Enochion Calls / Love Damage / Tape Sex / Unclean / Unclean Monks / Ov Power

Thee Shining / Colour Climax / Just Drifting (part)

Uploaded tonight is a tape I was given by Genesis P Orridge way back in 1986 when I used to go to Beck Road on semi regular occasions. The tape is of the infamous Sordide Sentimental concert that Psychic TV performed in Rouen around the time that the record label Sordide Sentimental released in limited quantities the ‘Roman P’ 7″ single. The poster above for the Rouen performance is an original from my collection, the same graphic was reduced in size and added to the package for the ‘Roman P’ release. All other Psychic TV images taken from ‘Thee Grey Book’ and ‘Thee Sigil Book’ also from my collection, text below by John A Walker from his book ‘Cross-Overs: Art into Pop, Pop into Art’.

For the realisation of this project Psychic TV were: Genesis P-Orridge / Paula P-Orridge / Alex Fergusson / John Gosling / Paul Reeson

Psychic TV’s  ’Roman P’ 7″ single on Sordide Sentimental can be listened to HERE

Performing before a live audience is common to both Pop music and Performance art. It is not surprising, therefore, that some Performance artists have crossed from one realm to the other. Genesis P-Orridge is a case in point. He was a leading figure first in the Performance group COUM Transmissions (1969-76), then in the music groups Throbbing Gristle (1976-81) and Psychic TV (1981- 1990).

Genesis P-Orridge (originally Neil Andrew Megson) was born in Manchester in 1950. He came from a middle-class background, went to a grammar school in Stockport and then, in 1968, to Hull University to study social administration. In his youth P-Orridge was impressed by the works of the Dadaists, Aleister Crowley, Jack Kerouac, Joyce, Sartre, Camus and Andy Warhol. William Burroughs was also influential, especially his “cut-up” method of composition (P-Orridge was later to meet Burroughs). P-Orridge’s musical tastes encompassed the Rolling Stones, Frank Zappa, the Velvet Underground and John Coltrane. Since Happenings were in fashion in the 1960s, P-Orridge organised some with the help of school and college friends. From the beginning he evinced a desire to mix media, to improvise and to perform live: in 1968 he participated in the Early Worm rock band and the Transmedia Exploration Group. At Hull University he met Cosey Fanny Tutti and they formed COUM Transmissions. An early event—”The ministry of anti-social insecurity”—took place in Hull’s Ferens Art Gallery.

In the early 1970s Genesis and Cosey moved to London where, having established a reputation in the art world, they received grants from the Arts Council for activities in Britain and from the British Council for events in various European cities. Their relations with the official art world were uneasy—eventually they declared it pretentious and elitist—and the public monies they received were later to provoke the wrath of the popular press.

An issue of central concern to COUM Transmissions was the boundary which separates art from everyday life. The effect of this boundary was to create an antiseptic realm in which works of art were contemplated in a distanced, detached manner. As a result art had lost its magical power to disturb, it had ceased to function in the important way it did in “primitive” tribal societies. Although rituals and performances of various kinds are to be found in all spheres of modern life, only a few specially designated ones count as art. COUM Transmissions undermined the art/life distinction by transposing activities from one sphere to the other, and by the adoption of shock tactics. Ultimately, their aim was to destroy the barrier altogether.

Some of COUM Transmission’s early performances were innocuous enough. I recall a low key piece about one of Marcel Duchamp’s readymades which took place in a South London arts centre in front of a tiny audience. Another work, a solo performance by Cosey at the Hayward Gallery, consisted of a gentle, balletic display of bodily movement. Candlelight was used to create a magical atmosphere and a large audience, including many children, found the performance hypnotic and pleasurable. As time passed, however, the desire to outrage and transgress took over. Like Yoko Ono, Cosey began to slice her clothes, while Genesis began to simulate masturbation. In brutal performances similar to those of the Viennese “actions” or “direct art” of Günter Brus, Otto Müehl and Hermann Nitsch, COUM Transmissions degraded, humiliated and hurt themselves in public. Some in the audiences felt sick, others found the experience cathartic.

During the early 1970s P-Orridge participated in the international “Mail art” movement. One postcard—a reproduction of Magritte’s 1939 painting “Time Transfixed” to which he had added a copulating couple—was judged indecent and gave rise to a court case which ended with Genesis being fined. This case had its amusing side: GPO was prosecuted by the GPO (General Post Office).

A much more serious scandal erupted in October 1976 as a result of a COUM Transmissions exhibition entitled Prostitution at the ICA Gallery in London. Cosey had been earning money as a stripper and as a model for soft-core pornography. In her eyes this was a form of art or popular culture even though it was not recognized as such by the art world—one could say she had prostituted herself for the sake of art. Her frankness in admitting this—by including photographic examples in the COUM Transmissions show—caused a moral panic in the popular press. Besides the photos, the exhibition contained whips, chains, used sanitary towels, bloodstained clothes and a sculpture. Performances by COUM Transmissions were due to be given during the course of the exhibition, but because of the public uproar these were canceled and the exhibition’s contents censored. A provocative press release ensured a crowded opening at which the groups Throbbing Gristle and LSD played. A professional stripper was hired for the evening (a clear-cut example of cross-over) and was disconcerted by the art world context in which she found herself. The popular press affected to be shocked by the “waste” of public money on a “sex” show. In statements to the press, P-Orridge claimed that COUM Transmissions’s aims were to parody all that was wrong with the art world and to infiltrate the mass media in order to show how they distort information.

Throbbing Gristle. Discipline.  Having burnt their boats in the art world in spectacular fashion, P-Orridge and his friends turned their attention to the music business. “Throbbing Gristle” was the deliberately distasteful name which Genesis, Cosey, Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson and Chris Carter devised for their “rock” group. Throbbing Gristle lasted for several years and during its existence numerous LPs and sound and video cassettes were issued. A typical tape— Beyond Jazz Funk: TG Psychic rally in Heaven (1980)—features tracks with such inviting titles as Rite of death, Discipline and Termination.

As one might expect, Throbbing Gristle’s “music” was highly unconventional. It blended improvised noises, howls and chants, and primitive rhythms. Pieces tended to be lengthy and to build hypnotically to powerful climaxes or to break off abruptly. Throbbing Gristle’s aim was to transcend all existing categories of music, consequently labels such as “avant garde” or “Pop” are of little value. Their performances constituted a violent assault on the senses and preconceptions of the audience, who had to contend with dazzling lights and mirrors directed towards them.

The imagery employed by Throbbing Gristle was morbid and in bad taste: Nazi concentration camp ovens featured on posters, the lightning flash insignia (a high voltage symbol) of Mosley’s blackshirt movement appeared, and a film of castration was projected during live performance. Those who turn to music for entertainment, solace and escape would be well advised to avoid Throbbing Gristle’s records.

In 1976 Throbbing Gristle founded Industrial Records to explore through various media the connotations of the word “industrial”. Walter Benjamin, in his famous essay The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction, argued that mechanical reproduction had destroyed the “aura” of traditional art, had destroyed art’s links with ritual. Throbbing Gristle’s idea was unusual because it sought to combine ritual with industrial and technological means of artistic production. “Industrial culture” was also ironic because at that moment an economic recession was rapidly eroding Britain’s manufacturing base. As the factories of the first industrial age fell into decay, they acquired for Throbbing Gristle and others a grim aesthetic appeal— a variation on the romantic taste for ruins. For a time Throbbing Gristle re-created the non-musical sounds of the urban environment; their graphics featured deserted factories and they wore dingy industrial-type overalls. Later, in accordance with their cultural guerrillas stance, they appeared in camouflage battle dress designed by Lawrence Dupre of Paris.

Following the dissolution of Throbbing Gristle in 1981, Genesis and Christopherson formed a new partnership called “Psychic TV”. The underlying themes of Throbbing Gristle -”sex, resistance, subversion and discipline”—were retained, but there was a desire to reach a broader audience. Psychic TV did not conceive of themselves as just another band but as a total cultural event; their aim was to transcend the short-lived fashions and triviality of most Pop music. During live performances holophonic sound (3D) was employed and linked to images appearing on multiple video monitors. One critic described these screens as “flickering portholes to hell”.

Genesis P-Orridge has explained the rationale of Psychic TV’s mixed-media show as follows: “Perhaps we are the first group which are doing truly Surrealist television in that we are using television to investigate the subconscious and the unconscious. Where Salvador Dali would do a fantastic painting, we try to get the same jarring of sensibility, the same confusion leading to revelation by juxtaposition of television images, film images and sound. Because, as most people realise, film and sound are integrated in order to manipulate the emotions and the perceptions of the viewer. And they are being bewitched, and they are in that sense very vulnerable. What we try to do is, in a sense, to be the obligatory bull in the china shop and churn a round images, concepts of initiation, the banal with the strange, the obvious with the obscure, to find out what happens and to short-circuit the training the brain has already had to be accepting without thought.”

Psychic TV have established for their followers an organisation called “Temple ov Psychick Youth”. This would normally be regarded as a “fan club”, but in the case of Psychic TV the Temple appears to be more of a mysterious pagan cult. Even so, like any record company marketing operation, the Temple offers for sale badges, T-shirts, booklets, records, sound and video tapes. Further information cannot be given because their present policy requires members to sign a declaration of secrecy. This policy arouses curiosity and at the same time reduces the possibility of prosecution by official authority.

Although Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV have little or no popular appeal—their work was/is too difficult and weird for mass consumption—they have certainly been an influential force and have gradually built up a loyal following amongst youngsters with a taste for the macabre. They have also demonstrated that by preserving organisational independence, by operating on low budgets, and by taking charge of your own production and publicity, artistic activities in the margins of society can be sustained for many years.

As regards the horrific subject matter they tend to dwell on, it has been argued that this is a one-sided world view because love, joy and kind deeds are also part of the human condition. And yet anti-social or evil human impulses and behavior continually occur and are continually being repressed. Genesis P-Orridge and co. arouse fear and hatred in so many quarters because they transgress the unspoken rule not to meddle with such matters. Yet, it could be argued in their defence that they conjure up demons not in order to further evil but to exorcise it. This is the true meaning of their performances: they are primitive rites serving for an advanced technological society the same function as the ceremonies of shamans and witchdoctors.

John A Walker

C.I.D. / I Couldn’t Be You / I Live In A Car / Tomorrows Girls / Killer / World War / Rockers / I.O.D.

T.V. Blues / Blues / Lady Esquire / All I Wanna Know / Crash Course / Young Criminals / B.I.C. / Disease / Stranglehold

In respect of finding six original black and white ‘Walkerprint’ larged sized photographs stuffed into the UK Sub’s second LP ‘Brand New Age’ the other week, I have great pleasure in showing them off on this post uploaded tonight. The photographs were sent to me originally by whoever was running the UK Subs fan club way back in 1980/1981 when I was a short staying member! Getting these photographs at the time was certainly not a bad investment. One years subscription payment, slipping a grubby postal order written out to the fan club and then sending the envelope to some long forgotten P.O. Box number all those years ago…Result!  I am sure everyone in the fan club would have got the same or similar great photographs but as I had forgotten all about them it was a very pleasant surprise to have them all fall into my lap pulling out the ‘Brand New Age’ LP to give my favorite UK Sub’s track ‘Warhead’ a spin. Most of my records are in storage at the moment so I could not play the 7″ single format of this track! 

Anyway I felt like uploading the debut LP by the UK Subs tonight, ‘Another Kind Of Blues’ which was released in a blue sleeve, along with a blue inner sleeve, pressed on lovely blue vinyl and even had two tracks held within the grooves with the word ‘blue’ attached in the title!

A class LP in any case, although I personally prefer the ’Brand New Age’ LP…

Text below lifted from the book by Alex Ogg entitled ‘No More Heroes – A complete history of UK Punk from 1976 to 1980′ – go get the book. Photographs from my collection…of course.

It’s easy to berate the Subs. After all, they’ve given their critics plenty of ammunition. If you lie down with dogs, you get fleas. And if you lie down in fleapits, where many of the Subs’ endless latter day gigs took place, and you’ve got a singer who was born sometime during the Norman conquests, you’re gonna get hammered by the music press. Especially when you veer into karaoke punk rock albums, when it seemed Charlie Harper was seeking to redefine pointlessness as an art form, and swap drummers and bass players like schoolkids exchange Pokemon cards.

But for all that . . . the early UK Subs albums especially, despite what the punk fashion police would have you believe, are engaging, entertaining, and musically literate. Few who do not know these records would associate the UK Subs with the level of finesse and aural bite they often displayed. It didn’t exactly help that they got caught up in the second wave of punk and were bracketed alongside one-trick ponies like the Exploited. But their first four studio albums contain some of the most searing musicianship of the punk era. And the band that produced them was smart, funny and personable. There are also a few treasures to be found on their later output, particularly anything that their genuinely innovative guitarist Nicky Garratt was associated with, but the gems are spread a good deal thinner.

Charlie Harper, as everyone knows, was knocking on a bit when punk kicked in. In fact, he was old enough to be a part of London’s last big generational upheaval, the swinging sixties. He’d busked around Europe with a harmonica and an acoustic guitar, hung out with the Rolling Stones (he was at one time nicknamed ‘Charlie Stones’) and taught Rod Stewart how to play blues harp. Thereafter he set up several pay-the-bills R&B ventures, the first being Charlie Harper’s Free Press Band, titled in tribute to Muddy Waters’ song ‘Albert Harper’s Free Press’. They split when his fellow band members showed no interest in turning professional, so instead he led the Charlie Harper band and also moonlighted with a group called Bandana. By the mid-70s he was playing countless pub and club engagements alongside Scott Gorham, before he joined Thin Lizzy, as Fast Buck (later Gorham would also record with the Pistols’ Cook and Jones as part of the Greedy Bastards). These nocturnal activities were largely subsidised by his hairdressing business in Tooting.

The fourth or fifth incarnation of his various R&B combos were the Marauders. He decided to switch tack after a few nights at the Roxy watching bands like the Damned. “To me,” reckoned Harper, “punk was an excuse for fanatics to have their say, people like me who never had a chance before, people who have just been laughed at. Blokes like me who’ve just been through life being sneered at, fingers pointing, saying, ‘That’s the local nutcase’. When punk came along it was the best thing that ever happened to me. I was accepted.” The Damned would remain a particular influence, as he recalled to Phaze One fanzine. “The Damned are one of the bands that actually changed my whole life. I was going to Damned gigs, jumping around and then playing completely different music the next day.” A new name was evidently required so he opted for the Subversives, later trimmed to the Subs, and finally the UK Subs when he learned of the presence of a Scottish band of that name on Stiff Records.

Of course, Harper was in a unique position to compare the impact of the swinging 60s with the somnambulant seventies, as he confirmed to me in 2005. “The punk explosion was almost an exact parallel to the 60s R&B scene. In fact, early punks adopted all the 60s style, buying up all the old clobber. ‘My suit only cost a quid,” someone would say. Then someone would announce, ‘Mine was 50p!’. ‘Yeah, but it’s held together with safety pins.’ Every band played a cover version like ‘Wooly Bully’, a big hit in the 60s, every band has a sixties song on plastic, so the similarities were there.”

The line-up quoted at the start of this entry, essentially the Marauders in punk garb, was soon shuffled, shortly after Harper suffered his ‘first’ heart attack, largely as a result of prolonged sulphate use. Rehearsals at the Furniture Cave on the King’s Road saw Harper’s flatmate Greg Brown replace Anderson, who joined the Pentecostal Church, while Steve Jones took over on drums and a saxophone player, Dave Collins, was added. Of much greater import was the recruitment of guitarist Nicky Garratt, Harper’s soon to be longstanding co-writer. Classically trained but principally self-taught, he moved to London from Leicestershire on 1 January 1977. Previously he’s enjoyed a minor career in a local blues band with Honey Boy Hickling and Big Al Taylor, then a band with Geoff ‘J.B.’ Blythe, later of Dexy’s Midnight Runners.

In London he formed the Specimens, a short-lived punk band, though their song ‘Ronnie Biggs’ did transfer to the Subs’ set, where it became ‘B.I.C.’. He’d been advised to check out Harper’s group, who had “loads of gigs booked”, but had mistakenly presumed they were called the US Jets. “I first met Charlie at his apartment, where I was waiting for him to return from his salon,” Garratt told me in a letter in 1991. “Charlie was a hairdresser with a small business at the rear of a clothes store where the band would meet before gigs to load the ancient Marshall PA into the van. The UK Subs, as they turned out to be called, had been playing since the end of 1976 with a variety of personnel fronted by Charlie. They played a mix of punk and R&B with, at that point, a temporary guitarist and even a sax player filled in on covers like ‘Wolly Bully’ and ‘Talking Book’.”

Nicky Garratt made his debut at the Western Counties pub on 15 October 1977, three days after that first meeting, and without an audition. “He was dressed in black and looked like a young Wilko Johnson,” Harper later recalled. “I played the early demos that we did and he liked them and that was it.” “Although we kept the extra guitarist and sax player for another week,” Garratt told me, “Charlie and I put together a core of punk songs for the set in those two days before the first show. The songs included some that Charlie had written like ‘I Couldn’t Be You’ that Charlie had reworked while in the Marauders and ‘Stranglehold’, along with new (more punk style) songs we wrote together like ‘Telephone Numbers’ and ‘Illegal 15’. Suddenly the Subs were a 100% punk band.” Albeit one with a musical pedigree, as Garratt notes. “Charlie had a ‘street’ background as far as live performances, while I had five years’ training on classical guitar, as well as earlier bands. Charlie’s ‘get up and play’ spirit certainly taught me a great deal, but I think our musical DNA was fully loaded before that.”

With the line-up now settling down to Harper, Garratt, Slack returning on bass and Jones on drums, they secured residencies at the Western Counties and Tooting’s Castle pub. Jones was replaced by Rory Lyons in November 1977 as the group, whose HQ remained Harper’s Totting salon, where he coiffeured punk hairstyles for the likes of Adam Ant, further honed the new material. A show at Brighton’s Buccaneer venue on the 18th was filmed by Southern TV and transmitted in January 1978 – a photograph from the same show later appeared on the cover of the American release A.W.O.L.

On 21 November they cut their first demo as the UK Subs, featuring ‘Stranglehold’, ‘Tomorrow’s Girls’ and ‘Disease’, at YMC studios. “Our first attempts at recording were not good,” Harper told me. “We all recorded together in the studio to get a more ‘live’ sound, but it was hard to capture the live energy and attack”. Two days later they played Croydon Scamps to a crowd of absolutely no-one – the manager being required by his licence to put music on, receiving £35 for their efforts before the doors were even opened. Later that month they made their debuts at London’s most prominent punk venues, the Roxy and Marquee.

Steve Slack was losing interest, but agreed to remain while the band made their recorded debut as part of the Farewell to the Roxy compilation album (the UK Subs’ set, recorded on 28 December 1977, was later released as Live Kicks). His elder brother Paul took over immediately this was completed, and was given three days to prepare for his debut show at Liverpool’s Eric’s. In attendance that night were representatives from Stiff and Chiswick, both of whom passed on the group, though Stiff would later issue Live Kicks, much to the band’s consternation, shortly after debut album Another Kind Of Blues had charted. But then Charlie had sold off the publishing rights to the Roxy set in exchange for a crate of beer while down the Vortex one night.

The group, with Robbie Bardock stepping in for Lyons, who later moved on to King Kurt, continued to gig extensively throughout London, at the Vortex, Bridge House, Music Machine and 100 Club. Their 10th January show at the latter saw Paul Weller and Joe Strummer number among the audience. “We were supporting a reggae band,” Lyons recalled, “We’d finish a song and Charlie would say, ‘We’re just waiting for the drummer to catch up.’ I ended up tying him to a table in the bar by the end of his scarf after the gig. He didn’t even notice and the table and drinks toppled over when he got up to walk away.” At the end of January they’d secured a five-week residency at the Mitre in Tooting, which unfortunately fell through when the landlord was hit on the head with a pool ball.

On 3 February 1978 they entered the studio for the second time to record ‘Tomorrow’s Girls’ at Barry studios in London, but were unable to get the right drum sound. Despite the failure of these sessions, they continued to pull good audiences at venues including the Mitre and Forrester’s Arms in Tooting, Battersea Arts Centre, Putney’s White Lion, the Moonlight Club, Music Machine and Canning Town Bridge. In so doing they established a reputation as the hardest gigging band of their generation and Harper as the James Brown, or indeed, Peter Pan, of punk music. However, getting gigs was becoming increasingly difficult as the group faced bans from at least five pubs, as their volatile audience swelled and proved a little boisterous. At one point Wayne County accused them of having a ‘fascist’ following, which was unequivocally denied by the band, who also played a couple of Rock Against Racism shows to emphasise the point.

They picked up yet another new drummer, Pete Davies, in April. He was aboard for the group’s debut John Peel session, recorded on 23 May. Such was Peel’s enthusiasm for the band that he offered to finance their debut single, after sympathising over the lack of record company interest. (Two further Peel sessions followed, on 6 September 1978 and 17 June 1979). Their first national tour came as a support to the Farewell To The Roxy album, an ill-fated Scottish haul alongside Blitz, Acme Sewage Co and the Jets. Funding was non-existent and the group subsisted by undertaking washing up duties. They were forced to hire a car, on Nicky Garratt’s girlfriend’s credit card, in order to get back to London. Garratt: “By the time the tour happened, the UK Subs were by far the biggest band on it. Really, the attempt to do the tour was puzzling, as none of the other bands were really doing much. It was like the UK Subs and a ton of opening bands. I think the organisers were trying in vain to promote a couple of bands they were managing.” A series of supports to Sham 69, Girlschool, Tubeway Army and the Ramones, who would later cancel, at the Plymouth Metro, on 6 September, lifted their spirits somewhat.

Prior to that, on 11 July 1978, the UK Subs entered Spaceward Studios in Cambridge and cut three tracks; ‘C.I.D’, ‘I Live In A Car’ and ‘B.I.C.’.

These would comprise their debut single, released as part of a one-off deal with City Records, the only label thus far to express any interest. Garratt: “We most likely met Phil Scott of City through Girlschool, who were close friends of the Subs at the time. He was a good guy and did his best for us, as far as I can remember.” The single was released in eight different colours, establishing the Subs’ reputation for rainbow vinyl. The a-side was informed by the old bill constantly sniffing around their shows at the Castle in Tooting. ‘I Live In A Car’, always one of the band’s most enduring tunes, was “just about living in a tour van and not seeing much of anything else. The basic idea was that when the taxman or anyone’s after you you’re never there, you’re in the van, you’re away somewhere else. That’s the kind of basic message, whenever anyone’s trying to get money off you, you’re not in. Which was very, very convenient. Most of the time.” A second TV appearance followed as part of a BBC2 Omnibus documentary on independent record labels.

Following the single’s release the Subs signed to Alistair Primrose’s Ramkup management team, including manager Mike Phillips, on 16 May, over a couple of beers at the Prince William Henry in Blackfriars. He negotiated a deal with RCA subsidiary Gem later that month. The group were now ‘proper’ punk recording artists, though, interviewed by Garry Bushell for Sounds in August, Pete Davies insisted: “I don’t consider us to be a punk band, because punk when it started was young kids who didn’t really know how to play. We’ve all been playing for years apart from Paul, the bassist, who started from scratch. He learnt the bass in about one week before we played Eric’s.” In the same interview, Harper pointed out how the band had changed. “When UK Subs started we were really political. We did a couple of numbers like ‘No Rules’ and ‘World War,’ which was about the Baader-Meinhoff gang, and was about 24 seconds long. We had to slow it down to 30 seconds so you could hear the words. We’ve dropped the heavy political angle now because when we get on stage we just wanna forget reality and create our own escapism.”

Sessions for the band’s debut album began on 29 May 1979 at Kingsway Studios in London’s Strand, owned by ex-Deep Purple singer Ian Gillan, whose bass player John McCoy would serve as producer, mainly because he’d previously worked with Samson, who shared the Subs’ management. Sessions were preceded two days earlier by an appearance at the Loch Lomond festival alongside the Buzzcocks, Stranglers and Skids. They also became tabloid fodder on the intervening day when they ran a story about fan Phil Sick bumping into Prince Charles in Windsor and inviting him to a subsequent Subs’ show at the Music Machine. Other versions of this story have Subs’ fans writing to old jug ears and receiving a personal reply stating he had a prior engagement. Either way, it sounds like a record company scam to me. “Actually the original incident was purely a fluke,” Nicky Garratt told me in 2005, “as some of our fans walked across the side of a polo field where Prince Charles was playing. The press actually brought them together – it made the front page of the Daily Express and the Sun. It was our management who tried to make a meal of it by inviting the prince to the Music Machine.”

The sessions were interrupted by another ‘toff’ related incident, an appearance on June 11 at the Cambridge Trinity May Ball. This was filmed for the recently re-released Julien Temple documentary, Punk Can Take It. The film originally ran as a support feature to Breaking Glass, Scum and Quadrophenia, ostensibly because Gem also ran GTO films and thus had some clout in that area. It was notable for the pitched battle that took place between around 200 local punks who were unable to get into the venue. Some of the footage was actually taken from the Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle, which Temple had recently been working on, as he indulged in a little celluloid cut and pasting.

The UK Subs’ first release for Gem, ‘Stranglehold’, gave them their strongest ever chart showing in June, peaking at number 26, selling 75,000 copies and bringing an appearance on Top Of The Pops. The ‘Stranglehold’ tour began soon thereafter, though the group decided to pull out of a planned appearance at the Glastonbury festival (which brought them a front cover story for Sounds). However, their final show at the Lyceum was also filmed for Punk Can Take It, and four of the tracks were recorded and issued as the ‘For Export Only’ 12-inch, later given away free with copies of the Crash Course album. They actually had more punch than the parent album, too. A third single, ‘Tomorrow’s Girls’, was readied, the cover featuring Joanne Slack, Paul’s sister, who also briefly ran the group’s fan club. It sold almost as well as its predecessor and brought another Top Of The Pops appearance.

Riding the momentum, Another Kind Of Blues, initially released in blue vinyl, reached number 21 in the national album charts on release in September, as Pinnacle re-released ‘C.I.D.’. Garry Bushell gave the album a five-star review in Sounds, noting the songs were “Short, sharp, fast with great hooks, nifty, simple guitar” and that the album was a “near perfect slice of good time high energy punk.” Certainly, none of the songs outstay their welcome. ‘Young Criminals’ was originally written to be played as the fadeout to the film Scum. ‘Rockers’ was not, according to Charlie, a challenge to the new mod movement, but an adaptation of an old song called ‘Totters’ – totters being gypsies, and the name of a pub the group used to play. A strong blues influence, courtesy of Harper and Garratt’s previous bands, could be detected, alluded to in the album title. Producer John McCoy actually co-wrote and played on a rough version of ‘Crash Course’ with Nicky Garratt while the rest of the band were on a lunch break. Another Kind Of Blues also started the tradition of Subs’ albums being issued in alphabetical order (apparently, long-time Subs fan Tim Burgess of the Charlatans can name them all – how very fascinating).

A 35-date national tour, including three successive nights at the Marquee, also began in September. By this time ‘Tomorrow’s Girls’ was resident in the Top 30. Booked to appear on Top Of The Pops, the band refused to pull at show at Exeter and insisted their record company fly them down after they’d recorded their clip. And to make sure the fridge was full. For their next single they elected to record their cover of the Zombies’ ‘She’s Not There’, which again hit the top 40 and brought them to Top Of The Pops. Because Harper couldn’t hit the right range, Paul Slack handled the vocals after they’d toyed around with it during sound checks. Later Charlie would slate it as “awful”, though its rama-lama haste is actually quite endearing. The year was rounded out by their first, 12-date tour of America and Canada, beginning on 20 November 1979, and including two shows as support to the Police.

Brand New Age, this time produced by Harper and Garratt at Underhill Studios with engineer Laurie Dipple, was released in January 1980, and reached 18 in the charts. Many of the lyrics were written in the studio by Harper at the mixing stage, while the more esoteric musical inspirations included Syd Barrett’s ‘No Man’s Land’ (on ‘Rat Race’). Once again Garry Bushell gave it five stars in Sounds, though the band might as well have not existed for all the attention trendier publications like the NME would afford them. The highlights included the nugget-tough ‘Emotional Blackmail’ as well as opener ‘You Don’t Belong’ and a brace of fine singles. These comprised ‘Warhead’, soon to become the Subs’ signature tune, constructed over a thumping bassline Paul Slack used to play at sound checks, which Charlie wrote the words to one day in a chip shop, and ‘Teenage’. The latter was a bit of rabble-rousing aimed at the mod revival scene (and a song Mr Harper routinely dedicates to himself on set, despite now being well past 60). While ‘Warhead’ was probably Harper’s finest lyric, the sort of prophetic Nostradamus text that Jaz Coleman would later make Killing Joke’s speciality, the b-side was also worth checking out for Harper’s harmonica-driven instrumental ‘The Harper’ and a cover of Lou Reed’s ‘Waiting For The Man’. ‘Teenage’ was also backed by two of the band’s strongest songs of the period, ‘Left For Dead’, which could have been Motorhead, and the sterling ‘New York State Police’ (‘Keep your mouth shut or we’ll break your nose’)

In February they embarked on a major European tour as support to the Ramones (a bootleg from this period, Dance And Travel in The Robot Age, recorded at the Palilido in Milan, offers an effective souvenir of these happy times). On their return they were back to Top Of The Pops to perform ‘Warhead’, which had reached number 29 in the charts, and they returned again for ‘Teenage’. We’re at a crossroads now,” Charlie confessed to Garry Bushell, “the temptations are coming up, the big houses, the holidays abroad, and we’ll either split through it, or see it through to a real brand new age.”

Shows in Scotland followed, though Paul Slack had to be temporarily replaced by brother Steve when he caught pneumonia. At the same time Charlie recorded his solo single ‘Barmy London Army’, rejected by the rest of the band, with Chelsea’s guitarist, dedicated to Jimmy Pursey, whom he felt was getting a hard time. “One of those drunken nights down the Marquee, there was a R&B band on and the record company were down there. They suggested I should find a band like this for their label. And I replied that I’d do their single for ‘em, me being the R&B man, and it all stemmed from there and demos we did . . . I thought ‘Talk Is Cheap’ should have been the a-side but the record company thought otherwise.” Blow me if Pursey’s legal representatives didn’t then pursue him for half the royalties for using the ‘Kids Are United’ chant – which must have amounted to about 30p when all’s said and done. Charlie went on to record another solo single, ‘Freaked’, most notable for its excellent b-side, ‘Jo’. There was also an album of covers, Stolen Property, on which he was joined by a cast of thousands including Rachel Dolly Mixture, Paul Davies and Steve Slack of the Subs and Mood Six’s Tony Conway. It’s not unlistenable, surprisingly.

A 21-date full UK tour to promote Brand New Age culminated in a May 30th show at the Rainbow, but inter-band tensions had begun to surface. According to Harper’s comments at the time, Slack and Davies had become a little star-struck with the group’s new found popularity. It ended in a fist-fight one night after a Dutch TV show, and the two factions parted company after their management’s attempts at mediation failed. Slack and Davies briefly formed the reggae-influenced Allies to pursue a direction they’d forlornly attempted to push on the Subs. “I think the pressure within the band was quite high at that time,” Garratt told Ian Glasper. “Pete and Paul seemed to be unhappy, and as I recall, complained quite a lot. We were doing an awful lot of shows. Charlie and I felt the Subs were our baby, I suppose. We were working on stuff all the time and a natural crack formed between us.”

Alex Ogg

Blind Dogs / Dead Living / B-Ward / Zero Again / Inside / Media Person / Sacrifice / Only Human / Teenage Time Killer / The Gardener / Hearse / Tower of Strength / Dutchmen

Indebted to Nick Hydra for sending this material over to Penguin Towers, a Rudimentary Peni performance to go along with the other ones uploaded onto this KYPP site which were all uploaded from the original cassette tapes. This performance was recorded somewhere in the crowd at the L.M.C and is of a decent quality although a little tinny, but still, it is Rudimentary Peni and any tapes by this band are rare enough. Welwyn Garden City Ludwick Hall May 1982 was the only time I saw this band and as most people in the hall were waiting for Subhumans to come on stage Rudimentary Peni were largely ignored. Of course now the band have been elevated to mythical status and are still producing some great material in a beautifully sporadic way.

The text below outlining some of the centres that Rudimentary Peni performed at on a semi regular basis (ie more than once!) including the L.M.C. has been wrenched violently, kicking and screaming, from John Eden’s excellant uncarved.org site.

The Autonomy Centre, Wapping, London E1: August 1981 – March 1982

Organized by the London Autonomists and friends (some of whom disliked each other intensely) including Vince Stevenson, Charlotte Baggins, Martin Wright, Dave Couch, Ronan Bennett, Iris Mills and Fabian Thomsett with assistance from Andy Martin, Tony D, Trevor, Luggy, the people that later formed the Black Sheep Co-op and the Kill Your Pet Puppy Collective, Rob Challice, Rob Vex. Terry Watson, Mitch, John Apostle, Grant Matthews from Rudimentary Peni, various Hagars, Dagenham Pete, Rachel, Mark Ripper and Fod were regulars at the centre and helped out on occasions. Some of the money for the centre came from a benefit concert that UB40 played in Woolwich, along with the profit that came from the sales of  the Crass / Poison Girls 7″ single. The bands that played there were numerous but those who appeared regularly included: Rudimentary Peni, Part 1, The Mob, The Sinyx, Anthrax, Conflict, Crass, The Apostles, Cold War, The Eratics, Amsterdamned, What Is Oil, Twelve Cubic Feet, The S Haters, The Boiled Eggs and many more whose names have become immersed in the mists of time. Apart from live concerts there were book fairs, fanzine conventions, discussion groups, films, debates and political workshops.

The Centro Iberico, Westbourne Park, London W8: April 1982 – August 1982

Organized by The Mob (especially Mark Wilson) and JC who set everything up with the Spanish Anarchists who were already resident there. It was JC that got the electricity turned on  – the  Spanish Anarchists generosity was appreciated by sadly only a small minority of the hundreds of folk who attended the events – so to Isabel Anderson, Miguel Garcia and friends goes out a rather belated thank-you. All the people involved in The Autonomy Centre were involved here although by now Crass and Conflict were involved in their own problems (especially legal ones due to their records – police ones included) and the ubiquitous Kill Your Pet Puppy Collective occasionally took over completely which meant there was less actual organization, far too much chaos but generally more fun! The bands who played there were similar to those who played The Autonomy Centre but were perhaps a little more varied in idiom: Rudimentary Peni, The Mob, Part 1, The Sinyx, Rubella Ballet, Twelve Cubic Feet, Cold War, The Apostles, UK Decay, Dirt, Assassins Of Hope, The Cult Of The Supreme Being, Conflict, Riot/Clone, Blood & Roses, Youth In Asia and many more. Nearly all the events here were concerts although there were two film shows and a few theatre events which were very amateur but none the worse for that. There were, of course, continual theatre performances but since these were often part of the usual behavior of the audience they don’t really count!

The LMC, Camden, London NWI: September 1982 – February 1983

Organized by The Apostles and East London Workers Against Racism, this was more an alternative venue than a club. The organization here was minimal and suffered from a lack of PA equipment, an abundance of people who shouldn’t really have existed in a society that had long ago discovered penicillin and a financial situation strictly from Rab C Nesbit. The bands who played here were, though, committed and varied: The Replaceable Headz, The Mob, 4 Minute Warning, Zounds, Rudimentary Peni, Cold War, Twelve Cubic Feet, The Apostles, Flux Of Pink Indians, The Good Missionaries, Youth In Asia, Fallout, New 7th Music and a variety of poets and performance artists plus many other punk bands. Music events were the only things on offer here as bills had to be paid and the hall had to be hired. People have a tendency not to rush out to Camden from Gravesend and pay £1.50 to debate the politics of determinism versus free will… a pity really.

The Recession Club. Hackney, London E8: April 1983 – January 1984

Organised by The Apostles and Larry Peterson. The hall was attached to the recording studio used by The Apostles who were responsible for the hire of it and the equipment while Larry Peterson was responsible for the bands that actually played there. An amusing facet of The Recession Club was that the members of the audience were often better known than the bands booked to perform there! Those who did play have either disappeared into obscurity or are now very famous indeed: The Apostles, The Nocturnal Emissions, Attrition, Coil, The Unkommuniti, Peter North, The Invisible Band, New 7th Music, Hagar The Womb, In The Nursery, The June Brides, Pus, Napalm Death, Verbal Warning, Bet Lynch, The Replacement Headz, The Paramedic Squad, Youth In Asia, and a variety of poets, performance artists and other industrial / electronic groups. There were no events other than live music and most of the bands that played were not punk bands, largely due to Andy Martin’s impatience with and ambivalence towards such people who he considered to have become passé and to have outlived what little usefulness they ever had. He goes on to say that “the industrial music scene had taken over and it was here that the original punk spirit had begun to grow and mutate into some huge, many tentacled but often beautifully subtle intelligence network only occasionally marred by poseurs and butterfly collectors”.

Andy Martin from SMILE Magazine issue 12, 1994

“If ’1984′ or ‘The Trial’ had been a children’s book, Mr Messy would be it. No literary character has ever been so fully and categorically obliterated by the forces of social control. Hargreaves may well pay homage to Kafka and Orwell in this work, but he also goes beyond them…”

There’s some subversive reviews of The Mr Men books on the Amazon book site, thought they may be of interest…find them at this link here.