Getting The Fear – Retford Porterhouse 09/03/84 + Leeds Warehouse 29/08/84

Retford Porterhouse 1 – Death Is Bigger / Fatal Date / Spirit Ov Youth / Coming Down Fast / Dune Buggy Attack / Wish I Was Dreaming

Retford Porterhouse 2 – Swell / Against The Wind / Last Salute / Before I Hang

Leeds Warehouse 1 – Death Is Bigger / Sometimes / Jeroen / Fatal Date / Against The Wind / We Struggle / Swell x2 / Spirit Ov Youth / Rise / Last Salute

Leeds Warehouse 2 – Coming Down Fast / Death Is Bigger

These live tapes from Getting The Fear were given to me by Genesis P’Orridge of Psychic TV while he was still residing in Beck Road, Hackney. A nice couple of cassettes that showcased the live set on a couple of dates recorded in two northern towns by persons unknown to me from the crowd, not the mixing desk.

Getting The Fear evolved from the ashes of Southern Death Cult whose singer Ian Astbury had jumped shipped towards the end of 1983 to form Death Cult with various members of Ritual and Theatre Of Hate. Bee, an ex member of Danse Society joined the backline of Southern Death Cult namely Buzz, Barry and Aky and started rehearsals to lead up to the concert performance recordings that appear on these tapes.

Bee at the time was an on/off member of The Temple Of Psychic Youth and friend of Psychic TV. He was suitably adorned with piercings and tattoos, stabbed and inked by the now deceased Mr Sebastian who operated in his tattoo and piercing parlour along Grays Inn Road near the Mount Pleasant Post Office hub.

The band got a lot of attention from Kill Your Pet Puppy’s fanzine’s successor in all things colour-musu-politikal-magick wise, the wonderful Vague fanzine run by Tom Vague who was a fixture in the same squats and run down gig venues as the KYPP collective and no doubt some of the browsers reading this now. Vague fanzine essays also meant features in the sadly missed Zig Zag magazine which was a nationwide monthly publication.

There was a real buzz about this band and Tom who had a finger in both the Southern Death Cult and T.O.P.Y. camps went onto champion this band and was rightly expecting huge potential from them.

RCA signed up this extremely good looking bunch of alternative boys in 1985 and sold them, as one would imagine, as a flat sounding, over made up pop band ready for the then dwindling Smash Hits magazine market. Not quite as gritty as Vague fanzine or anyone that witnessed some of the celebrations that were the concerts that Getting The Fear performed imagined them to be. Still…

RCA released one 12″ entitled ‘Last Salute’, with the B side ‘We Struggle’ being the pick of the tracks.

They seemed to be a band that was destined to burn out very quickly which of course they did. 1986 saw Bee and Barry start up Into A Circle and Aky get Fun-Da-Mental together. Bee went to Thailand where he still resides and Buzz went to France where he may well still be…

Photographs are from my collection and showcase a performance at Stevenage Bowes Lyon House in March 1984.

Buzz cartoon by Bee courtesy of The Day Of The Ray Gun Cometh fanzine dedicated to Lena…!

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