Five weeks at number from w/e 8th January 1983.
Back in the mid-nineties I was complaining to a person “inside” the music business about a local band I loved who hadn’t been signed yet. To me their future seemed a no-brainer – they had the image, the songs and were astonishing live. Where was the roadblock? Did they just have rotten management?
The knowing insider gave me a withering look and broke it down very simply, barely pausing for thought; it seemed little reflection was required.
“Dave, you have to understand, there’s absolutely no stability in that band. You’re right, two of the members are turning out good songs, but they go through drummers and bass players like I lose socks. They stop, they start, they freeze again, sometimes for months. No major label is going to look at that situation and not see a huge problem; they want a solid, fixed group of individuals they can develop, work with and promote. They want to know that if they put the money in tomorrow, they’re going to still have a band to work with in two year’s time”.
He was right, of course (probably, although I’m sure there have been random exceptions). I know even less about the workings of the early 21st Century music biz, but part of me wonders if this rule would still apply today; presumably any label wishing to invest in such a group would whittle them down to a core duo and hire a few waged musicians to work and tour with them on the side. The idea of a “group identity” seems to have become less essential now. Back in the nineties, though, and certainly in the eighties, it mattered.
In a similar fashion, as we’ve journeyed through the NME Indie Charts of the last two years, we’ve come across a number of fragile units swelling with promise who quickly imploded, and we may have found ourselves baffled as to how they landed on labels like Rough Trade or Mute. The answer may very well lie in their own internal struggles – did Theatre Of Hate, for example, really want to press up their own records, or were there just some extremely serious problems within their own ranks which made them an undesirable business prospect?
Of all the bands we’ve brushed past or will meet in future, Southern Death Cult are the most extreme example of this phenomenon. “Moya” twinned with “Fatman” (although the NME Chart only lists “Fatman”) was the only single they put out before splitting. It was a monstrous fringe hit, popping up on numerous indie compilations from that day to this, and it soundtracked many nights out for a particular youth cult, and acted as the kind of foundation enormous careers are usually built on.
Hold that thought, though, because while Southern Death Cult disintegrated before they could release any other new material (besides some odds, sods and session tracks album their label were quick to put out), their lead singer Ian Astbury formed the similarly named Death Cult with the similarly volatile Theatre of Hate’s Billy Duffy, who eventually became The Cult of whom little more needs to be said. Astbury clearly knew which side his onions were cooked on and wasn’t going to throw the b(r)and name into rock’s great compost bin.
Despite his involvement, Southern Death Cult were a hugely different group in terms of both line-up and style, as “Fatman” clearly demonstrates. Astbury’s vocal stylings are already fully developed here, and his deliberately strained, strangulated war cries dominate “Fatman” as much as they do “She Sells Sanctuary”, cutting through the clutter beneath them to act as a guiding laser point.
What’s going on beneath is enormous and feels like every single idea the group had that month. Drums clatter, guitars borrow their stylings from both Dick Dale and Billy Duffy – he may not be working with Astbury yet, but you can feel the ground being prepared – and the tune rolls and stumbles in an organised heap towards its conclusion. There is no obvious chorus here, just a cascade of possible hooks thundering by while the drummer rattles straight and orderly patterns behind the conflicting ideas.
I’ve owned “Fatman” on a compilation for years now and never quite taken to it, but listening to it afresh again, it’s immediately striking how influential it was. You can certainly hear the template for the first iteration of The Stone Roses here from their “Garage Flower” days, but Astbury and co have a sense of measure and control the Baby Roses never quite managed. Perhaps more importantly than that, this is also unapologetic Goth Rock; Astbury has often insisted that his joking reference to Visigoths in relation to friend and associate Andi Sex Gang created the name of an entire subcult and genre.
Whether or not this is true, and there are others who can point to earlier examples of the use of the word, the single itself is full blown Batcave melodrama. It didn’t necessarily start here. The Cramps, The Banshees and The Damned may wish to have words with you about their own influence (or may wish to avoid the topic altogether) and Bauhaus, The Birthday Party and Theatre Of Hate certainly had a stake too. Despite this, you can hear an early example of the typical, sprawling rock melodrama slightly alienated, ghoulishly presented youths began to billow around dancefloors to. Those Morricone-esque ideas, once used to soundtrack westerns, were now being used to act as the backdrop of the lives of some suburban kids dressed in black.
As for the rest of the short-lived Southern Death lot, guitarist David Burroughs, bassist Barry Jepson and drummer Haq Nawaz Qureshi formed Getting The Fear, who later became Into A Circle (who we will eventually come across again). Qureshi veered off track the most by eventually forming Fun-Da-Mental, a group I would be willing to guess probably didn’t attract very many Cult fans to their particular party. From these acorns do such unlikely and strangely tangled oak trees grow.
Elsewhere In The Charts
Week One
23. Tracey Thorn – Plain Sailing (re-recorded) (Cherry Red)
Peak position: 7
The only new entry in week one is Thorn’s spartan, threadbare track “Plain Sailing”, which has production values only slightly above Michelle Shocked’s Campfire Tapes. Thorn’s voice has a yearning regret which overrides any need for luxurious studio arrangements, and there are those who argue that this is one of her finest moments. It’s certainly one of the most to-the-point, with the cutting final line causing an abrupt and irritated halt at just over the two minute mark.
Week Two
16. Combat 84 – Orders Of The Day (EP) (Victory)
Peak position: 8
23. Fad Gadget – For Whom The Bells Toll (Mute)
Peak position: 20
Not so much chillwave as spookwave, “For Whom The Bells Toll” twitters, chimes, howls and groans its way through a sparse synthscape, sounding more bound up in ancient, doomy campfire myths than futurism. With Daniel Miller at his side Frank Tovey probably could have tried to write a hit single in the early eighties, and his determination not to remains admirably stubborn.
Week Three
21. Fiat Lux – Feels Like Winter Again (Cocteau)
Peak position: 15
Fiat Lux featured Bill Nelson’s brother Ian on keyboards, so perhaps unsurprisingly their debut single was issued on his older sibling’s Cocteau label. It was their first and last appearance in the indie chart before they became a huge Polydor hype.
Unlike their later work, “Feels Like Winter Again” doesn’t feel a million miles off Fad Gadget. It anchors itself to the same unchanging melancholic, frosty moods and twittering arrangements, with only those beefy bass slaps hinting at the production sheen to come.
For all that, though, Fiat Lux never really seemed to try to become a full-blown pop group, and for all the gloss of their major label releases, they remained rooted to Japan-inspired atmospheres rather than Depeche-orientated hooks.
26. Yosser’s Gang – Gis A Job (Rialto)
Peak position: 18
Of all the television series to inspire a spin-off novelty single, Boys From The Blackstuff must have seemed like one of the most unlikely (though surprisingly, this isn’t the only one in existence). Its portrayal of early eighties unemployment wasn’t completely bleak, containing bursts of gallows humour as a counterpoint to the grim topic matter, but nor was it setting itself up for content to be heard on the Radio One Roadshow.
The character Yosser, however, whose joblessness leads to erratic behaviour and ultimately a breakdown, created a catchphrase in “Gis A Job”, which his “gang” (some musicians from Liverpool) funk along to on this single, along with some other choice lines from the series; hence one fictional man’s mental collapse is set to a dancefloor beat. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it wasn’t a hit, and we were spared other novelty singles based around Threads or the Post Office Scandal.
27. The Fits – The Last Laugh EP (Rondolet)
Peak position: 27
Week Four
21. Fiat Lux – Feels Like Winter Again (Cocteau)
Peak position: 15
Fiat Lux featured Bill Nelson’s brother Ian on keyboards, so perhaps unsurprisingly their debut single was issued on his older sibling’s Cocteau label. It was their first and last appearance in the indie chart before they became a huge Polydor hype.
Unlike their later work, “Feels Like Winter Again” doesn’t feel a million miles off Fad Gadget. It anchors itself to the same unchanging melancholic, frosty moods and twittering arrangements, with only those beefy bass slaps hinting at the production sheen to come.
For all that, though, Fiat Lux never really seemed to try to become a full-blown pop group, and for all the gloss of their major label releases, they remained rooted to Japan-inspired atmospheres rather than Depeche-orientated hooks.
26. Yosser’s Gang – Gis A Job (Rialto)
Peak position: 18
Of all the television series to inspire a spin-off novelty single, Boys From The Blackstuff must have seemed like one of the most unlikely (though surprisingly, this isn’t the only one in existence). Its portrayal of early eighties unemployment wasn’t completely bleak, containing bursts of gallows humour as a counterpoint to the grim topic matter, but nor was it setting itself up for content to be heard on the Radio One Roadshow.
The character Yosser, however, whose joblessness leads to erratic behaviour and ultimately a breakdown, created a catchphrase in “Gis A Job”, which his “gang” (some musicians from Liverpool) funk along to on this single, along with some other choice lines from the series; hence one fictional man’s mental collapse is set to a dancefloor beat. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it wasn’t a hit, and we were spared other novelty singles based around Threads or the Post Office Scandal.
27. The Fits – The Last Laugh EP (Rondolet)
Peak position: 27
Week Four
19. The Meteors – Johnny Remember Me (IDS)
Peak position: 3
Twangy psychobilly take on the Joe Meek classic which, as unlikely as it sounds, brings its own atmosphere and windswept charm to the original. Meek’s productions may have been ambitious, but they were also lo-fi, and The Meteors manage to find a way of making them relevant to the eighties indie sector here.
24. Uproar – Rebel Youth EP (Beat The System)
Peak position: 24
Fairly obscure punk outing whose lo-fi honesty is to its benefit; those thundering rhythms and punching basslines owe as much to the fashionable post-punk set who surrounded them in the indie charts. Copies of this are now extremely collectible.
25. Virginia Astley – Love’s a Lonely Place To Be (Why Fi)
Peak position: 7
Astley was a queer fish in the early eighties, favouring the kinds of gentle, ambient ideas from the decade before – her 1983 album “From Gardens Where We Feel Secure” is high on my wants list, but try finding a copy for a reasonable price these days.
“Love’s A Lonely Place To Be” is rather more commercial than the ambient, womb-like environment of that album, but still out-of-kilter with the scene that surrounded it. Madrigal-esque vocal lines meet with chiming synths, glistening melodies and whimsical lyrics; it’s music for courtship in another century rather than a hip tune for the 1983 indie charts, but in common with a lot of her work, it’s beautifully delivered; a tiny jewel amidst piles of deliberate, hulking ugliness.
26. The Box – No Time For Talk (Go! Discs)
Peak position: 12
The debut entry for the Go! Discs label, who would eventually take Phonogram’s cash and subsequently find themselves locked out of the indie chart.
The Box were an astonishing first signing in that not only were they deeply unlikely to find mainstream success, but they sounded like four entirely different bands in conflict with each other; the jazziness of Pigbag, the drama of Theatre of Hate, the incoherent rage of The Exploited and the grooves of Gang of Four are all in here somewhere, and there’s probably more going on besides. If you fed “please could you represent the style of the whole of the 1982 indie charts in one three minute song” into a particularly sophisticated AI program, you might get something close to this.
What’s astounding is how well it works, but not enough people were willing to buy it to provide Go! Discs with their breakthrough. Billy Bragg and The Housemartins would be along soon enough.
27. Erazerhead – Live At The Klub Foot (Flicknife)
Peak position: 27
28. The Room – 100 Years (Red Flame)
Peak position: 28
Liverpool cult heroes return with a single which is strangely close to a hymn – “100 Years” sounds as if it was written hundreds of years before while also being obviously of-the-moment. Its low fidelity twang and pitter-patter only add to the impression of it being something oddly ancient.
The group would eventually get their major label moment in 1984 to little avail, but for the time being the indie chart and John Peel’s evening show would be their playgrounds.
Peak position: 3
Twangy psychobilly take on the Joe Meek classic which, as unlikely as it sounds, brings its own atmosphere and windswept charm to the original. Meek’s productions may have been ambitious, but they were also lo-fi, and The Meteors manage to find a way of making them relevant to the eighties indie sector here.
24. Uproar – Rebel Youth EP (Beat The System)
Peak position: 24
Fairly obscure punk outing whose lo-fi honesty is to its benefit; those thundering rhythms and punching basslines owe as much to the fashionable post-punk set who surrounded them in the indie charts. Copies of this are now extremely collectible.
25. Virginia Astley – Love’s a Lonely Place To Be (Why Fi)
Peak position: 7
Astley was a queer fish in the early eighties, favouring the kinds of gentle, ambient ideas from the decade before – her 1983 album “From Gardens Where We Feel Secure” is high on my wants list, but try finding a copy for a reasonable price these days.
“Love’s A Lonely Place To Be” is rather more commercial than the ambient, womb-like environment of that album, but still out-of-kilter with the scene that surrounded it. Madrigal-esque vocal lines meet with chiming synths, glistening melodies and whimsical lyrics; it’s music for courtship in another century rather than a hip tune for the 1983 indie charts, but in common with a lot of her work, it’s beautifully delivered; a tiny jewel amidst piles of deliberate, hulking ugliness.
26. The Box – No Time For Talk (Go! Discs)
Peak position: 12
The debut entry for the Go! Discs label, who would eventually take Phonogram’s cash and subsequently find themselves locked out of the indie chart.
The Box were an astonishing first signing in that not only were they deeply unlikely to find mainstream success, but they sounded like four entirely different bands in conflict with each other; the jazziness of Pigbag, the drama of Theatre of Hate, the incoherent rage of The Exploited and the grooves of Gang of Four are all in here somewhere, and there’s probably more going on besides. If you fed “please could you represent the style of the whole of the 1982 indie charts in one three minute song” into a particularly sophisticated AI program, you might get something close to this.
What’s astounding is how well it works, but not enough people were willing to buy it to provide Go! Discs with their breakthrough. Billy Bragg and The Housemartins would be along soon enough.
27. Erazerhead – Live At The Klub Foot (Flicknife)
Peak position: 27
28. The Room – 100 Years (Red Flame)
Peak position: 28
Liverpool cult heroes return with a single which is strangely close to a hymn – “100 Years” sounds as if it was written hundreds of years before while also being obviously of-the-moment. Its low fidelity twang and pitter-patter only add to the impression of it being something oddly ancient.
The group would eventually get their major label moment in 1984 to little avail, but for the time being the indie chart and John Peel’s evening show would be their playgrounds.
29. Dobie Gray – Out On The Floor (Inferno)
Peak position: 29
“Out On The Floor” is a Northern Soul classic which also happens to be one of the first singles I owned. As a two year old, before I could even read, I pointed out the record to my Mum in Woolworths because I liked the cityscape design on the reissue’s Black Magic label. Hence, I accidentally bought one of the greatest singles of all time as a toddler (or at least had it bought for me). In later years I would DJ with it at retro leaning bars in London.
The Black Magic reissue was one among many, though. “Out In The Floor” is a perennial favourite, a cult classic which just can’t be allowed to disappear without some enterprising independent label buying the rights and pressing it up again. Its ecstatic exhortations to dance speak to generation after generation – “When I’m out on the floor, It makes me feel like a king/ Everybody here, don’t you know what I mean?” Dobie asks, and it’s clearly a rhetorical question. We’ve all been that elevated at least once in our lives.
It should have been number one in the national charts for an entire season, but it never climbed higher than number 42 in 1975. Later on in 1997, the group Spearmint used its central riff for their anthem “Sweeping The Nation”, a song devoted and dedicated to indie under-achievement. As such, there are few more appropriate Northern Soul tracks to take root in the Indie countdown.
Week Five
19. The Ejected – Noise For The Boys EP (Riot City)
Peak Position: 15
23. The Revillos – Tell Him (Aura)
Peak Position: 14
“Tell Him” has had a hell of a lot of interpreters over the years, from Billie Davis’ hit version, to The Movement’s freakbeat version, to Hello’s glam interpretation, to this from Glasgow’s prime punks The Revillos.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s closer to Hello’s take than anyone else’s, to the extent of almost being pointless. If you’re going to pick on a much covered track, you really need to bring something fresh to the party – whereas the previous singles all did, this falls short in that respect.
28. One Way System – Jerusalem (Anagram)
Peak Position: 22
One Way System were a surprisingly enduring bunch of second wave punks who may have been late to the party, but made up for the fact by sticking around long after many of their mates had packed up and become roadies for hire.
“Jerusalem” is a strange old anthem which seems to suggest that the rivers of that Biblical city are going to flow with beer when the punks come back there. I’m not sure if they were trying to make this the basis for a new religion – if so, they were overreaching themselves.
30. Ad Nauseum – Brainstorm EP (Flicknife)
Peak position: 30
The thing I like most about this record is the fact that the first track “Thatcher” repeats the Prime Minister’s surname so repetitively and vitriolically that it begins to sound like a swear word.
It’s pretty hard going otherwise, strictly for the truly dedicated and the almost life-threateningly livid. It was also the sole vinyl release by the Portsmouth punks until 1987, when they returned with the “Greatest Show On Earth” LP on the local Crystal label.
Peak position: 29
“Out On The Floor” is a Northern Soul classic which also happens to be one of the first singles I owned. As a two year old, before I could even read, I pointed out the record to my Mum in Woolworths because I liked the cityscape design on the reissue’s Black Magic label. Hence, I accidentally bought one of the greatest singles of all time as a toddler (or at least had it bought for me). In later years I would DJ with it at retro leaning bars in London.
The Black Magic reissue was one among many, though. “Out In The Floor” is a perennial favourite, a cult classic which just can’t be allowed to disappear without some enterprising independent label buying the rights and pressing it up again. Its ecstatic exhortations to dance speak to generation after generation – “When I’m out on the floor, It makes me feel like a king/ Everybody here, don’t you know what I mean?” Dobie asks, and it’s clearly a rhetorical question. We’ve all been that elevated at least once in our lives.
It should have been number one in the national charts for an entire season, but it never climbed higher than number 42 in 1975. Later on in 1997, the group Spearmint used its central riff for their anthem “Sweeping The Nation”, a song devoted and dedicated to indie under-achievement. As such, there are few more appropriate Northern Soul tracks to take root in the Indie countdown.
Week Five
19. The Ejected – Noise For The Boys EP (Riot City)
Peak Position: 15
23. The Revillos – Tell Him (Aura)
Peak Position: 14
“Tell Him” has had a hell of a lot of interpreters over the years, from Billie Davis’ hit version, to The Movement’s freakbeat version, to Hello’s glam interpretation, to this from Glasgow’s prime punks The Revillos.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s closer to Hello’s take than anyone else’s, to the extent of almost being pointless. If you’re going to pick on a much covered track, you really need to bring something fresh to the party – whereas the previous singles all did, this falls short in that respect.
28. One Way System – Jerusalem (Anagram)
Peak Position: 22
One Way System were a surprisingly enduring bunch of second wave punks who may have been late to the party, but made up for the fact by sticking around long after many of their mates had packed up and become roadies for hire.
“Jerusalem” is a strange old anthem which seems to suggest that the rivers of that Biblical city are going to flow with beer when the punks come back there. I’m not sure if they were trying to make this the basis for a new religion – if so, they were overreaching themselves.
30. Ad Nauseum – Brainstorm EP (Flicknife)
Peak position: 30
The thing I like most about this record is the fact that the first track “Thatcher” repeats the Prime Minister’s surname so repetitively and vitriolically that it begins to sound like a swear word.
It’s pretty hard going otherwise, strictly for the truly dedicated and the almost life-threateningly livid. It was also the sole vinyl release by the Portsmouth punks until 1987, when they returned with the “Greatest Show On Earth” LP on the local Crystal label.
Number Ones In The Official Charts
Renee and Renato - Save Your Love (Hollywood)
Phil Collins - You Can't Hurry Love (Virgin)
Men At Work - Down Under (Epic)
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