Heathen

Brave New Soldiers

King Of Kings

Number 12

Saddened by the reported news of the death of Simon Werner, guitarist of The Pack and The Straps earlier today. Uploaded tonight are the two records by Kirk Brandons pre Theatre Of Hate band; The Pack. Condolances to Simon’s family and friends.

Several other Pack records, demos and live tapes on this site if you care to search for them.

The Pack

Kirk Brandon – Vocals/Guitar

Simon Werner – Guitar

Jon Werner – Bass

Rab Fae Beith (later, Jim Walker) – Drums

Formed in Clapham in 1978, The Pack emerged from the anarchist squat scene of South London – a seething mass of angst and rage. The group consisted of Kirk Brandon, ex- pat Canadians, the Werner brothers, & Scottish drummer, Rab Fae Beith.They made their live debut at a show for The Camden Film Co-Op and duly proceeded to scare the living shit out of their audience and themselves with their dark take on Punk Rock. Many of the group’s shows ended in mini riots – broken chairs & glass strewn across one trashed venue after another.

The Pack’s debut 45 on SS Records released in August 1979 was one of those visceral, abrasive cacophonies that gave the genre its name in the first place. ‘Heathen’ was simply one of the greatest sides ever produced by a Punk group. Menacing and dangerous – it was absolutely guaranteed to clear the room of anyone over thirty if dropped on the decks in public. The sheer power of Brandon’s seething vocal recalled the original sin of Johnny Rotten crossbred with something far more sinister.

The choice of SS Records as their record label only added to the implied furore (unfortunately, The Stooges and Patti Smith’s flirtations with Nazi chic were very influential amongst the impressionable young Punks of the UK and this sort of behaviour was de rigour for many hard line anarchists – more in an attempt to shock that any deep rooted racism, I might add). The 45’s other side, ‘Brave New Soldiers’, was far more indicative of the direction Brandon would later take with Theatre Of Hate: brooding, threatening and laced with iconography.

The actual reason for the record label name, SS records, is far more predestrian as written out on the KYPP site by Rab Fae Beith. He explains “well I can tell you about the SS thing as I was the Pack drummer. Terry Razor worked at Stiff and he stole or borrowed Stiffs mobile recording truck. He turned up at a rehearsal room in Market Street Islington. We recorded two tracks with Liam Steinberg, the then in house producer of Stiff for Rachel Sweet and Kirsty McColl, he also wrote ‘Walk Like An Egyptian’ a few years later. Anyway after the recording Terry and Liam disappeared only to resurface a couple of weeks later with the finished product. The Pack had nothing to with the mixing or choosing the record label. It was all Terry. The first we knew was when we received a debut 45 rpm single. SS does stand for Secret Service, Terry’s office!”

The single became an instant classic on the (by then) Punk Rock underground – cherished by the Old School as a celebration of honest first wave intent and championed by the second wave as a gateway to the future – The Pack were soon a byword for authenticity and a no sell out mentality.

The Pack’s second 45, ‘King Of Kings’/'Number 12′ released also in 1979, saw the group move to the nascent Rough Trade Records – already the doyens of the rapidly expanding independent scene. By this stage Rab Fae Beith had been replaced at the drum stool by Jim Walker (PIL). ‘King Of Kings’ was every bit the equal of ‘Heathen’ – drenched in biblical imagery and featuring a red cross on the cover – this was a second slice of prime disgust – malevolent to the extreme and fucking brilliant with it. ‘No 12′ was another up-tempo assault with acrobatic vocals and in your face bass – groundbreaking.

The Pack were so incendiary they were never going to last long - and sure enough – in early 1980, almost as quick as it started, it was over. Brandon was soon working in a Booths’ Gin factory for his sins – carefully plotting his future. The group’s final gig took place at the 101 Club in Clapham. Ironically, the show was a total sell out by the time The Pack hit the stage – unfortunately, it was already way too late to turn back.

Slow Death / Tallahassee Lassie

Married Woman / Get A Shot Of Rythm And Blues

Originating during the U.S summer of love in 1965 (took the U.K several years to catch on) Flamin Groovies from San Francisco had already seen it, done it, worn the T-Shirt etc by the time of this release in 1972. The bands back to basic rock ‘n’ roll seemed to appeal to UK bands more so than over the pond in the U.S. Lots of influence to bands like the mighty Mott The Hoople and a little afterwards Dr Feelgood, Count Bishops and 101ers. These bands in turn influenced the slighty younger hopefuls into created high energy rock ‘n’ roll bands with a spin, or should that read, high energy rock ‘n’ roll bands with a safety pin!

Text below stolen with intent to use right here from allmusic.com.

One of America’s greatest, most influential, and legendary cult bands, the Flamin’ Groovies came out of the San Francisco area in 1965 playing greasy, bluesy, rock & roll dashed with a liberal sprinkling of British Invasion panache, in an era soon to be dominated by hippie culture and hyperextended raga-rock freakouts. Caught in a double bind of playing the wrong kind of music at the wrong time (as well as not looking the part), the Groovies were almost completely forgotten as the Fillmore/Avalon Ballroom scenes, dominated by the Dead, the Jefferson Airplane, et al., rendered them anachronistic. The plain truth, however, was that despite not being in tune with the zeitgeist, the Groovies made great music, and managed to sustain a career that lasted for over two decades.

What made the Groovies such a formidable band was the double dynamite supplied by guitarist Cyril Jordan and singer/wildman Roy A. Loney. Together they formed an uneasy partnership that guided the band through its most fertile period, from 1968-1971. In 1968, for next to nothing, the band recorded a seven-song EP entitled ‘Sneakers’. This little bit of DIY ingenuity resulted in a contract with Epic and the huge sum of 80,000 dollars (1968 dollars, mind you) to be spent on their debut recording, ‘Supersnazz’. It was a great album that didn’t sell, but did get them dropped from Epic. Quickly signing with Kama Sutra, the Groovies closed the ’60s and started the ’70s with two terrific records ‘Flamingo’ and ‘Teenage Head’, but public apathy and the increasingly tempestuous relationship between Jordan and Loney led to the latter’s departure for a solo career in 1971. Jordan, now free to run the band as a “benevolent” dictator and indulge his passion for a more folk-rock (read: Byrds) focus, hired guitarist/vocalist Chris Wilson, curiously added the apostrophe to their first name, and in 1972 moved the band to England.

Oddly enough, the Groovies had a larger, more enthusiastic following in Europe (especially in England and Germany) than they did in the States, and it seemed perfectly reasonable to assume that if great rewards were to be reaped, it would happen in Europe first. Hooking up with Dave Edmunds, who was keen to produce them, Jordan and company recorded a handful of songs as early as 1972. However, this seemingly natural collaboration yielded little until 1976, when the Groovies released their finest post-Loney effort, ‘Shake Some Action’. Loaded with ringing guitars, great covers, and Edmunds’ spongy, bass-heavy production, ‘Shake Some Action’ became a well-received album in punk-era Britain, as was the fine follow-up, ‘Flamin’ Groovies Now’. This new notoriety brought renewed interest in the Groovies in America.

Happy birthday to Sam who pleasantly did not have a ‘slow death’ and is still very much with us. An ex Heretic and regular commentator on this KYPP site. Hoping your day over the pond was pleasant. I have no idea if Flamin Groovies would have been your thing, but I know you rate Dr Feelgood so not a million miles apart.

Many happy returns again from all here at KYPP online, and here’s to many more to come.

I have moved this October 2009 post forward to today’s date due to news of the passing on of Peter ‘Sleazy’ Christopherson who sadly died in his sleep last night.

The Guardian online news orbituary is at the foot of the original post…

How To Destroy Angels

Absolute Elsewhere (This track is  just one long beep – not to be played on the actual 12″)

The debut 12″ record by ex-Psychic TV members, Peter Christopherson and John Balance released on the wonderful L.A.Y.L.A.H record label from Belgium.

‘How To Destroy Angels’ subtitled ‘Ritual Music For The Accumulation Of Male Sexual Energy’ is a lovely chilled out soundscape lasting around seventeen minutes, most of the track is quiet but some louder parts come into the recording so do not turn your volume up too much…

The second side of this record has not got a Coil track on it as such, although the labels on the record do give this side a title. It is a continuous looped ‘bleep’ that runs for around fifteen minutes, similar to the noise (for those old enough to remember) that the TV made when all the three channels were shut down after the national anthem was played a little after  midnight every day of the week. Those were the days eh!

This track is not meant to be played. It was just a gimmick for the first pressing of this release. I recorded and uploaded it onto this site anyway just for archive purposes and so you can hear both sides of this record!

Text below via brainwash.com highlighting a chapter on Coil in the brilliant book from 1987 called ‘Tape Delay’. A book well worth getting. It was published by S.A.F. from Harrow and included in depth interviews with Cabaret Voltaire, Chris And Cosey, Nice Cave, Laibach, Lydia Lunch, Psychic TV, Rollins, Swans, Mark Stewart, Test Dept and David Tibet, Mark E Smith amongst many many more.

Coil was conceived by John Balance in 1982 as a concurrent project with Psychic TV, with whom he was working, playing bass guitar, vibes and various Tibetan instruments. In 1984 he began concentrating full time on Coil together with the co-founder of Psychic TV, Peter ‘Sleazy’ Christopherson. In addition to his role in TG and Psychic TV, Christopherson was also a member of the Hipgnosis design group who executed covers for many ‘supergroups’ of the seventies, including Led Zeppelin, Yes and Pink Floyd. John Balance has previously worked with David Tibet and Fritz Haaman in Current 93. On the Coil album Scatology, they are variously joined by Clint Ruin and Gavin Friday of Virgin Prunes. Coil have also written the soundtrack to the feature film The Angelic Conversation, directed by Derek Jarman, while the video for their version of Tainted Love is on permanent display at The Museum Of Modern Art in New York. In 1986, Coil released a mini-LP with Boyd Rice, and in 1987 an LP entitled Horse Rotorvator.

What is Coil?

Sleazy: Loosely, it’s what we do musically. We do other things apart from music but it is the term for our musical experiments. Although it’s basically me and John, we do get other people to help as well. In that way, I suppose it’s like Psychic TV regarding the set-up and collaborative aspects. Coil is also a code. A hidden universal. A key for which the whole does not exist, a spell, a spiral. A serpents SHt around a female cycle. A whirlwind in a double helix. Electricity and elementals, atonal noise and brutal poetry. A vehicle for obsessions. Kabbulah and Khaus. Thanatos and Thelema. Archangels and Antichrists. Truth and Deliberation. Traps and disorientation. Infantile, inbuilt disobedience.

Where is the term Coil derived from?

J Balance: I chose it on instinct and since then I’ve found that it actually means a noise. And there are things like the spiral, the electrical coil and contraception. The spiral is a repeating micro/macrocosmic form. From DNA to spiral galaxies. A primal symbol. lt’s a nice little word. The Black Sun that we use is a surrealist symbol from Maldoror by Isadore Ducasse. It has 10 rays (2×5). Coil are essentially a duo and five is the number of the aeon of Horus – the present time. We have a private mythology completely in tune with symbols and signs of the present aeon. We don’t believe that it should become an important part of our public image – as misinterpretation, and unnecessary and incorrect replication would possibly occur. Silence and secrecy. After all, the image of Horus most appropriate to the new aeon is of a ‘conquering child’ with his finger to his lips – the sign of silence.

What is the significance behind the title of the album Scatology?

Sleazy: Scatology in the medical sense is an obsession with human shit, or as the old fashioned dictionaries used to say, “An obsession with animal lusts and base instincts”. So it’s a combination of those two.

Why do you feel that’s important to incorporate in the title?

Sleazy: In as much as Scatology is more to be listened to as entertainment the titles of those records normally try to attract people in a slightly outrageous way and at the same time, give some indication of the atmosphere of the record. I think it’s a good title, and a lot of the songs on the record refer, either in their lyric or in their moods, to the most base of man’s instincts. It seemed quite appropriate. It is what Dali in ‘The Unspeakable Confessions of Salvador Dali’ calls “The Humanism of the Arsehole”.

What do you see as the importance behind a ritual?

Sleazy: Most people’s lives are basically devoid of anything that adds meaning. That sounds so patronising to say, but I just think that the fulfilment I get from doing things that have no immediate everyday need while at the same time fulfilling other needs, certainly indicates to me that it would be interesting for other people to try them too. And you can only use yourself as an example for how you think other people should live – rather than saying in the way that religions do, “You must do this”, or whatever.

Is it important for the ritual to be designed by the person that practises it?

Sleazy: I don’t think so, millions of people benefit from catholic rituals.

J Balance: Or The Japanese Tea Rituals. It’s the Zen philosophy that every movement means something. I think that way of living is far richer and it gives them an awareness of what and where they are. But ritual in the West is monopolised by the church, especially in Europe and the United Kingdom. People carry out rituals all the time, the English parlour obsessions with table turning, clairvoyents and wishing wells. All these exist and are practiced, but people seem to be somehow ashamed of them and would rather be represented by the church. I suppose that’s because it’s a rich organisation with ostentatious shows of power and wealth.

How would something like the Japanese Tea Ritual differ from something that the church has organised?

Sleazy: They’re not at all different in what they achieve in the person. Where they differ is that the organised church has exploited its knowledge of ritual to control people and enhance their own political end. Certainly in this country in the last thousand years the church has been a political machine that has done what it has for profit and for the advancement of the people in control. And I think it’s a pity that the church leaders have exploited their position that way because it has fucked up a lot of people in Northern Ireland, the whole of South America, Spain and most of the Far East.

J Balance: To take a blatant example like the Aztecs, their whole society was controlled by priests who knew the language and knew the way to stop the sun from dying, and so they had complete control over every member of the population. If people didn’t do certain things, they believed they’d die. The system was highly developed, very brutal and based on human sacrifice. But they believed if the Gods didn’t get their blood, then the sun would not rise and the world would end. And it’s just the same here except it’s far more insidious and hidden.

Sleazy: All that you really need for your own rituals to be valid is a belief in their abilities. The only problem is that it’s easy to have self doubt about what you’re doing. And if you have a body of other people doing a ritual that somebody else has designed, then it’s more easy to believe that it might have some power.

Is it possible to use rituals for negative purposes, to bring out evil or destructive things?

J Balance: Oh yeah, but what’s the point really? The Tibetan Bon-Po shaman priests still do this. They’ve been called the most powerful and evil magickians that ever lived. I’ve got an LP of part of a malicious, destroying ritual. “The first low-keyed monk’s voice marks the beginning of the Mahakala prayer. The chant begins with an extended description of Mahakala as well as his different emanations. The chant continues, calling upon Mahakala in his various forms to come down to earth and receive the offerings of the participants and to devour marigpa”. `The Mahakala Prayer’ – Side 2 of Lyrichord Disc LLST 7270. They go on for days and cause plague in a whole village. The energy and powers exist to be able to do that sort of thing, but what’s the point?

Sleazy: The gutter press, National Enquirer sort of mentality, use basically the same argument when dealing with more or less anything, whether it’s a nuclear bomb or a ritual. Sexuality, for example, they frown on because it is a way of having a powerful experience. Not exploiting, but using the power of human nature to do something. And if it has a possible negative power, then they immediately say that the medium is at fault.

Does the energy of the ritual come from within the person or can it be drawn from other sources?

J Balance: It doesn’t really matter where it comes from. The point is it works, that power can be summoned, generated and you can harness, manipulate and channel it, so you never need to know where it comes from.

Why do most people view a ritual or magick as being evil?

Sleazy: It’s fear of the unknown. Basically it’s because the church saw other people who were doing rituals as a threat to their control.

J Balance: They try to keep a monopoly so anything else is bad or evil and you get thrown i to hell for it. It s Christian propaganda basically. England has strong pagan roots and the church has always attempted to stamp these out. Originally by neutralising pagan temple sites and then building churches on the same sites, then by burning witches and religious persecutions. If they couldn’t kill them, they used ridicule and fear tactics to deter people from the pagan heritage. The devil is only a Christian adaptation of a neutral nature deity; Pan, Cernos, the horned gods – which are phallic. The Christian church has never been very sexual, except where the pagan undercurrent has been allowed to emerge because it was too strong to suppress completely. The devil is a representation of pagan sexuality, which is why people are attracted to it even when seen as a Christian invention.

Sleazy: At the moment we’re sort of going through a right-wing backlash against the freedom of the sixties and seventies, certainly in terms of sex. And I wouldn’t be surprised if in ten years time there was a religious resurgence of interest in the church.

Were the angels symbolic of a larger concept on ‘How to Destroy Angels’?

Sleazy: All of what we do is symbolic on several different levels at once, so you can interpret angels as being a number of things, whether it’s the controlling influence of the church, or whether it’s an unnecessary desire to retain virginity.

J Balance: When I thought of the title, all these things went through me. It was a record to accumulate enough power to destroy theoretical angels – Christian gossamer angels don’t seem hard to destroy. It was a curious matter of fact title, almost like a manual a handbook you’d come across which could be the key to immense power and change.

Do you think that Coil will vary to a large extent from TG live?

Sleazy: Yeah, the trouble with playing live is that everything has to be done on the spot more or less. And nobody in TG was a particularly great musician. Basically that narrows down your options as to what you can do live. You can rely very heavily on backing tapes, you can just do your best or you can bring in other musicians. And none of those options are very acceptable to me. Just doing your best and trying to work out sounds that one could reproduce competently and that sounded interesting was really what TG were doing. It got to the point where we couldn’t go any further and that’s one of the reasons why we split up. And the Psychic TV dates that we did in the Summer and Autumn of 1983 didn’t really go any further than TG had. We had Alex playing, who is a good musician in that he can play proper guitar, but jams even with good musicians tend to sound like what their influences are. And so a lot of Psychic TV stuff ended up sounding like The Velvet Underground, which didn’t seem to me like it was advancing anything.

J Balance: Although the ideas were interesting live, it became more brutal and relied on the noise element while the ideas got swamped. I mean it’s alright for people who had heard the records before and knew what we were about and they got energy off it, but it wasn’t much more than a sort of controlled noise with a cause behind it. Which on reflection seems pretty reasonable, but something wasn’t right. Genesis would probably say it was our attitude.

Sleazy: Well that’s alright, but the reason why we haven’t really done any live dates is because we haven’t actually solved this problem of what to do. Certainly we could rely more on backing tapes in the way that a lot of groups do, but people really want that sort of dense atmosphere and rely on that adrenalin rush and I don’t know if you can get that from backing tapes.

What did you see as the function or purpose behind Throbbing Gristle?

Sleazy: To see if it was actually possible to get people to react physically. And also we were just trying to advance our intellectual and artistic aspirations in a new way, because prior to that we hadn’t been doing music at all. And also to have fun and attract young people who we could fuck. All the reasons people normally have groups. (laughs)

Is there such a thing as inaudible sound?

Sleazy: Pardon? (laughs) The theory of all that stuff is that if you actually play something at a lower level or backwards or in flashes on the screen it’s absorbed by the subconscious mind which acts upon it immediately. But I’ve never had any information or evidence that it works. People say The Rolling Stones album `Their Satanic Majesty’s Request’ has reverse masking and it says, “Come to Satan”, or something. I mean it’s all bullshit, it doesn’t work in my view.

J Balance: Records are very crude as far as recording and playback quality goes and there is no way that scientific experiments can be done in this medium. I think holophonics are far more interesting anyway. Stevo gets accused of doing a big hoax and so does Zuccarelli who developed the system. With holophonics we were able to get atmospheric subliminals and record a particular feeling including the spatial limits of a room or a cave and the movements of people in it. But I remain very dubious about back masking and inaudible sounds having profound but subtle effects.

Sleazy: Coil are interested in subliminals of another kind – delirium subliminals. Avatistic glimpses of a grand chaos – surfacing in flashes of black light – in darkest Dali, Jarry, the Moomintrolls, The Virgin Prunes, in the face of Edith Sitwell, Boyd Rice’s humour – emotional subliminals. Psychic information, partly deliberate, mostly instinctive.

Do you think that ghost images in a visual picture have an effect on people?

J Balance: I think they possibly have more effect. Apparently ‘The Exorcist’ originally had dead animals subliminally put in and they had to take them out. I mean there s,as a huge reaction about people being sick because it was the first high class splatter movie. It has more chance of having an effect if you see adverts many times – and they’re not subliminal. If you see adverts for ice cream, next time you’re in the shop, you go, “I’ll have one of them”, because you’ve seen it on telly. It just works on a crass level like that.

Sleazy: But there are lots of things that happen with films that could be exploited more, just things that you see in the background that you don’t notice but are actually there.

J Balance: All of these subjects – subliminals, back-masking, cut-ups, the Industrial group’s subjects – culled from Burroughs’ ‘The Job’ and ‘The Electronic Revolution’, have been done to death… And not very well. Sonic research is very hard to do properly on a Rough Trade advance or whatever. It maintains a pseudo-science, it has a wishy-washy quality that I don’t particularly want to be associated with. I’d rather been seen as a perverse noise unit with decidedly dubious musical leanings. I admire the intentions of all these groups, but the purity or scope of the possibilities are diminished by huge amounts in the translation to vinyl. Z’ev and NON seem to remain pure – as do Sonic Youth, but they’re coming from a different area as far as I can tell. In the end, the intentions alone can be appreciated – golden conceptualists and dull records type of situation.

Do you think that music is the best medium to get your ideas across to people?

Sleazy: No, I think film and television is by far the strongest because it’s a way of really affecting all of us. If you could affect the senses of smell and touch as well, it would be stronger still.

Is there a difference between chance and fate?

Sleazy: I don’t think there’s such a thing as fate really. I don’t think there’s such a thing as chance either, but that’s different. Fate implies that a certain thing is bound to happen, but I don’t think that’s the case. To rely on logic, then obviously whatever’s going to happen is going to happen. But at the same time, the implication that it’s out of your control is obviously rubbish. At any point you have a myriad of choices, whether it’s running and jumping out of the window or not Obviously things happen as a result of circumstances that one could not possible foresee and that is what one calls chance.

In the studio, does the recording process differ much with how you’ve worked previously?

J Balance: With Coil we lay down the backbone ourselves, and if we want to we collaborate with other people. With PTV it was more of a jam, things spontaneously arose out of rehearsals.

Sleazy: But all the PTV records that we were involved in were fundamentally done in the same way that we do now, which is to set down a rhythm and just lay things on top of it as they seem appropriate.

Do you think that you can change society through music?

Sleazy: No, I don’t think you can change anything with music particularly?

J Balance: But then again, a group like Crass might say it’s not necessarily their music, but the message that’s coupled with it. We’re very cautious about having one heavy message, but we do have a life style and I do want to change a lot of things. We’re obviously not like Ultravox where their album and the way they view life may be quite separate.

Sleazy: I actually don’t know any members of Ultravox personally, but my suspicion is that the content of their lyrics actually isn’t very deep and doesn’t concern very many of the things that I’m interested in. So that’s one of the reasons I don’t buy Ultravox records. Music is just an expression of the taste of the person that’s doing it, and that is ultimately why you buy a record – whether it’s Johnny Rotten or Captain Beefheart.

J Balance: If you hear a record you like and you suddenly find out that the people responsible do something that you’re really against, then you probably won’t listen to the record in the same light.

But shouldn’t music be judged on its own merit?

J Balance: I don’t think it should just by the song. They should have a sense of realisation that people do tie the two things together.

Sleazy: That’s a very difficult question because having been around the ‘business’ for a long while, I’ve met people whose music I’ve respected but whom I discovered 1 didn’t respect as people. And certainly that changed my perception of their music and their work.

Do you think that is elitist in some ways?

Sleazy: I think we are elitist. I know that I am a bit of a snob in some ways. I mean we’re talking about politics now and that is about how much self respect you have and whether you think your opinion is actually better than somebody else’s. And the important thing Go remember is that one’s own opinion is the best there is for you but not necessarily somebody else. It has got to do with whether you are big headed enough to think that -our own opinions are the ones other people should hold. And I think that’s very dangerous. I have certain very strong views about particular things that other people would certainly think were elitist, unusual or unacceptable. But I only hold those views for myself and I wouldn’t necessarily expect other people to enjoy the things that I enjoy. And likewise, I would expect them not to force me to live in the way that they do. Coincidentally we have touched upon a very common misconception – which is that elitism is a bad thing. It’s also an old misconception that it’s important to do a particular kind of music at a particular time. I mean you can look back on certain songs as being ‘classic’ or completely different from anything else at the time, but it’s all temporary. I think it’s worse in America where people tend to accept commercial dogmas more readily. In England, the eccentric is part of the history of the country. There has always been the village idiot.

J Balance: Does that make us the village idiots?

Sleazy: No, but there’s the whole tradition, Oscar Wilde or Quentin Crisp or whatever, as being acceptable as the local weirdo in a sense. And the people that do that in America are far more out on a limb until they get some commercial success. I mean New York is a cultural island relative to the midwest – where the people that do weird records have a difficult time. At least in England people are prepared to listen to something new with an open mind, so it’s that much easier. It may be crazy, but I still have an optimistic hope that free thinkers will be allowed to continue to do so because most of them are not threatening to society even though society might feel that they are. That is why we’re lucky in Britain in that we accept eccentrics and people that do things out of the ordinary as being a healthy and contributory part of society’s existence.

J Balance: But you make it sound like it’s idealistic and that all these things are allowed to happen. There are huge backlashes all the time against those who appear to deviate. But society needs the deviants in order to change. There’s this thing, “Let them grow up so far and perpetuate some sort of change and then beat them down again”. It’s as if society, like an organism, allows mutation in order to improve itself but keeps a tight rein on how much actually occurs.

Sword imagery creeps into several Coil tracks. Is that simply a phallic symbol?

J Balance: We didn’t mean it as a phallic symbol. If you get Freudian then it’s definitely a phallic symbol, but in magick it’s not. The sound of the swords on ‘How To Destroy Angels’ represents Mars, as in martial, the God of Spring and War, who cabalistically represents dynamic, positive change. The sword is a symbol of willpower.

Sleazy: Although I certainly wouldn’t describe us as militaristic, we recognise that man has an aggressive streak. I don’t think the peace movement, for example, has got any real hope of succeeding. You have to recognise the nature of man, accept it and use it.

J Balance: It’s the way things happen isn’t it? Its created force is what we’re aiming at, rather than militaristic, crass and obviously masculine, sexist type things. Rough Trade actually said that the cover notes to `How To Destroy Angels’ were misogynist, which I find ridiculous just because it dealt with masculine qualities.

Sleazy: They stocked the record and it sold out, but I don’t think they were too happy about it. And they didn’t put the poster up either because it was too extreme for them. In man – ways the people that are supposed to be spearheading the libertarian view are just as limited in their view as the gutter press and the more conservative elements.

J Balance: Their ideals often disagree with the practical way they work. They’ll say, “Oh yes, we support free thinking and things”, but when you actually bring a copy of it into the shop, they’ll smash it if it disagrees with their personal sensibilities.

Sleazy: You’re bound to come into contact with hypocrisy when you step out the door really. The only thing you can do is to try and make sure it doesn’t take place in your own home.

What inspired ‘The Sewage Workers Birthday Party’?

Sleazy: It came from a story of the same name in a magazine called Mr S&M, a Scandinavian publication which is basically fetishistic in its content. It’s an area I’m interested in anyway. We wanted to try and express it in musical form, and I’m personally quite pleased with the way it turned out. It’s an interesting piece of music even if you don’t know the original story and where it came from. I’d have liked to print it, but I don’t think the people doing the covers would have actually accepted it.

Does it seem strange doing dance music now?

J Balance: Are we doing dance music?

Sleazy: When Throbbing Gristle did ‘Twenty Jazz Funk Greats’, it was the intention to do something that was more conventional in that form, but it wasn’t totally successful because we didn’t really know how to do it. We still don’t know how to do it, it’s just that we wanted to make some of the music a little more up tempo, aggressive and rhythmic. But it’s certainly not a considered attempt to do a dance record, because I think if we tried to do that it would be a disaster. I can’t speak for the intentions of others, but I get the impression that The Art Of Noise were really a very considered attempt to do dance music in a way that would be artistic and fashionable. And it feels to me that the results are sterile and not very interesting.

J Balance: It all depends on what dance you’re going to do. I think that The Birthday Party were dance music, but it wasn’t the kind of thing that got played in discos very often.

Do you think that anybody has added a great deal of depth to a song which is also very entertaining and commercially accepted?

Sleazy: It’s very hard because you don’t know what people’s reasons for doing the records were. ‘Endless Sleep’ by The Poppy Family, `Tainted Love’ by Gloria Jones, ‘Seasons in the Sun’ by Terry Jacks, and ‘Emma’ by Hot Chocolate, to name a few, seem to work on lots of different levels, but I don’t know whether that was the intention of them in the first place. I mean from The Beatles onwards, some records have struck at exactly the right time for them to be amazingly successful and also interesting from some other philosophical or inspirational point of view. I think that’s true for films as well. That’s probably one of the most satisfying things for a creative person to do, because that spiritual or philosophical side stands or falls for what it is.

What do you think about cults that develop around certain bands, such as the mimicking of haircuts and dress that became noticeable with TG and PTV.

J Balance: Thoughtless and crass mimicking of anything is worthless.

Sleazy: It’s one thing to dress a particular way and to meet other people that have by their own route arrived at similar conclusions. But to wear things because one’s hero or idol happens to wear them is really weird and a bit unhealthy – and slightly distasteful. That whole thing of Marc Almond clones – even though Marc’s terrific. It’s the same with Bowie clones. It’s ironic as well because at the time we were in PTV, one of the messages of the group was free thinking and independence from that kind of thing. I can’t speak for what they’re doing now because they’re going their own way and I wish them well, but there’s no way that I personally could continue to be a part of that.

How important is image to Coil?

Sleazy: We haven’t established an image for Coil as such. Although we obviously have interests slightly apart from the norm, we haven’t particularly gone out of our way to create an image. In many ways it works against us because that means when we do occasionally give interviews, people don’t really know what to ask.

J Balance: We’ve got the added problem that we could easily rely on ex-PTV and play up all the same things, but we make a conscious effort to play down those things even though some of the aspects we’re still very much involved in. We’re making a conscious effort to be isolationists. I think it might become our image in a way. I suppose some people might try and pick up on the fact that we’re gay and associate us with that – like Bronski Beat who were only ever thought of in that context.

Sleazy: It’s a question of really not allowing ourselves to be reduced to two dimensional objects. Although sexuality is fairly important part of what we do, it’s by no means the only part and I don’t see it as a restriction.

Why are so many people scared away by some of the imagery that TG and PTV made use of, such as skulls etc.?

Sleazy: I think that it must be that we have a different threshold, a different interpretation upon imagery. I mean it’s a cliche to say this, but I’ve been at home and felt happier in fairly desolate and lonely sorts of places. And if people get scared by photos of the Berlin wall or something like that, then I just can’t perceive of the life they lead and how they could find it scary, because it just seems natural to me. A vast proportion of what we do and the way that we live our lives would probably freak out the majority of civilised people, simply because it’s out of the norm of their experience. It would certainly freak out my mum. We don’t have any wallpaper, we’ve got rat shit everywhere, it’s just a completely different way of living. But the reason that people get frightened is because of their interpretation of those things, not because of the reality of them. It’s easy for a person to interpret a photo of you holding a skull, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that you are a devil worshipper or a necrophiliac. It’s their interpretation which is at fault. If my mum was living here, after a while she would probably think it completely normal and would have a much more realistic scale to determine whether I was a nice person or not. It’s a very dangerous thing that some of the newspapers and the media do because it’s so easy for them. And they’re going to sell newspapers for being outrageous and saying, “Naughty Vicar”, and “VD Hospital”, shift. But outrage has always been a commodity. I mean Boy George, The Sex Pistols and everything are all manufactured, totally. But none of us, even Gen, has ever done anything really to make mileage out of being outrageous, it just comes naturally. Which is quite different I think. Although you see people on the subway with whom you feel you have absolutely nothing in common with and possibly even dislike just because of the kind of people they are, I’d rather have nothing to do with them. I don’t think it’s even worth going to the effort of outraging them. I just wish they weren’t there.

Is there anything else that should be known about Coil?

Sleazy: We have talked quite a lot about ritual and I’m not sure if that gives a true picture of what we do. Because although it is part of our lives, it’s not something that we would particularly be interested in having a name for promoting amongst young people. The Temple Ov Psychic Youth was an attempt to bring ritual to other people. I wouldn’t really want to be seen doing that still, because I don’t feel it is my job to tell people how they should live. But if they want to ask me, that’s fine.

Charles Neil

PETER SLEAZY CHRISTOPERSON: 27 February 1955 – 24 November 2010

Along with the rest of Throbbing Gristle, Sleazy was a bold provocateur and activist. But he was also one of the most innovative musicians of his generation.

It’s impossible to overstate the influence of Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson, who died in his sleep yesterday, aged just 55. As a founding member of Throbbing Gristle, he was part of one of the most experimental and notorious British groups of all time. The first industrial band, their music covered everything from machine-like noise to almost quaintly melodic electro-pop. I can still remember the shock of realising the catchy United single was by the same people who I’d seen posing topless (along with female member Cosey Fanni Tutti) when it felt like pornography had suddenly infiltrated NME.

Formed in 1975, their outrages – which included performing naked, vomiting onstage and writing songs about burning bodies – created considerable controversy. Even the punks threw things. The tabloids frothed, and MP Nicholas Fairbairn gave the ultimate seal of condemnation/approval when he pronounced the band “wreckers of civilisation” – shortly before he was arrested for indecent exposure, thus exposing the hypocrisy that Christopherson and pals had sworn to highlight.

Throbbing Gristle’s art statements – or “sick stunts”, depending on your view – will outlive them. Christopherson was one of his generation’s first openly gay musicians, railing against homophobia and “Christian perversions” such as monogamy, while making music designed to help others live with HIV. But he was first and foremost one of the boldest, most innovative musicians of his generation.

His music has influenced everything from Marilyn Manson to techno. Joy Division’s Ian Curtis was a fan. Sleazy helped Throbbing Gristle frontman Genesis P-Orridge form the similarly influential Psychic TV, while Trent Reznor’s new band, How to Destroy Angels, take their name from the “ritual music for the accumulation of male sexual energy” of Coil, Christopherson’s trailblazing band. Fronted by Christopherson and his partner, John Balance – arguably pop’s firstly openly gay duo – Coil produced dark music that appeared in the films of Derek Jarman. Prior to this, Christopherson worked as a designer for the hugely influential agency Hipgnosis, creating iconic record sleeves for the likes of Peter Gabriel and Pink Floyd.

Christopherson was a man ahead of his time. He built electronic equipment and used digital sampling onstage years before Fairlight synths made it a staple tool in pop. He put together videos for everyone from Soft Cell’s Marc Almond to Paul McCartney. He was innovating right up until his death – in a Throbbing Gristle re-formed “to destroy our own myth” and as director of The Threshold Houseboys Choir, a band featuring computer-generated vocals.

Born in Leeds to an academic family, and benefiting from an education that enabled him to study computer programming and video, Christopherson explained that Throbbing Gristle’s innovation came about because the band were social misfits who had no idea what they were doing and so did not recognise rules. His nickname, along with his bands’ fearsome reputations, belies the truth of a gentle, much-loved soul with a benign manner, who loved “silly electronic gadgets”.

This summer, after Throbbing Gristle concerts were cancelled amid rumours of an illness, Christopherson insisted: “We are all only temporary curators of our present bodies, which will all decay, sooner or later. In a hundred years or so all the humans currently alive will have died. I take great comfort in knowing, with certainty, that thing that makes us special, able to enrich our own lives and those of others, will not cease when our bodies do but will be just starting a new (and hopefully even better) adventure … ”

Even in death, Peter Martin Christopherson is still giving us something to think about, which we should celebrate.

First set on the night: Background Of Malfunction / Sick Butchers / 1970′s / Neu Smell / Tube Disasters

Main headlining set on the night: Background Of Malfunction / Progress / Fight War Not Wars / Blinded By Science / Sick Butchers / Myxamatosis / TV Dinners / Charity Hilarity / Is There Anybody There / Fun Is Over / Take Heed / Tapioca Sunrise

Main headlining set on the night cont: Neu Smell / Tube Disasters / Hitlers Still A Nazi / They Lie We Die / Some Of Us Scream / 1970′s (PART)

Indebted to Mick Slaughter, late of Orbituary fanzine from 1982, for sending in this cassette of a concert by Flux Of Pink Indians that he promoted and recorded on a hand held cassette recorder. Mick has also kindly given a little insight on the concert which is written out in the text below. Flux performed two sets (the reason as described in Mick’s text below) and the recording quality on both sets is quite lo-fi, but an interesting listen never the less. Many many more live Flux performances on this site if you care to use the search function.

Photo of Flux banners courtesy of Martin Flux, photo of Ruth Hagar from Ruth’s collection. All other photos and flyers coutesy of Mick Slaughter.

Most of my gigs that I attended, involved taking a train up to London, it was either that or a train down to the Gravesend Red Lion.  There was nothing in-between although there was a large catchment area, so with my involvement with bands through my fanzine Obituary, I decided to try and improve the local scene and organise some gigs in the area. My first gig at the Dartford YMCA was for Sinyx and The Apostles, but this was disastrous as unbeknown to me at the time, the more popular Rubella Ballet had organised a gig just a few miles away in Plumsted.  Apart from gigs in Gravesend, two gigs in the same area in a year were a rarity let alone the same night!

As Flux were my favourite band at the time, I was very pleased to have had already organised one for them too, a fortnight later on May 22nd 1982 and they added System to the bill, and because they always liked to have a local band playing to, Naked from Gillingham also supported.

My fear of another repeat of their being more band members than fans were ruled out as soon as I appeared at the venue as a queue had already formed.  Unfortunately because the YMCA had no bar, the pub next door was doing a roaring trade and trying to get people out of the pub was a problem.  Because of this, Flux played an early short set and word soon got around that it was time to come into the venue.  As soon as it filled up, Flux walked off and The System played their set.

As with many gigs in those days, the night was visited by skinheads who started to sieg heil during the full Flux set which you can clearly hear during the recording and as the crowd were dealing with the individuals (with the help of Colin Jerwood allegedly!) Flux began playing “Fight war not wars”.  With the idiots slung out, the gig continued and the tape remains one of my favourite sets, it was Flux at their very peak.

The Skinheads later returned and smashed one of the windows and I was told the next day that I had to either pay for the damage or I could never organise gigs there again.  As I was still cringing with embarrassment from the Sinyx gig, I hadn’t planed to organise any more so I accepted the latter.

Obituary fanzine was inspired by FACK fanzine and covered all the usual anarcho bands at that time, with big interviews with Conflict, DIRT, Hagar The Womb and Anthrax amongst others.  I always tried to get something new and exclusive from bands in terms of artwork, photo’s or news and I think that was one of the reasons why it peaked at selling 1000 copies during it’s run of twelve issues.

Mick Slaughter

Kindest regards and best wishes go to Ruth ex warbler of Hagar The Womb whose birthday it is today. Hoping you had a nice relaxing time on your special day. All the best from all the KYPP online crew and from your old mucker Mick Slaughter.

Tube Disaster / Two Years Too Late

Target On My Back / What Have You Got To Smile About?

When Flux Of Pink Indians released the ‘Neu Smell’ 7″ single on Crass Records, there was a certain interest in the previous band that Flux had transformed from in Bishops Stortford, Hertfordshire called The Licks (the name of the band if you check their only 7″ single released in the bands lifetime on Harlow’s Stortbeat Records in 1979).

The Licks was a label friendly name used purely for non shock value. The band had been called The Epileptics, but the record label deemed this moniker too offensive to put on a cover of a punk record. The Epileptics performed rudimentary punk rock, a lot of the time at The Triad venue in the town, and generally supported by The Eratics from Waltham Cross, U Samples from Bishops Stortford and Urban Decay from Harlow.

Members of The Epileptics included at one time or another Steve Drewitt from Newtown Neurotics, Stan Stammers later on of The Pack / Theatre Of Hate, Sid from Rubella Ballet and most surprisingly Annie Anxiety. The Epileptics played with Crass at The Triad at least twice, but both bands performed together elsewhere in London several other times.

Crass would eventually support the soon to be named Flux Of Pink Indians through shared gigs and tours, releasing the first Flux single on the Crass record label. Crass and John Loder of Southern Studios also went on to give advice and help to start up Flux’s own label, Spiderleg Records.

The original Stortbeat copy of the first Licks 7″ single  ’1970′s Are Made In Hong Kong’ was (and still is) a rarity. Stortbeat records either lost or refused to supply the master tapes for the tracks so Flux (as they band were now called) went into the studio with Penny Rimbaud of Crass sorting out the drumming duties, and recorded both the tracks that were available on that 1979 single again.

This rerecorded version of ’1970′s’ was released as the debut release on Spiderleg Records at the beginning of 1981.

One other interesting fact was that The Epileptics performed at Stonehenge in June 1980, but the bikers would not appreciate the punk vibe on that day so started causing trouble, stopping Crass and Poison Girls from performing thier sets later on that night.  The Mob and The Snipers got away with performing sets earlier in the day though. A fair amount of people following the punk band’s that afternoon and night were badly hurt by the much older biker fraternity. This is ironic as both Crass and Poison Girls performed at Stonehenge  in June 1979 without any problems. From what I am led to believe, members of Epileptics had insulted some bikers from the stage which may have helped to ignite some of the trouble which was already brewing up.

The Epileptics (Colin Latter – vocals, Clive Griffiths – guitar, Derek Birkett – bass and Richard Coveney – drums) were originally going to be called The Epileptic Fits, a name suggested by Colin’s mum, but the band decided that The Epileptics sounded better. Early in 1978, the fledgling band practised in Clive’s bedroom. Self-penned songs such as “Dear Deirdre”, “I Wanna Give You A ‘69” and “Who’s Chasing Who” were soon put together, and the foursome announced their presence in their home town of Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire that summer with spray-painted graffiti.

Together with their name, they had a logo and a slogan – ‘Smash Guitar Solos‘ – which attracted my interest in a big way. I’d previously been guitarist with the band The Darlex, but as soon as I saw the Epileptics’ DIY publicity campaign I was impressed and wanted a part of their action. First, I had to find out who they were…

The Triad Centre was a great place to see bands and just hang around with other punks from Harlow, including members of the Sods and Newtown Neurotics, and surrounding areas. I asked around and was pointed in Col and Rich’s direction; I went over and said “If you ever need a guitarist, let me know.” Coincidentally, Clive was about to leave and go to college, so they told me to come along the following Saturday to one of their rehearsals. I did, and I was in!

They had already played two gigs – one at Triad in August, and one at London’s Covent Garden with Crass – but needed new material. Col and I reworked some of the older songs and changed the lyrics and titles, and collaborated on some new material too, such as “Tube Disaster”, and our first gig together was at the beginning of November 1978.

In January 1979 we got the chance to support Crass and the Poison Girls in Bradford, but the van we’d hired broke down on the way, and we reached the gig just as Crass were finishing their set. In March we recorded our first demo tape and started to attract a small following; thereafter we regularly played at Triad, as well as doing gigs in London’s Conway Hall with Crass.

For a while we changed our name to Epi-X, but then reverted to the Epileptics; our line-up also changed briefly in summer, when Stan Stammers replaced Derek on bass. (Stan would later go on to Theatre of Hate and Spear of Destiny.) After playing one gig under the pseudonym Acid Experience, with Derek back in, the Epileptics decided to take a break as personality clashes had been surfacing. In August, we were approached by Stortbeat Records to record a single, and – with a dubious change of name to The Licks – did just that in September.  

Having played just one gig as The Licks, the name reverted to the Epileptics again, but by November differences in how we thought the band should go led to Richard deciding to leave; Col and Derek decided to get Sid (from Rubella Ballet) to replace him, and within a week of their decision, I made up my mind to leave too. Two guitarists were brought in, Andy Smith and Neil Puncher (previously of the U. Samples), and the band continued to play local, London and other gigs – including Stonehenge Festival where they were bottled offstage.

During the middle of 1980 the band changed their name to Flux Of Pink Indians.

Kev Hunter

Colour memories above, courtesy of Michael Mitchell.

Written memories above, courtesy of Kev Hunter from The Epileptics, ripped off for all the right reasons from punk77.co.uk site

Black and white memories below, courtesy of Tinsel and the Bowes Lyon House Stevenage.

Verbal memories below, courtesy of Sean ex Eat Shit and God Told Me To Do It. Many thanks to him for the text.

Calling 1000 Dreadlocks / Young Gifted And Black / Legalizing / South Camp Road Rock / Meditation Rock / Rocking Warrior

String Hanger / Marcus The Prophet / Natty Ah Sufferer I / Six Million Dollar Rock / End Of Slavery / Legalizing

Uploaded tonight is an extremely rare LP entitled ‘Calling 1000 Dreadlocks’ on the very short lived Chalwa record label from Kingston, Jamaica. Involved in the recording sessions for this vinyl release were the Skin Flesh And Bones studio band alongside Augustus Pablo with his melodica and flute, Dave Barker and Dennis Alcapone on vocals and dubchatter. King Tubby was mixing, Clem Bushay was producing and supposedly Alton Ellis was overlooking everything generally.

There is no sleeve artwork for my copy of this LP, it never appeared with any artwork for the original release, just a straight white disco bag complete with a sticker with a little more information upon it. This release was limited to only 500 copies from it’s release date in the mid 1970′s.

This is the last reggae release I will be able to upload onto this site for a while (with any amount of ease) as I have placed all my reggae 7″, 10″, 12″ and LP vinyl (and also my huge collection of 7″ vinyl of all other genres) into thirty five large boxes tonight. All the boxes will be placed neatly into a local storage area tomorrow morning. There will be some work done on my house for a little while, then I intend to keep that room empty whist selling Penguin Towers for hopefully a larger ‘family sized’ version of Penguin Towers…

Other news; I am off for over a week and will not be back until after the middle of November, so I wish all the KYPP browsers well, and I will start uploading posts (not reggae or any 7″ records though) again on my return…

Penguins photographs below; Rusty and his bag of collie weed in Bluefields Westmoreland, Marcus Garvey Drive in downtown Kingston, St Andrews and finally Rockers International record shop along Orange Street in downtown Kingston, St Andrews. Text ripped of the wikk.

In the late 1960s, Lloyd Parks performed with the Invincibles band (whose members also included Ansell Collins, Sly Dunbar and Ranchie McLean) before teaming up with Wentworth Vernal in The Termites.

In 1967, they recorded their first single, “Have Mercy Mr. Percy”, and then an album Do the Rocksteady for Coxsone Dodd’s Studio One label.

After recording “Rub Up Push Up” for the Dampa label, Parks and Vernal split up.

Parks then briefly joined The Techniques as a replacement for Pat Kelly, recording tracks such as “Say You Love Me”, before embarking on a solo career and later starting his own label, Parks. His second single was the classic “Slaving”, a moving song about the struggles of a working man.

As a solo artist, he recorded a number of songs for Prince Tony Robinson, including “Trenchtown Girl” and “You Don’t Care”. Some of his best known solo hits include “Officially”, “Mafia” (both 1974), “Girl In The Morning” and “Baby Hang Up The Phone” (both 1975).

Parks was a studio bass player, backing many of the reggae artists, including Justin Hinds on Duke Reid’s Treasure Isle label. He was a member of Skin Flesh and Bones along with Ansell Collins on keyboards, Tarzan on keyboards, and Ranchie MacLean on guitar. This group backed Al Brown on his hit “Here I am Baby”, and many other artists.

When Skin Flesh and Bones started playing for the Channel One Studios, Parks renamed the band The Revolutionaries. Parks was also a member of Joe Gibbs’ house band, The Professionals, performing hits such as Althea & Donna’s “Up Town Top Ranking”, and in the 1970s he backed artists including Dennis Brown, The Abyssinians, The Itals, The Gladiators, Culture and Prince Far I. In 1974, he founded the We the People Band.

Lloyd Parks interview by Jim Dooley

I understand your first group was called The Invincibles. Who were the members of that group?

In that group you have: Sly Dunbar on drums, Ansel Collins on piano, a guitarist named Scott…. he played lead guitar at the time, and I played rhythm guitar at that time. I don’t remember the name of the bass player. There’s a guy who used to play trombone named Lloyd Carr.

So how did the formation of the Termites come about?

The Termites came about before that particular group. Because that group was like a band … I was like an instrumentalist. But my first group was really the Termites.

You sang with a gentleman named Wentworth Vernal.

Wentworth Vernal.

Where is he now?

Well, he’s out of the business. He’s not interested in the business. He’s in Jamaica still.

Was working for Coxsone a positive experience?

It’s a memorable one. Because, I remember the first time me and my partner went there to do a song. We thought we were harmonizing good … we were! But Coxsone say, maybe he didn’t like the song, him say, he called everybody Jackson, him say: ‘Jackson, you have to go home and listen to the radio’. So we went home and we listen to the radio and we come back another day for an audition with a song called ‘Have Mercy Mr. Percy’. Him say ‘Yes, Jackson! That’s the song!’ and him record it with us. It was on the top ten for a little while and then he record an album called ‘Do The Rock Steady’.

It’s a nice album … and still sounds nice.

Yeah.

Did you play any guitar or bass when you were at Coxsone’s – or were you just straight vocals?

Straight vocals.

What musicians were you working with at Studio One?

Bryan Atkins on bass, Jackie Mittoo, a saxophone player called Campbell, Bobby Ellis, Roland Alphonso and Johnny Moore.

Were you working for any other studios at the same time as Coxsone’s?

No, that was the only one. After Coxsone, then we went to an independent producer, a label called Dampa, and we record a tune called ‘Push It Up’. After that, myself and Wentworth Vernal, we split up. Then I recorded a song called ‘Slaving Everyday’.

By yourself? Singing?

Yeah.

What label was that on?

On ‘Parks’ label. Then I went solo and start doing stuff. I formed a group after that now. We really didn’t have a name for that group. But at that time my favorite group was the Techniques. I used to love the Techniques. And we form a group and we sounded like the Techniques. So at that time Pat Kelly was the lead singer – he just left the Techniques. We went to Winston Riley with that group and he …

And he just took you!

Right. (laughter) That’s how it went. And we recorded a song called ‘Say You Love Me’ with the Techniques – I was the lead singer. We did a few more songs, but I didn’t stay on there for a long time.

How much music did you record for Leslie Kong?

No, I didn’t record for Leslie Kong.

That’s funny because there is a collection of Beverly’s songs (jd- King Kong Compilation on Mango) that lists you and Jackie Jackson as the bass players.

No, I didn’t work for him.

How about Sonia Pottinger?

Let me see if I can remember … I know I worked for Treasure Isle. Played on some Justin Hinds songs.

Was that when Duke was still around?

Yes, Duke was around then.

Tell me about your relationship with ‘Prince’ Tony Robinson.

I played a lot of songs for Prince Tony. Like, there was an album with Big Youth and one with U Roy. I also recorded a song called ‘Trench Town Girl’ for Prince Tony. I recorded a version of ‘You Don’t Care’, and a version with a deejay called Winston Scotland – it was called ‘Buttercup’.

Who were the members of Skin, Flesh & Bones?

The members of Skin, Flesh & Bones was: myself on bass, Ansel Collins on keyboards, and another keyboard player called Tarzan, and Ranchie MacLean on guitar.

Who all did you backup when you were in that group. Was this mostly recording or mostly live work?

Live …. just maybe a few record. Maybe 3 or 4 recordings with Al Brown – sing a song called ‘Here I Am Baby’. It was a big hit in Jamaica and England. Also a singer called Cynthia Richards, she used to sing with that band. Skin, Flesh & Bones was also Al Brown on vocals and Cynthia Richards on vocals.

What year did you start working fo Joe Gibbs? Early 70′s?

About 1975-76.

Had you worked for Dennis Brown before that?

I started working for Dennis Brown as a backing band before. But, on record that’s where I start doing recording.

When you were at Gibbs, did you do any sessions with the Abyssinians?

Yes. I can remember one of the songs called ‘This Land’. I played on quite a few songs for Abyssinians.

And the Itals, you said you did some tracks with Lloyd Campbell.

Yes for Itals.

That was at Gibbs as well?

That was at Randy’s studio.

And the Gladiators, you did some work with them at Joe Gibbs.

Yes, that Prince Tony too.

How would you say that Gibbs studio compared to the other big studio at that time, Channel One? What do you think the differences were? Was there a different feel … a different vibe?

Both studio have their sound. They had individual sound. Whenever stuff been recorded at Channel One you could know. And when stuff was recorded at Joe Gibbs you could know. Channel One had a fantastic drum sound. Joe Gibbs had a good drum sound as well. People used to talk about Channel One drum sound.

Sly seemed to be running both places.

Both places (laughter).

Did you do a lot of work at Channel One?

Well, for individual producers.

Not necessarily for the HooKim’s though.

I did some records like ‘It’s a Shame’ by Delroy Wilson. Some other songs that I don’t even remember the title.

Did you ever record any songs that got credited to The Revolutionaries? The Revolutionaries seemed to have a very flexible lineup.

Yeah, because I started it. Like the Skin Flesh & Bones move over to Channel One and they call it The Revolutionaries. I’m trying to remember – I know I played songs there … but I can’t remember what was outstanding, that was a hit.

It seems like you played on a thousand different records in the 70′s. Did you have a favorite studio to work at?

I used to enjoy working at Joe Gibbs, Dynamic Sounds and Federal. Randy’s studio was like 1969-70. The studios that were outstanding at that time were Dynamic Sound and Randy’s, because that was even before Channel One.

Your talking early 70′s now.

Yeah. That was like Randy’s and Dynamic Sound. They were fully booked everyday ….everyday. We were doing sessions everyday. Sometimes we hide from the promoters and the producers. For real! Like everyday!

You were working too hard.

Yes, sessions everyday.

How do you think your sound is different from all of the other bassist’s around that time? Robbie, Fully, Ranchie… What makes the Lloyd Parks sound unique?

Well, I have a style where I might be playing a bassline, normal, and I do something similar … like a drumroll on the bass. I fill in those spots sometimes.

I find your bass playing to be faster …. I don’t know if you know what I mean by that.

It’s a different sound.

It seems to suit the rockers sound more …

I know what you mean. Because, I try to develop a unique style. I try to be different from every other bass player.

You did two or three albums on your own – singing vocals … that came out on Trojan in the U.K.. Do you miss singing?

Well ….

I know you still sing some live ….

Yes, because, right now I have a CD that should be released any time.

Really?

People keep bothering me, say ‘You shouldn’t stop singing’. But, I get so involved with the bass. I get to love it. I say, well, it’s like multi-talent. I can sing. I can play bass. But, I was into the bass. But, I really and truly love singing.

What label is your CD going to come out on?

Well, it might be Parks label, or it might be some other … I might sub it to someone else.

Where did you record it?

I record it between Music Works Studio and Mixing Lab.

Do you like Mixing Lab?

Yeah man, it has a nice sound.

Do you prefer to play bass or guitar?

Bass.

(laughter) I know you usually play bass, I was just wondering …

Because, I used to play guitar first, and then switched to bass.

So you worked for a little bit for Delroy Wright – doing some stuff for the Mighty Diamonds.

Delroy who?

Wright.

Delroy Wright … what he does?

He did a couple of albums with the Mighty Diamonds … I’ve forgotten the names now. This would have been in the 80′s. (J.D – I think the reason why Parks does not remember his name is because those sessions were run by Al Campbell. Delroy was more of an executive producer.)

Around 1978 you formed ‘We The People’ …

No it was in 1974.

Wow, I didn’t realize it has been going that long.

Yeah, ’74.

Did you want to set up a touring group so you could have some control over the situation – over the membership, over what work you did? … so you could control your career more.

That was not the purpose. That was just to continue. Because, like I said, I used to play with Skin, Flesh & Bones band and I shut it. I just wanted to continue with my musical career. And I say, well, the best bet to form … it wasn’t specially formed to be a backing band or anything else. Because when we started we used to go places and people dance. Like a dance with a dance band.

You don’t see that much anymore.

Oh no no.