Bands I wish I'd been in #6 - The Pop Group

Born out of the debris of The Avon Soul Army and the catalytic impact of seeing The Clash and Sex Pistols early on in the nascent punk scene. The Pop Group swiftly took the punk rule book and ripped it up. Incorporating funk, free jazz, dub and punk soundscapes. The original band featured Mark Stewart, John Waddington, Simon Underwood, Gareth Sager and Bruce Smith. Their heady combination of James Brown, Albert Ayler, Funkadelic and King Tubby mixed with radical lyrics was a complete headfunk for a teenage suburban punk like myself. 

Their debut single 'She is Beyond Good and Evil' was the most searing combination of potent punk/funk and poetic imagery I'd ever heard. These boys were different to anybody else on the scene. This was followed by their debut album 'Y', which covered all the bases (and basses). The relentlessly funky chaos of 'We are time' & 'Thief of Fire' interspersed with dub piano melancholy of 'Savage Sea' - the album beautifully underpinned by Dennis Bovell's production work.


Then came 'We are all Prostitutes' the song that sold thousands and the (bootlegged) t-shirt that sold millions....

They then followed up with a second album 'For show much longer do we tolerate mass murder', an album that was even more political and featured The Last Poets and Mark Springer. An album that was pilloried by the likes of the IPC owned NME but still stands up as a fine piece of work - albeit not quite as remarkable as 'Y'. In amongst all this activity was a formal bootleg LP 'We are Time'... And then came the most joyous slab of Funk to come out of the UK in the 1980's - 'Where there's a will' b/w 'In the beginning there was rhythm' but the equally unconventional and fabulous The Slits.

The first incarnation of The Pop Group played their last gig at the CND march in Trafalgar Square in 1980 in front of half a million people. The gig featured old and new versions of the band and they finished with a version of 'Jerusalem', which to those of us present took on almost magical properties (We having sprinted through traffic whilst 'We are Time' ricocheted around the heart of London). It was a remarkable/shambolic day...

So, why do I wish I'd been in The Pop Group? Well apart from the songs, the free form mindset, the lyrics, the amazing iconography, the willingness to challenge the musical 4/4 status quo of punk (which very quickly simply reverted to rebel posturing, boring guitar solos and appropriating the language of tired old cock rockers), the courage to wear their politics on their (LP) sleeve and the desire to SEEK - they were the most dynamic live act I'd ever seen! 

Postscript.
I was initially concerned that their return in 2011 would tarnish their name. I had no need to fear - live they are still an astonishing proposition and I did finally get to fulfil my ambition at Komedia in Brighton a couple of years ago. Mark Stewart thrust the mic forward for me to sing... 

"Where there's a will, there has got to be a way..."

Excelsior!

Mark Fisher RIP

Sad news from the UK is the passing of Mark Fisher, cultural theorist and inspirational music writer. 

Fisher's influential K-Punk blog was widely admired and wide read. Fisher used a cultural theorist's perspective to examine underground and mainstream music, from his original fascination with Roxy Music and The Jam through to Burial, via Japan and Rufige Kru. He was also a founding member of Warwick University's Cybernetic Cultural Research Unit (with musician and label boss Kode9), and a lecturer in the Department of Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths in London. 

In 2004, Fisher released Ghosts Of My Life, a book that covered a wide range of topics and shared his personale mental health struggles. The book also explored Fisher's ideas on "hauntology," which is a method/theory of understanding the world when culture has lost momentum at the "end of history." 

"Hauntology is a coming to terms with the permanence of our (dis)possession, the inevitability of dyschronia," Fisher wrote in a blog post in 2006. "I repeat, I re-cite: hauntology is the closest thing we have to a movement, a zeitgeist, at the moment (and one of the uncanniest aspects of it is the fact that there seem to be very few lines of explicit influence among the artists involved)."

Fisher followed up in 2009 with Capitalist Realism: Is there no alternative? Which argued that since 1989 capitalism had portrayed itself as the only valid economic-political system. 

His final book The Weird and the Eerie was published in January 2017. His loss will be keenly felt by many, not least for the that fact that the most recent book he was working on, had a truly mouth watering title Acid Communism. One can only dream...

A fund has been set up to help his wife and son. Please donate if you can.

Mark Fisher Fund

Poll Results - Best Bristol Band

1 - The Pop Group
2 - Rip Rig & Panic
3 - Massive Attack
4 - Portishead

The 13 best albums of all time - #3

Y - The Pop Group

When Y by The Pop Group was released in 1979, the (music) world split in two. On one side stood the punk traditionalists/neo-reactionaries, prog lovers, HM Greboes and Children of the Top of the Pops Generation on the other stood a small group of fresh faced punk-funkateers armed with nothing but a couple Ornette Coleman LP’s, a healthy dose of dub sensibility, the poetry of Arthur Rimbaud and a burning rage at the creeping darkness of consumer fascism. Despite originally not featuring the truly mind numbingly good 1st single ‘She is Beyond Good & Evil’, the album never fails to stir the heart, mind, body & soul.

From the opening attack of Thief of Fire the original album blew all the cobwebs, dust and inertia that had gathered in the dimly lit corridors of the new pop orthodoxy, clean away). A truly astonishing production job by Dennis Bovell give a completely new depth to the overall sound. The aspects of dub separation and gallons of reverb that had been liberally poured over the tracks gave the listener the sense of listening to Chic backing a ranter at Speakers Corner from the bottom of a mine shaft. Piano tinkle, tumble and echo around fluid funky basslines and Gareth Sager’s distinctive funky Rickenbacker riffs vie with Mark Stewarts howls of anguish and whispers of despair. If you haven’t heard Y before, you lucky thing because the pleasure that awaits you cannot be understated. If you’ve already heard Y before, you lucky thing because you know what an astonishing debut album it is...

Track listing
1. "She Is Beyond Good and Evil" – 3:23 (CD only: not on original '79 vinyl LP)
2. "Thief of Fire" – 4:35
3. "Snow Girl" – 3:21
4. "Blood Money" – 2:57
5. "We Are Time" – 6:29
6. "Savage Sea" – 3:02
7. "Words Disobey Me" – 3:26
8. "Don't Call Me Pain" – 5:35
9. "The Boys from Brazil" – 4:16
10. "Don't Sell Your Dreams" – 6:40
11. "3:38" - 3:42 (CD only: not on original '79 vinyl LP)

(© Spirit of a 1979 Fanzine Writer)

The 13 best albums of all time - #2

Sextet - A Certain Ratio

1. Lucinda
2. Crystal
3. Gum
4. Knife slits water
5. Skipscada
6. Day One
7. Rub down
8. Rialto
9. Below the canal

Sextet is the sound of a band throwing off their long overcoats and reaching out for distant rhythms, be it a shuffling samba beat or a funkier groove - either way it is clear that the band aren't in Moss Side anymore. Sextet arrived after the initially disappointing debut LP 'Too Each' had left ACR's followers unsure whether they were a morose Joy Division cover band or an underpowered funk band.

The opening track Lucinda made it apparent that the band had grown on two levels, firstly the production and groove was in the right place and more intriguingly the band had been enhanced by the addition of Martha Tilson (who allegedly jumped up and joined the band onstage in New York and didn't leave until two years later). Her ethereal/innocent vocals lent a distinctly different feel to the ACR sound and succeeded in clearly delineating them from their more moribund labelmates.

From there on in, the oneness of the album creates a truly hypnotic soundtrack. Taking the listener on a trip through the backstreets of the city at night. The sound of gentle raindrops, water running, piano sprinkled across sparse percussion, horns and klaxons fading in and out of the mix, all the time being driven by the Johnson/Kerr rhythm axis.

Stand out track 'Knife slits water' is still a very powerful song, with the compelling juxtaposition of Tilson's out of kilter vocals and some ferocious bass combining to make a remarkable sound. Unlike the first album, the wayward horn section punctuates the spaces perfectly and the judicious use of echo & reverb proved the influence of 'Y' by The Pop Group had not been forgotten.

In some ways the second side is even better with the trippy 'Skipscada' tumbling into 'Day One', 'Rub down' and 'Rialto' with each track merging and blending into the other. A heady dubby quartet indeed...

All in all, Sextet stands up as a wonderfully complete piece of work and is not out of place on a Saturday night dancefloor, Sunday morning comedown session or a sunny Monday morning turntable.

Punk Rock Tear Ups

Going round to a friends armed with a clutch of 7" singles and blasting them out the window, down the street, through the station, beyond the pub, over Marine Parade, over the beach and out there to the wild blue yonder!!!

Top 5 Tear Up Tunes
1. We are all Prostitutes - The Pop Group
2. Complete Control - The Clash
3. In the City - The Jam
4. Smash it Up - The Damned
5. City Hobgoblins - The 'Mighty' Fall