5. Theatre Of Hate - Nero (Burning Rome)

 

Number one for one week on 29th August 1981

Every era produces cult rock stars who are slightly too well known to be deemed underground, but not successful enough to be immediately recognisable to casual listeners. This was something I understood at a very early age, precocious nerd that I was.

This ability is perhaps best illustrated by a pointless school playground row which broke out about my cluelessness around the topics of sport, film and tv programmes.

“He knows nothing about anything!” mocked one short-arsed kid, who seemed to be the ringleader in all this. “Doesn’t watch The A-Team. Doesn’t support a football team. Reads stupid kids’ comics and not war comics. And I’ll bet he hasn’t even seen [insert name of some obscure “video nasty” here]. He wouldn’t even know where to get [name of obscure “video nasty”], but I do! I’ve watched it TWICE!”

“Oh yeah?” I countered. “Well, you know nothing about music. You probably don’t even know who Kirk Brandon is!”

People began to titter, and the short-arse retaliated.

“Berk Brandon? Why the hell should I give a shit who Berk Brandon is?!” he sneered, and everyone laughed uproariously.

I don’t know what became of that kid, by the way, but so far as I know he didn’t become a sub-editor at the NME despite seemingly already having the requisite skills at the age of eleven (It also now strikes me that with a few modest alterations, the above exchange could be an argument between Stewart Lee and Richard Herring in series one of “Fist Of Fun”.)

But still… the fact I can still remember this playground exchange points to two things – firstly, I possibly still have some stuff I need to work through with a therapist. Secondly, it signals that Brandon was neither muckling nor mickling in the eighties, even at the height of his success (which is when I had the argument). He was the kind of rock star who crept into the corners of Smash Hits as well as gaining the full-spread treatment in the NME, Melody Maker and Sounds. He was invariably portrayed as an edgy and out-there dude, but somehow lacked the recognisability and warped glamour of a Julian Cope, Ian McCulloch, Morrissey or Robert Smith character. By accident or design, those singers became mighty brands, supremely individualistic in their stylings and opinions and adopted as gurus by impressionable kids desperate for idols. Brandon, with his short crop of peroxide hair, looked as if he could have been a member of any number of post-punk bands. I’m not arguing that this matters to me, but – certainly in the eighties – this mattered if you wanted to be something more than a casual curiosity to most.

To make matters possibly more challenging, his early music career was also unsullied by involvement with major labels, despite growing interest in his work. His recording career initially began with the group The Pack on Rough Trade, before shifting onwards to Theatre Of Hate, who issued all their records on their producer’s own Burning Rome records – a label solely set up to deliver Brandon-related product. Despite taking this none-more-Buzzcocks styled DIY approach, Theatre of Hate certainly weren’t akin to the various standard issue punks and anarcho-punks littering the indie charts at this time. Rather, their sound was gloomier, with agitated vocals and slow rattling rhythms being anchored by clattering and swooping basslines. While the group have seldom been tagged with the ‘g’ (goth) word elements of their sound are certainly some steps ahead of that movement.

This is hugely apparent in “Nero”, which is seven-and-a-half minutes of sharp melodrama. While the song takes some distinct and noticeable progressions in that play time, it eschews a clear chorus for reverberated howls of rage punctuated by instrumental stabs.

Actually, while I can completely see what they were trying to do and feel the song is powerful enough to soundtrack a pivotal moment in a film, I don’t particularly enjoy listening to it. It was inevitable this would happen at some point in the blog, and here we are, five entries deep with me waving the little white flag. What Theatre of Hate are doing here is something a lot of underground groups would pick up in the wake of Joy Division; most ultimately sounded nothing much like that band, but nonetheless produced work which could similarly feel unforgivably cavernous and lonely. “Nero” is more subterranean than most, squeezing you down the nearest pothole into a mighty and apparently inescapable structure while Brandon sniggers to himself, pretending he has no plans in place for a rescue. I can understand how it became a huge underground hit (no pun intended) without feeling as if it addresses any of the needs I have from music.

Not that my opinion makes a jot of difference. Brandon is still out there touring and producing new work for his dedicated fanbase, with a refreshed line-up of Theatre of Hate being out on tour as I type, and this also isn’t the last time he’ll be coming up for discussion here. Next time around, the breakthrough will be more astonishing. 

Trivia

As unlikely as it sounds, Brandon’s other act Spear of Destiny recently toured with Belinda Carlisle when her original support act Glenn Tilbrook fell through. Kirk said: “Why the hell not? I’m not doing anything else this month”. This is an attitude I can get on board with.

Away From The Number One Spot

Charlie Higsons’ act The Higsons were perched behind Theatre of Hate at number two with the superb fat post-punk funk rush of “I Don’t Want To Live With Monkeys”, which rattles along in an altogether more urgent way, dancefloor friendly despite its rubbery angularity. Higson would of course go on to become a renowned writer and comedy performer after The Higsons reached their natural end. Gobs have been known to fall agape at the sight of his antics as the lead singer of a band, a role to which he seems surprisingly well suited once the shock wears off. 




The Au Pairs enter at 14 with “Inconvenience” which almost sounds like something approaching pop despite itself – cool funk grooves meeting a faint twitchy irritance.




The Skodas enter at 25 with the brilliantly titled “Everybody Thinks Everybody Else Is Dead Bad”, which sits between post-punk and utter punk pathetique social observation, using petty, passive aggressive neighbourly and community disputes as the lyrical hook for something that almost threatens to be groovy. This is the sound of complaints from the NextDoor forum set to Peel-friendly music. 




The Associates are also back at number 12 with “Kitchen Person”, which sounds like an entire building collapsing on the listener, compared to “Nero” which leaves them in a space too vast to manage. By this point, the indie charts felt like an anxious and structurally unsafe place to visit.

The full indie charts for this week can be found at the UKMix forums.

Number One In The Real World

Aneka: "Japanese Boy" (Hansa)