A tape given to me by Genesis P’Orridge while he was still residing in Beck Road, Hackney during one of my many visits there. A nice stack of demos and a low key practice track or two on this tape showing some humour and bags of intimacy.
‘My Struggle’ being my personal favourite of the bunch.
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 recordings of some 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…
Chris
January 28, 2009 at 9:54 pmBee (along with Suede’s old drummer, Simon) is now in a Thai band called Futon who have played London a couple of times. The first time, at Camden Underworld, was fucking amazing and the did the best version of “I wanna be your dog” i’ve ever heard. Loads of old faces there, including Paddy of The Raped.
I used to like those GTF Manson shirts you’d see everyone wearing at PTV gigs. Wish i’d bought one, they go for a packet on Ebay now.
Stewart
January 28, 2009 at 10:12 pmI always thought PTV were up their own arses, but that’s just a personal opinion, you know… They lived with a lovely woman in Beck Road called Penny who I worked with on some dodgy dole-dodging thing called the Hackney Media something-or-other. They paid me to produce a leaflet slagging off the Old Bill, so it wasn’t all bad. Still got it somewhere, lol – I was quite proud of it at the time 🙂
Stewart
January 28, 2009 at 10:12 pmSexy pic though… *winks*
Penguin • Post Author •
January 28, 2009 at 10:57 pmStewey do not be put off by the PTV tag. Listen to this material by Getting The Fear. The third track ‘We Struggle’ is sublimely beautiful and the lyrics are right up your (metaphorical) street. The steel references in this song are piercings and the rest of the lyrics are pretty obvious. Give it a go mate.
Chris I still had up until a few years ago that Getting The Fear ‘girl with crossbow’ shirt, same as the banner in post. Recycled it with a load of Political Asylum and Rudi Peni shirts down the supermarket. Hopefully in an African village somewhere some kids are spreading the word!
Stewart
January 28, 2009 at 11:09 pmOK, I will! 🙂
Stewart
January 29, 2009 at 12:12 amPS Calling a band ‘The Raped’ is unforgivable in virtually all circumstances, in my opinion, unless you were the victim of such violence and brutality yourself… I heard their record at the time and I couldn’t care less what they thought they were doing or how good they or anyone else thought the tracks were, the very name of the band is completely sickening and thoughtless UNLESS a member of that band had indeed been raped, in which case I would be happy to engage in meaningful debate with them. And I feel the same way about the wearing of swastikas by a small minority of punks – completely thoughtless and – sorry, I’ve had a drink – fuckwitted. Look at the pictures of people dying horribly in concentration camps and then wear a swastika to shock people – what are you, a fucking moron???? Do you think you wouldn’t be one of the first people in those camps???? Jesus…. (sorry, feel free to disagree with me, it just makes me extremely angry as you can probably tell…)
Penguin • Post Author •
January 29, 2009 at 12:29 amThe Raped decided to change the name due to among other things, not being allowed to perform in pubs and clubs. Tony will know more. Terrible name agreed, but The Cuddly Toys that they morphed into were great and are on this site.
Nazi party swastikas are rubbish, in the hindu context the swastika is many 1000’s of years old and is a peace symbol.
What about Brigade Rossi R.A.F shirts and the such? Where does one draw the line with youth angst and the ‘icons’ sporting many punk boutique designs (Myra Hindley / Manson etc) that the youth even today continue to get their parents to buy for them?
The jolly Angry Brigade targetted only buildings generally, so you got the ‘terrorists’ of your choice just about spot on with your clothing adjustment in 1979!
Stewart
January 29, 2009 at 12:40 amI was very careful with my choice of terrorist apparel… I was very aware of what the Angry Brigade had and hadn’t done and their reasons for that… 🙂
And I realise one person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter. But Charles Manson? Myra Hindley? WTF?????????
Simon Wood
January 29, 2009 at 5:27 amSouthern Death Cult broke up in early (Feb) 83.
After GTF Buzz and Aky were briefly in short lived wannabe kiddy pop band “Joy”. Never heard anything by this band believe they at some point had a support slot with Duran Duran(?)
Whatever happened to Buzz almost as mysterious as Kenny Morris?
luggy
January 29, 2009 at 8:04 amKenny Morris was running an art gallery in Kildare town, Ireland a few years ago when I was last there.
Chris
January 29, 2009 at 2:42 pmPENGUIN: Nazi party swastikas are rubbish, in the hindu context the swastika is many 1000’s of years old and is a peace symbol.
yes, but no one in the West sees a swastika sprayed on a wall and thinks “Oh, a Hindu peace symbol wishing me good luck…how nice!” do they? Swastikas = Nazis. Yea, lots of folk may have worn them when they were a stupid kid to shock and because they’d seen pictures of Sid Vicious wearing one (I know I did) but past that age anyone who wears one is just a fucking idiot. Even more so – and even more deserving of a good slapping – if they try to proffer some lisping defence of it being a peace sign or a rune or some other such posturing drivel.
STEWART: I was very careful with my choice of terrorist apparel… I was very aware of what the Angry Brigade had and hadn’t done and their reasons for that…
I also used to wear a RAF badge and a Brigate Rosse shirt. I knew exactly what they’d done. However I didn’t give a fuck. I was young, naive and foolish. Wasn’t Robert Carr’s maid hospitalised in the bombing of his gaff? Wouldn’t have been too happy if that was my old dear. Fact is, like The Bonot Gang and a paltry few others the Angry Brigade can be romanticised and, let’s face it, there isn’t much sexiness within British left/anarchist politics. But at the end of the day I think i’d rather have Gordon Brown in charge than some self appointed vanguard who think they can attain the sort of society they want by chucking bombs about.
veg
January 29, 2009 at 4:13 pmYou are obviously utterly ignorant of what the angry brigade were about, even if you do slip in a moot point re: the maid. Then again you probably think that they supported heirarchies like you do?
Nice & simple, no need to care unless you’re told to, then scapegoat who you’re told to, no responsibility, no blame for you.
PS. Poor reflection on the browsers using this site that our fine hosts have had to explain the name on the front page. Dear oh dear oh dear!
Nic
January 29, 2009 at 4:34 pmOh blimey! Batten down the hatches – it’s going to be a long night…
Stewart
January 29, 2009 at 6:57 pmThe Bonot Gang? That bloke is just so smug and self-satisfied and hypocritical, but I thought there was only one lead singer of the crap band U2? You mean to say there’s a gang of them????
Chris
January 29, 2009 at 7:29 pm“VEG” 😉 : Hodeho! I just love the arrogance dripping inference that I am somehow ‘ignorant’ where as you, Oh Exalted Zen Master, are the ‘enlightened one’.
I’d say I have a fairly good idea of what the Angry Brigade were ‘about’, have met a few of their ‘members’ and know several folk who were involved with the Stoke Newington 8 Defence Campaign, as I know others on this site do too. And I should imagine they would agree that you are clearly the one who does not have a clue what you are talking about.
Oh, and incidentally, it may come as a bit of a surprise to you but Maoism is historically a rather hierarchial political system.
Anyway, I thought the same way as you do when I was 14 or so. All that urban guerilla malarkey is pretty hot stuff after all, and obviously society would be much better in the unlikely scenario that a handful of Little Red Book waving polytechnic students were to bomb their way into power.
Meanwhile, back in The Real World…
Penguin • Post Author •
January 29, 2009 at 8:59 pmHi Veg, the explaination on the home page is due to some complaints about actually ‘killing’ pet puppies from (I assume) younger browsers.
As the fanzine in it’s lifespan probably sold about twelve thousand copies across all issues from 1980 to 1983 and more than likely the majority of sales in and around the London area, the vast majority of browsers that may come across this site worldwide, will no doubt wonder why we should kill pet puppies! And like I say some have written in to query this.
As Chris points out above there are a fair few oldies browsing this site who have experienced this era first hand in varying degrees whether just going to gigs or actively involved in setting up centres and squats, releasing records, cassettes or fanzines and so forth, but the 15 year olds browsing this site from anywhere else in the world may well question the name esp if they are into animal rights in a big way like a lot of emo’s seem to be.
Emo’s Stewart NOT Emu’s!
Chris
January 29, 2009 at 9:16 pmActually, I must say i do think it is a rather sad indictment of today’s kids that it WAS deemed necessary to post up an ‘explanation’ for the name. When I first heard it I just thought it was a brilliant “Punk Rock” name – in the tradition of “Sniffin’ Glue” – another shock slogan to paint on your leather jacket (or write on your desk at school!) It’s a sad day when concessions have to be made to those too earnest and humourless to see beyond that. I remember being amused to hear from the mother of a mate who had Poison Girls painted on the back of his jacket that one of their neighbours had asked her “Why does your son want to poison girls? He seems such a nice lad” 🙂 But then, that neighbour was about eighty in the early 1980s. Not a teenager of the internet age.
Stewart
January 29, 2009 at 9:38 pmHi Chris! Respect your posts, just have to disagree with you here… Why would a teenager today have any understanding or perspective on what we were doing and where we were 30 years ago???? I can quite understand why people now would find calling a fanzine “kill your pet puppy” offensive and why your “mother of a mate” should ask such a question about Poison Girls – you have to look at, well, everything, from other people’s perspectives too – for someone not involved in the scene of the time, ‘Poison Girls’ could well be a directive rather than a band’s name – why should they know that?!?! Just goes to show why you have to be very clear when you are explaining things to people so that the message you intended doesn’t get misunderstood… 🙂
Chris
January 29, 2009 at 9:53 pmFair enough Stewart, and normally I would TOTALLY agree with you, but surely in this instance we are talking about a demographic who have found this site through their interest in punk. Thus, one would expect them to have a degree of familiarity with punk rock’s confrontational and iconoclastic imagery, symbolism and slogans. Otherwise surely we may as well be pointing out that the Sex Pistols weren’t christian monarchists when they sung “God Save The Queen” (an absurd example I know, but you know what I mean). I just really think than anyone, of any age, who is au fait with punk/crass/anarchism…whatever, who could seriously construe the name of this zine/site as an exhortation to “Kill Puppies” is just an iredeemable thicko and not really worth pandering to the sensibilities of.
Stewart
January 29, 2009 at 10:09 pmLol! OK then! 🙂
Penguin – I note you don’t have any Magazine uploaded. This is a mistake of enormous proportions. One of my favourite ever records in the whole wide world since vinyl was first invented is “Song From Under The Floorboards” though the band’s whole output up to and including the Soap LP is worth turning into a religion. I worship at Howie’s feet, even though I know I am not worthy… After all, I am angry, I am ill and I’m as ugly as sin, my irritability keeps me alive and kicking, I know the meaning of life it doesn’t help me a bit, I know beauty and I know what you think when I see it. This is a song from under the floorboards, this is a song from where the wall is cracked… My force of habit, I am an insect, I have to confess I’m proud as hell of that fact… 🙂
Chris
January 29, 2009 at 11:00 pmAnd after all that…I preferred the B-side 🙂
gerard
January 29, 2009 at 11:08 pm“who could seriously construe the name of this zine/site as an exhortation to “Kill Puppies””
unfortunately google certainly thinks so: every month this site is visited by ‘people’ via search terms such as ‘how to kill your pet’ and the like 🙁
Chris
January 29, 2009 at 11:19 pmWell, they’re hardly gonna stick about for long.
Next time i’m searching the net for a cheap and easy method to dispose of a girlfriend by means of toxic ingestion i’m not gonna spend much time pouring over photos of Vi Subversa if they pop up, am i?*
[*= younger KYPP browsers please note, that was ‘a joke’]
🙂
Simon Wood
January 30, 2009 at 12:17 amTalking of Magazine… Shot by both sides and b side My mind ain’t so open one of the greatest double sides of 7″ vinyl ever.
alistairliv
January 30, 2009 at 12:31 amOn Poisoning Girls and the termination of puppies;
“Irony, irony, they’ve all got it ir’n for me”
Note for younger visitors to this site – this is a misquote – see original here :
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=kvs4bOMv5Xw
No Roman Emperors or actors playing Roman Emperors were actually killed in the making of the film.
Nic
January 30, 2009 at 7:37 amI must say that I have noticed people getting confused by the name of the mag/collective/site during my meanders around the Nookienet, and can understand how people may misconstrue the name: after all, Chris, surely it’s one of the characteristics of being a teenager to be ‘earnest’ (whilst still managing to have a total bloody Doss)?
By the way, did you mean ‘poring over’ pictures of Vi Subversa? Admittedly, ‘pouring over’ seems more like your metier, but I thought you were more interested in Japanese girls?
😉
Incidentally, have you read anything about the recent growth in support for the Japanese Communist Party which is coming from the young (and is apparently linked to the slowdown in the economy)?
Can you get me a copy of the ‘Little Red Hello Kitty Book’?
🙂
Penguin • Post Author •
January 30, 2009 at 10:34 amIt must also be noted that the text on the home page is almost word for word the original introduction written in KYPP1 from 1979 (written above a young thing with her mouth full so to speak, on page one).
So the text is not new whatsoever.
I am sure sensibilities in Thatcher’s Britain thirty years ago, when the first issue was sold, is similer to those in 2009, via the world wide web when concerning killing floppy loveable pet puppies.
As I stated on a previous comment, one of the reasons it was bought onto the home page of this site a few months ago was to avoid having to waste too much time and energy writing back to browsers with queries about the name and what it does and doesn’t stand for.
Also KYPP should not be arrogant enough to assume browsers world wide would have heard of the fanzine and the people involved in that scene during the early 1980’s.
Imagine if a browser googled SPK, Television Personalities or 23 Skidoo and came up with this site, why should KYPP expect those browsers to care anything about the fanzine, as none of those bands appeared in it? To those browsers the name Kill Your Pet Puppy may well be an issue, unless an explanation is written out for them in black and white, which indeed, it is now.
From finding SPK or whatever, the browser is then free to explore the site and to perhaps read more about the fanzine and it’s origins in the squats of North and North West London.
Pandering? I think common sense is a better word.
As for Magazine…we will have to wait and see.
Chris
January 30, 2009 at 1:50 pmWell, if that IS the case those folk are just morons. I can’t stand earnest people. Invariably it’s just posturing and a tawdry method of attaining kudos from one’s peers. The anarcho-punk scene was seething with that bullshit.
Even going on the presumption that some folk may be dense enough to perceive the name as an exhortation to ‘kill puppies’. Do they REALLY think someone is going to be browsing the net, come across this site, think “mmm…that’s a good idea!” and then go out killing dogs?
Bloody hell – that is pushing cause and affect a bit far, surely?
Anyway, i’m off to poison some girls now. Toddle pip.
Nic: Hoho, trust you to notice that! Still, better than if i’d typed pawing by mistake 🙂
Off to Tokyo next week actually, will google for info on the Japanese Communist Party. Wasn’t aware of that, but have witnessed several absurd rallies by the Japanese Nazi Party who dress in full SS regalia (albeit with the BUF/TG lightning bolt flash on their armbands!) and have as their Fuhrer a professional David Beckham look-a-like!!
Chris
January 30, 2009 at 2:49 pmPENGUIN: It must also be noted that the text on the home page is almost word for word the original introduction written in KYPP1 from 1979 (written above a young thing with her mouth full so to speak, on page one).
hmmm…with respect, I would expect all that tosh was more an ‘afterthought’ as in those days it WAS regarded as imperative be be seen as really meaningful (maaaan) and endow everything with great socio-political gravitas. I may be wrong but I’d have imagined the reason the zine was called thus was because the folk behind it thought it was a brilliant, attention grabbing punk rock name! Without doubt one of the reasons it was so successful.
John No Last Name
January 30, 2009 at 4:35 pmso if the fanzine had gone with its original intended name of “fu#k your mother” it must be asked what kind of browsers would be accidentaly finding the site via google searches?
alistairliv
January 30, 2009 at 5:17 pmFans of the Doors? As Oedipus nearly said to Elektra:
” This is the end. It is all getting far too incestuous for me.”.
cravat hatton
May 19, 2009 at 7:10 pmblimey……
3into1
May 30, 2009 at 10:26 pmIf you don’t get PTV then stay as you are.
I prefer to get the fear.