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.