play fast and furious music in South London pubs.
Is this credibility? GARRY BUSHELL thinks so.
HI, IT's GARRY BULLSHIT here with yet another article full of pretentious pseudo-intellectual points about the Tooting Popular Front and how punk is alive and well and living in South London. Well really, it's about the UK Subs and Charlie Harper, a man who proves you don't have to be under sweet 16 to be part of the next generation.
Charlie is the Peter Pan of punk, his age like the colour of Maggie Thatcher's underwear is one of the great unsolved mysteries of our time. Guitarist Nicky Garratt tells me Charlie was in Beethoven's backing band, so suffice to say he's been around a long time.
Now Charlie's singing with the UK Subs who revolve musically round Nicky's frantic guitar work and the solid wall-of-sound of Pete Davies's drums and Paul Slack's bass. The group play simple direct pogo music, fast and furious, and they've built up a regular punk/skin working class following in South London after 18 months of gigging and regular spots at the Putney White Lion (now over) and their new venue- Wednesday night at the Foresters Arms, Tooting.
Nick:"We started the venue at the Foresters just by going up and approaching the management." Paul:"He went up in a suit and tie and said we were a pop group."
The White Lion crowd have stayed loyal; in fact the band seem to be picking up fans everywhere they play. Last week a gang came up from Battersea to see them and the young groups they always put on as support.
Charlie explained:"We always try and put new groups on with us. We're trying to build up a network of venues and bands so they don't get ripped off by agents or always have to go up to the city. Everybody helps everyone else. There's so much talent around London at the moment who just ain't getting the breaks."
Groups like Smak from Plaistow, Crass from Catford, The Pack from Clapham and Minnie Ralore. Groups who, despite what the cynics tell you are keeping punk alive.
Supporting the boys last Wednesday were ex-Adam and the Ants, Mark Gaumont; and Security Risk from Romford. Security Risk were plaing their second gig. They're fronted by 18-year old Jan Parker, a white version of the wonderful Poly Styrene. Sure they were raw and basic but that's what it is all about - and they stood up amazingly well to a beer drenching from a couple of the skins.
Some people get a bit worried about possible violence from the fans, a lot of them look pretty hard, but
Charlie: "It's an over-reaction cos they look tough."
Pete: "Any crazy pogoing crowd looks pretty scary, but it rarely turns into violence."
There was only one brief scuffle tonight, usually the fans just join in.
Pete: "When we played Coventry the kids got on stage and nicked Charlie's mike, and he just stood there grinning."
Charlie: "Arrh, they only nicked it cos they wanted a souvenir."
The band aren't too keen about fans on stage but Charlie reckons it's great. When I saw them a couple of skins were doing back-up vocals (since when have there been chants of 'Chelsea' in 'Stranglehold'?). It was great to see these big tattooed kids taking over the stage between sets chanting "Sing if you're pround to be gay, sing if you're 'appy that way...Ballstool Brakeout!"
Last time I wrote about the UK Subs I called them a "good time populist punk pogo/dance band with a few heavy metal tinges".
Pete doesn't agree: I don't consider us to be a punk band because punk when it started it was young kids who didn't really know how to play. We've all been playing for years except for Paul, the bassist, who started from scratch. He learnt the bass lines in about one week before we played Erics."
And what did Paul think?
"I just want to say hello to my girlfriend, hi Allie."
SEMANTICS APART there's no denying the UK Subs are one hell of a tight fun band. Stripped down to the basics the songs are lovely chunks of sweat-inducing dance music. 'C.I.D.' has just been recorded and will come out on the City Records label sometime next month:
'See that man/dressed in black/just pass him by/don't look back/keep in line/walk straight ahead/make one false move/you could be dead/Cause he's an underground undercover agent for the C.I.D. (C.I.D, C.I.D.)/got a loaded 44./he's a walking armour store (C.I.D., C.I.D.)
It's a good rocking little number that sounds more r&b on record than it does live, but it's not their best song...
Nick: "No, it's a trailer really, we hope to get a record contract out of it, then we'll put out our best song as a follow-up."
Which is, of course, their stage fave ' Stranglehold', another basic work-out with a great catchy hook, She gotta Stranglehold on moi, a stranglehold on moi'. If you can remember to my live review a month ago, you might have been puzzled by Charlie's claim that they were a political band, yet they didn't play political songs. Pause for explanation:
Charlie: "When UK Subs started we were really political. We did a couple of heavy numbers like 'No Rules' and 'World War' which was about the Baader-Meinhoff gang and was about 24 seconds long. We had to slow it down to 30 seconds so you could hear the words. We've dropped the heavy political stance now because when we get on stage we wanna just forget reality and create our own escapism".
Pete: "Forty-five minutes of pure bliss."
Nick: "While we're on the subject I reject the suggestion that I'm right wing. I just want to make some money so we can get better gear and buy a studio - that doesn't make me a capitalist does it?"
I TELL YOU something, Charlie and the boys are all right. And I've got it on good advice from Wolfie Smiff himself that they won't be up against no brick wall with Sir Keith Joseph come the glorious day.
Article sent in by Graham Hammond now living in NSW, Australia. Cheers.