The Damned's Phantasmagoria Is 41 Today!

 

There was a thread that appeared on the 'Punk's Not Dead, But I'm Not Far Off' FaceBook page today, the 41st anniversary of the release of 'Phantasmagoria' that was discussing whether or not it was a shit album! I was a little surprised by this. As a fan of pretty much everything that the band have done over the past 50 years, I have to say that I rate 'Phantasmagoria' pretty highly in the ranking of their studio albums.

It wasn't far into the '80s that punk was particularly out of vogue. With all of the frills of New Romanticism and an all pervading attitude of 'We Just Wanna Have Fun!' infecting the charts, there was little room for anger and chaos anymore. The same music writers who were extolling the virtues of punk a few years before now dismissed the music and the musicians as old hat and irrelevant. If you happened to be one of those old and down punk bands, there were just two options available... adapt or die. In the case of The Damned, other circumstances were coming into play. Sensible, the clown prince of punk, had stumbled into a solo career and was now the property of Saturday morning kid's TV programming. Moreover, the band were for a time without any record company backing. The future was not looking good. 

Then 'Phantasmagoria' happened and the band's fortunes were very much reversed. Fortunately, the band were old enough not to be recognised by a new cohort of the record buying public, but not too old to get airplay and TV time when the hits came. Thus is was that this album saved the band's life and for a time (admittedly a pretty short time) The Damned were once again the flavour of the month.

The Damned heeded the warnings and did indeed adapt. Not everyone followed that example.... think about The Clash!

It was a very different album from what came before it. But, there is no denying that it is one of the most consistent and complete albums that the band ever recorded.

I think that I read somewhere once that the album was very much admired by JJ at the time and was his Walkman (I'm sure he would have had one!) companion. Well, you've gotta keep an eye on the competition! 

So here is a recording from one of the dates from the so-called 'Big Tour' of 1985.

FLAC: https://we.tl/t-uXEpgrWd3ZHyCc0t

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-XoHACc64kEfZ6NGy

Live At The Cathedral BBC Radio Interviews - Lynval Golding And Horace Panter (The Specials)

 

'Live From The Cathedral'... no surprises I have been playing this a lot this week. It is the perfect statement with which to conclude an extraordinary career. For sure, the rate of attrition within the band over the years has been rather high with the result that of the Magnificent 7 that rode out of Coventry in 1978, only three original members were there to play amongst the shattered spires of the old Coventry Cathedral back in July 2019. Down to three, but their power was not diminished. This fond live farewell is the perfect antidote to all of the political shit that we are wading through right now. It could be 1979.... only it's worse, much worse.

In the week of its release Lynval and Horace were to be seen, or rather heard hotfooting from station to station to plug the album on the airwaves. They talk of 2 Tone, Coventry and of course Terry.

In the words of Terry Hall, 'Love! Love! Love!'

FLAC: https://we.tl/t-dxhw7eci11esZLjs

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-pR4PoTotYm5iqWfY

Festival Hall Corby 23rd July 1980

 

I had a request last week from the Black Country which no sooner was it passed on than DomP was able to fulfil it. It was for The Stranglers in Corby in July 1980. It is a recording that has appeared on these pages in the past 2011. Here are those files again in FLAC format, with artwork and just a bit of Dom’s audio jiggery-pokery. Phil Coxon wrote some words about this gig for a tour diary piece that he did for the official website a few years back.

The band played Corby as a benefit for local steelworkers. This was quite unusual in that The Stranglers have never seemed to plat so many benefit gigs, but also Corby then as now has never been prominent on the live circuit. Nevertheless, The Stranglers were in the hall and playing songs for a song (the tickets were cheaply priced!). The circumstances of the gig should have been such that the evening could have been a fantastic event. Instead the band were treated to a punk rock style circa 1976 i.e. they faced a torrent of gob. The salivary flow persisted throughout the gig, much to the annoyance of the band who departed from the stage after a set of just 13 songs. Look at that set and imagine paying more attention to producing oral ammunition than listening to that! The mentality of some folk!?

And many thanks DomP!

FLAC: https://we.tl/t-iJdgEJNhRRdRyP31

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-Bh1VOmetKCxs3zS9

Tous Sur Le Pont Festival Blois 11th July 2007

 

 A second anniversary gig in one day! Here are the band at the Tous Sur Le Pont Festival in Blois in this day in 2007. Quite a nice sounding recording from what seems to have been quite a short lived festival (2003 to 2008) as sadly many of them seem to be.

FLAC: https://we.tl/t-dz1OSqB6Xf2kwQ6F

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-HncBcNXdbyKKBx6r

For some reason the folder I have on my PC relating to this gig also includes a photo of Sid heartily  enjoying himself - I assume that it was taken at this festival.

The Specials Live From The Cathedral' - The Final Offering

 

It was with great anticipation that I waited the weeks it took from ordering to this being dropped on the doorstep. 'The Specials Live From The Cathedral', definitively the last album from The Specials, one of the greatest bands to have come out of the UK, is what I am talking about here. With this album the band come full circle from the city's pubs and clubs of the late 1970's to the majestic ruins of Coventry Cathedral in 2019. And this is the bit that really hurts, Gunta and I missed it. She is a Cov girl (with German and Latvian thrown in too!) and our son is christened Rudi ('It's an international name' we told our parents... of course our friends all knew where we were coming from!). I would have given my right arm to be amid the ragged masonry for one of these dates.

The paradox of The Specials is that as the standard bearers of the 2 Tone label and all of the founding principles behind it, they were at times one of the most volatile bands that ever shared a stage! This was seemingly totally at odds with their consistent message of tolerance and unity! If the tensions that led to the demise of the original band in 1981, they were never far from the surface even after they came back together in 2008, after a 27 year absence from our lives. In many ways they just started up again from where they left off! But, this of course is what made The Specials well... special. Songs like 'Concrete Jungle', 'Too Much Too Young' and 'Why?' absorbed that tension and converted it into creative brilliance.

In 2019 The Specials enjoyed their first Number 1 album (whatever that means in this day and age!!) and it is fitting that these cathedral gigs gave the material from that album, 'Encore' a good airing, offering a brilliant counterpoint to the angry punk/Blue Beat mix of the first album. As an aside, to the detractors of 'Encore' who bemoaned the fact that the album was no 'Specials', Terry Hall responded with 'Did they not listen to 'More Specials'?' 

On this final recording, Coventry boys Terry and Lynval take the lead on the mike between songs. It is clear that they are revelling on the warm welcome that the band received during these shows. 'This is the first time I've ever dedicated a song to a chip shop.... this is for the Parson's Nose' says Terry before launching into his musical autobiography of his youth in the city, 'Friday Night, Saturday Morning'.

Listening to this, yes I am angry with myself for the fact that we weren't there but I am equally thankful that we had the opportunity to see then a dozen times or so between 2009 and 2021. If the music changed with time the message remained the same, unbendingly so.

Every time I have been to that city and passed the 'Welcome to Coventry' signs I wonder just how much longer it will take before Walt Jabsco will appear on the sign to add his own skankin' welcome! 

Colston Hall Bristol 11th July 1980

 

And a Happy Birthday to this one from the 'Who wants The World?' tour. It has been posted on here previously (2012) but is posted here again with new artwork. Whilst it is not going to win any awards for sound quality, it is not so bad and great if you were lucky enough to have been in Bristol on this night a mere 46 years ago.

FLAC: https://we.tl/t-OCS636zrEHAVcfmv

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-TdrTEUymNYdL1n2O

Ant Music For Sex People - Adam And The Ants TFTLTYTD #24

 

Whilst this is a familiar thread on the site, instead of marking the life of a musician. this time around I an remembering a famous or should that be infamous character who was failed the British legal system. Last Wednesday, the Home Secretary, David Lammy announced that by royal consent the death sentence carried out on Ruth Ellis was being commuted to life imprisonment. Ruth Ellis was the last woman to be hanged in the United Kingdom. The sentence was carried out on 13th July 1955 and was the culmination of the case in which Ellis was tried for the murder of her lover, David Blakely.

I do not intend to repeat the history here, but if you are unfamiliar with the case please do take a look her the entry on Wikipedia (other online resources are available!). It is a terrible story. Ruth, her mother and sister were physically and sexually abused by her father from a very young age. She left home for the big city where she found work in prostitution and in the clubs of Soho. In this time she also had a string of poor relationships with men characterised by physical and psychological abuse.

In 1953 she met Blakely, educated at public school and Sandhurst and a racing driver to boot and they were soon living together despite the fact that Blakely was engaged to another woman. In time Ellis started seeing another man, Desmond Cussen, and started living with him whilst the relationship with Blakely continued. Ellis went through these years often pregnant, losing one child through miscarriage after being punched in the stomach by Blakely.

On 10th April 1955 she travelled by cab to Hampstead in search of David Blakely, eventually locating him in the Magdala public house. When he emerged from the pub with a male friend and went to his car Ruth Ellis shot him repeatedly. With her abusive lover fatally wounded on the ground she was quickly apprehended by an off-duty policeman. She made no attempt to flee. Upon her arrest she stated only "I am guilty, I'm a little confused."

Tried and sentenced at the Old Bailey on 20th June she was hanged by Albert Pierrepoint at Holloway prison and buried within the grounds of the prison. Later in the 1970's Ellis's remains were exhumed and reburied in Amersham in Buckinghamshire.

Hers was a life in freefall from a young age and she was just 28 when executed. There was never a denial of culpability on Ruth Ellis's part for the crime that she committed and was thus always going to be punished for her actions. However, this was 1955, an era in which the extreme provocation of domestic abuse and coercive control held little sway in a British court of law.

The Family tragedy did not end with the execution of Ruth, subsequent to her hanging, suicide took other close members of the family, with her first husband and her son taking their own lives in 1958 and 1982 respectively. Ruth Ellis's mother attempted suicide by gassing in 1969.

If ever their was a case with extenuating circumstances this was it. The Ruth Ellis case ultimately did much to change the law in the UK, from the abolition of capital punishment to the acknowledgement of the impact of domestic abuse in criminal behaviour.

The link to Adam and the Ants is tenuous, but their 'Song For Ruth Ellis' is the only song that I am aware of that references this infamous British murder case. The track was recorded in several demo sessions that the Ants did prior to getting signed to 'Do It' records. I have said it elsewhere but as good as 'Dirk Wears White Sox' is, it is undeniably true that much of the material that preceded it is equally as good if not better. This I guess is the reason why these various demo sessions are so enduringly popular.

The BBC's reporting of the granting of a conditional pardoning can be found here.

FLAC: https://we.tl/t-DZHYE23xaWuDETEX

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-kBY8fRCP3gTEz38a