Minority / Mickey Mouse / Drugs Of Youth / Subvert City
Nice crisp mixing desk tape of one of the shows recorded during the first tour to the U.S.A in 1984.
A band from a town called Warminster in Wessex getting popular with the punkers towards the arse end of 1981 with the marvelous ‘Demolition War’ E.P. A handful of decent 7″ singles followed, as did a decent enough LP entitled ‘The Day The Country Died’. The last record I got from this band was ‘From The Cradle To The Grave’ LP which was released around the time when the U.S.A. tour took place.
The Subhumans, live or on record, after 1984 did not interest me as much as they probably should have, so I know next to nothing of what happened to the band in the mid 1980’s but I did enjoy Dick Lucus (the vocalist) other recording and performing band, Culture Shock.
Apologies for the shortness of this post featuring a band that deserves a little more effort on my part, but bit pushed for time tonight.
Lazy Rod
August 7, 2008 at 1:46 amThanks for this one… gotta be one of the best bands ever. I’ve seen them in excess of 60 times most recently last year… Opened with ‘All Gone Dead’ and finished on ‘Religious Wars’! Just like it was 23 years ago fucking awesome. If you have any other old live stuff not released on Bluurg would love to hear them. Much appreciated…
Nic
August 7, 2008 at 9:01 amI really loved the Subhumans when they first appeared: a lot of energy, interesting lyrics, all-round good stuff…
I remember reading about them in an issue of Aftermath fanzine from London (the same issue that featured a page on the ‘Witchhunt’ single by The Mob), and writing to Dick to get hold of a copy of their live / practice tape. It arrived with a massive photocopied family tree of the Subhumans and associated bands along with sheafs of lyrics for the tape…By the time the first EP came out, I knew all the songs and lyrics inside out!
Dick was (probably still is) a very approachable bloke: he sent me a few unreleased Subhumans tracks for a compilation tape which I put out in 1982…
I saw them a few times in the early 80’s and they always delivered…
I also played on the same bill with them once in Nottingham in April 1983 (a gig that was also attended by Mr Chris Lowe)…
Anyone else remember when Dick put out a tapezine version of his fanzine So What? I remember that it turned me on to the great Scandinavian thrash of Terveet Kadet as it featured 3 tracks from one of their early EPs…
Thinking of the Warminster / Trowbridge / Melksham triangle, my favourite groups from that area/era has to be the Stupid Humans, the pre-Subhumans band that did a lot of the same songs but at a slower tempo with much more nihilistic snarling vocals…I love their practice demo – it still gets a regular play in our house (much to the raised eyebrows of my better half)…
John Liedown
August 9, 2008 at 11:08 pmThanks for this. Good bloke Dick. So good I even named me blog after one of his songs. Nothing wrong with a bit of Stupid Humans Nic. I still give that tape the occasional outing! 🙂 Dick’s started putting a lot of those old tapes onto CDR’s now as well. I used to send off regular for stuff off that list. I remember one which had like 30 mins of a papal address at the end to fill up the space. Still great live, (and still very approachable, manning the merch stall himself) be it Cit Fish or Subhumans. For me, one of the best lyric writers that British Punk Rock ever churned out.
J