uncarved.org blog

Ah, The Cramps. The cooler kids at school all seemed to get into them at exactly the same time, flashing their records about and drawing that classic logo on their bags.

It looked like my interest in punk and obsessive viewing of b&w re-runs of The Munsters and Addams Family all wrapped up in a perfectly kitsch package…

A great band who had a strong aesthetic and produced a mutant strain of decades old musical DNA – bang up to date stuff, not a tribute act. Just like The Specials with ska and two tone, The Cramps revved up obscure rock ‘n’ roll from the fifties and spawned (for better or worse) the whole psychobilly movement.

I think some people see them as a bit of band for poseurs, but for me their first three albums: “Songs The Lord Taught Us”, “Psychedelic Jungle” and especially the “Off The Bone” compilation of early singles and EPs are pretty much unassailable.

CDs (for yea, I have recently rediscovered them long after the C90 cassettes have perished) to dig out now and again when I need a breather from all things JA and East London. Maybe it’s my musical equivalent of escapist schlock like Barbara Cartland? I’d never really thought about the band very much which is unusual for an arch-spotter by me, so I was surprised when my spidey sense started tingling recently.

The first thing that did it was a long car journey with Andy from Giant Paw during which he played a whole welter of mad stuff including many original versions of songs covered by The Cramps. They were uniformly excellent – little blasts of intensity with a wicked pop sensibility hiding some 50s sleeeeeeeze. I hadn’t realised I was so familiar with the versions by The Cramps, but hearing the originals was as pleasantly jarring as the first time I stumbled on the full vocal version of a dub by Scientist.

Smith3000 who does Expletive Undeleted also came up trumps with this great entry about “Off The Bone” – which like many of his posts manages to combine some top writing about music with reminiscences about times, and girls, gone by.

By this point I was cursing myself because I could feel that disembodied love for The Cramps beginning to move into a zone of analysis and trainspottery. I started thinking about them, the whole mondo gothic pinup schtick. Remembering when I’d seen Poison Ivy Rorschach on the cover of “Smell Of Female” in Our Price and my adolescent eyebrows tried to hit the ceiling.

I wanted to know more about them, what made them tick. All the while realising that this might mean that I could never “just” like their music again. Like a dog eating its own vomit.

So that’s how I ended up going digging in the boneyard of The Cramps’ back catalogue and associated world of fannish obsession. My first stop was a thread on Dissensus, followed by all this lot:

Lindsay Hutton – Rocking Bones / Legion of the Cramped 1979-1983

Rocking Bones was a fanzine which became the official Cramps fan club newsletter for a period. The Legion of the Cramped was administered by Lindsay Hutton (helped initially by one Stephen Morrissey, – yes that one). The fan club was terminated by the band in 1983, Ivy’s letter was the main content of the 7th issue.

I quite like “ziney” feel of it – the usual apologies for lateness, gig reviews, gossip, press cuttings etc. Lo-fi but undeniably enthusiastic.

A few issues are available as pdfs online.

Thomas Owen Sheridan – The Cramps (Savoy, 1990) 60pp

A bunch of photocopied of press interviews and reviews, mainly from the UK, up to and including mid 80s. Includes quite a few photos (tho not exactly great quality given the medium) but feels very much like a scrapbook – quite “bitty”. “For die-hards only”.

Still available from Savoy – support independent publishing!

Kris Guidio – Sinister Legends (Savoy, 1988) 112pp

A collection of drawings and cartoons by “The Cramps’ favourite artist”. Guidio’s later work Lord Horror and Meng & Ecker is now notorious for riling Manchester’s newly formed Obscene Publications Squad, headed up by Chief Inspector James Anderton.

The book includes all of the cartoons featuring the Cramps which appeared in Hutton’s The Next Big Thing zine as well as a bunch of artwork relating to a whole constellation of post-punk and quasi goth figures. There is also an interview with Guidio himself about his early life, heroin addiction and more besides, some fiction, some (ugh) poetry.

I’m not a big fan of his artwork here. It’s a personal thing but for me it veers too far away from the Cramps’ kitchy Americana pin-up aesthetic into gothic. Lux Interior likes it though: “This was rock ‘n’ roll. I loved the stuff he did for us”.

Still available from Savoy – support independent publishing!

Ian Johnston – The Wild Wild World Of The Cramps – (Omnibus, 1990) 128pp

Exhaustive, but now expensive. Ian has read every single thing ever written about The Cramps, so you don’t have to wade through it all!

It’s really well written and each page has a shed-load of graphics – flyers, photos, posters etc. The visual appeal of the band is so strong that you feel that this was both a labour of love and also the sort of book the band might like.

The book relies a lot on music press coverage and interviews but the process of distillation is done really well (and it’s basically how a lot of stuff on this blog is done, so what the hell!).

There are also a fair few original quotes from people like Lindsay Hutton, especially in relation to the band’s decision to close down the fan club he was running because Ivy felt they “shouldn’t be pinned down and defined”. Which is kind of what I was trying to do, ah well.

The book tells the story up to 1990 and it is a great story to tell. If you find this cheap, snap it up.

V.Vale (ed.) RE/SEARCH #14 – Incredibly Strange Music vol. 1 (RE/SEARCH 1993)

Difficult to argue with RE/SEARCH, really. Full marks for thoroughness and presentation every time.

The interview with The Cramps is the first in the book and focuses on them as record collectors and curators of a bygone age. Lots of cool tales of record digging (they broke an axle on their car returning from a sale at the Sun Records warehouse…) and general enthusiasm about finding mad records cheap.

Other highlights include interviews with Earth Kitt, the Norton Records label (co-run by Miriam Linna, an early Cramps drummer) and Martin Denny.

The irony here is that many of the people interviewed are cursing Record Collectors who go around with price lists rather than just trusting their ears – but RE/SEARCH has always worked as a populist force for underground subcultures (their “Modern Primitives” especially being the book which launched a million identical “individualist” tattoos and piercings). This book and ebay and healthy bank balance may be your passport to cool. Or maybe not.

Ignacio Julia – The Cramps: Jolis Monstres (1995) 64pp

On the upside, this has a whole heap of photos in – many in colour. On the downside, all the text is in French.

Dick Porter – The Cramps (Plexus, 2006) 144pp

The most recent addition to the bookshelf and therefore the most up to date. Perhaps predictably, the bulk of the book still focuses on the period up to and including the mid-80s. Admittedly this is the most interesting era of the band – including their formation and classic releases. The early years are now given more attention because of quotes from Lux and Ivy reflecting on that period which were not available to Ian Johnston for his book.

For example there is more detail on Lux’s former incarnation as a hellraising hippy who changed his name by deed poll to “VipVop”.

And this from Ivy:

“The failure of outsiders to acknowledge the influence of blues and R&B on The Cramps is an omission bordering on racism. Rockabilly is rooted in the blues and we consider ourselves a blues band.”

Actually she comes across as amazingly talented (and hard nosed) in most of the books. It’s cool that she taught herself to produce records and run a business. It’s also cool that virtually all of the album covers have been shot in Lux and Ivy’s front room – that says something quite good about them in my world.

Porter’s style flows slightly better than Johnston’s as I think he is less hidebound by covering things in as much detail as possible.

On the visuals front, Porter’s book has a few photos reproduced in high quality and is still widely available. “Wild World” has superb illustrations and photos on every single one of its glossy pages but will cost you in the region of 30 quid on ebay, or less if you are prepared to wait and seek a bit deeper (as I was).

I think I’ve got most of it out of my system now though…

Hackney Solidarity Network

“The Hackney Solidarity Network (HSN) was launched in January 2008 as a space where community activists and campaigners can

• Meet each other
• Let each other know what they are doing
• Share skills and information
• Network and get to know each other socially

Paul Meme’s album released today! A double CD set, with the 2nd disc being a wicked mix up of the tracks on the first.

Ordering details and sound samples here:

http://www.boomkat.com/item.cfm?id=110403

A nice sunny day by the river in the best city in the world, with the best soundsystem in the world. You can’t say fairer than that eh? Nice crowd of people including Danalcapone, Kevin Bug, Gabriel Heatwave and many many more.

The event was part of Massive Attack’s stab at the Meltdown festival and I reckon they did pretty good overall. Mark Stewart was wicked last week, doing two sets either side of the atrocious Stiff Little Fingers. Reports indicate Grace Jones was on top form, and that the acoustic reggae night was awesome.

Yesterday Trevor Sax kicked things off with a nice one drop selection, which got progressively deeper. Then the MCs took to the mic – Papa Levi, Colonel, Sandy and Rusty all present and correct (but no Tippa…)

They flashed some old lyrics, they flashed some new lyrics. Levi did all of “Mi God Mi King” acapella style. The audience went a bit mental, with the old Saxon soldiers chanting along to all the classics and bemused passersby getting sucked in to some proper London culture.

Daddy Colonel did a nice speech about how the fast chat style spread out from London to JA, to hip hop to grime and how people should be proud of London, proud of where they are from.

There were a few technical hitches with a bit of mic feedback and the breeze blowing against the turntables, but the vibes was high and the sound was booming.

Trevor took over after the display of lyrical gymanstics and flung down some classic Jammys riddims, also stuff like joyride, greetings riddim and a Super Cat medley before finishing off with a whole heap of Johnny Clarke dubplate specials.

I got so excited I even filmed a bit of Rusty on my camera:

More photos here.

portrait of the author as an intense young man

Somebody with a dysfunctional email address writes:

What happened to you John? You used to be so vitriolic and teacher like. Now you’re all fluffy. Did having a kid make you less of a wanker? Good on you if did. I remember you being a full on immoral Whitehouse freak who thought that if you didn’t produce you weren’t a person. You came across as a product of a strict protestant work ethic based family.

Mark [surname I don't recognise deleted]

Thanks Mark!

The UK is already the western democracy which has the power to detain people for the longest length of time without trial. Apparently that isn’t sufficient, what with all this terrorism we are having.

Parliament has just agreed that detention can be increased from 28 days to 42 (Douglas Adams has a lot to answer for). Predictably the police say they need 42 days and the civil liberties lobby say this is bollocks.

But what, you may ask, has this all got to do with obscure UK fast chat deejays from the 1980s?

You remember the early 80s, right? Or if you don’t you’ve seen enough footage of burning police cars and punks and rastas and “Ghost Town” on TV “list” programmes to have a fair idea about it.

Lord Scarman’s report into the 1981 Brixton riots did away with the “sus laws” and their legitimising of police harassment of black youth, but mistrust between the police and the public remained high in many areas (when is it not?).

Proposals in the 1983 Police Bill included powers to:

hold people for 96 hours without charge
set up random road blocks around an area
conduct forcible intimate body searches of detainees
use force in taking fingerprints (even of minors)
seize confidential information held by doctors, lawyers, journalists

and of course more stop and search powers, because you can’t have too many of them, eh?

It being the 80s, there was huge protest against the proposals (rather than today, when all you get is Shami Chakrabarti launching some balloons outside the Houses of Parliament). The HQ of the National Campaign Against The Police Bill was at 50 Rectory Road, Stoke Newington. Interestingly, the campaign seems to have received funding from Ken Livingstone’s GLC to the tune of £38,000 which lead to questions being asked in parliament.

Some of this money presumably was spent on admin and printing leaflets (some of which can be downloaded as pdfs here).

Thatcher’s right wing government was re-elected for a 2nd term in June 1983, helped in part by the resurgence of patriotism following the Falklands conflict, and flogging off council housing. The 1983 Labour party manifesto had included:

Repeal the Police and Criminal Evidence Bill, because it infringes the rights and freedoms of individuals.

Disband the London Special Patrol Groups and local SPGs, which have increasingly been deployed in aggressive public order roles.

but also a load of brave but unelectable policies such as abolishing the House of Lords, cancelling Trident nuclear missiles, etc.

“Kill The Police Bill” by Ranking Ann was released on Rough Justice Records in either 1984 or 85. It must be their only release (surely?). The 12″ was “produced by GLC Police Committee Support Unit” and published by Mad Professor’s Ariwa Music. I imagine by the sound of it that Mad Prof actually produced the music iin the studio rather than “the committee”, although that does conjur up some amusing images in my head.

So the Conservative government give Red Ken’s GLC a sack of money, which they then spend on a reggae record opposing proposed govt legislation. I bet that went down well.

Ranking Ann was born Ann Swinton in Croydon, but was discovered by Mad Professor via a contact in Wolverhampton whilst she was studying at university. Apparently she had some involvement with the Black Rock soundsystem which was run by her brother. Her first album “A Slice of English Toast” was released on Ariwa in 1982.

The tune itself is classic mid 80s Mad Professor stuff – a version of the Heavenless riddim with police sirens. Ann’s lyrics deal with police oppression in general, and the bill in particular as well as a first person (true or fiction?) account of her arrest.

The back cover includes all the lyrics for the benefit of those who can’t fathom Ann’s (rather light) patois. I imagine the record was well received by student lefties and guardianistas but that may be my own bias. Certainly Dick Hebdige, arch-academic of things sub-cultural, dedicated a whole chapter to the tune in his book Cut ‘n’ Mix (Comedia, 1987).

Furthermore Mad Professor himself makes the point that Ann’s material “was not appreciated until the late 80s, when academics and hippies from Exeter to San Diego demanded to see her.” in his sleevenotes to the excellent Ariwa 81 Sessions compilation.

Having said that, Green Gartside did appreciate her work and got Ann in for some toasting on Scritti Politti’s dubbed out remix of their “The Word Girl” single. Shortly after this burst of activity in the mid 80s, she moved away from reggae and into Gospel.

As Hebdige points out, the record and allied protests did not prevent the bill becoming an Act of Parliament at the end of 1985, following further conflict between the police and residents of Brixton and Tottenham. These riots lead the Metropolitan Police Chief to call for even more powers, including giving his colleagues access to plastic bullets whenever he felt like it.

The Thatcher government closed down the GLC in March 1986.

Reading all this back and thinking of the vast amounts of unrest in the 1980s (riots, the Miners’ strike, a terrorist threat from the IRA, 3 million unemployed, the prospect of the cold war concluding in nuclear annihilation) I am not convinced that there is more disorder now.

And I’d be pretty surprised if Boris Johnson used his mayoral funds to release a tune by a female grime MC tearing into the new Counter Terror Bill.

Make a note in your diary to read this post again in 42 days.

Last ever Tighten Up – tonight!

http://www.uncarved.org/blog/2008/05/tighten-up-rip-1999-2008/

Tighten Up takes place at Rhum Jungle, 70 Exmouth Market, Islington, London EC1.
The venue is just off Roseberry Avenue and is roughly 10 minutes walk from Angel, Farringdon or Kings Cross tube stations.

9pm till 2am
FREE ENTRY ALL NITE!!
Dress code: No hoodies.

Apologies in advance.

—–

From: Rattus Rattus
Date: May 14, 2008
Subject: Mix CD
To: John Eden

Hi,
I think you would enjoy my new mix CD. Either for formal blogging/review or for you own personal enjoyment. Its a fast paced mix of Dubstep, Electro, Grime, Funky, Bassline and Garage. After being up for a week on Uptown Records and Facebook it has had almost 500 downloads and great feedback.
Heres a link to a zipped broken down (track by track) version of the mix CD including artwork and tracklisting; [...]

From: John Eden
Date: May 14, 2008
Subject: Re: Mix CD
To: Rattus Rattus

Hello Paul

Thanks for the links, the tracklist looks great.

Unfortunately I will never know if the mix is any cop or not because I’m not going to download it.

Because of the title.

I know we’re all supposed to be wacky and postmodern these days and not give a fuck, but I’ve spent too many hours talking to people about their rape experiences until the early hours…

John

From: Rattus Rattus
Date: May 14, 2008 5:32 PM
Subject: Re: Re: Mix CD
To: John Eden
Hi John
Apologies for any insult or offence I may have caused. I think its all to easy to use ideas like this title to create shock and to draw attention to yourself. Without thinking about the bigger picture, the people who have been affected or who know people who have been affected by this crime, of which i am clearly guilty of.
If you do want to check out my mixing on which your opinion would be very much appreciated. I have my last mix CD “Clash! At The Rave” which you can download from here: http://www.zshare.net/download/371175940462ec/ Which is a mix of Dubstep, Classic Rave, Grime, UK Garage and Indie.
Here is the tracklisting; [...]
[...]
And once again apologies for my short sightedness.
Paul

—–

All of which got me thinking…

From Whitehouse’s shrieks to SWANS bellowing You should be raped / You should be violated on “Time Is Money (Bastard)” there is a fair bit of male transgressive-aggression in music I have checked out over the years.

I once was round at a female friend’s house and she was playing me some generic power electronics, for a laugh like. But then we had to turn it off abruptly because a mate of hers came round. A friend who’d been raped recently. There was an awkward silence at first, before real life superseded the “extreme” soundtrack. We didn’t discuss what had happened to her. It was another point in my life when I grew up.

Maybe self-consciously transgressive art only appeals to people with empty lives.

Back to a series of knackered sofas and broken park benches. It is completely shocking, every time. You’ve got to know someone well – or think you have – and it’s late and then something triggers off a memory. Of when it happened, years before. And then there’s tears and anger and you sit there, listening, trying to help. But, really, what use are you? All you can do is listen, for as long as it takes and offer very clear reassurance when the conversation looks like dipping into self-doubt. Self-blame.

Sometimes it takes a long time. Years of not speaking about it… because people don’t, do they? And yet, there just seems to be such an awful lot of it, those nights when you really get to know people and they pluck up the courage to tell you because it has to come out somehow and maybe you seem like the sort of person who can take it. Or maybe it could be anyone. I never got my cub scout badge for rape counseling.

“Songs About Rape” is probably an album already, but I’m not going to google it.

Here are two:

Zos Kia – “Rape” (All The Madmen Records, 1984)

There is a wealth of material on Zos Kia and John Gosling (its only permanent member) in England’s Hidden Reverse by Dave Keenan. I’ve not met John Gosling but I like him a lot from what I’ve read and heard about him.

This release features harrowing spoken and screamed vocals by Min – retelling her rape experience, perhaps as some kind of catharsis. No wonder Garry Bushell was a bit nonplussed when he reviewed it for Sounds.

More info and audio over at Kill Your Pet Puppy

A short history of All The Madmen

Rhoda with the Special AKA – “The Boiler” (Two Tone, 1982)

Rhoda was the lead singer with Two Tone all-girl band the Bodysnatchers. “The Boiler” is a girl meets boy story with a horrific date rape twist. Jerry Dammers apparently once said that everyone should hear this record, but only once.

Once again it’s a spoken word affair. The tune received no radio airplay (except for John Peel) but still reached number 35 in the charts.

“The Boiler” appears on the official “This Are Two Tone” compilation but is strangely absent from later, more nostalgic “best of”s.

More info and audio at Tracklister blog.

Rhoda myspace.

Grievous Angel presents Belief is the Enemy

News on Paul Meme’s album!

After writing a bit about Wordsound here (and enjoying their skunked out dubby hip hop for years) I finally got around to watching the label’s feature film Crooked last night.

Crooked was shot, written and produced on an ultra low budget by Wordsound’s guru and Chief Executive Skiz and released in 2002 on DVD. The storyline is an (almost?) fictional account of an idealistic hip hop head starting a label in NYC with a deranged but massively talented rapper and producer by the name of Sensational. Who is played by deranged but massively talented rapper and producer Sensational.

A whole downpouring torrent of Wordsound ‘heads’ make guest appearances including Anti Pop Consortium and Ras Kush, who plays a wise rasta dishing out wisdom and vinyl at legendary NY store Jammyland (which eerily seems to be in a twilight zone “between locations” dilemma as I write this).

The film suffers from, and is buoyed up by, all the usual limitations of low budget films – the plot is shaky, some of the camerawork and sound is shakier, the dialogue made my better half cringe in places and she wasn’t even in the same room. But despite all this it’s good to see somebody having a go at something ambitious – trying to put their vision out there in different ways without pandering to expectations, coolness or whatever.

The portrayal of dedicated people getting by, and venal record label personnel and drug dealers is pretty effective and Sensational lives up to his name I think. Plus there is a slightly noirish atmosphere to all the NYC shots which I like.

The first mix I ever did kicked off with Spectre vs Scotty Hard’s The Joust from Wordsound’s second “Crooklyn Dub Consortium” compilation. So I was especially pleased to see him in the film, playing a cop. Scotty is aka Scott Harding, a founder member of New Kingdom – a point of regroupment in the early nineties for people who liked their hop to be hip, but also fucked up and experimental. He seems to be pretty at home in the studio – his discography is pretty impressive.

Check this out, for example:

During all this I was reminded that Scotty had fallen on hard times recently, a car crash in February leaving him paralysed. His friends are rallying round and maybe people reading this could as well if they like his stuff:

SCOTTY HARD INFO

As some of you may or may not know, Scott Harding (a/k/a Scotty Hard) was in a bad accident this past February. The road to recovery is long and hard and as has been noted before, “Legal resolution of insurance settlements will take a long time, and there is no way to know what the long term financial picture will look like. In the meantime there is rent due, mixing console payments to be made, a myriad of bills to pay to keep creditors at bay etc, not to mention medical and legal bills that will start to come in.”

If you wish to make a donation or just to keep abreast of the various benefits that are going on for Scott, please go to http://www.ScottyHardTrust.com

Thank you for your support.

If you ever downloaded his stuff or liked that mix I did, I think now would be a good time to do the right thing.