'Feel It Live' tour in Manchester back in 2013. Unfortunately I only have this in MP3 format. Nevertheless, it is a nice sounding audience recording of the full gig. Thanks to Meanie for the artwork.
Artwork: https://we.tl/t-hO5ECJrNSmA2VLTp
Saturday, 22 August 2026
The Damned Dingwalls Camden Lock London 21st August 2001 (Grave Disorder Launch)
Well, I am 24 hours late with this one, but then again what does a day matter over a span of 50 years. Twenty five years ago yesterday The Damned released 'Grave Disorder' their first studio album having one C. Sensible back in the fold and one separated from its predecessor by no less than fifteen years (if you gloss over 'Not Of This Earth'). Recorded in California the album was released in the US label, Nitro Records. 'Grave Disorder' was to The Damned what 'Norfolk Coast' was to The Stranglers, both a return to form and a return to The Damned's 'signature sound'. In my opinion there is not a duff track on this album, a claim that cannot unfortunately be made for any of The Damned album's that were follow. If ever there were a worthy sequel to 'Strawberries' this was it. Opening with the high velocity rocker 'Democracy?' the album serves up a great variety of tracks that fully demonstrate that there was plenty of life left in this old punk dog! 'Song.com' is an early and prophetic observation of how social media would draw us in and steal our time. The double meaning of surfing was also a nod to the fact that they were laying down these tracks on the West Coast. Throughout the album Vanian's voice is a very significant instrument... still in possession of that rich baritone vocal, only now Elvis has left the building and in his place is a brooding, malevolent crooner... the stuff of nightmares. Just listen to 'Thrill Kill' to get the point.
Lennon, bloody Lennon! A complex character and depending on who's view point to listen to a bit of a nasty piece of work. Upon his death in 1980 many musicians seemed to take umbrage at the rapid about face that the press did. Disdain to deification overnight all flaws forgotten. The Stranglers captured this feeling in 1981 with 'Everybody Loves You When You're Dead' whereas The Damned waited 21 years to put the boot in! The US garage band fuelled 'Lookin' For Action' could be mistaken for a track left over from the 'Damned Damned Damned' sessions!
Not gonna go through track by track, but one stand out track for me to finish with and the finisher for the album too. 'The Beauty of The Beast'. This is a beautiful piano led lament from Dave Vanian for the era of the Hollywood horror film in which he name checks some of the studio greats of the iconic film genre. I don't think that I ever got to see the band play it. It was performed at the album launch (subject of this post) and at the 'Night of a Thousand Vampires' gig.
'With quickening pulse what lies behind the door
A curious step retreats once more
The creature with a darkened soul
A story of the Damned unfolds
Bela, Boris, Basil, Lon, Lorre, Vincent, now all gone
Looming pallid on the screen
The beauty of the beast
Your magic never ceased
And now though a curtain has been drawn
You go on forever as before...'
Artwork: https://we.tl/t-Bs1JtsvJoUeinASk
The Damned 'Grave Disorder' Launch
Dingwalls, Camden Lock, London
21st August 2001
Devo Walker Arts Centre Minneapolis 3rd November 1978
Devo toured the first album extensively from its release in the autumn of 1978 to the middle of 1979. Here is a soundboard recording of the band playing at the Walker Arts Centre in Minneapolis on 3rd November 1978. The set features most of the tracks from the 'Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!' debut.
Artwork: https://we.tl/t-n9GK1WYzPFNbCK7S
Thursday, 20 August 2026
Top 30 Punk Albums #12 Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!
'Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!' The debut album from Akron’s Devo is without doubt one of the quirkiest albums to be associated with punk. Based around a theory that rather than continuing to improve as a species, human kind is undergoing a process of De-Evolution, a theory cemented in the minds of several of the musicians who would go on to form Devo by the 1970 Kent State Massacre in which four people were killed and nine wounded by the National Guard whilst engaged in an anti Vietnam war protest. Several of the band members attended Kent State University. The band had been performing a weird mix of costumed theatre and electronica since 1973.
In 1976, Devo came to the attention of David Bowie and Iggy Pop and this started a rush of interest in the band that extended to Brian Eno and Robert Fripp. Bowie’s desire to produce the band’s first album was curtailed by filming commitments, so the task was undertaken by Eno at Conny Plank’s studio in Cologne, with Bowie assisting as and when his schedule permitted. Armed with an appreciation of some of the personalities behind Devo at the time, the direction of the music makes perfect sense… the quirky electronic sounds are reminiscent of Berlin era Bowie and Pop, as well as early Roxy Music and elements of German Kraut Rock are in their too. This was the case despite the fact that some of the 'Are We Not Men?' material went back as far as 1975 in a live setting.
Despite looking or sounding nothing like anything else that was vaguely identifiable as punk, the UK music press paid much attention to these misfits from Ohio. In 1978, appearing on Granada TV’s 'So It Goes’ magazine programme, the band dressed in the familiar yellow boiler suits described Devo as ‘the fluid in the punk enema bag’. However, the press reviews were a mixed bag, a mixed enema bag if you will raging from the indifferent to openly hostile.
Record Mirror (19th August 1978)
Not all critics however were impressed, particularly Julie Burchill.
New Musical Express (26th August 1978)
DEVO
Q: Are We Not Men?
A: We Are Devo!
(Virgin)
VARIOUS:
Star Party!
(K-Tel)
AKRON! AYY! KAYY! ARR! OOH! ENN! TAKE ME HERE FROM WAY BACK WHEN!
Oh, dem golden cheerleaders of eternity – Jane Aire, Rachel Sweet, countless Waitresses and Rubber City Rebels – take me to heaven!
This late, that Stiff compilation has impossible magic. It doesn’t experiment with formulae beyond the city limits but it’s totally new, totally old and ultimately timeless. These kids are like the offspring of all your heroes idealised beyond any recognition, just your dreams of them showing through… rebellious, faithful, bitter, fun loving, drug taking, hating N.Y. and L.A. – or so their songs promise. I’d hate to have them prove me wrong – I’ve lost my cynicism to these Mid Western boys and girls.
Any moral music, any damn era, ‘50s, ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s, ‘90s and… anyhow, I’ll tell you, these kids have all the forms. All you do is fill them in and buy the record.
Devo? DEE EEE VEE OHH? Aren’t they a Lost Angels band? Aren’t they the latest in a long-Eno polluted line from Ultravox! through Jubilee to Talking Heads? That Eno, he knows how to leech.
Someone says that Eno had very little to do with the production of this album despite getting credited with it, and actually the production is the best thing about it – there IS no production. If only there was no sound it would be a swell record.
We here at home have a friend who is the truest Devo fan of all time – his remedy to the early ‘70s malaise was Sparks, incidentally – and who takes then seriously. He talks at a person for hours about where do we go from here, gets a person on his side, wheedling on about an “alienation” project that he never does one constructive thing about, disappears and, as a non finale, fails suicide.
For the unlucky few like him, who think and think till they can’t move a muscle, Devo sits in the passenger seat (ejector, naturally) and commands you to drive into a dead end. Luckily there’s not many people this fanatical, and I reckon the remaining Devo fans wear pet bands like they wear badges. I think a) the massive proportion of them live in London b) most of them get their records free, since they’re in the industry c) they are failure types aged between 25 and 35 who like to sit around rapping about “de-humanisation” and d) take masses of cocaine if they’re rich, or are saving up for a G if they’re not rich.
There will never be many of them because Devo move in blatant ways, their misconceptions to free form. Their mouthings about not wanting to keep on cooking “the same old piece of burnt meat” (good definition of rockandroll: Devo as good definitions within a musical limit) are admirable, but they’ve made the mistake of reckoning that a few fumbling efforts at changing the form will change the effect.
Anyhow, their sound is by no means too new. They sound exactly like a band Ron Mael would mate with David Byrne after Russell had committed suicide by electrocution in despair at his fading looks, and Ron has gone all the way through shock treatment to help his grief to go away. The album is a dead affair. Devo have done a lot of work over the window display but the goods are premature and stillborn.
Five of the twelve tracks are out on singles and the rest just retread them. It’s obvious that a mere two tracks on the Stiff compilation (“Jocko Homo” and “Sloppy” might be suitable) would have been pushing Devo’s riff some. An album of such serious pound stretching is deadly boring.
“Gut Feeling”, at five minutes the longest track on the record, starts with one minute of “mongoloid” and two minutes of instrumental Stranglers tribute before giving wat to some really innovatory stuff: “I’ve had just about all I can take/I can’t take no more/I’ve got a gut feeling” sings Mark Mothersbaugh forever. “(Slap Your Mammy”), the shortest track repeats the title for 51 seconds to a “Sloppy” tune.
The synthesizer farts, bleats, burps and belches throughout all of “Too Much Paranoias” just like Devo have heard Pere Ubu do in their weakest moments (Devo’s latest single “Be Stiff”, by the way, is a cheeky rip-off of Pere’s “Laughing”- infringement of copyright, any of youbu?). It’s real “Revolution Number Nine” stuff over and around a constant plodding Poor Spuds HM Led Zeppelin riff raff.
“Shrivel Up” finds Mark sounding like Napoleon XIV, had he been Pink Floyd’s lead singer; I certainly wish he’d come and taken Devo away. The only thing Devo appeal to is a person’s sense of humour, and then only ever so slightly. They would be much funnier if they continued to sing like crackpots, but dressed and acted straight; the most amusing madmen own faces that contrast madly with their personas. If Devo wore regular suits, they’d join the legions of Jimmy Carter, The Osmonds and Farrah, all of whom come on like sane, safe Americans but are obviously beserk, as one look at their teeth and eyes will tell you. Devo try to look fresh from the fruit farm, and thereby kill their mild charm.
They induce half a chortle (it’s better than none) if you’ve got nothing better to sneer at on “Jocko Homo”, they are idealistically above suspicion and in reality could hurt someone’s feelings badly on “Mongoloid” (you always have to consider these things, see, no matter how much of an artist you are) and provoke nothing but irritation over all the fuss and bother that non-Power Press hacks (tell ‘em Tony) have created around the combo throughout the rest of the record. I reckon it’s only “I Saw My Baby Getting Sloppy” that’s worth taking seriously, coming close as it does to Sparks’ inscrutable darts at the feeble heart.
Devo aren’t young, or good looking or girls or shocking in their fresh knowledge like, say Jane Aire and Rachel Sweet are. Devo are old, ugly and boring. Their record won’t sell. Their gigs won’t do well. They will never be a household name, not even in New York City. The funny clothes and “zany” philosophy are the spoonfuls of sugar that have stalled their instant dismissal. They are about as thrilling and innovatory as The Pirates playing “Johnny B Goode’s Good”, as The Pirates are wont to do.
People have to live in the cities, where they have to get up, go to work, go home, go to bed all their lives, with never a moments rest, right? This is a fact, like night and day, that nothing could ever change. That being so, you just have to squeeze pleasure out of your surroundings for yourself and not keep pointing and exclaiming the obvious. Do you need Devo telling you how stark and horrid everything is, even if it is one big private jape?
People know that things can get nasty and most of them are trying to change the situation in their own miniscule way. The last thing the world needs is another band saying look, look, look how futile it all is – because people give an inch and they’ll wallow a mile deep in the mire.
There’s more chance for people to have a lush, useful life these days than there ever was, and if people act positive the ‘80s will be even better. Devo are scared of the ‘80s and how they won’t figure in our lives, so they’re raising a scare. Negativity brings no money, no fun and no improvement; I know it’s tempting as an adolescent to run around acting doomed, but so many grown men are playing at it lately… it’s like a skin problem you should have grown out of by the time you’re 18. I have to sound like a hearty, healthy hockey stick, but that’s too bad.
If you need a negative sopor when you go home from work (not even a positive sopor like Abba or Marley), try Devo. They’re a great band for sitting on your ass and going nowhere to.
If you want to go home and have a good time with a soundtrack, get the Akron album and savour that nauseous, anticipatory tension that great rockandroll always forces upon you – it’s not awful music that makes you sick and drives you to drink, it’s the great stuff. You’ll love “When I Was Young”, “Truckstop Queen” and “Comb” and the BIGGEST difference between this stuff and Devo is that you may well get, uh, inspired by this stuff. There’s not much music like that coming up at the moment. K-Tel’s “Star Party!” lies somewhere between the two; it won’t make you useless, but it won’t exactly spur you to kill giants either. Still, it’s very good value with minimal butchery, not like a lot of other K-Tel compilations.
Mock magic moments are Goldie’s “Making Up Again”, Dee D. Jackson’s “Automatic Lover” and best of all, Smiths’ “Because The Night”. Add Blondie, Dury, Quatro and 14 others’ recent chart chants and you’re laughing.
And if you’re not, I’m sure you’ll have a wail of a time picking the ponderous heads off your problems to “Are We Not Men?”.
Julie Burchill
Burchill contended in her scathing review that the negativity that the band seemingly exuded could mean only one thing... 'Their record won’t sell. Their gigs won’t do well. They will never be a household name, not even in New York City.' and '...and if people act positive the ‘80s will be even better. Devo are scared of the ‘80s and how they won’t figure in our lives, so they’re raising a scare.'
With the benefit of hindsight Julie was a little wide of the mark. Devo are remembered with great affection 53 years on... their records and gigs did sell (and continue to do so)... and if anyone left a negative shit stain on the '80s it was Ronald Reagan on Devo's side of the pond and Margaret Thatcher on ours... Devo had very little to do with it.
Record Mirror (26th August 1978)
Wednesday, 19 August 2026
Ghost Dance Opera House Blackpool 5th August 2023
How about a bit of goth now that the sun had gone in! Here are Ghost Dance from 2023's Rebellion. Many thanks to Peter for this one. Cheers.
FLAC: https://we.tl/t-AES7MtODGm0BvR1g
Artwork: https://we.tl/t-J2npHcdVtuGi368r
Mitt Gamon and Ruts DC 'Whatever We Do' The Fleece Bristol 24th October 2015
Mitt Gamon on stage with Ruts DC
The Fleece, Bristol (24th October 2015)
Last week the digital version of Ruts DC's latest offering, the 'Bound In Blood' E.P. landed in my inbox, an advance warning of the imminent arrival of the 10" on the doorstep. Track 2 is entitled 'Born Innocent - Mitt's Immortal Mix' The Mitt of the mix was the late master of the harp, Mitt Gamon.
This reminded me of an afternoon spent in Bristol some eleven years ago now (24th October 2015). Gunta and I were invited into the band's sound check ahead of the gig at the Fleece. Sat down on a bench in the venue whilst Ruffy sorted his drums out, a rather hirsute chap came and sat down on the same bench and introductions were made. Now I did not know that Mitt (for it was he) had previously played with Ruts DC as he started waxing lyrical about harmonicas. Throughout our chat in observed that he was very protective of a mid-size case that he had by his feet... shades of Dave Greenfield I thought! It was at this point that I asked him whether he carried a harmonica with him. 'I do better than that!' he retorted reaching for the case. Upon opening this mysterious case I was presented with orderly racks of the things! Must have been about 20 or more in there!
Later in the middle of the gig Mitt was invited up and taking centre stage he revisited his harmonica contribution to the band's 'Whatever We Do' 30 or more years on from the recording 'Rhythm Collision Volume 1.
Sadly, Mitt died in 2022, but it was a pleasure to meet him on that day in Bristol and see him perform that much missed song from the Ruts DC set.
'Psychic Attack'/'Whatever We Do'
The Fleece, Bristol (24th October 2015)
Gig Review - Tubeway Army/The Skids 'Last Bastion' White Hart Acton (Sounds 8th July 1978)
Originally posted on the 'Listen To The Sirens' site.... but it concerns The Skids and the punk incarnation of Tubeway Army...
I was very happy to come across this particular gig review this evening. This was the infamous gig that almost stalled a career before it started. The night out in West London when Dunfirmline's Skids supported Tubeway Army at The White Hart in Acton. As I recall, by rights The Skids should have been topping the bill as they had been hitting London quite hard in the summer of 1978. Who knows, had the running order been reversed, then perhaps musical history may have taken a different course. Had The Skids headlined and therefore been on stage at the point that fighting started in the audience, would they have managed the situation differently. I cannot vouch for the other members of The Skids, but Richard Jobson was by all accounts quite handy in fight situations and maybe he could have deescalated the altercation. Had Tubeway Army supported, it is possible I suppose that they could have packed up and been half way home by the time that trouble flared.
As it was, little did the band know as they plugged in to their amps that night that this would be the last gig that Tubeway Army, the punk band would ever play. This gig looms large in the Numan story in that it galvanised Numan into action. No more punk gigs played in the back rooms of pubs to audiences more focused on blood letting than anything going on on stage.
New Musical Express (24th June 1978)
Last Bastion Flyer (Summer 1978)
New Musical Express (24th June 1978)
Sounds (24th June 1978)
Sounds (8th July 1978)
Sadly, in what I believe is the only live review of the band to appear in the mainstream music press, all the focus in terms of Tubeway Army’s performance is focussed in the violence that marred the gig. No mention is made at all to anything that the band played which is very disappointing. As mentioned in Paul Goodwin’s book ‘Tubeway Daze The Untold Story of Tubeway Army’ it is very difficult to chart the evolution of the band through 1978. This is a real loss to the music fan as 1978 was perhaps Numan’s most prolific year as a songwriter, as borne out by a number of archive releases in the 1983 and 1984. It’s a rule of geometry that it takes at least two points to draw a line and unfortunately there is no second point in Tubeway Army’s live fossil record! The one point that we have is the ‘Living Ornaments ‘78’ set (from a gig on 21st February at London’s Rock Garden). In the 3 or 4 months between appearances in Covent Garden (Rock Garden) and Acton, how had the set changed I wonder? Numan acknowledges his propensity to change the band’s set through the regular introduction of new songs. At the time of the ‘Last Bastion’ gig Tubeway Army were about to record the first album, begging the question (for me at least) did the Acton set include material that would go on to be on that first album? Of the non-released material (i.e. the singles) played at the Rock Garden, only ‘My Shadow In Vain’ made the album cut.
The upshot of Numan's first retirement from playing live was the the majority of the material on the Blue Album/Tubeway Army was never heard live as it appeared on record. The revamped versions played on the '79 tour are fine versions, but by the same token so are the originals.
Ever the dreamer, I have a proposal for Gary. This year there have been many events to mark the 50th anniversary of punk. However, second wave bands such as Tubeway Army and The Skids came just that little bit later. So here’s the plan. A special one off gig to take place on 28th June 2028… ‘Last Bastion 50’ (venue TBD… The White Hart still exists but may be a tad small!). Gary and Richard come together once again (The Skids are very active on the live scene at the moment) to recreate that gig 50 years ago…. albeit without the fighting (I don’t think that the ‘Ealing Skins’ are much of a force to be recognised these days). Order of appearance to be decided by the toss of a coin. I think it’s a sure-fire winner! Well as I said I can dream...
Tuesday, 18 August 2026
The 'Guildford Incident' Through The Eyes of Record Mirror (October/November 1978)
It was a storm in a tea cup really and one that unnecessarily reignited extreme wariness, if not undisguised animosity towards the band. ‘Rock Goes To College’ was a BBC music programme that ran from 1978 to 1981. Over the course of its existence it was responsible for the broadcast of an eclectic tally of gigs. The idea was simple enough. A band was booked to play a gig for an hour or do of which 30-40 minutes would be broadcast. The venues, unsurprisingly considering the name of the series, were selected from the many halls associated with British academic institutions. Thus selected bands would play a fairly intimate gig to maybe 1,500 punters. Some of these earlier broadcasts were simultaneously broadcast on BBC Radio 1, in recognition of the limitations of television technology to broadcast such events in stereo.
The Stranglers were lined up to appear on the fourth episode of the show, with a ‘homecoming’ gig at the University of Surry in Guildford on 19th October 1978. Problems emerged when it came to ticket allocation. Seemingly as part of the agreement, a proportion of the tickets would be made available to people out side of the university (i.e. non-students). To me it has always been rather unclear as to the extent that this arrangement was either honoured or ignored. Either way, in the hall on that day there was certainly a mix of students and non-students. In the assessment of the stunt that appeared in the XX October issue of Record Mirror, Tim Lott makes a valid point ‘at what point did they know….. walk away from the gig’. Why indeed wait until the cameras were rolling before unveiling this latest Stranglers as bad boys wheeze? This leads on to another consideration, the role that academic institutions and their associated event venues played in the evolution of rock and pop music from the 1960’s onwards. For so many bands, such venues have been pivotal to the live music circuit. Just take a look at the Stranglers’ gig listings for 1976 and 1977 and it is clear that university/college venues were pretty much as ubiquitous as the pub venues. This being the case, it should also be remembered that when bands played gigs within academic institutions some degree of access control was the norm. I remember NUS rules requiring me to sign in friends for the few on-campus gigs that I attended at Brunel University.
Another point that Tim Lott takes issue with is the idea that attendance at the University of Surrey and being a fan of The Stranglers were mutually exclusive. Again, the band’s early gig history completely debunks the idea that students could and would not be into The Stranglers. The idea that all students were corduroy and scarf wearing hippies with a complete collection of Genesis (Gabriel era of course) and King Crimson records is just lazy stereotyping. Punk interest in the late ‘70s was not strictly limited to those living in the shadow of the Westway. For every Tony Parsons there was a Jon Savage (Classics graduate, Magdalene College, Cambridge!).
Ticket allocation misdeeds aside, this highly visible act of petulance rather backfired on the band. Whilst the band had finally got to play London the previous month after a protracted dispute with the Greater London Council, certain organisations and venues still baulked at the Stranglers name and by extension the name of Burnel. The bass player struggled with venues willing to host his ‘Euroman’ tour and it may very well be that this latest ‘incident’ with the BBC contributed to the unwillingness of venues to book him. In this way, it may be that the repercussions of the band’s dressing down of ‘elitist audiences’ in Guildford in October 1978 actually negatively impacted non-student fans access to the band.
From my point of view I now see the outburst in terms of a loss of documentary footage of a band at the height of their powers. I know that the BFI have the footage, but this could have been 12 or 13 song set…. Later to be rebroadcast on BBC Four in a state of pristine quality.
Anyway, presented below is Tim Lott’s opinion on the issue followed by the Record Mirror’s responses published a couple of weeks later. As I said at the top of this post, all told this was a storm in a teacup. It did not go on to damage the band’s relationship with Record Mirror, a rare example of a publication supportive of The Stranglers. Come February 1979, the paper’s Barry Cain was jetting off to Japan to cover the band’s first tour of the country. Moreover, to the best of my knowledge, Tim Lott was never on the receiving end of the anticipated kicking from a slighted Jean Jacques Burnel.
Record Mirror (21st October 1978)
Record Mirror (4th November 1978)
Sunday, 16 August 2026
Ruts DC Button Factory Dublin 2nd March 2019
So enough of this high praise for 'The Crack'. Let the music speak for itself. In 2019, the band toured the album, playing it in it's entirety, even dare I say it, the throwaway 'Human Punk', to mark the 40th anniversary of its release. Just... what a set!
Thanks to the original Dime uploader (Kagee).
Artwork: https://we.tl/t-ExSiW8wrJHFypTpp
Top 30 Punk Albums #11 The Crack - The Ruts
Not sure even where to start with his one. This is probably the case for most music lovers, but of all of the albums that I have amassed over the last 46 years there are perhaps half a dozen or so with which I feel a deeply personal connection. One of those is the 'The Crack', the debut album by The Ruts. It was released in the UK in September 1979, so I was only 10 and the reality was that I did not get to know who The Ruts were until many years later... after an awful lot of other music has passed under the bridge. The reason for the connection is all down to the fact that I spent four years from the late 1980's at Brunel University in Uxbridge. Now student life was not really my cup of tea, so much so that whilst my course mates were wearing their Inspiral Carpets 'Cool As Fuck' T-shirts, I was parading around in 10 hole DMs, red braces and a hand painted Ruts T-shirt (this was 23 years before Ruts DC reformed so there was no merch available... hence the DIY job). The shaved head was a necessity rather than a political statement, but the general look used to earn me some filthy looks from young Asians on Southall Broadway, how were they to know the connection that The Ruts had with RAR and Southall in particular.
Oddly enough an effort to clear our loft (abandoned for now due to heatwaves) brought down two laundry bags that are now sitting in the 'spare' room. These bags are stuffed with old T-shirts including that hand painted Ruts one circa. 1988 rather than 1978!
As mentioned I was never a studenty-type student, so I spent a lot of time outside of the university environment seeing punk gigs in the local area and in London. I was also seeing Gunta, who at that time was living in Ealing Common so I was also a regular 207 bus commuter. Seeing bands locally brought me in to the social sphere of a group of people from Uxbridge and Hayes. These people were intensely proud of the connection that the place where they grew up had such close associations with a band such as The Ruts, even though they had been out of existance in any form for many years at that point. 38 years on from my first arrival at the end of the Metropolitan Line, I am still in contact with those people and as such I retain a strong affection with this extreme of West London. It just so happens that The Ruts/Ruts DC are all rolled into that sentiment. One of those local bands was The Price with Leigh Heggarty on guitar.... I wonder what he's up to these days?
So what of the album then?
Well, like lots of bands popular in '78/'79, The Ruts played punk rock and a kind of punk/reggae fusion. The difference was that, with the possible exception of The Clash, The Ruts did it better than everyone else! Of the other bands following this path, the most notable (and successful) were The Police, a trio comprising a jazz bassist, a prog drummer and psychedelia influenced guitarist, who knowingly created their own style of reggae fusion... a 'Reggata De Blanc' for which they were frequently taken to task by reviewers (criticism that never harmed their bank balances). And The Members, well they came from Surrey!
Conversely, The Ruts were rather more in the thick of the action. Notable songs on the album are 'Babylon's Burning' and Jah War' songs influenced by the pervading race fuelled political tensions. These tensions boiled over on 23rd April (St George's Day of course) 1979 when the National Front staged a rally at Southall Town Hall. In the course of the day's troubles, teacher Blair Peach died at the hands of the notorious SPG (the 'Special Patrol Group' of the Metropolitan Police) and Misty In Roots's manager, Clarence Baker, was hospitalised with a fractured skull and brain injury after the police stormed the People Unite Community Centre in Southall (The Ruts' first single 'In A Rut' was released on the 'People Unite' label).
'The spark of fear is smoldering
With ignorance and hate'.
('Babylon's Burning' 1979)
'The winds were blowing and stirring up reaction
A storm broke out a militant action
Hot heads came in uniform
Thunder and lightning in a violent form'.
('Jah War' 1979)
Misty In Roots did not only provide The Ruts with lyrical inspiration, as a reggae band of some standing they nurtured the young punks playing many shared gigs and also sharing time in rehearsal rooms which leant The Ruts a more authentic grasp of how reggae should be played.
'The Crack' is a heady collection of songs that exude the atmosphere of political tension that was so prevalent in 1979. In addition to the aforementioned 'Babylon's Burning' and 'Jah War', songs like 'SUS' held a mirror up to society, highlighted well known policing issues and pre-empted the riots that exploded across many British inner-city areas some 18 months later. The Ruts were never an overtly political band, it was enough just to exist in that environment and write about it. It was never doom and gloom with the band though. 1979 was their breakthrough year and they enjoyed it to the full. Sadly, the bubble burst when heroin took Malcolm Owen in July 1980.
I have located reviews of the album from three of the four major UK music weeklies. Two are with me in that the reviewers loved the album. Only Tony Stewart of the New Musical Express dissented with repeated references to heavy metal shortcomings. Personally, I think that Phil Sutcliffe's summing up is a fair reflection of The Ruts at the time of 'The Crack'.
'They've got real front line experience and the judgement and imagination to use it powerfully'.
New Musical Express (6th October 1979)
Record Mirror (6th October 1979)
Sounds (29th September 1979)
Signed as they were to Virgin Records, The Ruts upon release of 'The Crack' enjoyed an extensive promotional campaign.
Saturday, 15 August 2026
The Icicle Works Aston University 4th December 1987
I cannot recall now how I became aware of The Icicle Works, a Liverpool band fronted for many years by Ian McNabb. 'Love Is A Wonderful Colour' had been a hit in 1983 so I suppose it was that. Later in 1987 they released the album 'If You Want To Defeat Your Enemy Sing his Song', a cumbersome album title perhaps, but a great album. They were on the bill of the Reading Festival the same year and they were one of the bands that I made a point of watching.
This is a recording, albeit incomplete of the band playing at Aston University an the year of the 'Enemy' album release. Thanks to the original Dime uploader.
30 years down the line and I saw Ian McNabb again when he played in a friend's living room for his 50th birthday. After his set, I said hi at which point he mentioned The Stranglers shirt I was wearing and the fact that he was a fan. I mentioned that I'd seen The Icicle Works on the Friday of the Reading Festival ahead of The Stranglers playing on the Sunday. Clearly this lead on to the occasion on which his path crossed with The Stranglers leading to something of an audition for a potential replacement for Hugh. He confirmed that something along those lines did occur.... but unfortunately, it being a party close to Christmas, 24 hours later any detail that he did impart on this event was erased from my memory!!
Ian McNabb didn't land the job as we all know, and to be honest, I don't think that he, or any other established, known musician would have been the right move for The Stranglers.
The Icicle Works are playing again with Ian and Chris Layhe (the original bass player).
Artwork: https://we.tl/t-vhCDEcXEttHKR1Df
Victoria Theatre Halifax 11th November 1997
Here's another one, courtesy of yesican. Cheers, appreciate it as always! On tour with 'Written In Red'.
Artwork: https://we.tl/t-YzHkUeDrqWQeXNZR
