Is It a Kind of a Dream?
Hardcore Punk, Rabbits and Broken Noses
Nostalgia is a hell of a drug.
Of course, there’s nobody more guilty of nostalgia than me. Heck, a huge chunk of each of these newsletters is riddled with nostalgia.
At its best, nostalgia is a fuzzy, warm, happy/sad feeling, but, in the wrong hands, it’s something to be weaponised and used to mobilise the worst in all of us. I’d like to think that I’m a proponent of warm, fuzzy nostalgia, but, even so, the lens of nostalgia can sometimes make us blind to the great things we have right now. Even more dangerously, it can lean us towards yearning for a bygone age that we never experienced, or which perhaps never even existed, at least in the way we imagine it did.
That being said, you’ll never convince me that the Tom Baker run was not the greatest era in Doctor Who’s long history.
Also, don’t worry; the reason for the photo of grandad and me reading will become apparent later in this edition.
Sounds
As a teenager, I wasn’t old enough to have experienced the “scene” of the 1960s, despite my parents’ assurances that the Summer of Love never really reached far outside of San Francisco and Carnaby Street. Even so, my parents’ tales of dances, mopeds, Italian-style suits, Riley Elfs and general shenanigans around Liverpool sounded way cooler than ‘80s Lancashire.
But, as I say, nostalgia is a funny thing, and now I’m nostalgic for a “scene” that I was in, myself, without ever really noticing.
Rock and metal wasn’t super popular where I grew up in the ‘80s, but it may have been more of a subculture. If you were into rock and metal, everyone would know, because you would proclaim it via a leather biker jacket, battle vest and nasty mullet. In fact, if you went to a school in the UK, like me, you wore a compulsory uniform, so the nasty mullet and a couple of lapel buttons was the only way you could proclaim your dedication to the gods of metal and find like-minded buddies. Based on these clues, my large school of 1,500 students had exactly 6 rockers/metalheads, including myself, and I can still remember all their names: Mike A, Mike B, Barry F, Martin I and Paul R (surnames redacted in case none of them want to admit to previously owning a mullet).
At one point or another, I played in a band with all of these guys, and three of them remain good friends to this day. Some of the various band names were Mike and the Mad Meatuses, Janus Thorn (a misremembering of the poisonous Janis Thorns used as weapons by Leela in Doctor Who (See? Nostalgia and memory are treacherous!)) and Mike A remembers me being a member of Iron Hell, although he also remembers me going to Donnington Rocks in 1988, which I didn’t. He’s so sure though, that I’m now starting to question my own memory.
There were actually demo tapes of Mike and the Mad Meatuses and Janus Thorn. The MMM demo was recorded in Mike B’s parents’ living room on a single mic going into the family hi-fi. Janus Thorn was a bit more sophisticated. The drums were recorded in the music room at school on a Tascam four-track, and, then, guitar, bass and vocals were recorded by ping ponging between my ghetto blaster and my dad’s hi-fi. I didn’t own a bass at the time, so I tracked my guitar at double speed, which made it an octave lower when played at regular speed (at least, that’s how I remember it, but, you know, nostalgia and memory. The only way I could have done this was to borrow my friend Andy’s four-track, as ghetto blasters and hi-fis didn’t have vari-speed, so I may have mixed the drums down with the bass on the four-track and, then, ping-ponged the rest). I wish this cassette still existed, because I’d love to hear what I managed to achieve with those limited resources.
Anyhoo, based on our numbers at school, we didn’t really have a metal scene in our town. What we did have, though, was Alan’s Records and The Den, which were both important to the UK punk/hardcore/crust/grindcore scene. As a group, we frequented Alan’s several times a week, as, compared to HMV and Our Price, he would generally stock the thrashier end of metal, which was our gateway drug into the hardcore scene.
I’m pretty sure it was Mike B who gradually lured us all to gigs at The Den, which was basically the function room of the working men’s club for bus drivers. To get to the gig, we had to pass through the bus drivers’ bar, and the memory of leather, chains and 24-inch mohicans (‘mohawks’ for you Americans) wending their way through flat, cloth caps and pints of mild still makes me smile. By the way, does mild still exist?
My first gig there was opened by a band called Collision, a drum machine-driven punk band fronted by Jamie Owen, whom I’ll return to shortly, and headlined by crust punk legends Heresy.
Over the next few years, I got to see some legends and future legends at The Den (and its companion venues Unity and Cheers), including Green Day (yes, that Green Day), Napalm Death, Youth of Today, Gorilla Biscuits, Victims Family, Carcass (maybe don’t read the lyrics, or look at the album covers), Pitchshifter and even a few classics of the developing UK Thrash scene, like Slammer and Xentrix (The Xentrix gig was the second time I got my nose broken, but the first time in a mosh pit).
Talking of Napalm Death…
The local heroes of the scene were Jailcell Recipes, or Jailcells as most of us referred to them. I knew the guys from Jailcells a bit, because the rhythm guitarist/singer of my band at the time, Decline, used to be their guitarist. Their guitarist during the period I knew them was Jamie of the aforementioned Collision. I always really admired Jamie’s guitar playing, as it was very creative melodically and drew on Black Flag’s Greg Ginn’s slightly atonal approach.
Any road up (as we used to say round our way), I was on a nostalgia trip recently revisiting Jailcells’ fantastic album Two Years of Toothache and posted this to Instagram.
Then I received this comment from one of the Mikes.
So, it seems that Jailcells have released a lot of their classic material as a new record. I’ll let them describe how it works.
It’s perhaps the last untold chapter in the story of the rapidly-detonating, late 80’s UK Hardcore scene. Often overlooked in favour of their contemporaries, this re-mastered/re-modeled retrospective collection of songs finally puts the record straight, giving them the recognition they deserve. It showcases the band’s importance within that scene and throws light on their unique standpoint and their growth over a 4 year period.
This release is not intended as a discography, rather a selected ‘strongest hand’ from between the years 1988 to 1992. It features the definitive line up of Robbie Reid (vocals), Jamie Owen (guitar), Dave Arnold (bass) and Ian Barwick (drums).
It's a game of two halves, the faster, straight ahead hardcore styling’s make up side one (practically the entire first album recorded in 1988) whilst the more melodic, mid-tempo material completes the set on the flipside - Robbie's unmistakable vocals being the constant throughout that makes it all work, he provided the band with a unique identity. Side two closes with previously unreleased studio tracks from 1992. Virtually unheard until now, we believe these final three tracks to be amongst their best.
Largely down to a relentless run of gigs back in their heyday, Jailcell Recipes gained a strong reputation for being an exciting and energetic ‘live’ hardcore band, playing with Bad Brains, All, Gorilla Biscuits and including tours with Youth Of Today (1989), Green Day (1991) Naked Raygun (1988). It’s the 35th Anniversary of the release of their first album “Energy In An Empty Tank World” and after all these years, we finally have the recorded output to match the ‘live’ performance!
You can listen to, and then buy, the album here.
Oddly, my favourite Jailcells track, Worn Down, isn’t on the album, and I can’t find it anywhere online to link it, so you have to be content with this photo of my 7” (Ooh-er, missus!).
Words
I’ve written before about how my love of books was one of the ways I bonded so closely with my grandad. In fact, sharing books was a way we all bonded in my family. I probably inherited my love of grisly horror from Nan/Noonoo, but it was Mum who always passed on the slightly more “literary” Stephen King novels (such as Pet Sematary and Christine) while the rest of my class mates were reading Flat Stanley. Dad was a Lovecraft fan, but also shared with me his love for Verne, Tolkien and Wyndham.
I’m currently reading grandad’s copy of Watership Down (originally published in 1972; this is the 1974 edition), which was once feared lost. He was a big fan of Richard Adams, and I always feel connected to him when I read his copies of books he loved.
I distinctly remember my dad reading this book. Probably this very copy. When Dad was enjoying a book, he would share little sections, or retell parts of the story to me. Funnily enough, I do the same thing with my wife.
I particularly remember Dad sharing, from Watership Down, the tale in which El-ahrairah (Prince with a Thousand Enemies) receives his blessing from Frith (the sun god of the rabbits), while he is half-buried headfirst in a hole and refusing to come out.
Frith felt himself in friendship with El-ahrairah, because of his resourcefulness, and because he would not give up even when he thought the fox and the weasel were coming. And he said, “Very well, I will bless your bottom as it sticks out of the hole. Bottom, be strength and warning and speed for ever and save the life of your master. Be it so!” And as he spoke, El-ahrairah’s tail grew shining white and flashed like a star: and his back legs grew long and powerful and he thumped the hillside until the very beetles fell off the grass-stems. He came out of the hole and tore across the hill faster than any creature in the world. And Frith called after him, “El-ahrairah, your people cannot rule the world, for I will not have it so. All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed.” And El-ahrairah knew then that although he would not be mocked, yet Frith was his friend. And every evening, when Frith has done his days work and lies calm and easy in the red sky, El-ahrairah and his children and his children’s children come out of their holes and feed and play in his sight, for they are his friends and he has promised then that they can never be destroyed.
I found it very moving to copy out that passage. Partly because I think it’s a really lovely bit of writing, but it takes me back to being around four years old, when my dad read it to me. It really connects me in some way to my dad and late grandad.
Read to your kids/loved ones. Make some memories.
I currently have mixed feelings about Watership Down. On the one hand, I never want to finish reading it because it’s so good. On the other hand, I’m looking forward to finishing so I can rewatch the movie (1978) and be transported back to being traumatised, when it was our Christmas film in Mr Blackledge’s class in junior school. Nostalgia, eh?
I particularly love this prologue from the film featuring the unmistakably smokey tones of Michael Hordern. I have to say, rabbits have one of the best creation myths and a smart way, as we all do, of putting themselves above all other animals, closest to god.
I can’t mention Watership Down (1978) without mentioning Art Garfunkel, can I?
I have much more to say about nostalgia, but this is my longest newsletter, so far, and I think I should save some for next week.
Happy Thanksgiving to all you USA-vians!
Stay noisy,
Steve