SOUNDS June 7, 1980

The masters of Pure Pogomatic Power Pound on (Part 86).

Garry Bushell finds the spikey-topped spirit undiminished in darkest devon.

NO DISRESPECT to Dave 'half-a-shandy' McCullough but, myself, I get no pleasure from records that sound like tin baths falling down coal chutes. Witless soul that I am, I go for active sounds, records that propel you into devil-may-care dancing, or compel you helplessly to grin, loon about and generally singalong to 'em.
And rather than legions of thin-faced grimacing youths, my vote goes for characters, genuine over-the-top nutters, the sort of colourful clowns who've made rock 'n' roll great from the off, from Richard Penniman to Johh Rotten (RIP), and right now the likes of Max Splodge, Buster Bloodvessel, Stinky Turner, Lemmy, Mensi, Chas Smash, Captain Sensible, Wendy O'Williams, Jerry Dammers, Boring Bob Grover, Johnny Clarke ...
(Some greats have been different, like Messrs Paul Weller and Bruce Springsteen today, but they're on their own level of, I dunno, 'mature' rock, and not really pop as I understand it at all. )
The UK Subs hold a special place in my pumper for precisely the above reasons. Not only are they masters of a pure pogomatic power that lends itself to both uncontrollable cranium-crunching cavorting and boisterous dingdongs but also they boast a real r'n'r character in their ranks.
Some time somewhere in the last 3s years, Cesar Romero's nephew Mr David Charles Perez of the Elephant And Castle said 'Shazam' too loud and Charlie Harper took his place in a roll of drums and a flash of blinding light.
Hairdresser by day (till he jacked it in t'other month) Chas would be seized at dusk by an irresistible compulsion to leap on the stages of small South London pubs to front God only knows how many tatty herbert rock bands, ranging from new York Dollsy excess-rockers to mean and dirty r'n'b bandits. Y'know, cut him and he bled liquid vinyl.
But it took punk and the formation of the UK Subs almost four years ago to totally complete the Harper persona as a fully-fledged; no-day-job rocker, this old character you see on your TV screen, this scrawny totter in his spittlestained donkey jacket, industrial boots, tatty t-shirt, and incredible shrinking trousers, with his mess of curls and permanent stubble, and a teenage heart beating underneath it all.
THIRTY SIX years old and the piss-takers label him 'King Of The Kids', but the funny thing is they're right. The UK Subs are a 'kid's band', a street band, whatever you wanna call it, and not just because of their ceaseless gigging (nigh on 250 gigs all told). Anytime you see Charlie out he is always, without exception, surrounded by clusters of young punkies and unlike a lot of self-styled 'stars' he's never desperately trying to escape their clutches, but genuinely taking an interest in what they've got to say. Corny as this may seem, the Subs care . And that's why their fans in turn are so dedicated.
They buy their singles into the Top Thirty, they buy their albums into the Top Twenty, they pack out their gigs. Some of them - the Barmy Army - follow them everywhere. The current contingent include such stalwarts as Don and Andy from Cardiff and Endo from Middlesborough who proudly boast that they've been at the band's last 100 gigs. And that's some travelling.
We're down in Exeter and I wake up the-morning-after-the-gig-before to see a troop of young spike-tops camped out in sleeping bags in the entrance to a church opposite the hotel. Guitarist Nicky Garratt is outraged and berates a roadie for not letting them have the van. Later the kids are told with not too much Christian charity to 'clear off' before the Bill are summoned. The band bid 'em bowl over the hotel where they stand them all tea and toast.
Okay, we're talking about little things, but they're the sort of small human gestures that-set the Subs apart from the old rock-groups-as-nice-little-earner enterprises,' yer Kiss type businessmen (Pshaw. -- G.B.)
I mean if Charlie Harper was ever bambootled into some record company reception stuffed full of liggers and parasites he'd be at the window handing out best breast of chicken to tramps and hobos underneath, and that's a fact.
Which is why it really pisses me off when all these two-a-penny music paper 'rebels' rubbish the band for not playin their safe little games. Can anyone actually show us what great breakthroughs the Fall have made? Or Scritti Politti? Or Public lmage? Oh wow, metal boxes, how revolutionary. Oh golly, I say chaps, let's start playing cotton reels, soup cans, bits of broken brick - that'll really screw up the system (not to mention the stylus). What's the answer, saps? Suicide? Seminars on Vegetarian Lesbians. Against Neo-Nati Marketing Devices! Aw, go play with yer toys.
LOOK AT the Subs' lyrics and then come back and say they don't acknowledge the existence of a real world full of corrupt politicians, boorish bureaucrats, tax dodgers, lax codgers, militarist toy soldiers, borstal, unemployment, killer cops ... they're not preaching, not even asking you to listen, but if you do then maybe Charlie's lyrics, his humanism, can finger a few social flaws, make you think about acting.
Personally, it's not the band's music or lyrics that bother us it's the '77 hangover audience. Like tonight I wander into Exeter's Routes Grub and it looks like the local Marks & Sparks have just had a bondage sale, real Spit The Dog Fan Club clobber, and I go through my usual spasm of Mark Perryoid outrage -- how much longer will people wear safety pins and dye their hair and think it means anything? To me it's comical or sad or something, let's face it, it wouldn't even shock Mary Shithouse, would it?
Nicky Garratt will have none of this. "You're wrong," he says. "it means a lot to people fashionwise, it sets them out from the crowd. And it's still more up to date than kids who follow mod or heavy metal. It's silly to look down at the kids because punk is all a lot of them have got, especially up in Scotland and places like that. It gives'em a bond in common."
"Yeah," Charlie Harper agrees later, "they're not silly these kids. They know what they believe in. They can't be hyped by the Biz and pulled the wrong way. They know what they're doing."
Maybe. The band arrive at the club late -- well after talented tour support the criminally undiscovered Aylesbury punkies Liquid Stone have finished their action packed set. Late and pissed. They'd spent the day at the Top Of The Pops studio (their sixth appearance, and their fifth hit, the jocular jibe at Mod 'Teenage') in the company of fellow popstars the unbelievable noisy Cockney Rejects and they bowl in reeking of booze (except for teetotal Nicky) and singing the Rejects' praises. Typically the Subs had refused to do TO TP unless Gem paid for them to be flown down to the gig afterwards and the good beer at the Beeb was greedily augmented by the six-seater plane's own fridge full of goodies.
This does not have too bad an effect on their performance, however. As ever a roar of feedback like and I quote 'a strangled hippo with scorching syph' announces their presence and soon metamorphoses into their first ever single 'CID'.
Charlie sways over the mike, bellowing like a dying fairground barker as Nicky shamelessly flaunts his newly blond barnet, crouching, slouching and generally splitting it about to his left, and bassist Paul Slack, newly shorn and sporting RAF-type moustache, boasts the only leather jacket in the house. (The management obviously feel such garments are an incitement to mob violence). Diminutive drummer Pete-Davies of the shocking red hair and what looks like escalating anorexia is hidden away out of my view which does little to allay my fears that he's generally wasting away.
BUT SUCH worries are soon shelved as the band begin to belt through timeless classics from their earliest Castle/Crypt Club beginnings.'I Couldn't Be Vou', 'I Live In A Car', the pop classic 'Tomorrow's Girls', luvly singalong chaos which wastes no time reducing the audience to a crazy approximation of wild rats trapped in a burning cage and as ever I feel my gears meshing and the old enjoyment thermometer bubbling up and bursting through the top.
Newest number 'Left For Dead' comes next, an Inter-City paced thunderer leading into a selection from the new album, 'Kicks', with its contagious 'Kicks for depression -- / need my kicks for my aggression' chorus, the steaming 'Rat Race' ('it's a rat race baby / A faceless face/But if you're dying of hunger you get in the race'), and the other newcomer, 'New York State Police'.
Then the tempo is slowed for a particularly sinister sounding 'Warhead' before the band crank-up again for a titanic ten tornado-paced bellowers, everyone a coconut. Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall skinheads at a single pogo ...
Oh yeah, tall skinheads. Several muscley shaven ones got a touch carried away half way through the set and began a boisterous battle to capture the stage and Sling their arms round Chas. A terrific tug-of-war 'twixt them and the roadies ensued with tempers fraying but thankfully no harm done. The roadies' valiant endeavours to save the army-camouflaged amps from size ten Doc Martens were somewhat hampered by Mr Harper's habit of gripping on to everyone who managed to penetrate the roadies' defence like a long lost brother.
Nick and Paul sensibly slide into the wings so the visual pandemonium does little to disrupt the demonic assault of Subs songs (strangely interspersed with drunken crowd renditions of 'Bubbles') building up to a staggering conclusion with a heartfelt 'Killer' and brain blistering 'Emotional Blackmail'.
There's no way the crowd are satisfied with that and they roar out for five more numbers, even drowning out the disco which starts up after the second encore seemed to have put paid to the performance. Even Paul climbing over the amps does little to upset this seemingly never-ending flow of forceful high energy rock with the punch of a prize fighter and the kick of a drug-crazed mule. Nothing to give Sky a complex for sure, but almost unmatchably satisfying none the less.
Backstage there's a messy food fight and some yokel colour in the shape of some dodgy autograph hunters who Chas manages to convince that I'm Paul Slack. But sadly the hotel is less fun what with the bar closed an' all, so we just sit about drinking left over cans of lager and chatting aimlessly. Chas reveals that his sooncome solo single (he claims he was forced into it cos the band don't like his songs) which was put together with the likes of Chelsea's guitarist is actually half a tribute to Jimmy Pursey.
THE ROUSING rumbling concerns itself with some young punks on a pleasurable outing that ends up at a Sham gig and then all coming home chanting 'Kids United'.
"I wrote it cos I was fed up with everyone slagging Pursey off all the time," Chas confesses, adding ironically that the 'Kids United' chant at the end has already led Jimbo's representatives to try and claim half the royalties for the song..
Next morning I greet Nicky over brekkers. He's wearing a holey mohair pullie and clutches a Star Wars comic- which he proclaims to be the worst thing he's ever read "in all my life and previous existence".
Before long we're nattering about plans, which include a visit to the studio later this month to record a new single, and if things go well a new album for end of July release (gaspo). We agree that only a virtual block on airplay has stopped the Subs' singles crossing over to SLF-style chart placings.
"It's ridiculous," Nick ejaculates, "Even with 'Warhead', Music Week registered that we were getting zero airplay. There's a big wall of silence against us, the Rejects and the Upstarts. They just won't play our records, but I've got no complaints because the fans always buy them anyway.
"All I'm really interested in doing is perfecting our sound, stamping our own identity on punk energy. I don't think we'll ever slow down, but we've got to make sure we don't repeat ourselves. Personally I don't think we've got a lot in common with the Upstarts or the Rejects -- we're all creating something of our own, and, well I've said before punk will run its course. People said it'd die out in six months, well three years later it's still here. It's changing but it's still here.
"I enjoy writing, working in the studio where I can make out I'm Darth Vadar, and touring. I'm not really ' concerned with the bit side of it. Which is why we signed a firm of accountants as managers, people who could handle all the business and let us get on with it. Okay, they make duff decisions sometimes (like the current single sleeve design) but it seems to be working really well at present."
CHARLIE NATURALLY shares Nick's disregard for the bit and comes on even stronger about the validity of punk.
"I think punk means even more now than when it started. People do look on us, the Upstarts and the Rejects as true punk bands whereas even with the Pistols and the Clash it was more a sort of pseudo-art form rather than the kids themselves. As a band I think we're totally for the kids and it means more to me to do a gig than appear on TO TP which is why we refused to cancel last night to appear. We refuse to be suckered into the bit side.
"But to my mind the band is at a crossroads now, the temptations are coming up, the big houses, the holidays abroad, and we'll either split up through it, or see it through to a real brand new age.
"If it's anything to do with me we won't get bought off or misled cos all I wanna do is play and use money to do things like opening a club in south London, and helping other bands get started. That's what it's all about. I'm not interested in the glamour bit of 'rock 'n' roll. All I wanna do is jump about and go crazy. That's what I'll be doing for as long as I can."
And how bad's that!