Spirit Ov Youth / Sometimes / Jerome / Swell
A tape given to me by Genesis P’Orridge of Psychic TV while he was still residing in Beck Road, Hackney during one of my many visits there. A nice cassette of the earliest demos that Getting The Fear recorded together, the individual tracks are performed with grace and with intimacy*.
The sleeve artwork for the tape is an original pencil drawing of Getting The Fear vocalist Bee, drawn by Bee himself according to Genesis P’Orridge.
*Please note there is quite a long gap between the third and fourth tracks on this tape.
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 back line of Southern Death Cult namely Buzz, Barry and Aky and started rehearsals to lead up to the recordings of the tracks that appear on this tape.
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 saw 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 were 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…
Photos of Getting The Fear by Chris Lovell.
There is a tape of some later recorded demos and practise sessions by Getting The Fear uploaded onto this site if you care to use the search function.
dan i
March 21, 2010 at 10:15 pmFun<Da<Mental – wicked band. I did my first ever (and pretty poor) DJ job at one of their gigs. Aki really turned things around with the whole Nation Records thing. I am sure we have chatted about this on some SDC thread. Time to upload some maybe?
Never really got into the Psychic TV thing, maybe because i didnt live in Hackney?
DavidM
March 21, 2010 at 11:19 pmThought I’d take a look again at Into A Circle vid “Evergreen”, and in doing so uncovered some interesting morsels of information. Not wholly familiar with the band, discovered that Rose McDowall lent her vocal talents to not just this song, but on some live dates too. Were joined too by Annie Anxiety as they embarked on a final tour before splitting. Here’s the video in question: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbiOZbQL768&feature=related Directed by none other than Viv Albertine.
Not so long ago Cherry Red made their entire recordings available again on CD. For more information visit http://www.cherryred.co.uk/goth/artists/intoacircle.php
denzil
March 22, 2010 at 10:49 amSaw them at Planet X in Liverpool, cant say I was overly impressed at the time. I will give this demo a listen tho.
dan i
March 25, 2010 at 8:22 amOK here goes…An attempt to post links to some Fun Da Mental tracks from their early days (while Goldfinger and Lallaman were still in the band, before Dave Watts/Impi D joined). Much more interesting than Getting The Fear 🙂
Tracks should be Janaam: Dub Message, Ghandi’s Revenge dub, Azaan and Azaan Dub. All from Nation Records 12″s.
But Nation was about much more than Fun Da Mental – other acts included Transglobal Underground & Natacha Atlas, Jah Wobble, Loop Guru, Tribal Drift, Hustlers HC, and all sorts of remixes from Andy Weatherall, Adrian Sherwood, Moody Boyz, Fabi Paras and others – wicked tunes.
http://www.mediafire.com/?mjtnjtm3kci
http://www.mediafire.com/?qotnhevznji
http://www.mediafire.com/?x2qmgtbmymj
http://www.mediafire.com/?zityezlxtzy
Marcus Carcass
March 1, 2012 at 12:34 amWas it not Mark Manning (AKA Zodiac Mindwarp) who did the cover of Getting The Fear’s single ?
chris lovell
March 28, 2013 at 11:33 pmHi. I took these photo’s… It’s Chris Lovell not Paul 🙂
Penguin • Post Author •
April 9, 2013 at 10:22 amHi Chris, just returned off a few weeks break, corrected now. Thanks. Lovely images…