Robbie Burns Special ~ The Rise & Fall Of The Big Sound Of Celtic Post Punk

The early to mid eighties brought a brief but powerful genre of post-punk guitar rock; Celt Rockers, guitar based bands with ringing guitars, rousing vocals and martial drums, all drenched in echo all playing soaring anthems that sounded like calls to battle. Bands like U2 (Ireland), Big Country (Scotland), The Alarm (Wales), the rootsier Waterboys (Scotland), and briefly Simple Minds (Scotland) were the leaders of this clan. Although these bands had roots in the same post-punk scene as the likes of Joy Division, Siouxsie & the Banshees, Gang Of Four, Magazine, Ultravox, Wire, Psychedelic Furs, the Cure, Cult and Echo & The Bunnymen. The Celts had a distinctive approach, the English post-punks, while certainly capable of playing rousing calls to action (especially Gang Of Four) for the most part cultivated an image of dour, moody, introspection and lyrical obscurity. Their music belonged in dark underground clubs and occasionally cavernous dance halls or for sitting at home scanning the covers and liner notes for hidden meanings. The Celt bands on-the-other-hand sounded like they belonged in misty hills and glens gathering the clans for combat. Instead of English reserve and faux-profundity their lyrics invoked dreamy mystical imagery with more overt left-wing nationalistic political calls to action.

U2 ~ "I WILL FOLLOW";


There were already punk and post-punk bands from the Celtic fringe era of course but they fit into existing genres of Punk (Undertones, Stiff Little Fingers, Exploited, Outsiders), Post-Punk (Midge Ure of Ultravox and Visage, John McGeogh of Magazine, The Banshees and Visage, The Boomtown Rats, Simple Minds), Pop Punk (The Jolt, The Revillos) New Wave (the Cuban Heels, Altered Images, Orange Juice), Proto-Industrial (Robert Rental), Rockabilly (Shakin' Pyramids) or Pub Rock (Billy Bremner of Rockpile and the Knopfler Bros of Dire Straits) plus proto-punks Thin Lizzy if they count. But these bands were not notably different from Anglo bands. There was nothing particularly Celtic about them aside from a few Irish folk music refrences from Thin Lizzy.

SIMPLE MINDS ~ "I TRAVEL";


The most iconic and successful of these bands was of course U2 whose first three albums ("Boy" (1980), "October" (1981), "War" (1983) and the 1984 live "Under A Blood Red Sky") basically codified the sound with Big Country following up with three albums starting with "The Crossing" (1983), "Wonderland" (1984) and "Steeltown" (1985) and the Alarm with an ep in 1983 and the "Declaration" (1984) album. All these albums differed from the English post punk guitar bands in another significant way; they were actually hits in the USA. The Anglo bands were often critical darlings and earned cult followings in a few big cities in the American North East and a few college towns and Canada but the response from the heartland and commercial radio was underwhelming. All that mopey English reserve and arch artiness along with guys in eyeliner and severe haircuts left the heartland cold, but U2 and Big Country had a populist streak and their rousing epic sound were perfect for the stadiums of the mid-west industrial towns in a way that even Joy Division, for all their brilliance, could never be. To say nothing of the harsh, dour Marxist dialectics of Gang Of Four, New Model Army or Easterhouse, the only Anglo bands who actually could, and occasionally did, record a rousing anthem.

U2 ~ "NEW YEARS DAY";


Actually this whole genre did not start with U2's 1980 album "Boy" but with a band that has been largely forgotten outside their native Scotland; The Skids. Headed by singer/lyricist Richard Jobson and guitarist Stuart Adamson and starting in with their 1978 first ep and 79 album, "Scared To Dance" and the iconic singles "Into The Valley" and "The Saints Are Coming" all the essentials are there. Loud, ringing guitars, rousing battle cry vocals and war drums in a joyous headlong gathering of the clans. The cornerstones of everything the eighties U2, Big Country and Alarm would be are clearly on deck. As a singer Richard Jobson was an acquired taste, with his tuneless, wobbly, bellow making Sham 69's Jimmy Pursey sound like Brian Ferry but Stuart Adamson's guitar clearly previewing his later work in Big Country albeit without the one piece missing; the echo-drenched production that Steve Lillywhite would bring to U2 and Big Country. More on him later. The Skids anthemic Celt Rock would be cited as an influence by both U2 (who would cover Skids songs in their early days and occasionally afterwards) and The Alarm while Tenpole Tudor's "Swords Of 1000 Men" would basically sound like a drunken version of the Skids.

THE SKIDS ~ "THE SAINTS ARE COMING";


The Skids would have a couple hits and get attention from critics in the UK (but not elsewhere) but their biggest impact would be in the Celtic fringe of Scotland, Ireland and Wales where they offered a stadium ready escapist alternative to Anglo gloom and doom, and one rooted in Celtic culture. The Skids themselves would not survive long enough to make good on their promise however. They were already a chronically unstable band (each album has a different rhythm section) but the bigger problem was Jobson. Besides being a terrible singer he was also a dilettante with ambitions of being a poet, play-write and actor, in the early days he did however have enough boisterous energy to spare. For the 1979 second album "Days In Europa" his lyrics are becoming denser and more pretentious although there were enough anthems like "Working For The Yankee Dollar" to make it work. The album cover also got some flack for using the same sort of Nazi poster Joy Division used on their 1978 ep. Neither band were in any way Nazis but flirting with Nazi imagery was briefly fashionable in the punk and post-punk scene until they realized they were attracting the wrong sort of attention. The Skids later switched the cover art with a more Wiemar Republic influenced one, something that other bands would also do, notably Ultravox and Visage. By the 1980 third album "The Absolute Game" the Skids had clearly lost their way. Jobson was spending more time branching out into poetry and acting and the album is a dreary pretentious mess. After that Stuart Adamson left and that really should have the end of things but Jobson carried on with the Skids as essentially a backup group to his artsy posturings for a year or so before the inevitable pretentious solo album backed with Scottish guitarist John McGeogh, fresh from English post punkers Magazine and Visage, and English pianist/singer Virginia Astley for an album of dreamy Celtic mysticism that would presage ethereal Scottish dream pop band the Cocteau Twins, and traditional Irish bands Clannad and Enya who would do it much better.

THE SKIDS ~ "INTO THE VALLEY";


Another early influential Scottish Post-Punk guitar band were Josef K starting in 1979 whose dark, angular, jittery music had much in common with artsy Anglo-Post punks Joy Division, Wire, Subway Sect, Desperate Bicycles and the Fall albeit somewhat more upbeat and dance-able. They would only record a string of singles which had some middling chart success and one 1981 album before breaking up. Although their short career did not get a lot of attention they were an obvious influence on some later bands including Bauhaus, Gang Of Four, The Smiths and especially Franz Ferdinand.

JOSEF K ~ "SORRY FOR LAUGHING";


A more hard to place Scottish band were Fingerprintz who were one of the great lost bands of the post-punk era, a talented, eccentric band led by singer Jimmy O'Neil who got uniformly enthusiastic reviews over the course of three solid but very different albums that were too hard to classify. The first album "The Very Dab" was full of dark quirky guitar art-pop somewhat similar to XTC that showed much promise while the second was more polished but still did not managed to score a real hit. The third album "Bete Noir" was a complete change in direction, a slickly dark dance album with funky basslines and even horns similar to Visage's second album. But while songs like "Catwalk" and "Beat Escape" got some play from dance club DJ's play it had little appeal for rock fans and the album's only middling sales cost them their record deal and the band then broke up.

FINGERPRINTZ ~ "WET JOB";


As fate would have it just as the musical Skids were hitting the metaphorical skids U2 were taking their template to the obvious next level with their 1980 debut "Boy" produced by English producer Steve Lillywhite who would provide the distinctive ringing echo-drenched guitar with soaring vocals that would become the signature sound for U2 and Big Country. That he got the gig at all was due to the death of Ian Curtis. By 1980 U2 had recorded two singles in Ireland that got enough attention to get them signed to a UK label and a deal to record with Joy Division's producer Martin Hannett. The first two singles were in the same basic neighbourhood as other literate guitar based post-punk like Magazine, and the Skids. The Hannett produced single "11 O'Clock Tic Toc" b/w "Touch" cleaned up their sound and set them in a direction best described as "Happy Joy Division". How the planned debut album would have sounded with Hannett at the helm is one of the great unanswered questions of the Post-Punk era. But then Ian Curtis hanged himself and Hannett dropped his existing projects to guide the surviving members (as New Order) through a new album. The two most promising of these projects were an English band, The Psychedelic Furs (who had also already recorded a single with Hannett) and U2. Ironically both bands then turned to (or were assigned to) the same producer; Steve Lillywhite.

U2 ~ "GLORIA";


Steve Lillywhite had made a bit of name producing producing an impressive array of good albums; Peter Gabriel's second album (the one with "Games Without Frontiers" "I Don't Remember" and "Biko"), Siouxsie & Banshee's debut, the first two albums from Ultravox (then led by John Foxx), the third and fourth albums by XTC and the second album from Penetration. These albums, while not sounding the same, did have similar features; loud ringing guitars, vocals clear and out front, staccato drums, clean separation of all the instruments and echo, lots of echo. This turned out to be the missing piece for for U2 giving them the perfect pallet for their canvas of epic guitar rock through the next three albums. The rest of the U2 story is too well-known to dwell on here but one by-product of their surprising success was getting the attention of Stuart Adamson then free of the Skid's sinking ship. Adamson had formed a new band named Big Country, going the Skids (and U2) one better by having not one but two ringing guitars, bassist Tony Butler fresh from recording the Pretenders brilliant single "Back On The Chain Gang" b/w "My City Was Gone" and ace drummer Mark Brezezcki who would also play on the Cult's classic "Love" album. The main feature however was Stuart Adamson's guitar; everybody took note of the wailing bagpipe sound but the Scottish influences went deeper than mere production tricks. Adamson's playing incorporated bagpipe melodies and and fiddle reels and Brezezcki's drums worked in pipeband drum rolls on songs like "Fields Of Fire" and "Close Action" and the big hit "In A Big Country".

BIG COUNTRY ~ "IN A BIG COUNTRY";


The resulting debut album "The Crossing" scored an immediate cross Atlanic hit with "In A Big Country" and sent record labels searching for the next in what now appeared to be an actual genre of Celtic guitar bands. Up popped Welsh band the Alarm. They had been playing around the punk scene with their quirk being using acoustic guitars (albeit amplified) with their rousing Clash and Sham 69 anthems and wearing a combination of American cowboy and Civil War outfits with giant exploding thatches of hair. Their 1983 debut album and album "Declaration" (neither produced by Lillywhite this time) did not get the same kind of critical hosannas as U2 and Big Country with most critics finding them promising but somewhat derivative. Still it got success on both sides of the ocean with songs "68 Guns", "The Stand" and "Where Were You Hiding". The 1985 followup "Strength" carried on in a similar vein albeit with less success.

THE ALARM ~ "WHERE WERE YOU HIDING WHEN THE STORM BROKE";


Another Scottish figure would also take a while to figure out his sound was Mike Scott who started out as early as 1978 in the wake of the Skids with a similar Another Pretty Face wich included some big guitar anthems like "Whatever Happened To The West" and "All The Boys Love Carrie" along with some more pretentious piano driven ballads. They scored some early success in the UK and toured the USA before falling apart by 1981.

ANOTHER PRETTY FACE ~ "WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE WEST";


When Scott reemerged a couple years later with a new band the Waterboys with a ever-changing cast. Their sound was both more authentically folkrock and soulful then the other bands, mixing in some organ and horns while still having some stadium bombast with songs like "The Whole Of The Sea" and "Don't Bang The Drum" making them a more like a post-punk Van Morrison. They would also give this whole genre of Celt Rock a name which they dubbed "The Big Sound" even though they didn't really have the same dose of loud guitar anthems any more. The Waterboys would end up scoring more success than Another Pretty Face in America and especially Canada.

THE WATERBOYS ~ "THE WHOLE OF THE MOON";


A band that would score the biggest (and frankly surprising) success with a fusion of Celtic Folk Rock were Dexy's Midnight Runners, a Birmingham based band led by Irish born Kevin Rowland. He had started out with the Killjoys, a typical Pop Punk band who scored a minor hit in 1978. By 1979 Rowland had broken up the Killjoys and formed a new band as Dexys which would reject punk entirely in favour of 1960's inspired Soul Rock with a horn section. They scored some more success with their first album "Searching For The Lost Soul Rebels" and touring with similar sounding and looking Ska bands like The Specials and The English Beat. However the band was unstable and rebelled against Rowland's autocratic rule and broke up. Rowland would start over again with another lineup which got dropped from thier label and broke up yet again. When the ever stubborn Rowland reformed the band yet again it was in a very differnt form as he leaned into his Irish roots channelling Van Morrison for a Celtic Soul sound adding in traditional instruments like fiddles, accordians and banjos along with Irish vagabond clothes finally scoring a shockingly massive hit with "Come On Irene" in 1982. The song was a huge hit making the number one spot on both sides of the Atlantic the next year and is still a classic example of Celtic Folk Rock, if not THE classic Celtic Folk Hit however the song could not avoid looking like a novelty especially given their raggamuffin look.

DEXY'S MIDNIGHT RUNNERS ~ "COME ON IRENE";


Rowland found himself resentful of the hit and image he had created and this lineup broke up yet again and Rowland took two years and went back to the earlier Soul sound and look for the third album "Don't Stand Me Down" which dropped the folk elements in favour of longer soul ballads. The album got some good reviews but flopped commercially leading to the end of the band and Rowland's withdrawl into drug abuse and depression. Rowland has since alternated between periodic attempts at Dexys reunions (whithout original members) and the occasional odd and obscure solo albums.

Another band working an older tradition were the Bluebells who updated Folk Rock mixed with Skiffle, Britain's first wave of homegrown R&R from the 1950's the biggest star of which had been Lonnie Donegan of Glasgow. Starting in 1982 the Bluebells, led by indie journalist Bobby Bluebell and an ever shifting lineup, played an upbeat version of Folk Rock with the addition of fiddles and harmonicas scoring hits with songs like "Cath" and "Young At Heart", both of which actually made the charts twice. They only managed to record only an EP and album before breaking up in 1985.

THE BLUEBELLS ~ "CATH";


Scottish band Aztec Camera were not really part of the Big Sound having a lighter mix of folk and soul led by the seventeen year old Roddy Frame. On the first, album "High land Hard Rain" was largely acoustic but did share some of the lyrical themes of the other bands scoring a minor hit with the single "Oblivious". The second album (produced by Mark Knopfler) added more instruments to the mix and an ep brought a surprising (and surprisingly loud) cover of Van Halen's "Jump" that turned out to have a guitar solo that Eddie Van Halen might have found excessive.

AZTEC CAMERA ~ "JUMP";


Somewhat similar to early Aztec Camera were another Scottish band, Del Amitri who had a familiar mix of Folk Rock, Soul and Guitar Pop influnces starting in 1985 scoring some success in Britain and even briefly saw some minor chart action in the USA on the first album albeit mostly on the campus charts. Although they never managed to get the kind of attention most of the other bands here did they have managed to stick together with various lineups and continue to record today.

DEL AMITRI ~ "ALWAYS THE LAST TO KNOW";


While all this was going on some former stablemates of U2 were coming up with their own completely unique take on post-punk guitar rock. The Virgin Prunes had been friends with U2 from the the very beginings of both bands with guitarist Dik Evans being the older brother of U2 guitarist Dave "The Edge" Evans. In fact Dik had actually been one of the founding members of U2 before they decided they didn't need two guitars. While U2 were making their almost methodical climb to the big time the Virgin Prunes were doing the exact opposite. Starting around 1980 they made a series of eps and cassettes which even a fan would have to admit were willfully unlistenable cacophony. It was almost like they listened to the most wretchedly sprawling, pretentious, tuneless, murky, excessively over-the-top demos and obscure b-sides from PIL, Bauhaus, Wire, the Banshees and Clock DVA and said "I think we can top it". Their live show was even more excessive with the male band members heavily made-up and in drag like the most decadent Weimar/Dada cabaret act. By 1983 they were finally ready to make a proper record with the album "If I Die, I Die". Produced by Colin Newman (from Wire) who added some much needed discipline, basic song structure and crystalline production sheen. There was still plenty of droning and caterwauling but they did manage some proper guitar rock anthems like "Caucasian Walk". The Virgin Prunes were far too deeply weird to ever reach a larger audience even among Goths however and they took the next few years meandering around without bothering to record a followup.

THE VIRGIN PRUNES ~ "CAUCASIAN WALK";


Zerra One were another Irish guitar band who showed far less originality. They had been kicking around since 1982 recording a couple indie singles with little success until their 1984 debut album which fully adapted the sounds of U2 and Big Country and scored a minor UK hit with the anthem "10,000 Voices" but followups were less noticed and critics largely dismissed them as blander clones of U2 and Big Country which was a fair assessment.

ZERRA ONE ~ "10,000 VOICES";


An Irish band with a specific U2 connection were Cactus World News who got the attention of Bono who produced their first single in 1985 with "The Bridge". The debut followed the next year which got good reviews and scored three decent UK chart hits. However after spending the next few years touring their 1989 followup was turned down by their label which dropped the band who soon broke up with one of the guitarists joining the Australian band The Church.

CACTUS WORLD NEWS ~ "THE BRIDGE";


Another Scottish band would be plagued with similar bad luck with record labels and US radio but would manage a longer career. With the poorly chosen name GoodBye Mr Mackenzie, this Glasgow band scored their first hit on the indie singles charts in 1984 with "Death Of A Salesman". Blessed with a few singers and songwriters (including one Shirley Manson) and a slicker sound with keyboard washes to smooth out their echoing guitars courtesy of Big John Duncan (formerly of iconically obnoxious mohawk crested Punks the Exploited!) they would continue to score low level indie single hits as well as their first album in 1986. However they had problems with record labels and management and a name change to Angelfish but were never able to scare up any interest in America. They slogged on until 1994 when Shirley Manson left to join a new band, Garbage which would have much better luck.

GOODBYE MR MACKENZIE ~ "BLACKER THAN BLACK";


Meanwhile former Skids singer Richard Jobson had been watching his former bandmate Adamson make the big time with a sound noticably not disimilar from the Skids. After the breakup of that band Jobson had recorded a couple albums of pretentious poetry and meandering music and writing and acting a a few plays to little notice. By 1983 he formed a new band with fellow Scot John McGeogh on guitar, lately from Siouxsie & The Banshees and before that Magazine and Visage (he had also briefly replaced Stuart Adamson on one of the Skids' final lineups) along with one of the Skids ex bassists and drummer from Magazine. Called the Armoury Show they scored a mid-sized hit with "We Can Be Brave Again", a typical Skids style call-to-action that hit most of the notes of old but with noticeably less force. This issue wasn't really Jobson this time but McGeogh. His work with the Banshees had been brilliant and innovative with Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr citing him as a major influence. However his atmospheric style was not really suited to rousing battle cries. As for Jobson he predictably got bored anyway and wandered off to back to his poetry and McGeogh quit and joined PIL and that was that.

THE ARMOURY SHOW ~ "WE CAN BE BRAVE AGAIN";


Also carefully watching all this was another Scottish band who had been around longer than any of them. Simple Minds had formed out of Johnny & The Self Abusers, an earlier Rezillos type punk band in 1978 with their first album coming out in 1979. However at the time they seemed to have little in common with the Skids and U2. While Simple Minds clearly had guitar and drums they obviously took their influence from artsier bands like Roxy Music, Peter Gabriel and Ultravox with songs based not on guitar riffs but on the funky baselines from Derek Forbes (one of the best bassists of the post-punk era) around which were layered cascading keyboards and guitar arpeggios from Charlie Burchill and enigmatic stream of consciousness vocals from Jim Kerr. By their third album. "Empires & Dance" (1981) they had clearly made the style their own and they spent the next three albums perfecting it until they got to the critically acclaimed atmospheric "New Gold Dream" (1983) which made a lot of top ten lists. However they still had not been able to break into America aside from the club scene in a few cities and college towns nor could they get radio airplay. The solution was obvious, so in 1984 they brought in Steve Lillywhite to produce their next album, "Sparkle In The Rain" which took their usual intricate arrangements and driving basslines and ampped up the guitars and drums. The resulting album finally broke into US radio with songs like "Waterfront", "Catwalk" and "Speed Your Love To Me" and it brought them to the attention of director John Hughes in 1985 who would get them to record the theme for his next movie "Don't You Forget About Me" which would finally get them a bonafide US hit. By this time some critics pointed out that Simple Minds were doing a better U2 than U2 was, then working "Unforgettable Fire", more on that to come.

SIMPLE MINDS ~ "WATERFRONT";


In the mid-eighties there was also a somewhat related genre happening that incorporated the more dreamy, ethereal side of Celtic culture with dreamy albums from Scottish band the Cocteau Twins and Clannad, an Irish band of siblings and cousins who had actually been recording since the late 70's as a fairly traditional but modernized Celtic folk band who now plugged in, added some atmospheric keyboards and recorded a single with Bono and some soundtrack music. Enya, another member of the Clannad clan went solo, added more keys and scored an international hit with "Orinoco Flow".

CLANNAD WITH BONO ~ "IN A LIFETIME";


The Pogues, a more traditional Irish folk band went another way. Instead of the dreamy atmospherics of Clannad and Enya they adopted the rough & ready DIY attitude of punk in the person of drunken punk Shane McGowan who had been kicking around the London punk scene since from the start. The band's ramshackle Irish Folk-Punk scored unlikely hits starting in 1985 with traditional songs "Dirty Old Town" and "Waltzing Matilda". 1987's "If I Should Fall From Grace From God" (produced by Steve Lillywhite) brought another hit with "Fairy Tale Of New York".

THE POGUES ~ "DIRTY OLD TOWN";


The first and most beloved of the Irish punk bands of the first wave of Punk were the Undertones who scored classic hits with "Teenage Kicks", "My Perfect Cousin" and "Jimmy Jimmy" but by 1983 they had evolved into a slick pop band before breaking up. Singer Feargal Sharkey would go on to score a couple of pop hit singles. Guitarists John O'Neill and Damian O'Neill however formed the far more stadium friendly and overtly political band That Petrol Emotion in 1984 who would score their own Big Sound hit with the rousing nationalist anthem "Big Decision" in 1987. After a couple of minor followups the band lost their record deal and started to fragment.

THAT PETROL EMOTION ~ "BIG DECISION";


Scotland's Jesus & Mary Chain were of course the loudest guitar band of them all. Scrawny, drunken rugrat brothers Jim and William Reid formed the band with a couple of friends as rhythm section undeterred by their being barely competent musicians. Like most enthusiastic amateurs they started out as a ragged three chord punk band just as the likes of U2, The Skids, Simple Minds, Josef K and the Virgin Prunes had, albeit with non-punk influences from 1960's Folk Rock, Garage Punk and Girl Groups. By 1984 they had come up with a unique sound of their own; simple pop or folk rock songs utterly drenched in layer upon layer of screeching feedback, dense distortion and echo with booming drums and Jim Reid's droning vocals for a sound they dubbed the "Wall Of Noise" after Phil Spector. Their live shows set new standards of shambolic chaos with short sets, out of tune guitars (not that mattered considering the sheer cacophony) and drunken band members stumbling about until the inevitable crowd riot. This version lasted for a trio of independent singles and debut album "Psychocandy" in 1985 to rave if bemused reviews. But while they generated a sensation for their louder-than-loud records, riotous shows, distinctive big-black hairdos and all-black clothes and drunken interviews they were savvy enough to realize that this image would be self-limiting and by their 1987 second album they had reworked their sound to a more conventional but still distinctive guitar based echoing drone that they would follow on and off to the present day. Making them one of the least expected survivors of this era.

THE JESUS & MARY CHAIN ~ "NEVER UNDERSTAND";


Former Fingerprintz singer Jimmy O'Neil and guitarist Cha Burnz finally returned to the fray with a new band, the Silencers with a solid 1987 album "A Letter From St Paul" which as usual got them plenty of critical raves but only middling success. It would however be enough to keep them recording albums and touring for years until Burns died of cancer in 2007.

THE SILENCERS ~ "I SEE RED";


1986/87 would turn out to be both the highwater mark for the Big Sound and the beginning of the end as it's major players changed direction or faded away. Fittingly U2 were the first to do so. Just as Simple Minds had been eager to reach U2's stadium audience U2 were even more desperate to have something post-punk bands like Simple Minds, Joy Division, Japan, Magazine and John Foxx era Ultravox had long achieved; serious artistic credibility. U2 had always gotten good reviews but were seen as a good guitar rock band, but not serious, thoughtful artistes, and that is what they most wanted to be. This would require a change in direction as thorough as Simple Minds was in the process of doing, so just as Simple Minds were enlisting Steve Lillywhite to produce "Sparkle In The Rain", U2 were replacing him with none other than Brian Eno, ex of Roxy Music, the main influence of Simple Minds, Ultravox and Japan. The resulting 1985 album "The Unforgettable Fire" had a few songs that fit into their usual stadium ready repertoire but was mostly moody atmospherics that left critics and fans divided. As we all know 1987's more stadium friendly "Joshua Tree" and "Rattle & Hum" made them the biggest band in the world but it also made them and the whole genre terribly unhip, especially the film that went along with "Rattle & Hum" which allowed the band to give vent to their most cloying self-importance. Since then they have of course become the biggest band in the world in the 1990's and 2000's although nobody thinks they are cool or cutting edge anymore.

U2 ~ "IN THE NAME OF LOVE";


Too much success would create more problems for Simple Minds. "Don't You Forget About Me" was a massive US radio hit that left them with the problem of how to follow it up. They too decided to dispense with Steve Lillywhite's dense production in favour of American top-forty producers Jimmy Iovine and Bob Clearmountain for the 1987 album "Once Upon A Time". Bassist Derek Forbes, an important part of their sound was also forced out. The album which would finally give them the serious US hit they had been working towards. But even more than U2 it also appalled their longtime fans and was widely condemned as a sell-out. Songs like "Alive & Kicking", "Oh Jungleland" and "Sanctify Yourself" got plenty of airtime but they sounded more like an artsier late eighties Genesis or Cutting Crew than anything resembling Simple Minds, or even U2 for that matter. They spent the next couple of years on the road trying to figure their next move, facing more lineup changes and killing time with a live album which tellingly consisted almost entirely of songs from the last two albums. When they finally went in the studio with 1989's "Street Fighting Years" the results were not reassuring. The strongest song; the epic "Belfast Child" showed a band formerly known for obscure lyics embracing both an overtly political stance (to be fair they had also been supporting causes like Live Aid and Anti-Apartheid) and expressly Celtic folk-rock sound. Strong as it was it sounded nothing like Simple Minds. Another track to get airplay was a solid but perfunctory version of Peter Gabriel's "Biko" which they had been playing live and further showed their political awareness but also their lack of musical ideas, especially for a band whose only previous cover song had been a typically note-perfect version of Lou Reed's "Street Hassle" on "Sparkle In The Rain". Although the album topped the UK charts that was pretty much the end of their time as relevant figures in the USA. Long recording delays, record label hassles and lineup changes along with changing musical tastes in the 90's left them behind. The 1995 album "Good News From The Next World" might have been a tolerable followup to "Street Fighting Years" if it had only been released several years earlier, but by 1995 it was dangerously out-of-touch and saw little chart or radio action in the USA. The next album wasn't even released in the USA and the one after that wasn't released at all. They would continue to record and tour in the UK, indeed they still do, and they maintain a loyal following in Scotland but it speaks volumes about their status that the most notable of their sporadic releases in the last twenty years have been an album of cover songs, a surprisingly good album of acoustic covers of their older songs and a series of box sets of their glory years.

SIMPLE MINDS & SINEAD O'CONNOR ~ "BELFAST CHILD";


Big Country would have a similar but more tragic decline. In a way the success of "The Crossing" was a curse. "Steeltown" album was a worthy followup artistically, but it's more overtly political subject matter and downbeat songs left Americans cold and it lacked an obvious hit single and it saw only middling chart action. If "The Crossing" hadn't have been so huge it wouldn't have mattered but label expectations (and possibly the band as well) were bound to be disappointed. So for the next album Big Country followed the lead of Simple Minds and ditched producer Steve Lillywhite in favour of Sade producer Robin Millar who gave them a less dense, more radio friendly sound for "The Seer". The resulting album was not as drastic a change to their basic sound as Simple Minds had done with "Once Upon A Time" but it also wasn't as successful either and effectively blunted their momentum, something subsequent albums did nothing to fix. Like Simple Minds they continued to record and tour through the nineties (including the obligatory cover album) until Stuart Adamson quit to start an abortive solo project. That floundered due to his increased mental and emotional breakdown which led to his packing up and moving to Hawaii. One day in 2001 his bandmates discovered he had disappeared without warning and desperately posted a notice on their website asking for fans to find him or for him to make contact. He never did. His body was found, a suicide. More lately Big Country has reformed with guitarist Chris Watson and drummer Mark Brezezcki with Alarm singer Mike Peters filling in for Adamson.

BIG COUNTRY ~ "STEELTOWN";


The Alarm also had trouble following up their debut album "Declaration". 1985's "Strength" was largely seen as mediocre so for their third album followed the usual pattern of changing producers and recording a more commercial sounding album with 1987's "Eye Of The Hurricane" which did score a hit with "Rain In The Summertime" but their new sound was a complete break with their previous albums being light and poppy with the addition of keyboards making them sound more like Belinda Carlisle. This effectively killed whatever underground credibility they once had. 1989's "Change" which scored another hit in "Sold Me Down The River" reverted to a more folk rock sound and including a version of the album recorded in Welsh. After another album, 1991's "Raw" was less successful and led band then broke-up after Peters quit onstage although there have been periodic reunions when Peters isn't filling in for Big Country.

THE ALARM ~ "RAIN IN THE SUMMERTIME";


Yet another Irish band to get U2's patronage would be Hothouse Flowers, a Dublin band whose dense mix of Irish soul and folk was closer to Dexy's Midnight Runners, the Waterboys and mid-period Aztec Camera than the stadium-ready guitars of U2 and Big Country. Their 1988 debut album was an immediate hit on both sides of the Atlantic and Australia. However subsequent albums failed to have much success in America as tastes changed at the end of the 80's and their clean and over produced sound seemed passe. Besides collaborations with the Indigo Girls and a bizarre one with Def Leppard the next few years were spent on the road until the burned out band called a hiatus in 1994 which became essentially permanent.

HOTHOUSE FLOWERS ~ "DON'T GO";


As Celt Rock was petering out there would be one more spectacular by-product in the arresting presence, both sonically and visually, of Sinead O'Connor whose 1987 debut caused a sensation with songs like "Mandinka" and "Put Your Hands On Me" but while she had been given early support from U2 and Irish folk rock band In Tou Nua it became clear that she had little common with the Big Sound and guitar bands in general and she soon distanced herself from the scene.

SINEAD O'CONNOR ~ "MANDINKA";


The last notable band to come out of the Big Sound were the almost absurdly Scottish Proclaimers who shocked everybody (including no doubt themelves) by scoring a massive cross Atlantic hit with the insanely catchy "500 Miles" and then even managed to score a follow-up with "I'm On My Way". Twin brothers Criag and Charlie Reid had started off at the start of the 80's in a punk band called Black Flag (not that one) but been playing a version of Celtic Folk Rock since 1983 as a largely accoustic duo which got the attention of Kevin Rowland who helped them record a demo which got earned them a record deal by 1987. Their first album scored enough success in Britain to gain a spot on "Top Of The Pops" but it was the second album that scored their still iconic two hits. Like Dexy's however their idiosyncratic folky sound, nerdy look and impenetrable accents marked them out as one-hit-wonders and so they turned out to be. However unlike Kevin Rowland the wholesome Reid Bros did not have any drug problems or mental problems and seemed to be genuinely happy to return to Scotland where they continue to recored and tour and busy themselves supporting the Scottish National Party's campaign for independence.

THE PROCLAIMERS ~ "500 Miles";


By 1990 The Alarm, Armoury Show, That Petrol Emotion, Bluebells, Dexys and Zerra One had broken up and the Pogues were in a state of near collapse brought on by Shane McGowan's serious drinking problem which led to his being fired. They carried on for a while with replacement singers (including briefly his old friend Joe Strummer) but there was obviously not much point. The Virgin Prunes wandered back into the studio again for the 1987 album "The Moon Looked Down And Laughed", a slickly produced (by Soft Cell's Dave Ball) but sprawling and pretentious glam/goth/cabaret concept album that found few friends and the band promptly broke up on the eve of a North American tour. Singer Gavin Friday has since occasionally popped up with a couple of similarly art-damaged cabaret albums. Aztec Camera's third album "Love" was a slickly produced soul album similar to Style Council which got decent reviews but was not really suitable for touring. Singer/songwriter and only steady member Roddy Frame then moved to America where he continued in a similar low-key vein until retiring the band name in 1996. The Waterboys took an opposite approach with Mike Scott changing the lineup and moving to a more traditional Celtic Folk sound for 1988's "Fisherman's Blues" which was fairly successful and inspired a couple of similar album followups before Scott retired the name for awhile. He would later change his mind and resurrect the band who have recorded several more albums that range back and forth between the Folk Rock and Big Sound of their past none of which have made any waves outside of the UK.

THE WATERBOYS ~ "FISHERMAN'S BLUES";


By the early 90's most of the Big Sound was largely gone to be replaced by the related but less mystical Brit-Pop and U2 was experimenting with electro-dance but echoes would be heard in the Irish Cranberries and Scottish Franz Ferdinand. In 1995 producer Steve Lillywhite, who had gone back to working with U2 on their 1991 return to guitar rock "Achtung Baby" and some subsequent albums had a final entry into the genre with the debut from Irish band Engine Alley which scored hits in Ireland with their distinctive Celtic Folk Rock sound which included a fiddle along with the electric guitars. They failed to get much traction outside Ireland something a move to England and a reworking and re-release of the debut album failed to change and by 1999 they had effectively petered out.

ENGINE ALLEY ~ "SWITCH";


The last of the Big Sound band would turn out to be one of the most successful and tragic with the Cranberries who briefly dethroned U2 as the biggest Celtic band in the world starting in with their first hit with 1992's "Dreams" and followed it up with a string of hits until the end of the 90's. Their big guitar sound showed obvious influences from earlier Celt Rock bands but it was singer Dolores O'Riordan's distinctive sharp yodelling vocals, influenced by traditional Gaelic singing along with her winsome lyrics and beauty which really held people's attention until they took a hiatus at the end of the decade. A return to action in 2009 was less successful as tastes changed away from stadium guitars to processed studio Pop, Electronica, Rave, Dance and Hip Hop, even U2 were experimenting with electro rock, and their activities were sporadic until O'Riordan's shocking death drowning in the bathtub from complications from an addiction to painkillers in 2018. By that time the Celt Rock sound which had ruled the mid-eighties was largely a memory.

THE CRANBERRIES ~ "ZOMBIE";

World War One Vets In Jazz & Country Music

On the hundredth anniversary of the Treaty Of Versailles I wanted to take a look at how some veterans of WW1 had an effect on the new and coming popular music scene that was about to become the dominate cultural movement of the 20th century; Jazz, Blues and Country music.



The Jazz Age started in America almost as soon as ink on the Versailles Treaty was dry and quickly spread to Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and eventually further afield to Japan, Latin America, Caribbean and a few parts of Africa and Asia. The unprecedented spread of this new music was facilitated by two modern inventions. The Gramophone and the radio. Gramophones had been around since the 1890's but for much of that time they did not really become affordable until the 1910's and aside from Ragtime, some black Spirituals and a bare handful of quirky exceptions, record companies did not start to record any recognizable Jazz, Blues or Country records. Once they did the sales of these records took off with amazing speed as there was now a solid number cadre of young people and bohemians eager for the exiting new sounds to shake off the exhausted cobwebs of the now discredited Victorian age. Before the War Gramophones were playthings for the middle classes, they were now cheap enough for the working classes as well and even the poor rural and black folks, meaning there was now a market for music they would buy as well, namely Blues, Country and Gospel. Since Gramophones (unlike the later phonographs) were not electric and instead were wound-up like a jack-in-the-box they could be used in the most remote and poor cabins of the Mississippi Delta, Appalachia, the Ozarks, Dust Bowl Prairies and Newfoundland outports. This was even somewhat true for parts of Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America where records would be exported and have an influence on the evolution of music such as Latin Jazz, Salsa, Ska and various African Jazz genres.

Radio's rise would be even more explosive. Before WW1 there were literally no radio stations anywhere in the world other than a bare handfull of hobbyists. As the Jazz age started there were radio stations throughout the world with millions of listeners in an unprecedented growth rate. By contrast television's growth took more than a decade, albeit slowed by WW2. Radio would for the first time allow for music to be brought to the masses nationwide and even internationally just as music from the Bohemian fringe or the wildest hinterlands was being recorded.



In spite of the quick creation of this infrastructure the number of Jazz Age artists who had been veterans of the recently passed WW1 is surprisingly small. One reason might be that America's involvement in the war was rather brief and most of these artists were either black or rural or too young and thus far less likely to be drafted. However there were a few;

James Reese Europe (1881-1919) A bandleader widely seen as being one of the most important figures in the transition between Ragtime and Jazz. Already a well known figure in New York society for his bouncy dance bands, he had also made a number of successful records, being the first Ragtime black band leader to do so. These records reveal his take on Ragtime was energetic but essentially conventional (and some are string bands that have no brass instruments) although he did allow some short solos and this along with the syncopated beat displayed the basic foundations of Jazz. His band became popular headliners at the Clef Club in New York but when WW1 broke out Europe immediately signed up and suggested the formation of a band that would entertain the Allied troops and quickly formed a band called the Hellfighters. Although the US army was still segregated the army did allow for black officers and Europe was made a lieutenant. Besides serving under fire and winning the French Croix De Guerre as a unit the Hellfighters became a musical sensation in France and Britain and returned home to as triumphant heroes leading a victory parade in Harlem. He then returned to his post but didn't get much chance to capitalize on his new fame because in 1919 he was murdered by one of his own drummers in a pay dispute. We can never know what effect Europe would have had on the Jazz age as his bands were not really proper Jazz bands. Perhaps the ambitious and solidly professional Europe would have adapted and updated his sound as Paul Whiteman would later do, or maybe he would have been left behind as a respected but essentially no longer relevant elder founder like WC Handy. Either way he would have been an important figure.

JAMES REESE EUROPE;


Some other notable members of Europe's Hellfighters Band or those with a Europe connection included;
Noble Sissle (1885-1975) Recruited by Europe for his Society Orchestra before the war as a song and dance man, he had already made successful recordings by 1917. Sissle followed Europe into the army and helped organize a new band. After the war he returned to New York and teamed up with pianist Eubie Blake, who had been in Europe's pre-war band but had not joined up, and became a highly successful duo with hits like the classic "I'm Just Wild About Harry" (written by Sissle) and the musical "Shuffle Along" throughout the 1920's. Sissle & Blake also became one of the first musical acts to make a sound video. He had a long life, dying in 1975.

NOBLE SISSLE & EUBIE BLAKE;


Vernon Castle (1887-1918) Although not a musician at all, British born dancer Vernon Castle and his wife Irene became fashionable stars in the 1910's by adapting ballroom dancing to modern ragtime music. To do so they worked with black bandleaders James Reese Europe and Dan Kildare. The Castles helped popularize ragtime to a respectable audience of young white upper middle class sophisticates who would have avoided a ragtime dance hall and got the attention of white bandleaders like Paul Whiteman who would be important figures of the early Jazz Age. Like James Reese Europe, Castle himself would not get to see how things would develop. The aristocratic Castle enlisted enlisted in the new British air force and survived the war only to die in a plane crash in 1918. Irene would continue to have a successful dance career in New York for many years.

IRENE & VERNON CASTLE;


Rafael & Jesus Hernandez; New York based Puerto Rican brothers who were recruited by Europe along with over a dozen fellow Puerto Ricans. After the war they returned to New York where Rafael had a long career as a band leader and composer of a number of songs that made him a star in Cuba and Puerto Rico, where there are a number of buildings and streets nameed after him. He died in 1965.

RAFAEL HERNANDEZ ~ "MADRIGAL";


Opal Cooper (1889-1974) Singer with Europe's pre-war band as well as being a banjo playing song & dance man, Cooper also enlisted but separately from Europe and ended in a different unit. Before the war in 1912 he recorded a couple of comedy songs and after the war he briefly led James Europe's band after his death but soon returned to Europe (the continent) where black musicians could get better treatment than in the USA and he had a long career as a nightclub singer along with making a few other recordings none of which received much notice in the USA.


OPAL COOPER

James "Tim" Brymn (1881-1946) Known as "Mr Jazz Himself", Brymn was James Europe's greatest rival. Originally from North Carolina but having a formal musical education at the National Conservatory in New York, by 1900 he already had a successful band as well as being a solo ragtime pianist and had written a few hit songs. Like Europe he enlisted in the army and organized a band called variously the Seventy Black Devils, Black Devil Orchestra, and often advertised as “The Overseas Jazz Sensation” which toured FRance where a young Willie The lion Smith reported seeing them. After the war he would form a new band, the Black Devils who toured with enough success to be recorded by OKEH Records and take over James Europe's position at the Clef Club and would record several albums into the swing era.



JAMES BRYMN ~ "DON'T TELL IT TO ME"


Harry Francis Cole (1896-1961) A Jazz sax player from Harlem, he was drafted and served in the artillery with Brymn and was soon added to his band. After the war he returned to Harlem where he became a successful local figure and a prominent mamber of the New Amsterdam Musical Association (NAMA), an all black musicians union formed as the existing white union would not allow black members yet musicians had to be members of a union to get a cabaret license or record. During the Drepression he would find work through the government's WPA cultural projects and was working as late as the WW2 years, then he seems to have retired to become a landlord as he had bought some property. He died in 1961.


COLES' ARMY DISCHARGE FORM

Frankie Half Pint Jaxon (circa 1896-1953) Half Pint Jaxon (real name Frank Jackson) was the most flamboyant figure in black music, or any music, of the early Jazz Age. A diminutive, 5 ft 2, more-or-less openly gay singer who sang ribald blues in a weeping flasetto and sometimes performed in drag, he had already established a career in the black medicine show circuit travelling from his Kansas City base to Texas where he shared stages with the young Bessie Smith and Ethel Watersand then the big city vaudeville stages of the East Coast. He served in the US army in 1918-1919 and rose the rank of Sgt. After the war he would have a successful career for the next twenty years on records and radio working with Duke Ellington, Bessie Smith, Bennie Moten, King Oliver, Freddie Keppard, Cow Cow Davenport, Tampa Red and "Georgia Tom" Dorsey and the Harlem Hamfats and would be an influence on Cab Calloway and H-Bomb Fergussion. With the outbreak of WW2 he quit the music business and worked for the war department in some capacity. His death is a mystery with some sources giving the date as 1944 while Jazz historian Brian Berger found a Veterans Dept graves registry for 1953, still others claim he lived untill 1970. Although he was fairly well known in Jazz circles in the 1920's & 30's, recorded dozens of records and should be seen as a pioneering figure in Gay culture he has been all but fogotten today.

FRANKIE HALF PINT JAXON ~ "


Sam Davis (1889-1980) ~ (no relation to Sammy Davis Jr) Was a New Orleans born Ragtime pianist, praised by Jellyroll Morton, who travelled throughout the Midwest. He was drafted in 1918 and spent the war playing in a USA Army Band but did not actually serve overseas. After the War he continued his life on the road before finally settling in upstate New York but he gave few interviews and never made any proper recordings aside from a couple radio transcriptions.


DRAFT REGISTRATION CARD FOR SAM DAVIS

Eddie Edwards (1891-1963) New Orleans trombonist with the Original Dixieland Jazz Band (ODJB), famous as the first Jazz band to actually record (in 1917). They would score a number of hits (including his own "Sensation Rag") and tour to Britain and France until Edwards was drafted into the US Army in 1918. He served for over a year and upon returnng he would return on and off to music into the 1940's alternating with stints during the Depression working at a newspaper stand and at the YMCA even as his style of Jazz became passe compared to Swing.

THE ORIGINAL DIXIELAND JAZZ BAND;


Minor Hall (1897-1959) A New Orleans based drummer who played with Kid Ory, King Oliver and Louis Armstrong Hall was drafted and served two years in WW1 but details of his service are scanty. Uniquely he also was drafted again in WW2 at the age of 45 and served another short stint before getting an honorable discharge due to his age whereupon he got a job in a military aircraft defense plant for the duration. Afterwards he continued his Jazz career with Ory including appearing in movies "Mahogany Magic" and "The Benny Goodman Story".


DRAFT REGISTRATION CARD FOR MINOR HALL

KID ORY ~ "MUSKRAT RAMBLE";


George Reynolds (1888 - 1976) A minor St Louis pianist, Reynolds was drafted and raised to the rank of Corporal by the time of his discharge. After the War he travelled back and forth between St Louis and Chicago making a few minor recordings in bands led by trombonist Preston Jackson and something called the Richard M. Jones Jazz Wizards in the 1920's and 30's. Mostly a sideman he never recorded as a soloist or band leader and Jellyroll Morton considered him a mediocre player. In the 1950's he returned to St Louis for good living quitely and playing occasionally but not recording.


DRAFT REGISTRATION CARD FOR GEORGE REYNOLDS

THE RICHARD M JONES JAZZ WIZARDS ~ "IT'S TIGHT JIM";


Willie "The Lion" Smith (1893-1973) James Reese Europe and Vernon Castle might not be proper Jazz figures but that could never be said about Willie "The Lion" Smith. One of the great Jazz pianists of the 1920's known for his lightning fast barrelhouse playing as well as his image of the flashy sportin' life pianist with his jaunty suspenders, gold rings, derby hat and cigar and larger than life swagger. He had been an infantryman in the Great War (but not in the Hellfighters) and had seen some action. Exactly the nature of his service is in debate. Not known for false modesty, or any other kind, Smith always claimed he had been a sergeant but the records say he was only a private, he also claimed he had gotten his nickname "The Lion" for his bravery on the front, however there is no record of that either and it would appear that he had already been using that name during a brief career as a boxer and others drolly noted that the Lion's roar was worse than his bite. At any rate he would have a long career continuing into the Swing Era and into the post WW2 era with his barrelhouse playing an influence on the later Be-Bop and Boogie Woogie styles of Fats Waller, Pete Johnson, Art Tatum and Oscar Peterson up to R&B and R&R pianists like Merrill Moore, Moon Mullican, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, Ray Charles and Charlie Rich.


DRAFT REGISTRATION CARD FOR WILLIE "THE LION" SMITH

WILLIE "THE LION" SMITH ~ "FINGER BUSTER";


Japser Taylor (1894 -1964) A respected and prolific drummer, xylophone and washboard player from Texarkana who had recorded as early as 1917 with WC Handy, Taylor served in France with the infantry. After the War he moved to Chicago where he recorded with Jellyroll Marton, Jimmy O'Bryant, Jimmy Blythe, Clarence Williams and Freddie Keppard. Like many other musicians he found work drying up during the Depression and became a cobbler, returning to music after the WW2 recording with Art Hodes, Natty Dominique and some lesser lights as well as his own band until his death.


DRAFT REGISTRATION CARD FOR JASPER TAYLOR

ART HODES QUARTET ~ "WASHBOARD STOMP";


Will Vodery (1885-1951) A bandleader originally from Pennsylvania then based out of Washington DC and Harlem, New York as a noted composer/arranger. Like James Europe he enlisted during the war and organized yet another band. After the war he made it to Broadway where he worked on popular musicals like "Showboat", worked with George Gershwin and Will Marion Cook and became an influence on the young Duke Ellington who he worked with at the Cotton Club. Oddly for a guy with such a long and successful career he doesn't seem to have made it into a recording studio on his own.

THE VODERY GIRLS ~ "PUTTIN IT ON";


=========================================

BRITISH JAZZ MUSICIANS;

Jack Hylton (1892-1965) A British pianist and bandleader who became one of the first British Jazzmen earning the title the British King Of Jazz. Hylton had been a singer and pianist in various cafes as well as in a dance orchestra before the war and served as regimental musical director. His post war career was not notably successful and he ended up getting fired from his own band but by the mid twenties he had formed a proper Jazz orchestra which became highly successful through heavy touring, radio appearances and recordings, he also became a promoter bringing prominent Americans to the UK including Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Glenn Miller. After WW2 he wound down his performing but continued as a promoter into just before his death in 1965.

JACK HYLTON ~ "LIFE IS JUST A BOWL OF CHERRIES";


Henry Hall (1898-1989) Another British bandleader of the interwar era. Before the war Hall had been a trumpeter, pianist and composer for the Salvation Army before joining the artillery where he played in the regimental band. After the war he eventually formed a society dance band which played dance halls and on the BBC where he became a fixture throughout the thirties and entertaining the troops in WW2. He continued his career into the sixties before retiring, dying in 1989.

HENRY HALL;


Percival Mackey (1894-1950) A London based pianist who played as a travelling entertainer in a one man act that included ventriloquism, magic and comedy as well as part of a troupe. After serving in the war he formed a dance band that would include popular singer Al Bowly as well as being musical director for musicals, film scores and for the record label EMI. He died in 1950.

PERCIVAL MACKEY;


Jack Payne (1899-1969) A British pianist who served in the Royal Air Force where he discovered Jazz from visiting Americans. After the war he formed a dance band which performed on the BBC and later became the first band to perform on TV for the first BBC TV broadcast in 1929. He continued at the BBC until he retired in the sixties dying in 1969.

JACK PAYNE ORCH ~ "TIGER RAG";


Victor Silvester (1900-1978) Enlisted in the British Army at the age of sixteen (he lied about his age) he served as a private and saw action at the Battle Of Arras and even served on a firing squad before his actual age was discovered and he was sent home. Before getting there he volunteered as a stretcher bearer on the Italian front and was wounded thus getting a medal from the Italian govt. Before the War he had been studying music and returned to his studies at Trinity College along with dancing. He would later start his own dance band and dancing school while recording dance tunes which became wildly popular in the UK in the 30s and into the Second World War. While his band would do some Big Band Jazz numbers it was more of a Society Dance Band than a Swing band and by the 1950's was clearly out of style. In the Rock & Roll era he tried to do string-laden versions of pop songs and show tunes until his death in 1978 after which his sons continued the band to this day.

VICTOR SILVESTER ORCH ~ "DEEP PURPLE";


Debroy Somers (1890-1952) Another British teen who lied about his age to enlist, although he done so in peace time in 1905. He rejoined during the War and served as a sergeant and military bandsman. In the twenties he would form another one of those sort-of-Jazz dance bands of the era rather like Paul Whitemen's and reworked George Gershwin's so successfully that Gershwin himself joined them for a UK performance. He and his band appeared in a few movies and scored a hit with "Amy, Wonderful Amy", a song about Amy Johnson, Britain's Amelia Earhart. Somers continued through WW2 but died before the R&R era in 1952.

DEBROY SOMERS ORCH ~ "OUT OF THE SPECIAL";


=============================

COUNTRY & WESTERN SINGERS;

Ken Maynard (1895-1873) Now largely forgotten, Maynard was an important figure in early Country & Western, in fact he helped put the "Country" in C&W music. He had actually worked as a cowboy before enlisting in the army. After the war he headed off to the new town of Hollywood to try his luck where he got a job in the new silent film industry as a stuntman in western films before graduating to acting in them. Unlike other western film stars like William S Hart and Tom Mix, Maynard managed to continue into the sound era and in a 1929 film he became the first singing cowboy. Unlike Gene Autry (who he would later discover) Maynard was never really a professional singer but could play a little guitar and fiddle and sing in a rather reedy voice which while crude did sound authentically western. He never had any real hit records and had little interest in pursuing a singing career but his movies were successful enough to encourage the studios to make more specifically musical movies using Gene Autry who had been a supporting player in a few Maynard films and who Maynard encouraged. Autry's singing cowboy movies were a smashing success and his star soon surpassed Maynard's. Changing tastes were not Maynard's only problem, although supportive of Autry, Maynard had earned a reputation as hard drinking and quick tempered and prone to brawls. By the end of the thirties his career was effectively over and his fortune gambled away. He still had a few friends, especially Autry, who gave him some money and arranged for bit parts and he died in 1973.

KEN MAYNARD ~ "THE COWBOY'S LAMENT";


Jules Verne Allen (1883-1945) He called himself "The Original Singing Cowboy"; A title which was not entirely accurate, but he was certainly one of the first to record. Details of his life are hard to pin down because he would later write an autobiography which was, to say the least, highly misleading. But he had apparently spent some time as a working cowboy including claiming stints as a rodeo rider (which may or may not be true) and a town sheriff (probably not true) while a census actually lists him as a barber before enlisting in the US Army in 1905 and again during WW1 where he entertained the troops doing rope tricks and singing cowboy songs as well as appearing as a blackface minstrel. After the war the census reports him as working as an autoworker for a few years until the success of singers like Carl Sprague, Vernon Dalhart and Ken Maynard lured him out to Hollywood to try his luck at being a singing cowboy in the 1920's. He did not get a movie contract but he did get a recording contract from Columbia Records legendary talent scout Ralph Peer who had discovered Jimmy Rodgers, Fiddlin John Carson and the Carter Family. He would record a number of songs including the classic "Jack Of Diamonds" between 1928-29 before the Great Depression and changing tastes in the 1930's ended the careers of rustic singers like him. He continued to perform at rodeos and on radio in the Southwest and wrote a successful and self-glorifying autobiography which included a number of songs and poems and a glossary of cowboy terms called "Cowboy Lore" much of which he seems to have made up or plagiarized from a book by famed folklorist John Lomax. He also managed to collect a number of ex-wives before dying in 1945, completely missing the folk revival that would have no doubt loved the charming old rogue.

JULES VERNE ALLEN ~ "JACK OF DIAMONDS";


Carl T Sprague (1895-1979) ~ Less flashy than Maynard or Allen and also less scandal prone, Sprague lived a quieter and longer life than either. He beat both of them to title of "Father Of The Singing Cowboys" with his 1925 recording of "When The Work's All Done This Fall" which sold 900,000 copies, later certainly reaching a million. There had been an earlier million selling singing cowboy record from Vernon Dalhart but he while he was from Texas, Dalhart was no cowboy, and was in fact a trained tenor who had appeared in Gilbert & Sullivan light operas and recorded several successful pop songs in the 1910's. Sprague on the other hand had really grown up on a ranch in Texas and worked as a cowboy before joining the army in WW1. After the war he went to university at Texas A&M where he performed cowboy songs on the campus radio station and was offered a recording contract in 1925 scoring the above mentioned hit and another in "The Dying Cowboy" along with a few others until the Great Depression ended his recording career in 1930. He would live quietly until the 1960's folk revival discovered him and he would play the folk circuit and record another album before dying at 1979, thus the first of the classic Singing Cowboys was also the last.

CARL T SPRAGUE ~ "O BURY ME NOT ON THE OLD PRAIRIE";


David Miller (1883-1953) ~ A less well known figure of the early C&W era. Miller had a career as an obscure medicine show performer as a singer/guitarist before joining the the army during the war. His military career was brief however as he developed an eye infection which left him effectively blind. Even worse the Army denied him a disability pension saying that he had developed his infection before he enlisted. With no better options he pursued his singing career in the new record business starting in 1924 with Paramount Records and then the newer radio with some success although never becoming a star. He kept it up through changing tastes into the Honky Tonk era eventually sharing stages with Patsy Cline and Hawkshaw Hawkins when he was billed as the "Blind Soldier". By that time his style was positively archaic.

DAVID MILLER ~ "JAILHOUSE RAG";


John Jacob Niles (1892-1980) An odd but influential figure of the post WW2 Folk revival, Niles came from Kentucky from a respectable background of a musical family and his father being a active in local politics. When America entered WW1 he enlisted as a Lieutenant in the fledgling Airforce and was injured in a plane crash. After the war he stayed a while in France studying music and hanging out with the Bohemian set like Gertrude Stein. Returning to the USA he began compiling traditional folk ballads and touring the country singing them in a ghostly Renaissance style falsetto while playing an unwieldy dulcimer he made himself. He also published song books and did some recordings well into the late 1950's Folk Revival era when he became an influence of the likes of Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Bob Dylan and Peter, Paul & Mary although his style was too idiosyncratic to reach a larger audience. He continued to play on and off until his death in 1980 when he was into his nineties.

JOHN JACOB NILES ~ "GO WAY FROM MY WINDOW";


=================================

PRE WW1; There actually were a few veterans of pre-WW1 wars who made it into the recording era.

Harry McClintock (1882-1957); One of the important early folk singers, known for the classic "Big Rock Candy Mountain" and "The Old Chisholm Trail". Born in Tennessee, he ran away to join a circus then worked the railroads and merchant marine before enlisting in the Spanish-American War in 1898 serving in the Philippines as a mule-team packer for supply trains. After that he went to China during the Boxer Rebellion in 1900 as a reporter. Back in the USA he joined the IWW (AKA the Wobblies), a radical anarchist union and spent the next forty years as a travelling minstrel singing folk and labour songs both his own as well as publicizing the songs of Wobblie songwriter Joe Hill. In the 1920's he began recording sometimes under the name of Haywire Harry and was a major influence on Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and Cisco Houston. He died in 1957 just before the Folk Revival that certainly would have made him a star again.

HARRY McCLINTOCK ~ "THE BIG ROCK CANDY MOUNTAIN";


Henry C. Gilliland (1845-1924); A fiddler from Texas Gilliland became one of the first authentic Old Time Musicians to record when he joined fellow Texan Eck Robertson to a recording session in New York in 1922 and recorded a single of "Arkansas Traveler" / "Turkey In The Straw" which became a surprise hit kicking off the start of the country music record industry. Originally from Missouri Gilliland was a 74 year old veteran of the Confederate Army who usually performed wearing his old uniform. Although Gilliland took the lead on at least one of the songs top billing went to Roberston as he had arranged to session and was known as a championship fiddler. For years the story about this legendary session was that they had simply showed up at Victor Studios demanding an audition with Gilliland in his CSA uniform and Robertson in full cowboy gear and the intimidated staff complied. But it later turned out that this was a regular session that Roberston had arranged previously like any other. Even in 1922 record labels were not in the habit of simply letting people swagger into a record deal off the street. Roberston would go on to a long career but Gilliland apparently did not record again and returned to Texas dying two years later.

ECK ROBERTSON & HENRY GILLILAND ~ "ARKANSAS TRAVELER";


Polk Miller (1844-1913) Although the Robertson/Gilliland record is considered the birth of the country music recording industry more recent research has turned up earlier recordings that are obvious influencers on later country and blues artists notably the minstrelsy records of Polk Miller & His Old South Quartette made in 1909. From Virginia, Miller served in the Confederate artillery where he learned the banjo from slaves attached to the Confederate army. After the Civil War he went into business founding a patent medicine for dogs which grew into the pet supply maker Sargent's (named after his dog) which is still in business. Although he had given up playing music publicly as undignified when he went into business by 1892 the now partially retired Miller started a successful career as a singer and banjo player doing old folk songs from the south backed by a black vocal quartet. Much of their material was meant to glorify the antebellum south and were quite popular, with Mark Twain and Grover Cleveland being fans, and an influence on the next generation of early country and blues performers both black and white notably Uncle Dave Macon, Charlie Poole, Wilmer Watts, Papa Charlie Jackson and Gus Cannon. Miller's attitude is complicated; while he openly revered the Confederacy he also refused to play in black face or had his quartet do so but they instead dressed in dignified formal wear and by all accounts treated them fairly. They did play Confederate reunions but avoided touring in areas where openly racist crowds made Miller concerned for the safety of his quartet. He cited his concerns about the increasing racism of the times when he retired in 1911 and died two years later. The members of the Quartet carried on for a few more years at least before fading from view. However a version of the group reunited in the twenties to record a few more sides before disappearing for good.

POLK MILLER & HIS OLD SOUTH QUARTETTE ~ "BONNIE BLUE FLAG";


James MacNeil (circa 1870-1945) One of the leading black bandleaders and trumpet players in the early New Orleans jazz scene, MacNeil (sometimes also spelled as MacNeal) played in a number of the most popular bands in the city including the John Robicheaux band and was considered a rival to the legendary Buddy Bolden and an inspiration to younger players like King Oliver, Bunk Johnson and Freddie Keppard. He led the Onward Brass band along with his fiddle playing brother Wendell (1876-?) and most of the band enlisted in the army during the Spanish-American War in 1898 as bandsmen where they gained a reputation both as musicians and hell-raisers before being mustered out in New York where they made a brief splash on the music scene before returning home. While in NY MacNeil was recorded as making a record (possibly solo) which however has never surfaced which is a shame because he apparently never recorded again, quitting the band and handing leadership over to trumpeter Manuel Perez who would continue it til about 1930 when the depression and changing tastes put an end to them. Their lineup included a young King Oliver for a time. But this version of the band also never recorded. James went on to the more sedate life of a music teacher dying before the post-WW2 Dixieland revival that would rediscover Bunk Johnson could find him. Wendell moved to Chicago and was listed as still being alive in an 1958 index of Jazz musicians but there is no other info on him I can find.


THE JOHN ROBICHAUX ORCH circa 1896 w/James MacNeil at back row second to right and brother Wendell sitting at right, bandleader Robichaux sits next to Wendell

=======================================
And one more veteran; Although obviously not part of the Jazz or even Ragtime scenes, I'm including Arnold Schoenberg as the founder of avant garde classical music which would influence later figures like John Cage, Phillip Glass, Glen Branca, Karlheinz Stockhousen, Terry Reilly, George Antheil, La Monte Young and John Cale as well as Hollywood film scores.

Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) ~ The father of avant garde composers was drafted into the Austrian army during World War One in spite of the fact that he was already 42 years old, out of shape, asthmatic, nearsighted and with no military training. He was also already a well known composer, notorious amongst the deeply conservative Habsburg establishment for his experiments in atonal music. Given that Schoenberg was also a converted Jew in the deeply reactionary Hapsburg empire he could hardly expect a good reception in the Austrian army. Arnold's own rather prickly personality didn't help. He was greeted by one officer with the words; "You wouldn't have to be that notorious Arnold Schoenberg would you?" To which he replied; "Well yes; I did have to be since nobody else was willing to". Still, he was well educated and so was sent off to officer training in 1916 but was eventually discharged on health grounds. A year later he was actually drafted again, this time to serve in a military band which at least does make some sense, but was quickly discharged again for the same health reasons. Once Hitler came to power he would flee the country and move to America where he would have a succesful career as a composer and educator as well as being a tempermental tutor to Hollywood film score composers.
SCHOENBERG'S 12 TONE METHOD;


And one more with Calixa Lavalee (1842-1891), a French Canadian pianist, organist and cornet player who journeyed south to the USA during the Civil War to enlist in the US Army where he served as a bandsman reaching the rank of Lieutenant and was wounded at the Battle of Antietam. After the war he toured the USA and Canada as part of a minstrel troupe before returning to Montreal where he worked as a music teacher, choir master and composer including his most famous work, "Oh Canada" which would become Canada's national anthem. He ended up in Boston where he died penniless.

Professor Kitzel's Record Label Profile; Paramount Records

CHARLIE PATTON ~ "SHAKE IT & BREAK IT";


Paramount Records was the premiere label for blues, jazz and country music during the Roaring Twenties, helping to create the mass market for blues and country and recording some of the biggest names of the era.



Jellyroll Morton ~ "SIDEWALK BLUES";


Early Years ~ 1916 ~ 1922 ~ Paramount was founded in 1916, growing out of the Wisconsin Chair Company ,which was itself founded in 1888 in Port Washington, Wis, making both phonograph players as well as records. Paramount's early recordings were light classical pieces, sentimental ballads and patriotic anthems of the day. Most of these records were a financial flop and by 1922 the label was deep in debt and desperate.

MA RAINEY (WITH LOUIS ARMSTRONG) ~ "SEE SEE RIDER BLUES";


Urban Blues & Jazz on Paramount ~ In 1922 Paramount looking to turn around their flagging fortunes hired Englishman Art Satherly who began recording urban Vaudeville Blues singers such as Ma Rainey, Trixie Smith, Alberta Hunter, Hattie McDaniels & Moanin' Bernice Edwards as well as Hot Jazzmen as JellyRoll Morton, Clarence Williams, Johnny Dodds and Jimmy Noone, Jabo Williams, along with Boogie-Woogie pianists Roosevelt Sykes, Jimmy Blythe, Meade Lux Lewis, Charlie Spand and the white pianist Kansas City Frank Melrose. Satherly boosted Paramount's roster of black artists by hiring Mayo Johnson, an ambitious and well connected talent scout who would later go on to found rival Black Patti Records Paramount also arranged a licensing deal with the failing Black Swan label which included important and big sellers as Ethel Waters & Fletcher Henderson. When Black Swan folded in 1924 Paramount bought out their catalog.



TRIXIE SMITH ~ "JACK I'M MELLOW";


Rural Blues on Paramount ~ As important as the urban recordings were in keeping the label afloat their biggest (and musically most important) recordings were it's rural blues catalogue. Mostly scouted and discovered by Mayo Williams, a black former executive from Black Swan, Paramount became the first label to score a hit with a rural blues artist starting with Papa Charlie Jackson and quickly growing to include most of the major names of the era including Blind Blake, Pappa Charley Jackson, Charley Patton, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Son House, Skip James, Ramblin' Thomas, Gus Cannon, Frank Stokes, Big Bill Broonzy, Tommy Johnson, William Moore, Bo Weavil Jackson, Bumble Bee Jackson, Henry Townsend, Freddy Spruell (who recorded the first version of "Milkcow Blues"), James Wiggins (who did the first version of "Keep a' knockin") and Bo Carter & the Mississippi Sheiks. The young Tampa Red and Josh White got their starts on Paramount. Soon the rural market was so important to Paramount that they started the "Broadway" budget label to introduce new acts.

PAPA CHARLIE JACKSON ~ "ALL I WANT IS A SPOONFUL";


Old Time Country on Paramount ~ Although known mostly for their "race" records Paramount also recorded a large number of Old time Country artists starting with among the earliest OTM recordings through the budget "Broadway" label in 1922 and later including Wilmer Watts, Charlie Poole (briefly), Arthur Tanner (brother of famed fiddler Gid Tanner), Earl Johnson, Fiddlin' Doc Roberts, Emry Arthur, Davey Miller (AKA The Blind Soldier), Welling & McGhee, The Blue Ridge Highballers and George Washington White.

WILMER WATTS & THE LONELY EAGLES ~ "BEEN ON THE JOB TOO LONG";


Spirituals on Paramount ~ An important part of Paramount's "Race" catalogue were a number of Spirituals and Sermons with The Norfolk Jubilee Quartet and The Rev J.M. Gates being big sellers. Other frequent artists included The Jubilee Gospel Team, Rev. Beaumont, Blind Willie Davis, Blind Connie Rosemond and Rev. Johnny Blakey AKA The Son Of Thunder. Some of the blues artists also recorded spirituals including Blind Lemon Jefferson, Charley Patton and Skip James, albeit under assumed names since many religious people would not buy records from "sinful" blues singers. Some of the white Old Time Country artists also recorded Gospel songs, however unlike the Blues artists the OTM artists recorded under their usual names. Notable OTM-Gospel artists included Sid Harkreader, Joe Reed, Welling and McGhee and The Kentucky Thoroughbreds. Classical baritone Carroll Clark also recorded classic spirituals in a staid, dignified style similar to that of Paul Robeson.

REV. J.M. GATES ~ "DEATH'S BLACK TRAIN IS COMING":


Concert Singing on Paramount ~ Besides the Jazz, Blues, OTM and Gospel which is most treasured by collectors today Paramount also continued to record what was then referred to as "Concert Music" which meant traditional songs such as Stephen Foster songs, Spirituals and light classical ballads and lullabies sung in a stately, restrained carefully enunciated style. Several black artists continued in this style well into the Jazz Age, many had originally recorded for Black Swan and were kept on by Paramount. Best known examples would include Carroll Clark, Florance Cole-Talbert and The Harmony Kings. While these records did not sell as well as the Jazz, Blues and Gospel records they evidently sold well enough to keep them in print for the duration of the label's life.

CARROLL CLARK ~ "OLD DOG TRAY";


Cajun Music on Paramount ~ Paramount also recorded a few early Cajun artists as part of their OTM catalog including Leo Soileau & Robin Moise, John Bertrand & Milton Pitre and Roy Gonzales.

SOILEAU & ROBIN ~ "EASY RIDER BLUES";


The decline and fall of Paramount ~ Like all labels that relied on black or poor white listeners Paramount was hit hard by the Great Depression of the 1930's although the label was already struggling by then. Paramount was hit by the defections of Mayo Williams in 1927 to found his own "Black Patti Records", and Art Satherly in 1928 to start his own "QRS Label". In 1929 Paramount lost it's biggest distributor in Artophone to bankruptcy with others following as the depression deepened. The label was also rocked by the deaths of their biggest seller Blind Lemon Jefferson in 1929 as well as Jimmy Blythe and Charlie Poole in 1931. Paramount cut back on it's staff and recording until shutting down all new recordings and advertising at the end of 1932 although they continued to run an office until 1935. The inactive label was bought out in 1942 and run as a reissue label until much of it's catalog entered the public domain in the 1970's.

BLIND LEMON JEFFERSON ~ "MATCHBOX BLUES";


The aftermath ~ Many of Paramount's artists fell on hard times during the depression with most of the rural artists being forced into retirement. Many important ones did not survive the depression and war years including Blind Blake who died in 1933, Charlie Patton in 1934, Papa Charlie Jackson & Ma Rainey in 1938, Johnny Dodds in 1940, Kansas City Frank Melrose (murdered) & Jelly Roll Morton in 1941, Trixie Smith (car crash) and Wilmer Watts in 1943 and Jimmy Noone in 1944, and Rev. J.M. Gates in 1945. Carroll Clark appears to have died during this time. However a few did maintain careers into the R&R era such as Roosevelt Sykes, Tampa Red, Josh White, Fletcher Henderson and Ida Cox. A few survivors saw their careers revive with the folk boom of the 1960's including Son House, Skip James, Alberta Hunter and Henry Townsend who kept performing until his death in Dec. 2006.

SKIP JAMES ~ "CROW JAMES";


Today ~ The Paramount catalog is widely available on a number of re-releases, comps and box sets and the original 78's are highly collectible. The building which housed The Wisconsin Chair company and Paramount Records was demolished in 1959 and is now in ruins in an open field with a plaque to mark the spot.

SON HOUSE ~ "DEATH LETTER BLUES";

Throwback Thursdays Retro Video Project; UK Industrial Music

I've already posted numerous videos from early industrial bands like Cabaret Voltaire, Clock DVA, Monoton, Ramleh and Destroy All Monsters but here's a few similar odds and ends.

ROBERT RENTAL & THE NORMAL ~ "SONG NUMBER 6";


Robert Rental (real name Robert Donnachie) was a Scottish pioneer of the the early electro industrial scene working with Thomas Leers and Daniel Miller (Mute Records founder) as The Normal starting in 1978. He released a few records including working with Throbbing Gristle and touring with Stiff Little Fingers. He died of cancer in 2000.

ROBERT RENTAL & THE NORMAL ~ "SONG NUMBER 7";


Both of these vids are from his first album on which the songs have no titles. I used films shot by Andy Warhol in the 1960's as part of his "Screen Tests".

YELLOW ~ "YES TO ANOTHER EXCESS";


Yellow were actually Swiss, not British but I don't know where else to put them. Anyway this vid uses an early rare horror film by DW Griffith based on Edgar Allan Poe's "The Cask Of The Amontillado". The cast includes Henry Walthall (who would later star in "Birth Of A Nation" with supporting roles by Mary Pickford, Mack Sennett and Linda Arvidson, Griffith's wife.

NURSE WITH WOUND ~ "SWAMP RAT";


Nurse With Wound are a UK group who have been around in various formations since 1978 with literally dozens of albums ranging from Industrial drone to Kraut Rock. For this vid I used an old silent fantasy film.

ORCHESTRAL MANEUVERS IN THE DARK ~ "DAZZLE SHIPS";


OMD were known for their series of synth pop hits however their early work was more experimental including this track from their fourth album for which I used a 1905 Segundo De Chomon film.

OMD ~ "UNIVERSAL";


For this later track vid I used a French silent film from between 1904 - 1908 which includes some early animation.

Throwback Thursdays Retro Video Project; UK New Wave

Assorted UK New Wave;

PUBLIC IMAGE LTD;
The post Sex Pistols project of Johnny Lydon (nee Rotten) had little in common with the Pistols but would be effectively the first Post Punk band and would be a huge influence on the likes of Joy Division, Gang Of Four, Bauhaus, the Banshees, Killing Joke, Clock DVA and pretty much every other artsy dark and moody UK band ofthe 1980's by eschewing the thrashy power chords of punk for funky-dub bass lines and shards of angular guitar and Lydon's keening vocals. The classic albums were the first self titled debut and the second "Metal Box" with it's iconic film can packaging. PIL would carry with an ever fractious lineup. At the end of the eighties they suddenly took an unexpected turn to more conventional sounds for their last three albums. The Pistols would briefly reform in the nineties.

PUBLIC IMAGE LTD ~ "ALBATROSS";


For this video I used an early Gothic horror film from French director Maurice Tourneur "The Wax Figures" (1914)

SUBWAY SECT; Subway Sect were part of the first wave of London punk bands but they were radically different than than the thrashing three chord punks. Led by singer Vic Goddard the Sect filtered their slower Stooges chords through a low-fi artsier lens. They only released a few singles (including a minor hit with "Ambition") while the album they recorded sat on the shelf unreleased to this day after Goddard fired the rest of the band before completely restructuring them as a non-rock cabaret act for a few years. Subway Sect's time in the limelight didn't last long but their crude, droning art-punk and drab black and grey visual aesthetic would have an influence on the next generation of art punks like the Fall, Wire, Magazine, Joy Division and the Psychedelic Furs. The Jesus & Mary Chain would go on to cover "Ambition" in their early days.

SUBWAY SECT ~ "CHAIN SMOKING";


For this vid I used some footage of a London Cabaret in the 1930's

SUBWAY SECT ~ "WE OPPOSE ALL ROCK & ROLL";


This vid uses footage from a 1930's newsreal of a rally by the British Blackshirts and leader Sir Oswald Mosley that turned into a riot.

MAGAZINE:

Magazine were formed by singer Howard DeVoto after leaving the Buzzcocks. They had several albums and a few hits from 1977 - 1981. After the band petered out guitarist John McGheogh went on to Visage (first album) and three highly regarded albums with Siouxsie & The Banshees finally ending up with Public Image Ltd by the late eighties. He died in 2004. This song was later covered by Bauhaus singer Peter Murphy on his first album and also by Trotsky Icepick.

MAGAZINE ~ "THE LIGHT POURS OUT OF ME";


This video uses some street scene footage from 1920's Wiemar Germany.

FINGERPRINTZ;

Fingerprintz were a Scottish group who put out three highly regarded but not very successful albums between 1979-1983. Each of their albums were quite different with the first album being artsy guitar based, the second more power pop and the third slick and dancable. In spite of getting great reviews nothing quite worked and they broke up with singer Jimmie O'Neil and guitarist Cha Burns reforming as the Silencers who would face a similar fate.

FINGERPRITNZ ~ "SYNCH UNIT";


This early instrumental with a spaghetti western feel uses a clip of a silent western starring Jack Hoxie, (in the white hat of course).

THE PSYCHEDELIC FURS;

The Furs started out as an artsy post punk band with a droning cacophonous sound of the Subway Sect/Wire school. After original producer Martin Hannett had to bow out in order to rescue New Order after the death of Ian Curtis the Furs went to Steve Lillywhite who had previously produced the first albums by Siouxsie & The Banshees and Ultravox. (Note; Another young band also being produced by Hannett also ended up with Lillywhite, that band was U2). Lillywhite would produce the Furs first two albums.

THE PSYCHEDELIC FURS ~ "SO RUN DOWN";


This track from the first album uses a 1908 George Melies film.

THE PASSIONS;

The Passions were a band a female singer (Barbara Gogan), who put out three well reviewed albums between 1979 - 82 with two classic hits including "I'm In Love With A German Film Star" and "African Mine" before they broke up. Later guitarist Kevin Armstrong later went to play with David Bowie in Tin Machine, Iggy Pop, Morrissey and Sinead O'Connor. And that's about it.

THE PASSIONS ~ "I'M IN LOVE WITH A GERMAN FILM STAR";


I naturally used an Andy Warhol screen-test of Nico because of course I did.

THE CULT; The Cult started out as a murky proto-Goth band as The Southern Death Cult who released a couple of singles and ep's before briefly shortening it to the Death Cult with another ep before finally settling on The Cult who finally settled on a cleaner big guitar and vocal sound with some psychedelic imagery on the "Dream Time" and "Love" albums which finally became, um, cult hits in the UK and Canada. By 1987 they evolved into a more 1970's hard rock sound with "Electric" and it's follow-up "Sonic Temple" which finally broke them into the U.S. market. It didn't really last though and the next few albums got diminishing results and cock-rock gave way to grunge. Eventually they broke up and singer Ian Astbury joined a reformed version of the Doors with Ray Manzerek.

THE CULT ~ "PHOENIX";


For the opening track off of "Love" I used an old film "A Trip To Mars".

THE CULT ~ "NIRVANA";


For this track from "Love" I used some early animation from German Dada film-maker Walter Ruttmann from the 1920's.

THE FIXX;

The Fixx were one of the last groups of the post-Joy Division Simple school of artsy, atmospheric, keyboard heavy, New Wave with their first album coming out in 1982 although they had been kicking around for a few years. Unlike the likes of Simple Minds, Ultravox and Japan however the Fixx surprised everyone, including probably themselves, by scoring a series of hits on both sides of the Atlantic, helped no doubt by the rise of MTV. This track off of the first album uses a short art film made for the Dadaist Fluxus Film collective circa 1967.

THE FIXX ~ "THE FOOL";


This track off of the first album uses a short art film made for the Dadaist Fluxus Film collective circa 1967.

THE FIXX ~ "THE SIGN OF FIRE";


This track uses an early film about a home invasion.

THE CHAMELEONS;
The Chameleons (sometimes called the Chameleons UK in the USA for legal reasons) were a band from Manchester with a loud echoey guitar sound and deep voiced vocals somewhat midway between early U2 and Sisters Of Mercy. They put out three albums between 1983 -86 before breaking up and reforming a couple times including a reunion tour this year. The first album was the best.

THE CHAMELEONS ~ "DON'T FALL";


This song of the first uses a clip from a Harry Houdini adventure movie from the 1920's.

THE CHAMELEONS ~ "SECOND SKIN";


Another song from the first album using an early French film about a stalker.

ERASURE; One of the bigger synth-pop bands, Erasure were a spin-off from Depeche Mode starting in 1985 with a number of hits. ERASURE ~ "SHIP OF FOOLS";


This vid uses an early colour film (1926) using dancers from Martha Graham's modern dance troop.

Throwback Thursdays Retro Video Project Pres; Siouxsie & The Banshees pt.3

I already made a bunch of Banshees vids but then I stumbled on to some more stock footage and there's always room for more Siouxsie.

SIOUXSIE & THE BANSHEES ~ "LOST LITTLE GIRL";


This is a Doors cover off the "Through The Looking Glass" album and uses some footage from a 1923 silent film "Brass" starring Marie Prevost who you may recognize from the nick Lowe song.

SIOUXSIE & THE BANSHEES ~ "LITTLE JOHNNY JEWEL";


This cover version of the Television song off of "Through The Looking Glass" uses some test footage from some 1960's Hammer Studios horror films.

SIOUXSIE & THE BANSHEES ~ "FOLLOW THE SUN";


This song form the "Hyena" era uses some test footage from a 1960's caveman film.

SIOUXSIE & THE BANSHEES ~ "TAKE ME BACK";


Another track from "Hyena" this time using some stop-motion footage of a flower blooming.