A recording from the crowd of the normally chaotic Hagar The Womb live experience, lent to me by Mr Sparkle himself, Chris Low. Bit rough the sound on this recording, not a brilliant advert for the band, but hey it all has ‘historical value’ now.
Hagar the idea, originally evolved in the Wapping Autonomy Centre where the band performed several times. Kill Your Pet Puppy live favorites and also housemates on various occasions, Hagar The Womb eventually ended up releasing two rather fine 12″ records which no doubt will be uploaded at some point. The band went through loads of line up changes and disbanded in 1987.
One of the bands connected with Hagar The Womb, Cold War have their single uploaded somewhere on this site if you search for it.
Kill Your Pet Puppy’s very own Tony Puppy with the blond hair and armband in the photographs having a mooch about!
Nic
March 4, 2008 at 9:54 amA question which my friends and I have ruminated over in an idle moment:
Why did everyone cut the sleeves off their T-Shirts / Shirts / Blouses / Dresses / Jackets in the 1980’s?
I know I did, but why?
I can’t remember the logic behind it…
🙂
Carl
March 4, 2008 at 10:25 amI think it was so it felt even colder on the 3 mile trudge home after a gig, thats my thought on the subject..
Another daft thought for you, the Hagar piece mentions Tony having a “mooch” about…Isnt “mooch” a fantastic word ??
sean
March 4, 2008 at 11:23 amThe shirt thing…….maybe to show how anorexically thin most of us were?
Funny,this is something that has much been on my mind lately.I remember NOT cutting the sleeves off a t shirt around 86 and feeling a thrill of guilt/rebellon,though there are photos of me as late as 87 with sleeves off,so either the guilt got the better of me or I was using up old stock……but seeing as I was a t shirt printer by then i had no shortage of new “test pressing” garments.Come to that after de Beests efforts an unlimited supply of GTMTDI shirts………so,yes,indeed,why did we do it?
chris
March 4, 2008 at 12:15 pmFashion – Turn to the left
Fashion – Turn to the right
We are the goon squad
And we’re coming to town
Beep-beep – Beep-beep
🙂
Carl
March 4, 2008 at 1:51 pmHang On Chris !! Were you not the Bryan Ferry of Anarcho Punk on another thread…Are you now David Bowie and are you taking over ??
Nic
March 4, 2008 at 2:06 pmChris, Chris, Chris…just because you were dressed as ‘Casual’ as they come doesn’t mean you weren’t at the front of the top deck of the fashion bus pretending to be the bus driver…You look like one of The Alarm on those pics in the KYPP album…
😉
But yes, fashion…certainly…but the question still remains: why? What was the impetus?
I remember when I went round to someone’s house and didn’t have my jeans tucked into a pair of boots: instant target for sneering sarcasm all afternoon…
🙂
I just told them: “I’m an outlaw – from the bad lands baby, the bad lands baby”…
‘Mooch’ is indeed a great word, as in ‘Fancy a mooch round?’, ‘I’ve just been mooching around all day’, ‘Let’s have a mooch’ and so on…
chris
March 4, 2008 at 6:15 pmNo, not denying it for a second (though…The Alarm? Yikes! Objection M’Lud)
I’ve met many crusty anarcho-punks who were infinutely greater fashion victims than any couture designer or Vogue stylist, believe me.
I remember when I went round to someone’s house and didn’t have my jeans tucked into a pair of boots: instant target for sneering sarcasm all afternoon…
says it all really? as you did a few years before in “punk is a rotting corpse”…
the ‘anarcho-punk look’ was a fashion. Plain & simple. Nothing wrong with that. that’s what music based youth cults are all about. Youthful ‘self-expression’, subcultural ‘signifiers’ n all that. Just a bit of fun 🙂
but weird when folk get obsessionally ‘tribalist’ about it though, as many did.
chris
March 4, 2008 at 6:16 pm“I’m an outlaw – from the bad lands baby, the bad lands baby”…
is that The Cult?
Nic
March 4, 2008 at 6:40 pm“Bandido!”
😉
Penguin • Post Author •
March 4, 2008 at 10:18 pmAnyone go around wearing a dress? My brother did for a couple of months, DMs, black skinny jeans, t-shirt and dress over the top, plus bangles, bits of string round wrists etc. Backcombed crimped hair. He got a few slappings at this time. Lost the dress and he still got slappings…oh well, cant please all the people all of the time I suppose!
simon
March 5, 2008 at 1:18 amNo dress, that deserves a pat on the back. I once wanted a pair of combat trousers black instead of the green that they were, what better way of trying to dye them than with a large can of matt black car spray, after that I could barely walk in the damn things they were so heavy and uncomfortable, dried like they’d been starched!
Carl
March 5, 2008 at 9:55 amSimon, I once did similar with a black denim jacket, sleeves cut off , of course !..Only I used white gloss paint on the back to put some logo on the back and it looked ace until, I put it on and the paint started to crack and the jacket weighed a ton anyway so that was the end of that…
john
March 5, 2008 at 10:59 amdidnt stu from charge like to wear a dress?or skirt?
sean
March 5, 2008 at 11:05 amI had an excellent orange crimpolene ballroom dress that I wore over usual festering trousers,para boots etc,circa station house,simon may remember….?Caused much upset to various skinheads as I had shaved hair (and eyebrows) at the time.One notable run in with Ian Stuarts lot at a party on petherton rd led to a proper old benny hill chase scene round newington green……..had a discharge shirt with sleeves off under it tho….
john
March 5, 2008 at 5:35 pmseem to remember a really tall guy who was always with a women called animal(?) from birmingham who had one massive dreadlock on top of her head,he wore a pvc mini skirt at a few gigs i went to…or maybe i’m just getting confused in middle age?
🙂
Nic
March 5, 2008 at 6:20 pmAre you thinking of ‘Mad’ Graham (an old style Brummie punk – very, very tall, and always in a strange combination of clothes) and Nightmare (1 dread in a ‘Pineapple’ style on top of her head)?
That would fit…
I recently saw a pic of him in Vogue magazine where he was entertaining a private fashion party with various ‘Big Top’ skills…
john
March 5, 2008 at 7:08 pmthat’ll be the guy,he was er a tad mad.
‘pineapple’ is a much more fitting description for said lock on,yes,nightmare,getting names mixed up.
a friend once told me nightmare spent an evening entertaining a few folk with her ‘fanny farts’ which nightmare thought was hilarious.
realised this went off topic from ‘why cut off sleeves?’
didnt it provide a way of avoiding carrying around extra weight from wet sweaty tshirt sleeves,as a lot of punks looked slightly anorexic the strain of the extra weight may have been too much of a strain?
😉
luggy
March 5, 2008 at 8:44 pmNightmare was famous for her fanny farts!
Graham’s slightly saner these days, still doing pretty well being a dirty old clown. I’ve seen him juggling on Match ofThe Day before and he was compere for Take That’s comeback tour.
Sings for Dread Messiah when they do the occasional gig. He’s a great frontman, don’t know why it took him so long to sing in a punk band.
Nic
March 5, 2008 at 9:08 pmNice pair of people, but totally mad (the best way)…
He WAS in a band briefly, Luggy, in the late 1980’s called the Space Junkies…They were sort-of Psychedelic Garage meets Punk and did covers of things like ‘Action Woman’ by The Litter…
The band I was in at the time (Make Them Die Slowly) did some concerts with them in 1989…
luggy
March 5, 2008 at 9:43 pmCheers for the info, Nic. Thought Graham had told me that he hadn’t been in a band before, maybe he forgot!!
Pete
March 5, 2008 at 11:06 pmHey Luggy!
Pete here ex-Assassins of Hope. We used to knock around together a bit at the Autonomy Centre (I remember the time you unblocked the bog with your arm in a plastic bag – you brave man), The Centro Iberico and around Stoke Newington (Baston Road to be precise). Are you still liberating cheese from corner shops?
Hope all’s well with you.
john
March 6, 2008 at 10:56 ampic of graham with dread messiah here…scroll down to see
http://thumped.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=30905
sean
March 6, 2008 at 11:21 amGraham was a fireman,with medals for bravery,before he dropped out…..he,me and nightmare ran a stall at glastonbury 86 which consisted of me and graham huckster-ing people to pay for a psychedelic olfactory and aural experience without equal,a vacuum cleaner hose and sister nightmare hidden in a tent fanny farting into said tube giggling hysterically.It went surprisingly well.Not seen them for a few years,glad grahams doing well,a true big heart that bloke,even tho he always insisted that it was me that was mad and blew HIS mind!Which shows how loony HE was…..
luggy
March 6, 2008 at 11:46 amAlright Pete, nice to see you’re still with us. Remember those loos well, not a pleasant job that I had to do more than once. Gave up on shoplifting years ago. I saw Chantel last year, she was looking well.
Dread Messiah should be playing London around the end of May. Keep an eye on here for details:
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=328352415
Tony Puppy
March 9, 2008 at 10:09 amGraham and myself appeared on Never Mind The Buzzcocks TV programme. Photo now in the photo gallery, in the subalbum ‘nowadays’, me with unicycle, Graham holding a bed of nails:
http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb227/killyourpetpuppy/Nowadays/pic6.jpg
Tony Puppy
March 9, 2008 at 5:06 pmhttp://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb227/killyourpetpuppy/Print%20material/HagarLMCNMEreview.jpg
A review of Hagar and Look Mummy Clowns rom the NME dated 29/01/83.
Could be the same gig.
Carl
March 10, 2008 at 12:00 pmTony, I have not seen that episode of the Buzzcocks..
Just out of interest, What was the question ??
Tony Puppy
March 10, 2008 at 11:29 pm“Which of these circus acts has appeared on Top Of The Pops?”
Steve
March 11, 2008 at 8:28 pmPardon my shocking ignorance but when did you appear on TOTP?!
And any chance of posting that NMTB clip on YouTube?
Tony Puppy
March 12, 2008 at 8:22 amYour wish is my command.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUqcqFmFkDY
From 4 minutes in.
Nic
March 12, 2008 at 12:34 pmGraham is in the crowd during The Rezillos performance on the TV show ‘Revolver’…
Pavlik
March 16, 2008 at 2:02 pmI remember ripping the sleeves off my t-shirts because it seemed so establishment to leave them on.
I used to rip the necks off too but that never really worked as well.
Always ended up wearing a bit of cotton around my middle somewhere.
I did wear a few skirts at the time too and got a little bit of hassle for it, nothing too major though.
I had a skinhead wanting to beat me up because I was wearing a womans pink dressing gown. He was so upset by it that he didnt know what to do with himself so after a few minutes I just walked off, leaving him standing there.
Nick Hydra
March 2, 2010 at 8:20 amYou cut the arms off your t-shirts to either:
1) Disguise how skinny your arms were. You don’t want a big sleeve flapping around your stick-like bicep emphasising just how malnourished you are. Vegans on speed – you’re never gonna get any muscle tone like that.
or
2) To show off your rather fetching biceps, because let’s face it – the girls love a nice bit of muscle tone.
I saw a photo of myself at the last ever Stonehenge festival, and I had that ‘Head bigger than body” ‘matchstick’ look. Not good, not good at all. This is what happens when you subsist on french bread, hummus and vodka.