceum and Coventry's Tiffany's on the recent 2 -Tone tour, and includes "Guns
Of Navarone" on the A -side and a "Skinhead Symphony" of "Longshot Kick The Bucket","Liquidator" and "Skinhead Moonstomp" on the B-side.
The record was produced by Jerry
Dammers and engineer Dave Jordan,
SKNHEAU MOON
LICK THE BUCKET LIOUIDATOFI
and although no decision has yet been
GUNS OF NAVARONF LONG SHOT
taken, it seems likely that the same pair
will produce the next Specials album, tobe recorded over the next few months.
The Specials return from a month inAmerica at the end of February-theysupport The Police fora fortnight andthen play two weeks on their own -andhope to have the album ready in time for
their next British tour in May.
Meanwhile, BBC2'sArena is preparing
a documentary on The Specials and the

TOO MUCH TOO YOU
THE SPECIAL A.K.A. LI

2 -Tone label, directed by Geoff Perks,
whose last program me was theArena doc
on Sham 69. It will be broadcast in March.

1980

JANUARY -MARCH"Its grotesque,it's shabby,

beautiful"thoughts
album, Recent Songs, and
back
with
a
new
LEONARD COHEN iswith Phil Spector. "I feelandworking
the new waveof two gold discs.
ui1 YIW iaiuuiG1,
entertainment," says the ownerthat I'm producing
philosophy or dogma.""I don't think I'm producing

instruction,

-

-4, '
%a

.1

evogttl?
.

Yif"My motherkind
of produced thisrecord": Leonard
Cohen relasesat
his London hotel,
January 8.1980

1980

ARUM -MARCH- MELODY MAKER JANUARY 5 _LEONARD COHEN IS a happier man these days. Tired, but

probably enjoying it, he's just finished a European tour,
which included three sold -out London concerts. And still
hundreds stood outside, disappointed and ticketless.
Cohen was born a year before Elvis Presley. The tour cameto an end on the eve of the third decade of his involvement
in rock'n'roll, which began with listening to Frankie Lamm and the Kingback in the '50s.
"I always loved rock," he said. "I remember the first time I heard Presley,
how relieved and grateful I was that all this stuff he and all of us had beenfeeling for so long had finally found a particular kind of expression."
Cohen cuts a strange figure in the rock'n'roll world. Touring is about theclosest he gets to being an active participant, and looking at him, deathly
tired after 24 hours and more without sleep following his final London
concert, it's difficult to imagine him enjoying it.
"It's fun now," he admits. "But everybody on the tour has had a tiny
nervous breakdown at one point or another. I don't know if it's theweather or the tour's intensity, or the music, or the combination of thepeople, but everybody has had to go through a radical re-evaluation of
their condition on the road. We're enjoying it now because we've
surrendered to it -they just carry our bodies from hotel room to the
airport bus, and the music manifests itself each night..."COHEN DOESN'T TOUR often, usually as frequently as hereleases albums. Recent Songs, his eighth, has just come out,

coinciding with the publication ofa poetry -and -prose collection called Death
OfA Lady's Man (note the spelling). It comes
12 years after the arrival of his first, Songs Of
Leonard Cohen.
Following the relative spiritual
impoverishment of Death OfA Ladies' Man(his Spector collaboration), Recent Songs isa return to his more melancholic character,though this time the work's romanticism istempered by a tough strain of realism in the
narratives, and the distancing effects of his
experiments with such florid language.

Without that strain the album would beunbearably sweet, as the songs are set to a kindof Eastern European pastiche,
incorporating a "sobbing" gypsy
violin-Cohen's own words -andan oud player, alongside moreconventional instruments. It's as
courageous as it is easy on the ear,deliberately skirting so close to kitsch.
Cohen's not unaware of the danger"The only
thing I had towork with at
the time werethese cliches"of working so close to the edge. He
explains: "Who would dare to write
songs about swans and roses?! felt forsome odd reason like rescuing such
imagery from the backs of Christmas

cards, and returning those symbols,
those images, to a place of honour- ifthey ever had one. And also to use the
shabbiness and irony of those images
to really get something from it, as an
ironic device to rescue their realpassionate romance. If they're
successful, they do create resonanceand harmonics in the hearts of thelisteners, and a landscape that theyrecognise as true.
"It's grotesque, it's shabby, it's
beautiful, but then beyond all that you're willing to forgive these conceits
if you recognise them as true."
The danger is that such devices disguise what you're trying to say- people might not look beneath the surface of the songs.
"I think the songs are guarded by those kind of devices, for better orworse. I don't know if it's a good idea, but in conversation people claim to
14 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1980

have trouble with those things, but then afterwards, the mind goes towork and tries to determine what the experience has been. And in the
midst of the thing, I th ink everybody knows what's going on.
"People who want to hear the song, who've got that kind of appetite-there's no need for everybody to have the same -I think the songs
penetrate directly and immediately, and it's only after the fact that you
begin to examine why orwhat.
"On the other hand," he continues, "I don't want you to think I sit
around thinking about how to get a certain effect, because that's likestarting at the end. You feel a certain reality and struggle to articulate it-it's more like scavenger work rather than sitting at a great luxurious
table, choosing one delicacy then another. You take what there is or whatsuggests itself. To me, the only thing I had to work with at the time werethese cliches. I couldn't enter that experience through any other gateway
but the cliches."
If it's not already evident, Cohen takes a lot of pride and care in writing.
Sometimes, he says, songs are worked on for years, constantly examined
and re-examined.
"Perhaps some spontaneity is lost by this process, but on the other handI think that we're up to our ears in spontaneity," he suggests.
"I'm rather fond of new wave, because that had some energy. But I mean,
fora long time we were getting pop music with the kind of lines that I can't
believe seriously that any writer struggled over.
"I can't hear anything, besides ambition and greed, behind most of
the lyrics that I've heard in the past four or five years. It isn't a matter of
erudition or pedantry. It's a matter of consideration, and I don't find mucharound, whether it's in the Royal Academy or on the jukebox."
He's not preaching, or making judgements.
The urge that drives him to write obviously
doesn't qualify him for Tin Pan Alley, though
the lines separating quality songs and fast -buck
pop went down with Dylan and The Beatles
back in the '60s. Not to say that Cohen doesn't
live from writing; only he lives for it, too, whichis the vital difference.
It took some time coming, but he got a gold
disc for Songs Of Leonard Cohen eight years after
it was released, and another in Germany for the
inaccurately named Greatest Hits. His music
sells, but sells slowly.
"There are certain cranks, like myself, who

need that kind of complexity to entertain them.
I feel that I'm producing entertainment-I don't think I'm producing
instruction, philosophy or dogma."
pERHAPS THE MOST

surprising move Cohenever made was teaming
up with Phil Spector, for Death
OfA Ladies Man. The result wasastonishing, not bearing the bestknown characteristics of either. In
Spector's case, the arrangements
were mostly incomplete and empty,
bare skeletons of tunes, whichsomehow worked by default.
Their soullessness matted thedesolation of the songs, denuded ofthe dusky melancholy which Cohen
usually drapes over his most painful
moments. This time, bitterness camethrough undisguised, destroying theromanticism in the writer andreplacing it with a brutalised clarity.
It contains his most cynical work,
easily his most physical. Cohen's Last
Tango? Could be. Listen to the last verse of the title song:"So the great affair is over/ But whoever would have guessed/It would
leave us all so vacant/ And so deeply unimpressed."Or, from "Paper Thin Hotel":"The struggle mouth to mouth /And limb to limb/ The grunt of unitywhen
he came in."

LEONARD COHEN

The album reeks of desperation, a lastditch pitch at survival through the purging
of pain. And, like most works born out ofsuch an abject condition, it's highly
compelling. It's brutality must havecome as a shock to Cohen's long-standing
admirers, and if it's ultimately flawed,
it gets better with the passing of time.
Death... was made at a crisis point in
Cohen's life. He explains:"My own marriage was breaking up, andmy mother was dying of cancer at the time.

LEONARDCOHEN

So I had to commute from Los Angeles toMontreal !his birth place] twice a week. It
was a very trying time; my personal life wasso chaotic -so many factors contributed
to my condition, which was just a sense ofa loss of cont rol -a weakness."
There seems to be a very masculine

approach taken with this album.
"I never looked at it that way. That's aninteresting point... I mean, there were
bodyguards, guns, barbed wire around at
Phil's place when we did the album."Spector producing a Cohen album is sucha strange proposition in the first place. How
did it come about?
"He came to a concert of mine in LA, and thefact that he didn't cause a disturbance indicatedhe approved of the music. We had a mutual
friend, and we met one evening. I was over atPhil's home -and he usually locks the doors
from the inside so you can't leave. As I couldn't
get out of the house that night, we started
working together and in the next 10 or 12 days

"There were
bodyguards,
guns, barbed
wire aroundat Phil's place"we wrote six or seven songs.
"That part of it went very swiftly. When wewere just working together alone, it was very,
very pleasant. But when he gets in the studio he becomes Mr Hyde."

FROM THERE ON in, Spector's megalomania took control andtheir working relationship deteriorated. Cohen became so far
removed from the record that he now refers to it as "Phil's
album". Spector took the first -take vocal tracks away and locked
Cohen out of the studios.
"The thing that's missing from the record is the intimacy that I
established with Lissauer !John, his previous producerl, who allowed me
to tell the story of the song. But I couldn't possibly develop under thoseconditions with Spector- days and days of screaming, first takes, tapes
being confiscated. It was just a waste of time, you know. But I was too
weak at the time to do anything about it.
"I think the songs on the record are good. If the treatment was different
I think it could have been a very acceptable thing. Even now I see certain
aspects of its excellence. Not that I really care, as I should care.
"But I do think there's something gay and manic about the album. The
mix is very eccentric, but if you don't happen to be looking for me in it,
which unfortunately I was, if you just look at it as a piece of music, it's very
interesting. And it gets better. I couldn't stand it at the beginning."
But the process of creating it provided a necessary break with the past.
He says: "It was like the final chapter in any case; I'd reached that pointthat made me just pull up my bootstraps. Everybody goes through that.
It also taught me a lot about the studio and influenced me to produce myown album - my experience with Phil taught me never to listen to anyone
else's opinion again."
One might think he would have learnt fromhis experiences with Tony Palmer, the British
filmmaker he brought in to film his 1972
European tour fora movie he could use topromote his later albums, as at that point he
was on the verge of retiring from the rock scene.
Cohen was hoping fora straight

documentary, but contends that Palmer,
having just completed Frank Zappa's

200 Motels, wanted to do something

more experimental.
"He only filmed the beginning and end ofeach song," he claims. "Then he would film
the audience, or something in-between."
They had a raging quarrel about thePalmer version, and eventually Cohen
decided to edit the movie himself, to try
to assemble a whole concert from the 90
hours of footage, only to discover thatthe music just wasn't there. Insteadof showing whole songs, Palmer
experimented with cutting in footage
from newsreels and so on.
"At the Sports Palast in Berlin we cameacross a very rowdy crowd. The Berlinaudiences, then and now, like to bemastered," he says.
"This was the same place where Goebbels
had made his famous speech where he'd
asked the famous question of the German
people, 'Wollt ihrden totalen Krieg?' I"Do
you want total war?"' and they all stood for
25 minutes cheering. So this crowd was gettingout of hand and my equipment was breaking
down -the place was on the edge of anarchy. So
I shouted out of the microphone, 'Wolk ihrden
totalen Krieg?' and they went completely crazy.
They thought I was deeply insulti ng them orsomething.

"Anyhow, Tony had it intercut with that speechof Goebbels saying it.1 thought that was a little
too heavy. It was just fooling around withsomething far too sacred to be treated so
casually. Then it cut to Hitler riding in
Nuremberg. That was one of the main reasons
I didn't want this film- it was a little Grand
Guignol, you know."
That's just a digression. The change in mood from the Spector album toRecent Songs is marked. On the sleeve, Cohen credits his mother, Masha
Cohen, with "reminding me, shortly before she died, of the kind of music
she liked".
"My mother was Russian and she used to sing Russian songs round thehouse," he explains. "She was a wonderful singer, great deep voice.
Actually, a week before she died I played her the Phil Spector record,
which I had just finished. She sort of listened patiently to it and she said
that people can dance to it. And then, later on, she said, 'Why don't you
write songs like the ones we used to sing, you know, with a violin?' It was
just a moment of conversation, a suggestion.
"I discounted that, as I discounted most advice about my work. But
I think it took root, and I was introduced to the violinist Raffi Hakopian,
who's Russian.
"It went from there. My mother kind of produced this record."
The violinist and the oud player Cohen used on the album are part of his
present touring band. They're an odd -looking ensemble to be playing at
an established rock venue, with at least three members above 40. But
somehow it fits, as Cohen always has done, somewhere in the outer limits,making his own rules.
Did he ever feel divorced from the rock'n'roll mainstream?
"I probably am working somewhat out of what appears to be themainstream. But 1 know secretly that I'm in the mainstream, and a lot of
the other stuff in it is just fashion. And that older and stronger traditions
that are just below the surface sustain the culture." Chris Bohn

Cohen: hauntedby Spector

1980

solos

`Guitare. e boring""or

Engaging Yorkshiremei DEF LEPPARD

explain the "New Wave Of British

Heavy Metal": "Thing about new wave,
the bands were just like audience.

There was a rapport. An' it's the same
wi' new wave heavy metal bands."- Mr FEBRUARY 2 11EIR FIRST REHEARSAL studio was in an old

building near the Sheffield United football
ground. A single room, it cost them a fiver a
week to rent.
After work on Friday, they'd go down there andrehearse, often until 4am. There were four ofthem. Pete Willis played guitar. He knew Rick Savage, who played
bass. There were several drummers in those early months. Then
Rick Allen joined. Pete and Sav were 17, Rick was 15. Joe Elliott.

had never sung in a band before, although he played a little guitar
and had depped as a drummer in a local rock'n'roll band. They
told him that he looked the part. He was tall and brawny, with ashock of cu rly blond hair: an ident i kit heavy metal front man,really. They were persuasive. He joined them in October 1977.
They plundered Thin Lizzy and Bowie albums for songs for.

yrtheir early repertoire, playinglailbreak","Rosalie" and"Suffragette City". They began writing their own songs, too.
"Sorrow Is A Woman", wh ich they still play, was written then,though it was called "Misty Dreamer" in those days. Joe wrote
the lyrics; Pete and Say handled the riffs.
There was a not her song called "War Child". Their faces twist
with embarrassment now when they recall"War Child". They
dismiss it quickly as bei ng derivative of Black Sabbath. "An'orrible look n' mess, it were," Joe Elliott cries, his accent as
thick as a girder of Sheffield steel.
They introduced "Emerald" to their repertoire when Steve

Clark joined and they realised they had a mutual interest. They
met again at a Judas Priest concert at Sheffield City Hall andstarted talking guitars. Pete invited Steve to a rehearsal. Stevewas impressed. He was invited to join the group. He accepted.
Theycall themselves Def Leppard. Their intention was local fun
rather than international success; at first they nursed no grand
ambit ion. They debuted in July 1978, at Westfield School in
Sheffield. They say theywere dreadful, but copped the promoter
for five qu id anyway.
They were not satisfied rehearsing four hours a night, five nights
a week; they'd spend weekend afternoons developing and refining
their heavy metal assault, their armouryofbone-crunching riffs.
And their local reputation grew i n to a northern cult.
16 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1980,

JANUARY -0"

Def Leppardin1979:(I- r) Joe Elliott, Rick
Savage. Pete Willis,
Rick Allen, Steve Clark

REGULAR MUSIC PRESENTS

DEF LEPPARD+ Support

Jantnn2001
flows. GI,Duom on Sum:14n
1 wkrts S.2 00
DOW, open 7 )0p
Prone d nge d *veti S on., be i eqweved

Tat

Impressed by the entei prise oi oung punkbands who'd financed their own recording,they saved and scrounged enough money to
go into Fairview Studios in Hull, where they cut

a three -track EP of t hei r own songs. They
released it on their own label, Bludgeon Riffola-"Ride Into The Sun", "Overture" and "Getcha Rocks Off". Those whoknow about such things will tell you that "Getcha Rocks Off' is destined

to be remembered as a classic heavy metal performance.
They found an enthusiastic supporter in Andy Peebles, the Radio 1 DJ.
Even John Peel played the record. HM aficionados in the music press began
to shower them with adulatory notices. People were beginning to talkabout them as one of the leading bands in the new wave of heavy metal,
future threats to the supremacy of UFO, the Scorpions and Judas Priest.
Then, last summer, Phonogram released a single, "Wasted", a blustery
performance marred by an indifferent production. Phonogram placed
them as support on two prestigious tours, first with t he American hardrock singer, Sammy Hagar, then with AC/DC. They estimate that they
played to over 40,000 people on those tours.
Their impact must have been considerable. In this paper's reader's pollin November, they were voted into fourth place in the "Brightest Hope"
category. In the same category in the NME's readers' poll they were voted
into sixth place, above more fashionable contenders I ike The Undertones,
the Pretenders, the Gang of Four, Secret Affair and Selecter.
Def Leppard's first album is released in March.
FOLLOW THE MOON to the end of Sauchiehall Street. Turn into
Tiffany's before you reach the corner, sprint up the stone steps
into the glare of the foyer. Past the ticket office, quickly. There a
few bouncers in their tight -fitting tuxedos; look at them, with theirnecks bulging out of their starched collars. The manager leads the way

into the pumping heart of the ballroom.
The air is ravaged by the hysterical excess of Rainbow, screaming
through the house PA. When the tape finishes, Zeppelin replaces
Rainbow on the cassette deck. It's going to be that kind of night.
The manager declares himself pleased with the attendance: at least 700
headbangers so far, he estimates. Not at all bad for a
Sunday night, especially fora band headlining its
first concert in Glasgow. Mind you, he says The
Specials played hereon a Sunday and they had 2,500
rabid kids packed into the ballroom. And the police
were squabbling outside on Sauchiehall Street with atleast another 1,000. He rolls his eyes at the memory.
One of the bouncers had been struck that night by agirl wielding a hat -pin. He and one of his men dragged
her to the back of the auditorium. They tried to calm

her down. She stripped oil her shirt and, naked to the waist, tried to run
off. She was tackled by a police officer. She felled him with a well-timed
kick in the balls. The manager chuckles to himself as he tells the story.
Tonight's audience is already pressed tight around the stage, fists
clenched, punching the atmosphere in the familiar heavy metal siegheil.
Their feet are stamping, their heads shaking violently. The imaginary
guitarists are out, too. Just a few for the moment, though- the Deep Purple
Formation Dancers would not take to the floor in force until Def Leppard
are on the boards and tearing holes in the fragile fabric of the local ozone.
The crowd around the stage began chanting. Their message was unclear
at first. Then their ranting became ominously clear. "We hate mods, we
hate the mods, we hate the mods... We hate, we hate, we hate the mods!"
Def Leppard were racing down the narrowstaircase from theirdressing room to the stage, Joe Elliott must have heard the chant. As theband plugged in and roadies made last-minute checks on equipment,
popping up like greasy glove -puppets behind the amplifiers, Elliott
grabbed his microphone.
"D'yer want us ter do soom SecrittAfferr songs fur yer?"
The reply was lost in a landslide of noise as Def Leppard smacked out
their first powerchord of their set.
That first chord was like a grenade going off in your hand; surviving therest of the performance was like living through Pearl Harbour.
The drummer sounded like he was shitting amplified house bricks. Hisbass -drum kicks walloped holes in the chest; each cymbal crash was asustained opera of alarm. The guitars were a thick carpet of shrieking
chords. And Elliott's voice came howling through the debris, like the devil
calling in the damned for supper.
And this was just the first number. It left me more confused than aconversation with Robert Fripp.
The boys sure could whack it out with the best of them, as earlier
observers have been quick to remark. I saw UFO a year ago at theHammersmith Odeon. Compared to this lot, they sounded likeschoolchildren rattling the railings with their rulers.
As a visual spectacle, Def Leppard are a whirlwind of frantic gestures,arm -swinging, head -shaking and microphone twirling. So completely
do they epitomise the satin -and -leather flash of heavy metal, they almost
become caricatures. There were more bare chests onthat stage than you'd find in a topless bar on Sunset
Strip. Willis and Clark have perfected every
manoeuvre in the HM handbook of macho poses,
throwing more shapes in one song than the entire
frontline of Thin Lizzy in an entire set.
One significant distinction should, however, bemade between Def Leppard and their HM
predecessors. Solos are infrequent, usually quickly
despatched, more often tightly contained within theTHE
18 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1980

DEF LEPPARDEP.

DEF LEPPARD

blistering structures of the songs. Willis and Clark
prefer to maintain the pace of the attack, which
relents only for the obligatory moody ballads.
Of course, this did nothing to deter the denim swathed ranks of phantasy guitarists. They lined
up at the back of the crowd in neat battalions,heads down, right hands scrubbing their chests
while the left rode up and down imagined fret boards. They were even more energetic andfrantically nimble than the band. Wh000sh!
There went one, a vertical take -off from astanding start!Craaammmmm!There he went,
smacking down on his knees, back bent over in
an impossible arch, the back of his head dusting
the ballroom floor. There was a marvellous
moment towards the end of the set. The guitars
dropped out, leaving RickAllen alone fora brief
drum flourish. Suddenly everyone was an

imaginary drummer.
It's difficult making notes with both hands

Elliott is eager to stress the catholicism of Def
Leppard's musical tastes, Pete Willis might be more
empathically involved with heavy metal- "he only
ever listens to UFO and Priest" - but Sav was into
Queen and Boston, and RickAllen was deeply into
funk, especially Parliament and Funkadelic.
"I've gorra case full o' tapes over 'ere," Elliott
went on. "You can look through it, if yer like.
None of 'em are heavy rock. The nearest thingt'heavy rock in tha' bag is Meat Loaf. I've got
Tubular Bells, l0cc.1 just like music. It's just that
I don't think I'd like it as much playin' lOcc's
music on stage.""Thing about new wave," Clark said, looking
up from his beer mug, "were that the bands had
a definite feelin' for audience. They were justlike audience. There was a sort of rapport. An'
it's the same wi' new wave heavy metal bands.
Like wi' old wave heavy metal band, like Rush, it
were: 'Look at me. I'm in a band. I'm on a 10 -footstage. I'm above you.' There isn't the samerapport. I fookin' ate that. We haven't got that attitude, that Sabbath,
Deep Purple attitude. We believe that it's t'kids what count. Like, we'll
put on show whatever... !could break me back, but I'd still play show even
if I had t'be carried on stage. We wouldn't pull out of show just because we
didn't have a proper soun'check or bollocks like that."
Whatever their own sympathy for punk, it could hardly be said that thepunks had ever displayed a reciprocal sympathy for heavy metal, oldwave or new. Didn't that smart a little?
"No doubt some would think so," Elliott replied. "But fact that Johnny
Rotten might not like us don't mean it's goin' t'put me off likin' him. If
I ever heard an interview where Rotten or Joe Strummerwere sayin','Oh, Def Leppard -wharra load of bollocks!' I'd just say, 'Fair enough, he
don't like us.' Tha's no reason fer me to go an' break all me Clash albums inhalf and say, 'I don't like you any more."'"It would've

been wrong

for us to say,
`Right, we'll bea poonk band"clamped over your ears, and dodging flying riffs
that are threatening to tear off your kneecaps rather prevents one's
assimilation of individual subtleties. However, I do remember that
"When The Walls Come Tumbling Down" was an epic about apocalypse,
complete with characteristic HM imagery of doom and destruction. The
final encores, "Ride Into The Sun" and "Rocks Off", seemed standard
hard rock outbursts, fiercely played and lavishly received.
After the gig it took at least four double vodkas and a sharp slap on theback of the head to recover the power of speech.
"Loud?" exclaimed Pete Willis at the hotel. "We only used half stacks
t'night."
He looked at me as if I was the biggest wimp on the planet. I didn't reply.
My ears were still bleeding.
WILLIS, ALLEN AND Savage have gone off with the road crewto the local fleapit. Rather appropriately, they have gone tosee Apocalypse Now.
Elliott and Clark are in their hotel room fielding questions. Elliott isaffable, forthright, confident; not at all the offensively cocky individual
I had been led to expect. Clark is drunk and getting worse.
"We all knew when we started the band that it were goin' t'be heavyrock," Elliott is explaining. He has the kind of accent you hear on voiceovers for Hovis commercials. "We knew it weren't going t'be poonk. An'
it weren't goin' t'be Lena Martell. We all knew it were goin' t'be basedaround Lizzy, Zeppelin, UFO."
I had wanted to know why such a young band had turned to heavy metal
rather than punk, like most of their contemporaries. When they formed
punk was, after all, the most fashionable trend. And Def Leppard sharedboth age and circumstances (bored teenagers, working class) with the
majority of new punk bands storming the barricades in '77.
"We never thought about it," Clark blearily attests. "We just did what we
wanted to do. We never thought, 'Well, punk is fashionable, heavy metalis dated- let's be fashionable, let's be a punk band.'""If we'd done that, it would've been unnatural," Elliott elaborates. "Youget certain bands who say, 'We've tried for 18 months at bein' this kind of
band. We're not gerren anywhere, let's be summat else. We'll change us
name and change us image...' Like, apparently, there used t'be a really
weird, heavy rock band called Black Widow. Apparent ly, some of them are
now in Showaddywaddy."
He looked suitably aghast, as if someone had just walked over his grave.
"It would've been false for us to pretend we were summat we weren't,"
he continued. "It would've been wrong for us t'say, 'Right, we'll go and cut
us hair and dye it blond and wear bondage trousers with zips all overt'place and be a poonk band'. But it's not that' we didn't like poonk. I
though t'Pistols were greet. It's a cliche now, but it did give music businessa kick up the arse. People must've been gerren pissed off wi' bands likeSupertramp. I like Supertramp mesel', but ! can see kids' point of view when there's nowt 'appenin' apart from yearly release of a new
Supertramp album or Pink Floyd, kids'll get pissed off, look for summat
new. So when they Berra band like t'Clash com in' up, they think, 'Worra
great fookin' blast of energy.'"

CLARK HAD ALREADY made one distinction between the oldguard of heavy metal and its more recent youthful manifestation.
Elliott thought there was an even greater difference.
"Frankly," he said, after some pause, "I don't think Cold wave of heavy
metal bands are a patch on't new wave. I'm not talkin' just about us now.
You compare people like Purple and Sabbath wi' UFO, wi' Michael
Schenker. Purple and Sabbath aren't in't same category. I mean, Sabbath
were just really heavy. No light or shade, no melody. UFO and to a certain
extent Judas Priest, there's more variety wi'them. It's a totally different
sound. Like wi'us it's more commercial. Some of our stuff, like 'Rock
Brigade, if that ever came out as a single, it'd be commercial. It wouldn't
just appeal to heavy metal fans. You can't compare summat like that wi''Paranoid' or 'Child In Time'. It's short, punchy. Its three minutes. It's
straight though. Bangbangbang. Verse, chorus, verse, chorus, guitar solo,stop. That's it."
They didn't, then, approve of the old Ben-Hur-length guitar solos (andbass and drum solos) much favoured by their predecessors? They

certainly didn't.
"Guitar solos are borin'," Elliott stated unequivocally.
"That's whywe don't do any," Clark hiccupped. "We don't have halfhour drum solos like John Bonham wi' Zeppelin. We think it's borin. We
try to strike a balance between what Sabbath were doin' and what thefookin' Clash are doin'."As far as the press was concerned, though, they were more likely to betreated with the derision traditionally reserved for Black Sabbath thanwith the often sycophantic reverence afforded The Clash: they would
most often be seen as a kind of desperate joke, I told them.
"I can't understand that, to be honest," Elliott said. "In any kind of music- be it punk or heavy rock, or even country & western- there's always abrilliant artist and there's always a shit artist. Like, in heavy metal, where
you get a really good band, someone like UFO, you'll also get your
Motorhead. I think MotOrhead are fookin' terrible. I saw MotOrhead at
Sheffield City Hall. After two numbers I had to put me fingers in me ears
[anew the feeling]. Lemmy's not got the sweetest o' voices at best of time.
That night he had a cold. He sounded like a ferret bein' strangled.
"Wharr' I'm sayin' is there's
good and there's bad in all *The new Lords of Dpnim'

HISTORY OF ROCK 1980 119

1980

A NU AR1 -0"

sorts of music. But the press always seem to slag heavy rock wi'out
t hi nki n. Do you know why?" he puzzled.
I didn't. I simply pleaded guilty.
"I just don't see why they do it," Elliott continued, immersed now in theargument, giving his tonsils a hell of an airing. "I can't see how they do it.
The Clash might be great, excitin' an' that -but musically they're not apatch on UFO. In my opinion, heavy rock is the second best music for theactual musical competence of people in't bands. Jazz rock I'd put top.
"People like Chick Corea and Billy Cobham, musically they're brilliant.
To listen to I think they're borin. I mean, one like... John McLaughlin now he's probably t'best guitarist in't world. I dunno, but I couldn't
watch him play live, sittin' cross-legged on't bloody floor. I'd rather watch
Chuck Berry play three notes and duckwalking, you know. I mean, you
go to a concert, you expect summat to be goin' on. You don't want to see
someone sittin' cross-legged on a bit of carpet sayin' prayers foraudiences before he starts playin' guitar. I'd ratherwatch Clash, frankly."
Elliott pauses for breath, I rinse out my ears.
"I think," he says, "the majority of heavy rock bands are musically moretalented than the majority of new wave bands.And probably put on abetter
show, too. I'm not sure, though -1 imagine a band like The Boomtown Ratsmight put on a good show. But bands like the UK Subs, I imagine they'd betotally useless live, 'cos they're totally useless on record. That Charlie
Arper, I think he's a waste oftime. He looks old enough to be me grandad."
So you resent the fact that the press characterises heavy metal bands
and their audiences simply as moronic headbangers?
"'Course I do," Elliott said. "There is a lot of talent there. It really does
annoy me that the press will knock a band 'cos they're labelled heavyrock. They say they're just another joke band, they can't play. But if they
took the time to be totally unbiased and watched the bands they'd see a
lot of people who can really play. Like Steve 'ere."He threw his thumb over his shoulder at Clark, who was trying to light
one of the two cigarettes he could obviously see in his mouth. "Steve canreally play."
He paused dramatically.
"Steve were trained classical," he declared like a triumphant parent,
commending his child on his first heart transplant operation.
I wondered, though, whether he thought that most heavy rock/HM
bands didn't actually invite ridicule with their costumes, light shows,lasers, dry ice, leathers, perms and juvenile mysticism.
"There's summat in that," he said, sounding like Len Fairclough
pondering a foreign body in his pint. "But I don't think the songs and themusic do."Clark took his nose out of his beer.
"I don't know what the kids think or what the press thinks," he said, hiswords sliding down his tongue like a runaway toboggan down the northface of the Eiger, "but when we do a gig, we don't think we're heavy metal.
For me, someone like Black Sabbath, Motorhead or Van Haien- that's
heavy metal. We're not into noise. We like volume, but it's got to be nice.
We're trying to make music that's appealing and exciting. If you like quiet
bits, we've got quiet bits in our show..."
I told him I couldn't hear them for the noise. He ignored me.
"...I fyou like loud bits, we do that too."
Elliott jumped in quickly to stress the variety of Def Leppard's material.
"You can't say all our songs are the same. There might be a basic
similarity because they're all hardrock songs, so you're going to getyour guitar solo and yourwailing
vocals an' all that nonsense. But we
do all sorts of different things. Someof the songs we do are slow, some wedo are ridiculously fast, some we doare quiet, some we do are loud. And
we do some that are fast and slow inthe same song."
A veritable Noah's Ark of variety!
IWAS PREPARED, AFTER an

incoherent outburst from Steve
Clark about the virtuosity of
mad kraut guitarist Michael
Schenker, to go on to the next
point on the agenda. Elliott had
been thinking, though.
20 1 HISTORY OF ROCK 1980

"Frankly," he said, "I can see your point, where you say bands like us
might be inviting criticism because of the dry ice and the leather trousers
and smoke bombs. But there's a certain obligation, certain unwritten
rules you have to stick to. People expect things of you.
"If we ever did a tour ofyour Hammersmith Odeons and what have you,we no doubt would use dry ice in slow bits and open with an intro tapeand have fookin' explosions every other second. It adds to the visual sideof it. That's what people expect.
"But," he said darkly, "the music press would just go, 'Phahblahblah- it
was all dry ice, leather trousers, open -necked shirts, gold medallions,wailin' guitar solos, all the usual stuff -let's get back to the bar... I wondered where he had seen me in action.
"Thing is," he said, and I could sympathise with him, "because heavyrock has always been knocked, it will always be knocked.""But," said Clark, "it'll goon. It's existed for 10 years, despite all t'other
trends. And it'll last longer than mod or ska, or whatever revival it is."This was unusually coherent for the guitarist. I asked him if he might
explain the continuing appeal of heavy rock. He tried, rather bravely inthe circumstances.
"People who listen to heavy rock are workin'-class kids. They're notinterested in fashions and trends. They don't give a shit about what's
happenin' in t'papers. They stick bywhat they know they like. They don'tchange image every week. Just 'cos there's supposed to be a mod revival,
they won't sell all their Judas Priest albums and rush out an' get SecretAffair's album. They'll think, 'Fook it, I'll listen to what I want to listen to.'
They won't change clothes just 'cos it's fashionable. If they want to wear
flares, they'll fuckin' well wear 'em."
CLARK'S FLEETING REFERENCE to Secret Affair had

conveniently brought us into the '80s. I wanted to know what
Def Leppard thought of various performers. With no real idea
in mind I reeled off a few names: Springsteen, Costello, the Pretenders,
The Specials.
"We don't dislike any of 'em," Clark smiled cheerfully.
"The Pretenders," grinned Elliott. "Chrissie Hynde. I'd like to marry 'er
one day.""We don't dislike anybody really," Clark belched. "We like everythin'.""I can't stand bands like Specials," Elliott blurted, destroying Clark's
magnanimity. "An' what's that other load of tit tha's just coom out?The
Beat. Can't stand 'em either. Tha's mod. Don't appeal to me. As far as I can
see they're just revampin' an' ruin in' old songs. 'Tears OfA Clown' by
Smokey Robinson were brilliant, but Beat have done it and I think it's aload o' rubbish. Same wi' t'Specials. An' Madness, I don't know if I like 'em
or 'ate 'em, 'cos every time I watch 'em I just crease up. They're reallyfunny t'watch. They remind me of Split Enz, to be honest, the way theykind oflumber about like idiots."
Clark is awake again. "Bands like Specials and Madness and the mods
and th'parkas an' all that shit," he said, "all they're doin' is just revampin'
what was happen in' in 1966. But what we're doin' isn't revampin' 1969
heavy metal. We're takin' them roots, but we're buildin' on 'em."
Exactly the same could be claimed for The Specials and ska, I protest.
"I don't know that much about ska," Elliott intervened tartly, "all I know
is that they're revampin' summat that's older than heavy rock and they're
not getting' slagged for it. They're revampin' 1964 orwhenever... like themods. Like, two or three year ago,
The 'Oo were borin' old farts. Now
they're ['heroes of all t'mods. Does
that mean in 18 months their mod
audience of now is goin' to be walking
about wi' kind of Indian waistcoats wi'long dangly tassels?
"I reckon," Elliott calculated, "thatby about 1983, we should have allthese parkas thrown on t'fire andthey'll be gettin' headbands owt ofcupboard again."This argument had a certain logic;
but weren't they really deluding
themselves? Didn't even their kindof new wave heavy metal actuallydepend upon its predictability? The
closer they stuck to the establishedcliches of the genre- in appearance,sound and presentation- surely the greater the chance of
success?They weren't really straying too faraway fromclassic HM themes of sexual dominance, celebrations ofhedonism, macho posing, apocalyptic ranting about the4

end of the world.
"Alright," Elliott argued. "So there are cliches in what we
do. At same time I could run through thousands of punksongs that are all about the same old punk cliches. There
they are, singing, 'I wanna be an anarchist, I don't wanna
conform, I'm on the dole, I've got no money an' life's sohard...' All that crap. So you get some heavy metal bandsinging about death and destruction, astral trips t'moon
an' all that. But we haven't got songs about death anddestruction... wi' t'exception of 'When The Walls Come
Tumbl in' Down'. That's the only one. Most of our songs are
more poppy than anything else.""If you listen to 'Walls'," Clark said, "you'll realise that it
don't revive all those things about death and destructionthat you had in '69.1es lookin' forward. We wrote tha' songs
perhaps a year before all this crap came around in Iran and
Afghanistan. If you listen to the words: All the peoplecame
together in fear of the end...'"
Yes?

"Well, it means something," Clark insists. "It's a prediction.
It's not going back over that old Black Sabbath shit.""It's in the future tense," Elliott added, trying,presumably, to be enlightening. "I fyou ever get the chance
to read t'words when album comes out, you'll see that they
explain exactly what would happen if there's a massive
atomic war. If there is ever an atomic war, I reckon that
90 per cent of those lyrics will prove to be accurate about

what'll happen."He paused fora moment, considering this.

" D'yer want us ter dosoomSecritt Af ferrsongs ur ye,
frontmanJoeElliott.

onstage in1980

I"Give or take the odd thing," he said at length. "Like thewomen bein"captured an' chained'.""That's a cliche," Clark said, farting wetly.
"Maybe," said Elliott. "But the bit about 'national suicide' . .. you will geta lot of people killing themselves. And, like, 'America fell to the ground' you're goin' t'get buildin's fallin' down, you're goin' ['get kids left crippled,
whether it's wi' atomic rays or wha'ever.""Whole cities fallin' down," repeated Clark dreamily.
"A lot of it'll be like that. Of course," Elliott added modestly, "I'm notsayin' that I'm some kind of messiah who can see into the future.""I'd like you to know that I haven't got one Black Sabbath album," Clark
admitted suddenly, as if this had been haunting him since childhood.
IQUICKLY ASKED ELLIOTT what Def

Leppard thought about the other bands
with whom they've been associated in
the vanguard of the new wave of heavy metal.
I mention Japan and Girl.

mmmmor"I've been in trouble before for sayin' that birds don't buy records. But
I don't believe women buy as many records as blokes. An' I reckon they'll
appeal more to birds. An' I don't think birds go to as many concerts or buy
as many records. Of course, you've got your exceptions IA' t'Rollers where
it were totally all birds. An' a lot of birds probably buy disco records. There
are bound to be exceptions. But I think there's a bigger percentage of tlads that go to concerts."
Elliott is convinced of Def Leppard's own commercial success, though
he admits it might not have been possible without the commercial
breakthrough last year of both Judas Priest and UFO. I ask him whyhe thinks those bands finally found commercial success after years(15 between them) of unsuccessful stabs at"We're notinto noise. We
like volume,
but it's got tobe nice""I don't think Japan are heavy metal," he said
authoritatively. "I don't think Japan are anythingnear to heavy metal. Japan to me area brilliant
band. I've got Adolescent Sex andlthi nk it's agreat album. But it's not heavy metal. The fastestsong on it's a Barbra Streisand song, 'Don't Rain
On My Parade'.
"I've never heard Girl, I can't really commenton them. But to be honest, I don't think they've
got a future. Their image is all wrong.""Yeah," said Clark. "How could a heavy metal audience freak out in frontof a group that looks like a gang of transvestites?""I like Japan," Elliott insisted. "I saw 'em supporting Blue Oyster Cult.
But if ever there were double bill that shouldn't have been, it were that. Wi'
Blue Oyster Cult, you've got songslike 'Born T'Be Wild', 'an they attract alorrer bikers an' tha. An' Japan come on, an' they've got long hair and theywear makeup an' they look a bit, you know, poufish. An' theywere gerrin'
all this stick from audience: 'Gerroff, you fookin' poufs... Gerroff, you
fookin'"An' kids I've spoke to last couple of days say they saw Girl wi' UFO andthey thought theywere a bunch of poufters. I'm not sayin' theyare poufs.
They're probably not. But I don't think they've got a future wi that image.

I NW 11111E

the chart.
"They got airplay fora start," he said. "Theytried to be more commercial. They madebetter records. They made commercial
records. They didn't try to do in the studiowhat they do on stage. They made really goodheavy rock albums instead of average heavyrock albums.""They realised," added Clark, "that people
don't want to see Jim my Page playin' a
20 -minute guitar solo wi' t'violin bow. It's out
now. At same time, you don't want to go t'see
t'Damned, who don't playa guitar solo all night.

They want summat in-between. Summat
between the Dooleys and Black Sabbath.""The fookin' Dooleys?" Elliott asked, utterly confused. "Wharra yer
talkin' about now?""We're the Dooleys wi' goolies," Clark attempted to explain.
"Why do you keep bringing up the fookin' Dooleys?" Elliott demanded,still confused. "What 'ave we got ter do wi't Dooleys?""We're in emiddle," Clark struggled to clarify his statement. "People are
fed up wi' bands shoutin' about anarchy. There 'as t'be a balance between
bands like Rainbow, bands wi' ripped knees in t'jeans, and Genesis. An'
I think the balance is us. We can play but we can still mar."
Elliott looked at Clark, looked at me, looked confused. I was going to ask
Clark to elaborate upon this point, but I didn't.
He'd fallen back upon the bed, unconscious. Allan Jones
HISTORY OF ROCK 1980 121

1980
JANUARY-01""It's outlaw, music""It has Vaseline in it,"say rIE"sonaturally it offends."

After a long journey,Lux Interior andPoison Ivy deliver a
debut album, and wow
as many people as
they outrage which
is a lot. Says Lux:-

"We want to become

unforgettable."

NME"DrU "

THE NORMALLY MILD-MANNERED offstage

figure of Lux Interior twists and writhes his
face in a rare show of angry emotion... If looks
could kill. Lux looks like he could spit a bucketof blood. All him and Poison Ivy Rorschach did
was to walk into the buffet bar on York station
and within seconds the entire room is staring at them.
Lux is wearing his habitual black undertaker's coat, plastic
trousers and a shiny top hat. Ivy trails him lovingly in gold lame pants and a pair of severe diamante spectacles. For somereason the combination has tickled the imagination of all theother occupants of the buffet. They gawp over cheese rolls,
their mouths a perfect question mark. Some people titter andnudge. Some people are outraged and point accusingly, openly
offended at Lux's appearance. Given the opportunity, theywould like to exercise some physical violence on his large andharmless exterior.
It's exactly the same on a train heading for Edinburgh where
The Cramps are to play for many of their most fevered andcommitted fans. Lux looms down the corridor in crepuscularsilence, oblivious to the horror on the faces of all the mothers
who hide their children from this nasty man. Eventually some
oafs start to laugh out loud, seemingly unaware of their own
intense anonymity. Lux echoes their laughter back at them andthe situation is suddenly ugly until Ivy hurries him towards therelative safety of a dining compartment.
After 15 years of being jeered at, Mr Interior is getting immune
to the insults. "It isn't an act we suddenly thought of, to look likethis. I've always been a freak. The first gig we ever played at
CBGB's, we were completely out of tune for 45 minutes and theclub owner Hilly Kristal told us we sounded like a total joke."
Five years later, a lot of people would probablyendorse
Kristal's opinion in spades. By much common consent The
Cramps are inept musicians, actors, dumb Yanks. Anotherfavourite line of reasoning goes like this: they're so bad they're
good; they're the best worst band in the world,
amusing cult artefact that crawled out of amausoleum one day, like extras from The Tomb
OfLigeia. It's true that they don't like being inthe sun too much (although they have to keepwarm), but Ivy comes from Sacramento,
California, and not Providence, Rhode Island.
Quite why they inspire this strange mixtureof open hatred and patronising possessivenessis baffling to The Cramps. Although they

admit that their appearance encourages x.
22

I

HIST

THE CRAM"We don't exclude
anything, we believe
in it all": Cramps
co-founders Lux
Interior and Poison
Ivy, who met when
the latter was hitchhiking in Sacramento,
California, in1972

aka

HISTORY OF ROCK 1980 123

1980

JANUM-08

a certain degree of suspended disbelief, they areagainst a thin line of disgruntled bouncers. Evenvery serious indeed about their ultimate ambitions.
so, Lux feels that recent events have stifled The
Lux picks through a dead chicken and addresses
Cramps' natural spontaneity. "When me and Ivy
the table. "When A&M in America sent out their
managed the band, we were a lot crazier.
guideline to the record stores they described us asSometimes ! feel just like this week's rock band.
a cult new -wave band who'd just recorded an
I want the audience to be surprised and shocked."album in Nashville. That really insulted us. Apart
Interior likens their music to the equationfrom the fact that we made the record in Memphis, to be labelled as a cultbetween voodoo, religion and catatonic music which inspired thegroup is so horrible; it implies an elitism that we don't want. I think The
afterbirth of '50s rock'n'roll in the American South. "We've gone out ofour
Cramps are a very commercial band. Once, our biggest ambition was just
way to deny any involvement in black magic, but we rely on voodoo in theto get on a stage, but now it's to aim for some kind of world domination."same way that Sam The Sham and Creedence did. That's the real thing,
Ivy qualifies the statement with shy assurance, calling forth the double
too. We don't meet in Haiti and hold mass rituals, but we believe in certain
rock'n'roll spectres of blind faith and raw power. These two commodities
powers. We have candles on stage for atmosphere, not effect, and we usewere straining to breaking point long before The Cramps first came to
Schwab's Jinx -Removing sprays and John The Conqueror floorwax andEngland as support band on the Police tour of '79. Night after night they
-what's that perfume called, Ivy?"
fought long and hard against antipathy and collective blandness, and"U h... Atom Bomb? No, Tigress. It all works. You don't need to know
they didn't stand a chance.
anything about the occult to become powerful; you can feel it alone inThis time The Cramps are headlining a more sensible tour of smalla room."halls, colleges and clubs in an effort to convince Great Britain of theirLux a nd Ivy are pretty kooky, but they're not deadpan stupid. The much undoubted magnificence. So let's state once and for all before we steplaboured and ultimately derogatory definition of their music as only ainto fiction that this group are not a contrived garage band with apart of the trash aesthetic misses the point. For some of the current tour
penchant for Charles Addams and TheMunsters. On a good night The
The Cramps have gone out with The Fall, labelmates on Miles Copeland's
Cramps make time stand still; t hey are utterly convincing proof of the
IRS/Faulty Products shebang. Owing to a misunderstanding over double scrambled mechanisms that constitute classic rock'n'roll. They live out
headline status, the initial dates are beset with bad feeling and tantrums.
Lux Interior's assertion that any great simple rock'n'rol I music mixes with
After the Edinburgh night, The Fall's lead singer condescends to offer Lux
any other -and anyone who can't appreciate The Cramps' vitality andthe advice that "you shouldn't botherwith all that Kiss theatrical shit. You
surrender to the rhythm is missing the whole point t hat has fuelled the
don't need it", and The Fall's manager insists on taking Lux in front of agenre since Jerry Lee Lewis destroyed his first 88 and Little Richard
mirror in order to show him how "ridiculous I look, to humiliate me".
dipped into his first makeup bag.
Obviously these slights are not just insulting and hurtful. "How can
In New York, The Cramps are not very popular with the cliques of art anyone tell me it's theatrical? I'm sorry that we used the stage. That's what
conscious new -music frauds. The American press would rather theya stage is for. I admit we're still in love with a nonsense life, that we're
disappeared for good. The nucleus of the group converged on New Yorkremnants from a time when we took acid and never came down, but I hate
City in late 1975. Lux and Ivy already had a blueprint based around an
making sense all the time. I've had a million looks and a million names. In
obsessive love affair with vintage rockabilly that stemmed from
Sacramento I was Vip Vop, after the Isleys song. It's on my driver's licence."
prolonged exposure to Cleveland's premier radio stations and the genius
We talk about The Cramps' overdue debut album, Songs The Lord
ofAlan Freed's "Moondog". The pair spent years scouring through theTaught Us, produced in Memphis, Tennessee, by Alex Chilton. I wonderedbins of every record store from Akron to Tallahassee assimilating a
how they felt making a spiritual journey to the shrine of the musical form
collection of oddities that would fashion their addiction for gone vinyl.
they have turned into a contemporary sound.
"When I met Ivy in California I was a psychedelic guru. I was tripping"It had to be an inspiration for us. In the South, rockabilly has overtones
out. LSD and plastic were my biggest influences, more so than music. I'dof fire and brimstone. It's a fusion of country, R&B and holy -roller
always liked these weird records with strange -sounding names and after
fundamentalism, the same way it was for Elvis. Those people drink
I started to listen to rockabilly I couldn't listen to anything else. Joe Sasfy
strychnine and handle snakes and t hey also play St ratocasters; those are
Ian eminent rockologistI said that it demands the most inexplicable leap
their rites. We're coming from another territory, that's all.
of faith in any musical phenomenon. It's such a wild, emotional sound; it"But it isn't a joke and the album title wasn't a joke. Whichever Lord you
demands that you question your own life."
believe in, we believe the Lord taught us those songs."
Lux looks down at his hand, a mangled confusion of purple bruises and
Are you religious in any more orthodox way?
open -sore cuts, the result of his nightly confrontation w it I1 this nation's"Well, I don't want to go to heaven if there's no hell. I see lots of both andclub ceilings. Apparently his lifestyle isI want to live them both. We don't
not only a question, it's an answer. "If
exclude anything, we believe in it all."/45302/
people say I look silly, well I don't feel it.
This acceptance of diversity can
kfloi SIA.i;; LE THAT 14 It USHER YOU INT,'
When I'm trying to get gone I don't thinkbe traced and enjoyed throughoutof anything else except getting out of mya range of material that belies theirmind. It's self-hypnosis, a different level
detractors. Cramps noise is anof consciousness. I don't feel the pain
embodiment of forcefields like Chuck
until afterwards, but when I smash rm
Pu I lens, Link Wray, Dick Dale, The
hand through a ceiling there's nothing,
Ventures, Surfaris, Rivingtons and The
it's a trance."
Kingsmen. The first song they even
Ivy wh ispers her consent. "Anun-learnt was "Quick Joey Small" andabstraction, a state of nothingness."amongst the outtakes on Songs The Lord
Taught Uswere an obscene version ofLux IS DISAPPOINTED when
"Louie Louie" and a cover ofTommyhe can't reach that edge, evenlames' "Hanky Panky".
though it means he pays all his"The covers have to be songs that wewages out in repairs to angry club
could have written, and so is 'Goo Goo
owners. When the band played in
Muck'. I think the only people who can
Edinburgh, he clambered to the top ofjudge it have to be living a rock'n'roll
a precarious amplifier stack and hurled
lifestyle. Be sexual beings. Withhimself head first into the crowd. Thisrock'n'roll the search is over, it's thetime the manager of the hall, theend of a landscape. You can't look at it
Astoria, joined him on the boards andlike great art, it isn't a painting or a,...16.0.1-OvE ME
attempted to pull the power, but
sculpture, it's outlaw music and it's hardtiONT NAPOLI
somehow Lux fended him off to theto do it right. It has Vaseline in it and*."bTi'IND IT
delight of all those of us straining
naturally it offends.".THEH/Aumr5r,

FOIMP
ir,

41\A"

ci :OR J.;
24 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1980

I '?

ca,:; tonit.a, kf.s

THE LEcdoN or TNE CRAMPED
to oocHART PATH 0? INGEMOuTTHE CRAMPS

Ivy Rorschach dreamed the name Cramps one night as she lay in a semi comatose stupor peering over an old Kinks album. "I wanted a name that
implied a gang, something warped, a problem..."Lux interrupts. "At the time inAmerica there were no good band names
any more. It was all Lightning Spot orAerofeather, things that meant
nothing. Everyone was into this sexual denial, hippy sensibility. We werecalled a glitter band..." He cackles immodestly. "The best thing about ouraudiences is that they're a mixture of the terminally unhip and theterminally hip. So you'll get a guy in a suit and tie standing next tosomeone with a nail through his head." (Which one's 'hip'? -Ed).
To this end The Cramps like their shows to be events and not justinterludes in a social calendar. They've played to larger crowds but theirforte is a club, at least somewhere where they can be seen and heard. "We
don't want to be huge in a Madison Square Garden sense, but huge value wise. We want to become unforgettable. Gene Vincent was never huge,
but in manyways he's the biggest. Actually, Ricky Nelson was my first
idol, Elvis was too strange..."Ivy gazes at Luxwith sultry admiration.
"You looked like Ricky Nelson back then."
HALFWAY THROUGH WRITING this thing I decided it neededa definite burst of adrenalin. There's only one way toappreciate The Cramps -on a stage -and a week after mynotes had been pulled into some kind of shape I was suffering fromwithdrawal symptoms. The band's important London date in theElectric Ballroom turned out to be a minor letdown, predictably
enough. They suffered from the most baffling sound problems and an
audience who are still not ready to deliver themselves from all evil.
Because of this incoherence it was only really possible to enjoy The
Cramps as spectacle, and from that perspective it's obvious that even ona bad night they are the perfect rock'n'roll band with images as
attractively ugly as all the great performers.
Lux Interior is a naturally brilliant white singer straight out of the
Presley mould with a line in lunacy that elevates him to the pantheonof the true eccentrics. Like Joy Division's Ian Curtis, Lux is a potent,
underrated vocalist and he's here now.
Some people will insist that the thing is dead,sunk in a sea of safeness, but pessimism from a
position of isolation and inverted idealism can't
explain the appeal of an animal as untamed as
The Cramp monsters. Besides which, thosereports have been greatly exaggerated -rock in
the graveyard is highly recommended.
One reason why The Cramps are as funny asthey are serious is the fact that all of them arefans with fantasises fresh from overexposure
to the pleasures of the flesh and the 45.
Byway of an interlude, here are some of theirfavourite records:"There aren't too many Brian Epsteins or Malcolm McLarens around in
the States." Bryan Gregory, one half of The Cramps' guitar front, sits in his
room bemoaning the lateness of his group's discovery and thereactionary nature ofAmericans in general.
"There are so many dull people; you can see that everywhere, it's soapparent. Even down to the fact that Americans have no creative shoes
like they do here, where shoes have style, they're sleek and sexy. In
America they're all" - Bryan searches for the appropriate insult " hippies," he spits. "It's so boring."
Bryan Gregory and drummer Nick Knox, the other occupant of theroom, are unknown factors in Cramps terms. Lux is the Garbageman,
the wordman, the focal point and mouthpiece; Ivy is musical director,

part-time manager, full-time skipper of an impossible team. Bryan andNick have a reputation for being psychotic and they probably are. An
impromptu talk held in Bryan's room does nothing to dispel the notionthat these two honchos are quite happy to keep a distance from any aspectof normality, that they are synched into the communal doctrine of image
and madness which oft befalls the hapless victims of brutal upbringing.
When Knoxwas a child, his father larruped him into order and didn't
care about the weals. Under their Cleveland home, Pa indulged his love
for ultimate deterrents in the form of a large and totally illegal arsenal,
including a selection of police and sub -machine guns. Nick's first drum
was a military model with a crank to keep the beat.
Knox is a terse, witty character with a nonchalant stare halfway
between amused and bored. He keeps a tight rein on words. When Miles
Copeland asked him why he spoke so little, Knox told him he had water on
the brain which froze in cold weather.
Knox guffaws loudly and then starts to nod off. I ask Bryan why it took
so long for The Cramps to get signed in NewYork City. Songs The Lord
Taught Us could and should have been made three years ago, and even
now theAmerican release is weeks behind ours. "It made us struggle
harder, which could be a good thing... but after a time you wonder ifmaybe they don't understand. We're popular in NewYork but you
wouldn't know it. I got real angrywhen bands were getting signed after

three months and we'd been around for ages. That was so unfair -they got
the rewards immediately."
The reasons for his snubbing are obvious,
though. Even by NewYork standards, The
Cramps are peculiar, and to a record company
their music is impenetrable. They are revivalist
in a sense, but there's nowhere for a dull A&R
man to plug in his new -wave marketing index.
They don't even have a goddamn bass player!
It'll never catch on.
Gregory has plans. He wants to direct a black
horror film a la Roger Corman. "Lux is going to
produce the next album, but I'm moreinterested in films incorporating some aspectof the band. I've got phenomenal ideas but nobucks. I see that in the future..." Bryan drifts into conjecture.
Has he ever acted? "No, but I'm sure I could.""I want theaudience to be
surprised andshocked"Lues Top 10"It's A Gas" - Alfred E Neumann"Mama 0ow Mow Mow" - The Rivingtons"Ballad Of Thunder Road" - Robert Mitchum"The First Singles From Outer Space" (NASA & The Sputniks)"Paralysed" - Legendary Stardust Cowboy"Yum Yum Yamaha" - Carol Conners"What Is A Fisteris?" - The Joker (AKA Mad Daddy)"Girl On Death Row"- Duane Eddy/Lee Hazlewood"Surfari" - Ward Darby & The Raves"Red Hot Mama"- Wayne Williams & The Sure Shots
Ivy's Top 10"Funnel Of Love- - Wanda Jackson"Golden Boy" - Tommy Jim Beam & The Four Fifths"Flamingo" -The Charades"Harlem Nocturne" - The Viscounts"Whistle Bait" - Collins Kids
"She Set Me Free" -Charlie Feathers"Muleskinner Blues"- Dolly Parton"I Want Some Of That"- Kai Ray"You're Gonna Miss Me" -13th Floor Elevators"Barracuda"- The Standells

Knox: "I have."

Gregory: "But nothing major, no plays or anything?"
Knox: "I nearly got arrested once for being drunk and disorderly in a
restaurant while I was acting. I was amusing my small circle of friends."
Nick trails off into an involved story about falling off chairs. "The police in
Cleveland don't bother with me. I look like a law-abiding citizen."
The last impressions I had about The Cramps before I stumbled off into
the night are all totally unrelated.
One was Lux Interior's overview of modern urban living. "I've always
thought of the city not as a centre of civilisation but as a jungle, and all thepeople who think they're so sophisticated are kidding themselves. The
buildings don't make any difference; we're just the same as cavemen."
The other was the cautionary tale of ageing rockabilly original Tex
Rubinowitz, whom The Cramps played with in Memphis. Rubinowitz isa perfect example of that correlation between religion, narcosis and themuse. Every night when he's touring, Tex gets completely pickled, toped,
blotto, picks up anywomen who will and smashes anything that looks
like it needs dismantling. After that he goes home to his Baptist motherand indulges a gargantuan guilt complex.
That kind of style money can never buy. The Cramps know all aboutstyle instinctively. How could they be bettered? Forwhat you are about toreceive, may the Lord make you truly gone. Amen. MaxBell
HISTORY OF ROCK 1980 25

1980

JANUARY -0°1

Mastersof gothic

gloom

.-i-

MM FEB16

it Division hot.

in nn thmr

rincnnir

AH, THE HORROR, the horror...
where's Colonel Kurtz? Somehow
the demented Brando figure is there,
spiritually leading the new dance. Like him,
today's purveyors have witnessed the failureof wanton destruction, as epitomised by punk,and in turn have retreated inwardly.
But whereas he translated his thoughts
into some nightmare paradise of his own
creation, recent bands' introspections
manifest themselves in tight, uneasy
rhythms, simultaneously despondent andobsessively exhilarating. Coming too late
to lose themselves in furiously simple
thrashes, they've composed out of thatsame frustration something more complex,
but equally immediate.
Joy Division are masters of this gothic
gloom, and they're getting even better at it.
Since they played London last November
with the Buzzcocks, they've added new songs,
more vigorous than their predecessors.
Less colourful now, they're getting closer
to the despair that's been the core of theirwork thus far, and they're honing in on it bytwisting purplish plots round slower rhythms,
bringing the bass even further to the fore andallowing Ian Curtis's knotted -brow singing
greater expression.
In other hands their songs would collapse
disastrously. but Curtis' controlledballadeering makes lines like "!remember/
When we were young" (from "Insight") one of
the saddest statements in pop, which is after
all the province of the young, and that sung to
the sweetest, most melancholic tune, too.
Perversely, they didn't play the great last
single, "Transmission", but the next, "LoveWill Tear Us Apart", was tantalisingly aired:featuring synthesizer more heavily tolightening effect, it breaks away from theclaustrophobia into clearer surrounds.
Optimism on the way? Whatever, I'm
prepared to wait. Chris Bohn

Joy Divison'sBernard
Albrecht (neSumner)and Ian Curtis(right),
whose knotted -browsinging"isgaining
greater expression

1980

JANUM-Wt""I don't haveto prove it

to anyoneladig bested his record company in rhe

1 (and" at Damn The Torpedoes), TOM PETTY

on

of t:

orld. He's playing huge shows, is pals wi
Springsteen, even doing his bit for charity. "I u
to say, 'Fuck the whales,"' he smiles, "but noI think we ought to save them too. Why not?"

mIN

go,
411116..*-

"In America we've gonefrom small venuastolargahalls overnight": Tom Petty&The Haartbreakersat the
Civic Audirorium,Santa
C rue, Calif ornia, in1980

1980.
111,

JA NU Mri 'OM

tabloids where his imminent death was
gleefully forecast, gathers his cronies around
him and guffaws.
"Aye oop, lads," he addresses the bar ingeneral. "Aye oop, bloody press boys have
got me bloody dead! Lose seven stone?
Seven pounds more like." The bar erupts
sycophantically. Mr Manning's diet is
obviously in abeyance. He's a card.
Across the lobby another party of informally
dressed young men amble out of the door andget into a large coach. They aren't footballers
though. One of them is very blond, goodlooking in an angular, undernourished wayprettyyou might say. The football mafia stareat the intruders and muffled comments passbetween them; personal comments andsexual allusions. Fat pink faces distort intoa dreadful hallucination and their gaze turns
to photographer Anton Corbijn's metal
suitcase. Perhaps he's from the Daily Mirror;
perhaps we're snooping on their private "do".
Anton, who is Dutch, doesn't have the faintest
idea of what's going on.
He's lucky.
TI I REE HOURS LATER, a crowd ofyouthful Mancunian citizens are filingout of the Apollo in high humour. Tom
Petty& The Heartbreakers have just finishedthe second night of their British mini -tour.

APOLLO THEATRARDWICK.
MANCHESTER- _It had begun slowly. The audience was quiet,
rarely letting polite enthusiasm extend into any
celebration. Petty chastised them gently. Were
they all on mandies? But by the end of theevening the Heartbreakers have won theirreaction -a genuine one. They play four
encores, including superbly weightyversionsof the Everlys' "Girls, Girls, Girls" and Eddie

Cochran's "Somethin' Else". The freshnessof their attitude coupled with the quality of& The Heartbreake
their... what the hell... musicianship is
atttlikalih MARCH 1980
gratifying rather than surprising.
1 Evening 7.30
Tom Petty's most recent album, Damn The
1 FRONT CIRCLE
Touring the late -'79
Torpedoes, is placed at No 2 in the American
i C3 50
breakthrough album
charts; it may knock Pink Floyd off that wall
Damn The Torpedoes.
any day now. He has two singles somewhere
which reaches No 2 on
the USBillboardchartin the Top 30 and a third one waiting to jointhem in the wings.
For nowTom Petty has arrived and all
NME MARCH 1F
that entails: the cover of RollingStone,
THE PICCADILLY HOTEL in Manchester is anfeatures in Newsweek, media pressures, what is euphemistically termed
anonymous modern structure slipped neatly inside"heavy" management.
a multi-storey car park- an injection of glass and
But it wasn't always like this. Petty languished out 1974 in the backroom
concrete at the core of a wraparound helter skelter.
at Shelter Records, a label with a funky backwoods image, a small roster
The ethos behind such a building is entirely American,
of idiosyncratic artistes and a homely method of promotion that suitedthe accent on efficiency and impersonality.
JJ Cale, sunk Dwight Twilleywithout trace and upset Petty's increasingly
A desk clerk surveys the lobbywith a glazed smile. "You're welcome," heambitious programme.
parrots awkwardly at every satisfied customer. "You're welcome." The
Prior to the Heartbreakers, Petty fronted a local Gainesville, Florida,
expression grates absurdly. I look carefully at the man's nose; it doesn'tband called Mudcrutch, a group he describes as "too peculiar for theappear to be growing.
time- there was such diversity in the material, there was no way weAround the bar we have some stars tonight, local boys. The hotel is host
could survive."
Mudcrutch eventually pared down to the Heartbreakers, leaving
to a ceremonial dinner and testimonial booze -up in honour of footballer
Joe Corrigan. There's much hearty banter and slapping of manly
behind an unreleased album and one single, "Wild Eyes"!
shoulders as the famous players mingle with their tight -knit"Depot Street", the latter being a slight reggae -tinged tune
WILD EYES
Amyl
mafia of showbiz personalities and a selection of thick- 4 ADDUCED1.erms
guaranteed to attain instant obscurity in 1975.
ET DE WO CORDELL
The first Tom Petty album proper, released in 1976,
set men in penguin costumes who resemble off -duty
was a curiously adventurous project for an unknown
policemen. As snippets of conversation drift nearer
group, coming at a time when American airwaves
it becomes apparent that they are policemen.
A very large gentleman wheezes towards the bar.
were overstocked with complacent metal andpompous soft -rock regu rgit at ions.
He identifies himself loudly as Bernard Manning,
The band toured Britain during the height of the
all-purpose TV comedian and personage. Mr
new -wave explosion and were bemused to findManning, fresh from the cover of the morning
riCn1"'" Petty' ' " '30 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1980

MUDCRUTCH.'.

TOM PETTY

themselves labelled in a similar
category. It was a backhanded
compliment that recognised Petty's
talents for offering something new bybracketing him with the punks, eventhough his own tastes veered more
towards the classic period of LA rock,
stopping off to pay homage to Bob
Dylan, Neil Young and the mid -'60s
influx ofAtlantic soul and Stax R&B
staples, his acknowledged favourites.
A second album, You'reGonnaGetlt,
received a more muted response, toomuch more of the same thing.
Throughout last year, Petty and theband were involved in a celebrated
lawsuit with their current company MCA.
There were no tours, an album recorded with
Jimmy lovine was put on ice by theAmerican
High Courts and the singer declared himself
bankrupt. And now, ironically, Tom Petty
finds himself in the position of beinga hugely successful commodity, a face, living
up to the expectations imposed on the likesof Bruce Springsteen.
He's managed by Elliot Roberts, who handles
chores and buys the stamps for The Eagles,
among others. The album responsible for all
this, Damn TheTorpedoes, has hoisted him
above The Cars, Cheap Trick, The Knack. MCA
couldn't be happier, Tom is their boy now -even if he is signed to a
subsidiary label, Backstreet, overseen by the youngest tycoon in thebusiness, Danny Bramson, a 27 -year -old whose first album has sold morethan one -and -a -half million copies.

true. "Oh, they're the kings of thatgenre; we're managed by the same
people. They don't mean anything tosomeone in England though, that'sfair. It's the same with The Beach Boys
-they moved me, but they don't havea lot to say to a kid in London... Why
am I defending The Eagles?"I ask Petty if he has taken stock fromthe aftermath of the new bands. It's
apparent that he isn't particularlyinterested in the colourful areas

between experimentation and"I liketextures - itmakes people
appreciate theslower stuff"

OM PETTY SITS in his seventh -floor hotel room overlooking
Knightsbridge and smiles to himself. He is a very happy man
indeed. Any advance warnings as to his tempestuous personality
seem far-fetched now, alone together in a room. Petty drinks Coca-Colaand I drink his Jack Daniel's. He's on the wagon these days, having
recently had his tonsils removed, a nasty goodbye to useless nodules
when you're 28.
"I came here a bit before does orders," Petty drawls pleasantly.
"Hospitals are dreadful places. I had three months of a really painfulthroat. I couldn't smoke cigarettes, have a joint, nothing. I haven't beenthat clear-headed for years. Some of my closest friends say it improved mycharacter a great deal."
He chuckles and reaches fora Benson. "I can't live like a boy scout. As
Mark Wain said when they told him to give up cigarettes or die, life ain't
worth living without 'em."
The consequences of the operation offered Petty an ultimatum which
he hasn't quite heeded - there was a danger that more live singing would
affect his voice permanently and the British tourwas severely truncated.
"I'd prefer to do the extended tour, because I like playing here- it's moreof a challenge. In America we've gone from small venues to large hallsovernight. Here they don't know the album. I get more satisfaction out of
winning an audience round."In Birmingham and Manchester, the Heartbreakers were almost
starting off from scratch. Rows of seats at the rear remained empty and it
wasn't until halfway through the show that thefans livened up. Petty insists that the set isdesigned that way anyway.
"I don't like bands with one sound that theyplay all the way through] like textures -it makes
people appreciate the slower stuff. It's not a
rambunctious pace; it would be so easy to comeout and rock and cause a riot. That's too simple.
We're toying with the idea of playing morecountrysongs now. Not Californian country rock,which became a bad word -it means drivel now."
Like The Eagles?
"Well, they're good at what they do. I thinkthey're a good band." This doesn't quite ringCallchallenge. He professes a liking for
Devo "in doses" and The Clash album
in its entirety. His tastes are orthodox,
but his reasoning is honest.
"I'm out of touch really. One of the bad things
about this so-called success is if you go to see
somebodyyou can get bothered to the point
where you don't enjoy it... it's an ordeal. I try not
to take it too seriously. I didn't expect it to bequite as manic, the people running afteryour
car and crawling through your windows. It isn't
so bad; it's what I always wanted too, I guess.
They don't want to hurt you.
"But if I go to a club, there's so many music -company types, so many LA scenemakers,
they can spoil your private life. If I see a new
band, I find it hard to be objectively involved:
it's impossible to go somewhere and make up your own mind."
Generally he admits that there is a change in America for the better.
"America's come a long way; I'm proud ofAmerica. If I'm gonna wave theole US banner, I admire Cheap Trick and Neil Young for being loonier
than anyone else. The main thing is, you can go to towns which were deadthree years ago, places like St Louis, and there're hundreds of new bands
all writing their own songs and all finding some kind of audience. That
never happened before, unless you played Top 40. Now there's all these
new audiences, that's healthy.
"Don't ask me what the music of the '80s will be though -just moreof everything."

IN TOM PETTY'S book it's evident that anything that's rock'n'roll
is fine and his comparatively recent success dictates a spirit ofdiplomacy. In 1976, Tom Petty straddled the divide between old
and new with a knowing sneer. He was the up-and-coming gunslinger;
he was going to be different his way. If most of his songs were about
girls, the ins and outs of sexual relationships, rock'n'roll mythology,
then his manner of presentation was assured to the point of arrogance.
His stage talk was deliberately incoherent and sullen, his vocabulary
was straight -off -the -bat baseball parlance ("This is a song that I wrote
about dis girl" or "This one's about your general screw -up"). He shared
Bruce Springsteen's love for the romantic image and the street -cool sass,always hep enough to stay close to the street but not dumb enough to getstuck on it.
"Well, we were the first American band who weren't punk who were
doing that stuff, three -minute songs that weren't mush. Now, the firstalbum doesn't sound as weird at all. I said a lot of things then that I regret,I was always shooting my mouth off. I was a big fan of a lot of that though;I've always supported the lunatic fringe,
because that's where it's all gonna comefrom. When we were here people always
approached us as punk and we'd say, 'No,
we're a rock'n'roll band.' We didn't fit thatcategory. Then all we heard was punk this,punk that, and we said, 'Fuck punk!'"We decided to let our hair grow till it's
down to here, and they're starting to call
us punks inAmerica. It was absurd, thesestupid labels. That's the time when they
don't even knowwhat a punk is in America,and one day I just said to a guy, as a joke, 'If
you call me a punk again, I'm gonna cut ya.' ),Tom Petty

the new

Springsteen
and he II
cut you!

HISTORY OF ROCK 1980 131

1980
JA

NAM -0"accepted the questioning in good humour, I got the distinct impressionthat future media encounters would be charted out on a long-term graph.
Bruce Springsteen doesn't talk to newspapers, neither does Neil Young,nor Joni Mitchell or Bob Dylan -and a man who stands every chance of
joining and perhaps even surpassing all those luminaries isn't going to be
spreading himself thin ever again.
It's obvious from talking to Petty that success demands a formalorganisation to support it. In the past the band were "stricken withdreadful laziness, never used to be able to rehearse or take anytime in thepRIOR TO THE release of Torpedoes Petty's artistic life wasstudio". Not any more. The production partnership of Petty and lovine
shrouded in despair and depression. Any chance he had towill be repeated in the summer and the two have a habit of calling each
capitalise on constant touring and a highly accessible image
other daily to chart out the future.
was threatened with extinction by a series of deadly lawsuits.
(ovine has been in demand as a producer for several years now,
"Our first album didn't break until a year afterwe came here. We'dnumbering John Lennon (WasAndBridges), Patti Smith ("Because The
renegotiated a contract that said if Shelter was sold we'd the right to leave.
Night") and Bruce Springsteen among his clients, but none of them is as
That happened. Shelter was sold byABC to MCA in one of those huge
potentially explosive as Petty is now. The Heartbreakers' attention tomergers that are happening every day. We assumed that we were thendetail encompasses a live show that sprawls majestically over nearly two
free and MCA said we weren't.
hours- usually they're ready to quit before the audience. The set gives"Well, being kinda stubborn, I agreed to deliver an album but wouldn't
every impression of being spontaneous and loose, but is actuallytake any money from them.1 spent my own money making it and it wasarranged to be the complete opposite. Where in the past Petty denied any
a very expensive record to make. Partly because of the lawsuits, it took 10
involvement in theatrics and choreography, he is now in full command ofmonths. Then in the middle of recording MCA sued me, Shelter sued me,
every nuance. His own vocal performance is a staggering combination of
my publishing company sued me and so did a few other smaller people.
the Byrds-like country delivery that is usually associated with his"MCA's a big dog for an individual to fight. I had nine lawyers contestingmaterial, but it takes in a complete gamut of cross-references to theeach case. While that's happening I've got constant offers from other"classic" singers -Jagger, Bowie, Van Morrison, even Redding and Pickett.
record companies that would make me blush to tell you here.
Drummer Stan Lynch and keyboards rock Benmont Tench excel on"It reached the stage where it was almost funny. If I sing a song, do I own
harmonies. When Petty and Lynch duetted on John Sebastian's "Stories
it? Me, the band and Jimmy lovine 'produced were midway through and
We Could Tell", the results would have nonplussed all those who hitherto
the US Marshalls were coming to the studio to steal the tapes, confiscate
refused to take the band seriously -The Everly Brothers didn't come into it.
everything. We had to hide all the boxes, smuggle things in and out. I had
The band's renditions of Solomon Burke's "Cry To Me" and The Isley
to go on the stand and evade issues like, 'Where are the tapes? What songs
Brothers' "Shout" are equally convinci ng, non -originals being integrated
have you written? Recite the lyrics.'
among Petty's own songs to give the act a sense of power and authority.
"I refused to do that. All they could do was beat me up mentally until
The only aspects of Petty's show that rankle now, and the elements that
I did it their way.
prevent him from aspiring to greatness, are the slightly silly raps that the"Eventually I convinced the judge to let me go on a Californian tour
singer uses in-between numbers. They work for one night but become
so I could make some money. The MCA lawyers were telling the judge
predictable after three. That and guitarist Mike Campbell's occasional
I couldn't do it because I'd incur all these debts and I couldn't show any
stage runs, which do nothing to increase the dignity of the group.
security. So I said to the judge, 'But, Judge, there is no security in
Campbell just looks too nervous to carry off the role of dangerous
rock'n'roll', and he laughed and let me do it."performer and Petty's natural upstaging unsettles their balance as
The resulting dates -the Lawsuit Tour (also known to posterity as thea rhythm -and -lead team par excellence.
"Why MCA?Tour") -culminated in two sold -out shows in the Universal
It's clear that despite talk about group democracy this is Petty's show.
Amphitheatre, a large hall owned by MCA; an irony not lost on Petty. The"The others all have cliques of fans who come tobooking agent and boss of the theatre was one
see them, but I'd stand out if I was the bassist,
Danny Bramson, who intervened between
being blond and all. think they're happy just to
artist and company.
get the money. Benmont gets a much better shot
So was Petty satisfied with the outcomeon this last album.
of his litigation?
"We've always been cast in the 12 -string sound;"They didn't realise how serious I was.
those Byrds comparisons. I know we sound likeI spent half a million dollars of my own
them at times, and God knows I've tried not to, butmoney, sold everything I had to get what was
I get a bit tired of hearing them now. I don't thinkrightfully ours. It saved the group morale Roger McGuinn can do all the things people say
wise, because I never believed that record
he can. We're entirely different musicians really.
would make it."
Of course I'd be interested to see how he did 'Here
In America Petty maintains he has little orComes My Girl'. But he phoned me last year to ask
nothing to do with company men, preferring
if I had any songs for him and I couldn't come up
to let Bramson, Roberts and his English
with one that was suitable."partner, Tony Di m it riades, represent
One of the smartest things
the Heartbreakers' interests. This
Petty ever did was to appear on
managerial independence left British
the "No Nukes" benefit on the same
MCA somewhat in the dark with theilnight as Springsteen. It was good
new golden boy, and the fact theyfor his credibility and increased
didn't provide any tour support forhis potential drawing power on thethe band's five British dates did
BROWNETHEDOOBIE BROTHERSJACKSONEast Coast.
nothing to cement the relationship.
NASH
JAMES
TAYLORCROSBY, STILLS AN D
"While we were in limbo with the&THE E STREET BAND
BRUCE SPRINGSEEEN
lawsuits I'd read all these articles
RAITT
pETTY'S ATTITU DEGRAHAM
NASH
BONNIECARLY SIMONHEARTBREAKERS RAYDIO
in theLos Angeles Times
about
TOWARDS the media is
TOM PETTY &THE
POCO CHAKA KHAN
radiation creeping in. I'm notambivalent, in line with the
NICOLETTE LARSON.
HALL
a very political guy, but I'm getting
increased responsibilities that
JESSE COON YOUNG RY COMER JOHN ROCKSWEET HONEY IN THE
a bit worried. At least let theaccompany mega -stardom.
GIL SCOLTHERON
Russians bomb us- it would be so
There had been frantic last-minuteembarrassing to blow ourselves up.
negotiations between relevant parties"Mike !Campbell] and I discussed
to finalise this particular interview,
playing one of those benefits
and while the star of the show

They took it seriously and printed it, big headlines, 'Call Tom Petty a punkand he'll cut you'. So now I get kids comin' up and asking me why I'm sodown on new wave and I have to tell 'em- Tuck, I invented that new wave
here for all you know.' I've always wanted that cleared up 'cos of theanimosity it caused. The truth is that I'm glad we were here in '77.1 used
to laugh mysel f sick at the Sex Pistols' antics. Every dayyou could buy apaper and there was something outrageous going on."

"MCA's a big
dog... I hadnine lawyers
contestingeach case"NO NUKES

32 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1980

Petty'slive show"give s
every impression of
being spontaneous ar dloose, but is actuallly
arranged tobe thecompleteopposite-

because we thought we'd draw a completely different crowd to thepeople Jackson Browne and Graham Nash get, the Woodstock types.
When Bruce phoned me to playwith him - and he doesn't usually haveother groups on his bill -we decided to do it. We don't preach or sendout leaflets. I haven't heard the album anyway -it doesn't look very
interesting. I saw the show and that was enough.
"I've changed my mind about a lot of things. I used to say, 'Fuck thewhales', but now I think we ought to save them too. Why not?"It's possible to view this softening process with some cynicism, as partof the homogenised image that tends to accompany stardom, but Petty
had no guarantee that Damn The Torpedoeswould catch fire.
"If those people had kept on suing me I was going to be on a soup line.
I've never got onto that channel about what is life? This time I had a few
sleepless nights.
"The only thing I owned were my songs. I wanted to write anthems forunderdogs, songs like 'Even The Losers' and 'Refugee'... The theme of
the album wasn't self-conscious, but when I put it together, afterwards
I could see it was about standing up for your rights, the ones that everyone
has which can't be fucked with or taken away.
"Rather than get really graphic -'They took me down to the court today
and grilled me for eight hours' -1 wanted to keep the common
denominator of them as love songs with other connotations.
"They aren't necessarily boy -girl songs, but also I don't think the kids
want to hear a record about the evils of the music business; that would be
as boring as hell.
"The songs I always dugwere the old R&B ones, I liked the innuendos.
The old people thought they was just kissing, but you knew they werefucking each other's brains out. When Johnnie Taylor did 'Who's Making
Love To Your Old Lady While She's Been Out Making Love, that spoiled it
for me 'cos that was a hit andafterwards all the black catswere just gonna say it.
"I am romantic, an old sap.
All my values came out of theTHE
TV tube from the age of five. My
whole love of the guitar came
Plus The Fabulous Poodles
from seeing cowboys like GeneTOM PETTYANDARTBREAKERS

HAMMERSMITH ODEON
day 6th & Friday 7th March 7.30
pm
Tickets Et 00 E3 50. E3 30, E2 50

Autry when they all had guns and guitars. It looked like the hippest thing.
If you didn't have TV and movies, where would your idea of romancecome from? Books probably, but I'm not a great reader."If Petty is adamant in his opinion that rock'n'roll is the great healer, theembalming fluid that negates the value of education, politics and theliberal arts, then he is only offering his own view.
"Linda Ronstadt called me up to support Jerry Brown, but I couldn't do
all that stuff, I'd feel silly. I think if you can take people away from theirproblems for two hours, that's as likely to enlighten them as any politicalthing. I don't trust any politician. Period."

MEANWHILEHE'SADEPT at accepting the bows and the
I laudits while keeping one step ahead of the pundits andI heir slings and arrows. He takes his job seriously but is
u iconvincingly modest. He calls his songs "disposable", yet he risked
bankruptcy for them. He says that songwriting is just fun - "I refuse tothink of it as work" - but his game plan looks like very hard work indeed.
As for his philosophy, his attitude to the demands of the current lifestyle,that springs from an expression of naivety based on solid self-assurance.
"I've proved everything to myself. One of my favourite Dylan lines is'I've got nothing to live up to, and that's what I feel. I don't have to prove it
to anyone else."
Being in the public eye, being successful, being good-looking,embracing rock'n'roll as a life force -all these are traits that idealists will
use to undermine him. It won't make any difference.
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers don't have anytime to be complacent,and if he refuses to accept the role of spokesman on non -related (as hethinks) topics, does that make him a reactionary or a bad person?
To some people it does. But then some people think Bob Dylan would
make a good president, that John Lydon should be prime minister, that
Beethoven should have been a town councillor.
No, the rock'n'roll that Tom Petty stands for is hopelessly naive,
terminallyyoung, won't change a thing. That's its charm. And when
he encored at Hammersmith with the familiar Bobby Fuller number"I Fought The Law (And The Law Won)" you had to admire his cool cheek.
Tom Petty fought the law and the law lost. That was really something.
Max BellHISTORY OF ROCK 1980 I 33

1980

JANUARY 04,

Captain Beeman& The Magic Band
VIRGIN

Like Flies On SherbertAlex Chilton:"soundsasif
he'sjusthadhis
head shaved

fromtheinside"- 1980

ALBUMSAlex Chilton
AURA

From The Box Tops to Big Star
to The Cramps, via the bar (andvery probably the head clinic),
Alex Chilton's career has been
unpredictable, lively andincreasingly bizarre.
Like Flies On Sherbet is thesound of someone with nothingcoherent left to say, talking tohimself. It's an album offragments, random notes,
brief distractions; alternately
absurd, funny, touching,
disturbing. The songs exist as
blurred sketches - incomplete,
only vaguely realised.
"Boogie Shoes", its opening
cut, is typical of the record's
deranged style. The rhythm
section coughs and splutters.
The guitars wander in, late guests
at the wrong party. Chilton's
vocal is a swelling croon. The
track hangs together like
exploding shrapnel, no two
instruments prepared to share
34 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1980the same direction
or emphasis.
The lusty bravado that
Chilton brought to Big Star's
Radio City never really emerges
here. The cocky venom, theslovenly zeal of the likes of"Back Of A Car" and "Mod Lang"have given way to an exhausted
impotence. Chilton sounds
burned out.
"Hey! Little Child" cruelly
reflects his tired lust. Over a
stuttering backbeat, he drones
an inane lyric, desperately trying
to assert some kind of vanishedvirility -"Plaid skirt, flannel vest
- silly nubiles are the best," helamely asserts as the bandcollapse about him. It would behilarious if it weren't somehow
so harrowing.
Chilton's version of Ernest
Tubb's "Waltz Across Texas"
is similarly painful. A fairly
standard country lament istransformed into somethingquite extraordinary. Chilton
caricatures the familiar country
shine of the distressed cowboy,---

but his performanceis beyond parody.
It's as if he's trying totake the song's original
sentiment to some desperateand definitive conclusion, seeing
how far he can distort shapewithout losing its meaning. The
performance, finally, has the

Logically, this album
doesn't exist. At least
half the songs are
four years old; it wasrecorded nearly two
years ago, held up by
a messy, nibbling courtcase that stopped its British
release last year, and is finallyavailable many months after its
release in America by Warners.
It's also only half the album
originally intended by the
Captain - the first version
planned under this title included
tracks like "Poop Hatch", "A
Carrot Is As Close As A Rabbit
Gets To A Diamond", "TheThousandth And Tenth Day Of
The Human Totem Pole" and"Seam Crooked Sam".
With such a conception andbirth, a stir round the entrails
floats only minimal auguries ofsuccess, but with a master's
sense and a master's band,
Beef heart has juiced up a gem ofan album. A fluke of timing has
allowed the British rock ear to
become freshly reacquainted
with the trombone thanks to
Rico's work with The Specials andothers, and Bruce Fowler's oiled,bopping playing with the Magic
Band slides in adroitly to add a
new skin to Beefheart's robust
musical flesh.
The characteristic signs andsignals are there, this time withdifferent names. The thin, jangly,
slide guitar neurosis comes fromJeff Tepper and the kicking,vaulting backbeat bounds, Art
Tripp -like, from the kit of RobertWilliams, with Tripp also on handwith additional percussion andmarimba, tying with Tepper toprovide those ensemble
percussion/guitar sequencesthat assert the authority of themusic. Richard Redus plays
urgent bass, gutty slide andbottleneck, and wistful accordion
alongside Eric Drew's carefully
integrated keyboards.

emotional gravity of Gram
Parsons' reading of "Wild
Horses": a bleak, wasted epic.
The title track is no lessreassuring. Over a sloppy,
Spectorish backdrop, Chilton
adopts a kind ofgrazed falsetto to
AND THE MAGIC BAN!
proclaim: "What
CAPTAIN BEEFHEART
SHINY
BEAST
does it matter -it's sofine, fine, fine." You
don't believe him. He
sounds as if he's just
had his head shaved

from the inside. If
Syd Barrett had beenborn in Memphis,
The Madcap Laughs
would've sounded
like this. Allan Jones.
MIN Feb toThe album provides
a travelogue throughBeef heart's vivid
Crayola imagination,
as stacked and volatile
as any of his best (early)
works. None of thematerial matches theextremes of Trout Mast
Replica or Lick My Decals Off.
Baby, but the ability of Don Van
Vliet to orchestrate his wildest
visions has lost none of its power.
The slowly unwinding guitar
figure on "Love Lies" cuts in withthe mellow marimba backing andchugging trombone to build an
air of almost tangible regret andsorrow, backing a lyric that easily
betters the songs on B/uejeans
And Moonbeams or
Unconditionally Guaranteed.
Vliet's wracked delivery wrings
the song with a feeling of
tortured romanticism.
His skill in counterpointing lyric
with musical impression has
always been one of Van Vliet's
assets, and now that more rocklovers have had their ear -span
widened by the groups fed by his
early giant musical andexperimental steps, the time isright for the circle to come fullround. The best tracks - "TheFloppy Boot Stomp", "Bat
Chain Puller" and "When I See
Mommy I Feel Like A Mummy"- all centre on the jaunt, jerky
syncopation that drives from thedrumkit, illuminating lyrics thatare close, cluttered and as
rewarding/redundant as theindividual chooses.
Others are instant enough to
be singles."Harry Irene" is adelicately created period pieceof Midwest Depression lore,and "Tropical Hot Dog Night"
is warm and funky enough forwide appeal, especially with
Bruce Fowler's joyous Mardi
Gras trombone.
Spicing the mix are two
instrumentals, "Ice Rose" and"Suction Prints", that could havecome from a Zappa session but
succeed where Frank tends to failbecause Van Vliet is trying tocreate and not parody.
Closing with the trite little"Apes -Ma" poem, Shiny Beast
settles as a more -than -satisfying
glance through what in any
other musician would be secretdiaries and closed thoughts. It
contains the elements of thework that made the man ajustified legend, and while therelease of the original, uniquely
rewarding Shiny Beast would
have scored deeper hits, this is
an indispensable substitute.
John Orme. MM Feb2

edge that comes from aperfectly poisedinterplay (listen to thepercussion colliding
with the plunging
bassline) and an innatesense of space. All
praise must go to
producer Steve
Lillywhite, who has
perfected that open necked, brittle
atmosphere hepioneered on the
Banshees' first album.
An utterly beguilingsingle. /4/4.Feb2
Tom Petty And The

Heartbreakers
MCA

Petty's perfected Dylan
drawl (circa Before The
Flood) hasn't got a greatsong to work on, but hemakes it palatableenough, backed as it iswith aptly swollen
guitars and keyboards.

PoterGabrieba"beautifullycld"

MM Feb23

SINGLESUB40

GRADUATE

Disappointing debut from oneof the seemingly few
new bands playing
reggae rather
than ska.
Nice line inmournful
singing,
though.

cover the lengthy instrumental
passage, and the organ comesin top late to rescue it. The
song :s a nonsensical African/
surrealist chant, which, if
it takes off, will proveonce and for allthat nobody
listens to thewords ofchart hits.
ABS
Stereo

MM Feb 23

Wah! Heat'NCE MEETING

MM Feb toPeterGabrielINEVITABLE

Debut disc on
Liverpool club Eric's
record label is (again)
wonderfully packaged, and if
the contents aren't half sostartling, they've got a lot of
merits; namely a brooding
modern rhythm cut up withsmart guitar and topped witha rich vocal. mmFeb23

Talking Heads

SIRE

Not the best example of the
Talking Heads' fractured
dance rhythm, but in sucha lean, lousy week of heavy
disappointments (Bowie),
it'll have to do. The nervous
chatter of the guitars starts
off fine, but it's not enough to

Iron Widen
The cover suggests that they're
tryingto break away from theirelders' pernicious influence,
portraying as it does a long -hairrunning away from a wallcovered with idolatrous HM
graffiti, but the contents arereally more of the same.
Unappealing. MM. e_k 23

CHARISMA

I admire Peter Gabriel
for hi; constant self -appraisal
and musical explorations. This
time he's created a kind of Lord
Of The Flies, an international
playground with sombre
implications: "If looks could kill.
they probably will/In games
without frontiers, war without
tears "The sound is beautifullyclea "i. with the sort of diamond

TM PETTM42
HEAORTBREAKERSREFUGEE

FELT
Josef

ABSOLUTE

Serious Edinburgh band put
perfect Lou Reed voice on topof a pounding drum/bass motif
and ju cy guitar/keyboards
noises - mainly to indifferent
effect, MM Feb23
Felt

SHANGHAIAn exercise in primitive
monotony using one electricguitar, two practice amps anda cheap microphone. MMFeb2

HISTORY OF ROCK 1980 135

1980

JANUMIN -111`Ittliiiira<"p

-010

4. I

S.

114

0

Or

'hi '61 '61

1,1-11-I _AR _41_,,

4,144c

Lsil

_\
ad

I
1/4

7

- Lc

KA

4/0

7

THE 2 -TONING

OF AMERICA
SPECIAL A.K.A. IN THE U SA

"At the moment it's
just like some giant
funfair":TheSpecials
play one of theirfirstshows in the States,

January1980

V

I"You can't

1980

JAN U ARV -OH- NME FEBRUARY 9 HIS IS OUR first ever gig in America..."Terry Hall fixes a stare on NewYork's
assembled culture vultures. "And we just can't
say how pleased you must be to have us here!"
I'd never noticed before how much menace
Terry Hall can wield from a stage when he has amind to. His nervous, edgy stiffness is more than just a good foil for theloose-limbed, exploding frenzy of The Specials; it's the eye at the centreof their hurricane, and it focuses on the self-conscious, scene -making
faction of the chic uptown rock disco Hurrah's- specifically those whocame merely to see or be seen -with what can only be described as sheer"Tscolding contempt.
"This is it," he tells them, grinning almost sadistically at the thought of
the nerve he's about to touch. Grinning like only a boywho had looked at
Johnny would know how to grin.
"This is it, my little petals. This is your last chance to dance before WorldWar Three!"That's no joke. To the average liberal, informed youngAmerican facing
the prospect of the draft, that is not very funny at all. To the averagelobotomised, gung-ho youngAll-American it is yet more proof that thenation can't count on its spineless, so-called allies in Europe to defend
Democracy in what the media here has lost no time in proclaiming
America's darkest hour.
And to someone who thinks Iranians have every right to run theircountry how they see fit so long as he doesn't have to live there, tosomeone who deplores any kind of imperialism be it Soviet orWestern, sampling the undercurrents in an America that feels itself
to be blackmailed at home and threatened abroad is no laughing
matter either.
A cartoon in one newspaper depicts Carter and Brezhnev facing off
astride their respective dominions with their flies undone, the exposed
appendages drawn like missiles, Jimmy's limp and Leonid's stiff. And
there's no mistakingwhat they symbolise in a country that sees politics
largely in terms of personality and machismo.
In Oklahoma City, the real hick cowboy heartland of middle America-where The Specials play to a rabid crowd who holler for rack and rowl
when what they mean is Foghat or ZZTop - an informal poll was taken at
the local university. Eight out of 10 students said if there was a war, they'd
be willing to fight. No one asked them if they'd be willing to die, but thenthat's not how these things are done.
It really is the dawning of a new era. Fingers are itching. And in the
midst of it The Specials, with their message of fun and tolerance andfreedom from stupid social pressures, and their admonishment to all
the bullshit belligerent factions to "keep onfighting till you're dead" for them and the
beginning of the next phase.
Theywere woken up in Oklahoma City with
the news that the "Too Much Too Young" EP
had just made No 1 in the BBC chart. Their
first British No 1! Most of them went straightback to sleep.
The night before, they'd proven to themselves"Can you imagine it?" he asks. "Fancy being able to hear all that greatmusic for the first time. The whole bit: ska... mod... great! How can you
not be knocked out?"

VENTS HAVE ALREADY answered that question, and nobody
needs to be reminded at this point of the phenomenal rise andrise of 2 -Tone as a revolutionary musical style and predictablehigh street fashion.
Revolutionary? If that seems to be straining credibility, then rememberthat the last time anybody created a working hybrid of black and whitemusic was back in the '50s at the Sun studios in Memphis. Chris Blackwellof Island records, a long-time patron of reggae since the early '60s blue beat days (and not widely liked for it either) is convinced that The Specials
could do for reggae what Sun did for R&B and what he's been working at
foryears.
There have been blacks playing white music before and, morecommonly, there have been whites who played black music -Dammers is
fond of citing the Stones, who based themselves on Chess and Atlantic
R&B, as a precedent for The Specials. But The Specials do more than takea black idiom and amplify the beat. They've added to it a specificallywhite British idiom. The result: punky reggae. An almost too obvious,
logical conclusion to the tendencies of the past few years.
The sentiment and the noise is punk, and the beat and the style isreggae. Broadly speaking. And that's the last time I shall make thedistinction between black and white music in this context.
From now on the word is 2 -Tone. But, if anything, The Specials areclosest in feel to a group like The Coasters, who at their best were able
to say something "meaningful" without the awful self-conscious
seriousness that implies (as, indeed, were many other R&B groups).
The Specials make riotous, comic, socially aware, sardonic dancemusic. You can take them as seriously as you like, and no small part oftheir appeal must lie in the antidote they provide to rock's prophets of ananalytical future with their collars turned up against the cold winds ofmodern angst.
In other ways, too, they seem more like an R&B group from the '50s thananything from recent memory. From a peculiar, personal angle they pull
the bedclothes off some of the mutually destructive attitudes that still
persist between the sexes despite over 25 years of teen music's fearlesscelebration of the libido.
Some people find their angle personal to the point of being sexist, but
underlying all their songs is the same simple, stubborn, sullen, punkresentment of the pressures to conform -be it to the domestic idyll, thegang life, the rat race, or whatever. And what would be really interesting
would be to hear their songs rewritten from the feminine point of view.
I doubt there'd be very much difference.
Despite the conviction he brings to them,
Terry Hall hasn't so far, written any of The
Specials' lyrics.
"I might throw in a couple of odd lines here
and there, but Jerrywrote most of the songs
that we're doing at the moment. I'd feel
uncomfortable about singing those words if
I didn't agree with them. What he's basicallysaying is what I agree with and what the restof the band agree with, otherwise we wouldn't
be in the same band.
"I've got the same feelings about girls as"This gamecan be a bit
dangerous...

something much more immediate andcomprehensible- something much more
valid, if ultimately just as transient. They'd

you get too

much praise"

felt it happen all over again, as it had before
in Britain and then in Europe: the advent of
the offbeat.
Seven hundred residents of the Bible Belt
no -liquor state of Oklahoma, who -unlike their cosmopolitan NewYork
cousins -had no idea what to expect, let alone how to respond when they
got it, who have never heard of ska, blue -beat hats and tonic suits, whose
fellow citizens think a crop is a "goddamn faggot military -style haircut,"
who probably don't even remember that Desmond Dekker's "Israelites"
and Dave &Ansel Collins' "Monkey Spanner" were mild hits in the US in
the early '70s... they shouted rack and rowl but they got the Black Country
skank and they loved it to the very last drop.
"I really envy them!" Jerry Dammers reacts to the hoped -for but
unexpected mayhem that erupted in the small dowdy out-of-town
theatre. Not so much like someone who'd been proved right as someone
who never even gave a thought to being proved wrong.
38 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1980

I have for boys. A boy could be a slag as far as
I'm concerned. And a song like 'Too Much

Too Young, about the girl not dealingwith
contraception... it's just as much on the
boy's head as it is on the girl's. You've got to have two people to use
contraception, and two people not to."Terry, at 20, is the youngest member of the group. He still wears areminder of his punk upstart days in The Squad (who used to support The
CoventryAutomatics and try to ruin the PA before the CA's went on) in theform of black eyeliner: "The old Dave Vanian crack." Clothes areimportant to him, and so too was one J Rotten.
"At first, yeah. It was just the way he stood on stage and gazed for half
an hour. I'd never seen anything like it. His stance was like an extensionof standing still- it was like a meaningful glare. But I don't stand still."
The Squad came to an end one night at the George club in Coventry
when they all got blind drunk and trashed their equipment. Soon

afterwards, Jerry, who was looking fora singer, extended
an invitation.
The disconcerting effect he and the rest of the group haveon American citizens when they venture out into the streets
doesn't bother Terry at all. Exactly the same thing happened
in England and Europe at first, he says. His reaction to the Land
Of The Free is equally bemused.
"It's alright. It's funny. I can't really take it all in as yet. In anotherfew weeks I might be able to understand some of it, but at the
moment it's just like some giant funfair." As far as Jerry isconcerned, being in America is "more like a holiday for us.
Something to spend the money from 'Message To You, Rudy' on."JERRY WOULD BE happy to stay in cheap, shabby low -life
motels instead of the Holiday Inn chains and play inrowdy, downbeat bars instead of the regular venues.
"People talk about breakingAmerica..." He shrugs. He's moreinterested in feeling the pulse of life here than in "opening up" any
new "markets".
But while Jerry simply ignores all the usual considerations,
Roddy Radiation (née Byers) feels them all too keenly.
"It's a weird life. You spend all this time travelling and hanging
about just to spend three quarters of an hour on stage.
That's what you do it for, but you have to put up with all
this... sitting in a car or a van or a plane and feeling sickfrom a hangover or something. But then there's no better
feeling you can get than being on stage. I couldn't imagine
going back to me old job. I couldn't imagine it while I wasdoing it! I was always dreaming- used to drive the blokes
I worked with mad."Roddy worked as a painter and decorator for the local
corporation for eight -and -a -half years after he left school.
He's been playing guitar since he was 13, when he got an
Antoria lead guitar and learned to play "Queen Bitch" infront of a mirror.
"People keep asking us what it's like now, but it's very hard
ThSpecialsin1e80:
to see the overall picture of what's going on. It's all a bit of(clockwise from bottom
a rush really, which is a bit worrying. And another thing
kW Jerry Dammers,
Horace Ranter, Roddy
I've thought about recently is that when we start writing
Radiation, John Bradbury.
some more songs, instead of writing about things we wrote
LynvalGolding,Neville
Staple and Terry Hall
about in the past, we're going to start writing about things
we're doing now. Which is a bit like a sell-out to the kids, but
I write about what I'm going through at the time. Imagine i f" 1 here's so much emphasis on what
I wrote a song about falling over in a Holiday Inn... bloody
January25.
you say now, so you have to try andwain:Specials
hell! Holiday Inn!Will The Specials breakAmerica orwill
say it right. It takes a bit of thinking
trombonist Rico
America break us?"about to put it over to the best ofRodriguez andJerry Dammers
Before The CoventryAutomatics, Roddy cut his teeth inyour abilities."
backstage at
a club showband, playing interval music at bingo halls andI'm surprised to find that Roddy isn't
Hurrah's. NYC "YViva Espana" at workingmen's clubs for two -and -a -halfbothered by this, and actually thinks
years. Then in '75 he formed The Wild Boys with Pete
it's a good thing -whereas I'm not sostnDavies, now the drummer with the UK Subs. The Wild Boyssure, despite the fact that it's the likes
played it straight from the Doll/Stooges prototype, wearing leatherof me who tend to cause this emphasis. What does trouble him, though,jackets, DMs, and spiky hair to augment the obligatory switchbladeis the way the press inflate their subjects.
sneer. The Wild Boys, however, were soon overtaken by their stylistic"This game can be a bit dangerous in that you get too much praise.
heirs -the punks -and TheAutomatics became a more interestingThat's a problem with groups. You get to the stage where you start
prospect. But their course ran by no means smoothly, and there wasbelieving all the stuff in the papers and you feel you have to live up to it.
a point when the decision was taken to use the ska mould that almost
Then once you get into what we're doing nowyou start going to certain
caused Roddy to leave.
clubs where all the other bands go, and that's where you get the rock elite"Don't get me wrong -all I ever play at home now is ska- but I'd beenthing. I don't like it. I've been to a couple of these showbusiness parties
with them a year and I'd worked out all these guitar things that I reallyand they're really boring."
liked, and a lot of those things didn't fit with the ska, so I had to rethink
Take his word for it.
my guitar playing over again for every song. Having to do it just like that
was a bit of a shock. For me it was like discovering ska, really.
WHICHEVER WAY YOU look, The Specials are there turning"Where I came from it was like a mining village. I played guitar and mythings inside out. The name itself, says Jerry, somewhat
hair was a bit longer than all the skinheads'. It would just be me, a couple
ruefully, "was supposed to be sarcastic".
of mates, and me girlfriend, and we'd just get into playing music. So I used
On stage they put to rest the age-old gambit of a single dominantto get beaten up a lot, knocked about a bit.
fronting personality. They've just made No 1 with a live EP, and their"Then awhile ago I started cropping me hair a bit and wearing Doc
album, deliberately packaged with no regard for the rules of attracting theMartens, and it's weird now because all those guys who used to be
consumer, sounded like it might as well have been made at home, thanks
skinheads have got their hair long and they're all into The Who. I've met
to Elvis Costello's perfect rough-and-ready dull-reverb production.
a couple of them since and it's like we've changed over almost. In away
"I don't think Elvis quite understood what we were aiming for," argues
it's a nice bit of revenge. I'm going to write a song about it. I've got the riff
Roddy. "I think he still thought that it was like one section of reggae, thenworked out, but it's hard trying to get the words together.
the next section's a heavy section, then another section comes along. a
HISTORY OF ROCK 1980 139

1980

JANUARY -MARCH"But I'm not knocking him at all. He got a great drum sound, and he wasa lot better than having some hotshot producerwho wouldn't even let us
in to the mixing sessions. It would be nice if we could do it ourselves nexttime, though. Then you've got no one to blame."
Looking at photographs, and being around them fora few days, it
becomes apparent that Roddy doesn't quite toe the group line on dress,
slack though that line may be. On the related subject of gangs, hisbackground grants him a sober perspective.
"I got out of that gang thing, but I can understand it. When we're all
together -the group and the roadies -and you go out fora drink andthere's a big crowd of you, it's a great feeling. You feel part of something.
That's why a lot of kids get into those things. Great. Why not?
"And something I learned when I was working with all those old blokes atthe corporation was that you don't grow out of it. I found out that theywere
just as much like kids as anybody else. They still want to have a bit of fun.
"So long as it's just a bit of fun..."liALK TO NEIL "Brad" Bradbury, the Prince Rimshot, a former

arts and language student (among other things) who had long
been a friend of the group but only joined them just before theycut "Gangsters", and he'll say it was Lynval Golding's guitar that caused
the coming of the offbeat. The offbeat that changed the Coventry
Automatics into The Special AKA.

C

Talk to Lynval and he'll give the credit to Brad.
"Jerry and Brad used to share a house in Coventry, and before the band
really got together we would be round the house talking about this sort ofmusic. This was in '75 and Brad didn't have a drumkit at the time."
Nonetheless there were jams: Lynval on guitar, Jerry (who was then ina Brum band called Sissy Stone), Horace Panter on bass and Silverton,
their first drummer, who played with Lynval in the Ray King Soul Band.
"Then a couple of years later when we first got the band together, Jerry
said why don't we try playing a bit of punk here and bit of reggae there.
I thought he was crazy, told him it would never work. But he said try it,
you never know until you try it. And it didn't quite work after all. But hesaid no, it can work. He refused to believe that it couldn't. He's a very
determined sort of guy.
"A while later, I brought a copy of 'Rudy, Message To You' down to Jerry's
place because I wanted him to listen to it -to listen to the beat. And he justthought, 'Well, the beat is right... put it all together.' Because the beat isalready there. It's the same sort of rock pattern. When Silverton left theband we were just about to try it. The last song we did with him, or tried,was 'You're Wondering Now', and looking back on it...
"We used to rehearse in a pub, and he'd have his drums way
down the back of the room. Jerry says, 'We'd like to try thissong. We've learnt it, and it's sort of a blue beat.'"Before that we had songs where part of the songs
were reggae, then they'd go into a rock section, thenperhaps back into reggae. And it would throw people

off. Even then, Bernie Rhodes did help, because the guys were pushingand he would say, 'No, you're not readyyet.' So we sat down and looked at
the whole thing and put a definite beat in it all the way through, sort ofblended it together.
"All music will develop while it goes along. What we're doing is trying tomix different music to get a new music out of it. There's no harm in doingthat because you're creating something new, rather than for instance justdoing the Stax style of music that they did in the '60s without adding
anything to it."
Bernie Rhodes managed the band fora brief spell during '78, andalthough he was to provide part of the inspiration for "Gangsters", none ofthem seem especially resentful of the wiry little self-styled anarchist.
Jerry maintains that Rhodes was always "the most radical member of
The Clash", while Roddy merely faults his Machiavellian tendencies: "Hewanted to split us up. He wanted Terry to join The Black Arabs. He likes toput musicians together like that, but you can't do that with people."
When it comes to musical direction and concept, Jerry Dammers, nota little reluctantly, wears that hat.
"Oh yeah, he's had sleepless nights," says Lynval. "Even in a pub
sometimes you say, "Jerry... Jerry... Jerry', and he's miles away, thinking
about something. He's always thinking. Probably sometimes he thinks
too far ahead. But it's good for the band, and it's helped us because wetrust him a lot. We trust what he says, although there's times when we
disagree. We wouldn't be a band if there weren't times like that."IN -BETWEEN NEW YORK and Oklahoma City there was New

Orleans, the Tennessee Williams moonstruck madhouse town
located at the mouth of the Mississippi river.
Religion is big in New Orleans, and where religion is big so too,
inevitably, is death. The view as you approach on Highway 61 is litteredwith churches and graveyards, but as you hit the metropolis itself thisgives way to more telling signs of the deep Southern party town, signs
that say 'Breakfast -24 Hours A Day'.
The Specials play in an old warehouse out by the sprawling railroad
stockyards. Three thousand or so sons and daughters of Woodstock infashionable quilted jerkins, most of them as high as the proverbial kite,
have come to hear headliners The Police play polished English new -wave
arena rock.
They don't dance, they just toke and gape. But for The Specials -whose
rawness and undisciplined vitality sounds entirely opposed to the clean,homogenised output of The Police -at least 500 of them are ready to pogo.
That The Specials should come to New Orleans represents theclosing of an international circle of sorts. It was Crescent City
R&B, filtering across the Gulf of Jamaica via the local radio,that formed the basis for blue beat: a sultry shift ofrhythmic accents. Jamaican migration brought themusic to England and finally to the ears of Jerry
Dammers (among others), who now brings it back,RAT RACE

1HE SPECIALS

October 30/31,1980:
The Specials returnto the Hope& Anchor
in North Londonto
play two of a series ofbenefit g igsf or the

threatened venue

10-.TORY OF ROCK 1980

THE SPECIALS

2

with a further shift of accent, to New Orleans.
In NewYork a journalist asked ifThe Specials
would continue to play Jamaican music. "We don't
play Jamaican music," replied Dam mers. "We play
English music."
Jerry Dammers is- like everyone else complicated. He's resisting hard the pressures thatcome with being the maestro behind a veritablemusical explosion, and prefers not to see it insuch inflated, grandiose terms. He's
determined to preserve his equilibrium. He's
walking on gilded splinters.
A former art student whose taste runs thegamut of blues and rhythm'n'blues from its
sources to the likes of Captain Beeefheart, Dr
John, the Stones and The Yardbirds, Dammers
has worked in paint and in films as well as music.
A close friend of his from college days says ofhis "art" work: "They had the same style andalmost the same themes as things like 'Too
Much Too Young' and 'Jaywalker', which wasa song they used to do in the early days.1 Two of
his paintings are still on the wall of his house in
Coventry. They even look like the songs."
Dammers made three short animated films. The first was of a boxing
match, a classic bout from the '50s between Rocky Marciano and British
heavyweight champion Don Cockell. The second was called Disco, andfeatured a line of chorus girls dancing to a soundtrack of "disco/reggae"
recorded by Dammers and Horace, who went to the same college.
"And the third," says Jerry, "was a mixture of live film and animation. It
was just walking down a street in Coventry, and you'd see all these people
doing things, then suddenly it would change to animation. There wasa bloke running along- a sort of football -hooligan type -who suddenly
throws a brick through a window, and then in animation you saw theglass smashing.
"Then there was this old tramp - he was a mate of ours really -who
pretended to fall over and spew up all over the pavement. The camera
zoomed in on the spew and that was all bones and things bubbling away.
There was an old woman crossing the street who got run over.
"Some of it was full animation, but a lot of it was done with cut-outs;
a very tedious business. It was about that time the IRA were going around,and at the end some bloke put a bag under a car and the whole street got
blown to pieces. Guts flying everywhere. I wanted to get the films onvideo, but those sods at college...
"The first time we had a review in NME, or I thought we were going to get
one, or I thought we were going to get one, I went in there to use theirdarkroom to develop pictures of the group, and they wouldn't let me use
the darkroom unless I gave them my films back. It was like three years'
work, every frame painted by hand. And I was really desperate because
this was our chance to get out picture in NME, so I gave them my films
back. I expect they've fucking lost them, but I'd like to get them videoed
and show them to you, 'cos people slagyou off for going to art college but
they don't actually knowwhat you do there. Maybe if they saw them theywouldn't -I don't know..."
Jumping forward a few years, Jerry explains that the first song he heardthat inspired him to what would eventually become The Specials was
Graham Parker's "Not If It Pleases Me": "That was it. That was the firstsong that made me think I could do something of me own!"
Prompted by this revelation, I tell him that until I saw the credits to their
album, where all sources are rightfully acknowledged, I thought The
Specials were about to do a Led Zep and plunder another folk heritage for
their own glory.
"That's funny, because the songs existed without those ska tunes atfirst, and theywere put in as sort of musical quotations. Most of the songs
were written over two years ago. Since then we've only done five newsongs, two of which were Roddy's, one of which was Lynval and Neville's,and the other two being 'Gangsters' and 'It Doesn't Make ItAlright'. It's
a common syndrome. You spend however manyyears it is making yourfirst record, then you have six months to make the next one.
"Well, we're lucky because we've got a backlog of songs, but we'll have tolearn them up. And it takes a lot of time for the words to... you realise after
awhile that some of the words were very silly -you can't live with them.
But when you're playing, the words aren't so prominent. So it's going to bea problem, because we'll maybe write something
and then six months later think it was a really silly
thing to say."That might not necessarily be to the detriment of
the songs, though.
"No, quite. The songs that I write -I always try not
to think whether I should or shouldn't be saying
things. Like 'Too Much Too Young', for instance. Not
to think whether that's a good thing to write, but
at the time that you think it, just write it down.
Just put down your true feelings at the time.
"I think about 'Little Bitch' -I wrote thatwhen I was 15 -and I can see now that someof those words are very sort of immature, but
I still stand by it because that's how I felt at thetime. In the case of 'Too Much Too Young', thegirl that was written about would probably
agree with the song."
Talk drifts to the subject of muzak, which
seems to have a strange attraction for Jerry.
"It's sick really, because they try and makemusic that actually isn't going to distract theworkers- so bland that you don't even notice it.
But if you actually listen to it -it's not designed
to be listened to -it can be really peculiar. Who composes it, that's what
I want to know?"
A computer. You find out what the basic rules of it are -which elements
combine to create the effect you want -and churn it out accordingly.

"We trust

what Jerrysays, although
there's times
we disagree""A bit like 2 -Tone, you mean?"Not quite. And here's why:
"2 Tone doesn't exist. It's not just a logo -that doesn't mean a thing. It's
the music that counts.And how can you own music? You can't own music.
You can buy sheet music and records and soon, but you can't own music.
All these people are starting to come to me asking for something from2 -Tone- people who feel they've contributed and nowwant some sort ofdivvy.And I say divvy of what? 2 -Tone? That doesn't exist. It's in them.
They're 2 -Tone, not some daft design."
Jerry's philosophy of life for today, 1980, is simple. It's a combination ofMarx and Popeye. In the words of Groucho: "Whatever it is, I'm against it."In the words of Popeye: "I yam what I yam."

AFTER THE GIG in New Orleans, Dammers, Joe Stevens, Rico
- who has been playing trombone for 30 years and has neverbeen with a band as long as he's been with The Specials tour manager Frank, myself and a few others piled into a taxi to go
to Tipitina's club to eat alligator stew and pay homage to Professor

Longhair, the barrel -house pianist whose pounding syncopated style
played no small part in the creation of what he would barely recognise
now as rock'n'roll.
This wasn't any staid, reverent occasion where they roll out the Blues
Legend for fawning scholars, no sir! This was a party. The joint was
shaking like a creole dish and rocking to the backline beat. And Jerry
Dam mers was having the time of his life!
Dammers learnt to play most of his piano from Longhair records, so
meeting the man and hearing him cut the rug on "Big Chief" meant more
to him than these words can convey. He tried to explain as much toLonghair. "Thanks," said 'Fess. "I need all the help I can get."
The night was crowned when Jerry found Toots & The Maytals'
rocksteady classic "Time Tough" on the jukebox -the first song that The
CoventryAutomatics ever played -and when Rico introduced us to Huey
Smith, the Huey "Piano" Smith, sitting at the bar killing the midnight
hours with Screwdrivers.
"Tell me, Huey," asked Frank, "was this club named after the song
'Tipitina' orwas the song named after the club?""That song was going for 40 years when I was born. It took me 16 years tolearn it. And that was 30 years ago. Now ask me a question..."The song is still going on. The heritage is still alive. That's what Jerry
was really talking about when he asked how anyone can own music. It's
not a commodity, not in the long term, and it doesn't die.
It's alive in The Specials now, and it will pass on to someone else when
they're gone. Maybe you won't immediately recognise it, but it will stillbe there. As sure as the death and the taxes that it grants us escape from.
Paul Rambab
HISTORY OF ROCK 1980 141

ekodY BILLY JOEL:-way winner
aker eachsus,. .,«

1980
APR

1k

THE TEARDROP

EXPLODES, ECHO & THE

BUNNYMEN AND MORE

A chilling penetration
NME JUN 14 RIP, Ian Curtis, singer of "highly rated

Manchester band" Joy Division. "The very bestrock is part of a fight," NME writes in its tribute,"something that actively removes prejudice."
THE DEATH OF Ian Curtis, lead singer of highly rated Manchester
band Joy Division, has provided the biggest shock of the past few
weeks. Curtis, who was 22, took his own life- apparently after
a domestic upheaval. The band had completed a new album called
Closershortly before the tragedy, and this is to be released by
Factory records on June 27- preceded this weekend by the single"Love Will Tear Us Apart".
Joy Division played their first gig at the Electric Circus supporting
Buzzcocks and Penetration in May 1977, after many months of
excited preparation. Their name then was Warsaw, having rejected
the Pete Shelley suggestion of Stiff Kittens. The name Warsaw wasderived from "Warszawa", a song on Bowie's Low.
Warsaw were undistinguished but there was great belief andromance guiding them. Slowly, the noises formed. In the firstmonths of their existence it was mundane business problems thathindered their natural growth. They recorded a four -track single,"An Ideal For Living", and planned to release their EP using their
new name Joy Division -Joy Division being the prostitutes' wingof a concentration camp. *42 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1980

Et I 0861 ADO8 JO AllOISIH

a91.1
No,

aipuoa. putts.
14E9 sn 815.1n /tap
96ua.nsmans io
spompuNaqsaneatal-1...096t"tnu.f'sP.e1".14.N.11!

a6e4s uos!vnD wet

LOVE WILL TEAR US APART

1980
APR

Poor sound quality postponed the release,and even when it was put out as both seven and 12 -inch it created no stir, althoughsomething was obviously forming. In 1978 Joy
Division felt isolated. Played a few gigs, met
their manager Rob Gretton, who took awayfrom them cumbersome organising duties andconcentrated on developing their music.
Martin Hannett took an active interest in thegroup and he and Gretton became fifth andsixth members. There was no great plan behind
Joy Division linking up so neatly with Factory
Records. It was just a series of circumstancesthat eventually developed into a funny logic.
Joy Division had a quarter of "A Factory
Sample", contributing two Martin Zero produced songs. These two were the firstindication that Joy Division had a special

understanding.
Following the Factory sampler, it was nevercertain that Factory could afford to put out
another LP. And Joy Division, after early silly
mistakes, were taking their time before
committing them selves to a record contract.
Finally Factory took the plunge, and just intime, as Joy Division had seriously consideredsigning to a Martin Rushent-run subsidiary of
Radar Records.
"There was a point where we were thinking
about signing, but we weren't rushing
anything," Ian Curtis said. "We went down
to London to see what type of working
relationship we would have, but by that time
we'd already agreed to do the first LP with
Factory. So we decided to
wait and see how that
went. It started selling well,so we realised there wasno need to go to a major."

The progress of loy- for whatever reason,
Division could bein whatever way logically followed fromdepart, the rest, inrecord to record, but still
cautious recognition of
the completeness andthe fact that they were
strength of their firstmaking something
LP, Unknown Pleasures,
special, would change
was unnerving.
the name of the group.
The group had discovered
are no set plans
They created their forThere
their own potential, and had
the future, but it must
quietly, effectively travelled
be said that Ian Curtis wasown pace, made it
from one extreme to the
not the major force in theother. On "An Ideal For
group. He wrote and offered
Living" they were coyly
contributions to the musicalbeing a complete
boasting, "This is not a
makeup. Hook and Albrecht
concept, this is an enigma."
wrote the melodies, Morrislack of compromise composed the rhythms.
With Unknown Pleasuresthey were offering no clues
Curtis was a dazzling focus,
at all. Every word counted; every line had abut each contribution was equal. Hook,chilling penetration. Somewhere between "An
Albrecht and Morris are, for obvious reasons,
Ideal For Living" and a few months later, when
impatient for the release of the remaining Joy
Pleasures was recorded, a radical
Division songs.
transformation had taken place.
There are many to come. Within a matter ofAn audience began to look their way, but Joy
days a maxi -single including a slow and quick
Division never let go. They quietly establishedversion of the penultimate song of our time istheir independence, prolifically andreleased- "Love Will Tear Us Apart" (a song
ambitiously expanding on their alreadythey had traumas in mixing). The LP Closer
considerable originality. They played countless(with a hard "s" -as in "closer to the centre")gigs but never made it seem that they wereis suffering production problems but should
merely promoting a product. They created their
be out within six weeks.
own pace. They made it look so easy. "It" being
Without being insensitive, we can thanksomething like a total lack of compromise.
whoever that it was complete. It is something
Joy Division's powerful workwill naturally
you will never forget (Factory Records hurry
persist and live on. The name Joy Division
to point out that the LP sleeve- a gothic
will not be used by Hook,portrayal of dead Jesus -was decided upon
Albrecht and Morris.
months ago. A photocopy of the sleeve pinned
The group had decided
on an NMEwall for weeks confirms this.)a long time ago that if
Ironically, because it probably would haveany of the quartet should
happened anyway, there's a possibility Closer

111-4101'

look so easy. "It"January16,1980:

finding thatthe
elevated stage
had been removed
at the Lantaren in
Rotterdam, Joy

Division perform
at floor level

will chart. So too the single. The name Joy
Division means something more than it dida few months ago, due to both Curtis' departureand growing recognition of their magic.

A distasteful profit

Curtis always anticipated commercial

MMsuccess, but felt it was more likely to happen
first in Europe and America. All that's swept outof the way now.
There's enough songs for perhaps half an LP,
with live stuff making up the other half, that
may somehow surface somewhere. For those
despairing that they weren't one of thethousand and odd who found a copy of theSordide Sentimental single "Atmosphere/
Dead Souls", "Atmosphere" will be the B-side ofa readily available American 12 -inch
re-recording of "She's Lost Control" (a song,incidentally, on the B-side of Grace Jones' next
single). "Dead Souls" will turn up eventually,
somewhere. And the flexi-single"Incubation", which you can get justby walking into a record store andasking for, is not a limited
edition and will be re -presseduntil everyone who wants
one has one.
OY DIVISION'SINNATE suspicion

Factory urges Joy Division fans not to pay for free flexidisc.
JOY DIVISION, PREPARING for this week's inquest into the death of singer Ian Curtis,
are fighting record dealers who are selling the band's new free flexidisc.

The inquest opens on Friday this week to try and clarify the background to thesinger's death. The other three-quarters of the band -Steve Morris, Bernard Albrecht andPeter Hook -will continue as a musical unit, and have already considered other names suchas The Hit and The Eternal. The question of a replacement for Curtis has been left open, butthey are not actively seeking a new singer.
Their chief concern is to stop record shops making a distasteful profit by selling copies of"Komakino", the band's new flexidisc which is available free. Factory Records have pressed
25,000 copies, and will press another batch when the funds are available.
Factory and Joy Division urge fans not to pay for the single - some have changed hands
for up to .E5 - but to look for the proper free copies. Any shop selling the single should bereported to Factory in Manchester. The tracks on the single were left over from thesession for the new Joy Division album Closer, due out in about three weeks.
Another single,"Love Will Tear Us Apart", should be out next week, andtracks from the "Sordide Sentimental" Euro-EP will be available in Britain
later in the year.

Joy Dew.

was interesting, butinterviews as such I don't
find interesting."
But doesn't a refusal to
do interviews put up an
unnecessary barrieraround the band?

Konsoki0of the established
Produced ey mane few,
music industry and theirdissatisfaction with numbing
routine extended to their"The way we look at it is that
dealings with the music press.
any interview is a bit forced. The
Though it landed them a reputation
only reason ajournalist wants to do
among many journalists as awkward
an interview is that it makes it easier forcustomers, their distrust of the standardised
him to write his piece. But to me it is obvious
rock interview procedures was genuine andthat if you spend a bit of time with people andlargely valid.
The original plan fora Joy Division feature
had been fora journalist to spend a day withthe band, with the interview of sorts only
a vague possibility.
In the event, the formalised quest ion -a ndanswer type interview in the dressing room
was ruled out, largely by manager Rob,
although the band themselves had differing
opinions themselves on the subject.
While Morris and Albrecht seem relatively
unconcerned about interviews, Curtis wasagainst too formalised a set-up.
Peter Hook is the most hostile in his
objections to the procedure.
"To me personally, it is redundant. I don't readinterviews. I read music papers, but I can't reada question -and -answer interview.
"One of the best things I've ever read wasLester Bangs' article on The Clash in NME,
'cos it wasn't actually an interview but it was
full of stories and things about the tour. That

get to know them in a very informal way, you'll
get a lot more out of them."
Ian almost begs to differ.
"I can see the point of interviews. People
want to know why things are the way they are.
If they buy a new car, they want to know how it
works. Why does it do this? Why can this cargo
faster than that one? Why does it look better

than that one?"
Rob Gretton interjects to make wider, perhaps
not so valid, points about the media in general.
"I can understand that journalists are justdoing a job. What ! don't agree with is the job
they are sent out to do. I think it's a very stylised,outmoded way of doing things.
"The average guy in the street tends to readhis paper and takes what he reads as the truth.
I think that they don't analyse it enough. The
average guy in the street just takes it in.
"I think the fault lies in the press, 'cos they
don't make it clear that any article is just a
purely personal opinion."

IMPACT OF Joy Division can only growTHEstronger, more importantly so than any
myth. Joy Division cannot clean away thetrivia and delusion of mass -based rock music,
but they throw a shadow over it all.
They emphasise the vulgarity and vanityof the rock musics so recklessly publicisedand glorified by industry and media, themundanity of the majority of pop, and theirown complete lack of conceit or ego indicatesthe uselessness of pretending rock is some sortof weapon of change. The very best rock is partof a fight, part of a larger decision, a widespread
perception, something that actively removes
prejudice and restriction.
Rock's greatness is its emotional effect on theindividual. Joy Division's worth is immense to
every individual who does not resent theirstrange awareness, who does not mock the lackof explanation of artistic emotions.
The struggle and the conflict never ceases.
There is no real safety, no consolation, andoften the evil, futile boundaries of existence
become too claustrophobic.
Ian Curtis decided to leave us, and yet heleaves behind words of such strength, they urge
us to fight, seek and reconcile. Joy Division will
not change The World. But there is value; there
has to be.
The effect of loy Division, the unknown
pleasures that each individual fully tuned into
Joy Division discovers, can only be guessed at.
But the moods and the insight must inspire us.
The value of Joy Division is the value of love.
Adrian Thrills

Silence
In
Walk
Away
Don't

talented performers and write
of
the
most
Divisionandone
IAN CURTIS, lead singer of Joy
committed suicide on May 18th.
contemporary rock music,
THRILLS pay tribute to the man and the group.
PAUL MORLEY & ADRIAN
music as the

ApiIli 0 WHY do we get sopushed its possibilities to the limits
The very best rock music is art, and that is
hemed of. Good rock music is

into aDickensian warehouse converted
rehearsal studio - seemed the ideal place forBut
theband'sattitude toa Joy Division video

to wee n, to the dark danceswirling, shifting guitar and drum patterns of
the hypnotic '24 Hours' give way to thenulsebeat of the throbbing bass introduction

1980
APRIL -

111

JANE

NM

til2k111i1
111111141b1

s !IronMaidenin'1980:(I-r)Clive
Burr, Dave

Murray,Steve
Harris,Dennis
Stratton and
PaulDrAnno

gt

eV"You get the adrenalin flowing"
NME APR 19
IN THE DRAB, outlying London suburb of
East Ham, there is a pub like many others
giving escape from the workaday world.
Upstairs, in the private gym, you can box yourway out. Downstairs in the back bar, you canrock your way out.
Paul Di'Anno, Iron Maiden's singer, used towork out in the gym of the Ruskin Arms, andeven boxed a few semi -pro rounds. Steve
Harris, who founded the group, writing songs
and playing bass, once trained at the nearby
West Ham football ground as a member ofthe junior team.
All of Iron Maiden live in the area, and are
tonight repaying a debt to the landlord of oneof the few venues that would give them work
during the years of their music's abeyance.
Thirty quid every Friday night went a long way
towards paying off the HP on gear, while
those Friday nights went an even longer way
towards staving off the frustration.
In the back bar, posters for groups withnames like Pagan Altar and Salem's Curse
litter the walls. Fans, friends, parents andlocal press have turned out to celebrate
Iron Maiden's ascension to the new metal
pantheon. Headbangers wearing Hell'sAngels' colours, and even one or two with alegitimate claim to those colours, jostle goodnaturedly for the best positions from which toprecipitate blood from the ears.
Steve Harris and his band are only
distinguishable by the extra grooming that46 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1980

has gone into their appearance -a uniformof jeans, sneakers, leather jackets and(excepting Paul Di'Anno) long, flowing manes,
the latter worn with a pride that denotes its
survival through the recent dark ages ofheavy metal, when the music was ignored by
the musical media like an embarrassing idiot
cousin locked in a forgotten cellar of thehouse; beleaguered but unbeaten.
"The thing that really got me," complains
Steve Harris without any marked bitterness,"was not so much that - it was the fact thatyou couldn't get work. Because we werea heavy metal band, nobody wanted to know.
But a band like ourselves... You got to work."
Harris started Iron
Maiden in '76, after
ensuring he had a trade - asa draughtsman - to fall backon. This blunt, pragmatic
attitude is typical of his
outlook. His convictions
are straightforward andfirmly held. He always knew

just that they play with Telecasters that've got
a lot more ring and don't have that really
beefy sound. It was good that punkencouraged people to pick up guitars andplay, but after a while it got a bit out of orderbecause just anybody who picked up a guitar
and had been playing a very short while got
up there and it wasn't good any more, knowwhat I mean?"Yeah. Heavy metal with a spiky haircut. But
at least the guitars they picked up weren't
made of cardboard...
"The people that do that really would love
to be up on stage. I used to do that. Not with acardboard guitar, but all the rest of it. Now
that I'm up there playing it feels really weird.
Maybe in three or four years' time some ofthe people down there will
be on stage. But some ofthem fantasise with theirguitars and never botherbecause they think they're
never going to get toa certain standard."...And thus all the craven
idolatry goes round insluggish circles.
Harris had his heroes
too. He began with adesire to play "Paranoid"and "Smoke On The
Water"; now his band haverefined those elements,
after a fashion. They do it
well, with plenty of polish"It becomes false
if you sit down andthink, 'We've gotta
be original"

a band with a name like
Iron Maiden would havean audience.
"Never mind all the newwave bands; there werealways people that liked
heavy metal. A lot of thepunk stuff has got heavy
metal riffs anyways, it's

and punch and pose. And such is theinsatiable thirst for what they do that
their first album is set to chart in theupper reaches almost instantly.
Meeting Steve Harris gave me
pause to reflect. At 24, he's a year
older than me. Ten years ago I too
owned a copy of "Paranoid".
Nowadays my idea of good heavy
metal lies somewhere between The
Stooges, Joy Division and Blue
Oyster Cult. Harris cites the
Scorpions, UFO and Judas Priest.
When I was14 I spent a summer inthe thrall of a local Road Rats MC

chapter -a typical adolescent smittenwith a fatuous rebel image, one that
Iron Maiden still espouse in songs liketheir new single "Running Free". The
subject of the song is 16 and -youguessed it -"runningfree". Harris is24, a qualified draughtsman, and arather cautious, timid fellow.
No attempt is made to reconcile
fantasy with reality. No attempt isrequired. No need even to tamper
with the metal mythology. Does
Harris ever feel the urge to add
something new to the genre; tochange or reinvent it somehow? No.
"You should do things that justcome naturally to you. It becomes
false if you sit down and think, 'We've
gotta be original.' It might be original.
in the sense that other people haven't
done something like it before, but it's
better to do things that comenaturally. Like, we were looking theway we do long before our record
company came along. So I suppose in
their eyes it was great, 'cos they didn't
have to model us in any way."

Wasn't that just dandy for therecord company! But wait... Harris has
his pride. He's honest, modest andcan justify himself to himself. He
satisfies his own criteria.
"We play music a lot faster. There's
a lot more aggression on stage."(Aggression is the wrong word. But
it's a buzzword synonymous withenergy, gusto, excitement...)"Being on stage makes you feel
really... you get the adrenalin flowing.
You feel really excited. When the kids
are shouting for you and they've got
your name on their back... it brings alump to your throat, it really does.
This is no joke: there was a guy at the
Bandwagon on Sunday, he was so
happy that we were getting on he wasalmost crying. I couldn't believe it.
The guy felt that much about us!"
The Iron Maiden logo takes its placeon the denim scroll of honour. You
know you've arrived when you see
your logo rub hunched, greasy,
dandruff -ridden shoulders with thelogos of your own idols. The allegianceof the heavy metal fan is fierce andunbreakable once pledged.
"It's because all the time it gets put
down -that's why. Punk is given all thisstreet credibility because it's

working-class music. Any ofthe big industrial towns that's where you get all theheavy metal fans. And a lotof it's the escapism thing...
they go to a gig to enjoy
themselves. You very rarely
see any trouble at heavy
metal gigs. They're there tohave a good time, and that's
all it is to me."Harris goes on to ascribe
Maiden fans' raving
devotion to the fact thatthey are on something called
the same level. He hasn't given muchthought to the time when they won't
be -when the projected two tours
apiece in the three major markets(UK, Europe and America) havefulfilled EMI's belief that by thesecond or third Maiden album they'll
have the next Deep Purple on theirbooks; an endless money -spinner.
Iron Maiden aren't bothered by theprospect of blanket touring, nor are
they unsettled by the thought of EMI
rubbing their hands in anticipation of
its inevitable rewards. Iron Maiden,
above and beyond all otherconsiderations, simply live to play.
"The only thing that worries me is...
the feeling for gigs. I just hope we
don't lose it."And if there comes a time when
they do, it's a long way off.
"Let's face it; we're not going to beplaying this sort of music when we'reso. I'd like to be, but I could just as
well be down here playing in the Joe
Bloggs Band or something, playing
country & western... well, hardly that.
"It's funny, though. You know thosebands playing standards in the pubswith all the old boys sitting around?
Imagine bands playing heavy metal
in 50 years' time when there's some
far-out music happening: they're
thinking, 'Aaaooh gawd, can't put
up with this', but there's still the'eadbanging going on in the corner!"
Fifty years is a conservative
estimate. Many feel this scenario isalready too real. Steve Harris,
however, is happy in his devotion. It's
awesome in a way. You can't help but

admire the unselfconscious fervour
the heavy metal fan has for heavy
metal, and you certainly can't fight it.
I wanted to hear Harris vigorously
defend it,justify it, and even persuade
me of it. I was going to try and draw him
out by telling him Ritchie Blackmore
was really gay or something, but
couldn't take such a low swipe atsomeone's genuine enthusiasm andpatient, contented convictions.
NME photographer Mike Laye says
talking to headbangers was like talking
to Christians. There's some truth inthat, but talking about heavy metal
just makes me feel like the hammer
banging against an anvil. The anvil
always breaks the hammer. Paul Ramball

Pink Floyd banned
NME JUN 21 Redbi.uill to Pink Floyd's..,........,,,,,, dashing track is not all positive.
PINK FLOYD'S "ANOTHER Brick In The Wall", plus thealbum whence it came, has been declared "prejudicial
to the State Of South Africa" and banned. Since thesingle's February release, it has become something ofa marching song in the apartheid state, particularly forblack children, who have chanted the lyrics during recent
school boycotts.
Until its withdrawal, the single has sold some 30,000 copies
and was shaping up to be the all-time SA blockbuster.
Also banned recently are Frank Zappa's New York andMarianne Faithfull's Broken English LPs.
Meanwhile, moving westward, the following
adaptation of the Floyd song was heard chanted during
a commemorative march at Kent State University campus
on the 10th anniversary of the killings: "We don't want noregistration I We don't want no draft or war/ No cruise missiles
over Europe/ Carter! Brezhnev; Leave those kids alone I Carter!
Brezhnev! Leaver us kids alone/All in all, it's justanotherstep
toward the war." Andrew7yler

Experiencerather than
enthusiasm

NME APR 19 nrmc enft Ip nn a nnw e 'noir
AC/DC HAVE NOW apparently settled on a newlead vocalist to replace the late Bon Scott, whodied in February. They have finally decided
against Allan Friar, who was so confident of being selectedthat he gave up his job
in a local band. Instead,they've selected BrianJohnson, formerly of
the now -defunct group
Geordie -whose shortcareer was highlighted
by a couple of Top 20
hits in 1973. The

decision was prompted
because - said a

spokesman -they felt
it better to opt forexperience rather
than enthusiasm.

&apt 20,1980:

Brian Johnson r
fronts AC/DC
in Chicago

stiF

STORY OF ROCK i980 ! 47

1980
d

6%

rat% Si

CCM

Peoplehave suchclosedminds"
prom an emerging new t ivPrnom srmr

come THE TEARDROP EXPLODES

to balance triteness and greatness".
the year goes on, disputes arise withformer friends, and even within the band.,"I don't like Dave," admits Julan Cope.
"He's a pretty dubious character."

-

4

r

41

4 -:

The Teardrop Ex3lode .'label head/proda cer/keys slayer/man ager
David Balfe

drummer Gary Dwyer(centre)andbasaist/
songwriter/froncmantbassist Ju lien Cane

Yi-

MM

0

OL

then no way are you gonna get anything worthwhile from a Joy
Division gig, bub!
What a waste. What a needless, pathetic loss.
Which is where The Teardrop Explodes come in. Branded by mostof the casual critics as being a wee bit weird, a wee bit inaccessible,
The Teard rop Explodes expose the redundancy of all thestereotyped labelling for what it is. In terms of such limited,
retrogressive indexing, they stand with one foot in each of theso-called camps. Shot by both sides. And, like the square peg pushed
towards the round hole, they just won't go.
The Teardrop Explodes' blond, cordial vocalist Julian Cope wasincensed recently at one of the reviews of the band's gorgeously
persuasive pop single "Treason" in another rock paper. It was a good
review, deservedly praising the disc to high heaven, but doing so at
the expense of 2 -Tone, playing along with the factions game again
and implying that you simply cannot groove to both The Teardrop
Explodes and something from behind those corrupt "enemy" lines.
How stupid! (Teardrop and Madness, incidentally, share the same
production team, Clive Langer and Allan Winstanley).
Perched on a stool by the window in a large Liverpool cafe twofloors above ground level with the Merseyside rush-hour madness
gathering its early evening momentum below, Julian Cope reflects
on the ludicrous musical dichotomy.
"It's getting to be like the early '70s again where you had the hippies
into all their weird music and the soul types into all their stuff.
Things seem to have come full circle and got back to the same oldstage again. I don't want us to be in a position where people can takeone look at us and immediately put us into one camp or the other. We
lose out in a lot of ways 'cos we don't fit into one camp. But there
again, I'd rather have it that way."
Mick Finkler, Teardrop's prosaic guitarist, nods in agreement over
his untouched cup of tea.
"That's the way things work. People can't get to see every bandaround, so they just go on what they read; and if that tells them acertain band is a certain way, then they'll just file them away andforget about it. There's nothing you can do in the end except go out andplay and hope for the best. But you're never going to appeal to everyone
and there's nothing you can really do about it.
"You get people who are heavily into bands like Joy Division coming
along to our gigs, probably expecting something similar, and thenfinding us too commercial. Then you have all the pop people who don't
even bother to come to see us 'cos we're bracketed away as a weird band.""I think a lot of people just hate the idea of us rather than the actual
band," resumes Julian. "A lot of people are anti -us 'cos they associate us
with too much artiness. But none of us have ever been near an art school!
None of us are like that. We're as against that sort of thing as anyone else.
"I'm sure a lot of people would change their opinions of us if they met us.
But most of them are never going to, so they just go along with the generalview. People like that have such closed minds."
And so it goes. Where it's heading hardly bears thinking about.
Being bracketed so arbitrarily with the leftfield "arty" bands has
not been the only simplistic categorising that Teardrop have had
to contend with since their genesis in November '78. The "This
Week's Akron!" province plunderers have seen fit to bag them simply
as A Liverpool Band, as if that explains all. You know the sort of thi ng a bunch of zany weirdos with a lumpy, multi-syllabled name and a nice
Disneyland grin. In fact, drummer Gary Dwyer is the only born -and -bred
Scouser in the trio. So much for that convenient little handle.

THE

TEARDROPEXPLODES

22 10 SO
ADDISON
CENTRE,The fact that Teardrop, their buddies Echo And The Bunnymen,
Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark and Pink Military all started making
waves on Merseyside around the same time- the same week, to beprecise- is almost incidental. I say almost, because Julian is convinced
there were a few outside forces helping to bring things together.
"We were really lucky when we formed, 'cos there were a lot of people
desperately hoping that there would be a new Liverpool scene. Whenpeople like us and the Bunnymen came along, it was the answer to all
their dreams. The vibes were just right at the time. We started the new
Liverpool scene, but it started us in the same way."
Despite the advantage of having had, until its recent closure, oneof the country's most ambitious rock clubs on its doorstep - Eric's Liverpool had been left remarkably untainted by the initial punk furore
as far as local talent was concerned. There were bands, of course, butwith the exception of The Yachts and Big In Japan, few of them got past
the garage stage.
One such combo were The Crucial Three, formed in '77 by Jul ian
with Ian "Mac" McCulloch, now the leading quiff with Echo And The
Bunnymen, and Pete Wylie ,who more recently formed Wah! Heat.
Julian had moved to Merseyside a year earlier from the Midlands tostudy teacher training and drama at college, academic aspirations whichwere rapidly ditched as soon as the band -the embryonic Teardrop began rehearsing.
"Most of the stuff I was doing at college seemed so reactionary.
There were a few of us who started going down Eric's every night,
getting into the punk thing, and suddenly the college just seemed
DEC HICKEY PROSINTS
so pointless. So I left and started trying to get a band together. It was
really good at that time, 'cos for ages I'd been trying to decide what
I really wanted to do. As soon as punk came along, I knew I had toform a band."A series of name and line-up changes ensued, with Mac and Wylie
both eventually leaving to be replaced by organist Paul Simpson
and guitarist Finkler, who, faced with a choice between a university
course and a career in rock'n'roll, plumped for Teardrop - or A
Shallow Madness as they were calling themselves that week.
+ SUPPORT
Unhappy with their original drummer Dave -and with their first
gigs imminent -they were put in touch with Gary Dwyer by local
On Wednesday. October 22 1980 at 7.45pm
percussionist extraordinaire Budgie. Though he had been playingIII

the teardrop
explodesK EJVIPST ON

BEDFORD.

ADDISON CENTRE, ^DENSON HOWARD PARK,KENIPSTON. BEDFORD
reearv

THE TEARDROP EXPLODESTHE
TEARDROPEXPLODES

books

Nowhere is The Teardrop Explodes' warmthand directness more apparent than on stage.
There are no attempts at any grand image making or any moves to distance or alienate
the audience, with Julian directing the set witha chumminess that borders on the bland.

"My favourite album of all time is LiveAt
Max's Kansas Cityby The Velvet Underground. I just love the waythat Lou Reed speaks to the audience, saying things like, 'Hello, how
are you?' That's me really. I'm basically quite a pleasant person, so
why should I try to be something that I'm not?
"Even when we were doing some of our weirder stuff like 'Camera
Camera' and 'Kirkby Workers Dream Fades' [both on the B-side of
the first single, "Sleeping Gas"], I used to say things like, 'This is thenext song and it's called so-and-so and it's really fab.' I suppose I've
always been a friendly person."

OnstageinnymBalfeand Cope with Mick
Finkler, the guitarist
who would be sacked

thefollowingsummet
becauseheAgot"reallycomplacent-properly for no more than a fortnight, Dwyer
fitted the bill perfectly and was slotted into theband for their debut gig with the Bunnymen at
Eric's, bywhich time the Teardrop moniker had
been heisted from a DC comic.
HE TEARDROP EXPLODES' progresssince then has been a tale of three
singles, all on the local Zoo label:"Sleeping Gas", "Bouncing Babies" and thecurrent "Treason".
The singles chart the group's developmentfrom the intense Pere Ubu and Fall -influenced

PAUL SIMPSON'S EXIT indirectly helped Teardrop findtheir feet musically, but it also left them with a problem.
Without his billowing keyboards, their sound was reduced
to a sparse skeleton of its former grandeur with no real flesh on
the framework of Julian's loping bass and Mick's scratchy guitar.
It was obvious that the three-piece lineup needed augmenting
and Zoo co -director Dave Balfe, formerly the Big In Japan
organist, was called in on keyboards at short notice as the band
landed a useful support position on a Patrick Fitzgerald tour run
by independent promoters Final Solution.
A year on, he is still playing stand-in keyboards in the group. They
did find another organist a couple of months back but he onlylasted
five gigs before an SOS was relayed to Balfe, who immediately
returned. Though still not a full-time Teardrop, Balfe is beginningto look more and more of a permanent fixture and his hands will bebehind the keyboard when the group go into Rockfield studios later
this month to begin work on their debut album.
Mick attempts to outline exactly what Balfe'srole entails.
"The way it works is that we write the songs
in rehearsals and he comes in later and puts
a keyboard line over them. The songs are allmore or less written by the time he comes in,which is why he doesn't get songwritingcredits. He just helps us to arrange themreally. But it is good to have someone outside
the band arranging the stuff, 'cos he can be
more objective."
Outside help, adds Mick, was partly behindthe success of "Treason". Whereas the first two
singles were produced by the Zoo team of Balfeand Bill Drummond -AKAThe Chameleons ofLori And The Chameleons fame -Clive Langer
was at the control for "Treason".
In addition to producing the song, Langer completely rearranged theinsidious "Until you realise... it'sjust a story" chorus, making drastic
improvements- originally the chorus came in only at the end of the song.
The move paid handsome dividends: the single has been the mostsuccessful Zoo release to date, shifting an impressive 16,000 copies in thefirst week of release, almost all of them, regrettably, well away from thechart return shops.
But "Treason", a song about unease, does stand out as genuine proof of
the group's lyrical strengths and sensitivity. Julian Cope, as the principal
vocalist, is responsible for all the song words and he writes from anintensely personal viewpoint, eschewing political or social comment at
the expense of vivid thumbnail sketches of the vagaries of humanrelationships -love songs, basically.
Surprisingly, both Mick and Gary seem happy enough to allow theirsinger to be the sole songwriting mouthpiece.
"Julian sings the songs, so he writes them all," shrugs Mick. "What he issinging is personal to him, so there's noway I'm going to go up to him andsay he shouldn't sing this or that. That would be stupid. It's a personal
thing to him. But that's OK, 'cos he's only speaking for himself. If he weremaking general statements, then he would be speaking on behalf of thegroup as a whole, which I wouldn't want. As long as he keeps the songs
personal, it's fair enough. *"The songs are
all more orless written by
the time Davecomes in"outfit of the early days to the eloquent, funky
pop of the present; from the disturbing,
psychotic shades of "Sleeping Gas" to the economic slickness andmajestic hooks of "Treason".
Over the past year Teardrop have willingly sacrificed some of their earlyand sinister eeriness in favour of a more basic rock approach. They havegrown simultaneously more direct and more soulful in their musicalattack. The distinct change in emphasis can be traced partly to thedeparture last summer of organist Simpson, as Julian admits.
"Paul couldn't really play that well, but he was a real white -noise
merchant and a lot of the early songs were definitely his type of stuff.
But once he left, we went in a different direction with a lot more form to
the music.
"It was only after 'Bouncing Babies' [the second single, released last July
shortly after Simpson left] that we really began to find ourselves. Until
then, we never really knew how a song worked. But after that we started
to get a lot more structured. We started to realise that things like middle eights and choruses were vital!
"I hate the idea that some people think of us as a band without any realhuman element. I want to have loads of passion in our stuff. That's thereason that I really like people like Scott Walker. There's a lot of soul inhis stuff.
"It's the same with someone like Robert Wyatt. Everybody thinks of him
as a really cold person 'cos he used to write very heavy songs, but they
were also very touching. You'd end up in tears listening to them."

HISTORY OF ROCK 1980 131

1980"It's like if you were to ask us about our political beliefs. We could tell
you our political beliefs, but it would be irrelevant to the band. Julian
doesn't sing about politics, 'cos he's got his own personal political beliefs
and I'm not having him represent my political beliefs on stage. They could
be completely different.
"Julian has got a completely free hand to say whatever he likes, as longas he doesn't make statements on behalf of the band."Sounds suspiciously like one almighty cop-out to me. But the group's
vocalist justifies his strictly personal lyrics from another, more likely
angle. Over to you, Ju.
"I don't think it's a cop-out. I don't agree with the David Byrne way ofwriting songs where you can write an anti -love song and then defend it bysaying that you're just writing from an anti -love point of view. I think thatwhatever a person sings is taken to be what they believe. You could be
advocating violence, singing, 'I'm a Nazi I I'm gonna jackboot on yourhead', and then argue that you've only been writing from a violent pointof view. That would be the cop-out!"
But surely you can simply express an honest viewpoint, regardless ofa persona.
"I suppose so," concedes the singer. "But I don't think of the lyrics as
being a real cop-out simply 'cos I'm not sure what I actually do believe ina lot of the time. I'm still forming my ideas on a lot of things. Like whether
we should send athletes to the Olympics. At one point ! really thought weshould stop them from going, but then I saw someone on TVwho put the
opposite argument and ! changed my mind just because of that!
"If I could change my opinion 'cos of something like that, then I don't
want to put myself in any sort of God position in any of the songs."

LIKE PENETRATION AND Buzzcocks in '78 and Joy Division

last year, Teardrop have benefited immensely from being
allowed to develop at their own pace, well away from thecramping commercial pressures of the London music -biz vortex.
The same has applied to their compatriots the Bunnymen and theentire Zoo operation, whose colourful, impressive progress has gone
hand in hand with the sturdy growth of Teardrop.
Mick puts it down to the fact that everyone involved took the band
seriously right from the off, taking time to rope in the right people andgenerally make the right moves at the right time. Julian begs to differ,
inferring that their steady, un-hyped growth was less conscious. It justhappened that way.
"It was just a natural process where you took time to get your ideas
sorted out. It's the same with someone like Joy Division. If they'd become
With Mick Finkler's
short-lived replacementon guitar Alan Gill(left),
who introducedJulian
Co pe to ac id andco -wrote theband's

biggest hit."Reward-

52 I HISTORY or ROCK

well known earlier, they would have probably disappeared by now. Ian
Curtis needed those two years to sort things out. If we'd done an album atthe same time as 'Sleeping Gas' came out, I'd be cringing over it now.
There's only a couple of songs that we were doing then that still stand up
now. We're much more powerful now. There's a lot more spark to it."
Of course, they have still had to contend with the periodic bouts of blind
prejudice along the way. Recently a lot of people have written them off as
Talking Heads imitators, a comparison, incidentally, which Mick
happens to find quite flattering. If parallels have to be drawn, though, theclosest thing to Teardrop is probably the Subway Sect of the "Ambition"
single, although Teardrop are rapidly maturing into the lithe, elegant pop
group the Subways never quite became. Julian Cope, interestingly
enough, admits to a strong Vic Goddard influence in his songwriting.
Still, the preconceptions of a large percentage of their audience does
give Teardrop something to fight against, something to prove.
As Mick reflects, "It's great to see the reaction of someone who is seeing
us for the first time. There's so many people who simply don't expect us tobe the way we are."As far as I'm concerned there are only two types of music when it comes
down to it- good and bad. As to which camp Teardrop belong in, well,that's up to you. Just ensure that it is your own open mind that makes thedecision for you. Adrian Thrills
MELODY MAKER OCTOBER 25-

SOONER OR LATER it had to happen. The painfully predictable

way in which rock scenarios repeat themselves certainly belies
the once optimistic image of a dangerous, freewheeling medium
constantly expanding like some parallel universe journeying todimensions never seen or heard before.
A thriving primal musical milieu began to flower on Mathew Street,
Liverpool, circa 1977. From the ego -shattered breakdown of theportentously named Crucial Three- a band that never made it out of
the sitting room, let alone the garage- crawled Ian "Mac" McCulloch(Echo And The Bunnymen), Pete Wylie (Wah! Heat) and Julian Cope
(Teardrop Explodes).
The bands' early singles on Zoo and Inevitable were acclaimed and it
dawned that here was another much -needed opportunity to write on
and help manufacture a phenomenon -The Liverpool Scene, The New
Merseybeat, and so the labels linger on. Once the buzz had filtered onto
the discreet pages of the Sunday glossies, there came a need for the final
ingredient: a ritual sacrifice.

THE TEARDROP EXPLODESThe Teardrops released their debut album
Kilimanjaro, which embraced pop in preference totheir formative experimentation. It also included
their past singles and, although excellent in parts,
veered towards the bland byvirtue of its uniformity.
It was a golden opportunity for the big put-down. The
knives were drawn and suddenly it's et tu, buddy.
Couple this with Julian Cope's propensity tounashamedly air the band's internal andexternal rivalries like the dirty washing from thenorth-west's other soapbox fantasy, Coronation
Street, and you find an incestuously inward looking ménage a trois that looks like imploding
under the weight of its own negativities.
While the critical backlash aimed at theTeardrops' debut album, flawed as it is, seems
more than a little unfair, the way the Teardrops
have become the eye of a bitchy whirlwind of
jealousies, slander and cynical asides is hardly
surprising when you realise that the band isfuelled on in -fighting and hatred.
"Yes, I must say I don't like Dave. He gets

"I don't likebitching, but
Mick hadreally got
complacent"a pretty dubious character sometimes."
This is Julian Cope talking about his keyboard player and producer
Dave Balfe, a man who frequentlyworks with great effect with theother great Zoo controller Bill Drummond under the collective title of
The Chameleons.
"He just plays a good role in the band that's all," he continues, "but
we often fight, and I mean physically. I usually win because he's a bit ofa wimp. Not that I'm a fighting person, though."
Speaking as if he'd just snorted an entire week's supply of speed, theTeardrops' mainman continued his explanation on polemics as a means
to creativity in the romantic setting of the Ali Kebab House somewhere
near their North London rehearsal studios.
"Dave is just one of the most extreme characters I've ever met.
Sometimes he gets me so knotted up inside... but then again that's good,
because it keeps me pushing; you know, right there."
Hardly the kind of thing you expect from a man who writes
predominantly love songs, and very good ones too, and confesses to along -running affair with the metaphysical poets like Donne and Marvell.
Turning momentarily from aggression to what he calls the "alternative
society" of Liverpool, he had this to say: "It's become the hip thing to denythat there's a Liverpool scene, but there is. It hasn't been exaggerated by
the press, in fact. It is a very cliquey place, very insular. We all meet in thesame places and despise each other jokingly. One thing, though -there's
certainly not a Liverpool sound."
As if to amplify this point he goes on to point out that he considers
the Bunnymen to have become too dirge -like -"They've lost their
original fragility" -and Wah! Heat are accused of being "too heavy

and ponderous".
How, then, does he see the Teardrops' music?
"I think we're very poppy. To me pop is somethingyou hum. What
I'm trying to do is strike a balance between triteness and greatness.
People nowadays seem too embarrassed to show emotion, which iswhat I want."
Much of the emotion on the album revolves, not unnaturally, aroundgirls, apart from occasional tracks like "Went Crazy" and "Books". The
latter is the only song without the lyric printed on the inner sleeve, andit's not without significance that it was written with former partner
Mac McCulloch.
"Mac and I just don't talk any more," he says with the same gung-ho
enthusiasm and intensity he applies to every utterance. "It's basicallybecause Mac and I have such bad, bad vibes between us at the moment.
I really thought !would have to ask him if I was going to write it down,because really it's a half-and-half lyric, and I just didn't want to ask him.
"He's got this thing about there being a sanctity of songs, but ! don't see
why you can't do songs anyway. I'm sure he probably thinks it's the worst
arrangement he's ever heard, but the number -one thing is the humour,that's what's important.
"The thing about Mac and I is that there's something totally muchheavier behind it all that's not to do with the band."Sounds very mysterious. Could this something be connected with a girl,I tentatively enquire?

"Yeah, that's it," he replies with a sagely nod. Just to
add to the mounting "family" intrigue, I ask Mac,
who I coincidentally see later that night, what his
explanation for the Mersey cold war is. Who is thislatter-dayversion ofYoko Ono?
"I can't imagine why he told you that," is his
perplexed response. "I fell out with Julian over thesacking of Mick... He actually told you that,
did he?"Whatever the reason for the wall of silence,
one thing is definitely fact -at the end of theTeardrops' spring tour this year, Julian sacked
his friend, guitarist Mick Finkler, from the band.
Alan Gill was brought in as a replacement andJulian was quickly condemned to the role ofunmerciful tyrant.
Listening to him enthuse over music andbearing in mind his monomaniac's sense of
purpose and perfection -he plans to havesinging lessons for a voice that's already oneof the most accomplished in rock- it's not
hard to buy his account of this remarkably
loaded episode.
"This whole thing just freaks me out because... what happened was
we sacked Mick and everybody seems to think that because I was
the instigator that I'm this big, evil dictator from Liverpool, which isjust stupid.
"Obviously, if you've got a guitarist you're not happywith, you get ridof him. You're not running the band to make everyone happy; you're
running it to make it as good as possible.""I mean, this isn't meant to be a bitch, because I don't like bitching like
that, but Mick to me had got really complacent. There was no fire in what
he wanted to do. Mick just wasn't bothered about pushing at all. I thought,'What's more important, the friendship or the band?' And when it came
down to it I realised the band was the most important."
Whatever the reasons, it was an event that left bitter feelings on manysides, though it would seem that acrimony is something the band isbecoming well versed in.
Like their friends/enemies (you choose) the Bunnymen, they received
more than their share of flak for signingwith a big label rather than an
independent. Julian's answer to those "rootsier than thou" critics istypically uncompromising and pragmatic.
"Oh, that's all shit... I don't think there's anything called selling out
these days. We recorded the album first and then took it to Phonogram.
There was never any doubt I always wanted us to go with a big label."

BYTHROWING IN their lot with Phonogram they will also havethe financial backing to make their current Daktari tour morethan just a slog round the halls promoting the album.
Eschewing camo chic -"We're heavily into army gear; I've got 17 pairsof army pants all hanging up and we've even got ajeep" - in favour of
nouveau naturalism- "Our backdrop is like a huge zebra skin" - the band
will also be using the unusually talented road crew that helped make the
Bunnymen tour so visually powerful.
As the consciously Love -inspired horn section is central to the album's
ambience, there will be two trumpet players on stage with the band.
"We've only just started rehearsing with them, but things are going very
well. It should be a great tour, I'm really looking forward to it... I just hope
we all get better, 'cos we've all got colds and things at the moment."
It seems a crucial tour in manyways. The white light seems to be
shining on them harder than at any other time in their history.
After raising so many hopes, they've committed the fatal sin of
disappointing the self-righteous upholders of street credibility, not tomention one particular rock journalist currently conducting a personal
campaign of character assassination in their hometown.
You might like to have known what the other members of the band
thought about this tale of back -stabbing and tribal warfare, butaccording to the garrulous Julian there was no point asking them.
"I usually do the interviews because I'm the only one with anything tosay really. Like Alan just spends most of his time thinking, and Gary [theband's drummer] never says anything. I can usually speak for thembetter. Dave would just start pissing you off. It sounds like a really horrible
band, doesn't it?" Ian Pye
HISTORY OF ROCK 1980 153

1980

APRIL - SOI

it's peculiar, then,that Richards' one, by
now obligatory, solovehicle, "All About
You", should be thewispy, quavery thingthat it is, in therecognisable mould of"You Got The Silver"- his broken voice
makes him appear
much more vulnerable
than Jagger, despitea snarling line like
"I'm sick and tired of

hangin'around withdogs like you". But

June26.1980:
the Stones launch
EmotionalRescue
at Danceteria in-

New YoriCity

ALBUMSThe Rolling Stones
ROLLING STONESEver since he turned 30, Mick
Jagger (aged 37) has been
regularly asked when the Rolling
Stones are going to knock it on
the head. It's a question seldom
asked of, say, Paul McCartney(38), Roger Waters (35) or even
Chuck Berry (48).
The public's idee fixe of theStones as ageing enfants
terribles is a problem Jagger
seems slyly to acknowledge on"Dance", the first track of
EmotionalRescue, when he sings:"I think the time's come to getup.
get out - out into something new."
The joke, of course - which is
implicit in the sheer bounce ofthe music - is that the Stones
patently have no intention of
doing any such thing.
Emotional Rescue is largely afamiliar mixture of affectionate
disrespect -for the music ofcountry, blues, reggae and otherrock ingredients - and thepersonal affectations of Jagger,
who at one moment is assuming
a cod Spanish accent (-IndianGirl") and at another a Barry

Gibb falsetto (the title track).
Like, I suspect, many otherlong-time Stones' fans, I no
longer have great expectationsof their records. There wereseveral good things on BlackAnd Blue ("Hand Of Fate","Memory Motel") and a half
dozen on Some Girls, their best
album since Exile On Main Street
54 ; HISTORY OF ROCK 1980

in 1972. But having

become hostages
to their own
celebrity, lacking
genuine rapport (and,therefore, social context)
with a young audience thatmistrusts showbiz -type stars, theStones now make music whose
overall mood is playful andironic where once its effectwas urgent and cutting; it's anawful long way from "Gimme
Shelter" to "Indian Girl- andJagger, backed by Tijuana Brass
horns arranged by Jack Nitzsche(or should it be Kitsche?),singing in his fake peon voiceof revolution in Nicaragua("Mr Gringo, my father, he ain't
no Che Guevara...").
Along this way lies parody, notmerely pastiche; just as "Where
The Boys Go", an admittedly droll
tale of a cockney roustabout sung by Jagger as though hewere Jimmy Pursey - shows themtrying to take off punk (actually,
it's not fast enough).
In fact, theemphasis of theStones' current
music is to be foundin Jagger's stance:
his nous for what is
fashionable (surely
the impulse behindSome Girls' disco -style classic "MissYou", his throwaway
humour and adumbness thatcomes acrossvirtually as camp.

On "Send It
To Me" heimportunes
for love or formoney over aspoof reggae track;with the title song - thedumbest Stones number since"Fool To Cry" - he switches
falsetto to spoken voice so as
deathlessly to mug the phrase"/ will be your knight in shining
armour coming to your emotional
rescue" (hilarious): and on"She's So Cold", which has agreat Rockin' Rebels ("Wild
Weekend") intro and otherrhythmic excitement, he singsand acts as if he were hugging
himself while locked inside a
refrigerating room.
It must be said that, arresting
though all this may be, it doesn't
add up to the Stones' highest
endeavour.
Usually it's claimed that therootsiness in the playing of Keith
Richards and the rhythm section
gives the Stones their tension;

this general belief
about the Stones
gains credence fromfour of the five best
tracks on Emotional
Rescue (the fifth is"She's So Cold").
"Dance", with its
suggestion of
Zeppelin's riff
on "Trampled
Underfoot", its
Bobby Keys horns
and Latin echoes (percussion by
Mike Shrieve), swaggers fromstart to finish and is completed
by Jagger's declamatory vocal:"Hey, what am Idoin'standin'
here on the corner of West 8thStreet and 6th Avenue?""Let Me Go" is almost
rockabilly. propelled by a modern
country rhythm, while "Summer
Romance", a likeably banal tale ofcallow teen love perhaps inspiredby Cochran's "Summertime
Blues-, has the lick -spittle pace of"When The Whip Comes Down".
Finally, "Down In The Hole" isa slow, hard -luck blues, gilded
by Sugar Blue's harp, that theStones might have done at theoutset of their career; its illicit air
is neatly summed up by Jagger
singing of girls "bumming fornylons in the American Zone".
On tracks such as these theStones allay doubts about their
good health, and, to use an idiom
from Jagger's favourite sport,
five out of to tracks is areasonable batting average. Yet
it's inescapable that theyrarely approach the driveor brio of the best newer
bands, like Graham
Parker's or Costello's.
Like Chuck Berry, theirearly mentor, they've
become an institution
which one may either rail
against or draw comfort
from. Keeping the ghosts
and the critics at bay
may yet occupy themfor years to come.
Michael Watts, MM Jun 28

militaristic drums
are frequently
offset by eerily
delicate marimba

May11,1980:
The Cure's

Robert Smithat the Rainbow,
North London

tracery) to no holds -barred, filmic
panorama. Muchof the credit
here must go to
producer Steve
Lillywhite
who hasPeter Gabriel
CHARISMA

It's a case of new skin or oldceremonies. Peter Gabrielleft Genesis way back whenbecause he felt dangerously
stifled. He needed to undergo
all sorts of personality changes
in order to regenerate himself.
The "Solsbury Hill" single
kept him solvent while thefirst two solo albums not only
gave him the room to breatheand experiment again but alsobuild up the kind of cultfollowing that does wonders
for the morale.
The tactic worked perfectly.
He has now become one ofthose rejuvenated, cultural
yardsticks who sidestep
Sanatogen through anindividually astute use of"modern" strategies. Like
Bowie, Eno and Fripp, hehas cropped his hair,incorporated hi -tech into live
performances and developed
an image that is both discreetly
subversive and constantly
self-questioning. This third
outing can only consolidate
the process of rebirth: it's themost confident distillation of
his technique to date
All the familiar trademarks
are here but now expressedwith a mature, full-blooded
conviction. Lyrically, thereis that fierce concern withemotional disorder andpolitical injustice.
Virtually every cut explores
a distorted, emotional statein either a shorn narrative(like "Biko", which rightfully
rails against a regime that
advocates apartheid, and"Family Snapshot", which
details President Kennedy's
assassination) or in oblique
symbolism (like the mega -hit
"Games Without Frontiers")
where the images makesense intuitively rather
than rationally.
Musically, every cut is sharply
orchestrated, underlining thefulsome drama of the words.
They shift from a sparse,
strident pulse (where thecreateda magnificently
textured, diamond sharp sound.
An album that willgrow and resonate
with every spin.
Inn Birch, MM Jun 14

Skids

VIRGIN

This Skids' reissue is all aboutclassy repackaging, using a

supposedly better mix (forCanada release) as a pretext
for a new, tamer sleeve. Critics,
who originally abused thealbum's neo-Nazi infatuation
with war -like supermen,
wouldn't have paid as muchattention to Jobson's garbled
recycling of politicalsloganeering and Victor boys'
comic heroics if the1936 Berlin
Olympic -styled cover hadn't
made his sentiments so clear
in the first place.
The remix itself, byBruce Fairbairn, makes
little noticeable difference,
the major change being
the inclusion of the single"Masquerade" at the expenseof "Pros And Cons". Otherwise,
still the same offensive wolf,
but now in sheep's clothing.
Chris Bohn. MM Apr 12

The Slits
Y/ROUGH TRADE

Collector's Corner: by making
public a selection of private
doodlings and prototype
demos, The Slits presupposed
an interest in themselves thatonce would have been satisfied
by bootleggers.
A plain white cover housesa record with no discernible
title or proper track listing,containing pre -reggae,
dawn -of -enlightenment Slits.
Their early sloppy charm isrepresented here by raging
metallic outbursts, acoustic
rants ("Not Enemy"),potty instrumentals andthe primal "Bongos On The
Lawn". Crudely recorded, it
makes diverse if incoherent
listening, for close friends
and eavesdroppers only.
Chris Bohn, Mfr. Apr 12

SINGLES
Cabaret Voltaire
ROUGH TRADE

Unusuallydirect, CV have th stime pared down their hypnotic
drone music to emphasise themantric qualities of an insistently
repetitive beat, heard best on
the great, compulsive "Western
Mantra"- tautly disciplined andsensibly embellished - while"Eastern Mantra" is bleaker,
though it colourfully blends
taped Jerusalem market noises
with monotone mutterings tomesmerising effect, achieved
mainly by its extraordinarylength. MMApr5
Blondie

CHRYSALIS

Excellent Moroder-produced
single praised here a few weeks
back as an import. It's now on
general release. MMApr5
Judas Priest

Surprisingly harmless HMnightlife celebration - not to
say toothless. A less obnoxious
sample of the Priest repertoire.
MMApr51111111.111111aM MOM= ININala

The Cure

Unfortunately tagged asnaively witty suburbanites byadmirers, and precocious
darlings by detractors, The
Cure's severe growth
problems werelargely caused byunwarranted
heavy attention/

early on.

f.

Consequently,
writer Robert
Smith's ability
to construct

I

'

*3a

fleetingly
mysterious andn non r.I.P.11nnsa
highly evocative
scenarios went
uncredited, as critics triedinstead to pinpoint the bandsociologically. "A Forest" isa good example, which getsbetter with age: Smith's dry,lost vocal tells of an unsettled
individual listening out for a
strange guiding voice, while
the band play an attractively
doomy tune, enhance byreticent drums and carefully
folded -in keyboards lines.
Nice, vaguely psychedelic
production, too. MMApr5

HISTORY OF ROCK 1980 I 55

APR

SO

1980

"We should-"1

JUNE 28 -people"antagonise
A possible psychedelic
revival is on. but ECHO &THE BUNNYMEN want toof her something more
substantial, outside of
fashion. "We want to do

things that are valid,"
says Ian McCulloch,"good songs, that meansomething sincere;
But ego's always athe back of it

HERE WE GO round again. There's a word in
the back of some people's minds these days.
Now and then events bring it to the tip of their
tongues, where the sour taste causes it to be
swallowed back down or else spat out whole
like a lump of phlegm from the subconscious.
Onceout, it assumes its own horrendous proportions, hanging
in the air, sliding down the wall, slithering across the floor...
causing feelings of embarrassment, confusion, trepidation andhelpless resignation. But this nausea soon passes, and then theworst thing of all happens: the word begins to make sense. It fits.
It's time to get psychedelic.
This isn't the cue to start another stupid tribe, thoughsomeone's bound to try. And it doesn't mean another dead teen
sub -cult has risen again to join the zombiesalready traipsingaround Limboland, though again it could happen. Beyond theobvious, beyond the sheer historical imperat ive of a long -feared
hippy revival, there is an odd glimmer. Behind the enormousEcho And The

Bunnymen:(I-r)
Les Pattinson,
Will Sergeant,Pete De Freitas
and lan McCulloch

1980
APRIL-JpNE

r

dilJanuary 17,1981, Pavilion

Gardens, Buxton,
Derbyshire: clouds of dry
ice and upwards -pointing
stage lig hts render theband "in silhouette, like thealiens in Close Encounters

Suddenly all sorts of hoary old concepts attach
themselves as if someone had switched on anelectromagnet. These bands are underground,for instance, because they don't have hits; theymean nothing to the kind of person who buys
Costello and Pretenders albums, and very little
to buyers of Specials and Vapors singles. They
are progressive in that they try to bend the oldmusical forms or invent new ones. Perhaps theyeven like to jam on the quiet.
Oh Gawd! Suddenly I dread the consequencesof this. Extending the boundaries of music,"A lot ofpeople say it's

they pass some friends at a set of traffic lights. One of them flashes a peace
sign at the occupants of the van. It's a joke.

The Bunnymen squirm in their seats.
"I told you the psychedelic revival is on," says Ian McCulloch, who must
be used to these annoying little jibes. He scratches his head wearily,
making his hair look even more dishevelled than it did a moment ago.
"It certainly is in our area. But I haven't got a ny st rong memories of that
period at all. We never got into it; we were all too young anyway. The only
records I can remember from that time were the cliched ones like Scott
58 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1980

FrHE BUNNYMEN CAME into being
about two years ago; part of the welterof groups who had heard events in
London calling. Echo was the name of theirtape recorder, recently replaced by a real
drum kit. Real drummers are in short supply
in Liverpool, but the Bunnymen found PeteDe Freitas, who was about to go to university
but was glad to have a good reason not to.
His recruitment wrought a change from thethin, haunting, resonant semi -acoustic sound of
their first Zoo single, "The Pictures On My Wall", tofluid electric -rock overdrive with plenty of vitality
and few inhibitions.
Will Sergeant and Les Pattinson, guitar and bass
respectively, allow Ian McCulloch the prominentrole on stage and off. It was he who first pulled thegroup together; it is he who gives it its most marked
characteristics. On the evidence of a gig at London's
Lyceum some months past, I expected to find him
full of pompous conceits, such was the contempt
he sullenly displayed when the Bunnymen were
offered to the culturati as a little morsel of things
to come, alongside Teardrop, Manicured Noise,
A Certain Ratio and the often ludicrous Psychedelic Furs.
Apart from beating the Furs at their own billing, the Bunnymen
turned in such an arrogant, moody, disdainful and almost fearsome
performance that I had to find out if they really thought theywere as
good as they actually were that night. So, here we are in a prefabricatedpoly -vinyl seafront cafeteria at Southport that The Bunnymen haveinexplicably chosen as the venue for the afternoon, about to find out.
Ian, wearing an angst -ridden old overcoat with his shirt buttoned to the
top against the chill existential winds -attesting to the fact that he's seen
The Man Who Fell To Earth six times- scratches his head fora moment or
two before explaining what was going through it on the Lyceum stage...
"I was fed up with all these... um... hard groups knocking around like
The Psychedelic Furs and even Joy Division, that I just felt were shallow.

postmodernist.
What is that?
It doesn't exist"

exploring the frontiers of the mind, and othersuch nonsense... It's not all Martin Han nett's
fault either, because not all of these bands have
had records produced by him, although it helps.
Look, pretend you never read this. It wasn't real,
it was just a momentary nightmare flashback,it'll pass. Pretend that names like The Teardrop
Explodes and Echo And The Bunnymen don't recall
the time when groups had names I ike The Grateful
Dead or LotharAnd The Hand People. It's such apat, easy, obvious comparison to draw.
Pretend that Echo And The Bunnymen don't
make the sort of sound you'd expect to find on a
13th Floor Elevators album. They've never evenheard of them. They like the Velvets, sure, but thewhat Floor Elevators? Echo And The Bunnymen
are just a promising new group from the north ofEngland, that's allies not their fault that people try to squeeze them into
absurd theoretical clothes.
And look what they have to put up with because of it... Driving throughLiverpool in the obligatory run-down Transit on their way to Southport,

McKenzie rather than the heavy psychedelic
things, which I still haven't heard."
What about drugs; done a lot of them?
"Er... I get drunk occasionally."

ECHO & THE BUNNYMEN

I even quoted lines from other people's songs. It was just frustration, I
suppose. People are told what to like a lot of the time, and I quoted from
Joy Division, a band whom people are told to like. That audience wasreally... what's the word? Theyweren't really reacting at all. Perhaps it
was our fault, but I think it was something in the audience there, a cool
aspect. I quoted Joy Division because if they'd been up there, playing a
bad set, they'd have got the reaction that nobody else got.
"It was supposed to be some sort of hip bill of bands, and I hate that kindof thing. We tried to shock them out of that in a way, by going on andplaying pretty st raight-ahead rockwithout the airs. The Psychedelic Furs
are quite straight -ahead, but they try and cover it up with certain poses.
I mean if that's psychedelic...
"People who like us normally didn't like us that night, but I thought
we were miles better. We could've played safe but we didn't. I did see
something then... that perhaps we should be doing something likeantagonising people."
Will has been looking increasingly bemused. "I dunno," he says. "I
wasn't into it at all. Mind you, I didn't even know what was happening
with the audience. I had sunglasses on.""Yeah, but you didn't like it on a playing level. There's more to playing
live than just getting the notes right and everything. What annoyed me
about the Lyceum thing was that there were a lot of real idiots there who
were trying to feel like theyweren't idiots, they were in on something.
They're not in on it. There's nothing to be in on.
"A lot of people say it's postmodern ist. What is that? It doesn't exist.
It's just a tag, and that's what the whole night was about. Categories."
Les decides to interrupt this diatribe: "Categories are inevitable, but you
can fight back. Wait till our new ska single comes out!""If people come along expecting something," continues Ian, "it'sperfectly OK to use things like arrogance to tell them you're not thatthing... the Liverpool thing, for instance. All these wacky bands. There's
nobodywacky in Liverpool. It's no more wacky than anywhere else."
The word is actually quirky, but the point is the same. I bet there aretimes when Echo And The Bunnymen wish they'd called themselves
something else. Incidentally, since Ian mentioned Joy Division, it ought
to be pointed out that the two groups do have a lot in common. And thistime it isn't Martin Hannett. It's Iggy Pop.

HE MUZAK IN the cafeteria is slowly sending everyone to sleep.
At least I hope it was the muzak. It might have been the drowsy
off-season resort town instilling itself into its visitors, or the
dutiful recollection of past exploits, such as the fact that Les used to bea boat -builder, while Will was a cook and Ian was on the dole. And thefact that they're all about 20 and this is their first group. These andother faint incidental details add to the mounting torpor.
Time to get serious. What's your motivation, what does it all mean?
"I don't know," replies Ian. "It gets harder as we go along to be motivated."
Oh. Where is the fun in it, then?
"There is no fun in it," says Will. "Anyway, we'll all be in the army soon."
Ian misses this joke because he's been gazing thoughtfully at nothing at
all. Suddenly he mutters a single word...
"Ego. Yeah... ego. It's all kinda gratifying your ego. We want to do things
that are valid; good songs, that mean something sincere. But ego's always
at the back of it."
There you have it! This question has been asked ina lot of different ways of a lot of different people and
Ian McCulloch has just given it the straightest answer
it's ever had. He wasn't being particularly ironic, nor
was he apologising. Just giving an honest answer.
There's no message, no crusade, no need to tell you
what's wrong with your life, no burning purpose...
Being in a group is a good way to travel andexperience things, thinks Ian. And Will?
"This tour we're doing now; I'm hoping that by theend of it I'll like playing live, and I'll feel less tense onstage. That's about the only thing I'm hoping for.""Sometimes," says Ian, "you go on stage and you feelthat you have got something to say, and you wantthem to listen and understand, but other times you
just want to be great at what you do, whatever it is, butthat doesn't mean you have to have a mission or amessage of some sort. Although we do analyse what
we do, and we think, a lot of the time, that it's not that

good. Our egos aren't big enough to disregard self-criticism... I've got togo fora piss."
Ian gets up from the table; I turn to Will and ask if he agrees with all
that's been said.
"I think all this arrogance business that you two were talking about
earlier is a load of crap!"
The silence that follows this declaration is so pregnant that someone
should really get up and offer it a seat.
"I like quirky groups, basically."
So do I. Paul Rambali- MELODY MAKER OCTOBER 18 rs NOT JUST the first chill winds of winter that make Essex seemso cold. The Echo And The Bun nymen show- "I hate the word gig,
but there's really not many substitutes," says unassuming guitarist
Will Sergeant- is inside the bowels of the nightmare conglomerationof steel, glass and concrete that is the county's university.
With glowing high-rise blocks and supermarkets, it's a complete living
complex in itself, like Godard'sAlphaville, which means the journey
there could be through the outer limits of hyperspace and on into theeerie labyrinths.
Space travel is something very close to Will Sergeant's inculpable heart.
When a travelling businessman watching another channel prevents him

1from seeing Kate Bush on the tube, he rushes off to get his collection ofStar Rek novels and, the most treasured possession next to his Telecaster,an Enterprise manual.
"I think it was just great, you know, the programme. Look at this," hemurmurs with customary reserve, "it even tells you how to play threedimensional chess."
Thick -layered drapes of ca mouflaged (camo) netting cover the stage
and the fierce angles of the uni's main hall, to form a long, ragged tunnel
within which the band play. Camo is the mythic clothing adopted by theentire entourage for this tour. It's a concept that's evolved rather thancontrived and serves as an outward expression for the inspiration,
dedication and sense of common destiny that binds this loveable legionof charlies together. Certainly there seems to be something in the air on
this tour -a flickering magic that grows from the knowledge that you're
involved in something frighteningly exciting.
As well as camo, an exclusive terminology has emerged in keeping withthe spirit of discovery: Weird = good, dude = stiff, scummy = bad, andgame of tennis = sex.
Any new town is judged by the quality of its camo shop, the availabilityof good charcoal -cooked burgers and the state of play on the tennis court.
Isn't it dangerous, though, to flirt with military images in such times ofstudied fear and conservatism?
"Well, I think it's just good fun really," Will counters with a half sm ile.
"Les and I wanted to wear our cowboy gear, but the others laughed at us,
you know."
In reality, everyone concerned seems to have thought about all the
implications.
"This isn't militaristic in the strict sense of the term," explains artist androadie Kit Edwards. "It functions on so many different levels. On one it's *November 1980:
Ian McCulloch on
air at a Dutch radio

station between
gigs in A pe Id oor n .

Amsterdam andRotterdam

i
i''

1980
APRIE-

JANE

undermining a heavy institution like the Kelly's Heroes line; it also
contributes to a feel of being underground or separate, and it gives thewhole tour an aesthetic continuity."
Well, yes. In other words, coupled with the lights and other stage
devices, it looks dazzlingly impressive.
Somehow Bill Butt, an extraordinarily gifted lightsman with afor rebirth" technique, to produce the most sympathetic setting fora rockband I have ever seen.
Using a huge commercial fan at the end of the camo tunnel, the crew
led by Harry DeMac can suddenly push out blankets of white smoke that,
coupled with heavenly -pointing lights, leave the band in silhouette likethe aliens in Close Encounters, crossed with a matrix of light shafts.
background in the theatre and a partnership with manager/producer
It's stunning. Everything comes off with a professional artistry, always
Bill Drummond, has wed the gothic doom and epic splendour ofin perfect synch with the music, which has at last come near to reaching
Coppola'sApocalypse Nowwith Spielberg's "white light as a metaphor
its live potential. Despite a cold, Ian "Mac" McCulloch's voice stillreached the ethereal peaks of the album,
while Will's understanding ofelectronic sound (this is his firstband) can be sublime on either
NME JUL 12
attack or reflection.
Li"
Les Pattinson's basslines are
becoming thunderous in places,
KOROVA
Echo And The Bunnymen
Morrison and Iggy Pop inalways original and cleverly at
The transformation of Echo And The
McCulloch's voice, shreds ofvariance with the twin guitars
Bunnymen from appealing but erratic
Wilko Johnson in the crosscut
that look for anchorage in Pete De
beatniks of a year ago to the dynamic modern
riffing of Sergeant on the title
Freitas' rushing drums. Never haverock group of today has been little short of
track and aspects of Talking Heads
they played so well as a single unit, andremarkable. It has been a painless change ofin "Rescue", while the chilling organ
at their best are capable of awe-inspiring,style but one in which the effects could hardly
melody on the revamped "Pictures On My
shimmering, magical, warp -factor -10 rock.

No imitation skin

be more marked. The haunting semi -acoustic
strains of their original Zoo 45"Pictures On
My Wall" are a far cry indeed from the hard,vigorous funk of the recent "Rescue" single.
If "Rescue" hinted broadly at the shift that
had taken place, then Crocodiles, the debut
album, confirms it in the most gratifying
manner. There truly is a different kind oftension at work now. So what is it all down to?
Well, on the most basic level, therecruitment of drummer Pete De Freitas inplace of the drum machine "Echo" thatformerly provided the rhythmic backdrop has
toughened up the sound considerably, giving
things a solid and imaginative root.
But there is more to it than that. Singer
Ian McCulloch's gruff voice has matured
magnificently, so that every song is now
infested with a rare soul and intensity. In
common with all great rock'n'roll from
Springsteen to the Sex Pistols, the Bunnymen
now sound hungry, and a lot of that hunger canbe traced back to the sense of desperation
and urgency in McCulloch's vocals.
If McCulloch and De Freitas give the
Bunnymen the essence of their new-foundstrength, then the embellishments andembroidery are left to guitarist Will Sergeantand bassist Les Pattinson. Sergeant is the starof the show musically, his gothic, jangling
guitar motifs often stretching miles into the
distance behind Pattinson's elastic bass.
Together they have a great sense of rockdynamics, though a lot of the credit
for that could also go to
the production team of
Chameleons Bill Drummondand Dave Balfe and Original
Mirrors guitarist Ian Broudie.
The three men at thecontrols create a sound fullof body and depth without
the aid of convoluted studio
trickery, the odd splash ofresonant echo aside: there is very
little on Crocodiles that couldn't - orindeed hasn't - been reproduced live.
The Bunnymen betray a host of
influences throughout the album.
There are shades of both Jim

ram.

Wall" certainly owes something to Pere Ubu's"30 Seconds Over Tokyo".
But this crocodile is no imitation skin, andthe whole is far greater than the sum of thevarious inputs. McCulloch's lyrical landscapeis scattered with themes of sorrow, horror anddespair, themes that are reinforced by animal/
sexual imagery. There are resemblances to
Joy Division in places, although McCulloch's
words are never as intensely personal.
"Crocodiles" and "Rescue" deal with fearand eventual breakdown, desperation whichtakes the victim even closer to the edge on"Going Up", where ambient mood music drifts
into a semi -acoustic rocker with a haunting"Let's get the helloutta here" refrain. But themessage filtering through the darkness is
primarily one of hope on -Pictures On My
Wall" and "All That Jazz", which employs todevastating effect the same relentlessrhythmic thrash that drove PiL's "Annalisa"
and Magazine's "The Light Pours Out Of Me".
"Villiers Terrace", meantime, is an awestruck
and amusing account of people rolling roundon carpets, mixed-up medicines and drugged
debauchery, lifted by very Bowie-ish staccato
electric piano.
Not every track is as successful. "Pride" is adisposable recollection of parental hopes andfears, "Stars Are Stars" an obscure dirge
salvaged only by a few crisp minor chords,
and "Happy Death Men", a rambling closer
that goes nowhere.
One last thing. Forget all that jazz about thecreeping return of hippydom, despite the cryptic-flowers and their hair"message scratched over the
run-off grooves. Crocodiles
is destined to be one of thecontemporary rock albumsof the year. And, yes, you

Sergeant's gothic,

jangling guitar
motifs stretch
into the distance

60 1 HISTORY OF ROCK 1980

can dance to it. Adrian Thrills

At Essex the sort of gang that like the UK
Subs repeatedly spit and hurl cans at theband. If anything it spurs them on to
greater heights, and afterwards Mac
considers the version of their unusually
incisive "Pride" was one of the best yet.
When they sing on "Monkeys": "Boysare the same/Brains in their pockets/Girlsare the same/Knock it and rock it", theglaring irony is inevitably lost in a sea of
human oscillation.
"I wish more people would listen to
the lyrics," Mac complains later. "I mean,
I don't want them to all stand round
analysing things, but I don't see why you
can't move around a bit and listen as well."Overt intellectualism is something Mac
most definitely does not approve of. If you're
pursuing mystery and adventure or looking
back with a splintered vision, why should
you want to categorise your art, especially if
you're working in a field whose ethos
frequently demands the sacrifice of those
who break cover and reveal themselves.
"I'd say I'm more interested in
atmosphere and the spaces between theobvious, you know. I can't understand why
people want to go to university; there must
be better things to do."Contrary to his past press persona, Ian
McCulloch is not aloof and difficult, justa little dreamy and sometimes introverted.
As long as you don't try and cram him intoa restrictive category for the sake of easy
consumerism - ie, Echo are the newwhatever- he can be warm, funny andintelligent. He could also be rock's
Howard Hughes.
"Scummy" really comes onto its own inMac's vocabulary, because for him there's
a lot of scum about. Understandably, hegoes to great lengths to wash the gob outof his hair following the night's
performance. "I had to use nearly,
a bottle of shampoo, you know."
But while we're all sitting in the hotel
lobbywaiting for him to appear (it has
become his prerogative to be late andthe others accept this with a shrugging
resignation) it emerges that Mac

inspects every bed before sleep for bugs,
taking hours through deliberation andpoor eyesight. He must wash his hands
at regular intervals and seems almost
terrified of flies and dirt. "I mean, you
should have seen the last hotel westopped in, it was really scummy."
In their own way, Will and Les are just as
concerned with the odd, the weird and thewonderful. Aside from wanting to ride in a
UFO, Will once told his careers adviser that hehoped to be a zoo keeper, while Les wanted to
be a racing driver and settled with driving theband from town to town. Only on the groundsof excessive heat accumulation can Les be
persuaded not to buy a rubber immersion suitin Norwich's five-star camo shop. Both wear
headbands on stage, with Will adding conkers
to keep everything down to earth.
Perhaps because he was the last to join, Pete who replaced Echo the drum machine -is often
on the periphery of the band's conversations
about spontaneous combustion, sci-fi andmusic. But when it comes to the "formalinterview" he seems assertive and clear about
what the band should be doing.
The others are less reluctant to sit down andtalk, but they do and it's all over quickly.
What about the Liverpool scene?
Mac: "To a certain extent it's been
manufactured by the press. We don't like being
associated with it. I don't think people would
say there was any sim ilarities between us andWah! Heat or the Teardrops if one was from
Doncaster and the other from Scunthorpe,
except that Wah! Heat desperately want to be
Echo And The Bunnymen."
Mac once played, albeit very briefly, with Pete
Wylie, now of Wah! Heat, in the garage band The
Crucial Three, and interestingly it is Wylie who
is accused of doing Jim Morrison impersonations by Mac. Anyway, Wylie"is just a dude, a superstud in Liverpool", according to Will.
As for the spectre of Morrison, Will thinks he's still alive in Greece andMac says: "I saw him as a leather -clad dude and a bad poet."

November 29.

1980:McCulloch
fronts the
Bunnymenat
Amsterdam's
Paradisoover which to mature, whereas touring haseroded their time to develop new material.
Even with these restrictions, they present
few problems in view of their approach towriting. Usually Mac comes up with the lyrics,
though Will wrote those to "Happy Death Men",
and the rest literally materialises from thecatalytic musical communications thatdevelop in the studio.
The Bunnies got their name from a friend.
Theywere almost Mona Lisa & The Grease
Guns, Glycerol &The Fan Extractors, and The
Daz Men, "because it stood up and was funny",according to Mac.
It was also a reaction against postmodernist
names "that have to be serious and have no sense of humour". Strangely,
it's a name that has attracted other meaningless labels usually associatedwith American West Coast bands like Love and The Doors. The
connection is purely random. Mac likes the Velvets and Leonard Cohen
and Will likes Syd Barrett and even "D.I.S.C.0." by Ottawan.
Grinning under his overgrown fringe, Will suggests: "You've gotta laughabout these labels sometimes. We've been called wacky, postmodernist,
Neil Young, electric folk, bleak industrial. We're just fish -and -chipholders really.""Most bands pigeonhole themselves because they're so obvious. We
won't do that, but other people seem to want to do it for us... I don't know,what can you do?" Mac pleads.
After leavi ng the independent Zoo for the WEA subsidiary Korova,
some hardcore fanzines criticised them forselling out, but on this Mac and the rest lose
no sleep.

"I'm interested
in atmosphereand the spaces
betweenthe obvious"

HE PRODUCTION ON their debut album, Crocodiles, by David
Balfe and Bill Drummond, seemed to be to be as magnificent as

the songs and music, though surprisingly the partnership looks
like ending. Mac: "I don't think we'll work with them again. It worked onsome of the songs but on others there wasn't enough power. Also I thinkthey played it safe on 'The Puppet' !their current single with the far
superior B-side "Do It Clean"J and I think they spoilt it a bit."Pete interjects: "I think they realised they played it safe. I don't thinkthey really knewwhat to do with it. That's why
they're also pushing for us to get anotherproducer, because I think they've run out ofideas for us."
So who will take up the envious task of

producing the most exciting band to come outof Liverpool since The Beatles?
Will: "Well, we've got people in mind but they
don't knowwe've got them in mind, so we can't
really say... There's one that really sticks out,
though, that would suit us."
Says Mac: "I still think a lot more could havebeen made on some of those songs on the firstalbum, but it was partly our fault."
Pete: "I don't thinkyou're ever going to comeout of the studio being totally happy. At thetime it seemed like the right production."
Crocodiles only took around three weeks torecord but the next will take longer, primarily
because those earlier songs had a decent period"For a start, Zoo wanted us to do it. If wehadn't signed we wouldn't be doing this tour
and have all these lights and things. It's justa job, right? Would you criticise a bloke whoworks for Ford for not making his own car?"Judging by the Norwich set, it's hard to

see the band going anywhere but forward.
Hampered by an especially high ceiling,
the crew, despite a Herculean effort, fail toconstruct the Hear tOfDarknesscamo tunnel,
and settle instead for an ornithology themewith added foliage in the netting.
Once the exotic strains of Eno and Jon
Hassell's Fourth World: Possible Musics dieaway, the band take over, leaving a capacity

audience dumbstruck by their power andimagination. Ian Pye
HISTORY OF ROCK 1980

61

1980
APRIL -

JANE

CRYSTAL PALACEGARDEN PARTY- LONDON -Smoother but more ruthless 1111.
NME JUN 14'ie vibes prevail as Bob Marley & The Wailers top the bill at an open-air event in South Lona.,"...the poets of negroism oppose the idea ofan old Europe to a young Africa, tiresome
reasoning to lyricism, oppressive logic toa high stepping nature..." Frantz Fanon,
The Wretched Of The Earth

SO LET'S DANCE! OK. Even Marley,potentially the most important politicalentertainer alive, seemed content tofollow the Wailers' imperative beat along withmost everybody else on Saturday. It was thatkind of day.
The dippy logic that held sway had scoresof otherwise sensible fully clothed adults
wallowing like hippos in the muddy lake
separating the stage and crowd. Others
more irresponsibly perched in the charming
willow trees surrounding the site. One
eventually snapped under the strain, its
unnecessary destruction greeted in somequarters by heavy cheers.
As already noted, it was that kind of day.
The audience's one rational moment was
their mud -slinging reply to Joe Jackson's

62 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1980

bad-mouthing. If the stupid prat thought hecould consolidate the current critical swing in
h s favour through ill-tempered harangues,
then he's dumber than his manner suggested.
Some new songs indicated that he's too
br ght to plumb such levels. The black "TheEvil Eye", touching on voodooism andbutchery in Peckham,sounded fun, highlighted
as it was by the tasteful line
"i got The Cramps on thestereo". But mostly heresorted to Stranglerss:yled belligerent
boogying, which
intimidated some into
app ause, but turned off as
mar y others; me included.
M aybe Jackson thought
it his duty to disrupt the soporific atmosphereof the event until his spot. Lord knows The
Average White Band gave him good cause.
Their languid riffing lapsed into plain laziness,wish odd moments of tension quickly

dissipating once the pattern of false endings
was established. All sweetness and light andno shade. They wouldn't have noticed if weleft and vice versa.
Q -Tips' singer Paul Young's fixed grin
implied a like rigidity, but he still looked
vulnerable enough to be affected by anaudience. His obsessive
love for old soul is genuine
enough, but why heshould want to mimic
the masters' styles sofaithfully is unnatural.
His mannerisms and the
band's relentless efficiency
make them a good show
band and not much else,
although their cabaretpresentation worked
surprisingly well on 20,000 people, too.
That's down to their strong ensemble
playing and a clever non-stop programmingof standards, like "Tracks Of My Years","S.Y.S.L.J.F.M.", "How Sweet It Is To Be

The post-

revolutionary
awareness of"Exodus" seems

especially fitting

Alvin"Seeco"Patterson(on congas), Bob Marley,

Earl"Wya"Lindoand
fellowWailersoutofshot
attheCrystalPalaceBowl
followingsetsbyJoe
Jackson.The Average

WhiteBandandTheQ-Tips

Loved By You" and "Sweet Soul
Music". They were more popularthan DJ Andy Dunkley - he must've
left his copy of This Is Soul at home.
Marley's importance as acrossover artist shouldn't be either
overlooked or denied. Whatever people's
attractions to him - his beautifully tautsinging, the increasing disco sophisticationof the Wailers, or what he has to say - they've
placed him in the enviable position of amilitant with a potentially large audience.
Going by his last album, Survival, he hasn't
yet shirked his responsibilities.
Obviously many people at Crystal Palacecame for the Event or the hits, but I doubtthat they were disappointed. Having
recently returned from Zimbabwe's
independence celebrations, Marley andthe Wailers are currently expressing theirelation with the birth of a new black statethrough a set of renewed ardour, in which
their belief in Rastafarianism combines witha more embracing spiritual love.
The post -revolutionary awareness of"Exodus" seems especially fitting now.
and consequently "Jamming" and "Exodus"
played out the set. The Wailers' superbly
confident yet gentle rhythms supported
Marley's ailing voice. Earlier they radically

improved "Rastaman Vibration" by fleshinghasn't lain down his sword yet. Someday
out the dull purity of the original album track,
he'll possibly face similar problems toand throughout they played with cool poise.
other political entertainers, of keeping
They reinforced their hardness with thethe momentum and spirit alive, but as his
warning shot "War", the victory song
political beliefs are deeper rooted in his Rasta"Zimbabwe" and the resilient "I Shot The
faith and the more concrete struggle of theSheriff ", revitalised by the I Threes' assertive
Third World, they're a lot harder to lose sightback-up. Of the new songs, one boldlyof. He's made diversions before (Kayo) andidentified them with their roots: "We don't
then come back.
have no friends inna high society."
And with Zimbabwe's victory still fresh he's
But the most revealing was Marley's
hardly likely to stop now. ChnsBohn
acoustic "Redemption Song", which
had him singing, ironically judging
from the song's tone: " Won't you help
me sing/Another song of freedom/
Because all 1 hear/Redemption songs."
He sang it with a sly hint of mockery
that belied the seriousness of thesubject of slave trading. Very strange,
but I'll wait to hear it properly before
making up my mind.
Marley and the Wailers still cut it.
With the passing of time they're/ JOE
getting smoother, but at the same timer BOB MARLEY AND NE WAILERS
more ruthless, and Marley The Warrior*maltyrules

JACKSON BAND AVERAGE WHITE BAND

The Credal Palate Garden Party

RC

THE HISTORY OF

The History Of Rock is a magazine series celebrating 50 yearsof the music that changed the world - starting in 1965.

Month by month, it builds up into an unprecedentedly detailed
chronicle of the music and musicians we love.

A MONTHLY TRIP THROUGH
MUSIC'S GOLDEN YEARSTHIS ISSUE 1980

Subscribe
today andsave 22%

JOY DIVISION
Words of strength

Pay only
19:99.1111,

STARRING...

PINK FLOYDMADNESS£7.75

TALKING HEADSTHE HISTORY OF
THE HISTORY OF

an issueand get every
edition delivered
to your home

VISI
OR CALL 0330 333 1113, QUOTING PROMOTION CODE lOR(Lines are open 7 days a week, Sam-9pm) Closing date: 03/11/2016

For overseas orders please call + 44 (0)330 333 1113
(Lines are open 7 days a week, Bam-9pm, UK time)Readers' letters

MM JAN-JUN Floyd comfortably dumb, Chrissie not so precious and more...
Gone but not forgotten
Farewell to Ian Curtis, the latesinger of Joy Division. He will besadly missed.
JOHN SANDYS, Maidenhead,
Berkshire (MMJun14)

Kicking against the bricks
Thankyou, the Floyd, for yourcontribution to what was the Year
OfThe Child.
"Another Brick In The Wall" isan anthem that DAME Margaret
Thatcher, housewife superstar,
would have been proud to write.
Who else but Floyd or the Iron Lady
could get children to stand up andsing "Wedon't need no education" at
a time when so many of the world's
children would be desperately
glad of any education at all,however sarcastically delivered?
Just how far rock has lost its
radical edge of protest, in aworld still full of hardships anddeprivations, is evidenced whenmusicians like these can rail atthe crusty old teachers of theirchildhood. Giles of the Daily
Express discovered how to do thatyears ago, with more ridicule,humour, and therefore more effect.
Perhaps Pink Floyd would have
liked to have added a few more
words about increased school
meal prices: "We don't need no
mashed potato/We don't need nottreacle roll /We'll eat our samies in
the classroom /Teacher throw thosekids a bone!"
Another brick in the wall?
Another kick in the balls to those
who ever hoped for, or needed, theradical force rock used to wield.
TIM SHELTON-JONES, Milestone
Road, Upper Norwood. London SE19
(MM Jan 26)

True to form, Pink Floyd release a
new album, and a single too, only
to find know-alls writing to MM's
Mailbag, snapping at their heels.
Floyd are attacking education!
Attacking teachers! Or are they?
Anyone who listened to Roger
Waters (the writer) on the radio
recentlywill realise that this isanything but the case.
The Floyd didn't feature in the
MMPoll this year. They had done
nothing to deserve this praise.
Neither had others, but they got ineasily. Floyd's supporters only
praised work, not past efforts.
Floyd are not fol lowed by "worms".
DERRICK FOX, Chalford Hill,
Nr Stroud, Glos (NNIJan12)

You do that
With regard to the review of the
new Clash double, I would haveappreciated a little more depth
in the final paragraph. An
observation that the lettering of
the title is set out exactly the same
way as Elvis Presley's first HMV
album, including the colouring,
would have been appropriate.
Is this another plot by the record
company to instigate litigation,awithdrawal of the album design
and the creation of yet anothercostly collectors' item? Well, The
Beatles did it with the "Butcher's"
cover for the YesterdayAnd Today
LP -price $400 -and recently
Virgin did it with theAmerican
Express pic-sleeve of the last Sex
Pistols single. I shall keep my copy
and see what happens.
ANTHONY RAYNER, Hampton,

Middlesex (MMJanio)

I mean, really! Is Brazier
Chrissie Hynde's father orsomething? That's the only thingthat could justify such an outburst
offan7ine lunacy.
JOANNE SMITH, Break Egg Hill,
Billericay, Essex (MM Feb 2)

Bootlegs vspolice time
So the country is now
safe again following
a six-month investigation which
led to the "swooping" (ugh) of thepolice on a disused airfield todiscover a bootleg factory.
This house of sin manufactured
illegal live recordings of some ofour "greatest artists", who wereafter these evil criminals. The
leader of these knights in shining
armourwas David Bowie. I haveevery album of his, and it wasn't
until I had them all that I began
getting interested in finding
bootlegs. But that argument has

already been thrashed to death,and no one listened.
Surely if the artists themselves,

Hynde your language
I was shocked to read in yourreview of the Pretenders LP (Jan12) the amazing statement that
Chrissie Hynde possessed "whatmaywell be the finest female voicein the history of rock'n'roll." Is
Chris Brazier, the author of thishighly questionable remark,completely out of his mind?
First of all, for the sake of formal
argument, can what Ms Hyndesings be called "rock'n'roll",
anyway? And if it can, could shein all objectivity be considered tohave a better voice than Brenda
Lee or Wanda Jackson, forexample?And if we call it "rock"singing, what about the non trendy dinosaurs Grace Slick andJanis Joplin, not to mention
Maggie Bell and that chickwho
used to singwith Meatloaf (I forget
her name) in the realm of heavy
singing. And continuing on into
more disparate styles of "rock",what about Kiki Dee, Joni Mitchell,
Christine McVie, Stevie Nicks,
Siouxsie Sioux, et al?

or the agents or labels, wereprepared to produce more live
recordings where they're
obviously wanted, bootlegging
of the kind under attack would
be beaten off the market.
In the papers, of course, thecritics would hate the productionof lots oflive albums from one
group. But surely limited editions
for the fanatical fans must be
worth it. If it isn't, why employ thepolice for six months to bust thepeople who think it is?
Of course, the artists should get
royalties from these records(that's probably the one thing tha t
upsets them), but until they arelegal, how can they? Either combat
the bootleggers with better
quality, more easily obtainable
live records, or leave them alone.
Six months of police activity likethis won't catch the Ripper -will it?
EDWARD CRUTCHLEY, St Pancras,
Chichester, West Sussex (MMFla 2)

091N,
ro,

dr
NUCL EAR rag., M

PEACE YESTONLYA NERO
PREFERS NOISE

is0*

TO NOTES.

l_441*

48a,

0*

)\

iw%41.

41`,-43!DYLAN 1! SAVED]ISHOOTING S'AR.-

A,

./:

,."17580007110/0 :TIN ;;,./"

if!

7F;701"............2112:"'" ' 1.:-1//: 1:/,...;*.::::E-7...."".......' , ../ .
.

THE J. ; El 1

BAND

PM

LQc-,flif

Pseud writer writes
Concerning my review of Elvis
Costello's Get Happy! album(MMFebruary 23): In caseanyone's interested, the word
should have been "atavistically",not "statistically", until theprinters got at it. Serves meright for being pseudy.
CHRIS BRAZIER, London E3(MMMar1)

HISTORY OF ROCK 1980 65

1980

JULY-01MRr'

PINK FLOYD, STRAYCATS, FLEETWOOD MAC,

JOY DIVISION AND MORE

Takes the lead role
David Bowie returns with a stage
role, a new album and a single, "Ashes To Ashes".
NME

DAVID BOWIE'S AVOWED intention of not playing

any concerts in 1980 is confirmed with the news,
announced this week, that he is to make his stage acting
debut -a move likely to keep him occupied until the end of
the year. But he keeps his music interests ticking over, witha new album and single scheduled for release.
He takes the lead role in the Bernard Pomerance play The
Elephant Man, which opens on July29 in Denver for a week,then moves to Chicago until the end of August. This is due tobe followed by an indefinite run on Broadway in New York.
As yet there are no definite plans for the play to come to
London -but Bowie said recently that he'd rather act in theWest End than perform in concert at the WembleyArena.
The play is set in England in the last century, and it's aboutJohn Merrick- a hideously deformed man who's taken into
the care of a London surgeon, and subsequently becomesa celebrated figure in society.
Paradoxically, Bowie's new album is titled Scary Monsters(AndSuperCreeps)-it was recorded in NewYork during
March, and is set for release by RCA on September 12.1t
contains nine new songs -eight self-penned, and one
written byex-Television leader Tom Verlaine- plus one

reprise. A single from the LP, "Ashes To Ashes", comes out
on August 1, coupled with atrack from his last studio album,
Lodger, titled"Move On".
Bowie's regular backing musicians-Carlos Alomar (guitar),

STAGE PLAY

Dennis Davis (drums) and George Murray (bass) -arefeatured on the set, alongwith such guests asPeteTownshend,
Robert Fripp and Bruce
Springsteen's pianist Roy
Bittan. Bowie himself
plays keyboards, while hisco -producer Tony Visconti
plays guitar and sings.

BUT NEW LP, TOO

legit
goes
Bowie
of not playing any concerts.

in 1980 is confirmed
CiAill It - a

IF MUSIC BE THE
FOOD OF LOVE,

1980
JU y

SEPTEMBER

PLAY ON,

Trepidation
NME JUL 12 ihe lowdown on the home -taping craze.
Glut; allU buissors are cheap, reporter hints.
HOME TAPING, ACCORDING to thebeleaguered British record industry,is depriving its coffers of untold
millions of pounds. With sales of LPs
decreasing rapidly as a result of the tightfinancial climate that affects sales of all sortsof consumer goods, the record industry is
anxious to plug all leaks of its revenue. The
most serious of these leaks are bootlegging
and home taping - both, it's claimed, amountto theft of copyright. An often hysterical
picture is painted of legions of small- andeven big-time pirates blasting great holes
in a rapidly sinking ship.
It's worth remembering that, despite all thegrumbles last year, the industry as a wholeactually made more money in the gloomy yearof '79 than it did in the boom year of '78. Fewerrecords were sold in '79, but they cost more
and generated bigger returns. Now, with far
fewer records being sold, the gloom hasturned to trepidation.
When it comes to home taping, there's notmuch the industry can do. The idea of some
sort of jamming device on records to prevent
taping seems to have been shelved, andwould anyway take a long time to introduce
and require the complicity of the hardware
manufacturers, who remain conspicuously
silent on the whole matter. The British
Phonographic Institute, who represent thetrade interests of the record industry, did
succeed in preventing one manufacturer
from advertising the easy home taping
facilities of its models, on
the grounds that hometaping is unlawful - but thenso is kissing in public parksand on highways.
The BPI is pressing for alevy on blank tapes; say lop
on every cassette sold,which will be divided up

between the record
companies that are
members of the BPI. In the
short term this would
bring in more money forthe companies, but inthe long term it won't
actually help the people
who ultimately lose out

the case for a tape levy
to guest speaker Lord
George Brown. His
Lordship, however, was
not impressed.
"If my wife anddaughter wish to utilise

modern technology torecapture the beautiful
music made by, say,

Dame Nellie Melba,
then they should be
able to do so, and I am

not the bloke to talkabout a levy tocompensate Dame
Nellie and EMI."
Full -page.""themusic weeklies
Nonetheless, thereflect"thegovernment is pledged
biggest change in
to introduce changes in
the law regarding hometaping as part of widerchanges in the existing
copyright laws, according to a spokespersonfrom the Department Of Trade And Industry.
The Whitford Committee report on
Copyright Design Law, published in1977,
has recommended that a levy similar to thatwhich already exists in Germany should be
introduced on "all equipment of a typesuitable for private recording... as in Germany,
it should be the manufacturer or importer
who should be liable for the levy". Although
the cost will no doubt be passed on to
the consumer.
A Green Paper (which
is a sort of preliminary
discussion document) on
the subject of copyrightand design law is due to be
published at the end of theyear. Whatever size andshape its recommendations
about a levy, these would
have to pass throughParliament to become law,and this is unlikely tohappen before theparliamentary session
beginning October 1981.
In the meantime, thecause of the increase inhome taping holds the
key to the remedy:
records are simply too
expensive. Then again,
tapes are too much fun.
With the advent of theJapanese stereo
portable cassette radiowith self-contained but
relatively impressive

The British
Phonographic
Institute ispressing for a levy
on blank tapes

because of the slump inrecord sales -themusicians who make therecords and the shop
owners who sell them.
At a recent Music
Trades Association
lunch at the Cafe Royal,retiring BPI chairman
Len Wood tried to make

_

-

=_

_

-

-

speakers, cassettes have become the cheapest
optimum means of listening to music. It's
possible that the briefcase -sized objects thatnow clutter every high street electrical store
are creating the biggest change in the way
people listen to music since the component
stereo system replaced the humble Dansette.
Built-in "search" devices are almost

standard, enabling individual tracks to befound quickly, thus negating one of the twomain arguments against tapes. The other isirrelevant, because if you want to pay four
pounds for a record sleeve then go ahead, butpart of the fun of cassettes is making yourown. Glue and scissors are also cheap.
The sources of music are plentiful. There is
the radio, of course. There are local libraries,
which can usually supply a fair selection ofblues and jazz. Two record shops in Blackburnand Burnley have started record hire
schemes, to the dismay of everybody except
their customers. Friends with large record
collections are definitely an advantage (andmaking up compilations from them a winning
pastime). Even if all your friends have thesame idea, whatever records you do buy canbe circulated. And however much thecompanies may bleat about shrinking profits,people won't stop buying records.
If one day a levy on blank tapes makes themcost almost as much as LPs, tapes retain theadvantage of not being created for posterity.
They are not artefacts like records. They aretransient, like music. When you tire oflistening to one thing you can simply erase
and record something else.
But there's hardly any need to press homewhat your pocket makes abundantly clear.
You already know it makes sense. PaulRambali

A CONSUMER'S GUIDETO THE WIDE WORLDOF INFRINGEMENTS

7'"I've seen worse"
MM AUG 30"Could only
do some good"
McLaren's Bow Wow
Wow enter the home -taping war.
NME

WITH HIS USUAL flair for
scandal, and with the record
industry in a state of anxiety

on the subject, media guerrilla Malcolm
McLaren has chosen this moment to put
his spoke in with a record that takes a lookat the home-ta oing "problem", "C30 Coo
C90 Go" by Bow Wow Wow.
Last Friday, EMI, Bow Wow Wow's
label, held a top-level meeting to decide
whether to Hsk withdrawing the record
at the last minute and, once again. being
made risible inthe public eye at thehands of McLaren. The meeting cameabout, apparently, as a result of discreet
protests by the BPI, who feel that "C30
Coo C90 Go" could actually encourage
home taping.
The point hasn't exactly escaped EMI.
It appears that releasing McLaren's Bow
Wow Wow rec 3rd is something of acalculated gamble for them, and they
hope to use his capacity for instart
publicity to their advantage this time.
"We believe," said Brian Southall, headof EMI's publicity, "that if the record
focuses some attention on the problem
then that could only do some good."
As of Monday, "C30 Coo C90 Go" isstill set for release this weekend. "We'retrying to get it played on the radio at thisvery moment.'Get those recorders ready!

are spared the tilting t ans
at the Reading Festival.
READING BECAME THE 1980 Can

I

Festival when several warm-up
bands and the audience itself
faced a dense and dangerous barrageof jagged -edged cans and othermissiles. Experienced Reading
watchers were surprised at the extent
Aug 24,1980:
and ferocity of the bored fans' assault,
Whitesnake's
as can battles built up from one side
David Coverdale
distracts theof the audience to another, injuring
can chuckers
people in the middle ground as wellat Reading
as some of those in the target area.
First band to feel the real brunt of the
can hurlers were The Hellions, thegroup formed by ex -Damned guitarist
by can -throwing were "balderdash," adding
Brian James and the only outfit in the threethat only one band, The Hellions, wereday festival to show any real new wave roots.
canned off, "and we knewwe were taking
They lasted for only a handful of songs before
a chance with them".
their version off he Damned's "New Rose"
He admitted there was some inter -audience
provoked such a deluge of cans that the bandcan -throwing: "They seemed to have foundretired hurt.
a new gimmick -not
On Sunday, Girl werecanning the stage bycanned but carried on
Cans had been
throwing them at eachplaying to the end of theirother. I wouldn't call it
set. MMreporter Ian Pye
vicious -I have seen
described the can worse at previous
throwing as "incessantReading Festivals."through the afternoonHe described audience
there were always some cans in the air and it
injuries from can -throwing as "in the tens tobuilt up to a real frenzy at times. It only diedtwenties, certainly not in the hundreds".
out when their attention was held by the main
Barrie said the festival in general wasbands, Slade, Def Leppard and Whitesnake.""bloody marvellous", with audience figures
One aspect that particularlyworriedat around the 30,000 mark for each Bayless on Friday, more on Saturdayand Sunday
peaceable fans was that many of the cans had-and said the 1980 Reading Festival was
been stomped flat so that the sides were split
open and jagged, and were then thrown likethe most successful since 1975, when Yes
topped the bill and the audience figures
Frisbees across the crowd.
Festival organiserlack Barrie said
went over the top, leading to the recent
suggestions that the festival was marred
restrictions on capacity.

stomped flat andthrown like Frisbees"Astonished and disappointed"
NME JUN 14

iere s trounce at meionv fvlrrxer roiiowrn Inoustriaiaction anti a °Noose° -MAO issue

VEXED THOUGH WE were by the dispute that kept NMEoff
the streets for six weeks. we couldn't -wit) but sympathisewith our fellow scribblers on Melody Maker. who saw not only
six issues of their paper vanish. but their editor. several of their staff
and the paper's long-awaited redesign and relaunch. MM's editor
Richard Williams resigned after attempts by RC Business Press topublish a "scab'' issue during the dispute between IPC and the NUJ.
Following Williams departure. editor -in -chief Pay Coleman has
taken over the reins of the ailing -musician's bible-. At least three staff
members and one freelance writer have already gJit in protest. andothers may fol ow. With all the company's journalists temporarily-sacked- during the dispute. Ray Coleman suggested to Williams thatthey bring out a Melody Maker without the aid of the staff - in otherwords. by using whatever material was already lying around. plus
anything that freelance writers were prepared to contribute.
Williams refused to co-operate. and when Coleman informed him
he intended tog° ahead and publish anyway. Williams resigned. As
Coleman himself admits. the 141'4 journalists were "astonished anddisappointed- at the prospect of a "scab" issue - though ironically thedispute ended before the issue went to press.
One senior writer, in a somewhat tired and emotional state, threw
three typewriters through the office windows. (Fortunately the MM
offices are more street level than the paper.) Others simply resigned;
two of them - Chris Bohn and Viv Goldman - have now joined NME.
As a result of the upheavals the paper's redesign and relaunch which was due to have taken place last month - has been postponed.
Williams declined to comment on the circumstances of his departure,saying only that there is no chance of him returning to Melody Maker,
and that he now proposes "to start listening to records for fun again".
Since being promoted out of the editorial firing line two years ago,
Coleman has been contributing a column to Sir James Goldsmith's
appalling NOW!magazine, so it comes as no surprise that he's
promised a "traditional Melody Maker" this week. What else? PhilmcNeill

EyThe odd couple. Theycame together after
the McLarenintervention of lastyear, which effectively
saw McLaren begin
to manage the Ants
and the birth of Bow
Wow Wow.
"I didn't see him fora while and I thought,'Well, fuck it.' I didn't
think there was ahope in hell of even getting in a working
situation with him. But I'd done a coupleof videos and I got him down to look atthem and that interested him enough.
Then I introduced him to the band."
Suitably impressed by McLaren's
interest, Adam immediately realised thevalue of letting the supposedly GreatRock'n'Roll Swindler into the Ants camp.
"The man in my opinion is a genius, andhe's the only genius I've ever talked to.
Well, he's a hero, and heroes should beleft on the wall," he says pointing suddenly
to the drab office walls that surround us.
"You should never work with them, 'cos
it destroys your whole fantasy of them[bang goes my date with The Supremesthen], and in a way it's too good to be true,
but you still go along with it because you
have to. I thought to myself I've got achance to work with
Malcolm McLaren andI don't care if it's only for
one day. I made a video
for him. I didn't care. I'drather make it with him
than Bob Geldof orsomebody like that,
because that doesn'tmean anything. But I
mean the ideas!

as:Adam & The Ants are in the charts!
Malcolm McLaren, again, is at the bottom of it. "He'sa genius," says Adam. "The only one I've met..."MM

66

NEW ROYAL FAMILY!A wild
nobility! WE ARE THE FAMILY!"
A clatter of drums, a scream frombelow, a relentless bass melody and Adam Ant
has done the impossible. A chart record.
"Kings Of The Wild Frontier" is greatrock music. Startling, passionate, unsettlingand dramatic. Its rise up the conservative,
stupefied charts (the Rolling Stones indeed!)
has pleased everybody. Obviously CBS,obviously Chris Hughes, its producer... but
above all Adam himself for taking the firststep not only to a better bank balance, but
to a wider audience. For this he credits
Malcolm McLaren.
McLaren, he believes, has shown him a far
better direction to pursue, giving him fresh
ideas and angles to replace those of the last
three years, when Adam was consigned to anindependent label and a fanatical followingthat had grown quietly and unnoticed
throughout the land.
They represented all elements of fashion,
0zfrom skinheads to mohicans to mods, andabove all punks, giving Adam the position of

Royal
Y.

A

a ARE
rums. aplow, amelodyas oneA chartnumber -one dog in anunderworld unknowr toPeter Powell, Anne
Nightingale and The
Guardian. Now it's coming

out into the open -forbetter or worse, and, ike
the boy tells me, McLaren
was an important factor.
"I was at a party andMalcolm came in and said,"He puts out
hundreds of ideas toyou and 80 per centof them will be
ridiculous, but someof them are genius... Adam even left Do -It
Records on Malcolm's
advice to hunt for a better
deal with a larger company.
Do -It have just replied bysneakily issuing a new
B-side, "Physical", on the
Ants' last single for them,without Adam's permission.
"It's a terrible version," intones Adam
vehemently. "They put it out to try and makean instant collector's item worth £25 each. I
felt very bad about it, because they were niceguys tome. They did a lot of good work for theAnts. I can't understand the bitterness. They
know what I'm like with my work; they knowthat song is a particular favourite. It's a very
old song and the problem now is that we've
got to bring out a version to compete with it."
The version, if it does appear, will be on thealbum that the Ants are currently recording,featuring the new lineup of two drummers,
Merrick and Terry Lee Miall, Kevin Mooneyon bass and Marco on guitar.

"If the kids think

we've sold out,
they've got a simple
option don't buy-'Hello Adam. How's the
Ants?' And I nearly freakedout! The guy's my hero. I've
always admired him and hestarted to talk to me about
what I'd been doing. He seemed a great bloke
and what he was saying was amazing."
For the occasion of this interview Adam isdressed in all black. Black leather jacket andtrousers, black kilt over his strides, blackleather boots that clink as he walks round thecarpeted offices, and a black T-shirt.
Beside him his new guitarist Marco Pirroni
looks almost conservative in green raincoat.

our records"

Adam takes the
Ant over roundIt was to Marco that Adam turned after the
initial split and it's Marco who originallyplayed guitar at the legendary first Siouxsie
And The Banshees gig at the 100 Club.
"Billy Idol was originally going to play theguitar, then he changed his mind because Sid
Vicious [drums at the time] was in the bandand he didn't get on with Sid," Marco reveals.
"Also he wanted to play songs but wecouldn't be bothered to learn them, so I think
it was Sid who said, (adopts moronic voice)'Uh, let's just make a noise.' So we did. We
done a rehearsal at The Clash's studio. And wejust went and did it."Marco, however, had no intention of staying
with the Banshees, because "they didn't likeme and I didn't like them at the time." He went
on to form The Models, who released a single
just before the infamous Bill Grundy run-inwith the Pistols. Marco became disillusioned
with it all and kicked it in the head.
He later reappeared with Rema Rema,
who also released a single, not a bad one as
it goes, before he ended up hating thegroup for being too hippy. But he was always
aware of Adam.
Adam and Marco are both well on the way
to re-establishing themselves, though thistime, with a major record contract under
their sleeves, a lot of the punk purists who've
stuck with Adam from the start may well bedisappointed at this flagrant breach of punk
ethics. Do not compromise to a major is thegolden rule, and a large part of Adam's
original appeal hinged on his adherence toexactly that. Not so, says Adam.
"That ain't a compromise, that's a smart
move," he says. "That's something wedeserved. We should have signed up when wecame out, we were good enough.
"I never ever said that I wouldn't sign fora big company. CBS liked Adam And The Ants.
Two other companies liked Adam And The
Ants. They were all offering money, and wewent to CBS because they said the right things
to us. They gave us better reasons for wanting
the band, and what they could do for us.
"If the kids think we've sold out," Adam
continues, "then they've got a very simple
option. Don't buy our records and don't cometo Adam Ant gigs any more, because I'mwilling to invest everything I've got into the
new thing. I think it's better. They may not. You
can't make them think that. I just know that I
feel as sincere now as when I started out."
Whether you believe him or not is up to you,but the one thing that Adam is really keen to
get across is that anyone is welcome to comeand see for themselves. He's desperate tobreak away from cult -land.
"When you go and see the Ants, you don't
have to be a punk. You don't have to dress
Tike us.

"I think our recent gig at the Empire
Ballroom proved that. Skinheads come to ourgigs, Mohicans and mods come, even folkies
come. They're all welcome, as long as theycome as if they were going to see a movie. If
you go and see a movie and a blockhead is in
front shouting, the whole audience says,'Out!' That's got to happen in music. There
has to be a feeling that all the people are there
out of interest and are not just passing
through." Paolo Hewittk
NME

RIP, Malcolm

Owen from The Ruts.
MALCOLM OWEN IS dead. The bodyof The Ruts' 24 -year -old singer was

discovered in the bath at his parents'
Middlesex home on Monday afternoon.
Although no official cause of death has yet
been announced, the news follows reportsof his leaving the group owing to thecontinuing problem of his drug addiction.
The split was to have been officiallyannounced at the end of this week.
On Monday morning Owen phoned afriend, arranged to go fora lunchtime drink,then decided to take a bath. When the friend
arrived at about 1.15pm, Owen's parents said
he was still in the bath. He failed to respondto their calls, so they
forced the door, andfound him in "anun-rousable state."
An ambulance wassummoned and Owen
was taken to Hillingdon
Hospital, where he
was pronounced deadon arrival.
A post-mortem inquest
on Tuiesday morning
could establish no causeof death. A drug scan is
to be performed forlaboratory analysis, andthe inquest was adjourned toa date to be fixed after police
enquiries and the lab analysis
have been completed.
The months preceding thetragedy had seen Owen make determinedefforts to overcome his addiction-the
initial reason for his returning to live withhis parents while the rest of the band
continued working, notablywith reggae
artist Laurel Aitken.
Despite the optimism he'd expressed whentalking to NME at the end ofApril, in the past
two weeks his efforts proved ultimately
unsuccessful. It was decided that he should
leave the group. A solo career was planned.
The Ruts will presumably continue as

intended, although at the moment theband members are said to be "too shocked"
to consider their future.
A single, recorded with
Owen a month ago andentitled "West One", wasscheduled for release by
Virgin in earlyAugust;it's yet to be decided
whether the record willappear as planned.
Always renowned forthe vitalityof their stage
show, Owen and The
Ruts were amongst theforemost punkacts
to emerge in the'77/8 era. Theiralbum The Crackappeared in 1979
and featured the
band's best-selling
single "Babylon
Burning".
HISTORY OF ROCK 1980 171

Fleetwood Mac in vireo:"Nooneparticularly feelsthat they need to cling to
the institution the wholetime," says Lindsey-

Buckingham (farright)"There's a lot of ego"
MM JUL 5 With sales of just five million copies, Fleetwood Mac's

rnnrr,inI fliltyrn I inrknv Buckingham "nil
LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM DRUMS his
fingers constantly on the glass -toppedtable. It's not so much interview
irritation as the kind of jerky excitement that's
generated when general confusion meets
personal creativity head on.
Let me explain. Lindsey currently finds
himself in a curiously fraught corner.
Fleetwood Mac have effectively come tos seei?;IC tb^ "nrianother major turning point in their multi chequered career, and he knows that thegroup will shortly have to undergo a full-scalesensitivity session in order to sort out what
happens next. There's a host of private andprofessional predicaments to resolve. Fora start, everyone is knackered, and blearyeyes can only hamper the decision -making
process. Their mammoth stint in Wembley

Buckingham's malaise

last week concluded an epic, nine -monthworld tour which was arranged in the wakeof their last album, Tusk.
Because of the gigantic scale of such an
operation - they have karate black -belt
bodyguards, masseurs, makeup artists and,apart from Lindsey, personal secretaries intwos -the actual bandmembers rarely seeeach other off stage. Indeed, Lindsey had twodays off in London and instead of checking
out the local beat culture or doing a (ouch!)
Buckingham Palace job, preferred to stay inhis hotel room with his girlfriend Carol andhis beloved Teac recorder. That might bea sensible means of survival, but it doesn't
exactly help band solidarity.
And then there's the aftermath of Tusk
itself. The album didn't halt Burbank's
financial recession as the toupeed execs
had hoped. To date it's shifted around fivemillion copies. which is but a drop in theocean compared to the 2t million sales for
Rumours. Although he denies any pressure
from the boardroom. Buckingham isn't
totally immune to the lack of public response.
The album was a brave stab at doing

something different from the New
Hollywood AOR of Rumours. and the
Buckingham contributions, in particular,
created a harder, more incisive andcontemporary feel than Fleetwood Mac
had achieved before.
Still, Lindsey is stoical:1 don't think wewere aware of how much of a chance we weretaking in terms of business. I felt that having
established a large audience, we were ina position to introduce a certain numberof songs that people would want to like. But
I didn't realise how stubborn people are.
"There are many other things involved,
too. One is that it's a double album andthere's a lot to wade through. Another isthat we overcharged for it, which wasn't
a conscious thing on our part - Warners
suggested a price which was the price it wentout at. It was certainly

not an intentionally
greedy move.
"It's been a strain
personally for me in that
I can't believe in myself
as much as when I put
the album out. I wasjust busting out to dosomething that I felt had
a little more depth to it,
something that didn't
have a lead guitar solo in
it like every other song
you ever hear. But thenover a period of time you
realise that people aren't really getting
the message. You wonder whether you've
been deluding yourself or what, especiallywhen the rest of the band start telling youthat it's maybe time to get back to thestandard format."So the moguls did leave their mark - thekind that implies two steps inevitably leads
to one step back. But Lindsey's affection
primarily for the other group members andsecondly for the group -as -as -institution
won't induce him to divulge the finer
footnotes here. He does, however, offer
a sketchy overview.
"Basically, there's a lot of ego involved
between five people and no one particularly
feels that they need to cling to the institution
all the time. Because of that, you'll have, say,three different ways of looking at things in thestudio and it won't be resolved for a week something that maybe Peter Asher would go(clicks fingers) and that would be it. Confusion
is always good for art, because eventually thebest thing gets hewn out of what's there andthe formula goes out the window."
As the special thanks credit on Tusk
reinforces. Buckingham was largely
responsible for the new direction that thealbum took and so is in the most vulnerable
position when the flak flies. But before you
either sneer or reach for the Kleenex,
remember that the move has had its morediscomforting effects.

None of his songs everget radio airplay, because
the dozy AM and FM
programmers believe thatthey aren't representativeof the Fleetwood Mac
sound. In other words,
they're scared to stick theirnecks out (and it's hardly
that irreverent a move!)for fear of losing thosecrucial listeners.
The situation becomeseven more ironic when you
realise that Lindsey wrote
them with radio play verymuch in mind.
"I'm one of those people
who, if you turn on theradio, hears what's on the track in about
three seconds, and that was the sort of effect
I wanted to achieve with my songs on Tusk. If
you heard a part of it on radio it would catchyou, but it hasn't caught a lot of people yet."
Matters aren't helped either by Lindsey's
new image as the
Rodeo Drive Punk.
On stage he looks
completely at odds,
in his '8os-doused
cropped hair andEuropean black, to theothers who cling to '20s

"There's nothing
wrong withchomping at the bit
if that's what
you've got to do"chiffon, battered Levi's
and greying ponytails.
Paradoxically, it's
mainly the British
contingent (Christine,
Mick Fleetwood andJohn McVie), who've
adopted the casualWest Coast apparel, while American -born
Lindsey's taken up the Stateside version ofEurope's Modern Look. Stevie Nicks is just,uh. mystical.
The public also haven't liked that much.
Lindsey recounts: "We were playing in
Madison Square Garden and these guys inthe front row said to me, 'You sold out.' They
thought I'd sold out to what they believed
was the Fleetwood Mac style, which should
remain the same all the time. You know, Bob
Dylan should still be playing acoustic guitar.
So what can you do about that?
"I knew there was certainly a lot of

new luminaries like
Graham Parker, Elvis
Costello, Nick Lowe,
Brian Eno (though he'dnever heard of that gent's
Oblique Strategies) and.
in particular, Talking
Head David Byrne. So why
doesn't he suggest acollaboration with theostrich -voiced marvel?
The reply's a little
bizarre. "If I was outgoingenough to go up to him
and introduce myself,
I might, but Ijust keep tomyself a lot and maybe
a lot of that's because
I'm really locked into
the microcosm of the band right now."
So he stays indoors, with Carol and theTeac, and works. "I've just had so many hoursof ecstasy seeing something come out andwork, and realising the connections that are

possible, and finding out what instinct reallymeans as opposed to working through fear,or through other people who are in thestudio mainly to keep themselves covered.
"Studio musicians don't give a shit what
they play as long as they play something
good enough. That keeps everything down
to a certain level of mediocrity, because
they're thinking of the football game they'regoing to watch after the session. And inmany senses, producers are the same way.
For most of them, it's a matter of notembarrassing yourself, not extending
yourself too far but keeping it all safe.
Certainly that's true in LA."All these sentiments are very laudable,
but if he really is that keen to develop, isn't
stayirg with the Big Mac at the moment akinto treading water?
"Sure, that's probably exactly right. But
there's nothing wrong with chomping at the
bit if that's what you've got to do for a while.
I'm not one for the random upholding of an
institution, but Fleetwood Mac has been one
for a long time and there's a lot of love andcare between people, even if it's understateda lot of the time. It's a question of balancing
confidence, ambition and humanity."
As Micky Fleetwood said some time ago.
the band functions on a "chemistry based oncompromise". Ian Birch

controversy surrounding the album
and me, and maybe it can be said thatM

it was hurting the coherency of theband - whatever that means. But it's
an honest thing. Ijust care about what
I'm trying to do and that's trying to
improve. Maybe it's easy for me to saythat because we have made a goodchunk of money, but I look forward tobeing creative in the next decade,whether that's within Fleetwood Mac
or in a different format."He's already started to translate
this plan into action. Everywhere hegoes. he takes his trusty Teac (andCarol, natch)and experiments not
only on new material but also themethods of presenting that material.
He admires the working methods of
HISTORY OF ROCK 1980 173

Al.,' 0:1980JULY -SEPZEMBER"Roger hates
everything"
PINK FLOYD s The Wallis themultimpdia fulfilment of0

AUGUST 2-

ROGER WATERS personal

N ANYOF five nights in the last week ofFebruary, the audience inside Long Island's
Nassau Coliseum could witness thefollowing sights: a Spitfire plane screamedand dive-bombed the entire length of the

MIMI. Film. Show...
MM gets the lowdown on

a project that has led
to Waters' unseemly
domination of the group.
"He's an extremely, uh,complicated man," confides
producer Bob Ezrin.

auditorium. Monstrous inflatables-

w icked perversions of a woman, a school teacher and pig hovered in the stage lights, trailing the tatters of delicious

night mare. An innocent animation of a flower turned,
with terrible swiftness, into a greedy vagina, which thendevoured like a succubus its hapless stamen. Musiciansin black frock -coats paraded in fascist armbands as anarmy of hammers marched threateningly across the film
screen behind them. A hotel room, hearing the real signof theTropicana in Los Angeles, and cont ai n ing fu rn it ure
and a flickeringTV set, was recreated on stage -a brief,
miraculous prison. Worms shrivelled before one's eyes.
A judge's gavel pounded. And throughout the two hours'
performance, there rose, brick by inexorable brick,a massive white wall right across the proscenium. At
t he end this was reduced, in one great, echoing st roke,
to a cardboard rubble; and then the un-merry band ofmusicians walked away through the dust, piping boththeir farewell and (one supposes) their symbolic rebirth"After The Fall".
All thesediverse theatrical effects were intended fora
single, grand purpose, but their deepest significance may
have been lost upon Pink Floyd's New York fans. Sheer
ampl it ude seems to intoxicate Americans like no unease,to fill t heircapacity for mad but good-natured exuberance. 'this and ience whooped and stamped, hooted "Rock'n'roll!" v.
and "All right!", stood on theirseatsand flung up i heirarms idt 'ph, and finally made that most touchingly banal of allrock gestures: theylit matches inceren lllll ial homage.
"[here was a considerable irony in the audience's react'
The concept of The Wall sprang, autobiographically, fr
an actual incident during the Floyd's 1977 "InThe Flesh"tourof NorthAmerica on July 6, playing the last dateof the
Murat t he Olympic Stadin Montreal. Roger Waters was
suddenly seized by the unpleasant convict
hat most of his
audience was, as he put it, "only therefor the beer" and thechance to flex its own vocal cords; he was so upset that he spat
into the front row.
Subsequently, however, he found himselfgripped by anot her
Idea that was to consume him for the next two -and -a -half x.
74 I HISTORY Of ROCK 1980-

February 27, )98O: tera seven -date residency
in LA, Roger Waters andPink Floyd stage The Wallshow over five nights at
Nassau C oliseum onLong Island, N ew York1980
SEPTEMBERJULY

years: he would express his sense of alienation by physically building awall between the audience and the band. It was this wall that eventuallyconfronted those who attended Nassau Coliseum, where it's arguable
whether the appreciation ofthe fans was anymore subtle than in Montreal.
It's true, however, that no such criticism appears to affect thecommercial status of Pink Floyd. Bathed in the adoration ofthei r vast audience, they a re unique among super -groups
in that for 15 years they have steadily continued to getbigger, while (almost) totally ignoring the (almost) total
hostility of the press -that their music is limited, andthat Pink Floyd are in effect big bread and circuses;
the comparison is with their own airborne
inflatables - objects to be gazed upon admiringly by
the crowd below, yet not to be reached.

and remote, even though it is legitimately the most eye -popping
theatrical event in rock history.
And so, fabulously rich but scrupulously private, Pink Floyd move fromone blockbuster to another. The Wall concert is only the logical product of
their experiments since the '60s with multimedia shows, and is anexact dramatisation of The Walialbum (Phase One); but bothwill be completed by a film (PhaseThree) incorporating
narration as well as animation and live footage (to be
shot during next week's London performance at Earl's
Court). Thus Pink Floyd are the first ever rock group
to conceive of the eventual outcome of their musicas film, and to control its progress in this direction-a notion, in which albums virtually becomesoundtracks, that will surely be a characteristic of'80s music, particularly as the richer artists get more
pINK FLOYD'S AMBITION and success invite
accustomed to handling video. (Hypothesis: Would
PINK FLOYDCOMFORTABLY NUMB
the glorification of statistics and logistics. One
not concert albums like Tommyand Quadrophenia be*stintAinum Int MAW Pc2 361111.
way of measuring their stature is to show thatnodkoid ZobrI.310.04 Glen.
recorded todaywith the movie in mind?)since the release of Ummagumma in November 1969
The second great irony of The Wall, however, is that for all
11941111.111W
they've earned in Britain three gold albums (gold is the sale ofthe stupendous fireworks of the stage show, for all the Floyd's
100,000 copies), one double gold, three platinum (300,000 copies each)elephantine obsessions, the work itself should be so personally revealing
and one triple platinum (for Dark Side Of The Moon, which has sold-and that its nature should be so bitterly, hopelessly miserable.
almost seven million copies in seven years, has never left Billboard's Top
200 chart, and is consequently fourth in all-time album chart longevity).
SOM E BACKGROUND: The Wall is the first Floyd record in a
The Wall album, bolstered by the unexpected release of a single,
decade, since the participation of Norman "Hurricane" Smith, to"Another Brick In The Wall Part Two" -their first in 11 years since "Careful
have been co -produced with an "outsider" - Bob Ezrin, known
With That Axe, Eugene" -seems likely to do even better: in Britain it "wentfor his albums with Alice Cooper, Lou Reed and Kiss, a likeable,
double platinum" within two months and in America during the first
outgoing Canadian to whom Waters' wife, the former Caroline
months of this yearwas selling at the rate of 300,000 copies a week, which
Christie, had once been secretary. Ezrin was present at a turning point
has stunned even the band's record company, Columbia.
in Pink Floyd's career: Roger's spitting at Montreal's Olympic Stadium.
Their own preoccupation with details is infectious. It becomes
As he recalls: "I went to Hamilton (location of the venue( in the car incumbent upon newspapers to describe the dimensions of the stage
Roger and Caroline, my friend and myself; in fact, Roger had a slight
Wall (340 bricks, extending all together 210 feet by 35 feet high) and theaccident and had to go to Hamilton General Hospital -luckily, the friend
cost of the whole performance ($1.8 million, hazarded the New YorkI brought was a doctor. But on the way home, while my doctor friend andTimes; in fact, according to Floyd's stage producer Graeme Fleming, only
Caroline went to sleep in the back seat, Roger and I began to discuss thishalf a million dollars. (Note: "only".) Fans may wish to know that it took
crazy idea he had about putting up a wall between him and the audience
the whole of last year to prepare Gerald Scarfe's
because he felt this sense of separation. That
animations and insect-like caricatures; thatwas the first mention of it; it was just a very
the stage show was six months in construction;
casual conversation -we were talking eventhat 44 people were required to produce it; andabout Broadway and things like that then. And
that, before the initial seven performances atthen we spoke about it at his house in London
Los Angeles' Sports Arena early in February,a year and a half later.
they rehearsed 10 times on the movie"Having written the first draft he realised thesoundstages of Culver City. In rock music theextent of it all. He decided it was too much work
lavish accumulation of such details createsto do it all by himself, and he didn't want to go
an aura of power that enslaves rather thanback to the old lifestyle of living in the studio forliberates its audience. The group or artist iseight months; he had little kids and he wanted
saying: "Look at me, how powerful I am." At a
to be able to get home in the evening. So hetime when the rest of the rock industry is under
decided on a collaborator. I believe he'd made apressure to feel guilty about expenditure, The
list of people and my name was first on the list
Wall makes Pink Floyd seem wholly invincible
because we'd actually met and spoken a few
times about this; we weren't really friends, but
we were acquaintances."
The initial recording they started in
Gerald Scarfe's
November 1978, and finished mixing almost
nightmarish
animation isexactly a year later, at the Producers' Workshop
projec ted onto
in Los Angeles. The bulk of the work was done
The Wallduring
at Superbear Studios in France, and then Ezrin"Waiting For
The Worms -at
and Floyd moved to New York. Typically, it was
Nassau Coliseum
a major operation: in each country families
had to be relocated, and there was time off for
returning home to see children.
"Roger really began t he whole thing byhimself," continues Ezrin, "at his little studioin the country, and he wrote an entire record
called The Wall which was almost one song. It
was a demo for the purpose of seeing if it would
play and for the purpose of sending it round to
all the other members of the group to see if
they'd be interested.
"But there was never any distinction
between the actual three elements: the album,
the stage show and the film -they were allD

1"sColumba"The album,
stage show
and film were
all devised at
the same time"devised at the same time. On an
average day we'd roll up to Gerry
Scarfe's house at nine in themorning to look at roughanimation done around a song that
we hadn't even finished recording
yet. After checking that out, we'd goin the studio, and at one o'clock in
the afternoon we'd have a meetingwith the director of the film. It was
crazy, but a very good way to do it."Ezrin was an unlikely helpmate
for Waters. His method of making
records is spontaneous andvisceral; and he thought he would
not have patience with Floyd's"intellectual" approach, theweeks of thinking, talking andexperimentation. Also, he had
never co -produced before, and was
exhausted after a four-year cycle ofworking. "I was slightly fearful offinding myself in an unbearable
situation," he says.
And then there was the differenceof lifestyles. Whereas Ezrin enjoys the speed of
rock'n'roll and its sense of community, Pink Floyd
exhibit the conservatism of the rich and reclusive behaviour that mystified the outsider: "They live
their own very peculiar life. I've never met a group ofpeople that lives the way this group does. Never." Hegropes for a comparison. "They're very, very British.
Their lifestyle is interchangeable with the president
ofjust about any bank in England; it's anything but--Lrock'n'roll madness. If you bumped into Roger on a
Sunday afternoon with the kids in the park -Roger
and Caroline on "the nanny's day off", as they call it they wouldn't know that this guy wasn't a wonderfully successful young
executive marching his family into the park. Very reserved; in fact, there's
such a lack of rock'n'roll energy throughout that getting to LosAngeles
was a good idea. It's very hard to inject that sort of consciousness at 10
o'clock every morning and you're working regularly from 10 till six."
Ezrin discusses his contributions to the album: "Musically, Roger reallydoesn't have the vocabulary -or the facility, if you will -to zero in on the
problem with the construction of a song; he needed someone who could
do that for him. Usually it has been really trial and error."
When The Wall was being sequenced, Ezrin abruptly realised that SideThree did not make sense. To prove it, he wrote a book of the routine of thealbum. Waters accordingly rejigged it.
Ezrin also strongly urged them to release a single -"Run Like Hell" and"Young Lust" are two more tracks he had earmarked. To his mild surprise,
they were remarkably agreeable: "In the past, I don't think it was because
they had any phobia about being typed as a commercial group: they
simply didn't know how singles worked, and they didn't really give a shit.
They didn't really have to, did they?They were amazingly successful forguys who didn't concentrate on radio.
"It may seem like it, but there was no war going on amongst Pink Floyd
members against radio; theyjust weren't really conscious of radio
programming needs and formulas. So they did what they do best, and it
put them in a very special class of their own. But in things like what a good
tempo would be fora single, and how to get an intro and an outro -I know
all those things; and theywere quite open to trying them."
For Ezrin, producing The Wallwas a "wonderful experience". He readily
enthuses about Roger Waters' abilities: "He's the finest wordsmith inmusic right now; there's no one to touch him. You may not like the subject
matter that he finally decides to go with, but I've seen other things he's
written and he does have a capacity to write anything, right down tosimple rock'n'roll. He has a facility with language like no one else.
But what Ezrin won't publicly acknowledge is the atmosphere of strain
and suspicion between the four members of Pink Floyd when they began
recording together. All have been living as tax exiles: Nick Mason in theSouth of France, Rick Wright and Dave Gilmour in the Greek islands, andWaters in Switzerland. Socially, like many long -serving group members,

August 7,1980, Earl's

Court, London: Roger
Waterscloses thefirst half of the show
crooning "Goodbye

Cruel World" before
placing the final brick,Frffr<1,0ythey have grown apart, but they're divided
particularly by Waters' increasing domination of
the band -Wright and Mason aren't even creditedon The Wall album. Ezrin was required most vitallyto persuade them to enter the studio together, andthere he had to act as ombudsman, to observe fairplaywhen Waters began flinging his weight around.
This internal dissension partly explains the secrecythat the band cultivate.
Says Ezrin of Waters: "He's an extremely, uh,complicated man."

THROUGH THE '70S Pink Floyd's theme was the "quiet
desperation" that Waters wrote of in Dark Side Of The Moon.
Animals, though crude, was an extraordinarily bitter broadsideagainst capitalism. But no other album feels as wounded and personalto Waters as The Wall, which painfully delineates the destructive
lifestyle of the successful rock star, a theme that's as old as rock itself
but is invariably one of celebration rather than rage.
This Dantesque figure describes only self -disgust and, eventually,
despair; he breaks up with his wife, attempts suicide and, in a climax ofraging schizophrenia, puts his past life on trial. The Wall, Waters seems tosay, is the prison each of us erects throughout his or her life; its bricks are
the relationships that condition us, and he presents a criminals' gallery of
suffocating, protective mothers, vicious school teachers, cold, faithless
wives and stupid groupies. This man believes himself betrayed by thedemands of his audience, for whom he has rancorous contempt: "Soyathought ya might like to go to the show," he sneers. In his mounting
paranoia the National Front march to a Nazi band, and Jews, blacks andgays face persecution. Hammers symbolise forces of oppression, worms
are the agents of decay. The world has gone blind and drips with evil.
The doubt and self -hate of this record is astonishing. It's a psychodramaof the bleakest pessimism, in which its miserable rock star flails savagely
at every person who has ever got close enough to affect him,
notwithstanding its "message" at the end when The Wall collapses, like
Jericho, as "the bleeding hearts and the artists make their stand". Success,bludgeons Waters, is sheer bloody hell.
While denying the The Wallis autobiographical, he's admitted that it's"rooted in my experience". Like his chief character, Waters' own father
was killed in the last war (in the stage show the crashing plane and thesong "Vera", about Vera Lynn, are meant to evoke a generation offatherless war babies). He was brought up, with some strictness, by his
mother, a school teacher. And he loathed his own (grammar) schooldays.
For the record, Waters is also divorced from his first wife, Judy.
In his music and infrequent interviews he strikes one as a gloomy, self obsessed man such as one finds in a Bergman film. In 1975 he told theFrench monthly Rock & Folk: "I haven't discovered... anything that helps
me along. Every new thing I accomplish, or everything I get, doesn't x,
HISTORY OF ROCK 1980 177

1980

Juty -sEPAEMBER

satisfy me as I imagined it would do when I was young." Andas far back as 1970 his comments in an interview with meforeshadowed "Another Brick In The Wall": "In my schoolingthere was never any inkling of why, no philosophicaldiscussion about man's condition, of what human beings
are or why they are... The system is such that you as anindividual don't stand a chance when they wheel you in atfive years old."
It's small wonder that The Wall seems less a work of a rt thanan act of therapy: it's rightful context is, as Time magazine
has suggested, that of "libretto for Me -decade narcissism". 01
a piece with the culture of narcissism, the stage show offers

spectacle rather than the involvement of theatre.
Still, The Wall provides a brilliantly apt metaphor for Floyd's
career. At one point in the show each musician is completely
isolated behind the high, white barrier; claiming that they
have never wanted to sell themselves as personalities, Floyd
have constructed a psychological guard designed to avert
the rude gaze of the media and the public. There is the Berlin
Wall, the Great Wall of China... and Pink Floyd's Wall.

JOTTINGS FROM NEW York: An atmosphere ofparanoia and collusion? Jill Furmanovsky, aphotographer, has just returned from tonight's
concert and had all her film confiscated from her bag by
Steve O'Rourke, Pink Floyd's manager. Then I call Gerry
Scarfe for some information on the animation; very polite,
but he says he's got to speak to O'Rourke.
Waters is staying at a very posh hotel on Park Avenue. I get
through and he sounds very icy. "I just thought I'd do you thecourtesy of personally tell ingyou no so that you knew thatwas the case from the horse's mouth rather than from someminion." Still, there has been a party following Floyd's
penultimate performance. It is, of course, Big Bread &Circuses, held at the club Privates on 85th and Lex. Andy
Warhol and Carly Simon show up.
And I have spoken to Bob Ezrin. He says that Nick Mason
loves to dance, and that at a Christmas party at Britannia
Row, the Floyd's rehearsal and studio complex in Islington,
he was "dancing his buns off" all night. One of the problems
is that Roger doesn't dance; maybe that explains why Pink
Floyd don't produce that kind of music. Gilmour would liketo, but perhaps he's a little self-conscious. When they wererecording The Wall, Gilmourwas constantly bringing insingles he liked that he'd heard on the radio. "The taste ofsome of the boys runs to the eclectic," Ezrin announces.
"Now Roger's very d ifficult - he hates everything."
Ezrin is on his way back to Toronto after some tiff with
Waters -"some tiny little thing" quoting Ezrin on Pink Floyd
in Canadian Billboard six weeks ago: "Rogerwent off in acompete huff and hasn't spoken to me since. Honest to God,
he's that sensitive, and we had a very good relationship. too,
afterworking cheek to cheek likethat for a year. To havesomething small like that throw
him off..." He sounds hurt. Now
the producer Chris Thomas,
0
also managed by O'Rourke, hasflown in from England to adviseon the sound at Nassau.
Ezrin has been speculatingwhere Pink Floyd go from here.
He doesn't know. "They can't
get any more spectacular,"he muses. "There's so much
distance that has yet to be put
between them and this project.
But I don't know that it's the"Leave thosedeath of Floyd. A lot of people
kids alone!":have been talking about it beinga giant teacher
puppet looms
the death of Floyd, the last rattle
over the Nassau
before they lie down and die. I
Coliseum stage
don't think so." Michael Watts
78 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1980

Neurotic obsessions
MM AUG 9'Id's teetering Silt

PINK FLOYD WERE always themost nervous superstars: successbrought them anxiety, wealthworried them.
Written as an expression of doubt
and apprehension, Dark Side Of The
Moon became one of the mostpopular boutique soundtracks of all
time. Lacerated by the dubious ironyof its success, the Pink Floyd wrote
Wish You Were Here, a bitter
postcard from impending tax -exileand followed it with Animals, a
disgusted cry from the heart of thebeast that savaged capitalist society.
Two years in preparation, last year's
tortured epic The Wall was themost extreme
statement in thisparade of psycho melodramas, mostnotable, perhaps,for the sheer
persistence withwhich Roger Waters- increasingly using
the Floyd as
a vehicle forhis own morbid
preoccupations - slugged home his
pessimistic visions. Dragged out overfour sides of the original double
album, Waters' autobiographicalopera of misery and coruscating
self-doubt was finally more tiresome
than moving.
But we should remember that it wasstated firmly from the beginning thatthe album was eventually to be
judged in the context of The Wall as
a complete theatrical experience,the soundtrack of a multimedia
extravaganza. Only then would itstrue worth become apparent.
The Floyd premiered the complete
work earlier this year in America. Last
Monday, it moved into Earl's Court
for a summer
season. Its

dally unites nume
The show is an exact dramatisationof the album. The first half traces
the genesis of Waters' anxieties,
scatters the blame for the author's
neurotic obsessions and despair.
This despair isn't at all cosmetic:
Waters' concern was tangible in thephysical and vocal exaggeration ofhis performance.
Unfortunately. the songs throughwhich he chooses to express his
concerns are rarely capable ofbearing the emotional weight withwhich he attempts to invest them.
Waters might wear his heart bravely
on his sleeve, but he often ends up
with his feet in his mouth, choking on
his own platitudes.
Simultaneously,and equallydestructively,
the Floyd's
characteristic,
pedantic musicalstroll only
suffocates his
basic themes,
trumpets thevacuity of his lesspenetrating insights.
The Floyd have usually written
songs in two distinct and predictablestyles: one embraces an acoustic,
pastoral whimsy, the other, more
ornate, is usually more celestial. Bothstyles were given a damned goodthrashing at Earl's Court.
The impact was further diluted byinstrumental passages of inordinate
length, the dullness of which is almost
impossible to convey here. David
Gilmour was probably the principal
culprit; forever winging off on guitar
solos that smacked of clenched teeth
and furrowed brows. Soporific wasn't
the word: the Floyd would've put
Lemmy to sleep.

The audiencegasped with all
the candour ofchildren at apantomime

reputation
as the mostelaborate
theatricalpresentationin rock

history
precededits domestic
production
with suchforce thatthe eventwas probably
bound tobe seen as

somethingof ananticlimax.

Waters-One Of My Turns"
provided the only real jag in the ribs.
Delivered with passionate sincerity,
it recalled specifically the bleaklandscapes charted by Lou Reed's
Berlin (a work that was evokedfrequently during the evening).
The much -vaunted staging was
impressive only in its dimensions.
As the Floyd - augmented by aduplicate quartet - lumberedthrough the opening segment, a
massive wall was erected before
them. Mobiles, designed by Gerald
Scarfe, were hoisted above theaudience, who gawped and gasped
with all the candour of children ata pantomime. There was nothing
overwhelmingly imaginative about
this: certainly, the production failed
to match the brilliant ingenuity of,August 7.1980:David Garnourreels
off another solothat -would've put
Lernmy to sleep -at Earl's Court

sddiellik
7

AV

EARLS COURT

EXHIBITION CENTRE,- LONDON say, Alice Cooper's Welcome
To My Nightmare show.
The climax to the first half did- AUGUST4 provide us with the production's
most emphatically chilling image,
though. The wall by now complete,
save for one final space, Waters
crooned the desolate lyric of"Goodbye Cruel World". As themusic faded, he placed the final
brick in the wall. The rest wassilence: ominous and cold.
By this time, though, they'd lostme. If he'd hung around much
longer, I'd have been down the front
with a trowel and a bowl of cement,
helping the bugger brick himself up.
The second half of the show failed
to build on the desolate mood withwhich the first half ended; the lyricalintrospection of the earlier songs
was briefly pursued, as Waters
evoked memories of his childhood
and his father's death, but his
attempts to locate his private
turmoil in a wider social and political context
missing only John Wayne intoning gravely, as
floundered badly. The insular unreality of ahe did in The Greatest Story Ever Told. "Truly
rock star's life was brilliantly illustrated when
this group was the son of God..." Allan Jonesa trap door in the wall fell open revealing
Waters isolated in a neon -lit motel interior,
MM AUG 16
but subsequent references to totalitarian
repression and fascist violence were clumsily
PINK FLOYD'S MASSIVE run of six
mounted, dangerously ambiguous.
nights at London's Earl's Court last
The climax was predictable and inevitable.
week ended with disaster for
As the music aspired to a momentous
cartoonist/designer Gerald Scarfe whencrescendo, and the visual images flickered in
10 of his original
accelerating confusion, the wall collapsed
pieces of artwork
amid volcanic explosions.
for The Wall show
Led by Waters, the musicians reappeared
were stolen.
like a New Orleans funeral band, playing a
Insurance valuers
lament among the debris. "Outside The
put a price tag ofWall", the final piece, seemed to imply that
more than £30,000
the preceding destruction had beenon the drawings andevidence of some kind of metaphoricalpaintings, whichmartyrdom. It was a final sentimental gesture
were taken fromtheir glass frames in the foyer of the Earl's
Court arena in the early hours of Sunday.
They were part of an exhibition that ran
during the show, and were seen by most of
90,000 people who went to the concerts.
One of the paintings was the original artwork
for the cover of The Wall album. A reward isbeing offered for information leading to therecovery of the artwork, and information
should go to Kensington Police Station.

Troubled
WatersDecembert80979:
JoyDivsionoutside
theForurnDesHalles,
Paris-(I-r)Bernard
Albrecht,IanCurtis,Peter Hook andStephen Morris

80 I HISTORY OF ROCKJOY DIVISION

Head-on emotions
MM JUL 26 Arriving in the wake of Ian Curtis' death,
Joy Division's second LP is direct yet transcendent.
Joy Division Closer FACTORY

F. ROM THE BEGINNING, wewere always dealing withsomething special. Joy
Division, by the very nature of
their set-up, could never havebeen just another band caught
up in the insanity of musicalmanoeuvres. Stubbornly
isolated away from themachinery, coming andgoing as they pleased,
they never bowed
to any demand

except that of theirown choosing.
Everything wascontrolled andbalanced, allowing
them flexibility in allareas, from the choice ofvenue to the giving away of free
singles without a murmur of fuss.
They were too sensitive,
too private, too Joy Division
to be dragged down into an
unwelcome destructive
limelight. With their music,
as evidenced on their debut
album Unknown Pleasures andconsequent singles, they began
to fuse together a body of soundand vision that was unique.
Naturally, the events

surrounding Ian Curtis' strange
and violent action of threemonths ago cling unavoidably
around Closer, but it's interesting
to note the matters Curtis was
raising at the time, with tworecurring themes emerging:religion and an almost fervent
admission of defeat of whatever
Curtis was hoping to achieve.
"This is a crisis /knew had tocome/Disturbing and purging mymind... I knew that I'd lose every
time," he cries out in "Colony",
while, later on, in "Twenty Four
Hours", he admits: -Just for one
moment I thought
Id found my way... I
watched it slip away",
before a great rush ofmusic enters to sweep
the song away.
Elsewhere,
confessional
admissions ofhopelessness anddespair abound("I never realised
the lengths I'd haveto go"), alongside

scattered references
to matters religious via

phrases and words such as "innercommunion", "God in his wisdom
took you by the hand", and soon.

Of course, the cover paintingof Mary Magdalene mourning
Jesus' dead body gives us fairwarning of this, but what exactly
is being communicated is, as
always, left to the listener.
Paradoxically, given theintense personal revelationsof Curtis that run like fire
throughout, the actual music
is probably some of the mostirresistible dance music we'll hear
this year. When you're listening
to something like "Means To An
End" you realise that Joy Division
have in Peter Hook and Stephen
Morris one of the best rhythm
sections going. Always precise,always tight and hard, they're thefoundation on which Bernard
Albrecht either lays over great
savage wedges of disorientating
noise or allows himself interplay
with the bass, bouncing off it
frequently with sweet, offsetting
guitar lines that somehow always
move on their own.
With Closer, too, the band
enhance their atmospherics evenfurther with the introduction of
keyboards; like the music, they'realways at a simple level, never

imposing or outstaying theirwelcome and laying to waste thenotion that Joy Division create
difficult, inaccessible music.
"The Eternal" enters with aswish of rattles, a solid bass anda magnificent, haunting melody

that complements perfectly
Curtis' evocation of mood andatmosphere. In "Isolation", themelody is carried by the almost
disarmingly simple synthesizer
line that is pushed forward bysome relentless drumming andbrittle bass work.
It's a far cry for sure fromthe almost suffocatingly
claustrophobic world of thedebut album, but the concerns
are still the same. The best (andmost subversive?) rock music
has always dealt head-on withemotions and thought rather
than cliched, standardised
stances; that's what makes Closer
and Joy Division so important.
In this age of grand illusion,
fear and apprehension, Joy
Division mirrored perfectly ourlives and times. This is the way.
Step inside. PaoloHewitt

HISTORY OF ROCK 1980 181

1980

JULY - SOMBER

Kevin Rowland:"empty comments
about soul power
and revolutions-441111ftilm-

LIVE

Incredible arrogance
MM AUG 16

Pxvs Monist himners oven wnn a cheap shot. And the gig goes downhill from there.

0

N A MILD August night in1980, at
an obscure venue in Kilburn, Dexys
Midnight Runners presented a show
which must rank as one of the most arrogant,self-important, ego -inflated and, above all,cheap affairs I've ever witnessed.
The build-up began just prior to the
support band's slot, when the PA, which had
been pumping out soul records all night,
supposedly "broke down". What followed waspure farce, with the arrival of the compere forthe night (hired especially by the band) miking
up a cracked copy of "Anarchy In The UK"
from a small Dansette, and then proceeding tocall it "a joke", and "worthless", as it stutteredand jumped out of the speakers. Fact: if it
hadn't been for that very record's existence,and the musical climate it created, Kevin+ THE FORCE + NERVOUS KIND
RECORDS SY BROTHER MARTINCOMPERE KEITH ALLEN

Rowland would never have been in The
Killjoys and releasing singles like "Johnny
Won't Go To Heaven", let alone experiencing
the current runaway success of the Dexys.
After that worthless slice of cheap
symbolism, the compere

dismissing some kid by shouting, "You're nota soul rebel - he is!" pointing to sax player JB.
And so on.
The arrogance was incredible and thepretentiousness overbearing as the Dexys
took us through a set that
contained the whole of thealbum - plus a few covers,
which never once displayed
anything approaching
human warmth or sheer joy,two vital ingredients of
their music's roots.
I'd gone expecting tosee one of the best of thenewer bands deliver a showthat was their own, and not
one that made easy jibes and preached empty
comments about soul power and revolutions;
topics that the audience, which was largely adisco crowd, weren't bothered about anyway.
The day Kevin Rowland stops trying to
be Johnny Rotten is the day I'll become
interested again. Leaving aside the fact that
half of their album contains material alreadyissued in singles bags; and forgetting for aminute that no one has yet explained what it is
to be "a young soul rebel", I'm not surprised
there's no one to welcome the new soul vision.
Ever got the feeling you've been cheated?

then reappeared to deliver
a confused monologue
The set never once
about the lack of an
approaching revolution(you really surprise me),before leaving us with thegroup's three favourite
records, "Love Unlimited","Taste Of Honey" and one
I failed to recognise. Only
then the band finallyappeared and stood silently in a gang at thefront of the stage, most of them
dressed in berets and heavy
overcoats, like some pseudo
revolutionary army guerrillas.

displayed anything
approaching
human warmthor sheer joy

From then on it was cheap
dramatics. Kevin Rowland cornily
sitting on an organ strumming
his way through "Keep It" in a"heartfelt" manner. Kevin Rowland
informing us that "Geno" was notgoing to be played, and then theband breaking into it halfway
through the set. Kevin Rowland

Paolo Hewitt

DEPTFORD ALBANYLONDON Where Elvis

Flying through hit after hit
NME AUG 23,fools Holland. A terse Elvis Costello
FOR THOSE -AND there are some - who've
never been to the Albany Empire and are
ignorant to the venue's overwhelming
size, maybe the following local joke will
illuminate: a fella goes to the Albany andopens the door. "Can I come in?" he asks,
and the bloke behind the desk says, "Only if
I come out."
So given that, it's understandable that thebill which played there Tuesday throughThursday last week took place amidst suchdiscretion that in comparison Operation
Overlord looked fly -posted. The dates arranged to mark loots Holland's departurefrom Squeeze- brought them back to where
they started and have played on and off eversince; and on and offstage, old friends andfaces huggedeach other and sobbed like abattalion reunion of romantic desert rats.
Tuesday opened with Alexei Sayle, a comic
who looked like one of The Blues Brothers andrattled through a cruel hatchet job on what
it's like when rock'n'rollers attempt to go
articulate. Watch out for him.
And so to Otis Westinghouse And The Lifts,
who (by cou rtesy of several paper cups and alength of string) by nine o'clock were revealed
to be Costello And The Att ract ions. Elvis'

reception was as rousing as the ensemble
could muster and a terse "one two" led into
"Beaten To The Punch". If he was doing this forfun and a favou r you'd never have guessed: noroom for smiles, no breaks between songs, nomusical gags nothing was relaxed.

Jools Holland favours thebowtie-and-cab: sal look.
while Glenn Tilbrook opts for"Arthur Daley ormir drums'

in support.

Costello performed and lives (I suppose)
as if at any moment Sirhan Si rha n is goingto yell "bastard" and come lunging fromthe stalls waving a loaded 45; or as if being
friendly would result in a nationwide boycottof his work on the grounds that he ain't sotough after all.
Perhaps his stance has gone too far now andwhat was once a wacky and endearing oddball
image has now accelerated to a point where

those glasses and that austere veneer are
dangerously stretch ing Declan McManus
like a piano wire and torelax it could result in an
almighty SNAP.
With "Chelsea", "Oliver's
Army", "Lipstick Vogue",the slow blues of "Help Me"
and "Don't Look Back", theset was random and rich,LIVE!

had gritted teeth,
they grinned, andyou got the feeling
AUGUST 12-14 that they performthe songs for theaudience and the hellof it, whereas Elvis -who
actually knows all the words to their songs!
-knocks them out for duty and appreciation.
The only black mark against Squeeze wasthat on such an informal night they might
have been less workmanlike and performed
their excellent cheesy nightclub version of"Up The Junction" which they did last time
here, on Chris Difford's birthday.
The combined Squeeze/Attractions encores,
though, were magic, curiously sans Holland.
Elvis and Glenn Tilbrook took over the rolesofWilliam Bell and Judy Clay for a faithful
rendition of "Private
Number" which was

Old faces hugged
each other andsobbed like acertainly the highlightof the three days. A great
three days!
And finally, what may be
a telling anecdote: as theafter -concert drink -up
battalion reunion
lasting about 40 minutes
wound its way into Friday
with no encore. (Tuesday
morning, we were all issued
was the only night he didn't
daft paper hats. Elvis tooklater return with Squeeze.)his, put it on, but as soon
Thursday turned out to be the best gig. Johnas the person who gave it to him went off,
Cooper Clarke dodged in and out and between
crumpled it up and threw it away. Being seen
sets nipped on to bawl just -remembered jokes
in a party hat would tighten that piano wire
at a good-natured but baffled gathering.
another notch, and whilst not wanting to hurt
For the books, I'd say that JCC looked as
his hosts' feelings- once theywere gone- hethough he enjoyed the do more than anyone,
didn't want to betray his own.
Then it hit me: I was standing there creating
Squeeze included -who flew through hit
after hit, and I never realised how much I liked
a conspiracy around a paper hat. God help me!
them and how well I knew their records until
Putting the pen away, I found some dear oldlast week.
pals and got quite, quite relaxed... DannyBaker

of desert rats

1980
JUIY

SEPTEMBER"The hairgreasejust isn't
the same"
Cresting a rockabilly wave, HE STRAY CAT: land in the

UK. No mere revivalists, they have the same relationshipto rock'n'roll as The Specials do to ska. "The songs are
more modern, the lyrics are more contemporary, andit's all much louder and electric than the earlier stuff."
NME AULIO I )U _AHUMID LATE AUGUST afternoon in the centre of Soho. Three young
Americans bemoan the lack of hot sauce on their takeaway lunch fromthe kebab store across the road and gather in an apprehensive semi -circle
for an interview.
The trio are 19 -year -old Brian Setzer and his two 18 -year -old partners,
Slim Jim and Lee Rocker. Collectively they are The St ray Cats, pioneers of
postmodern rockabilly and arguably the hottest band currently doing the rounds on an otherwise
uninspiring London gig circuit.
We are sitting in the first -floor office of a London music business publicist. Nothing unusual
about that, of course, except that these hardly salubrious confines are also the only place the three
native New Yorkers have been able to look on as home for the past sixweeks.
For, at the start of July, The Stray Cats, bored with the suburban backcloth of their small-town
origins on New York's Long Island, felt the uncontrollable urge to get moving. The initial feelingwas that anywhere would do, until a little thought and consultation with their English manager
Tony Bidgood resulted in the Cats homing in on the UK to start searching for the young rockabilly
rebels in London.
Gigs and contacts were hastily arranged back on the other side of the Atlant ic, a flight booked
and instruments packed, including Lee's sizeable double bass, which required a seat and air
ticket to itself on the TWA Jumbo into Heathrow. But that was where their problems started. The
arrangements that had been made for gigs and accommodation fell unceremoniously through,leaving the band- in their own words- "in Shit City".
84 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1980

The Stray Cats:(I -r) Brian Set zer,
Lee Roc her and

SlimJim Phantom

P1

READINGSPIZZ*04

1980

JULY - SEPTEMBER

Brian chews on a chunk of kebab, adjusts an out -of -place hair on his
elaborate blond quiff and takes up the story. "We supposedly had all thesegigs setup, but none of them materialised. We weren't actually toobothered about it at first, until we found out that it was really hard to getgigs over here. I mean, compared to New York, it's almost impossible.
Over here they want tapes and all that shit. I don't really want to start
blaming anyone, but it was a big mess-up and we were stuck right in the
middle of it!"
Their fortunes took a turn for the better, however, after a chance meetingwith the original Police and Electric Chairs guitarist Henri Padovani. He
introduced the band to Claudine Riley, a publicist working for press agent
Keith Altham (Who, Rolling Stones, etc), and the group were allowed tosleep on the sofa and floors of their London office until more permanentaccommodation was found. Claudine herself then went about the task ofpersuading club promoters to book a band who, though a cult name backin NewYork, were total unknowns to the UK rock audience.
For their part, the band were keen to play any dates they could get, fromrootsy pub venues like the Thomas A Becket on the Old Kent Road and
The Kensington in Shepherd's Bush, to more traditional music -bizwatering holes such as Dingwalls and The Venue.
With digs and gigs no longer a problem, the sheer vitality of their stage
performances did the rest, welding the spirit of the original rockabilly of
the '50s with a musical toughness and visual punch that is strictly 1980.
And once the word was out, their reputation started to blossom to theextent that they are now being courted in earnest by half a dozen majorlabels as well as attracting such luminaries as Jerry Dammers, Pretenders,
Clashers, Banshees and even old hands like
Jagger, Richards and Ronnie Lane to their gigs.
It's not quite the hoary old rags -to -riches tale
- there's a long way to go yet -but their near overnight success in the London clubs does reekof the sort of storybook rock'n'roller coaster ride
to fame that just isn't supposed to happen thesedays. But, bunking the train to stardom aside,
The Stray Cats had no grand plans when they
took the shot in the dark of moving to England.
"We just kinda got sick of Long Island, 'cos we'dbeen living there all our lives," drawls Jim. "Wedidn't really think about it much. We just got
tired and had the independent urge to split."
Despite their initial difficulties, the move has
left few regrets.
"The only thing I'd go back for rightnow is grease!" says Brian. "The hairgrease over here just isn't the same.
But apart from that I want to stayhere. We want to be able to do aproper tour of England and Europe.
"We're starting to get a steadyfollowing now. I'm starting to noticethe same faces at the gigs and we're
really happywith the way thecrowds are reacting and the way
the songs are going down."

started gigging on a part-time basis with his old schoolmates Lee and Jim,
sometimes playing as many as three sets a night around the bars of Long
Island as The Tomcats.
With the final demise of the Pharaohs, The Tomcats began in earnest,
dropping most of their Cochran and Vincent covers in favour of original
stuff. The also changed their name to The Stray Cats and moved in on thetrendier Manhattan club scene.
Now for the caper. Despite being stylistically at odds with the dominant
NY trends as they saw them -middle-of-the-road punk and camp '60s
pastiche -The Stray Cats had little trouble in securing regular gigs on the
Max's/Hurrah circuit, and began establishing a strong reputation as alive band in much the same way as they are now doing over here.
"At first it was pretty hard for us," recalls Jim. "At first everyone thought
we were gay or something 'cos of the way we dressed. But when they
actually heard us play, theyall knewwe were playing rock'n'roll and slowly
but surelywe built up a pretty large following of kids aged from 17 to 21. By
the time we left, we were getting about 300 people along to most of the gigs.
We don't want to limit ourselves to a straight rockabilly audience. We
don't want to have just teds and rockabillies coming along to see us, 'cos
we're not a straight rockabilly band. The songs are more modern, thelyrics are more contemporary, and it's all much louder and electric thanthe earlier stuff.
"But it's still got the spirit and the basic look, which we kind of exaggerate
a bit," he adds, indicating the pin -drop of a quiff as greasy as the kebab
he's just demolished.
"I mean, no one actuallywore hairlike this in the '50s! We just take it one
step on. We sort of mix up clothes a bit. Thismight be a rockabilly haircut, but we don't justwear rock'n'roll stuff."
Brian goes further and cites The Specials, Beatand Selecter as bands working in a similar way
to The Stray Cats, taking an established musicalform and using it to create something more
contemporary, without destroying the allimportant spirit of the original.
"I saw The Specials once and they were great.
They've got their roots but they haven't got stuckin one place. They're really taking things on anddeveloping them."
The petty revivalism charge is also shown the
red card before being properly raised.
"If people were to accuse us
of being part of a revival I"No one actually wore
wouldn't see it, 'cos we don't
hair like this in the '50s!":
play pure rockabilly. If you're
The Stray Cats backstage
talking about someone likeShowaddywaddy, then it is justrevival shit, 'cos they don't playwith any feeling.

"We've hadskins, mods,
teds - anyone

that likes
rockabilly"

THE ROOTS OF The Stray
Cats lie not only in themusic of Cochran, Presley,

Vincent and Burnett but also in the
now defunct New York cult band
The Bloodless Pharaohs, in which
Brian played guitar from mid -1977
right up until the end of last year.
Though they made it onto record- cutting two tracks for the NY
compilation LP2By5, produced
by Blondie's Jimmy Destri- thePharaohs never realised thepotential of their initial vision asa band carrying on from where thefirst Rory Music album left off.
By the time the split came last year,
a disillusioned Brian had already86 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1980

"But if you really feelsomething then it isn't arevival. Look at some jazzmusicians who have beenplaying swing for the past
40 years. That's not a revival.
It's just something that they
really feel."
The band view their mostobvious British contemporaries-Whirlwind-with a curious
mixture of admiration andsuspicion, Brian rating themunequivocally as a band with areal feel for the music, but both
Jim and Lee have their doubts.
"I don't think they reallyhave
anything to do with rockabilly,"
muses Jim. "They seem to do
things straight out of the book,
but the whole thing about
rockabilly is that it's supposed
to have spirit, and they didn't
have that when 1 saw them.

"They were very lackadaisical,very rehearsed and the wholething about rockabilly is supposed
to be just going out and doing it."
"I'd like bands like them more
if they didn't set themselves up
as rockabilly bands," adds Lee.
"I mean, they don't look rockabilly. If they just saw
themselves as a band, I think I would like them more."
THE STRAY CATS' genuine affection for the styleand flash of '50s rockola and the emphasis theyplace on trying to recapture the wild and raw
spirit of the original rock'n'rollers has hardly clouded
the sharpness of their lyrics. As Jim -a forthright andarticulate drummer- points out, there's more to singabout these days than just high-school dances.
The band's live set still includes a few well-chosencovers, from the obligatory Eddie Cochran number usually "Somethin' Else" or "Jeannie, Jeannie, Jeannie"- to a relative obscuritylike Warren Smith's "Ubangi
Stomp", and The Supremes' "You Can't Hurry Love" both radical transformations of the original, the former
a pounding ska-based thrash and the latter a rambling
countrified rocker.
But it's the original stuff that stands out, particularly
the sketch on youth -cult violence "Rumble In Brighton"
and the nearest thing to a directly political song, "StormThe Embassy".
Both Brian and Jim, who co -write most of the songs,
refute suggestions- hinted at in last week's Live! reviewof the band- that "Rumble In Brighton" is merely aglorification of mindless gang thuggery.
Brian: "It's not a glorification of the violence, 'cos I thinkthat the whole fighting thing is totally ridiculous; people
just beating someone up for the way that they dress..."Jim: "I really hope that it doesn't glorify anything. It's
supposed to be more like an article, someone standing
back and writing about the fighting, 'cos there's nothing
like that in America. The last line of the song also says thatno one is the winner 'cos no one does come out on top in
the end, 'cos the whole thing is so ridiculous."
Brian: "There are no gang fights like that in America.
There are certain areas, like parts of Brooklyn, that you don't go to 'cosof the muggings, but there are no big fights just 'cos someone dresses
differently orwears their hair in a certain way.
"When we first came here we were overly afraid 'cos of what we'd heard,
but there hasn't been any trouble at our gigs and we've had skins, mods
and teds all along, anyone that likes rockabilly. That's the one thing
they've all had in common. We want to play for everybody, not just therockabilly kids.
"We even went to see the Cockney Rejects at the Electric Ballroom
and we were scared shitless 'cos it was a really wild night with a riot andeverything. We'd walked in not knowing what to expect, but none of theskinheads in there even looked at us differently... probably thought wemust have already been nuts going in there on our own anyway!"
The other stand -out original, "Storm The Embassy", is not, as reported
in another paper, an odious ode to the SAS, but a song about the plight of
the US hostages in Iran. The patriotic tone seems almost reactionary on
the surface, although Brian sees it as more of a general comment on theapathy in the face of the crisis.
"What really inspired that was coming over here and finding that noone was really bothered about it. What am I actually saying in the song?
Get those people back, basically!
"It's just a song written out of anger on the spur of the moment. It's notreally that realistic. I don't know if we should actually storm the embassy,
but that's just howyou feel when you hear about it every night on the news
in America and you get so pissed off. It's just aggravating, although I don't
hold it against anyone personally.""Storm The Embassy" is one of a batch of songs that Brian and Jim havewritten and integrated into the set in the six weeks since their arrival in
Britain. (Another is the as -yet -unrehearsed "Teenage Army", about theominous call for the reintroduction of draft registration in the States.)"I've been inspired
over here, basically":
Brian Set ter onstage at the Cedar
Club in 8 irmingham,
December 1980

Although he claims not to be a prolific writer, Brian's productivity has
certainly increased since the band's arrival in Britain- something thecomposer puts down to the change of scene.
"I've been inspired over here, basically," he says. "If I was still sitting at
home in my apartment in New York, I might get bored and not write
anything fora month. But if I've got a lot of things happening to me, likenow, I just get a lot of ideas. It's not as if I write a song everyweek, just that if
I get inspired, I'll write a lot. Most of it is a pretty spontaneous thing."

AND THOSE LAST words echo quite simply just what theappeal of The Stray Cats is: their freshness and immediacy that fleeing zap and sparkle that is probably destined never tobe caught in the studio with the intensity that exists on stage with
Setzer going through his Cochran routines while extracting a wall of
feedback from his 1956 Gretsch, Lee Rocker wrestling with the violinbass and Slim Jim unleashing a barrage of shrieks as he brings thedrumsticks down on his solitary snare drum with the crash of asledgehammer on corrugated tin.
Back in the Soho office -cum -hotel, a more restrained Jim quietly
concludes the interviewwith the sort of anecdote he probably knew
would close this piece.
"I saw this great lady on the train todaywho came up and asked me why
I had a sword in my ear," he recounts, indicating the dagger earring thatdangles from his left lobe.
"She told me that it was dangerous and how her husband once stabbed
someone with a kitchen knife and ended up in a special hospital.
"Then she says, 'What's your Christian name, child?' So I said Jamesand she says, 'You take care of yourself, James, and I hope you get what
you want out oflife!"
So far, the lad's right on course. Adrian Thrills
HISTORY OF ROCK 1980 87

41a

1980

mom _WIEMBERBUNNIES OFTUE YEARUB4O, TALKING HEADS,CAPTAIN BEEFHEART,

KATE BUSH AND MORE

"Deeply stunnedand saddened"
NME DEC 13 John Lennon is murdered in

le former Beatles respond...
IMMEDIATE REACTION to John Lennon's-1-HE
death from those who were formerly

4411111Q

associated with him was one of complete
disbelief. Of the other former Beatles, George
Harrison would only say that he was "deeply
shocked", while Ringo Starr, who was on holiday
at the time, flew back to the United States onhearing the news. Paul McCartney, who had been
staying at his farmhouse home in Rye, Sussex,
said that he was "deeply stunned and saddened".
McCartney later told reporters as he left for
London: "John was a great guy who is going to be
missed by the whole world." Yoko Ono issued acomment through David Geffen, friend andproducer, before leaving the Dakota for an
unknown destination: "John loved and prayed forthe human race - please do the same for him."
OCK 1980

December14,1980:s'adaysafterJohn
Lennonisshotdead
byMarkChapmanat
the entrance to The
Dakotacn72ndStreet,anestim3ted225,000
ram.rnersobserveto
nainutes.silenceinNew
York'sCentralPark

Malcolm Mc La rensnapped on May 22,
19110:"I never put

pressure on people,"saysthe Bow Wow Wow
manager and Chicken
magazine mastermind

Annabelle Lwin, the14 -year-old Bow Wow
Wow singer, saysshe
was asked to pose nude

for Chicken magazine

a general emphasis on pleasure and fun.
To these items, according to Vermorel,
McLaren intended to add a risque letterin which a boy describes what he'd like tohave happen on a dream date with Blond ie
drummer Clem Burke. Furthermore, hetold Thrills, McLaren was concerning
himself so littlewith the magazine that
he began to wonder whether McLarenactually wanted a magazine at all, as
opposed to some outrageous footage for
the Arena programme.
Vermorel went on to describe a furious
McLaren coming round to his house andattempting first to coax, then to bully him
into going back.
"You're up to your neck in this," Vermorel
claims McLaren told him, "whether you
like it or not.""A sort of junior Playboy"
NME NOV 8
THIS WEEK, EMI release an as yet untitled
new single /cassette with the launch of
Chicken, a magazine funded by EMI andadministered for them by former Gang Of
Four manager Rob Warr.
Chicken was yet another invention of Bow
Wow Wow mastermind Malcolm McLaren,and - according to its prospectus -wasintended to be "about pop and fashion,
focusing around pleasure tech: roller-skating,cassette -swinging microchip kids, and on theswashbuckling and romantic 'new look' which
is just coming in". The magazine was set up topromote Bow Wow Wow, and the ideas which
the group was designed to symbolise.
Last week, Chicken's editor Fred Vermorel
resigned, alleging -among other things -that
Anabel la, Bow Wow Wow's 14 -year -old leadsinger, had been pressured by McLaren to be
photographed nude for the magazine, that aneight -year -old child had been reduced to tears
when shouted at to "show a bit of arse" during
90 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1980

Meanwhile at EMI, Rob Warr admitted that
"EMI have pulled out of financing the project in
the form in which it was originally envisaged".
EMI had appa rent ly given McLaren and the
Vermorels (Fred and his wife Judy, co-authorsof biographies of Kate Bush and the Sex Pistols)a photo session which had been filmed by"carte blanche to produce the magazine. The
a BBC2 Arena crew, and that McLaren was
problem was that Fred and Judy thought it was
introducing a pornographic element into the
exploitative, and I felt that they over -reacted;
proceeding, effectively turning what was
Malcolm did not intend any such thing.
supposed to be a sort of cross between Smash"McLaren had come to me with this great
Hits and Schoolkids OZinto "a magazine foridea for marketing Bow Wow Wow. We thought
adults that features kids as object s"that the magazine represented an ideal
Vermorel was worried that
opportunity to get- if the magazine had comesomething done, and weout in the form allegedly"It was no longer a made it very clear what
intended by McLarenwe considered permissible.
he might be "subject tomagazine for kids, It's all a bit of a storm in aa child porn rap".
teacup, really."
Vermorel's original list of
The man at the centre
editorial contents includedof the brouhaha wasa tongue-in-cheek piece considerably more
subsequently withdrawn forthcoming. "Fred's
by John McVicar on crime as
freaked out a bit, hasn't
a career for the unemployed
he?" McLaren said. "Jesus!
school-leaver, a guide to constructive projects
I can't believe all this paranoia. The magazine
for kids who choose to opt out of school, Bow
was simply a sort ofjunior Playboy for kids
Wow Wow -inspired articles about piracy -andgetting used to the idea that they needn't

but one for adults
that treats kids as
sexual objects"have careers, something to shake up
this lethargic industry, a magazine
about pleasure technology for theprimitive boy and girl. I've been very
frank: my job is to upset people, but there's
no way that this magazine could be
deemed pornographic."
McLaren denies that the young girl was
subject to intimidation. "That is a gross lie,man. She got upset because of the pressure
and presence of the Arena crew, and that'sall. Her father was there and he didn't seem
upset by anything that was going on."He also denies having put pressure on
Anabella ("I never put pressure on people.
They do just what they want to do") or
having attempted to place pornographic
copy in the magazine. "I wasn't allowed towrite for it. Fred was the editor; copy was
entirely up to him.
"It's really important that we get thismagazine out. Everyone in this country's
so paranoid that you can't get anything
done. Fred is a paranoid and a puritan. He'svery hung up and he just freaked out."
Vermorel firmly repudiates the lattercharge. "I'm not puritanical. The sight ofa naked child doesn't upset me. What does
upset me is the idea of that letter he wanted
me to run. The way it was going, it was nolonger a magazine for kids, but a magazine
for adults that treats kids as sexual objects."
It was this alleged shift in Chicken's
editorial attitude that led John McVicar towithdraw his article.
"I knocked the piece off a bit tonguein-cheek because of the irony of thegovernment putting all these kids on thedole and then boosting penalties foryoung
offenders. I wanted to write something a bit
political for the school-leavers," McVicar
told Thrills. "I thought McLaren was just an
anarchistic pop promoter and I thought it
was a good idea to have a teenage magazinethat had a bit of political edge.
"I normally like people like that, but... I'ma criminal, but I don't want or need to be
associated with people like that."

John Bonham(19.0-1980) with
Led Zeppelin at
Madison Square
Garden, New
York,June1e77

NME

RIP, Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham.

THE MYSTERY SURROUNDING the death of Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham
took a bizarre twist at the weekend, with suggestion that the tragedy - the latest in aseries of disasters suffered by the band - is linked with black magic. Singer Robert
Plant is reportedly convinced that the apparent jinx on Zeppelin is retribution for guitarist
Jimmy Page's obsession with the occult.
However outlandish the theory, it gained some credence when a post-mortem on 32 -year old Bonham failed to reveal the cause of death. He had been drinking heavily the previous
night, and it was at first thought that (like Jimi Hendrix) he had choked on his own vomit -butthat wasn't substantiated by the post-mortem, which ruled out either drink or drugs as thecause. The coroner has now ordered further tests.
Bonham's body was found in bed on Thursday afternoon at Page's Windsor mansion,
where the band had gathered to rehearse for a new album. They had recently returned froma series of concerts in Germany, their first since their two Knebworth shows in1979 - which,in turn, were their first live appearances for five years. Their lengthy stage absence was due
in no small measure to the string of mishaps which had befallen them.
Zep were due to start a major American tour on October 16 - though obviously this has
now been cancelled - and there were also tentative plans for British dates in the New Year.
Unconfirmed reports indicate that the three remaining members have already decided
to disband Zeppelin, believing that it could never be the same again. Bonham had been withthem since their formation in1968, initially as The New Yardbirds.
But official sources, at their record company and management office, remained tightlipped on the subject - saying only that all three Zep men were far too distraught to consider
the future at the moment. Bonham leaves a wife, Pat, and two children.

Bow Wow Wow vocalist Anabella

corroborates Vermorel's assertion that
McLaren wanted her to pose nude for themagazine. "Yes, that's true. He wanted me
to appear like that to promote our cassette.
I said no, because it's a kids' paper and I'ma young person too, and I didn't think it
was quite right, you know? He asked me
through Vivienne 1WestwoodJ and when
I said no, he accepted it.
"He didn't try to pressure me. It wasn't
child porn... Malcolm said it wasn't.
That's not my kind of thing. Posing ina bikini's OK with the group arounda swimming pool."
Anabella claims that "they don't tell you
very much". She had not been informedthat Fred Vermorel had resigned, or thatthe magazine was called Chicken (she'dbeen told it was called Playkid) or thatthe group's debut gig at Hammersmith
Starlight Roller disco this Saturdaywas
billed as a "chicken" night. She also had notbeen told that "chicken" is -in paedophileslang- a term meaning "an attractive
child". CharlesShaarMurray

Antmama

NME NOV 29

1 singles, sold -out shows.

ants ride to glory...

AS ADAM & The Ants continue their nationwide tour - with both the single "Dog Eat Dog"and the album Kings Of The Wild Frontier riding high in their respective charts - all thesigns are that there's Antmania in the air.
The numbers turning up have been so far in excess of original estimates that some gigs have
had to be transferred to bigger venues, or even cancelled altogether. The show at Manchester
Polytechnic - capacity 800 - was pulled out, as were appearances at Tiffany's Shrewsbury andthe Drill Hall in Lincoln.
While a new date has now been fixed for Manchester, at theApollo on Decemberi5, alternatives have not yet been found for
Lincoln or Shrewsbury. A further London date has been finalised,however, at the Hammersmith Palais on December 24.
Some impression of the sort of scenes it's hoped to avoid wasgiven outside the Sheffield gig - where, it's said, disgruntled
punters were attacking parked cars in protest - and at Hull,
where a fire was reported.
When the Ants arrived at the HMV shop in Leeds, for an
autograph -signing session, the store manager was taking
no chances: he decreed that no more than one Antling would
be allowed in at a time, resulting in a 1,000 -strong queue
forming outside on the street.

1980

otro._,..BER

U1340int980:(1-r)Astro,
Jim Brown,BrianT
AliCampbell,EarlFalconer,
Norman Hassan, Robin

Campbell and Mickey Virtue

92 I HISTOFif OF HOCK 1580

11,

4111110b 'PP

Kveryone's
oing mad!"Who betA multireggae thatb

Ofilk sense in a dangerous world tii,. UB40
band from Birmingham, they make alumni
popular. "A danceh independent and hugely
admit.
is a package to sell your politics," they-

NMr DECEMBER 6 -1.DreadlocksAndBaldheads

LIKE ANY BAND with a sense ofpridein their roots, 111340 usually try towind up their British tours with adate in their home town. Their mostrecent 20 -date city -to -city trek was
no exception. The homecoming

tradition was maintained and the tour culminatedin a couple of nights at the Birmingham Odeon.
Thegroup has insisted that I come up to oneof
these gigs for the sake of this feature, even thoughfour timeson the tour -in
I'd alreadyseen them
Edinburgh, Sheffield, London and
ATTENDANCE CARDCOOOTUNEMPLOYMENT BENEFIT
NI Numbest
Initiele

Sunsets* (NOG.. O1PIERG

M

11/4.61011ms

ABOUT CLAIMINGBENEFITElIMPORTANT NOTICE
boned et thedawns fur unempirryment
Me bows Plow.
You should mete you,on the days and et
Benefit Moe eachnot.
weel,
Produce Mrs ..d r, each occauon.
you net towns
in the boo on theweek tat tee day spec -theft

II you NM to sirloin 00 thequeeked Its ell the days
boned and you could belest clown and the des You mot Gel",between Yord

to thehoned on Me day specified sonest Sy you can Mut not on
the lollowMil
Benefit 011.ce on the Do not vest wad the speutsed
Saturday or Sundey) Do
clambenefit
benefit On
apply wean We ate, wort, or
week
unemployed you should credo
Des 11010* comae, to
1ou pan become
fast
des
ot
unemployment
OM

II you do mem ciente,

M Number

BENEFIT

MON
TUES

WEDS

INU
I RI

Sprungbee

Hemel I lempstead - twice in an on -the road capacity. But seeing them play
Brum, reckoned II B40, would be thebest way of confirming the range of
theirgrowing following, the diversity ofthe sort of people drawn into their
reggae-wiseweb of subtle skank.
And to be sure, the audience inside
the cavernous Odeon -a mammoth
inner-city cinema about the sizeof its
namesakes in Hammersmith and

Edinburgh -could hardly be more x.
thlad by Et fits

HISTORY OF ROCK 1980 193

1980
OC OB

varied. "Sold Out" banners had been taped across gig
posters weeks ago, and the house is packed with every
mode of modern music fan, from skins and rudies to trendy
middle-aged couples, prepubescent schoolgirls and dreads.
With a certain ratio of roughly three whites to every black,the multiracial nature of the crowd is also pretty striking
for what is ostensibly a pop/rock gig.
It might be worth pointing out too that the racial mix of
the UB40 audience was roughly parallel at a Kool And The
Gang show I was to see the following night in London:
despite what you might have read to the contrary, it's not
only in the disco in -crowd that a harmonious mix of black
and white can exist.
As percussionist Norman Hassan puts it, UB40 get"everyone from dreadlock to baldhead!".
Grinning bass -man Earl Falconer, his own dreadlocks
tucked up in a drooping navy tea -cosy hat, sees nothing
particularly remarkable in the motley nature of the band's
following. To him, the audiences are simply a naturalreflection of the mix which exists within the band itself.
"The thing about this band is that everyone is different.
Nobody tells anybodywhat to do, musically or otherwise.
If there are any big decisions, we take a vote on them. It's
"You've got to get youraudiencfirst of all andlike a kind of workshop atmosphere. Basically, we don't
then, for want of a better
have an image."
word, educate them,- says
Too true. The initial view most people have of UB40 is that
Robin Campbell, seen
here (centre) on stage inof a band bereft of a real public image beyond being "a niceLondon. September 1980
reggae band", an honest enough bunch who take theirbows every now and then with a foray into the Top 10
singles before hopping on the first train back to Dullsville.
The impression they give on stage is one of eight musicians in nearsuccessful and even appear in Jackie and on Top OfThe Pops! In doing so,complete empathy with one another. With no single individual any morethey are actually ploughing a more subversive furrow than more trendy
prominent than the others, they come across as a collective in which therebels. Byvery dint of their commerciality they reach a far wider
band is all-important. UB40 area group minus an identifiable front man,audience, and a predominantly teen audience at that.
although toasterAstro does fill the role of warning the crowd between
Front two: more than any other band, with the possible exception ofsongs with a series of routine stage gestures. They are a group without any
Joy Division, UB40 have shown that it can be done independently. In
stars, without a single potential household name... and are in some ways
reaching No 1 in the NMEchart a few months ago, SigningOffon the
all the better for it.
Graduate label became the first LP recorded, pressed and distributed byThis faceless impression is borne out by the sleeves of their three
the new independents to reach such heady heights.
singles, "Food For Thought"/ "King", "MyWay0fThinking"/ "I Think It's
Not bad going, really, for a band who were virtually unknown outside
Going To Rain Today" and the current "Dream A Lie"/ "The Earth Dies
their native city suburb of Moseley just over a year ago.
Screaming", none of which bears so much as a single picture or snippet of
2. WeAre Family!
info on the group. As if to rub in their apparent anonymity, the cover of
their Graduate Records LP Signing Offis simply a stark facsimile of the
UB40 ARE MORE than a little bemused by their remarkably
UB40 attendance slip that over two million British citizens take along torapid rise. They seem genuinely surprised, if not to the extent
the local DHSS everyweek.
of their success, then because it seems to have comeBut even non-appearance can be deceptive, and UB40's low profile
practically overnight.
should not be allowed to cloud their importance, because there is plenty
Drummer Joe Brown, probably the most loquacious member of theof substance lurking behind that mellow groove and cool approach. As
ensemble, is humble about the group's successful year. "It's weird really,
things look from this corner, the two new bands to have made the most'cos everything that's happened to us has happened by accident. OK, it
profound impact over the past 12 months have been UB40 and Dexys
was a conscious effort to learn how to play our instruments in the firstMidnight Runners.
place, but it's been purely accidental that
Dexys, like U1340, were at first tenuously
we've developed the sound we have andconnected with the 2 -Tone way of thinking,progressed to where we are now. What we're
but -again like their fellow Brum mies - they
doing now isn't quite the sound we want
had the strength of character and originality toanyway. We're still searching."
transcend the comparisons and avoid being
Keyboard player Mickey Virtue is a bit moretagged. Dexys made their mark by being brash
open, citing teenybop appeal, extensive gigging
and trying to stir things up, Pistolian style, by-the group have played over 150 dates this year
throwing a spanner in the works of thealone- and originality as three reasons behindsomnolent music biz. But in common with
their current ascendancy.
UB40 they have an intense desire for change,"I think it's just a completely different type ofand this outweighs many of the obvious
sound. People were getting bored with thedifferences between the bands. UB40, however,charts, that same old sound, and we were lucky
work on a more subtle level than Dexys and theythat we happened to be around at the right time.
have probably achieved even more on two
Plus, with the 2 -Tone thing, people were readyseparate fronts.
to listen to us. There are a lot of things really."
Front one: they have slyly infiltrated both the
One factor that can easily overlooked is that fromsingles and album charts with uncompromising
the very outset UB40 refused to think small. Theirpolitical lyrics at a time when such sentiments could
attitude, though trenchantly independent, has
not be less fashionable. UB40 would probably bealways been geared towards success. Before playing
shunned as being far too soft by most of the so-calledt heir debut gig, the group- then all novices musicallyrock radicals- after all, these guys are hugely- rehearsed solidly for six months in the cellar of Earl

"It's likea kind ofworkshopatmosphere"

94 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1980

UB40

Falconer's Moseley flat. They cut their teeth covering
reggae standards of the time, numbers like Gregory
Isaacs' classic 'Mr Know RAH", Bim Sherman's"Lover's Leap" and Augustus Clarke's "BigAnd Small",before graduating to some instrumentals of their own.
Matters were also helped at the start by the relaxed "family"
atmosphere of the rehearsals, all the group having known one another forsome time before they began playing together seriously. Vocalist Ali
Campbell, saxophonist Brian Travers, Jim Brown and Earl Falconer had
all been together at Moseley School OfArt. When these four began
looking for potential musicians to form UB40, Ali quickly unearthed aguitarist in his elder brother Robin and keyboard player in his girlfriend's
brother, Mickey. Norman and Astro, both mutual friends of the gang,
signed on shortly afterwards.
A settled lineup was established with ease, comprising the eight current
members plus an additional percussionist in the Nigerian Yami, whose
subsequent departure from the band was sealed by the immigration
authorities who deported him to Africa after only two gigs. That was the
only personnel change UB40 have ever suffered.
The first gig materialised in February 1979 in the Horse And Hounds, a
pub in King's Heath, Birmingham; it was an event which also marked thelive debut of yet another Moseley band who have since gone on to greater
things, TheAu Pairs.
From then on, progress was steady if unspectacular, until the advent of
2 -Tone last autumn immediately focused automatic attention onto any
multiracial band working in the Midlands.
Though they acknowledge the indirect boost their career received fromskamania, UB40, at the time, seemed to go out of their way to dissociatethemselves from what was happening only a few miles down the A45 inCoventry, as Robin Campbell explains: "We did try to separate ourselves
to a certain extent. There was no malice intended. It was just that we
didn't play ska and we had been playing reggae since before the ska
explosion happened. It just sort of happened around us.
"Of course, it helped us, but we tended to get dumped into the same
category, which annoyed us. It wasn't that we had anything against the
2 -Tone people, but we'd be playing reggae and we'd be coming up against
things like posters saying that we were a sensational ska band, straight off
the 2 -Tone tour!"

UB40 claim they even passed up the chance of recording their firstsingle on 2 -Tone -which at the time would have meant an almost
guaranteed instant Top 10 hit- in favour of striking out independently.
"Right from the start, it was always going to be a case of doing it
ourselves if we could," says sax -man Brian. "When we were getting thegroup together, the punk thing was still pretty strong andthe independent label scene was really sprouting withlabels like Rough Trade and Beggars Banquet, so we were
never really thinking of going fora major deal, even though
we got some amazing advance offers before we'd evenrecorded "Food For Thought".
So it was the unfancied Dudley -based Graduate label that
secured the signatures of UB40 on a recording contract in astraight 50-50 profit -splitting deal, the sort of arrangement
Rough Trade make with all their bands. The set-up gives
UB40 control over what and when they record, gives
Graduate impresario David Virr one of the healthiest bankbalances on the independent scene, and gives the likes ofCBS, WEA and EMI bugger all other than some food forthought and a few headaches when they contemplate justwhat might have been.
The only drawback of remaining independent, accordingto Robin, is a temporary cash -flow problem as theywait for the royalty cheques to start coming in.
"It's held us back financially, but that's the only
way. At the moment we haven't got that muchj money, 'cos everythingwe've earned so far has had
to be ploughed straight back into the band.
If we'd been with a major company, that money
would have been ploughed into us by them in thefirst place. But the difference is that we're in a very
healthy position now and we don't owe a bean toanybody!A band in a comparable position to us
signed to a majorwould be up to their eyes in debt!"
Many bands of the stature of UB40-whether
independent or not -have somehow managed to fall
foul of the absurdities of rock'n'roll circus games.
But, rather like The Jam, who have maintained theirvision and clarity in spite of their four years in aparasitic business, UB40 just seem content to get on with the job in handwith a minimum of polemic and pretension.
One aspect of this level-headedness manifests itself in the attitude
UB40 take to press interviews, which they feel should ideally be spreadequally among the eight members, thus preventing the elevation of, say,Ali, Robin orAstro to star status.
As Jim says: "We don't really like the idea of pushing ourselves as solo
personalities. If you're going to do that you need to have the individual
musical prowess to go with it, which we haven't. We're confident in theappeal of our overall sound, but none of us are stars as musicians."
In keeping with this band democracy, it seemed a good idea to interview
all eight members, in manageable groups of two or three, in order tosample as manyviewpoints as possible; the most contentious comments
probably came from two of the less likely sources -drummedim andtoasterAstro.
So the rest of this piece comprises three interviews done during the last
week of the UB40 tour -the first with Ali and Brian, the second with Earl,
Mickey and Jim and the last with Robin, Norman and Astro.

3.Moseley,HomeOfTheHitsl
MOST OF UB40 have lived all their lives in Moseley, a smallish

but well-defined area to the south of Birmingham's
sprawling city centre, noted for its wholefood shops, its
student population, its racial mix and - according to a recent UB40
news bulletin- its tendency to breed bands by the dozen.
Brian Travers' second -floor flat overlooks a row of shops which more orless mark the centre of "the village". Just down the road is the small front room studio in which UB40 recorded their debut album with producer
Bob Lamb earlier this year. In doing so, they resisted the temptation tomove to plusher recording confines, preferring the rootsy feel theyHits" gave their sound.
reckoned Lamb's "Home Of
As Prince Jammy's latest dub -wise creation sifts from a set of speakers
in the background, the two youngest members of the band, Ali Campbell
and Brian, both 21, explain how a No 1 album came to be recorded in a
humble eight -track studio.
"Most of the tracks had already been done at Bob's place before we evenknewwe were making the album," saysAli. "It would have been mad togo somewhere else. We did have a few drastic sessions in major studios.
I mean, they were amazing studios with all the facilities and everything
HISTORY OF ROCK 1980 195

1980

ocToBui_a0BER

and we ended up getting the worst sound we've ever had! In Bob's studio
we didn't even have the facility for doing dubs, and we couldn't even all
get into the place at the same time. We'd have to put bass, drums andkeyboards on the same track sometimes, so dubs were out of the question."
Brian: "For the next album, we've got to change studios really, otherwise
we won't be able to do dub. This might sound a bit self-important, but thebasic thing we want to do is try to educate people into reggae and dub,

introduce them slightly by doing it in a mild form and then building it up
from there."
Educate people into reggae? That sounds a bit pompous.
Ali: "But the situation is ridiculous. Mikey Dread, for example, could
be No 1 in the singles chart. The market is there for him, but he's notgetting over to it 'cos reggae is still not taken seriously enough by the
media and the radio stations. They still look on it as a minority music 'cos
it's a black music."
In addition to the singles, UB40's live set revolves around two crucial
songs, "Burden Of Shame" and "Tyler". The importance of them is againemphasised on SigningOff where they open and close the first side of thealbum. The latter is a protest on behalf of GaryTyler, a youngAmerican
black arrested at an anti -Ku Klux Klan rally in the Southern state ofLouisiana six years ago and allegedly framed for murder. He's been
inside ever since, despite continual appeals on his behalf.
Ali: "He was only 16 and he was done for killing a white girl and thewhole thing was just a total frame, a load of bollocks! The judge was amember of the seniorwhite citizen's league and all that. It was an all white jury, but there was no real evidence to say that it was him that did it.
"We found out about it from this newspaper report. We just read about it
and then found out a bit more about the case for ou rselves. There's been a
lot of protests about it in America, but there was never any real fuss madeabout it over here."Once an American distribution deal has been sorted out- hopefully
through independents, though the band concede the problems facing
small labels are that much greater in the States -"Tyler" is to be the first
official US single release. However, ifAli's pessimistic paranoia is any sortof guide, there won't be many people around on the North American
continent to witness its release. Talk of the current single "The Earth Dies
Screaming", a fictional account of the planet, post -apocalypse, prompts
Al into a semi-serious contemplation of just where the madness ofcontemporaryAmerican conservatism could lead.
"Everybody's shitting themselves, basically," he grins nervously.
"Ronald Reagan's becoming president and there are 20 million
people in the Evangelist Right. They're going to start blowing places
up. Reagan will put one on Vietnam, just for spite! He'll probably
even do it himself... fly across in a helicopterwith a cowboy hat on
and drop one. Get this, boys!
"Seriously, the world seems to be in the middle of a wild plunge
into right-wing madness -America, Jamaica, the Islamic thing.
That's one of the reasons that the CND thing is getting stronger.
les blatantly obvious that everyone's going mad!"

4. Responsibilities
UB40'S POLITICS ARE essentially a gut -level response to
the injustice and repression they see around them. The"political" songs - "Tyler", "King", "Burden Of Shame","Little By Little" and "Madam Medusa" - are simple andaccessible. And unlike most so-called political bands, UB40
manage to deliver their message with a remarkable lack of pomp
and conceit. They shun any convoluted party political theory infavour of plaintive assertions of basic human rights.
Of course, individuals in the group do differ on certain specifics,
something that becomes apparent talking to bassist Earl Falconer,
21, keyboard -man Mickey Virtue and dapper drummer Jim Brown,
both 23.
As we huddle in a dressing room annexe at the Hemel HempsteadO

Pavilion, percussionist Norman Hassan is practising trombone in
the room next door, getting his lungs in trim for that horn section
he and Astro hope to introduce in time for the next LP. As we talk,
Norman is bellowing his way through the opening bars of "Food For
Thought", note by painstaking note, although right now the effect ismore like a weirdly mutant "Hey Jude".
Barely audible over the racket coming through the wall, Jim,
Mickey and Earl explain the differences that do exist over the degreeof political commitment within the band.
98 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1980

Jim: "Some of us are more extreme than others. We have arguments
sometimes over some of the benefits that we play. Like, I would havesupported the idea of us doing a benefit for anarchists, whereas othermembers of the band don't think that sort of thing is a good idea. We've
all got different ideas on things like that, although we all agree on

fundamental points.
"We don't affiliate ourselves with any particular political party. Thereare certain things about most parties that we don't agree with. I don't
believe that any party actually takes things far enough. Personally, I
believe in tearing the whole thing down and starting again, rather thanuse the materials we've got to swing things around. It would be nice if
there could be gradual change, but I don't think there's much of a futurein that."Perhaps the most interesting UB40 song is their bitter denunciation of
British imperialism "Burden Of Shame". Initially inspired by happenings
in Africa, it also has much wider, more universal connotations: "Therearemurders that we must accountforl Bloodydeeds have been done in our name/
Criminal acts we must pay for lAnd our children will shoulder the blame/
I'm a British subject not proud of it1While I carry the burden ofshame."
The song seems to be the result of a pretty strong guilt complex, I suggest
to Jim.
"It can be interpreted in a lot of ways. When we wrote it, I thought of it

being about the fact that there's no such thing as an innocent person ift hey are living and contributing to a society that causes the sort ofatrocities that do go on. I mean, you read in the press that there were'innocent' people bombed, say, in a Guildford pub and all that. But thenagain, who is an innocent person when they are going around voting forpeople like Margaret Thatcher? They're not innocent, 'cos..."That's hardly any justification for bombing a pub, I butt in.
"No, but then I cannot see something like that purely as an act ofterrorism when it's just one army fighting against another in a war
situation. The way I see it is that something like the pub bombings in
Guildford could be justified 'cos it was an army pub.""Questions like that," says a seemingly dubious Mickey, "you'd have to
ask each member of the band and find out what their views are, 'cos ourviews vary so much. Some people are more extreme than others.""'Burden Of Shame' is like a guilt thing," resumes Jim. "It's froma viewpoint of someone living in acountrythat is causing atrocities.

Onstage dancer
turned toasterand compere
Terrence Wilson,

AKAAstro,
Septembertgao

UB40

MY WAY OF THINKING
If we're living in that country, we're part of thatsame system."Surely though, most ordinary people living
under that particular system are also viewed with",Muernyo
as much contempt and suspicion by the men in
power and therefore hardly guilty themselves of
the war crimes?
"But there's also the dilemma that if we'regoing out and buying things from a shop, then
we're advocating that same system. I think the
only justification you can have for contributing
to the system in that way is to say that you're partof the oppressed as well.
"That's the only justification there is, really, fortrying to live comfortably in the system. I agreewith you basically, 'cos there's not that muchthat you can really do about it."Jim unashamedly considers the band's
political songs to be far more important thansome of their lighter, poppier numbers.
"Some people will say that, first and foremost, we're a dance band, but
I really think we've got a responsibility which overrides being a danceband. A dance band is a package to sell your politics."
Mickey begs to differ, albeit only slightly...
"Basically, it's more important to me that we all get off on playing music.
But if you're going to sell records, you've got to put songs on them, andwhen we do songs we tend to go to the extremes and either put really nicesongs on them like "My Way Of Thinking" [the second single], which
doesn't really say a lot, or go to the opposite extreme with a really heavysong. We don't mess about between the two.""Tome, politics is somethingyou can't hide from.
It's a fact of life. A lot of Rastas don't get involved in

TITLE tinDda, Wrrat $1c4 r4(11.
$4"Politics issomething
you can'thide from"

5. Public DubsAnd Private Jokes
UB40 TOASTER AND compere Astro and lead guitarist Robin
Campbell are two of the more senior members of the band,aged 23 and 25 respectively. Sitting on the edge of a wooden
table in the dressing room of the Birmingham Odeon prior to the bigtour finale, they present a more witty face of the band than some of theoccasionally dour younger members.
The two wind each other up something rotten, and at one stage -whenthe delicate subject of Rasta is broached -their bickering threatens toovertake any attempt at a coherent interview. Percussionist Norman
Hassan joins us just long enough to give his "dreadlock and baldhead"summary of tonight's audience before disappearing to pick up somefriends and relatives who are coming along to this hometown show.
The position of Astro - Terrence Wilson -in the group is an odd one.
Before he met them, he had been running his own sound system, Duke
Alloy, in and around Birmingham. He initially joined UB40, however, as
nothing more than an occasional on-stage dancer "just to get people in
the audience really on the go".
Now his role comprises duties as compere and some talk -over vocals.
He is also now learning trumpet, shortly to be introduced along with
Norman's trombone as the UB40 brass.
According to Robin, Astro is something of a contradiction in terms.
Although he claims to be a Rasta, his way of life does not always conformreligiously to Rastafarian doctrines. For a start, as a member of UB40 he isadvocating the sort of direct political involvement that Rastafari tend toeschew completely.
"Another thing," says Robin, beginning a thorough dressing down ofRastafarianism, "is that a true Rasta believes that the only thing that's
going to be left at the end, after the judgement day, is Rasta. Rasta is a
racist, elitist religion.""Wrong, Robin!" snaps Astro. "You are wrong, believe me! Check it out,
Robin; you are gettingyour information from imitation dreads! As far as
Rasta is concerned, colour doesn't come into it. As man and man say, theywant to go to Zion. Zion is a spiritual place. Show me the colour of a spirit.
There's no such thing!"
Astro grins at his triumphant reasoning and continues his defence.
"Colour doesn't come into it at all. Those of them that go around calling
you a porky and things like that, I don't class as Rastas. Colour doesn't
come into it. It's basically down to what's inside you. It doesn't matter if
you are blue with pink -shadowed stripes! It doesn't make no difference."
So how doesAstro (anag: rasto?) come to terms with the contradictions
between his political commitment and Rastafari?

politics 'cos they don't understand it. But it's not true
to say that Rastas don't have anything to do with
politics. There was even a Rasta that stood as anelection candidate in JA in the '60s.
Robin: "But it's true to say, on the whole, that
British Rastas don't check politics."
Astro: "As I said, it's 'cos a lot of them don't

understand them."
Robin: "But even a lot of them that dounderstand it, don't want to know. They see
and understand what's going on but they cut
themselves off 'cos they think that Jah will
come and save them!"

Astro: "A lot of them do feel that way, but, as
I see it, if I know about politics and understandit, I feel that I can sing about it."Robin: "That's why you're not a typical Rasta."
Astro: "It depends what you call a typical Rasta."
I ask Astro for his definition.
Astro: "Basically, a Rasta is a man who keeps himself to himself andknows everything that's going on... I can only explain it in old-fashioned
terms: you see things but you don't see things, you hear things but you
don't hear things, you say things but you didn't say anything..."Robin: "In other words, it makes no sense whatsoever."Astro: "It doesn't make sense in everyday language. If you spend about
three hours talking about it, it all becomes clearer."
With gig time rapidly approaching and stage gear to be ironed, we
decide to leave that one for another time and move instead on to talk of
UB40's current hit single. "Dream A Lie", says Robin, was the joke that
evidently fell flat on everybody.
"When we wrote it, it was meant to be a real corny, schmaltzy song withall these real cliches in it. The whole song is supposed to be funny. Next
time we play it, I'll have to tell everybody to put their tongues in theircheeks for one number.
"The thing is that nobody ever seems to get the joke. Nobody ever thinks
it's funny; people always seem to recoil in terror when they see that the
lyrics are so banal. But they're intended to be like that, basically 'cos wegot stomped on for doing 'My Way Of Thinking', which was anothertotally throwaway lyric.
"We got attacked for doing that, so we've gone out and done anotherone. Basically, what we're saying is, 'Bollocks!' If we want to write a shitty
song, we can. No one can accuse us of being bad songwriters, though,'cos we've done a few shit -hot songs as well; very important songs, verystrong political songs. But there's nothing wrong with a few throwaway
lyrics as well."
As for the future, UB40 have plans to invest in some dub -wise
experimentation. There are already plans for a dub LP to accompany
their next album. The group are going simply to hand the tapes over to anagreeable JA producer of the calibre of Scientist, Crucial Bunny or Prince
Jammy and see what he comes up with. Beyond that, virtually all theband express a desire to get into production themselves and eventually
own their own studio.
"When we first started, a couple of members of the band wanted to go
straight into being a dub band," explains Astro. "But if we'd done that,
we'd have killed off half of our audience straightaway. We'd never be in
the position we are now. Ifwe can wean them slightly and give them alittle taste of dub now and then, by the time we're bringing out heavy dub
albums they'll be reallywanting to hear it.""You've got to get your audience first of all and then, for want of a better
word, educate them," adds Robin. "Dub isn't a big thingyet, but hopefully
it will be by the time we've weaned our audience onto it. The next album
will certainly be heavier than the last one in that respect."
The conversation reaches a lull and Astro bounds off to iron his trousers
before going on stage as the dreadlocked master of ceremonies tointroduce the band once again to their home audience.
"Have you got all you want there?" enquires Robin as I click off thetape recorder.
Yeah. That's fine thanks. One more thing though. My 16 -year -old sisterwouldn't forgive me if I returned without a full set of autographs. A pieceof paper is passed around the crowded dressing room and UB40, not for
the last time, sign off. Adrian Thrills
HISTORY OF ROCK 1980 197

1980"We'reif

4.1..1k6e

4aiming at
something

TALKING HEADS

I. .111different"Brian
an expchangtgood abrougl"Brian w," f"""'

record, Dav

record

-

.

..IL.

'....-

.

-

:

-

..

-....''>..: 411:17''......"..
- .
....t:Z..'.
...
de"..."*"..,.

="'".'"..
....

.
.1. , .........,........

.

... ..

.

.IL. - . ._

-

.

..

....

,.. -- .

.

0...... ,.... .. ,'''..........3....411.6.141APINI.......
.,...
."..

....RD....-.___.....
;,..----...

.my , . .., . ... . . . .

,7..

.........'7..''. .....-...

..

.,........,... .*...
.,1_. '<:;....=";7e'4.40..,,... .f. .....

. ..:..X il . . ,..

"....H.:& .'......:........:: :: ..,,.=.4.7"."..'''..."....,"......_,...ft.....
.#- ......
....-............,.... 4.........:
7.,'._____.'``.

1980OCiOBEADECEMBER"Beer drinkers," according to David Byrne, a NewYorker whose job
has taken him all over the world. "Theywant to make everything legal,
abolish taxes, and just have a good time."
Byrne recently rented a house in Venice, an "artists community" by thebeach, while he and Brian Eno worked on an as yet unreleased album
called My Life In theBush Of Ghosts. Venice is acentre of what Wetmagazine calls "responsible
hedonism", which is a sort of intellectual
version of the roller-skating fad.
Roller-skating is just one of the fads thatoriginated in this vanguard city. And Los
Angeles is a vanguard city. The LA art/punkcrowd like to think that there's somethingvital
going on here, and there is, but it's everything
they despise. LA is the centre of contemporary
American culture, broadcasting through films
and music the blueprints for contemporary
ways of life; little parcels of clothi ng and attitude
for consumers starved of real sustenance.
David Byrne had to move out ofVen ice after just two weeks. It didn't
suit him. "Everybody was just relaxing in the sun all day, tossing frisbees
around..." And in the land of the laid-back, naturally, the automobile isking. Cars outnumber people in the City of Lights, and the parking lots
outnumber the buildings. California is the last outpost of the West in
more than just geography. Even the youth culture runs on gasoline.
Every Saturday night, Hollywood and Sunset Boulevards are bumper tobumper with youngsters cruising in their personal automotive sculpture some of them Low Riders, the custom suspension job favoured by Spanish
gangs of the Barrio. As simple a proposition as going to see Talking Heads
play at the Greek, an open-air theatre in the middle of a large park in the
Hollywood Hills, would be out of the question with only a pair of heels.
There being virtually no public transport and few taxis, you would haveto miss the first engagement on the first tour by the new Talking Heads
Funk Orchestra. But don't be too disappointed. By the second and third
performances they had improved a great deal.
The new Talking Heads Funk Orchestra is the same as the old Talking
Heads with the addition of Adrian Belew from David Bowie's band on
feedback guitar, Busta Jones, once of Sharks, on fatback bass, Steve Scales
on percussion, Dolette McKay on vocals and Bernie Worrell from
Funkadelic, whom you might say has swapped P -funk for F -punk, on
keyboards. The result is a nine -piece Talking Heads, lush instead ofbrittle. It's probably the single most radical step so far in the progress ofAmerica's so-called premier new -wave band. Even a new -wave band has
to move with the times. Talking Heads have finally gone 2 -Tone!

and a French band who had supported Talking Heads in Lyon. "They're
actually quite good. Theywrite songs about fucking in elevators," he says,
nonchalantly. "Really, that band we have now is the result of the work I did
with other people. I had met Busta Jones and he called me up to playwith
The Escalators. Then we went down to Philadelphia and I produced somedemos for Nona Hendryx... I started movingaround that scene in New York.
"I met Bernie Worrell through Busta-he
played on Busta's album on Spring Records.
Dolette had sung on the Escalators album. Steve
Scales, I didn't know. We found him throughBernie. And Adrian Belewwe met when he wasrecording in New York with David Bowie."
Meanwhile David Byrne, being somewhat
impressionable, became absorbed in Brian
Eno's discovery of Africa. The two of them set
off like explorers into the California desert totry to capture the feeling of the bush in thesagebrush. They failed, and had to resort to recording My Life In The BushOfGhosts in a more prosaic setting, using "found vocals" from the radio as
their bush of ghosts.
I don't want to suggest that Byrne is a vacillating lump ofjelly without amind of his own, but it's obvious that the even more impressionable Brian
Eno made the running here. Byrne's interest in musical anthropology
surfaced in a short piece he wrote for High Times soon after ...Buildings
And Food, and several songs on Fear OfMusic- most notably "I Zimbra"-bore an ethnic trace that pointed to the hypnotic swirl of words andrhythms that characterises Remain In Light. However, Eno, being themore systematic of the two, probably helped put the idea into practice.
The main spur for the idea was a book published in America last year
called African Rhythm And African Sensibilityby John Miller Chernoff.
Byrne spends a lot ofhis time in books. When we met, he was reading abook called The Role OfThe Artist In Primitive Society, which I suppose ours
qualifies as... Anyhow, the idea is that music of the Third World provides a
spiritual nourishment lacking from the popular music of the West; witness
for instance the importance of reggae in our black community. Byrne
wants Talki ng Heads to do what tribal drums do, but whether or not hesees himself as the shaman of the global village he didn't say.
I would recoil from the dryness of this exercise were it not for the factthat each of the members of the group bring something different to the
picture, so it won't be so academic, and also the very idea of trying to do
forwhiteAmerica what George Clinton and many other funk and soulartists have long been doing (often unconsciously) for blackAmerica
seems almost unthinkable.
Then again, as the French magazine Actuel put it in a headline for anarticle about Eno: Les blancs pense trop... The whites think too much.

"When itworks, you get
the feeling:
forget yourself"

ELEVEN MONTHS AGO, when they played the last date of theirlast tour in London, the group
was on the verge of apoplexy.

They had been touring eight months outof the year for the previous four, andwere almost wrung out with the routine.
The working methods and approaches
they had learned with Brian Eno had kept
them fresh and stimulated in the studioand produced a consistent evolution onrecord, but on stage they had ground to a
halt. They needed a new edge. Animateddrum podiums and laser lights were not
the answer. Anyway, David Byrne would
probably just get arrested for vagrancy if
he tried to take his shirt off onstage.
And so, for the first half of this year,
Talking Heads went on hold; Byrne went
to Los Angeles, Jerry Harrison went toPhiladelphia, Chris Frantz went toJamaica, and so did Tina Weymouth.
While the Frantz-Weymouths werevisiting Lee Perry and hanging out with
Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare,
debating who was the greatest rhythm
section in the world, Jerry Harrison
began working with other bands... The
Escalators in New York, Double in Canada
100 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1980

When this band came together, were youaware that it would probably be the only
popular integrated band in America?
Byrne: "I thought that, then I thought
there must be others, but they don't get
recognised for it as much. There's a groupcalled Wild Cherry, I think. Chaka Khan
has some white musicians in her group..."
The white rock audience and the blacksoul audience rarely overlap in thiscountry. "That's true. I think for ouraudience, considering the kinds of groups
they might go to see, we're a real
exception. When we put the group
togetherwe didn't think of that, but it was
obvious when it happened. We just chosethe kinds of musicians that happened tobe the most appropriate to what we were
doing. Actually it's more than happened
to be; a lot of it's in the nature of thesensibility implied in that music."

Well, Talking Heads have always beena funky band. "Yeah, there's precedents
for it in our previous stuff. But in themoments when this group really works, the underlying
sensibility is very different from what it was before, a realradical shift. This music, when it really comes together right,
has a transcendent feeling, like a trance of some sort.
"That's exactlywhat happens in traditional African music
and other Third World music. It's something that isn't sought
after in most pop music. We're aiming at something different,
although some of the elements may be the same. When it works,
you get the feeling: forget yourself and become part of thecommunity. It's wonderful, and it doesn't happen every night."
Does the rest of the group feel the same thing? "I haven't talked
about it with the others, although I know for instance that
Bernie knows exactlywhat I'm talking about, though he might
express it differently. It's a sort of funny thing to discuss...
without coming on like a convert."
Do you feel any twinge of colonialism? "As far as that goes...
I realise that's a little bit of what we're doing, but I can't help it.
That's some of the music we're most excited about. If it didn't
originate out of a western tradition, I don't feel I can be blamed
for that."

Do you think it's possible to perform this funct ion for youraudiences? " Yeah. Sure I do. It's possible. There's other people
that do that kind of thing, but we've added other elements, thekind of lyrics I write and the kind of textures we use. But people
like James Brown and George Clinton's P -funk... it's all basedaround that idea; they just use street language to talk about it.
"For something to have the effect that it's supposed to have,it's not necessary to understand all of it. I read in a book on

voodoo that the structure of the rituals, the drumming, thesinging, the chanting... the symbolism of therituals isn't understood by half of the people
that are participating."

TALK I N G HE ADS

You mean likes church service or a heavy-metal
gig? "Er, yeah. It isn't necessary for them tounderstand. I'm inclined myself to think about it,
to try and understand it, but that's not necessary.
And what's even more amazing, I think, is that

Talking Heads bassist
Tina Weymouth on stagein Los Angeles,1980:

it's not even necessary to believe in it.
"For instance, if I were to get involved in one ofthose things, I wouldn't have to believe in Jesus"Everybody played [onRemain In Light] andeverybody produced"

orwhatever, I would probably just get carriedaway along with the rest of the people, which isreally a testament to the power of those things.
The feeling one gets from it isn't cathartic or
purging, it's not that you let off steam or whatever; it's more like a mysticalcommunion... And it's not some sort of psychological thing, it's moresocial in a way. The nature of that kind of music implies different partsand different rhythms, that all mesh... Not some sort of personal
explosion, which tends to be what a lot of rock music is about."

I ZIMBRA

j3YRNE HAS CHANGED a lot in just the two years since I first met
him. He's almost normal nowadays. Either he has come aroundto society or more likely society has come around to him.
Being photographed and interviewed is part of his routine, yet he stillfinds it hard to express himself in his own words. He answers questions
slowly and painstakingly, quoting indirectly from books a lot of the time.
It's his particular misfortune to have become a popular introvert.
He accepts the role of the head Head without too much complaint. Yet if
Talking Heads is still the democracy it was, it's not without duress. I was
taken aback to hear Byrne blithely admit that he hadn't talked about his
feelings towards their new music with the rest of the group. Maybe he's
just like that, and their internal balance is stronger than it seems, butsomeone who saw the new band on stage in LA was moved to remark that
it looked as though Byrne had got himself a new band and forgotten to get
rid of the old one- a suggestion all four of them shrug off.
"I think Jerry puts it best," says Tina Weymouth. "When we werediscussing this record... Brian wanted to say it was his record, David
wanted to say it was his record. They both thought it was the greatest
venture of their lives. We were saying no, we all had the same idea, but-7111111111MPIP

Jerry said no, we didn't all have the same idea. We allcame in with different ideas of what we were going to do.
It was the collective influences that created the result.

No one could put an individual claim to it.
"Certainly we were listening to African records long before David and
Eno were, because Chris and I are into rhythm, and it's great rhythm,
primarily. We turned them on to it. We'd already done that song 'I Zimbra'
and I felt sure when we did that -we actually did two like that, but 'Dub'didn't get onto the record- I felt sure that would be the direction of thenext record.
"Plus, Eno had always said that he wanted to go into the studio cold
with us, without any material, so that we could learn the way he makes
albums, simple things layer upon layer. It's really not novel at all; it's justthe old idea of jamming, one key, no chord changes... and everybody
played and everybody produced. The songs were written by the five of us."
"Yeah," agrees Chris Frantz, "but there's a mistake in the text on the firstpressing of the record. On the next pressing the credits will read: 'Lyrics
Byrne with the exception of Byrne/Eno two songs, music by Byrne,
Harrison, Frantz, Weymouth and Eno.' We just had to put our foot down
and say, 'Look, we don't just want to get paid a percentage or whatever
because money is... let's face it, I'm not worried about money. That's oneof the luckier aspects of mylife. It wasn't that; it was for the record. I
wanted somebody to know that even if I didn't write a whole song I did
make a contribution...
"It wasn't an administrative error, it was an error by a member of theband who is used to taking credit for everything that happens. And when
it was put to him that this was not the right way to do things he had toadmit that it wasn't."
HISTORY OF ROCK 1980 1101

1980

OCTOBER DECEMBER

A
LK"David does not come to the band with a full-blown N
song," says Tina, as always at pains to explain thingsGfully. "He comes with a riff, maybe, if that, maybeHnothing. The whole band puts it together and thenEDavid writes really terrific words. I really love his
writing. He's so good at it and it's something he won't
give up as long as he's singing the songs, because hefeels he can sing them with more conviction if
he knows what they mean.
"After the first two albums, which with a coupleof exceptions were essentially written before thegroup everwent on the road, before even Jerry
joined the group... Jerrywanted a little morecredit even though all he was contributingwas
a part or an arrangement. But it could be like,say, in the case of 'Life During Wartime' where
it started out with just bass and drums, which
seemed to fit with something Jerry and David
had been working on before.
"That was one song where it was quite clear toat least three of us in the group that we had all
written the music, and David had written thewords, and we were getting royalties on the parts
that we'd written! So we said with this album it has obviously been written
by everyone, including Brian, and we should break with the tradition of
singer -songwriter in the credits because that's not the way it happened.
"But I think that it's not... a big problem. I feel weird talking about it,
because it's like a family's dirty laundry, but it's not a huge conflict. David
needs to have a lot of credit; that motivates him. And it's not a bitter thing.
What you wrote in that review of Fear OfMusic made it sound bitter, but
it's not."1
If the rock'n'roll cult of personality they once
claimed to want to disgrace has come to surroundand frustrate them, they've at least learned how tolive with it. They have their triumphs -this new bandis one- and they have had their effect.
It's almost commonplace now, but can you recall
how extraordinary it was even in '77 for a band tohave a female member who actually played
an instrument? But like a lot of people I know,
Talking Heads have simply found out that theold rock routines they wanted to break could
break them first.
"Lee Perry says he's not doing screwface
music any more," says Tina. "In other words,
political messages. He says music comes fromlove. And I think that's really true because one
thing you find when you're worki ng with a lotof different musicians is that they have aparticular attitude, no matter where theycome from or what colour or religion they are.
It's very different from that of new wave
people, who usually aren't especiallymusicians; except that people like us whostarted out being called new wave have since become musicians.
"Nowadays it seems very funny when you read interviews and there's
a new group who are afraid of success or afraid of learning to play theirinstruments, or afraid of becoming heroes and all of those things. It'svery hard to relate to, because at this point I relate better to people whojust appreciate music and who just love to play, and that's their only
motivation. It's not a rebellion against something any more and it is kindof a closed world, but I think it's honest.
"When I was in art school, somebody once said to me that the problem
with you young artists is that all you want is to be famous. When you getolder you realise that what's important to you -and Ralph Steadman, thecartoonist said this -what becomes important to you is the charm of the`I feel weird
talking about
it... David
needs to havea lot of credit"

LET'S LEAVE IT at that. The future is flexible. Logistics are suchthat the extended band will have to dismantle at the end of thistour. Eno probably won't be working with them on their next
album, which I humbly suggest they should do on their own...
"Eno taught us to relax in the studio," says Tina, "which I think was
his intention all along. He found that we were very willing to beexperimental, as he was, and he was delighted with that... to find a bandthat would allow him to race everybody's track and not get artisticallysensitive and precious about it.
"And I think we've done it, now. I told him that ! always envisioned doinga trilogywith him, and once we'd done this studio album, that would be
the end of our collaboration. He said I think that's quite right, andprobably we won't be working with him again, although hell if I know
who we would work with..."Remain In Light is, as others have pointed out, a transitional album.
Talking Heads keep making transitional albums. But they follow acertain path. It's hard to believe that four years ago they willingly let
producer Matthew King Kaufman try to turn them into the perfect
bubblegum band on a set of demos that have since been lost. "And they
were really good, too," says Ti na...
The Talking Heads "Afro -funk Orchestra"with,among others, Busta Jones(second left)and Adrian
Be lew (second right)

activity. You live for the work, not for the money or for the fame. The successthat is perhaps obvious to someone else is much less obvious to you."

Does it annoyyou to be regarded as the head Head?
Byrne: "I enjoy it. I don't want it to get in the way of everybody being
able to work together. But I certainly like getting recognition for what
I've done."
Have you fulfilled all your ambitions as they were, say, five years ago?
"Yeah, I guess so. Five years ago I thought it would take us a lot longer to be
as popular as we are now."
Do people still see you as an outpatient? "Yeah, probably, but less thanthey used to."Do you still feel like one? "No. Much, much less than I used to."Paul Rambali

1Brave intentions and haunting

textures ^^'°m"
Talking Heads

The desire to (re)discover the African
continent has been burning deep in thebowels of curious imagination ever since
the New York Herald packed Mr Stanley off
in search of Livingstone with nothing moreto sustain him than a packet of cheese
sandwiches and a compass.
The white man's burden? Could be, buteven those Caucasian settlers who missed
Rorke's Drift have remained fascinatedby the spell of the place. Colonisers,
politicians, anthropologists, missionaries
and now musicians flock to Africa in aneffort to test its pulse, many of them ending
up defeated by the process; one doesn'tlike to sound churlish, but most of thesecultural attaches were about as good for
Africa as Cecil Rhodes.
In recent times the Back To Africa
movement has raised its head from a gamutof different positions, in Rasta's spiritualjourney to roots and now in the lighter -tinted
efforts of folk like Brian Eno, David Byrne
and their collaborations for My Life in The
Bush Of Ghosts, as well as this new Talking
Heads album - Remain In Light.
A memorandum from Byrne intended forthe reviewing fraternity (I think) makes it
clear that: "This record is the product of thestudio and interest in African rhythms andsensibilities." Byrne goes on to explain thatthe album was prepared according to an
improvisational framework, eschewing thepractice of jamming and soloing in orderto develop "skills and attitudes... anunderstanding of African musical concepts,
of interlocking and interdependent partsand rhythms." The memorandum finishes
by recommending a select bibliographyof African -related texts, themselvesconcomitant with the gist of NME's recent
interview with Brian Eno. I was unable tosecure these volumes over the weekend.
Initial familiarity with the record has
disappointed those people who locked onto
Fear Of Music so readily; the new attitude
seems to deliberately play down Talking
Heads' evolving tension in favour of abroader, enigmatic and ambient funk - its
hard core extracted over a selection of chants
and barely modulated moods that have been
par for Eno's course at least since the days ofHere Come The Warm Jets - and can readily
be pinpointed by anyone familiar with thework of Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman andGeorge Clinton on the one hand or Can,
Berlioz and Wendy Carlos on the other.
The implied raison d'être of the record - tostrike a blow for highlife timbres - falters on
the grounds that more than ever Byrne and
Eno are cracking the whips while our old pals,
the Talking Heads, blend into the backgroundalong with an invited cast of technicalexperts, Adrian Belew, Jose Rossy, Jon

Hassell. The subjugation of thispersonality is further provedby the band's recent live
appearances where Bernie
Worrell and Busta "Cherry"
Jones (a long-time Eno
associate) have been draftedin to supplement rations.
Whither Jerry Harrison and Tina
Weymouth in the current regime?
In fact a steadier appraisal of Remain In
Light does uncover a host of hypnotic ideas,
tentatively linked to Byrne's concept ofguerilla freedom fighters and government
men overcome by their environment. The oldmonosyllabic textures of Fear Of Music havebeen transplanted into a smoother setting,but even so the sounds of the former band
are recognisable eventually, bubbling against
the primary colours of percussion andelectronic treatment.
The opening "Born Under Punches (TheHeat Goes On)" takes the fade of "LifeDuring Wartime" and "I Zimbra" as abeginning, with Byrne exiled from someGraham Greene entertainment, intoningin his customary intelligent insane way, "Takea look at these hands!" Meanwhile foreign
bodies bleep and jump to the fore,
approaching a strong funk that you last heard
at length on One Nation Under A Groove.
Staying in the disco (with brains) is "Cross
Eyed And Painless", a sublime synthesis offrothing rhythms (Fenders and drums),
a cloying harmony from Eno and one of
Byrne's engagingly tetchy monologues
on the unwieldy nature of facts.
"The Great Curve'", which cic ses Side One,grapples with a potentially lethal expositionof African sensuality, finding
the world in a woman's hips,
anthropomorphic motions,listening to the earth beat.
It's heady stuff that induces
a pleasant surrender until
Adrian Belew chips in withthe record's only two
traditional solos, both ofthem having more incommon with rock'n'roll
than is good for the track though there can be no argument about theeffect of the side as a whole. Talking Heads'
psychedelic hoovering musicians kick up
a hedonistic dust storm that enthralls andexcites just as surely as it doesn't go far
enough to induce the intended senseof abandonment.
Side Two is made up of five related
episodes, all of them linked to the power ofthe elements. Byrne's western terrorist
persona is found questioning his domestic
and financial values in the light of the African
experience. "Once In A Lifetime" puts him in
deep water, rather like Eliot's peaceful butvery dead Phoenician, while Eno and the cast

set up a Greek chorus of call and response,
simulating the ocean blues and echoing
snatches of "Take Me To The River".
"Houses In Motion" contrasts this simple
permanence with the man on the move
bereft of "style or grace... digging his own
grave". Byrne chants/talks this lyric overa building tempo of clavinet, formula funkguitars and John Hassel's aethereal hornarrangement. Your own body will tell you
how good that feels.
The spoken technique doesn't suit "Seen
And Not Seen" so immediately; the subject

matter, concerning the ability to transform
physical attributes by will power in order totake on another ideal appearance, may havesome resonance for other cultures but its
overtones of self -obsession and pride are too
cumbersome here to convince.
The album's closing songs, "Listening
Wind" and "The Overload", both of whichmake a substantial nod at Can's "Soon Over
Babaluma", are perhaps the most intriguing
moments on a side of music which strips off its
early dance rhythms and re -places them intoa beautifully visual and cinematic context.
"Listening Wind" may be the most complex
song that Byrne has yet written. It certainly
stands as the pivotal point on what isundoubtedly a transitional
record. The protagonist,"Listening Wind"is the pivotal
point on what isundoubtedly atransitional record

a noble savage type who
communes with thebreeze, is fired with an

instinctive desire to rid
his locale (could be
anywhere from Kinshasa
to Phnom Penh) of the
Yankee imperialists. The
tone is strangely optimistic
and sad at the same time,
implying the death of those qualities which
will eventually persuade the Third World
nations to overthrow their oppressors (thestrange rumblings in "The Overload" are notjust an uprising in spirit).
Without wishing to burden Remain In Lightwith any further critical lumber, it is obviousthat the Talking Heads, whatever they are
now, have attempted something enterprisingand fresh - the signposts are clear enough todirect them into new spaces. Given time tolower preconceptions and heighten senses,
I found myself overtaken by an album ofbrave intentions and haunting textures.
Safari, so good. Max BellHISTORY OF ROCK 1980 1103

SLE
At.A

.

L."

a

e

t

t

_

--

-s

426...._....
_

....

-

-".. .

.4-..

...........,...i.

..' .:$1......._-..,

.
.
.

-_.-

-------r-:-.7

_

_

._

_

.

_
July 1980:Spandau Ballet^7.4

andentourage inSt Trope:
for a two-wftek residency
atthe Papagayo club -(1-r)
Steve Norman, Martin

4.141YreftIll--

Kemp, Tony Ha dley, Gary
Kemp and John Keeble
-

7.

4.s

-404 04914115.0E-RO.CKAIN_

"C.

01,
LOP'

"You wakeup with style"
From a vibrant London club scene come "l'ANDAU BALLE . The last element

in a confluence of nightlife, soul music and tartan, the group are loathed
for privileging style over substance. Songwriter GARY KEMP is foxed.
"How can anyone go on about mods and not relate to us?"

-

.A

-.77

--r----2..,---01:
lc

.

1980

OCTOBER -DECEMBERNME NOVEMBER 29 TOM WOLFE WOULD know what to make of it. The

renowned contemporary historian who is also
something of a dandy in his own right would know
exactly where to place Spandau Ballet and all theirfriends, followers and fanciers.
What would he call it when a gang of workaday
teenagers reject the uniforms of their class and gather at night in London
clubs in all their outrageous finery to celebrate fashion without limit andstyle without man ifesto?The Nocturnal Underground? Irreverent Chic?
The Multi -Coloured Diamante-Flecked Supercharged Dandies?
There are no more than a few hundred of them, if that. They recover by
day and live by night. Splintered off from the London soul scene in the
mid -'70s, propelled by the artificial energy behind almost every British
youth cult since the early '60s, they have discarded and moved on fromas many clubs as they have guises: Chaguarama's (which later became
the Roxy), Billy's, Blitz, Hell, the St Moritz...
Throughout it all, style was the password, the premise and the promise.
If you had it, you were everywhere; if you didn't, you were nowhere. By thetime magazines like Harper's & Queen had discovered the Blitz Kids, thereal kids were already somewhere else, ever more extravagant, decadent,
surreal, bizarre and fantastic in their pursuit of style. If the clothes are too
loud, they declared, then you're too old.

STEVE DAGGER IS 23. His father works in Soho's Berwick Street

market, and Steve can bark and barter with the best of them; it's afacility that he claims came in handy when it came to negotiatinga deal as manager of his friends Spandau Ballet, the figureheads of the
new dandyism.
Steve wears a mid -length leather coat, white ruffled shirt, black velvet
breeches tucked into white knee-length socks and black pumps. His hairis immaculately cut and swept elegantly across his forehead. He waves
the latest of several cans of Pi Is around him in amazement at thesupremely kitsch decor of the Kilt club. The moose -heads and muskets
that line the walls of the imitation hunting lodge discotheque entirely
suit the look he is sporting of an Edwardian fop.
His accent is unexpected: working-class London broader than the
Holloway Road. "I can't believe this place!" he exclaims. "Normally it's
full ofArabs on their way to Regine's, but Sullivan has done it again! All
this tartan you see here tonight has been brewing for the past few weeks,and he's pulled it all together. It fits this place perfectly! It's a knack, a gift,
he has. Look at it... great!"
Chris Sullivan, a young Welshman who came to London after he left
school, is on the door upstairs, greeting his friends in his ebullient Welsh
manner, relieving the groups of people who steadily trickle in of their £2
a head. He has rented the Kilt club on an otherwise slack night to stage themain event on the Spandau social calendar- a party. Dress is inevitably
fancy and tonight tartan is optional. Sullivan is wearing a baggy blue suitwith a large, muted red check and a geometric kipper tie. Through thedoor comes a flow of tartan, ruffles, brooches, kilts and not a few more

outlandish specimens of vanguard couture.
Sullivan knows them all. He used to run the St Moritz with Perry Haines

St Moritz are not all that different from the people who drive around in
Ford Escorts with their radios tuned to Robbie Vincent's Radio London
soul show of a Saturday morning.
Making the scene and staying on it, whetheryour scene is clothes orfunk or just social, is the primary design. Rock'n'rol I hardly offers a more
valid alternative. Ask any girl. They know.
When Steve Dagger was fixing Spandau's record deal, he used to test
a record company's suss by asking if they knew what a soulboywas. Of
course they knew what a soulboywas: a soul boy was a Dexys fan witha woolly hat and an overnight bag, wasn't it? Su re, Steve would reply,
ordering another free drink as he recalled the 48 -hour funking
expeditions he and Spandau and their friends used to make to clubs
in Bournemouth where there wasn't a woolly hat in sight...
The Fatback Band's "Wicky Wacky" has pulled everyone on to the floor:
Rusty Egan is there; so is Kristos. Egan's hi -tech disco at the so-called"Bowie Nights" at Billy's first drew media attention to the scene, a media
that immediately dubbed it a glam-rock revival and went away laughing.
Kristos is a 17 -year -old veteran of the nocturnal underground who
wears a beret and goatee, the image of Tony Hancock in The Artist, andhas a band with the improbable and unforgettable name of Blue Rondo
A La Turk! Robert Elms, having warmed things up, is out on the floor too,putting a five -degree spin on the theme of the night with a tartan -less kilt,
the coolest item of dress on show.
Elms, a 22 -year -old graduate of the London School Of Economics,
has been writing about Spandau Ballet, the clubs, the scene and thescenemakers, for The Face, the magazine that looks set to capitalise on
the success of Spandau Ballet with its emphasis on the thrill and flash ofyouth and style. It was Elms who thought up the name Spandau Ballet,
long before anyone had even conceived of the group, during one of thegang's yearly excursions.
"We were in Berlin that year. We always go away somewhere or other.
The year after that it was New York, then we went to St Tropez. Next year
we're going to Ibiza; there's supposed to be this amazing club there, andthe group are going to play it. Anyway, we were in Berlin, and we saw theprison and I just thought, 'What do they do for entertainment? Ballet?
Spandau Ballet!"Spandau Ballet sprung themselves on their friends one Saturday
morning at a rehearsal studio near where they all live in Islington about
this time last year. They told everybody it was a party, drinks were free,and everybody came. To date they have played fewer than a dozen gigs,
or rather parties, one at Blitz, two at the Scala cinema, one on the HMS
Belfast, a few at a club in St Tropez, and recently one at the Botanical
Gardens in Birmingham.
That these scattered appearances, combined with a few reports in the
EveningStandard, a few more in the fashion glossies, and a half-hourLondon Weekend Television documentary about the scene, have won
Spandau a lucrative record deal is one of the biggest snubs the longsuffering rock fan with his cherished notions of musical validity andpaying one's dues has had since the Sex Pistols sent the whole thing
spinning some three years back.
Somehow, Spandau Ballet have managed to antagonise people whohave only ever heard their name or seen a photograph. These people
imagine that a group who have gone as far as they have apparently juston the strength of their clothes and their photos, a group who look so
downright pretentious, can't possibly have any musical worth -as if
musical worth counted for anything other than a pension.
Spandau Ballet didn't go begging at the door of the rock press; they
didn't play the Marquee week in, week out; and because of that, thejealous, conservative rock establishment is deeply suspicious. It
hasn't won our endorsement, they say, so it must be a hype. But if
Malcolm McLaren was pulling the strings,
they'd all be applauding!

of i-D, the fashion fanzine that Terry Jones, former art director of Vogue
and Donna and designer of the first Public Image album sleeve, started inorder to plug high fashion into street fashion. Word has it that Chris
Sullivan could stand in any club doorway in London and pretty soona couple of hundred people would be clamouring to get in.
Downstairs in the Kilt, the [Xis having trouble finding his feet. A few
motley couples are shuffling theirs to records by Marlene Dietrich andFrank Sinatra. Robert Elms decides to take over the
console, spinning lames Brown's "Night Train", theFatback Band's "Wicky Wacky" and records by
Hamilton Bohannon and Funkadelic. Suddenly
the dancefloor is packed and throbbing.
For every art or fashion student down here
tonight, there are at least five more ha rdcore dance
enthusiasts. The soul scene in London, a small
TO(IMAIAtGSTORY
MOST
offshoot of wh ich spawned Spandau Ballet, has
always been about clothes, clubs, and dancing and that doesn't mean tonic suits at Dingwalls
when the Q -tips are playing. The people who
followed Chris Sullivan from Billy's to Hell to ther,wrnwi.

Laconesta.0+atonauesnmatmetromaaasxuae.m.esli
108 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1980

BUT THERE IS no one pulling the strings

behind Spandau Ballet, although there area few hairdressers trying to jerk them off,
as a colleague quaintly put it. Plenty of clothes
designers are going to ride in on their coat-tails.
But Spandau Ballet themselves never evenapplied to go to art school! Aged between 18 and 20,
most of them left school at 16 and went into theprint trade. Gary Kemp, who writes their songs andplays guitar and synthesizer, stayed on but failed

SPANDAU BALLET

his A -levels. None of them particularly
likes rock music, which is why they didn't
do any of the things a rock band is
supposed to do. They're into dance music,
parties and clothes, not especially in thatorder, and rock'n'roll in all its grey, earnest,
high-handed importance hates them for it.
"People say clothes are superficial anddecadent," explains Steve Dagger. "But
what's more decadent than music?All you
can do with music is consume it. You canmake a statement with the clothes you
wear. You can't express anything with therecords you might buy, but you can express
yourself with the clothes you choose...
turn yourself into a piece of art, if you want
to see it in those terms. In a way I suppose
we challenge the Jimmy Purseyworkingclass stereotype- and the rock press lovethat working-class image.""It fits with the badges theywear on theirlapels," interrupts Gary Kemp. "It upsetsthem when they see someone coming alonglike us who just turns the tables on their ideasof what's valid and what isn't.""Yeah," agrees Steve. "There are channels
which one must go through, and if one doesn't...
then watch out, But I'll tell you what reallyamazes me... good luck to Bow Wow Wow, butpeople don't consider that a hype at all, or theydo, but they go along with it because Malcolm
McLaren does hypes. He's OK. He's one of theestablishment, but when someone comes alongfrom completely outside, it challenges the way
the world is set up for the rock press and theagents and the record companies and the publicists, and they go, 'Hangon, you can't do that...'"I don't know how successful Vivienne Westwood's going to be now.
She'll probably do alright because she's a 35 -year -old fashion designerwith press agents and shops in Kensington. But her approximation of theclothes is well out of date. That's Billy's. All that diamante and gold that
Bow Wow Wow wear was in at Billy's. She's taken that, copied it, and got it
wrong. I know she came out with the tartan a few years ago, althoughmore in a bondage style, and I'm not slaggin what she did in the past, butwhat makes me laugh is how seriously people are prepared to take them.""Bow Wow Wow is completely conceived and contrived by an old
shark," asserts Gary. "With what we're doing, there's no one over the ageof 23 involved. Everybody doing it- running the clubs, playing therecords, dressing up, making the music, making the clothes- none ofthem are over 23. The rock press don't mind some old sharklike McLaren
manufacturing something to make some money out of the kids, and yet
they slag us off, us, the actual 'kids'. I just don't understand it.
"The group was the last thing to come along -all the clubs and all that
was already there. The group was simply what brought it to the fore. If it
wasn't for the group, the whole scene would have gone exactly as it had
done in the '70s and something else would have happened next year andthe media would have ignored it because theywould have had no reason
to look at it. I know we're going to be what breaks it all open, and somepeople are going to get rich. But that happens a lot. In all the clubs there's
been fashion photographers taking pictures ever since it started -sixmonths later you see the clothes in the Paris fashion shows.
"Loads of looks... the diamante look with the pill box hat, the toy soldier
look at Billy's and all the padded shoulders. Loads of them. Everything
we've ever started in those clubs has been in the fashion magazines six
months later. I didn't think the Edwardian look would go into the shops,
and yet I walked into StanleyAdams in Regent Street the other day andthere it was, after we'd all finished wearing the little wing collars...
"I think it's very flattering really, and it's what London's always been
about. How anyone can go on nostalgically about mods and yet can't
relate to what we're about..."Gary shakes his head slowly
in disbelief. Martin Kemp, his
younger brother, who plays

bass with Spandau Ballet and is wearing anattenuated version of the Gene Vincent BlueCap look, takes up the slack.
"What everybody gets wrong about thiswhole thing is that they stand back and say,'Cor, we couldn't afford to do that!' That is
absolute crap. We were on the dole for, like, sixmonths and we still had style. It's not like youneed an expensive modern shirt that's neverbeen seen before. You take the best thingsfrom the past and you got it, you got it sussed.
"As soon as you wanna get rid of looking
scruffy, looking down at yourself, then you got
it, you got it straight away. It's an attitude.
When you don't put on your old jeans and thenJuly26.15/80:bassist
Martin Kempandsingerchange to go out at night. You wake up in the
Tony Hadley performing
morning with style. You don't, like, just getwith Spandau Ballet on
HMSBelfast,berthedat
style at six o'clock, afteryou have a bath. A bathLondon's Tower Bridge
don't spark off style. D'you knowwhat I mean?
It's just an attitude, which so many kids have.""It's wanting to make the most of yourself,"says Gary, snatching the thread back from his
brother. "Bryan Ferry on Round Tablet he otherday said our single was very uplifting, and healso said something we've been saying forages about the greyness and all the music to -commit -suicide -to that's around at the
moment. It's so depressing. Why make yourself
depressed? If you've got nothing to say, like allthese bands are telling us we've got, then why
make yourself feel even worse?
"All these people saying, 'You can't wear those
clothes, they're ridiculous, they are just denying
the imagination. It's saying that because youcome from a poor background you're notallowed to look good, or you're supposed to look like a certain thing. Why
be depressed? Beingyoung is about having a good time, looking good,going out at night, getting drunk, dancing, sex, everything!"
Martin has the last word: "They always write about it and say poseurs,
right? The people that dress well are the poseurs, but they're having abrilliant time, they're having a party time, they don't mind getting down
to it. They don't stand up at the bar, passing comment, they're too busy
passing out! Those people who say poseurs are just voyeurs!""You take thebest thingsfrom the pastand you got
it sussed"

0

BVIOUSLY NO ONE here feels obliged to be the spark that starts

the revolution, but then music has already reassured us that it
won't change the world, and the least it could do at this point is
not make it any greyer.
Spandau Ballet's music is white disco. Gary Kemp's favourite records
are things like "One Love" by Celi Bee and "Pressure Sensitive" byRonnie Laws. Their first album was produced by Richard Burgess, thedrummer with the English jazz -funk group Landscape. If much of theirmusic sounds at this point like the sort of thing Giorgio Moroder leaves on
the shelf, it's actually better than you'd expect of a group with so muchoutright front.
At the moment, I can only echo Lenny Bruce: I like the clothes and theattitude. Spandau Ballet area great soundtrack for the clothes. They
won't be the first group to sell as many clothes as records. And when I
asked a girl who'd been to all their parties how the one in Birmingham
compared, her reply put the scene in focus: "It's very different tonight,"
she said. "People are actuallywatching them. Usually they're too busy
watching each other!"Like Roxy Music before them, Spandau Ballet have come out of
nowhere, fast. Right now, they're going somewhere even faster. What'smore, they could seize the imagination of a lot of young kids who aren't
all that interested in what the NMEputs on its cover each week, because
they're brash, loud, young and fun.
Clothes alone are very important. Without them we'd have nothing totakeoff. PaulRambali

THREADSTALKINGold
If the clothes are too loud,then you're too

1980
OCTOBER-DECEMBER"The only
honest personfrom theolder bands"
MELODY MAKER

That's 'kUL WE' rR's
evaluation of TE
TOWNSHEND, who meets

the Jam frontman for
an awkward summit.
Later Weller explains his
ethos for difficult times.
"What is there for young
people to get into?
There's only music."

TOBER 11 -BRINGING TOGETHER PAUL Weller and Peter Townshend doesn't
really need that much explaining. When The Jam smashed their way

into the charts and hearts of England, with their mohair suits andRickenbackers, Weller always acknowledged, however unfashionable
it might have been at the time, Townshend's early influences on both
his guitar playing and his lifestyle, a fact borne out by the scooter andclothes the young Paul Weller proudly ran about in in his hometown of Working.
Simultaneously, Townshend noted that the 18 -year -old Weller bore the samecharacteristics as he did when he was 18. In fact, Paul twice made the trip to Townshend's
Twickenham home in the hope of meeting Pete, but was both times frustrated, though
the two of them did start up a correspondence.
Finally, they met through theMMon Monday, September 29, at Townshend's Trinifold
office in Wardour Street, just a fewyards from the Marquee. Both seemed nervous, andafter about an hour it became apparent that the similarities between the two ended at
Rickenbackers and sharp pop singles. They began talking about the new Who album
Townshend has just begun recording, but quickly digressed. Townshend had alreadytold me that he had never seen The Jam live. The chat proper starts there.
Pete Townshend: The thing that always put me off seeing The Jam live is that, if I showed
up in the audience, it would look a bit patronising.
Paul Weller: I don't know, I went to see you lot at the Rainbow, last year or so.
PT: That must have been our first gig.
PW: Was it last year? You done a two-gigger...
Melody Maker: Did you like it?
PW: I don't know really. Like I was saying to someone else, it was the first time I'd seen you
live, so I had nothing to really judge it by. I don't know.
PT: We haven't changed a hell of a lot. So many of the things we do on stage have just stuck
as they've been for years. You got three albums now, haven't you?
PW: Four.
PT: Four, yeah. You see, the more albums you get underyour belt, the more you have toplay from those albums.
PW: (quickly) Well, you don't have to. There's no rules.
PT: You don't have to... I don't know.
PW: That's the only thing, 'cos you haven't really changed your set much, have you? Like
start off with "Can't Explain". x.

108 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1980

st,

10110111i.4004,00e WV,'
00.0

-

4

, 010"6=11.460

#-;

l

'

,e,
0

10 0,

66111.* -16 411,641166614 a'

46s ogsg 411606164616* *
-, ge

C.
* 00

---464-0.6461060-4. IS

44* svt 4._ - 4.411 isssormosio

it 4

6s!4,,
66

It

g.

66

- 00. 0 0' t. t
'pin.*
1.*41

.:.".

-

i
6

e,

k

k i:.

1..titiqueo40

a 1\411py
!Ir

6t

set*

L'

ft
eft

b. a.

Iii I

-"1

,+60.4.;g0,,,1416, 1
I,

6

as,

INS C
4
ig

r

4 0'
so

sp

si

er

S&L':

\\

II

r

September 290980:
Paul Wallorand P.S.

A.

Townahandoutsidthe
MarqueeonLondol's-7

Wardour Street, near

66,

tholatter's office,006.6404.< vidliii47.11111111116611161.1141KAL

11641.116.604416.0.,''

Jt4

HISTORYbi ROCK 19801. 109

-

1980

OCTOBER -DECEMBER

MM: (to Paul) Because you change yours aroundquite a bit, don't you?
PW: Yeah, well, after you've played a song 250
times, it tends to lose its power. You tend to lose theconviction you originally had.
PT:1 think that's true to some extent, but it goes toanother level in a way. It depends what you're on
the stage for.
PW: Put it this way, do you really still enjoy playing"My Generation"?
PT:Yeah, I still enjoy that.
PW: (shruggingshoulders) Well, that's fair enoughthen, isn't it? That's what it comes down to really.
I think that after you playa song so much you cantell when you start losing it. You're just going
through the motions, so that's when you shoulddrop it. It's kind of cheating the audience really.
PT: I don't know. You've written it.
PW: Yeah I know, but ifyou haven't played it with thesame spirit, if you can't play it with the same spirit as
three years ago, then ! don't see the point in doing it.
Otherwise it is just going through the motions.
PT: Well, there's a hell of a lot of going through the

motions sometimes. Even when you've made arecord or something, you don't always get it out on
the road till maybe three or four months later. It
takes three months to get an album anyway.
MM: I remember in an article you once said that it
was imperative for The Clash to go to the States.
The Jam haven't cracked it yet, though.
PT: Well, it took us a long time, didn't it?

MM: But is it important?
PW: But the thing is, when people say it's important
to go to the States, there's only one reason andthat's purely for the money, for financial reasons.
I mean, otherwise, what separates America from
France or Italy or anywhere else? It's only money.
PT: No, I don't think that's true. It isa big part of it because it means you
can spend that more on recording if
you want to.
PW: Yeah, but you're talking
financial.
PT: I think I'd go over there and playfor nothing. I think I'd go almost
anywhere and play for nothing, justas long as we sold records and we
got some loot out of selling records.
I think one of the reasons ! likeplaying in the States is because it's acompletely different audience thanthat you get at home. But they speak
your language. It really helps themto keep their feet on the ground, if
you like, by listening to what we do. I think without British rock, Americanrock music would be ridiculous and you'd be surprised...
PW: (interrupting) I think it is already. I don't think their feet are on the
ground.! think the American dream is still running rife through thecountry. There are only sort of small pockets of people who reallywant tohear something different. I mean, all the crap on the radio.
PT: Well, that's one of the problems. They've still got very heavily
formatted radio.
PW:You see my point is that the standard thing is, once you've cracked
Britain you natu rally go and crack the States. But why is that? The only
reason behind that is just finance. Because why don't you, afteryou've
cracked Britain, go and crack Red China? Or anywhere. You only go there
because it's the biggest market and after that you go to Japan because that's the second biggest, and so on.
PT: We went to France first because it was the nearest (laughs).
PW: No, but you do see my point, though? Why, out of all the countries in
the world...
110 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1980

Paul Weller, April
1980: -By the age of
Li I'd made up mymind that instead of
haying a guitar andposing in front of themirror, I'd actuallylearn how to play it"

PT: Because they speak English.
PW: No, I don't agree with that.
PT: They do speak English! You have to agree with that!
PW: That's debatable really, whether they do speak English. But I justthink it's down to finance. Once you've broken the States, you're
financially OK.
PT: To a better extent, yeah. I think the thing is that a band like The Who,
there's no question about it, we make it even on my solo album, which isprobably the closest I've got to doing something straight from the gut. But
even then I've got to admit that at the back of my head all the time, it's theAmerican record company paying for this album.

MM: I know Paul sees The Jam as an alternative to theAmerican big
bands, but do you see The Who as that?
PT: No. I think The Jam are really, really important in the role they're
playing and I really thi n k that it's so good that Paul's so solid about it. I
think the thing is that, if you've got something you passionately believein, then you've got to stick to it. Like the image that your band has got andthe image ofThe Who in the early days
very, after
simila r.are
Obviously,
psychedelia, but even to that extent it's dangerous because it represents
different things to different people.
Do you reckon when you write... I mean, the song that always gives me
the willies when ! listen to your stuff is "Mr Clean" because it's like, "Don't

WELLER & TOWNSHEND

come near me or contaminate me." There's something about thatthinking about people that are in a position, like politicians, as though
they're another kind of human being.
PW: They've only got one aim and that is for total power, and they don't
really give a shit. You'd probably say that's very naive...
PT: No, I'm not saying that it's naive.
PW: Thatcher, she ain't patriotic. She's for power and power alone. It's likethe overall message in 1984 is the only reason whywe do it is for power.

MM: When you said The Who and The Jam were similar, what kind ofthingswere you talking about?
PT: I think we stood for similar things. Apart from the fact thatsuperficially the band looks similar, that's more to do with the particularlook you go for. They seem more part of what British youth is about. They
seem much closer to the normal... without being condescending, but I
think that if you went out and looked about Britain you'd find a hell of a lotof people like Paul. And that's amazing tome, that you've managed tohang on to just being you and sticking to that, and not being affected by
the fact that there is probably a great urge byyour fans to make you a little
bit different, to put you over there and say, "Paul's our figurehead and hecan stand there", and that's what often happens to people who sellrecords. They treat you like a lavatory chain.
PW: I think that some of the things you say in interviews, because it's
really honest, they really get near the bone, and I don't think a lot of
people can handle it. I'm not saying that's a bad thing; I think it's good,
because you're the only person from the older bands who is still thathonest. Why didn't you play any of our stuff on your star special, then?
PT: I don't know. I don't playa lot of your albums. They're not albums I sit
and listen to. I would say that The Jam's music is incredibly serious music.
PW: I wouldn't say it's po-faced, though. It's not necessarily grim.
MM: Do you ever play any Who albums, Paul?
PW: Well, someone described me as a Who purist. I only playa lot of theearly stuff.
PT: Yeah, but you do change.

Where did your first guitar come from?
I think my old man brought it for Christmas or something. It was when
I was 13 or so.

Did you pick it up easy?
I did after a while. Once I'd made my mind up that I was definitely going tolearn it, I really stuck to that. It was obviously the sort of time that you startgetting cut off from your friends and...

What, at 13?
I'm not talking about boozers, but I'm talking about howyou stop playing
over the park with your friends.

Were you buying records at that time?
No. Not at all. There was nothing that appealed to me. At the time it was all
glam-rock stuff, wasn't it? Gary Glitter, Slade...
What about nightlife, discos and that sort of thing?
Not really. I used to go to local Woking Football Club places. In thesuedehead days, I used to go to them. I wasn't really into the stuff there.
It was just somewhere to go.

Were you into the suedehead movement?
Yeah, I got into that.

Whatwas the appeal?
Just the clothes really. Great clothes at the time -Brutus shirts, Ben
Sherman shirts... but it was never anything on a musical level. It was only
years after! started listening to Motown and reggae and rocksteady that
I really got into it. At the time! detested it. I think maybe a lot of people
looked down on it, didn't they? I'm not talking about the kids actually
involved in it, but a lot of people looked down on it. Like black music itself
was OK for kids but it wasn't really "serious" music. I suppose I must have
had a bit of that.

Kind of prevailing snobbery, wasn't it?
MM: Did you have the same attitude as Paul has now, back hi yourearly days?
PT: No, I don't think so, because there's always been a slightly moremusical stance.
MM: Where do you see The Jam heading?
PT: Well, I don't know if I dare say it, but I thinkthat if they did a long stint in the northern citiesof the States they'd be very, very important inconsolidating a lot of the mixed-up audiences
over there. It disappoints me to see you sneer somuch at them. It's good to keep aloof from it, but
you shouldn't let it needle you.

Yeah, but it wasn't really ti111975 that I really appreciated it.

Wereyou aware of class distinctions?
You know yourself the sort of class polarity in Woking, but you're mixing
with kids at school and when you're youngyou don't think of people interms of race or class. So it was probably justgoing round friends' houses and seeing how
they live, but like I said, at the time class doesn't
enter into it.

"I don't play
a lot of Jam
albums... It's
incredibly
serious music"

MM: You got any advice for Pete?
PT: (laughs)
PW: Nah, that's a bit pointless. I would say that

if you lot are planning to continue, then change
your set.
PT: Well, you're a tougher nut than I ever was.
[The interview switches exclusively
to Paul Weller from this point.]

A lot of people said that at school, English was

youronly good subject.
Yeah, I was pretty useless, but I was fairly good
at English, which involves poetry and that. I
wrote a poem for my CSE in English rather than
do an essay. But I didn't have any interests
really. Like I said, I knew I was going to do thisand when people talk about luck these days, I
think the luck was in knowing at the time what
I wanted to do. If there's any luck involved at all.

ii

MM: It seems from theconversations I've been havingwith these people who knewyou,
that you were always going to makea living from playing music.

EcoS OU

A. rgrincir

PW: Well, that's true. At least by thetime I was 14 I'd made my mind up.
I'd always been into music anyway,
but I made my mind up that insteadof having a guitar and posing in frontof the mirror, I'd actually learn how
to play it. Go and do it for myself,

Leaving aside school fora
minute, how were you shaping
upon the guitar?
It got frustrating at that time, 'cos
you never seemed to notice any
improvements, but at the sametime I still knew that was all I could
do. It was what I wanted to do, but
apart from that, that was all I
thought I could do anyway. Not
in a pessimistic sense, but in an
optimistic way.
You first gig was with Steve Brookes.
Whose idea was it for the uniforms?
I can't remember now. Talking about *rather than the fantasy thing.
A.

HISTORY OF ROCK 1980 1111

Ce'J

April 7/8,1980:

followingafourth
UStourin March,
The Jam play twoshows at the
Rainbow Theatre,

North London

a long time ago, really. That was the first time
we played in public and it was after that westarted getting the band together.

Yeah, the details are well enough known, butwhat material were you playing and why?
Sort of blues and rock'n'rol I, the obvious stuff
that most people start out to play. It's only got
three chords and it's so simple you can endlessly
improvise on it and you don't have to be thattechnically good. But then Steve and I started
writing together.
Was writing songs difficult?
Not really. It was something that came about. It
happened quite naturally really.

"We did dope,
speed, acid...
but by the ageof i6 I'd given

them up"

Anygood ones?

lots of kids do. But I'm glad I went through it andcame out on the positive side, seeing that there
aren't any answers in drugs at all.

What kind of answers were you looking for at 14?
I don't know what you're looking for. You're
looking for something, but you're not sure what
it is really. It's just that maybe you think you'regoing to see the light by taking something. But
any answers that do come from drugs are
artificial anyway, and when you see people
really fucked up it just confirms that.

Your family seems to have been incredibly
helpful in your musical ambitions.
Well, that's another aspect of the sort ofluck we've had. Most parents would
maybe discourage their kids from that or try and instil into them to get ajob
or trade. But I was lucky in that I was encouraged to do what I wanted to do.

Not really, no. I suppose theywere good from the point of a 14 -year -oldwritingthem.
What were you singing about?
Mostly sort of lovey-dovey lyrics. We never concentrated on the lyrics at all.

You must have felt proud of them, though...
What, of writing? (Shrugofshoulders) I suppose so, but it still felt quite
natural to do it, and me and [school friend Dave] Waller used to write stuff'cos even at that time he was writing poetry and about more politicalissues. That was when we were about 15 or so. I've got an exercise book athome somewhere with all his lyrics in it. Theywere sort of blues lyrics like
"We've got to work all day and break our backs". Stuff like that. I suppose
considering how old we were then, they were quite sort of adventurous.

When I spoke to your dad, he mentioned that at the early stages of theband Bruce and Rick might have been a little wary of him as a manager
of his own son's band.
I think there were some reservations in some quarters. Bruce had a fairly
good job, being a printer with an apprenticeship, so I suppose to give thatup, to his mum and dad it must have been quite something. So naturally,
theywere a bit wary of it. I was lucky in a sense that I didn't come from thatsort of background. It was never like "get a trade", because my old man's
not like that. I mean, he's got a carefree attitude that I think rubbed off onme a bit. I wouldn't say he's totally irresponsible, but he's always been "If
you've got it now use it, because tomorrowyou might not". I still hold that
attitude a quite a bit. I don't think there's any other way, not for me anyway.

Lookingbackon thoseworldng men's club days, did you enjoy them?
Did you go through a rebellious period?
Quite a bit.

What was it directed against? School?
Mostly, because that was the obvious enemy. Young kids will rebel
against anything, but yeah, we went out of our way to do it.
Were you doing drugs then?
Yeah, at the time we did - dope, speed and acid and whatever. But by thetime I was 16I'd given them up anyway. I don't see there's any answers indrugs at all, actually.1 think I'm lucky in the sense that I discovered that at
an early age and ! don't regret going through all the stuff, because I think
112 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1980

I don't know really. Looking back I did, but at the time I was still waiting
for the time we could go out to our own gig and play our own environment.
Mainly, it built a real strong bond between all of us, the fact that we playedquite a few gigs, and although they were shitty places, it was still anexperience. I think that sort of bond has come in handy over the lastfewyears in keeping us together, whereas if we'd sprung up from nowhere
I think there were plenty of times when we could have split up throughdifferent pressures. So I'm glad of it in that way.

You did split for a week though, didn't you?
In the early days, yeah. We were always having arguments, but maybethat was just through age, being so young and that.

VICTORIA HALL, HANLEYWEDNESDAY, 4th JUNE, 1980
at 7.30 p.m.

M.C.P. present
How much of an inspiration was hearing"My Generation" for the
first time?
I'm not sure. It was just different to me, a different sound, and also by thattime we were getting really bored with playing "Roll Over Beethoven" andall that for three years. I mean the originals are great, but you can't reallyexpand on them.

Howiongwas it beforeyou reached your mod stage?
By '75. I quite enjoyed it really, because it made me feel separate and kindof individual. And it also gave me a direction, something to base myself
on. I think at that time, more than ever since then, there was just nothingat all. There was nothing to be a part of. There's not much these days, butthere was even less then. It gave you a sense of purpose, and that was themain thing for me. I think that fact that I was totally isolated and just the
only person into it was even more encouraging. It was something I could
base my life around totally.

Did you go back and buy '60s records?
Yeah, and started listening to them with a much more open mind thanI ever had before, without that elitist thing we were talking about earlier.

What did you find in them that time round?
Just the feeling of the records, the actual soul in the music. The propersoul music, which is bandied about these days and is just bullshit,
because it's got nothing to do with it.

kind of music. I regard myself as amodernist or a stylist and I think!
always will do. It's what I base myidentity on.

Has success watered down
your ideals?
I don't feel it has, but that's easy
for me to say, isn't it? Put it this way:
I don't feel that my ideals have beenwatered down.

We're talking more about yourown personal ideals here, rather
than the accepted set from '76.

THE JAMTHIS PORTION TO BE RETAINEDBY THE PURCHASERNO TICKET CAN BE EXCHANGED
OR MONEY REFUNDED

Ticket Unreserved£4.00(including V A T.)

Probably, yeah. I've still got thesame sensibility that I had four
years ago as far as I'm concerned,
but maybe other people who know
me can answer better than I can.
But that's just the way I feel. If you
ask me that question, I've got to say
I don't feel any different. But

whether that's true or not, I don't
know. I can't tell you that.

1360

N9-

Official

only onMerchandise
sale

and Alcohol of any sort

will not be allowed into
the venue.

The Management reserve the right torefuse admission

NO PASSOUTSMIKE LLOYD (MUSIC) LTD.

15, Percy Street, Hanley
23, High Street, Newcastle

Soon after that you came across the Pistols. I knowyou were impressed,
but how about Bruce and Rick?
I'm not sure really. We were all affected, but I didn't know to what extent
on Bruce and Rick's behalf. I was totally affected and didn't want to know
about anything else.

Well, all the people I spoke to about
109, High Street, Tunstali
you said that you hadn't changed.
Maybe that's a bad thing; maybe
I'm underdeveloped! If it is true I'm glad; all I mean is that I wouldn't want
to be unchanged in the reactionary sense.

Being clothes -conscious, how did the fashion element strike you?
I thought it was great. The feeling transcended the actual fashion element
for me anyway. It was just good to go into a club and see a band that you
could actually enjoy and were the same age as you and not 10 years older.
Groups were singing about something a lot more important than the junkin the charts. And after seeing the Pistols and The Clash at the 100 Cluband places like that, it was obviously the only future that music had foryoung people. Apart from the discos, which will always be there.

You've always been qu ite cynical anyway. Is that agood thing?
I think it's good when you're starting off. Maybe it's a good thing tomaintain, but I think too much cynicism can destroy a person, because
you become so cynical you won't listen to anything. Your mind becomes
totally closed to everything. I'm glad that I've lost a bit of cynicism really,
but I also think you need some of it to make you do something -get off
your arse and do it.

Writing punk songs at that time, did it come naturally?
I don't really think I can turn around and say it really came naturally,
because obviously I was influenced by them. I remember Joe Strummer
saying things like bands should be writing about things more important
than 'I walked down the shops today' or something, which did have quite
an effect on me and the way I thought, because obviously he was right.
Were you obsessed with London
before punk?
Not really, not to the same extent. It
was just that Saturday mornings you'dmeet people in Soho markets, punks
and that, and you'd talk to them about
anything. So it was just the whole
unity feel of it. I was just very isolated
being out in Woking, which as you
know is a real sleepy town. It justseemed things were moving really fastand I wanted to be a part of it.

How about the suits and ties The Jam
were sporting at the time. Where didthat come from?
That just came from my mod
obsessions.

Did you feel guilty about signing to Polydor at a time when it was
unfashionable for bands to sign to a major label?
Not really, because I though it was the only way we could be ever heard
everywhere. At the time we were offered a deal with Chiswick, who werean independent at the time. They obviously offered a lot smaller financial
deal, but we just felt it wasn't even the finance actually, because we only
signed to Polydor fora fairly small sum of money anyway. We signed to
Polydor for six grand, which ain't
much. It's even less now, but we justwanted everyone to hear our records.

3511.ELODYM.A.KER

I thought it a real letdown you
playing the Hammersmith Odeon
at the time. It seemed to me to be
the complete antithesis of the
movement you yourself believedin so strongly.

The
flint!

Punk
and
the

odfatherPaul Wellerme.
etPet e Townthend

PLUS

It's hard for me to answer things like
that, 'cos I don't remember well what
my feelings were. I suppose it was,but then again I think the first time
The Clash played the Rainbow set
the standards for everything. I mean
the feelings were in '76 to keep it in
the clubs, which is stupid, obviously
if it was going to get any bigger, it had
to go further than clubs.

How obsessed were you then?
Totally. I still am really. But what I'm
always trying to say, which is whywe
really tried to play down the modthing a year ago or so, is that you've got
to be open-minded, and I listen to any

But when it goes further, it

inevitablygets ruined.
It gets watered down. I don'tnecessarily think it's got to beruined, but it did get watered down.

sicr wooer
RumorsJethro

uas

0,

is

inside theHall.
Cameras, Tape Recorders

HISTORY OF ROCK 1980 I 113

24641

610940
84660

1980

OCTOBER -0W

OK, cliched question: after the first album you became reallywell known. Was it hard to come to terms with?
I don't think there was that much to come to terms with, actually. I've
never really thought of us being that successful or unsuccessful.
But even at those Hammersmith shows, the atmosphere was one ofincrediblewarmth. The start of a Jam/audience relationship...
Yeah, it was. I think it still exists, actually. I think it was a cult thing at thetime, probably a lot more than it is now, but I still thinkyou get thatwarmth from that cult feeling, when you're all there for a purpose andI still get that at our gigs. I dread the day it disappears, because that's
when you start worrying or thinking about jacking it in, because thatmakes it really worthwhile.

Your second album, ...Modern World, always seemed to me to be theperfect platform away from the punk thing.
From that original punk era? Yeah, that could be true. Well, that was quite
a disillusioning time for me. Like "News Of The World" and stuff like that,just totally on the wrong track.
There's a lot of d fference between Modern World and Al Mod Cons.
That's because I isolated myself so much from everything completely.
Why?
I think bycoming out ofa real insular environment like Woking, and all
my friends and family and living in the same house,
and then moving out and living more or less on myown in London. And I never went back to Woking
till about maybe a year, and I never mixed, I neverspoke to other people at all -even within the band
-and I think it really makes you lose the openmindedness that maybe you had before.

Does writing still come easy to you?
Put it this way: I've always got loads of ideas about
what I want to write about. Whether or not I canactually put them down in an articulate way, goodenough for a song, or whether I can get a certain
chord sequence to fit it, that's difficult. But as for
ideas it's not, because there's so much going on andthankfully! still feel involved, just in living.

Let's talk about your lyrics...
I find it hard talking about lyrics. It's what it is and it's hard forme to explain lyrics sometimes, unless I can gauge someone's
reaction on what they feel the lyrics are about. Sometimes
people come up with their own explanations on what the lyric
is about, which is better than I started out to do.

Well, the lyrics on the new stuff I've heard sound just as"serious" as before, but musicallyyou seem to be trying to getaway from the "Jam" sound of old.
Maybe that's just through ego or something, I'm not sure. But wedon't want people to feel that we feel safe and we're just carrying
on with the same formula. You can get a bit paranoid about thatand spoil it or something. But it's true. "Going Underground",we all knew at the time it was our sound and that's why we all
preferred the B-side, "Dreams Of Ch ild ren", because for us it
was totally d ifferent.
You didn't like SettingSonstoo much eitherNo, the actual sound was just... it felt a bit slick. And the playing,just us as a band... I don't think we had the chance to really playthose songs in properly. A song, after you've played it a few times
live, just totally transforms it.

A lot of your writingconcerns itself with class and divisions.
It can get overplayed till it becomes a cliche. Like living up to
your role. But you still see so many signs of class, even today. On
television especially.

Doyou think money can change class, because you must havea fair amount yourself?
114 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1980

Nah! I don't think so. Yes, I've got money, but it hasn't changed me. I don't
think it changes your sensibilities.

When we were talkingearlier, you were saying about the need torecognise one's class, but then taking it a step further.
Personally, I'm aspiring to be classless, but there's no point in me, just one
person, being classless, because one person on his own is just setting up
another class, which brings more and more confusion into the wholething. But I don't see why anyone should be tied down to just one thing.
Still, you said thatyou're a lot happier these days. Any reason for that?
No, none that ! can give you. I just think you've got to remain a little
optimistic. On SettingSons, for instance, I think a lot of the lyrics aretrying to face up to things, and I didn't see any kind of solutions at all. But
this year I'm thinking you've got to be a bit optimistic, otherwise you gou nder and join the numbers.

That was one of the first things that struck me about the album, thebleak scenarios you were dealing with.
It k pretty bleak, really... but I think it's all true.
Was that howyou were leadingyour life at the time?
It's hard to say because I change so quickly. I get in different frames ofminds, but I still think a lot of the things written, especiallyon that LP,
are in a real general sense and pretty realistic. But what I'm saying is that
now I feel different. I still feel pretty hopeful, pretty
optimistic. But next year I don't know. I just think
about now.
W,,111.11t1CIrt.tcla

gut
t

y

t

tt.Irtcp.tirt.

WELLER & TOWNSHENDIn what sense do you feel optimistic?
I'm trying not to get too cynical. I'mtrying not to give up and accept it,
because what's the point? If you're all
agreed that you've got nothing anyway,
you might as well be hopeful about it,
because something might turn up. But
I mean, it's impossible in these days toth ink of anything in any long-term way.
It's so unstable that you just don't know.
Do you think any of your songs go

beyond that, though? Like"Tube
Station" will probably stand forever- the sentiments behind it, I mean.

But if there was, if there were morediverse things happening, everything
would be greatly improved. How many
young novelists are there? How many
young playwrights?

SOUAria

41111110-Mi-iCy;_ip'S'

I'm not sure. It might be true of songs
that I haven't written for the new album
yet. I've got one new song, "Scrape
Away", and that's looking at that real,
bitter, twisted social consciousness thateveryone seems to have these days. I'mtrying to look beyond that, 'cos you've
got to. It's either that oryou give up.

BUM CASSETTE ^Is thatwhat's happening at present to Britain? We're all giving up?
I just think it's a general feeling. I mean, what is there for young people toget into? There's nothing. There's only music and there's nothing else.
And there's no way you can think to yourself, I'll hold out for two months,
it's gonna get better."
A lot of people would say music is escapist anyway.
It is to a certain extent, but lalso think musiccan transcend aswell.

Is that what your songs try and do?
I'm not sure what I try and do when I write a song. Mainly I write because
I think a lot about things quite deeply, so therefore it's a means for me toexpress it; without trying to sound too cliched, that's what it is. But at thesame time I try and write in a general sense so that other people... maybe
it'll make them think as well, and to me it's as simple as that really. If I
wasn't writing songs, then I'd try and write something else, like books or

poetry or anything.

Do you thinkyou underplayyourself?
No, because that goes back to people becoming too self-important. Them
thinking what they're doing iss-o-o right, so important to other people,
and I don't see that at all. I think that we've got
a certain responsibility, so if you're going to
acknowledge that responsibility at all, you
might as well use it for the good. If you're
influencing people, you might as well influencethem for the better.

So what keeps your sanity together, Paul?
I'm not sure. I don't even think sanity enters into it, because who's sane
any more? Are these sane times we're living in? So therefore you've got
nothing to measure san ity by.

Well, if you ran around smashing gu itars on brick walls and neverwrote another song and...
Yeah maybe, but then again that's only your definition. It's really hard tosay. There's nothing to measure it by, because we don't live in a real,straight, responsible, moral society -with not too much emphasis on theword moral. I'm not trying to get into that, but I'm just saying that there's
nothing to measure it by. There's so much craziness, there's nothing togauge yourself by. I don't think of myself as being sane or being insane;
I just think of myself as... being. And I don't think that's just me.
I think that's the general state of most people. We've all got our own
ideas of what's right and what's wrong, our own moral values, but
because of the crap society we live in it's really hard to say what's right or
what's wrong. But I guess real ly you've got to focus on something, haven't
you? So to answer your original question, I think maybe you keep yoursanity just by talking to other people, thoughthat gets difficult at times. One more friend you

the lyrics aretrying to face
up to things"

How far do you think The Jam evaluate things?
When I sit down and try to evaluate what I'm
doi ng and what we're doing, it seems pretty
futile. At times like that I can understand whysome bands say they're just out for a good time, get people dancing andenjoying themselves. I like to think people enjoy us, but at the same time
I still see it as something more important than that... because it's themost tangible thing, the most tangible movement to young people
than anything else existing at the present time. So therefore it's got totranscend just having a good time. Certain records to me mean more thanjust dancing or enjoying it, 'cos it really does touch you, and music is more
important than that sense. But only because it has got no competition.

Is that whyyou started "Riot Stories", to offer an alternative?
Yeah, but only because music needs more competition. Because there itis, (throws arms open) isolated, and there's nothing else remotely near it.

progress in, as long as you keep in sightwhat you origi nally set out to do.

When you set out, did you know what you wanted?
Not when I was 14 I didn't, no.

"On Setting
Sons, a lot of

That's really gett i ng away from the star trip...
Hopefully, yeah, 'cos I never asked for anyone to
grab hold of my hair and scream and rip mybuttons off. I'm not interested in any of that.

How much does your audience
determine what you write?
Well, I think that's quite a great
influence really, because I wouldn't
want to get to the stage where you werechasing after different directions andgetting esoteric like some bands, whichis easily done. And leaving people
behind -well, not leaving them behind,'cos that's condescending -but gettingcaught up in yourself and losing sight ofwhat you originally set out to do... Put it
this way, if you're going to progress, it
doesn't matter what direction you

can make is one less enemy, and that's alsobehind "Start!" as well. One more person who
you're in tune with can only be better really.

Anythoughts on solo albums, films etc?
Thoughts that way, but not the two things you
happened to mention. Definitely not a solo
album, but I'd like to get a label. ! wouldn't
want to own a club, but I'd like to be involvedin a club. I'd like to do a TV play, be able to write

it. I don't think! could act. I think I'd be too
self-conscious, but I'd like to be able to write it
and maybe help direct it. I don't know past that.
I don't think about where ! would like to be orsee myself in 10 years' time or something.

Final question. You said to me once you were getting bored with theguitar. Does that still hold?
I've got loads of instruments. I collect instruments. I've got a bouzouki,
numerous flutes. I'd like to be able to play loads of instruments, just forthe simple fact that it's good to be versatile. You're not trapped by one
instrument. Like I'm using a melodica on some of the tracks on the new
stuff and it's a good exercise for me. It's like you saying to yourself that
I'm only going to write things for the MM, it's pointless. You've got to
expand. Even if you only write for yourself at home, it's expanding.
It gives you a different outlook on things... Paolo Hewitt

HISTORY OF ROCK 1980

115

Johnand Yoko:

dealing"purely andsimply withtheir own
highly finiteun.

ALBUMSJohn Lennon & Yoko Ono
F

In the cocoon, something stirs.
John Lennon -one of the people
who used to be in The Beatles, agroup reckoned to be hot socks
when I was a kid -and Yoko Ono
break a five-year recording
silence to announce thateverything in their garden is
wonderful, but wonderful. For
people imprinted with thepassions and preoccupations of
the Beatle Years, the release of
Double Fantasy is ofnecessity An Event, thoughmaybe not a happy one.
Everybody else: straightto the next review, please.
Lennon and Ono appear
on the cover clamped in a

passionate embrace, resemblingnothing so much as theStreisand/Kristofferson Star Is
Born clinch. The album celebrates
their mutual devotion to eachother and their son Sean to thealmost complete exclusion of allother concerns. Everything's
peachy for the Lennons andnothing else matters, soeverything's peachy QED. How
wonderful, man. One is thrilled
to hear of so much happiness.

Criticism along orthodox

Fa ntasie

for theover -40s
JOHN LENNON & YOKO
CAM

I

self-centred to the poinsocial -realist
lines mayseem

boorishand pompous: after all, anyone
can make a record about anything
they wish, and if the Cno-Lennons
find their own domestic andparental bliss to be the only

worthwhile subject for theirmusic, then they are quite within
their rights to finance their next
decade with an album that deals
purely and simply wit -1 their own
highly finite universe. The trouble
with music that is self centred tothe point of utter solipsism is that
one cannot criticise the art
without also criticising the life on
which the art is basec.
So the Lennons choose theirroles and play them to the hilt.

John croons his love for his sonon "Beautiful Boy", apologises to
Yoko for ever having been horrid
to her, expresses his devotion asdebasement. He is besotted andabject (the old bugger still has
a wonderful voice, by the way).
On "Watching The Wheels'', heexplains that he's perfectly happy
not giving a shit about either therock business or the world events
that inspired him to produce
Some Time In New York City andthat astounding series of late -andpost-Beatle solo singles of theearly '70s, but by coming out of
retirement and releasing analbum, he's "playing the game"whether he admits it or not.
Anyway, let's waste no moretime on John Lennon. On thisshowing he can get back to
the kitchen and mind the kid
and the cows, because all themost interesting material on
Double Fantasy is Yoko's.
She answers hubby's"Beautiful Boy" with her own"Beautiful Boys", a tripartite
essay that devotes its firstverse to young Sean, its
second to Big John and its
third to all the male egos thatrun the world at the expenseof their own and everybody

else's humanity. Her verse about
Lennon demonstrates that her
love and admiration for her
husband are considerably moreclear-eyed that his for her: hewrites about her as anomnipotent, benevolent lifegiving Natural Force; she writes
about him as a gifted human who
is still a child (he says the samething of himself in another song).
Yoko is Mom to both of them:she jestingly depicts herself injust this all-powerful Supermomrole in the jokey, Nilssonesque"I'm Your Angel".
Yoko Ono's entry into rockin the early '70s was heavily
attacked by most mainstream
rockcrits of the time becauseeven by the eclectic standards ofpost -hippy art rock her music
sounded totally unrocky. In the'80s - post -Slits, etc - her music
sounds vastly more modern andconsiderably more interesting
than Lennon's. In particular, "Kiss
Kiss Kiss", "Give Me Something"
and the freezing ly eerie "Every
Man Has A Woman Who Loves
Him" - an ode to Romantic
Destiny, would you believe? - areeasily the album's best moments.
Still, Yoko's vision is by nomeans unflawed. To say the least,
anyone who can seriously serve
up a song entitled "Hard Times

Are Over" is being a trifle
subjective. For those of us still tomake our first million, hard times
are only just beginning.
Double Fantasy is right:
a fantasy made for two (witha little cot at the foot of the bed).
It sounds like a great life, but
unfortunately it makes a lousy
record. Still, who said that rockstars -and Lennon is one of thosefor life whether he wants it or not-were under any obligation toprovide record buyers withanything "useful"! Of course
they're not, but people like Paul
Weller do so whether there's an
obligation or not.
That's why I look forward to
Yoko Ono's solo album, why I wish
that Lennon had kept his big
happy trap shut until he hassomething to say that was evenvaguely

SINGLESJoy Division
FACTORY IS IMPORT

What more is there tosay? Were he still alive
today, I'm sure Ian
Curtis would find thecurrent Joy Division
Did No Wrong
syndrome as
nauseating as the next
man. Even the band's
most committed
devotees seemembarrassed by it.
Nevertheless, themyth that surrounds
the band just grows
on and up.
This track you will

already know, but not
in its new, radicallyaltered format. Thisreadily available US
import is rougher andfar less rounded thanthe original Unknown
Pleasures take ofthe same song,
recently covered,of course, by
Grace Jones. The
new version is
one of the loosest
things the groupever recorded,
springing andrecoiling along Peter
Hook's monstrous descending
bass run and snare -drumsequence that shames Motown
at their own game for the
ferocity of its thump. The feel isalmost live, with Curtis lapsing
into a scat vocal over the fade.
On the flip, too,"Atmosphere" is finally given
the wider availability it so richly
deserves. Serene and haunting,it is JD at the most moving, withnods in the direction of bothPhil Spector and Scott Walker.
Essential stuff, previously only
available in France on the very
limited edition Sordide
Sentimental single.
But what more is there
to say? Love will....? This isrelevant tothose of us

not married to
Yoko Ono, andwhy I'm pissed
off because
I haven't
heard the Jam
album yet.

OMD: picking.

strong suita magnificent
record.

anticipation of becoming richenough to enjoy an even cosier

NME Oct 4

existence. (NME Novi')

Kate Bush

In which Kate turns
her attention fromthe post -apocalypse blues
to the more conventional
warfare of yesteryear, although
her sickening, cutesy -cutewhining is hardly suited to thesombre subject matter. Not soamazing after all. NME Oct 4

Orchestral Manoeuvres In
The Dark

DIN -06c

Orchestral Manoeuvres areemphatically not the single
band they could be in as much as

they never pick the right tracks
for 45 release. "Enola Gay"
possesses a glorious melody
and the title conjures up visionsof one of those Jam B-side
rewrites of "Eleanor Rigby".
Despite these considerable
plusses, it seems destined tofollow "Red Frame WhiteLight" and "Messages" into
chartless oblivion. NmEocta
Dead Kennedys
CHERRY RED

Nice middle-class American
kids form stereotype punkband, desecrate patriarchal
family name to garnercheap but very extensive
publicity and attack theirown sheltered lifestyle inNow bliss
off. Charles
Shaar Murray,
NME Nor 22

singles not aDavid Bowie

RCADavid's gotta New Danceand, with Robert Fripperonic
growling menacingly on
steel -tooth guitar, it proves
to be a continuation of theparanoiac diamond -hard funk
explorations of "Fame". As with
its predecessor, Bowie may wel I
adopt an anti -disco attitude
while at the same time
acknowledging that he'll fill
the disco dance floors rather
than empty them. Similarly,
the ambiguity of Bowie's lyric
allows the listener to decide
whether it's concerned withthe manipulative world ofsartorial elegance or the everincreasing left -versus -right
power struggle. Whichever
way one conceives it, the song's
overtly political. NHENovn
HISTORY OF ROCK 1980 I 117

IIIVISEN"

0"I worry
about
too
givingmuch

KATE BUSH

continues,

phenome.....t
her on aas wejoin

tour. The
promotional
is humble:
artist herself
by Pink Floyd,
influenced
and British
Roy Harperof herfolk, and aware her
withrelationship"I think theaudience.
4how
OCTOBERcorridors
understandpublicBLAND ANTISEPTIC
forever. An
and lasting
CORRI DORS.
the
it is," she says.
nowhereto negotiate;
leading
personal
flight of stairs
passeschatter that

away"
-

occasional of GermanA
odd babbleofLoudoninterest or acknowledgement.
without
bearing the namedressing roomraises spirits. that stinks of the
momentarily
lettering
the legendinbizarreWainwright red sign
betweenthe eyes,by a little arrow
A multicolou smacks you
accompanied'60s' psychedelia
RockPop,decipherable asgett ing wa rm.
triumphantjustthat you're
then the final
signs andthat suggests
steps,
Voice.
like a crazed
victory. The
More corridors,of silence,of imminent
indication high above thecacophonyI n it iallywild andrecognition as
roller -coaster.
It shrieks
andcockerel on a berserk
begins to bear shapeformless, it quickly increasing urgency.
the letl-tah...
it withbiew-tee-f000t ... shesy-yned
weapproach"Whenshetvuz... Babooshkababooshkababooshkayaya"Babooshka,
Mnunatvw-y000rs bangcrash...
caughtalt..."diddle-dee-dum
zoom in and out,
Babooshka."grip
Babooshka, lust, cameramen-looking geezers
Official
ferocity
Suppressing of the music.
two under the theup i n the mania threaten to snap inhover inthat
clusters of people impressed orclip -boards
to beassortedpretending not ropping openof the clasp, andjaws dsolicitously
backgroundhelpless to prevent .
but still
to notice,with neitherdignitynordiscretion.

4.

Ilea

OCTOWI

INSIDEC

ake
POIICS

Bonhamrif 6'
ellrawsiNgir

1980

OCIOBEH"

Kate looks stunning. She wears scarlet trousers that flair absurdly fromthe thighs down, but sink their teeth into her buttocks with obscene
determination. The matching T-shi rt is breathtakingly skimpy and looks
like it's been painted on her.
She clutches a double bass, her body contorting around it in atransfixing demonstration of mime as "Babooshka"'s drama of love,suspicion, trial and ultimate faithlessness unfolds. The double bass isalternately the object of her lust and her fury; she wraps herself around it,
she grinds against it, she beats the hell out of it, she wrings its neck, sheclaws it, she slithers down its neck, she blows in its ear.
Her face pouts and spits and leers and jeers and dreams and schemes
and ravishes; and all the while her bottom jerks and thrusts from one endof the studio to the other. It's the most erotic thing I ever saw.
A weird month for Kate... a crucial one for EMI. The new album, NeverFor Ever, took six months to record. It was completed three months ago,
but EMI decided to hold back on its issue because of other major issues
around the same time. The one genuine new superstar in the team, it wasessential this one made a huge splash. A series of personal appearances,various interviews, radio station spots, and thorough advertising havebeen arranged; and flying to Munich to mime two numbers for RockPop
on German television is merely one more stone in a wide -reaching wall.
Kate embraces it all with a smile and a giggle. I refuse to believe thatanyone enjoys being the object of mass marketing, but she at least
acknowledges its necessity, maintains firm control over its operation,
and accepts its demands with professionalism and good grace.
Various German EMI representatives are in Munich to welcome her
and she greets them all with a big hug like they're favourite cousins,a brief flurry of reminiscences over the last time Kate was in Munich
during her concert tour.
"Oh hello, nice to see you," she hails the Melody Maker expansively,
as the first rehearsal concludes in a welter of satisfied nods fromtechnicians. A bit of chit-chat, a lot of nervous giggling from all parties,
and then: "Oh God, I've got to go and have a shower. I feel all sort of...
you know." Somehow its hard not to be captivated.
And yet there are extraordinary paradoxes about her. There can be no
greater dichotomy between a public image and the art inside it. She's
forever portrayed as a nice middle-class kid who can't believe her own
luck. A renegade from St Trinian's, I ikeably naive, tolerably favoured andjust a shade flippant, gushing "amazin'" and "incredible" from pollaward to poll award.
Glamorous but not intimidating, the media instantly moulding her intoa wrapping of sweetness, purity and light. Earmarked fora path of pop
records and TV spots into the elite of artists who appear on each other'sseries; and ultimately becoming the family entertainer destined to end
up in pantomimes and seaside cabaret.
I could never equate the image with the music.
The most indifferent glimpse beyond the imageof "Wuthering Heights" reveals a rampantly
independent spirit. I mean, no sweet, flippantfamily entertainer ever wrote a song as sexually
explicit as "Feel It". No surrogate Olivia Newton John ever tackled a subject like incest ("The Kick
Inside"). No cosseted girl -next-door would everdare conduct a fantasy around a saxophone("Saxophone Song").
The lights suddenly pick out Kate on
the other side of the studio, standing
perfectly still, the bass standing
phallically before her, her eyes wideand manic, staring at the camera.
The intro to "Babooshka", thebottom protrudes, and she's away,
jumping and thrusting, and utterly
living the part. A bunch of
photographers have been allowed into the studio, and push and jostle
each other for the best views. As thesong ends, several kids chase her foran autograph, but she's already gone,
flitting away on her broomstick, ordoes she merely turn into a pumpkin?
Kate re-emerges, totally
unrecognised, sitting alone at the
120 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1980

side, observing, waiting for her next party -piece. She's dressed asa haggard washer -woman in dowdy clothes and headscarf.
It's a routine she's never tried before and she's been nervous about it allday. The song is "Army Dreamers", a track from Never For Ever and thenext single, a simple but melancholy little song in which Kate appears asa weary mother reflecting on the death of her son, a soldier killed on duty.
"Should have been a rock star. . . But he didn't have the moneyfor a

guitar..." Three soldiers dressed in British army camouflage uniforms
appear, one carrying a mandolin, one a Tommy gun, another in the roleof a sergeant barking orders.
"Should have been a politician... But he never had a proper education..."Kate shrivels and cringes behind the soldiers, her face crumpled anddistraught. The soldiers march and prowl and stand at attention.
"Should have been a father... But hedidn't even make it to his twenties..."

The song is all the more striking for the pretty tune, and the genteel
structure, the innocence of the lyric. It ends with the three soldiers
cowering in a heap, Kate spreadeagled protectively above them. Purely asa piece of theatre it's brilliant. RockPop has never seen anything like it.
Kate has many relatives in Ireland, and she's fearful of the Irish reaction
to "Army Dreamers". Ireland isn't mentioned in the song, and she
inserted a reference to BFPO to divert attention; but let's face it, the song's
a contemporary one with its mention of rock'n'roll and there ain't too
many other places a young soldier is gonna get killed in action right now.
I ask her about it. "It's the first song I've ever written in the studio," shesays. "It's not specifically about Ireland, it's just putting the case of amother in these circumstances, how incredibly sad it is for her. How she
feels she should have been able to prevent it. If she'd bought him a guitar
when he asked for one.
"Have you heard Roy's new album?" she says suddenly. Er, Roy?
Oh, Harper, of course. They appear on each other's albums. He gets a
dedication on the sleeve of Never For Ever: "Special thanks to Roy Harperfor holding on to the poet in his music".
No, Kate, I haven't heard the album. "You should." Adrian Boot took it,
took the sleeve photograph. "Actually," says Kate sweetly, "I didn't likethe sleeve." Adrian looks hurt. "The photograph was great, I just didn'tlike the sleeve," she reassures him.
A flood of chatter follows. Did I know Dave & Toni Arthur/What are
the Dransfields doing now/ Do I like the Bothy Band? "I've a very strong
folk -music influence," she says. "First songs I ever sang were dirty sea
shanties. I'm very proud of it, I can't think of a nicer influence.
Traditional music says a great deal about the country. English folk
music is a lot different from Irish folk music, not only musically, but
lyrically.) mean, that song "She Moves Thro' the Fair": it sums up the
Irish spirit. It's incredible, so moving."
Certainly her fascination for traditional
ballads is the key to her more lurid storyl i nes.
"The Kick Inside" was inspired by the richly
colourful ballad "Lucy Wan", in which a brothermurders his sister when she becomes pregnant
by him (though there are numerous
variations). Kate's version has the sistercommitting suicide.
"Babooshka" is similarly based on a song

"First songs
I ever sang
were dirty
sea shanties"

called "Sovay Sovay". I tell her I'll listen to Roy

Harper's album if she'll listen to an album
called Carolanneby Carol Pegg, which
includes a similar embellishment on"Lucy Wan".

My favourite track on the album is"The Wedding List". "Oh, really?" shesays bubbling, the little kid who's
been given a puppy for Christmas.
"That was based on a film, a Jeanne
Moreau film I once saw on the telly,
when the bride's husband was killed
and she sought revenge for those
responsible." She spends the next 15
minutes relating the plot of the film,
ending in a breathless flourish. "It wasan amazing film. Can't remember
what it was called, though."Films and fiction, in fact, count fora prominent chunk of her inspiration.

K ATE BUSH

to have a certain amount ofknowledge and conviction. It'sa strange mixture, I know, but
I rarely write purely personal songs
from experience."
Exactly. "I have done it. On the other albums more than
this one. But I often wonder how valid it is to write a song
purely about oneself. I worry about being too indulgent,and there is the thing about giving too much away.
"It doesn't worry me giving it to the public, because I
think the public understand how personal it is, but when
you write a song for an album it's up for everyone to pullapart. 'Fullhouse' was probably quite autobiographical talking about how hard I find it to cope with all the feelings
I get, from paranoia, pressure, anger, that sort of thing.
"My feelings are in there, but they're probably
disguised. I've really enjoyed artists who indulge inpersonal writing. People like Leonard Cohen. I admire
him, but I just can't stand listening to him. At the end of
the album you feel so depressed."
I tell her about lackson Browne, whose wife committed
suicide while he was recording The Pretender. She's agog.
"Well, I guess when you have something so extreme
happen in your life you have to write about it. That's
probably another reason why I tend to put my personal
feelings into another situation: because you can come up
with so much variance. I've never actually shot anyone,
but in a song I can do it, and in some ways it's much more
exciting, more symbolic."
But you really live out your roles and fantasies. Playing
the mother in "Army Dreamers"... "Yeah, I seem to link on
to mothers ratherwell. As I've grown up a bit I've become
very aware of observing my own mother trying to observeme. It's fascinating. When 1 was a kid I never reallythought about her, about how she ticks.
"But I can be more objective now and I find it fascinating about mothers,
that there's something in there, a kind of maternal passion which is there
all the time, even when they're talking about cheese sandwiches.
Sometimes it can be very possessive, sometimes it's very real."
Kate doesn't know when she'll be touring again. She enjoyed her one
tour, and it gave her a thrill to choke the critics who'd suggested she'd bea disaster on stage, that she couldn't sing live. But it takes six months outof a year to rehearse and prepare fora tour the way she wants to do it, andwill also cost her enormous amounts of money to stage.
"Not that I mind losing money on a tour- there are so many benefits
from it- as long as we don't go bankrupt. We do want to tour again, we willtour again, because there are so many things we still want to do on stage,
but we'll have to think about it very carefully because it will stop me
doing a lot of other things."\a.

-tewte,Bush performing Ler sixth
single," BabooshIsa-, on
German TV's RoclIPop;

INN(inset)follow-ups ngle
"Army Dreamers"

And whateveryou feel about the histrionics and the wayward vocalising,
you've got to concede that in a chart overflowing with grey music andtepid lyrics, the success of a colourful number like "Babooshka", forexample, has to be healthy. She's reticent to agree...
"Well, it does always amaze me how songs get in the charts that are I won't say rubbish, because they're not -but the sort of songs that somany people could write. I often find myself inspired by unusual,
distorted, weird subjects, as opposed to things that are straightforward.
It's a reflection of me, my liking for weirdness."
They don't come anyweirder than "The Infant Kiss". This, she explains
patiently, was based on a film, The innocents, which had itself come out of
the Henry James book, The Tien OfThe Screw. A governess goes to staywith a man to look after his two children, who are possessed by the spiritsof people who lived there before.
"Some people might think it's a song about... what's the word whenolderwomen fancy little boys?" Paedophilia? "Well, it's not actually that,and it would worry me if people mixed it up with that because that's
exactlywhat worries her so much. I find that distortion very fascinating
and quite sad. And frightening. The thought of someone old and evil
being inside a young and pure shell, it's freaky."
Playing at the amateur psychiatrist, I contemplate whether she writes
songs from fiction out of fear about exposing too much of herself.
"Whenever I base something on a book or a film I don't take a direct
copy. I don't steal it. I'll put it through my personal experiences, and insome cases it becomes a very strange mixture of complete fiction andvery, very personal fears within me.
"'The Infant Kiss' had to be doneon a very int i mate basis, it had to bea woman singing about her own fear, because it makes her so much
more vulnerable. If it had just been an observation, saying 'She's reallyfrightened; she's worried', you could never really tell what she wasfeeling. So I put it as coming through myself.
"I'm not actually thinking of myself falling in love with the little boy, I was
putting myself in her place. Feelingwhat I do for children -I love children and then suddenly seeing something in their eyes you don't want to see.
"It's like when a tiny kid turns round and says to you, 'You're a bastard,'or 'Fuck off: it's instinctive to feel repulsed by it, turn that experience
into a different situation. Otherwise I'd be writing and singing aboutsituations I've never experienced, and in order to be convincing you have

ON THE PLANE back to London the next day I ask her aboutPeter Gabriel. They did, after all, record together on "Games
Without Frontiers", and I thought I'd detected a Gabriel
influence on "Never For Ever". I ask about Peter Gabriel and she talks
about Pink Floyd.
"That last album of his was fantastic, but I don't know if it was a direct
influence on me. He may have opened up bits in me I hadn't thought of,but a more direct influence was The Wall. It got to the point when I heard
it, I thought there's no point in writing songs any more because they'dsaid it all. You know, when something really gets you, it hits your creative
centre and stops you creating... and after a couple of weeks I realised that
he hadn't done everything, there was lots he hadn't done.
"And after that it became an inspiration. 'Breathing' was definitely
inspired by the whole vibe I got from hearing that whole album,
especially the third side. There's something about Floyd that's pretty
atomic anyway."
We part at Heathrow, she to the next leg of the Never For Euerpromotion.
There's a dayof interviews ahead; personal appearances at record shops in
Glasgow, Manchester and London; various radio -station interviews anda visit to a dealers' party in Birmingham, where she will personally meetthe EMI employees who'll be flogging her new album. They in turn creamthemselves stupid and get their photographs taken with the great lady.
It's only rock'n'roll but you have to know how to sell it. Colin Irwin
HISTORY OF ROCK 1980 1121

19,qp,

"N ot
just
the
funny

ha ha bit"

- MELODY MAKER OCTOBER 25 -when you don't feel funny," says Suggsy.

It's a less zalky MADNESS to be found on tour inEurope. High jinks are to oe had, but their new album"
reveals their actual feelings". Meanwhile the bandmuse on drugs ("you become a semi -addict..."),
skinheads and fame. "It's depressing to be funny0

UR TAXI DRIVER picks up Tom Sheehan and myself from Rome
airport, courteously packs our bags, and then guns off like ahomicidal maniac on a half-hour drive that would've left the moststurdy constitution retching with nausea and fear by the end of it.
The first inkling of this man's sheer craziness came on the motorway
into Rome. He recklessly stomped his foot on the accelerator andliterally tried to pass through the car in front at 90 miles an hour, rather than goinground the damn thing. I laughed out loud (always do when I'm scared witless).

tMadnies(1-r)1MarkBaffeni,
MikBarson,(3NrisFerernan,
CliasSmaish,Suggs,Dan

WeedgeteandLeThangown

1980"Have you still got those awful shoes on?" Woody teased, leaning acrossthe table. "You were wearing real scruffy boots the last time."
I flash him a new, clean pair of heels, and he laughs: "Is that where yourtape recorder is then?"
The rest of the band lounge about, are just as cordial in their greetings.
Lee, the saxophonist, and Mark, the bass player, wander off briefly;
Suggsy a nd Chas ensure that Tom and myself get a meal, against thewaiter's wishes. What's Italylike then, I asked?
Woody groaned. "Everything is either 300 metres away, or 20 minutes
away," he told us to a background of laughter.
The waiter returned, confused by the orders
he'd just received. He scowled at Tom andmyself for the extra work.
Suggsy meanwhile seemed restless. He got
up, walked out of the room, returned fiveminutes later, sipped at some cold soup, got up
again, took another walk. He wasn't uptight,
just kind of fidgety and maybe even anxious,
waiting for something to happen.
Eventually the meal was finished. Tom, still
shattered by his recent harrowing experiences,
decided to retire. I elected fora night out withthe band. As we gathered in the hallway, Chris
Foreman, the guitarist, started chatting to
Woody. "I keep on having this dream," he told
Madness' small, slim drummer. "I'm running away from the cops, they'rechasing me like hell and just as I reach the door of my home...""They grab you!" Woody shouted excitedly, recognising immediately,
the whole surreal scenario.
"That's it!" Chris shouted back. "So you've had them too."
Outside, Chas and Suggsy were already revving up the tiny scootersthey'd hired for the day, and as Woody and I hit the warm, balmy air ofRome in search of the club ("300 metres away") they roar off. Two minutes
later they flash past us. The club's closed.
"Ah, but I thought it would be open tonight," says Alfredo, theoverweight record company man. We decide to go to a club called Much
More. Alfredo drives Woody and myself, while the rest of the band taketaxis to one of the most overpriced, garish clubs I've ever been in.
It's divided into two floors, with the upstairs crammed full of Space
Invader machines, while downstairs, in a blaze of lasers and flashinglights, an expensively dressed Wednesday -night Italian crowd dances
slowly to a stubborn disco beat.
From the upstairs, thanks to the huge mirror planted on the back wall,
you can watch it all, and as the band move gleefully from machine tomachine, I stand trying to take it all in.
Suggsy wasn't impressed. "Every nightclub we've been to in Europe islike this," he explains in his North London accent, before turning away toanother pinball game. He should know.
In England, Madness may have a No 2 album straight in and a delightful
single knocking on No l's door, but that hasn't stopped the rest of Europe
trying to muscle in. In Italy alone they'd already played to an estimated
40,000 screaming Italians and their album had chalked up a healthy
60,000 sales.
Fine stuff indeed, but already one could detect a sour note in theproceedings. "You see, I can't tell whether people like it for the music,"
Lee, their sax player, tells me, "or the nutty image we've got." It clearly
worries him.
Ah! But what the hell?This is the band's last night in Italy, and, well, we
might as well make the most of it. OK, lads? We descend to the flashinglights and lasers of the disco. Drinks, of course, are expensive, so we sip
ours slowly by the bar watching and laughing as the Italians moverobotically on a round platform without any senseof real rhythm to the mindless music. After 20
minutes of taking in this absurdity, I float backupstairs, leaving Suggsy and Chas by themselves.
Two minutes later, the unmistakeable sound of"One Step Beyond" fills the air. The manager has
recognised the band, and subsequently "ThePrince" and "BaggyTrousers" are also played.
I hurry downstairs again and Suggsy greets mewith a grin. "That soon cleared the floor," hesmiles. "The manager's asked us to play here," hecontinues, starting to jerk his body into the last,fading rhythms of "Trousers". "You come here and play for us," he mimics
in a perfect Italian accent. And then he grins widely.
Woody and I decided that enough was enough, located Alfredo andblagged a lift back to the hotel. As we passed out of the entrance an old
Italian woman, acting as a cloakroom attendant, gazed mournfully at us.
"You know, my big struggle at present," Woody said as we climbed into
Alfredo's expensive car, "is just trying to stay normal."Tomorrowwe would be catching a train that would take us through halfof Italy, Germany and into Holland. A20 -hour epic, and Woody didn't evenknowwe were catching it. "I never know about
these things," he laughed, "I don't want to."Tom was already in bed when we got back.
After bidding Woody goodnight, I crawled into
bed for some much -needed sleep. Four hours
later, in a sleepy, almost unconscious state,
I was aware of an urgent rattling on the door.
Tom, half -naked, groped his way towards it.
He opened it slightly, shouted, "No you
don't," and then slammed it quickly, locking it
before rushing back to his bed. I didn't know

"You know, mybig struggle
at present isjust trying tostay normal"

124 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1980

what was happening and furthermore I didn't
particularly care. The next day I found out thatSuggsy and Chas had stayed up all night, andthat round about five, with the help of a fire
extinguisher, they decided we should join theirnocturnal party. Thanks a lot, chaps.
W1I EN MADNESS TORE us apart with their joyful renditionof "The Prince", they'd already enjoyed what Chas Smash
will later describe as the "best days of the band". By this hemeant that then the band hadn't been picked up fully by the re-emerging
skinhead cult sweeping London, but were playing to a mixture ofeveryone from punks to students, to skins. All together. No bother. Gigs
were cheap and chaotic, but above all good fun. It wasn't till the band
contacted 2 -Tone that events moved swiftly and almost disastrously.
They'd already established an individual image with their suits andnuttiness, and with the release of their first single they immediately cameto the attention of the mods and skinheads, who latched on to their ska
sources (even if the band did insist against that label), which theyrecognised as "their" music.
Ugly scenes followed as their new fascist following insisted on "siegheiling", preventing bands like Red Beans And Rice, who are led by a black
singer, taking the stage as support at one London gig. "Most of them arejust led by fashion," Chas explains over a pizza. "So we felt it best not todraw attention to it. It's the ones at the top who need sorting out."

An infamous interview the band gave compounded the problem
further, even if they felt theywere completely misrepresented. "What
we'd do," explains Mark, or Bedders as he's better known, "is to actually
go into the crowd and just ask them what the fuck they were playing at. It
seemed a much better way, because instead of running away from the
problem, we were actually trying to confront it."Thankfully the band's tactics seem to have worked. Their audience isbranching out incredibly as everyone begins to see and hear their magic,
and the band themselves welcome anyone who's got two brain cells to
rub together. If it hadn't been for the band's strength to get through such
harrowing days unscathed, then I doubt if we'd be eating pizzas andpasta outside this Italian cafe, let alone preparing for a train journey
through most of Europe.
Rome's train station is a massive, impressive symbol of Italianarchitecture. It rises to the sky in a colour of appealing vermilion, and its
atmosphere is one of cleanliness and efficiency. Madness bounce happily
along its clean floors, all except Suggsy and Chas,
who are beginning to feel the effects of the night
before. (Serves the buggers right.)
They'd decided to go driving on their scootersafter the disco and eventually ground to a halt.
("I think there were two people left when we went,"
says Suggsy). They spent about four hours trying
to get out of Rome. "I kept on wanting to go to thehills," Suggsy says.
"But it was all one way," finishes Chas, the second
half of the duo now known as the Coco Brothers.

After about an hour on the train, both retire totheir cabins and aren't seen till the next day.
As Woody would have it, "they're sparko", orSolid Gone.
The cabins themselves area wonder to behold.
As small as a bird's cage, they fold up andaround into three-tier bunk beds, with even alittle sink in the corner, replete with, uh, potty.
After about five minutes of checking themout, I stand with Chris Foreman, the guitarist,
with our heads out of window, watching theincredibly beautiful Italian countryside,
spotted with ancient villas and misty hills inthe background, slowly drift past us. I commenton its beauty.
"Yeah, when I retire, I'll buy a house here," heremarks dreamily, his eyes still gazing out at
the passing colours.
"Or Switzerland. Have you ever been there?
The air is so fresh and clean and the water in theriver so clear you almost want to drink it."
Chris has got a house in Camden Town.
Lee has got about 40 tapes with him, which
he's now inserting into his cassette player andblasting out, before settling back on the seat in
the cabin he will share with Chris.
The music is Supertramp. Intrigued, I go nextdoor to see if I can borrow some tapes formyself. He has everything from The Supremes
to Roxy, to Linton Kwesi Johnson and Elvis
Costello. I borrow some Motown (Italian as
well!) and rejoin Tom.
Soon its time to meet Salvatore. Rotund,with glasses and a uniform, Salvatore will
prove to be the most important man alive on
this trip. He sells the beer, the wine, thecoffee and the food.
An hour out of Rome and we're all standing
MadnessinthesmalLin the carriageway, sipping beer, wonderingsmoky basement ofwhat to do when five American girls pass inthe Hope & Anchor
pubinIslington,Norththe corridor, talking loudly.
London, where the
At last! A source of amusement! When they
video for"OneStep
Beyond"wasfilmed
return for drinks contact is made and wefind out that they're from wealthy
backgrounds, studying in Italy and heading
We take the cassette player to the girls' compartment
forAmsterdam.
and Woody takes one of them on at backgammon. Two
MY GIRL/Stepping Into line
Eventually the questions are reversed. Now
minutes laterwe're in the girls' carriage with Bruce
what do you do fora living, one of them asks.
Springsteen on the player, an Italian sun setting, the train
We're in a band called Madness, the chaps Woody, Lee, Mark andslightly rocking, a couple of beers and Woody getting a comprehensive
Chris reply.
thrashing from his American opponent. "This girl is so lucky," he wails as"Oh," says one of the girls. They've never heard of them.
he concedes the first game.
The chaps understand. They've been to America twice, and know what
I turn to the girl sitting opposite me and ask what English new -wave
it's like. Without record company backing you're lost there, Woody andbands she might have heard or seen. Or come to that, liked.
Mark explain to me later.
"Oh well, I really like Elvis Costello," she says. "[ think he's great but...
"We did eight dates in the end," says Mark enthusiastically. "Andhe's American, isn't he?" Behind Woody's back, Mark and I curl up
basically Si re [their US record companyl didn't put anything into it.
with laughter.
We had to do our own publicity and turn up at radio stations andOver in the corner of the carriage there's another source of amusement.
generally get the vibe going ourselves, because Sire, they were so
He's male, about 35, with jeans and glasses, holds a degree, and is
sparked out...
rabbiting on to one of the other girls, who's staring at him with mouth"They got posters from Stiff and cut out the bottoms!"
open, taking in every word, about his "profession and well -deserved"Kellogs, our manager," continued Woody, "actually discovered one
degree". He's the teacher. The girls are his students.
of the girls from Sire records on her knees with a great pile of Madness
Two hours later they lock the carriage door and climb into bed. Takes
posters from Stiff, cutting out the bottoms."
all sorts.
Be that as it may, it's our friend Salvatore who's on his knees right now
As Mark, Woody and myself make our way back to the cabin after Woody
searching in the fridge for another beer, and imploring us to keep quiet
has lost fora second time ("she kept throwing doubles. What could I do?")for the thousandth time, as we stand outside his bar gently poking fun atMark tells me what the teacher graduated in. Physical psychology.
the Americans.
It makes sense, and after stopping briefly at Salvatore's Saloon (he tells"What did you do at college then?" Mark asks a tall red-headed girl.
us once more to sssshhh!) for some food and drink, we retire to my cabin"Well, I just did English government," she giggles. "So I can tell you all
fora formal interview.
about it."
It turns out to be probably one of the most informal conversations I've
tv
"Good," retorts Mark. "Because we don't know anything about it."ever had with a band. Completely relaxed, and glad of something to break 0"What's that music playing?" asks anotherwith glasses and standard
up the journey, the instant appeal of the girls having worn off, Woody andstudent dress of jeans and checked shirt. "Have you got a cassette player?"Mark began talking as the train rolled into night-time. I reminded Woody"We sure have," says Mark, and a bargain is quickly reached.
of his "fight to be normal". x,
HISTORY OF ROCK 1980 1125

"Yeah, it is," he concedes. "In other people's eyes. Just to be accepted asa normal human being.""It's like record companies over here," interjects Mark. "And televisionshows. They go, Ahhh! You act nutty, yes?' Like yesterday we did 'One
Step Beyond' sitting down, didn't we?
"For one take, and it didn't work," Woody says, grinning.
"We just sat there," continues Mark, "just to sort of say, 'Look!We can doit sitting down if we want."
The fact is, of course, that while we've been watching and anticipatingnothing from Madness except Chas Smash's funny dances and the rest of
the band's zaniness backed up by some irresistible dance music that has
fun spelt all over it, we've forgotten conveniently that we're dealing withseven human beings with emotions, completely individual from eachother, with different intentions, too.
Absolutelydivides itself into two distinct sides. The first side is prime time Madness, best exemplified by the closing track, "Solid Gone",a Chas Smash rockabilly-inspired romp, with meaningless words andlots of smiles.
The second side is more personal, more serious, and shows Madness
capable now of wearing their influences- Kilburns, Motown as well asska - with pride and honour, but not letting them dominate.
But how do Madness wish to be represented in their new-found mood?
"I'd like it to be that we're changing. Moving on," says Mark firmly.
Woody, as articulate as ever: "It's much more aware. I think we've
become much more aware of our surroundings and our actual feelings
inside of ourselves. I think Side Two does show it more. Much more. We
don't mean to be deep and meaningful, it is us," he gesticulates. "And it'smuch more realistic than the common image that we have. It's the closest
to us now." He stops. "I think that's all I can say."This new-found honesty, and ability to think clearly about what exactly
Madness and its members are about, was forced upon them by thegruelling nine -month tour they completed last year, which took them
here, there and everywhere. Night after night they found inspiration fromsomewhere to play the Nutty Boys, and not once did they fake it for theaudiences. This tour, though, will be different.
"Last year," explains Lee, "we could go on stage time
and time again and you wouldn't see anyone with the
hump. But now, I don't know if people still expect it,
but if I'm in a real bad mood and I go out there, I won't
try and put a smile on."Even if your audience expect fun and games?
"That's what I mean," he exclaims. "If the British

audiences are expecting fun and games, poppers andballoons, they've got another thing coming."
A train suddenly rushes past the window, filling thecabin with noise and flashing light. In the cabin
behind us, Chas and Suggsy are sleeping peacefully,
recuperating slowly, as indeed the whole band had tolast November, at the end of that exhausting tour.
They all took holidays.
"And lots of drugs," says Woody, laughing with therest of us. Until Lee turns serious.
"And that's another thing, the drugs bit. Everyone's got over that,
because a couple of us went through it and thought we'd never pullthrough." There's a silence until Woody reveals the cause and effect.
"It gets so bad that you're doing solid work more and more, and eachmember of the band has his own way of pulling through. They either
drink, or they smoke a million cigarettes, or they smoke dope, takecoke or speed or whatever. But the thing is, is that in the musicindustry it's very easy to get hold of and you turn to those things andit's great for a week or so. Then you have to take more and more andmore," he says, slowly emphasising his words.
"Until it goes in a complete circle, where you're taking them because
you're depressed about taking them and it gets to the point where you
become a semi -addict. It affects the music and it affects the wholeband. But I'll tell you this now, this is the point now that the band have
got over the hurdle and we've got fresh eyes to see through it."
He pauses. "It was bordering on the fact that we were beginning to
make a bit too many fluffs," he states candidly, "than we normallydid. Then it got to the stage where I thought, 'I'm going to bugger mywhole career up. "I think it frightened everyone," states Mark simply, and indeed Lee
is the living proof of that statement.
128 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1980

"One time, this girl in the States," he remembers, "chopped out about sixlines and had this handful ofTuinal. Said, 'Here you are.' I said, 'What arethose?' She goes, 'Downers.' I said, 'Leave it out', and she said, 'It's alright,
I've got some coke, you can come back up again when you want. The compartment dissolves into laughter at his story, but it's more thelaughter of relief. Especially Woody, who, not being the largest of chaps toput it kindly, scaled down to a terrifying seven -and -a -half stone, before
grabbing hold of his senses.
He agrees totally with Mark's statement, collared from Chas, that theband are now their own best friends. They have to be.
An hour after Mark and Lee leave to rejoin Chris, Woody, Tom andmyself buy our second bottle of Salvatore's awesome wine and settle backto stories and memories. We finally fall asleep in Italy. And wake up in
cold, desolate, uninspiring Germany.
SALVATORE HAD DECIDED to talk in German today, at least forthe morning. He tells me, 7a! Cappuccino will soon be ready,' andthen prices the earth fora tray of synthetic biscuits, small portionsof cheese and pate and pineapple juice. This passes for breakfast.
I take a tray back to Woody, who's a vegetarian, and then bump into
Chas and Mark in another cabin where they're listening to rockabilly
tapes. Chas looks well after his long sleep and sings along enthusiasticallyto his tapes, observing the desolate German scenery outside, whichalternates between industrial wreckage and plain scenery.
Suggsy is still in bed sleeping, but the rest of the band are slowly
emerging as Salvatore turfs everyone out, demanding their sheets.
Chas, in the meantime, has got bored of the obscure rockabilly songs
he's playing, and hunts in his bag for something new. Everything from
Diana Ross to The Undertones is discarded, before he finally decides on,what else? Madness.
The punchy rhythms ofAbsolutelybeat out, and I ask Chas whether he's
read the article I'd brought over on the band, that had hinted cryptically,
if not one -dimensionally, at a dark side to his character.
He laughs a little and says it's rubbish. He's got woman trouble atpresent and is consequently on a downer because of that. There's no deepside, only natural feelings coming through.
Suddenly there's a shout from Tom gazing out oft he window. He's just seen an old lady with her skirt
down crapping in the middle of the road.
Lee grabs his camera and decides to take a photoof the sleeping Suggsy. He enters the cabinstealthily, lines up the shot and is just about to click
when Suggsy moans and turns over.

MADNESS

Lee makes a noise and Suggsy wakes up. He sees me, winks goodmorning, and I tell him I'll get him a breakfast and an interview to go with
it. He smiles wryly and agrees.
Five minutes later, we're back in my cabin, with Chas and Woody.
As frontmen, and in Suggsy's case, chief lyric writer, a lot of the Madness
direction comes from the Coco Brothers, in the form of visuals andstance. Were they, like their mates, beginning to have doubts?
"It's always been the same," answers Suggsy. "It's fun when you're doingit, but it's not fun when people want you to do it."
"It's not put-on," continues Chas, in his deep, distinctive accent. It's
what we've been doing and what we were likebefore the band, most of us, so when you getthese arseholes going out in your ska suits..."His voice trails off in disgust.
"Whereas if they hadn't asked you," interjects
Suggsy, "you'd probably put on your suit, thatkind of thing. It's either going to be spontaneousor not at all. It's more depressing to be funnywhen you don't feel funny."
He grins a little. Like Chas, he's well built andsmokes a lot. He explains that his lyrics havebecome a bit more self-indulgent, even though
he's trying hard not to be, and then he reveals
the reasoning behind "Baggy Trousers".
"It was a pisstake of us, baggy trousers and allthat shit, but also it was about kids and how hard
it is, but it was about teachers as well. How boring it is for them. It was after
reading something about how hard schools were, but there's nothingyou
can do about it."How did he get on at school?
"Not verywell, really. It was alright -I just couldn't be bothered,really. It wasn't that it was hard; it was boring, but ! didn't come out of itwith much."
So you feel lucky to be doing this, I suggest, to which a shout of"You're
not kidding!" comes from all three band members.
"Especially me," continues Suggsy, after the noise has died down "and I
suppose him a bit really (pointingat Chas), because we probablywouldn't
have done anything really. I would have never thought of singing.""Then," he continues, referring to his schooldays as the train speeds
towardsAmsterdam, "I had all these images of art college with noacademic things at all - 'Yeah, I'm going to be a commercial artist, I'll
worry about it next week.' And then just doing nothing. Then in the end I'dleft school and I was poncing about gardening and other things.

"But yeah," he looks round at the carriage. "Very lucky, very fortunate."
Madness, however, do feel strongly, especially Chas and Suggsy, that
other people can attain their positions just as easily as they did. They talkstrongly about previous members of the band, who could have stayed but
chose not to, preferring either work or crime to "two -bob rehearsals", asSuggsy puts it.
But then, is it an enviable position to be in when all's said and done?
Being the Coco Brothers, and all it entails. Chas accepts it all.
"The image has been pushed into too much of a commercial -typeimage," he concedes, "which we don't reallywant to be in. But it hashelped us a lot. Put it this way, if you ain't very
popular you can't really go your own way first.
You've got to accept it, before you can startgoing the wayyou want to go.
"It is a bit bad when you're not taken seriously
at times. Like some of the stuff is serious, someof it is amusing, and we want people to take itboth ways. Not just as the funny -ha-ha bit."`A couple of us

thought we'd
never pullthrough thedrugs bit"

Preriessmembersof
thobandpreferrelivoefic
eraimoto'Nwspbob
rehearsals-.saysSuqqs

HE DOOR SLIDES open and Salvatore
tells us Amsterdam is near just as Chas
explains the single Madness "ideal".
"Entertainment," he states unequivocally.
"The nearest thing you can say is that all wewant to do is have a good time, get better atwhat we're doing, people enjoy it, make somemoney and be successful. We're not trying to read anything into it," hewearily explains.
"It's all observations mainly. Like this friend come up to me and what'sthat song, eh, 'Overdone, the words to that, and he was saying that was sotrue. He wrote to his mum and dad and found out they'd been divorced
and died. And that's what people identify with. People say there's nosocial statements. There is, but we're not trying to give any answers or
solutions.""Like we had this problem," interrupts Suggsy, "with all this 'You don't
have any sociological meanings'. But half the bands you talk to," hereports, "like The Specials and The Clash, half the time they're taking
the piss."
He pauses. "I've got no affiliation with anybody politically or anything,so any social sayings we have are in our songs, and there are some if you
listen to them. It's just that we don't go waffling on about them."
I tell them I think it's also good that young bands don't go waffling off
on the star trip too much these days. Suggsy and Chas nod their heads
in agreement.
"It is a load of bollocks," says Suggsy, "because I've had... well, I'm
being candid now," he states, turning fully to the tape recorder. "I've
had £33,000, which is the royalty cheque that I've got, and I've always
wanted to have a house or somewhere to live. I've lived with my mum
all my life, or my girlfriend, so there was this house up the road for£33,000, so how am I going to afford a Roller or a mink?"
He tuts in amazement.
"Half the time," he adds, "I think, 'Bollocks I'm going to be myself
now. Give all my money away.' I do think it seriously. I can't stand it
any more- I'm going to make a big announcement and quit. Thenother times, you think, 'Right, Pete Townshend's got this. Right, I'll go
and buy that!'"
Chas Smash's only ambition at present is to tour America with The
Specials in January. Suggsy didn't mention his.
But just as this train will eventually reach Amsterdam ("Twenty
minutes," says Salvatore), so it's inevitable that all Madness arecomposed of is seven natural individuals, each one as complex andas simple as you. In two days I saw ambitions behind the painted smile frustrations, laughter and boredom, all bandied about, but
I could never attempt to sum it, or them up, in just two days.
"I just know it's better than gardening," said Suggsy. And everyone
within earshot agreed.
Meet Craig, a 12 -year -old Madness fan, whose brother! share a flat
with. I knew damn well that ! could never have returned without the
band's autographs for him. So dutifully I asked, and cheerily they all
signed. All except for Chas Smash, who later added in block letters:"MADNESSAREABSOLUTELY SANE."

After these two days, that's more than a possibility.
Paolo Hewitt
HISTORY OF ROCK 1980 1127

1980

"I sold

AldousHuxley aThis and other tallstories from a desert
audience with ir 1,4111'SIMILAR . With a new
album and rejuvenated
Magic Band, he's moreout there, and relevant,than ever. "Hey! If you
want to be a different
fish, you've got to jumpout of the school..."vacuumcleaner.?
NME

VEMBER 1 -OD -DAMN TIIAT BEAT!" Don Van Vliet slams out a four-squaretat too on the dashboard of his blue Volvo estate. "That mamaheartbeat. That born... bom... bom! Why do they do that? Don't
they know it's bad for the heart?! would never treat my heartthat way. I don't want my heart to attack me!"Don Van Vliet is railing against the evil monotonous mamaheartbeat of what passes for music in a world of limited sensibility where he lives with hisunlimited sensibilities. And he isn't kidding. Where he hears a myriad symphony I hear
only the wind whistling through the window. Where he sees a terrifying menace I see onlya large, gleaming truck.
But if his grip on reality is slack, his grip on the wheel is sure. Fora moment, it's hard totell which is enjoying the greater acceleration, his mind or his car.
"I have four wheels beneath me, one in my hand, and I'm trying to do this interview.

"G

You have a lot of nerve, sir," he exclaims as we slide past the gleaming menace. "You're noteven worried!"
Why should I be? I'm safe. Safe as milk.
I'm in the hands of someone who knows how to plug in, to connect, to strip away thesurface and feel the sensation. His nerve ends are alive to sensory input most of us havelearned to tune out for sanity's sake. Don Van Vliet may be a lot of things, but he will never
be bored. x.

128 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1980

41.

November 1,1980:
Captain Beefheart& The Magic Bandplaying a show at
the Pa radiso in

Amsterdam thatwas recorded forradio broadcast
and subsequently
widely bootlegged

HISTORY OF HOCK 1980 1121)

1980 "OCTOBER"1 breathe with every pore," he says, and I have no reason to doubt him.
Besides, before he became Captain Beefheart, the legendary Capta in
Beefheart, when he was just Don Van Vliet, a teenage beatnik prodigy, heused to race Porsche 904s, a sleek little '50s fastback that could turn ona dime. He used to race them out in the desert, to which we are heading,out of LosAngeles on the freewayvia Antelope Valley at far less than
racing tilt.
When at a very early age he won a scholarship to study sculpture inEurope, his parents tried to curb the young artist by moving to the mostculturally barren environment imaginable, the Mojave Desert. Their son
still lives there, with his wife Jan, in a rented
trailer located somewhere between Los
Angeles and Death Valley. It affords plenty ofsolitude, some unusual wildlife, and ample
room to race cars...
Not that Don Van VI iet does that any more,
although in his youth he wanted nothing
more than to be a great racing driver, or a great
sculptor. One of his desert haunts was Pancho
Barnes' Fly Inn, where X -series rocket test
pilots from Edwards Air Force Base would go
to unwind after burning up a mixture ofalcohol and liquid oxygen in the atmosphereand before doing the same to the empty desert
highways in imported Ferraris and three -litre
Austin Healeys.
And if he wasn't at the Fly Inn, then he'd be at clubs like the Insomniac
in LA, digging blues, jazz, folk and poetry and hanging out with Lenny
Bruce. It was at the Insomniac that he saw/kJ Lloyd and Ewan McColl
perform English folk songs from a collection called Blow Boys Blow, still
his favourite record.
But Don Van Vliet is much more than just a product of the salubrious
intellectual climate of California during the '50s beat uprising...
"When I was three, I said to my mother, 'You be Sue, I'll be Don, andhe (my father) will be Glen. Don't step over the line and we'll be friends.'
I said that to her when I was three. I sent my mother home my navel!
What else could I do? She appreciated it, she went along."...And much more than just educated in hip. He came to know theworld in ways you don't learn at school, to which he never went, andwhere he never learnt to think in a straight line.
"Hey! Ifyou want to be a different fish, you've got to jump out of
the school..."Life is precious and too easily squandered. Captain Beefheart doesn'tlike to waste a moment. "I once stayed up for a year and a half. Between theages of 25 and 26I didn't go to sleep at all... Lost all my friends though!"
When so much of what is considered pertinent in art these days is
produced out of fear and alienation, Beefheart's music is more than justbracing, it's impertinent. Breathe in its breadth ifyou can. But be warned
that you can't dance to it and you can't wear it like a badge. If it means
anything to you it will mean more than that.
Doc At The Radar Station is his most urgent work since Lick My Decals
Off Baby, the album that a decade ago followed hard on the heels of Dont
Mask Replica- easily the most unique andoverwhelming creation ever to languish in
the general category of rock. It demands a"An artist
is one who
kids himself
the most
gracefully"

CAPTAIN BEEFHEART HAS just released a new album.
A lot of people didn't even notice. Doc At The Radar Station was
written in 35 minutes and recorded in just over a week. Like almost
everything he has done over the past 13 years, it is powerful, complex,
raw and uncompromised. It has nothing to do with fashion or traditionor any art doctrine or movement; it's purely and simply a howlingaffirmation of life.

"I'vejuststarted-lhave
the right ingredientsnow-:
CaptainBeef heart poses
in an apartment, New York
City, September 30,1980

momentous and equal critique. Portentous
statements merely sell it short. And I'd be baying
at the moon before I came close.
But back in the Frownland that Beefheart
invited everybody to leave behind in the opening
moments of Trout Mask there are still some towhom his music is just noise and accidents,a shapeless, head-on tumult of sound. Not so.
Every note, every dischord is preordained. His
are some of the most meticulous compositions
ever. In what can seem like cacophony there isa splendid sonority, with all the resounding
excitement of chaos.
And like the music, his verse is also irreducible. Ifyou could boil down
the music you might get naked free jazz and swamp -root blues, but thewords would just evaporate. Beefheart's lyrical terrain ranges from thesalty to the surreal. He plays with words like a child with toys, and they
seem to have a vividness for him that they lose in the minds of most people.
He takes delight in metaphors, puns and similes, which are so abused
and under -used by lazy and dull minds that we forget they have thegreatest illuminative power of all language. Beefheart finds in such
wordplay the only adequate vessel for his delirious perceptions, and it
can be a heady cup to drink from.
For instance, he doesn't like to smoke dope... "It makes me feel like a fly
with awing caught in honey!"
The B -52's share his fondness for the wild metaphor (as well as hisstrong ecological concern), and numerous other new -rock figures pay
tribute to him as a source of musical inspiration (in the case of Devo and
The Pop Group) and sheer inspiration.
Because Captain Beefheart has done what all art should aspire to, andthat is to touch people's lives; not just decorate their lifestyle or adorn
their clothes but actually strike deep down on a dormant nerve, awaken
and flex sleeping senses.
Beefheart doesn't just entertain with dirty king hex mojo navigation(as he proved he could with Clear Spot, the unsung soul album of thedecade), or provide any of the other things we look for in our leisure hours.
He provides a key to limitless possibilities and he sounds the alarm on
everything that is shallow, bogus or
mercenary. Take my word for it, or ask
Jerry Da mmers, or John ny Rotten...
The latter recently did himself a
disservice by passing up the chance tomeet Beefheart. The two of them wereinvited by a woman who works for the
LA Times, but Rotten never arrived, ashow of apparent bad manners thatappals the gentleman in Mr Van Vliet.
"A lady invites a man to dinner and hedoesn't even show up? Shit. I thought he
was alright before that, but who doesthings like that to a lady?That's too
casual for me. And I would have liked tohave met him because I've seen him inmany audiences of mine, many! Hellyes, I recognise people in audiences!
I've seen you before..."At the age of 39, Don Van Vliet cuts a

strange and hidden figure. He shuffles
along like a janitor, but a second glance
reveals some minor dischords: a sketch

November 17.1980:
Beef heart and the Magic
Band appear at The
Venue in London's
Victoria. owned by hislabel. Virgin Records

book clutched underarm; an old, expensive felt
hat; in one pocket a pair of sunglasses bought solong ago they're al most fashionable; a clothes peg clipped to the other. Unlike the healthy,tanned Californian animal, he wears the look ofa man for whom the nighttime is the right time.
In fact, he says he came out of the Van Goghmuseum in Holland and was disappointed withthe sun. Has been ever since.
He shakes hands meekly but fixes you witheyes like pins. His presence is slight but

uncanny. People barely notice this creature in
their midst, and he himself is far more relaxedwhen surrounded by the eerie Joshua trees ofthe desert. "They can't even see us," he will
later remark of the plastic patrons of a plastic
desert motel bar. "They don't even know we'rehere..." An automat waitress chooses thatmoment to look right through me.
CCIHAVE A LOTTA fun doing what I do,

because I get to meet artistic people;
people that care about raising the art
culture, which I naturally care about because
I'm an artist.
"I always say an artist is one
who kids himself the mostgracefully. But I really am.
I've tried other things andthey don't work. I've been
an uplock installator for anaviation company. The
uplock is the landing gears.
Hydraulic technician is what
I was, they said, but I'm animposter. I went in there andI didn't know anything.
"I did it with a lot of care,though, and it gave me
extremely bad headaches.
Then I've sold shoes... I thinkthat's a very important
thing, a shoe. What else?
I've sold vacuum cleaners,
I sold Aldous Huxley avacuum cleaner in LanoLano, California. He used to
do the cleaning and have hiswife sit down and watch.
Isn't that nice?"
It's not easy to hold Don
Van VI let's attention on
prosaic details. I had justasked him about the fabled

Sc.. vow.

la*myosinantAehisis;&131anzl

akiame5.00(A"Utmer
FRIDAY, NOV. 28 at 8pm
THE BEACON THEATER

F you
Geo(

R

you CTer're

X15

Shiny Beast, has since departed, and Drumbo (JohnFrench), who has played with Beefheart sinceSafeAsMilk in '67, and who played almost unrepeatable drums
and guitar on parts of Doc..., doesn't want to play live.
The new Magic Band give the impression of havinggrown up alongside Zoot Horn Rollo, Rockette Morton,
Art Tripp III and Winged Eel Fingerling, so adept are
they at making the fluid polyrhythmic moves of themusic. It's as if they already knew it by heart...

Bat Chain Pullertape, a set ofdemos featuring the genesisof the new Magic Band andversions of several songs thatappear on Doc... and '78's
Shiny Beast, a return to virtue
after a long spell of little or

10

SO al TK21219.4ETRON (-93002121 911.9020

Tk*.t. $and CMARGIIC 1

misguided activity.
"That's a beautiful album, isn't it? They don't even know that in
England. They do? Well, they didn't buy it. They couldn't afford to, could
they?! wish I had a lot of money; I'd give everybody one!"
It wasn't deliberate, but Virgin Records allowed what would eventually
become Shiny Beast to circulate in its demo state -a bad move about
which the Captain is angry but forgiving. "Friends don't mind just how
you grow," he says, quoting himself. "I've got a lot of them. I've got a lot ofalbums in me. I've just started. I mean, I have the right ingredients now."
Meaning the new Magic Band: Robert Williamson drums, Eric
Feldman on bass and keyboards, JeffTepper on slide guitar, and new
recruit Richard Snyder also on slide guitar. Rick Redus, who played on"No. I wish it was. You can say that if you want, but I
knowyou don't have a very good time with I ies-1 cantell by your eyes. But there is one guy that came to me
like that, the Win nebego Sioux, German and Scottish
fellow, whom I call Brave Midnight Hat -Size Snyder. He
likes it, and he told me I've got a Brave Midnight Hat -Size
Snyder for life. 'I won't ever leave this band,' he said.
"I had just a few days to find a guitarist and he called me on the phoneand said, 'Let's do it.' I said you gotta learn 29 songs in three weeks, and he
did it! I can't believe it. He's the best there is with JeffTepper. Incredible!
I've got it now. I've been looking for 15 years for this. It's that good..."LATER, IN THE plastic motel bar at the edge of the desert, he finallyopens the sketch book he has been carrying around with him all
day long..."Fifty years from now, you'll wish you'd gone 'wow!'..."
Whether he was right or not, the odd thing was, he didn't sound the least
bit bitter about it.
The Magic Band rehearse in a low -rent LA studio behind a bike shop,
accessible via a yard scattered with dead iron ponies. The group have
HISTORY OF ROCK 1980

131

a

1980

OCTOBER-DECEMBER

been there for three weeks, rehearsing the material, old and new, that
Beefheart wants to perform on his current European tour.
They rehearse mostly from records, and he comes in only to fine tune
them. On this particular day, they're working on "SugarAnd Spikes",
grinding it to perfection; swapping searing time signatures as though it
were second nature, burning a hole in the original version.
Beefheart sits on the sofa, his eyes glistening with excitement. He
declines to sing, saying wait until we get on stage, and instead he cajoles,
encourages, teases, tries to throw them off, fails, and just laughs at how
good they are.
"I've got my play cut out forme. Did you hear that? I used to work withthose other guys, but I play with these fellows!"
I ask Robert Williams what it's like playing with Captain Beefheart.
"A hell of a lot easier than workingwith Hugh Cornwell..."The conversation turns, innocently enough, to the subject of whet her
women like Beefheart's music. He claims they do. The Magic Banddisagree. "Some do," says JeffTepper, "but not as many as he thinks!""Women like my music," says Beefheart. "Sure they do. I do it mainly
for women. Obviously. What other reason is there? I'm going to be doing'Nowadays A Woman's Gotta Hit A Man' on his tour. I've done a lot ofthings about women. I care about them. I like them. They have neverscared me, never. I think they're superior, actually. And I've never had
a thought of any fear or animosity about them!"
A lot of men see women as predators...
"You mean like Black Widow spiders, right? They're gorgeous too.

They're not black though, they're kind of a maroon colour..."(On the subject of men and women and Captain Beefheart, I want to tella story about a couple I know that goes a lot further than anyweighty
metaphysical analysis towards explaining the effects of his music. It goes
like this...)He was going through one of those bleak, morose spells that everybody
goes through now and again. She wasn't exactly having the time of her life
either. ShinyBeast had justbeen released.
He stayed up longM
111.ESrEP,T,
20
e -cranky old
into the night playing
nrimnnte
I,ic
inntowelri
one track over andover and over again.
Captain Beefheart And The Magic BandKong" (playing bass on the latter as well"Bat chain... puller/- what a lad). In the grand Antennae
Bat chain... puller/
In the Beef heart Universe, you see everything
Jimmy Semens tradition, Jeff Moris
BATCHAAAIAN...
that you see in other places, but it always
Tepper keeps the slide parts bumping
puller... puller, puller..."seems different. The basic building blocks of
into everything in exactly the wrong (right)
Beefheart's unearthly low
Beef heart's sound remain the same - country
places. There are even two short instrumental
moan seeped through theblues -derived slide guitar, bass and drum parts
links ("Flavour Bud Living" and "A Carrot Is As
house and out the chimney.
where the beat gets turned around in the first
Close As A Rabbit Gets To A Diamond") left
The next morning there was a note on thefour bars and then stays turned around, odd
over from the original Bat Chain Puller before
table... "Sod you, mate. And sod your Bat
touches of marimba, assertive outbursts of
it mutated into Shiny Beast.
Chain Puller, Puller, Puller! Your dinner's
harmonica and sax - but the sense of surprise
While Clear Spot represents the peak ofin the garden!")and delight never wanes, since nobody else
Beef heart's "accessible" period, Doc... is as
makes that sound, and since Beef heart's '70s
much evidence as could possibly be desired
CAPTAIN BEEFHEART'S MIND
career has been so patchy - due principally tothat the Van Vliet muse is still as intractably
alights where it will. He's a hard
protracted Devo-stylestimulating as ever. Overman to stay on the track of. He
contractual disagreements
the past 13 or 14 years,
II as I ruin one subject to another likebetween Virgin and Warners
Beef heart has often beena bee in a garden. But if he is occasionally- that there has been a limited
patronised as some sort ofvague, he's never distant. Frankly, he's
supply of the Captain's
amusing eccentric, and been
one of the sharpest people I've ever met.
nonconformist noise.
touted as having "finally
He reads people very closely, too closely
Between 1971's epic Clear
arrived", or some such. Bothto get along with them in any
Spot and last year's Shinycontentions are slightly wide
conventional manner.
Beast, things were bleakof the mark: Beef heart's"I always feel as if I'm babysitting," heBeef -wise, but Doc At The
music is only "eccentric"
says of his relationship to the human race.
Radar Station would suggest that the cranky
because it conforms to its own internal logic"I think there's 40 people in the world andold buzzard is certainly none the worse forand to not much else, while his "arrival" in good
five of them are hamburgers. You mustwear. The opening "Hot Head" begins with anold blinkered rockbiz terms is, as ever, highly
have read that. There are a few people that
insistent two -note guitar motif determined tounlikely, since his reference points are as
I like, but most of them are dead. Isn't thatplay things straight, which is rapidly joined by aunique in these post -Pere Ubu times as they
awful? Van Gogh, Shakespeare, most of theslide guitar equally determined not to dowere when Peel first began bludgeoning Top
people that I really like..."anything of the sort before drummer Robert
Gear listeners with Safe As Milk back in '67.
Beefheart used to own a late -'50s Jaguar.
Arthur Williams (unscathed by his encounter"Making love to a vampire with a monkey on
One day he was driving alongwhen he saw
with Hugh Cornwell) demonstrates that the
my knee/Please God, fuck my mind for good...
a billboard advertising a brand of housebeat is not quite where either of them thought
death be damned!" This noise is like no other.
paint with the extravagant and highly
it was and the Captain wails, declaims andCharles Shaar Murraydebatable claim that Vincent Van Goghmakes noises with his harmonica.
would have used this brand"Another day, another way/Someone's had
were he still in a position to painttoo much to think!" Where did that artificial
his house. The Captain was soorchestra come from? Beef heart has
incensed that he drove straightcontext completely mastered: when there
off the highway.
isn't one, he creates it to order. Something"I'll tell you who I miss right
like the intro to "Dirty Blue Gene" literally
now very much... his wife came
could not be the work of anybody else, justto see me recently... Roland Kirk,
as no other artist would announce," We don't
Rahsaan Roland Kirk. He was ahave to suffer, we're the best batch yet."very good friend of mine. He was
The current Magic Band perform
one of the best people I ever met;
Beef heart's music with the appropriate
he was brilliant, a brilliant man.
cock-eyed verve: John (Drumbo) French
Very underestimated. He wasis back on the team, reincarnated as aone of the best horn players that
guitarist, though he returns to drums onever lived. Some people know
"Ashtray Heart" and "Sheriff Of Hongthat, but not many.

Cock-eyed verve"The Van Vliet
muse is still

intractably
stimulating"132 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1980

t
December 5,0980,the day
after John Lennon's death:
the Captainond Moris Tepper
on stage at I -ving Plaza, NYC.
where he opens the set with
an improvised sax solo, thensays,"That was from John,
through Doe. for Sean""I remember that last thing I said to him. It was at a club called theLighthouse, a famous jazz club. He had just finished playing and he cameover and said to me, 'How am I going to get something to eat, Don?' I said,'Roland, the only place you can find ribs at this time of night in Los
Angeles is in the Bible!' He laughed, boy, he laughed. I was so happy that
I had said something that pleased him.
"That was the last time I saw him alive. Man, that guy played sobeautifully. Have you ever heard 'You Did It' by him? Phew!
"I also like Thelon ious Monk very much. I once saw him at a place inthe Valley, some new theatre that had come up with some sort ofextravaganza. He got there half an hour late and there was a tributewaiting for him: a glass bowl full of red roses. You know what he did?
There was a grand piano, a beautiful Steinway. He still had on his
overcoat; he picked up the bowl of roses, dumped the whole thing into the
piano, slammed the top closed, sat down, hit one note and split! Hey, I
clapped for half an hour! I mean, what else?That was beautiful, and it
sounded beautiful too. He hit the right note.
"Mind you, some people thought he didn't play for long enough...Some
people have had too much to think. 'Open up another case of the punks.'
I'm not talking about the punk people, that is not what I meant. I have no
animosity. Too smart for that.
"But I have to say that punk all sounds to me like a rehashing ofold
rock'n'roll. 1 don't like that. Didn't like old rock'n'roll in the first place.
I was a sculptor, I didn't pay any attention to that. You want me to tell you
the truth? I don't care that much for music..."Captain Beefheart doesn't care that much for music... Of course
he doesn't! He's a visionary. A witch doctor! In another age he would
have been just a poet.
He has too muchdignity to becomea guru in this. So hedoes music. Why?
"As an irritant. Whatwould somebody thissmart be doing it forother than that? I likepoetry, and I put musicwith poetry and things
like that. Maybe I'm

a cook. Oran alchemist, maybe. Who knows? I'm just getting started
with the spells I do.
"But I have a beef in my heart about the things they've done in thisworld. Since I was born I've been aghast, stunned... Why didn't they put
Band-Aids on the flaw? Why didn't human beings study and fix thesethings? I don't know.
"I'm trying to do all I can and I have been all of my life. And I thought
there would have been more happening by now -1 thought that Rout
Mask m ight do something to break up that catatonic state. That's why
I did it, to take the labels off... get rid of the labels and let's see what's
going on. But they do more bom... bom... bom. I'm so sick of that mamaheartbeat! Hey, listen... I don't want my heart to attack me! I would nevertreat my heart that way. Never."The score at this point is about even. The world hasn't woken up and
Don Van Vliet hasn't gone to sleep. Come to think of it, that puts him
ahead. And if you have ears, you have to listen to him. He can make youwant to rattle your cage, and rattle everybody else's cage too; sellotape
their eyes open and remove all the labels, grab them by the neck and rub
their faces in the heat of existence.
Captain Beefheart is a primal current, almost a folk artist. He trusts

his instincts...
"All the time."
Do they ever let you down?
"Many times."
But you still trust them?
"Sure I do. Friends don't mind just howyou grow. I made friends with mea longtime ago." Paul Rambali

TALES OF TRANSMUTATIONFROM THE MOJAVE MAGIC MAN

198011The Selecter at Dingwall,in Camden, North London,
with straight man Arthur"Gaps" Hendrickson (right)
a useful foil for Pauline
Black's"impish vibrancy"

Harder and stronger
NMENOV 22

vfitvi rimy mnrrihnrc nriri rtriur 4-t 'nine Tim C nit"

THIS IS FOR all the people who

66

thought that we were finished twomonths ago. It's called 'WashedUp And Left For Dead'... and we ain't!"
Pauline Black seems to be scanning thefront row of the Hope And Anchor basementwith some intent, in search of an unimpressed
face or two. She fails to find one and it isprobably just as well, for she looks primed tojump down any throat which might utter somuch as a murmur of disapproval.
The Selecter are back with a chip on theirshoulder and something to prove.
For a band who entered1980 witheverything going for them, the last few
months have been miserable: theinevitable backlash, a split from the 2 -Tone
mothership and internal upheavals haveleft them popular favourites to be the firstnew ska band to go under.
Their reply has been to come back harderand stronger, a resurgence as remarkable inits own right as the one The Jam experienced
two years ago between The Modern Worldand All Mod Cons. The Selecter, of course,
have always swung with a little more soul andsubtle sensuality than The Specials or any of
the other 2 -Tone bands. Now they seem to
134 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1980

r-inthing trnnntrn

HOPE & ANCHOR- LONDONLIVET.
- NOVEMBER -be veering in the direction of a moresuch, one of thestraightforward reggae groove whilemost compellingkeeping sight of their original drive.
around. And in her vocal
The two new members fitted in well. Whilepartner Gaps she has a bluff
Adam Williams is not as funky a bassist as
straight man to provide the ideal foil forCharley Anderson, and James Mackie will
her impish vibrancy, in much the same way
never be as fluent an organist as Desmondthat Terry Hall's sardonic cool gives a good
Brown, the two newcomers combined neatly
balance to The Specials full-blooded rabble with the rest of the band to produce a tenser,
rousing stage antics.
more spatial sound.
Whatever, Pauline's initial paranoia andA pile of new songs were also previewed,
suspicion was belied by the warmth of thethe lyrics perhaps more thoughtful andreception the group were given. Indeed, so
anxious than in the past,
impressive was the set
a chilling reflection ofthat the basement was
the dangerous times but
still humming with
They seem to bedelivered with a defianceappreciation a full 15
which suggests that The
minutes after the band had
Selecter stand for more
completed the second of
than a meek acceptance of
their encores.
the status quo. The new
The nine new songs
song titles give the fairest
included in the set
indication of the subject
also gave good advancematter - "Cool Blue Lady",
warning that their"Red Reflections", -Bristol
Celebrating The Bullet
And Miami" and "Bombscare".
album - due in January - should be well
When she avoids lapsing into histrionics worth investigating.
she does from time to time - Pauline Black is
Take a listen. It's not quite the same olda performer with real style and guts and, assong on next year's radio. Adrian Thrills

veering in the
direction of a morestraightforward
reggae groove

Novembril,1980:BowWow
Wow'sAnnabellaLwinand

Seditionaris-sportingpalon
stageattheStarlight Rooms.
Hammersmith, West London

A funnier singer
than Rotten
NME NOV22

MALCOLM McLAREN HAS
probably never been more on
the nail - post -punk and present
Thatcher Britain is a grey anddismal hole.
The trouble with McLaren's alternatives,though, has always been theirimpracticality: too much of what he says
and does smack of ingenious dilettante.
Of course his ability to irritate the media,
just by giving it the slightest tickle, well, thatis hilarious. The English, self-conscious,
phlegmatic, clinging to their outdated
sense of national pride (Specials, Jam,
Upstarts all propagate that treadmill),believing in the spirit of the orthodox;
they're natural conservatives.
So, just as an antidote to that depressant,McLaren's wheezes are momentarily
distracting. If only they lasted; everyone
knows there'll never be any social
revolution imposed from below, but evento pretend it was around the corner?
McLaren's answer is to dress up in fun
clothes, be glamorous. "Pretend it's
the tropics." Go native?A bit difficultin November.
Perhaps by a law of increasing returns,
Malcolm McLaren may succeed with
Bow Wow Wow where he failed with the
New York Dolls and the Sex Pistols.

Communism and anarchy don't go down
too well with the Watney's and the IPS;
besides, the Dolls were a really dreadfulgroup and the Pistols seem to have spawned
a million hangers-on - the new hippies.
Bondage for tourists.
Now McLaren is making the mistake ofselling underage sex with
Bow Wow Wow, instead ofjust letting them get on with
it. The media (includingNME) swallow his bait;
some of the hacks areoutraged but they're thesame blokes who leer atyoung girls in the street.
Chicken will sell and sell,
au naturelle, and the factthat McLaren can make

They play exactly
like their tapes
sophisticated,bouncy songs
celebrating fun-

sex controversial in 1980 is only I 111 l hel poutof the gutter mentality ofa spiritually andculturally dead nation.
Bow Wow Wow are very good and exciting,they're much better musicians than the Sex
Pistols. Annabella Lwin is a funnier singer thanRotten; David Barbarossa, Leigh Ray Gorman
and Matt hew Ashman don't deserve to becompared with the other washout s. They playexactly like their tapes, too- intriguing,
sophisticated, bouncy songs celebrating fun.
They aren't offensive.
I thought the audience at the Starlight wassparse for the group but good for the disco. For£2.50, the regulars comehereto skate, drink coke(no booze licence) andlisten to loud, loud music.
It's black and white, butthey aren't into 2 -Toneand violence.

Nothing untoward happened.After
their second set, Bow Wow Wow slip off
to skate. They've played, promoted theircassette and that's it. If t hey were really smart
they'd jettison McLaren now and rely on theirown talent to get rid of the nagging feelingthat this is only anotherstunt, a clever joke,

a publicity scam fora manufactured
group. The new Monkees or the

Little kids float
around witht he gla mourpusses.
Most of them are nearer to
A nnabella's age than the
gaggle around the stage.
Bow Wow Wow look nervous

and the audience is quiet.
McLaren hovers at the backlike a brooding motherhen. Annabella loses her
temper; the lack of
response is confusing.
Perhaps McLaren's

stunts and ironies habackfired and no one
trusts him any more.

HAMMERSM ITH

new Beatles?

STARLIGHT ROLL ER DISCO

Actually, it would be alright- LONDON

if they were. Maybe when
McLaren drops his cynicism
a couple of notches he'll havesomething to get serious about.
Dress up and drop out. It's asLIVE!
11- NOVEMBER

G

good an answer as any. Max BellOW! AND HOW!

BOWW0WWOW
Bow WOW Wow
grey and dismal hole.
The trouble with McLaren's-I.".n2tivPG though has

19L,,:40140 4411-44.

tiilk

Simpleteinds
frontman andco-founeerJim -Nerr:"Webegan
to grasp what
was going on"

oltAN

1$16.44P WiliktOnaibibal

SIMPLE MINDS`Arrogancegot meAnd such places!

Jim Kerr and
MIND! have escaped
humdrum Glasgow for
European cityscapes,
and embraced cold
war paranoia to make"marching songs fordesperate times".
"Every day we justplaces"0

NME OCTOBER 4 -NCE YOU GET onto the European mainland, it's hard
not to be infected by the virulent strain of fatalism
sweeping the Continent. En route to Charles De
Gaulle Airport on the first stage of a journey backto the deceptive security of this island home, I'm
open our eyes andinjected with a final dose by a brazenly cheerful,walrus -moustached taxi driver.
minds," says Kerr.
The Russians are still far away, but Communists hold suburbs in thefoothills of Paris, he moans. He sees conspiracies on every street corner,
resentment in the face of youth reticent to defend the Tricolore. They're
probably in on it too! This isn't speculation, his greywh iskers quiver, thisis fact. Or so his paranoia will have it...
Simple Minds have been infected by the disease, but their singer Jim
Kerr sensibly refers to it as an education. And while he's learning, he's nottaking any sides. We're careering across Belgium and France in the backof a minibus, through lush farmland too uniform to hold our attention,
so conversation turns to the uglier aspects of modern living.
At the moment Jim's recalling an eventful ride through East German
customs after SM's Berlin gig.
"We were going through customs, playing a tape of the soundtrack
fromApocalypse Now, and just as 'The End' started, a whole convoy of
American tanks rolled past on their way to Berlin."
Quite a coincidence of song and real life.
"Now how can you ignore things like that? I mean, people might say
we're pretentious for using words like, er, guns, in our songs, but it would
be more pretentious to ignore what's going on around us."
He lapses into silence. We pick up the trail the following afternoon ina Parisian hotel room.
"It's so easy in Britain when you don't see a soldier
or a gun, just to say, (adoptinga derisive tone) 'Oh,
what is all this?' But when you're here- and we'vebeen in Europe four times this year, we've been
SIMPLE MIL4DS EMPIRES AVID DAL4CE
here more than anywhere else- how can you not beaffected by it?"
He extends his line of thought into his songs andthose of his peers.
"The whole thingwith this new European stuff...
I mean, singing songs about Europe can be so crass
unless you do it right. I remember a band in '77
called TheAutomatics, who did a sang called'When The Tanks are Rolling Over Poland'. I mean,
whoo," he sighs resignedly. "What's that all about?"
During a brief pause, the strains of Simple Minds'"I Travel" echo in my mind. The first track of thisyear's most subversive dance album, Empires
HISTORY OF ROCK 1980 1137

198
for a good soundcheck, too. This sort ofbehaviour ought to be common decency, but
it's rare in the cut-throat world of rock'n'roll.
Personally, I never thought I'd be grateful toGabriel for anything, but the sound in Brussels
is great -you can even hear the words. Simple
Minds open with "Capital City", a pulsing
suspense story, then "Thirty Frames A Second"is even better, an autobiographical slice ofKerr's life viewed in flashback: "/ lost my job/
Security/ Self-confidence I Bank account I
Identity". The effect is overwhelm i ng as the
SimpleMinds:(I-r)
Charlie Burchill,
Derek Forbes.Jim
Kerr,MichaelMacNeil
and Brian McGee

memory slips back a nother notch to the point
where protagonist attempts to break free fromthe chains of his past -his family, religion,
childhood. "Go back tofather/ 'Father where's
inyfood?nour food is on the table/But that
can t be foodllt is dirt.
"It used to be a lot heavier than that when
I first wrote it," Kerr tells me now. "It was about

21-

And Dance, it's a marching song for these desperate times. Above it all,
Kerr's grandly exaggerated vocal taps tragic depths, when he sings:"Europe hasa language problem/Talk, talk, talk, talkingon I In Central
Europe men are marching' Marchingon and marchingon /Love songs
playing in restaurants..."
Kerr comments: "I think if we can do a song that's appealing, but withan edge so that it doesn't get too comfortable, people might listen to
what's being said. And the language problem in the song is politics- thelast line goes, Tabbleon.Scheduled for single release, the message should hit home. The
chorus has already formed a loop running through my mind: "Travel
round, I travel round I Decadenceand pleasure towns I Tragedies, luxuries,
statues, parksand galleries."
Travel has obviously broadened Simple Minds.
Simple Minds broadened mine and now I'm travelling to Paris andBrussels to find out how they did it. Up until their Hammersmith Palais
gig a few weeks back, I'd always damned them with very faint praise,saying basically that they covered well in the absence of gods out-of-town
like Bowie and Roxy.
Their first album, Life In A Day, was a bulging holdall of influences

regurgitated practically unchewed; cosy images of alienation and othermodish themes nestled alongside jarring noises always a touch too
fam iliar and comfortable to reallycut it.
They revealed a more electronic bent on the second, Real To Real
Cacophony, but things like the title track scann ing almost identically
Kraftwerk's "Radioactivity" didn't improve their critical status any.
Coming in the wake of Numan, it was mostly dismissed as just anotherhopeful cash -in, but Simple Minds' rhythms have always packed too solida punch for them to be bracketed under light -frame electronic pop, nomatter how ethereal the topping. And though they're not doing anythingthat radically different now, they're certainly doing it a lot better.
Somehow they've made the great leap from being raw young
impressionables unsure what to make of their vast input of informationand influences, into a confident, adventurous band suddenly aware of
their potential. The result i ng albu m, Empires And Dance, is distinctly
Simple Minds. They know it and are justifiably proud of it. It is everything
Bowie's Lodger could have been if he were younger and more open to life
going on around him. Like Lodger, Empires And Dance rapidly switches
locations, but sensibly stays in Europe, whose problems are also ours.
And unlike Bowie, Simple Minds are inexperienced enough to involve
themselves with what they feel around them, using their songs as a fieldof operations for coming to terms with their own "confusion" -a wordthat crops up a lot in Kerr's conversation.
The album consists of gloriously depicted, desolate cityscapes, but
however gloomy the music gets, a strong sense of d iscom fort preventsthe listener cocooning himself in self-pitying melancholy. Simple Minds'
struggle is not easily admired from a distance, but it has to be felt. That isthe crucial thing.
SIMPLE MINDS' PRESENT visit to Europe comes courtesy ofPeter Gabriel, who liked them enough to invite them along freeof the massive fees usually associated with the support spots onprestigious tours. Not only that, he makes sure they get enough time
138 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1980

a man, who becomes a father, but he no longer recognises his children,
because they don't take up his mistakes, so they turnaround and say, 'I'm
sorry, Dad, I don't recognise you any more.' They reject his food an'
everything. But it turns out to be the song of a man looking back, trying tograsp what purpose there is in existing, what is required, what you aremeant to do. You too often get to the state of looking back, saying, 'I shouldhave done this and I should have done that...'"
He pauses before starting up again angrily. "Sometimes it pisses me off;sometimes I wish I went the full way with songs. I always feel that I've left
out the best and put in just the beginning.
"Well, that's the trappings of being 'contemporary', I think. Maybe if
I get 'contemporary' enough to get in a safe position with finance, I'll beable to go out of control, to do just what the hell I want."
Throughout this conversation Kerr confuses the word "contemporary"with commercial. I ask him what stops him taking the songs as far as
they'll go.
"It frightens me, because at the last minute I always think I don't know
enough... Each day you get the kick when you think you see differently
now, and one day you stop and think, 'Yes, finally, this is the answer.' But
when does it stop being a mbiguous?And when does it really start to get in
there, to be direct?
"My songs are just an attempt to educate myself, to get to grips with
what's going on outside- start reading, start listening..."Though we're in Paris, thoughts return to Glasgow. Family ties appear
to be stronger north of the border, the processes of channelling that muchharder to break away from. Kerr talks with slight discomfort at first about
his past, but quickly opens to the subject.
"Sometimes I like to talk about it, and other times I don't. That whole
Jimmy Boyle side of its gets glorified too much. Once a journalist asked
me where I came from, and I said Gorbals, and the first lines of his
article sort of said 'Gorbal Boy...' and things like that. It really cameacross the opposite of what I wanted to do. All that Alex Harvey st reetfighting man crap... There is beginning to be awareness in Glasgow, butthere's still ignorance."
The life -dulling cycle of school -job -unemployment can't help increaseit - especially in a town so culturally arid as Glasgow.
"Exactly, that's what it is. People get caught up in drink. There's not muchto do, their jobs are boring, so at the weekend all they're concerned with isgetting out and forgetting it. They meet a girl, want a car, then they're toobusy working to pay for all these things. Before they know it, they'remarried -and once you're married, you're just the same as your father.
"I think there's an awareness there now -a lot of good new bands
coming up. There always has been -we're by no means unusual. We
weren't gifted with this awareness; a lot of people had it at school, but it
just comes to the point where they think, 'Ah well, what's the use?'"When you go home, people come up to you and say that you can't be
doing all that good, because you haven't been on Top OfThe Popsyet.
Well, I'm stumped by that response! I'm travelling, it's really great, I'm
having a good time. But I find myself gett i ng a bit sad [not to mention
patronising- Ed], because I think other people should get the chance to
see the world. I mean, I don't think of myself as having more talent thananyone else. If a nyt h ng, I've had more cheek, or perhaps arrogance, andthat's what got me these places."

SIMPLE MINDS

IF "30 FRAMESA Second" exorcised Kerr's private past, Simple
Minds are still stuck with their public one. Especially here in Europe,

where "contemporary" pressures dictate that they devote theremaining three fifths of their 35 -minute set to older, less substantial
numbers. "Premonition", "Factory" and "Pleasantly Disturbed" are all
sweet enough to consolidate their considerable following on theContinent, but they lack the power of anything on Empires And Dance.
Sometimes, SM's willingness to conform to commercial needs works
against them, but then without an ear for strong, disco beats andpersuasive tunes, Empires And Dancewouldn't have been half so potent.
"It was great the last time we were in Europe," recalls Kerr. "In thenightclubs, 'Premonition' was played alongside Ohio Players, Donna
Summer and the Talking Heads. It was really appealing for us to hear
DJs liked it as much as Donna Summer; 'Premonition' has far more
direct substance.
"That was why it was important to have a really good drum and bass
sound, which you couldn't get by doing an album for E200 and releasing
it on your own small label. That's taking a 'contemporary' route andhopefully putting a kick into it. There's an awareness in the song thatyou'll not normally get at this 'contemporary' level."
Guitarist Charlie Burchill chips in: "'Premonition' is dance music, but
it's also discomforting- people listen to it and that discomfort spreads."
But doesn't it get to the point where one cushions the discomfort tosatisfy commercial needs?
Kerr replies: "Well, if you want as much control as possible you needmoney. If you've got it, you're no longer in the company's debt. Even if you
don't hate them, there's this mental barrier which says if you don't please
them they'll treat you tit for tat and say you'll not get this or that. It is a
struggle, because we do want to remain 'contemporary' and use thechannels already provided. And because it's 'contemporary' we do makeconcessions. We are ambitious. Our music might appear transparent, but
if you've got an open mind it says a lot."
True now, but cynics might say that Simple Minds' career suffered due
to early guidance by similar principles. Maybea bit of background will expand Kerr's own

interpretation of their past. Formed arounda nucleus of himself, Burchill and drummer
Brian McGee, who all attended the same
Glaswegian Catholic school, early incarnationsof the band used to play the music they enjoyedlistening to at home: The Doctors Of Madness,
Velvet Underground, even Genesis -"Foxtrot
was the first album I bought," admits Kerr.

pinpoint then what we were getting out of these bands, to break it down tothe appealing elements in their music, to which we would add our own."
Their music struck him as so empty, he continues, their lack ofmotivation frightening.
"We were in the studio recording Real To Real, when news of things like
Pol Pot were filtering through to us and I was thinking at first, what is thepoint of sitting here and pretending that nothing's happening outside?
And the confusion carried through to the recording level. We began tograsp what was going on. We still admit that we hadn't kicked out every
single influence, but at least Real To Real proved we were aware of the fact,that the battle was definitely going on."How did he respond to all the negative reviews that greeted it, whichsuggested that Simple Minds would hop any worthwhile bandwagon
passing by?
"It was a little unfair to suggest we were coming behind these other[electronic] bands, because at the time Numan was just on his way up
and we could've jumped in and said, 'Yes, this is us.' We could have madeReal To Real a lot more direct. Look, with the electronic thing you canswitch the synthesizer on and get really appealing tunes, to which you
could sing typical science -fiction lyrics and things like that. The record
companywould have loved it if we chose something so direct...""The reviews seemed to disregard the fact how easy it is to manipulate
the public," interrupts Burchill. "We could have all worn the same
futuristic clothes, splashed wires and capacitors across the album coverand all that...""But we were trying to suggest that we'd sussed something out, that
there was something going on outside us getting a debut album into thecharts at 28. The whole thing with us has been an education. Every daywejust open our eyes and minds, opening up more and more, slowly forminga backbone of our own," concludes Kerr.
Simple Minds' stunning contrast of naivety and suss works. Still in aweof their heroes -"Big" Kid Strange, Lou Reed, Peter Gabriel- they're
inspired by them now, as opposed to being shackled to them.
In Brussels, part-time SM sax player and fulltime Endgame Paul Wishart and chatty Derek
urge me to catch Gabriel's show. I've seen it
before, I say, and can't share their enthusiasm.
However, temporarily caught up by it, I try
again. I find myself standing next to Kerr, who
notices my growing discomfort.
Gabriel's well-chosen images sanitise the dirt
and pain of his real -life subjects, whereas the
youthful probing of his chosen supports hit all
the sensitive spots. Compare his "Biko" to theirmore oblique, brilliant "This Fear Of Gods" andcheckwhich one reaches the heart of the matter.
It's not all Gabriel's fault. This Belgian
audience, like the London one I saw in spring
and the Parisian fans of a few days later, gives
him far too easy a time. Their indiscriminate, enthusiastic applause getsembarrassing. I rant my disapproval in Kerr's ear. He partly concurs, but
adds later: "When I see Gabriel now I can't see it from the outside. There's
still this little boy in me that remains from the time I saw Genesis when I
was 13, and I'm still in awe of him. He still has integrity II agree]. Take, forinstance, something like Throbbing Gristle. They give the impression thatthey'd rather take pictures of a man getting beat up in the street than help
him. 'Biko' might drown in its art but it still draws attention to its subject."
Did he want the sort of uncritical adulation Gabriel's audience heapedon their hero?
"That's difficult. At times on stage you feel like a mad dog barking.
You don't know whetheryou're here to entertain them, to provoke ormake contact with them. There's a lot of confusion going on. We dohave arguments within the band about things like encores -whether
this or that one would have made a better encore.
But I'm not interested in that -that's pure show business talk.
"I mean, what's the point? You've got the audienceright up there already, you must have impressed
them enough, and then you come back on stage on
your knees?"
These days, Simple Minds are confident enough tostand on their own 12 feet. Their own feats provide all
the support they need. Chris Bohn

"Numan wasjust on his
way up andwe could have
jumped in"

Later joined by bassist Derek Forbes, who'dbeen playing in dance band in Spain and solo
12 -string in pubs and clubs, and keyboards
player Michael MacNeil, their sole motivation
was fun when they came to record the demosthat led to theirArista contract and first album
Life ln A Day."We were a very marketable proposition," recalls Kerr
candidly. "There was no real venom or fight. At the time there was no realcompetition in Scotland. Life was nice and safe, no real heart."
They blithely went in to record their first album, possessing all the rightnoises but no positive direction, content and pleased with themselves
for getting this far. The reviews quickly bracketed them with the likes of
Ultravox and Magazine, and being Simple Minds ('78 version) they werequite happy about that too, flattered even.
But disillusionment set in shortly after its release.
"We didn't see much of ourselves in it," remarks Kerr. "It was hard to see
what went wrong. After a few months it was a matter of taking the wholething and smashing it up"
Instead of carefully dismantling their career and reconstructing it, they
persuaded Arista to let them back into the studio before they'd completed
any new songs. It shows in the subsequent Real To
Real Cacophony, which was recorded so fast they
didn't have time to sift out the influences properly.
Much of it sounds like straight theft.
"Yes," laughs Kerr. "It seemed to me as though there
was an act distinguishing good thieves and bad
thieves -a good bank job and not so successful. But
it became more us.
"Listening to the first album now," he continues,"I can see that we didn't really have the ability to

HISTORY OF ROCK 1980 1139

1980

OCHBEt W"[HOne of thegreat menof his a
,,_,

I

.i

'..,-11.1

II\..

L_',__ t_ [

I

L_

1

,_

\

C-

._

.

,c..,

.

1'1.-

.L".11

_'

LI

{

,I..

L

1.

L.

1

LL L Ali".

1

1--.4,%_.,*
I')11-..A:ir-',hlmanth

'

' '

,-v

1

IL

-

DECEMBER 20"At world minims, notaro,.tul thc crea tors ofnetv noises, but thecnea:orsofnea val-tes" FrkvrichNietzserc"i! ndso, dearfrien4s,younjust have to carry on" Joh'? canon

p2,iii-iE A ND LCVE. I f we a re to take anything from- he tragic death of John Lennon - and God knows,- he sense_esssiess ol his murder defies meaning' her/ it must, iaradox ha Ily, be these values we takeaway from :he slaughter on New York's 72nd Street
las- Meek.

It would be comirrt ingto say that loin Lennon died for peace andloge, but hisdeathrwas not :hat of the martyr, even though thiswasErule he seemedto relish at some points 3f his life. No, he died withou_reason at the hunt? ofamcdrian in a c tyand country where
psychosis, violence: and assassination are virtually a way of life.
Another celebrity in his posit on woulc have had a bodyguard, but ()atwas not John Lc nrton's wa}.. Ifts trust, hiswi I I i ngness to stand nakec

before the wor1:1- sametirnesliterally- probably cost him his life.
But ifJohn Lerman did lot : ie for peace and love, then those werecertainly t he valu -2.s for which he lived,which underpinned his workat d which, by the moseofhis 40 years, te seemed to have finallyrealised in his per mai life. He did nottlie a vexed and tortured
genius, as the my& of the modern artist often seems to demand - it
was a myth to whic 1 Lennon limselfwas totally opposed ; " Worshi 3
thesurvivors,"hesaid - but as a fulfilled and humble family man
appr3aching nr addle age.
Many rock stc rs save strive 1to grow nld gracefully, but John
Lennon manapedi . bettertLan any, at din the last in-depth interview
lic granted beforel- is death- to P/aybcymagazine- he spoke with
contempt of theseof his peers like the Rolling Stones, who were st il"s mounded biapng... That means you're st il I 16 in your head."
Never mind that his last record, Doubt ?Fantasy, lacked the creative
1140

HISTOFY CF ROCK 1980

vialidhavione
kternabout

1980ocro..08.
urgency and inspiration that characterised hisbest work- though it shared its scrupulous andsometimes embarrassing honesty -his life wasin better shape than ever, and the impression
given by the man's last flurry of publicstatements and appearances was that of a mind
not out of touch, feeding on former glories andaddled by bad living, but alert, hungry, ready toconfront and embrace the world from which hehad, for several years, consciously retreated inorder to be with his son Sean and develop what
he saw as the weaker side of his character. He
was cut down in his prime.
IN TODAY'S GROWING climate ofpessimism, disillusion and a newly
exalted brutalism - be it economic,
physical or emotional and spiritual brutality- it is difficult to understand, or even to recall
accurately, the optimism of the '60s and its
massed calls for peace and love. Most of it
was, in any case, wilful escapism, or what
now seems an almost painful naivety.
None of that negates the time's underlying
idealism, the belief in a saner, more just,dignified and rewarding order of things -andthe struggle for the realisation of these values

was something Lennon maintained until theend of his life. Over the last five years he hadcome to see the struggle in a more domestic
setting, in the need to create a more equable

and balanced relationship between the sexes,
a relationship more suitable to the modern age.
Ono and Lennon felt they were still, albeit in amore subtle and understated way, trailblazing
a new set of values. Lennon became a "househusband", while Yoko assumed the traditional
male role of dealingwith and manipulating theworld of commerce and money.
It was this very fusion of the personal and thepolitical, the religious and the artistic, that gave
Lennon's work much of its resonance, and that
set him aside from the many fellow travellers
who turned out to be merely gifted artisans or
self-destructive visionary obsessives. It was not
merely that his songs provided the soundtrackfor our lives that made Lennon the "voice of his
generation" of current media cliche, but that they so often seemed to
crystallise the mood of the times, and to do so with an honesty that wasapparent in the way the man lived out his life.

A few daysaf ter theirwedding, Johnand
Yoko stage their first-bed-infor peace -at
the Amsterdam Hilton,
March 25-31.1969

conveniently overlooked or passed off asa contemporary twist on the hallowed
traditions of showbusi ness. Once the initial
outrage at the four rather effeminate, longhaired young men with raucous music,
provincial accents and a disrespectful Scouse
wit had passed, it was welcome to the fab worldof our loveable moptops, and no cause forconcern. At least until acid.
But John Lennon often hated his Beatle suit,though he doubtless relished the fame andfortune that it brought him. Later he would
say that he never wanted the group to wear suits, to be groomed: "Itwas all Paul and Brian's [Epstein's] idea." In any case, the image of
The Beatles that was projected was largely phoney. "They never talked
about the orgies," he told Jan n Wenner, editor of RollingStone magazine
in 1970. "The Beatles tours were like Fellini's Satyricon."
The conflict between Lennon and society that had been a major
feature of his life up until Beatlemania was, however, temporarily
muted, channelled into oblique lyrical statements in his songs, ormore obviously, given free reign in the collections of satirical cartoons,stories and sick jokes that he released as two books, In His Own Write
and A Spaniard In The Works. Elsewhere his acid tongue and irreverent
wit still made his leaders and supposed wisers uneasy and occasionallylanded him in trouble, as with his infamous claim that the group were
"bigger than Jesus Christ". But basically, he was tamed.
"All that business was fucking awful," he said later. "It was fuckin'humiliation. One has to completely humiliate oneself to be what The
Beatles were and that's what I resent; I didn't know, I didn't foresee.
It happened bit by bit, gradually, until you're doing exactly what you
don't want to do with the sort of people you can't stand -the sort ofpeople you hate when you're 10."

He wasnever miserlywith himself
or his soulThat is one reason why his loss has hit the world so hard. Like most of us
he was often selfish and unpleasant, but he was never miserlywith himself
or his soul, at least not in the latter part of his life. He gave. He shared. And
now he's gone, we too seem diminished. The part of us that responded tothe man's essential goodness, his dignity, his openness and his optimism
will be that much more difficult to locate without him around.
To say he is destined to be judged as one of the great men ofhis age is not
mere emotionalism or fan adulation. Greater tributes have and will beheaped on the heads of "great statesmen" who in reality are bitter andunrequited humans believing in little beyond their own power lust andthe expediency of single or mass murder. But John Lennon was more
loved than any politician and was feared only by the hypocrites and thefalse demagogues who frequently tried to belittle his life, his beliefs andhis work and to whom he remained utterly opposed from first until last.
There was never any real reconciliation between him and theestablishment, no matter how rich or famous he may have become.
For though it would be unwise to be too cynical about the multitude oftributes that are now being tossed after him, few of john Lennon's fanswill not taste the smack of hypocrisy in the media's gushing reaction tohis passing. Alive, he was all too often mercilessly ridiculed, sneered atand, worst of all, smugly patronised. The world liked him most when hewas buttoned up in the comparative safety of a Beatle suit, where his
nonconformism, vitriol and disdain for straight society could be
142 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1980

BEFORE LENNON HAD donned Beatle garb, he had been
I .en non the art school tearaway, Lennon the gang leader,
Lennon the rock'n'roll lout, Lennon the man who pissed
on nuns from the balcony of his Hamburg digs. He was variously

admired, feared, loved, loathed and tolerated. He never bothered

JOHN LENNON

about acceptance beyond his peer group and his standing as a musician.
He met Yoko during his acid -gobbling period, in 1966, and two years laterthe couple finally came together. His decision to abandon his marriage to
his first wife Cynthia forYoko seemed to signal the resumption of
hostilities with society -or rather society's hostilities with Lennon.

Yoko was certainly attacked and lampooned both among Lennon's
inner circle and among fans and followers of the band. She was, after all,a "foreigner", an avant-garde artist of the sort Britain has always been
unable to accept, and what was more, she was a fiercely independent
woman. Later she would be tarred as the "woman who broke up The
Beatles"- this was probably true, but then, so what? Can the institutionof a rock group really be so sacrosanct that it becomes more important
than the welfare of its individuals?
When Lennon began to take the offensive, returning his MBE "inprotest against Britain's involvement in the Nigeria Biafra war, against
our support ofAmerica in Vietnam, and against 'Cold Turkey' slipping
down the charts" and generally speaking out against the moral
corruption and hypocrisy that surrounded him, the full force of British
moral indignation was turned against the pair.
Theywere busted for cannabis. ("I said to Yoko, 'Quick, call the police,someone's trying to get in.' Then I realised it was the police.") The fullfrontal shot of the pair on the cover of their 71uo Virgins cover was held up
for scorn and forced into brown paper bags for marketing. As for crawlingaround together in bags on stage, staging "events", spending theirhoneymoon in bed to launch a campaign for world peace... it was worseeven than The Beatles' dalliance with psychedelics and the woolly
eastern mysticism of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (alias "Sexy Sadie").
Lennon seemed able to soak up the pressure being brought on him frominside and outside The Beatles without trouble -he was, though extremely
sensitive, also an extremely tough nut. "You have to be a bastard to makeit," he said in 1970. "And The Beatles were the biggest bastards of all."In fact, the drugs, the constant insatiable expectations of the fans, theneed to preserve a unified Beatles front when the quartet were privately
bickering, the demands of the newly emerged hippy movement for an
impossible Peace And Love Apocalypse Now -perfectly expressed in theimmature demands of Jim Morrison's "The End" - the grisly spectacle of
the Vietnam war and the collapse of a projected Peace Festival in Toronto,
the whole psychic confusion of the times as our optimism foundered on
the inhospitable reefs of reality; these amounted to a load that not evenJohn and Yoko with their newlydiscovered love shield of invincibility
could carry.
The result was a withdrawal from drugs and a course in DrArthur
Janov's Primal Therapy that regrounded the duo in the here and now andpossible. On Plastic Ono Band Lennon owned up; he confronted andexorcised his personal past, quit kidding himself and others about thepossibilities of the public present for the "alternative"/ "underground"/"hippy" movement. The album -possibly the finest, most harrowing,
most compulsive work of his career -ended with a mantra of defiance tothe world: "Don't believe in Krishna, don't believe in Jesus, don't believe in
Beatles, I just believe in me. Yoko and me. That's reality. The dream is over."It was not a popular record- most people didn't want to wake up. But it
was the watershed of John Lennon's career, as an artist, just as meeting
Yoko had been the watershed of his life. In either case, nothing would be
the same again.
The hostilitywas not ill-judged. Lennon had an acute understanding ofBritish society and its processes, and in particular the class system. He'dseen it from top to bottom. Though not particularlyworking class himself,
unlike Ringo Starkey and George Harrison, he had always assumed the
mantle of the underdog and the outsider. He came from a broken home,he had never known his father and had been handed by his mother Julia toan aunt for his upbringing, and had lost his mother while still a teenager.
No wonder that, even at age 40, he would still say "there's part of me thatthinks I'm a loser".
But there was another, equally strong and perhaps more indelible
mark on the young Lennon thanfamilial status, the mark of theartist, and if he didn't match that
other great English visionary,William Blake, in seeing visionsof angels in trees as a child, thenby his own admission, "Therewas something wrong with me,
I thought, because! saw thingsother people didn't see. I would find myself seeing hallucinatory imagesof my face." Or: "It caused me to always be a rebel, but on the other hand
I wanted to be loved and accepted."
If the dislocation of sensibility in the young John Lennon became
one of the driving forces in his rebellion and search for identity, thenchildhood itself always occupied a special place for him. His work is fullof references to childhood, its magic and innocence. "When I wasyounger, so much younger than today// never needed anybody's help in any
way," he sang in 'Help", and the sentiment was to recur in many different
forms. "When I wasa boy, everything was right." He wrote songs to his own
children, even getting the 11 -year -old Julian to play drums with him on
aversion of Lee Dorsey's "Ya Ya", and always seemed to have a natural
correspondence with children -one of the most memorable photographsof him was, for me, with a kid on his knee in the Magical Mystery Tour film.
Two innocents abroad.
Lennon never lost that innocence, never lost the vision of the child who
saw right through the Emperor's new clothes, even if at times he seemed
to be the emperor himself, leading his troops into cul-de-sacs, or merely
marching up the hill and back down again.
At the height of his bed and peace antics he was dubbed a "fool" and heseized upon the term with a fierce glee. "Everybody had agood year,
everybody put the fooldown," he sang on "Let It Be" with tongue firmly incheek, and again, more pertinently, on "Instant Karma":"How on earth
you gonna see / Laughingat fools lilce me?/ Who on earth do you think you
are?1 A superstar?1Well, rightyou are."His fondness for looking back, for remembering, for re-evaluating thepast on his songs, his interviews, was part of his constant search for self-

discovery, self-awareness, self-control. He came to understand his own
complex nature intimately, to recognise the fiercelycompetitive sides of
his nature. "It is the most violent people who go for love and peace," he saidin his Playboyinterview. "I sincerelybelieve in love and peace. I am aviolent
man who has learned not to be violent and who regrets his violence."
The conflict between Lennon the fighter and Lennon the peacemaker
was always apparent. Even his peace campaign gave way to a period of
agitprop militancywhen the Lennons appeared in Japanese riot gear topromote "Power To The People" and walked the streets of NewYork withloudhailer and Red Mole posters on a demonstration in opposition to
British policy in Northern Ireland. He engaged in a lengthy dialogue with
TariqAli's left-wing magazine Black Dwarfabout the words to his song
"Revolution". "The lyrics stand today," he said before his death. "Don't
expect me to be on the barricades unless it is with flowers."
HE'S GONE NOW, anyway, that John Lennon. Gone, gone, gone.
People will say his spirit and works live on, as indeed they do;somebody will start a "Lennon Lives" campaign, but thebrutal truth is that he's gone. Nothing could have emphasised it morethan the sudden cremation of his body without ceremony or the
grand -slam funeral usually reserved for mortals as popular as he was.
In the last interview he gave before his death -to RKO Radio in New York
City- Lennon confronted those who were angry at his having spent thelast five years in seclusion:"Why were people angry at me? For not working? You know, if I weredead theywouldn't be angry at me. If I'd conveniently died after WallsAnd
Bridges they'd be writing this worshipful stuff about what a great guy/
was and all. But I didn't die and it just infuriated people that I would live
and just do what I wanted to do."So let's not allow our grief to turn into a misplaced despair. That was
not what John Lennon's life was for; just the opposite. He said that if The
Beatles had any message it was to learn to swim..."Don't expect John
Lennon orYoko Ono or Bob Dylan or Jesus Christ to come and do it foryou. You have to do it yourself."
If you really loved and believed in John Lennon, that's exactlywhat

you'll do. He made something good and valuable and enduring from hislife. We should all try and do the same. Goodbye Hello. NeilSpencer

LENNON

Elegy for Winston 09 Boogie
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi lahas 'Sexychildren. even geding the eta,
I old Jultan to ploy dIUTSrith,

HISTORY OF

Missed any of our previous issues?
Get them at www.uncut.co.uk/store
THE HISTORY OF
11\

LYTRIP THROUG
GC .DEN YEAR
THIS155.

THE HIST°, Y OF

197

THE HISTORY OF

IMMO MO 11114011,11. 0E3 lid 1106

THE HISTORY OF"We've set our standards higher"

KEIT

THE HISTO Y OF

BLONDIEIOY DIVISIt
THE CLASH
1064 WAIISKATE BUSH
TALKING HF
DAVID BOWIE

THE HISTORY OF

ROCK

THE SPECIALS
B52s GARY NUMAN THE WHO HUMAN LEAGUE LED ZEPPELIN
,

,

ONION

liwn, Mir

MU. 1011161.11 110111.1.

THE HISTORYORDER ONLINE A WWW.UNCUT.CO.UK/STORE

Readers' letters

440iff,c7,

MM JUL-DEC Lennon mourned, a critic criticised, gimmicks deprecated aiiu more...

"rlvv)11AT"eitEk
RIP John Lennon
There is no hope for the world now.
First today's music dies with Ian
Curtis, and now the father of rockmusic dies....
And at my school they won't evenplay Beatles records because, well,to cut a long story short, they
prefer Spandau Ballet. Aren't they
trendy? What's it all mean? Is thisthe beginning of the end? Whowould become a rock star anyway?
So many questions. It seems to me
that U2 are the only answer.
THE OPTIMIST, E Yorks

I personallywas pretty cut up on
hearing of John Lennon's death.
I too shed tears for John and his
family, as I suppose did many. But
his death did project further his
ideas, and hopefully impressed
them indelibly in people's minds.
It seems a horribly blunt andsomehow ridiculous way ofgetting the point across.
ANNY, South Shields

Get happy!
With happy sing,' long pop musicseemingly "playedout", it is no wonder record
sales recently have hit a slump.
Indeed the modern music worldis in a sad depression, with thelatest so-called "No 1" songs
mostly no more than miserable sounding dirges.
Killing and rape was thetheme of Kenny Rogers' "Coward
Of The County".
M*A*S*Hcame up with thecommendable lyric "Suicide Is
Painless", and now Don McLean(and everyone else) is "Crying".
Even the usually lively EurovisionSong Contest was topped by thedistinctly plaintive "What's
AnotherYear". Who knows perhaps the next craze will bethe "Black Ram Band"!
I wish the entire music scene
would stop taking itself so
seriously and change its tune tocheerful music. Record listeners,
I'm sure, would buy th at.
WJ THOMAS, Cathcart, Glasgow(MM Aug 9)World politics newsflash
Instead of spending millions on
atomic weapons, increase ourdole money and we'll fight themwith our bare hands.
DAVE UNKNOWN, Poole, Dorset(NINE Sep 6)

If you dare print an article byBurchill or Parsons saying they
don't give a shit about John
Lennon, and that in their day
people like him were made tohave their hair cut or sent toNorthampton, I will kill you.
That is all.
Love, A SENSIBLE PERSONJohn Lennon wrote songs often
about luv 'n' peace, but I'd still
like to rip the heart out of thebastard that killed him. How canit be that such a guywith such
vision and with so much truth togive can just be blown away likethat? How can I advertise mysorrow21lowcan you sleep?
AN ANGRY PERSON.

There's money to be made outof his death. Don't make it youor yours.
JIMBO, Devon(All from NME, Dec 20)

If Ronald Reagan becomes
American President, then who's
going to be around to hand out
the Oscars?
SHTEINBECK, North Allerton,
Yorkshire (NME July 19)

In defence of Floyd
Having read Allan
Jones' review of
Pink Floyd's gig(MM, August 9), I must write in
defence of Floyd.
Floyd produced an expressive
and technically accurate
reproduction of The Wall.
Admittedly the music is
introspective and sobering.
However, Floyd have neverclaimed that it is anything else.
Those who expected a jolly show
full of laughs and fun should havegone to see Monty Python & The
HolyGrail or Des O'Connor.
The only fault with the event lay
not with the band but with theEarls Court management.

I arrived at 7.15, but thanks toiftik

the appallingway in which people
were herded through a hopelessly
inadequate turnstile system,
did not reach my seat until8.15-15 minutes after the band had
started. Many people were
delayed even further. Having paid
something in the region of £30 for
the privilege of being there at all,this seemed ridiculous.
This aside, Floyd gave a superb
performance, and if I had
attended every performance of
The Wallin the UK I should stillwant to go again.
ALISON DEMPSTER, Redland,
Bristol (MM Aug 23)

Al: in all, just another brick...
Allan Jones was always themost nervous critic. Successbrought him anxiety; wealthworried him.
Written as an expression of
doubt, "Troubled Waters" became
one of the most tedious reports ofall time. Two hours in preparation,
most notable perhaps was the
sheer persistence with which
Allan Jones -increasingly using
the MMas a vehicle for his own

je-=wew--w
..1;

- -

,/x_=mam_morbid preoccupations- slugged
home his pessimistic visions.
Dragged out over a half a page,
Jones' opera of misery andcoruscating self-doubt was finallymore tiresome than moving.
Soporific wasn't the word - Jones
would've put Lemmy to sleep.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, teardown the wall, Allan.
MIKE SPARKES, Stoke Mandeville,
Aylesbury, Bucks (MM Aug 23)

C30, C60... gone?
I verybody is

writing about thestate of the British
music scene. Low sales arepreventing record companies
from signing new bands, andhome taping is the cheap answer
to the sales problem.
To prevent this, record
companies should look intoways of reducing prices. Singles

THE LITTLE ROOSTERS
I Need A Vtritness-sii114.11111,11A- 411

as they used to be (in Tin, a plain
white cover, and black vinyl)
would be cheaper than the
12in, multicoloured versions
in glossy picture sleeves.
These silly gimmicks are
putting buyers off. People buy
music, not pretty colours.
ADRIAN CHANDLER,Swindon,
Wilts (MM, Sep 6)

HISTORY OF ROCK 1980 1145

1980
mo

% MONTH

Coming next...
in 1981!
S0 THAT WAS 1980. Respect!

Certainly, that's not it from our reporters on the beat. The
staffers of NMEand MelodyMakerenjoyed unrivalled accessto the biggest stars of the time, and cultivated a feel for therhythms of a diversifying scene; as the times changed, so did

they. While in pursuit of the truth, they unearthed stories
that have come to assume mythical status.
That's very much the territory of this monthly magazine. Each month,

The History Of Rock will be bringing you verbatim reports from thepivotal events in pop culture, one year a month, one year at a time. Next
up, 1981!...

KRAFTWERK"I SEE US as the musical Bauhaus," says Ralf Hfitter, cornered on tour inEurope. "In their time they could work in theatre, architecture,
photography and short films, but they did not really have thetechnology to apply their ideas to music; we now have it."
TOM WAITS

THE BALLADEER WRYLY arrives in London, to discourse on fish,
Bruce Springsteen and his current work. "I'm thinking of putting out analbum called 'My Favourites'," he says. "I'm just gonna take 12 songs byother artists, with a picture of me on the cover listening to them."
DEAD KENNEDYS

THE CALIFORNIAN PUNK phenomenon hit the UK and discover newstage -invasion protocols. "In the States there's a lot more of what iscalled slam, dance and crash from stage invaders," says frontman Jello
Biafra. "They get up on stage and quickly dive off, rather than just sitting
t here like a bunch of bozos."

PLUS...
MARVIN GAYE!
BOB DYLAN!
THE CURE!

146 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1980

FROM THE MAKERS OF UNCUTTHE HISTORY OF

Every month, we revisit long -lost NME and Melody Maker interviews
and piece together The History OfRock. This month: 1980.
"Don't walk away in silence..."Relive the year...

PINK FLOYD BUILT A WALL AROUND THE WORLDTHE SPECIALS AND MADNESSTOOK 2 -TONE GLOBALMUSIC LOST IAN CURTIS
AND JOHN LENNON
and TOM PETTY, IRON MAIDEN,CAPTAIN BEEFHEART, PAUL WELLER and many more sharedeverything with NME and MELODYMAKER. . .

More from UNCUT...
:p.s1414AFJp.m!)lin SMITHS'Uan

THE HISTORY OF

051.1,kr.-11111KI.T1
to

e

THE

ake

overrnii,miltv

11

WWW.UNCUT.CO.UK