Wednesday, October 06, 2004

But down by the ballroom

I recognized that flaming fountain in those kindered caring eyes.

Paul Research from the Scars puts it very well. We're all older than we ever thought we'd be, and we keep getting fed nostalgia shows on TV that show a decade that doesn't seem anything like the 80s at all. So I'm going to indulge in shameless nostalgia for the decade that apparently never was. I hope that others of my age will find it brings back memories and will be generous enough to remind me of things forgotten. I hope that "you young people" may find some of the old obscure music we reminisce about is actually not that bad.

I guess I started the decade enjoying the last vetiges of the punk revolution and the pub rock booze up, and drifted naturally into the Living Room/Communication Club scene that later became the foundation of Creation Records. However I was also listening to a lot of African stuff, a lot of reggae and ska, and never quite stopped being tied down to blues, rhythm and blues, and English folk. I had the good fortune to have a show on IC Radio where I was allowed to play fast and loose with the playlist (as well as managing to force artists like the Teardrop Explodes, Aztec Camera and Altered Images onto it by sheer repetition, above all I was allowed to have guests and do interviews. I guess the highlight was teaching the late lamented Epic Soundtracks how to do a radio show.

In 1980 I was in a punk R&B band called the Vegetables, along with Mark Wilson who was last heard of at the BBC Radiophonics Workshop, and Martin Bayliss who later joined the marvellous Cannibals with Mike Spencer. We were pretty lousy (apart from Martin who was already a classy bass guitarist and Mark who could honk a sax to great effect) but nobody could ever say we didn't sweat.

After that fell apart I was dragged into Futile Hurling which qas aomewhat different. It was sort of an Imperial College supergroup, except that I'd been kicked out and Jerry was never actually there, and that we weren't super as such. However we did get to do some fairly serious gigs and I'm still proud of what little we managed to record. It meant that the brass section started indoctrinating me with the religion that is jazz, and when The McGee picked up on us it meant we all got to take the making of music almost seriously. I gather it was one of the best tines in my life, though I'm afraid I was a tad to out of it to remember very much apart from the gigs and recording sessions.

Jerry went solo as The Legend and released the first plastic on creation, Dave and Paul become two of Helen McCookerybooks's Horns, and I went off to audition for Twelve Cubic Feet who we'd been supporting not long before. I dragged my former college radio trainee along to an audition for a new vocalist and we both got the gig. At times we were GOOD. We had Dave Morgan, possibly the finest dance drummer I know of and a dream to be in a rhythm section with, we had Paul Rosen writing some freat songs, fabbo guitar from Dave Evans, rather classy vocals from Fred Durell and Franky, and we had a Casiotone on an ironing boartd, and what could be cooler than that? Well for a starters having a demo produced by Joe Foster.

Stiff Records were impressesd and offered us a contract. What happened mext won't be history until I've had a coffee, a ciggy, wittered on about some old obscure forgotten bands for a while, made a few phone calls, eaten something, watched telly, fallen asleep, woken up, had a bath, several coffees and a brakfast, and eventually started feeling guilty that I was going to write up the latter half of teh decade and didn't get around to it.

Until then it's the autumn of 1984.

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