61. James - Hymn From A Village (Factory)

One week at number one on w/e 18th May 1985

James were a somewhat pious bunch of buggers to begin with. While preparing myself for this blog entry, I made the mistake of listening to “Hymn From A Village” immediately before bedtime, trying to get my head around Tim Booth in particular. My REM brain – no pun intended – immediately went to work on the scenario, and I was presented with an image of Paul McGann playing Booth playing Jesus Christ preaching to a large crowd in Jeruasalem. The throng were restless and somewhat ambivalent about his messages.

Then I woke up, and immediately felt that this was a disappointing result from my brain. If it was trying to help me, it could at least deliver something more than idle critical hackwork. I mean, the old “rock star as God” cliché, spare me (I was then punished with a proper nightmare about something else, but never mind about that). But then again… was it a case of "Fair comment" in this instance?

While James went on to become proper rock stars playing enormous venues, you could easily argue that they had an unusually daring mission statement here for a group of minor renown. There’s an unspoken rule in most artforms that you don’t reflect on the art itself in your work; therefore, artists should not paint works which offer commentaries on other art, and poets should not write poems about poetry. Entering into such a feedback loop suggests self-indulgence, boring your audience with your tales of what you got up to at “the office” that day and who delighted and aggravated you.

Rock music has always operated to slightly different standards, however, and there are plenty of songs out there appraising heroes, offering dedication to whole genres, or just singing about the transporting nature of music itself. Then there are the bitchy sideswipes – “There There My Dear” by Dexys Midnight Runners is probably one of the most successful examples – which want to throw darts at photos of the lazy, underachieving villains in the business.

“Hymn From The Village” is definitely on the latter side of the fence, kicking and screaming at rock lyricists who have no interest in engaging with anything beyond mundane cliches. There’s not even any build-up. Booth begins cuttingly and unequivocally: “This song's made up, made second rate/ Cosmetic music, powderpuff/ Pop tunes, false rhymes, all lightweight bluffs/ Secondhand ideas, no soul, no hate…” If that weren’t enough, he really starts waving his sword around later, as eloquent as a warrior in an ancient play: “This language used is all worn out/ A walking corpse it won't play dead/ Disease dragged on from bed to bed/ Paid for your twist, paid for shout”.

The song itself is all campfire bone and steel rattles, where deep, rubbery basslines mix with exotic jangles. It builds steadily, getting more frantic and agitated as it goes along, in love with its own noise but also rattled by the hatred of everyone else’s. There’s not a second of this single where I think they don’t mean it – the passion is there, the intent clear to everyone – but in the 1985 world, there were surely bigger things to worry about than the lyrical complacency of pop artists? A world of Morrissey, Elvis Costello, Mark E Smith, Billy Bragg, Cathal Coughlan, and umpteen anarcho-punk bands wasn’t exactly a scene left bone-dry of lyrical passion, or even literate and thoughtful musicians. Is it possible that Tim Booth wasn’t actually telling us about what we didn’t currently have, but grandstanding about who he believed he was? If so, he wouldn’t be the last Manc Son of God to climb up the summit to do so.

It’s a deeply odd single whose climax of “Heard you calling through the drumbeat/ Can you hear the question, feel the reply?” could just as easily belong to an ecstatic piece of early 90s House music, were it not so frenzied, angry and manic. It’s asking for something much bigger from musicians – a relationship, a sense of belonging, a campfire to place a population around who would no longer feel so apart and alone; intelligent observations and answers, not vague outlines.

13. The Damned - Friday the 13th (EP) (NEMS)

 

One week at number one on 12th December 1981

The thirteenth number one of 1981, and indeed of the NME Indie Charts in general, is The Damned’s “Friday the 13th EP” – a neat coincidence, or perhaps a case of demonic interference?

It’s certainly a rare victory for punk’s old guard whether Satan’s stinking finger nudged them to the top or not. The indie charts of 81 were generally dominated by Gary Bushell approved second wave acts, with the old school 70s bands with new homes on small labels clinging on in the foothills; if punk wasn’t exactly dead, it certainly seemed as if some of its original proponents were living in less assured circumstances.

Of all those groups, The Damned couldn’t be more “first wave” if they tried – they were the first UK band to issue a punk rock single in the form of “New Rose” and the first to push an album out. Unlike many of the more serious-minded acts who quickly usurped them, The Damned were cartoonish rogues, a hammer horror Ramones offering scuffed-up hyper garage rock. None of their songs offered clear manifestos or pushed ideologies, even for effect, unless of course “Can a man be a mystery man/ can a doll be a baby doll” is code for something I don’t fully understand. I suppose you could even argue that “Problem Child” off the second LP “Music For Pleasure” is a punk throwback to Cilla Black’s “Liverpool Lullaby”, but let’s forget I even thought of that idea.

The second album was a huge problem child in its own right, though. The Damned’s love of sixties psychedelia led them to approach Syd Barrett to produce the record, which inevitably came to nought. Pink Floyd’s drummer Nick Mason took on the job instead as a consolation prize, and produced a negatively reviewed and poorly selling record in “Music For Pleasure”. So underwhelmed were critics and fans alike by the disc that it contributed to the group’s split afterwards.

Perhaps understanding that they had handled a typical case of second album syndrome too hastily, the group reformed without the original guitarist Brian James for the “Machine Gun Etiquette” album in 1979, which charted (unlike its predecessor) then pushed out “The Black Album” in 1980 which saw them broadening their palette and gradually moving away from their original punk sound. While goth wasn’t yet popularly understood as a musical genre in 1980, Dave Vanian’s vocals became deeper and eerier while the clanging of bells could occasionally be heard beneath the group’s toughened up (and incredibly well performed) R&B sounds – on some moments like the superb opening track “Wait For the Blackout”, it’s possible to visualise the group as The Pretty Things or The Downliners Sect with Lord Sutch on guest vocals after having had some valuable singing lessons.

Of all the punk groups, The Damned were generally the most open about their previous influences and also closer to the musos punk meant to replace. Captain Sensible once expressed outrage that The Pistols stole the Damned’s thunder, commenting that he bought a copy of “Anarchy In The UK”, desperate to hear what “our rivals” had produced, and feeling aghast when he heard “Old Man Steptoe singing”. They may have been fast, raucous, chaotic and even extremely daft, but they were probably always closer to their pub rock cousins than most of the emerging set; good musicians with sixties influences creating an exhilarating noise. They were therefore assured a longevity that a lot of the earliest 100 Club and Roxy hopefuls were never going to achieve.

Despite being somewhat unexpectedly produced by New Musik's Tony Mansfield, the “Friday the 13th EP” is really a sharp dose of more of the same, with lead track “Disco Man” pulling up water from the same well; those vocal harmonies, sharp guitar riffs and thumping backbeats don’t lie. “Limit Club” even combines gothic atmospheres with sixties psychedelia, proving that punk didn’t necessarily eliminate the hippies – it absorbed ideas from them too (the crossover between the hippy underground press and the fanzines also proved that the breaks weren’t as clean as everybody suggested).