30b. Southern Death Cult - Fatman (Situation Two)

 

One week at Number One from w/e 19th March 1983

The early eighties indie charts show another unexpected burst of volatility which propels the weeks old "Fatman" back to the top of the chart for one week. Let's take a look at what's going on lower down, shall we?

New Entries

10. Action Pact - People EP (Fallout)

Peak position: 10

Hard-edged female fronted punk outfit from the modestly populated village of Stanwell in Surrey. "People" is all buzzsaw guitars playing descending chords while the rhythm section crunches behind them. It's all a little bit old hat by 1983's standards, but Action Pact were sharp enough to cut through the crowd despite that. 

14. Disorder - Mental Disorder EP (Disorder)

Peak position: 14

21. Sisters Of Mercy - Anaconda (Merciful Release)

Peak position: 2

The Sisters finally begin to position themselves as major players with "Anaconda". Metronomic drum patters combine with fat basslines, squeaky guitar riffs and Eldritch's dramatic vocals which are the dominant force here. The band are able to sit back and cruise while he ghoulishly vaults, seduces and sneers away, shimmying up to chew the scenery at gallery level. 

"Anaconda" put the group in a dominant position among the Goth set, which they would maintain until the plug was pulled on the project.

23. Urban Dogs - Limo Life (Fallout)

Peak position: 21

25. Wire - Crazy About Love (Rough Trade)

Peak position: 12

One of the most inexplicable - and largely forgotten - Wire releases of all time, "Crazy About Love" was a 16 minute improvised 1979 Peel Session track. It's not the absolute mess it might have been, with the group exerting an impressive control over some studio ongoings which sound in danger of sliding into disarray. Saxophones squawk and vocals occasionally snark through gritted teeth, but the jazzy pitter-patter of the drum kit and the certain foundations of the bassline stop everything from collapsing.

Some listeners and (allegedly) John Peel and his producer John Walters were unamused, but for all the anarchy offered this is still the closest the group sounded to the loosest, most unhinged examples of sixties psychedelia. Punk Floyd, if you will.

26. Emergency - Points Of View (Riot City)

Peak position: 26

If you're only going to release one single, you'd better make it sharp - and Manc punks Emergency certainly manage that here. "Points Of View" almost sounds like something the Good Vibrations label of Belfast might have put out five years before, bringing the anthems and bright melodies back to the underground. 

27. The Reptiles - Reptiles For Tea (EP) (Volume)

Peak position: 22

For the full charts, please go to the UKMix Forums. 

Number One In The National Charts

Bonnie Tyler: Total Eclipse of Heart (CBS)

3. Dead Kennedys - Too Drunk To Fuck (Cherry Red)

 

Number One for five weeks from 6th June 1981 - 4th July 1981

It’s hard to imagine from this distance, but cussing and graphic descriptions of sexual activity on records in the early eighties – whether on hit singles or otherwise – was still deemed to be pretty damn controversial. Times have changed and we now live in an era where numerous singles featuring the f-word have scaled high in the national charts, and while it might make for a funny aside at the end of the week’s chart news, it rarely causes uproar.

The eighties are deemed by some to be the beginning of a much more permissive society, but the reality is that 1981 was only a few short years on from “Never Mind The Bollocks”, and the fact that album wasn’t withdrawn from sale didn’t mean that the public gave up and changed their minds about crudity overnight. Tony Harrison’s epic and distinctly non-punk poem “V” was broadcast on Channel 4 in 1987 and caused outrage merely for quoting the work of vandals who had grafittied gravestones in the graveyard where his parents lay. Gratuitous swearing was harder to defend than that, particularly if delivered by young people with loud guitars who probably didn’t have any intellectual aspirations or sensible advice for young people in mind.

Punks knew only too well the power it still had and gravitated towards it. The movement may have been somewhat stale in mainstream terms by 1981, but the eruptions created by The Sex Pistols in particular had left scores of people hungry for further establishment baiting. This single was a huge juicy worm on a hook for that set, causing horror in record stores – the group responded to this by supplying concerned stockists with a sticker over the f-word, reading “Caution: You are the victim of yet another stodgy retailer afraid to warp your mind by revealing the title of this record so peel slowly and see...”

Which potentially makes this a lovely tabloid thunderstrike in a Charles and Di mug, but in retrospect, “Too Drunk To Fuck” feels like one of the least jagged uses of the f-word in pop and rock. If you don’t hear it mentioned often in relation to controversial uses of naughty words, it’s probably because it’s not exactly “Fuck The Police”. In common with a lot of punk and hardcore punk singles of the period, it takes a dire, shitty situation and amps it up for both satirical effect and disgust – “You give me head/ it makes it worse/ take out your fuckin’ retainer/ put it in your purse” growls Jello Biafra over a chugging rhythm.

Radio banned the song – do I even need to write that? - but it nuzzled the lower reaches of the National Top 40 at number 36 regardless, causing panic at the Beeb about whether the Top 30 rundown on “Top of the Pops” would eventually need to mention the unmentionable. In the meantime, Tony Blackburn dodged the issue while delivering the Sunday chart rundown by referring to it as “Too Drunk” by The Kennedys, and a nation’s easily corruptible youth were saved from indecency once again (note – some versions of this story state that Tony Blackburn said ‘the single at number 36 is by a group calling themselves The Dead Kennedys’ before promptly moving on. If anyone actually has a recording of this rundown I’d really like to hear it).

The song became a staple of mixtapes and party tapes for years afterwards. Before I knew a damn thing about The Dead Kennedys friends of mine snuck it on to C90 cassettes as a neat slice of subversion to put between other noisy offerings. The fact it’s never been embraced by oldies or alternative radio means it remains one of those rare examples of a hit single (however minor) you had to buy, or have a friend tape for you, to actually hear in the pre-internet era. I saw it quoted in the Guinness Book of British Hit Singles as a kid and was immediately intrigued, asking my Dad if he knew anything more about it while pointing towards the entry with my index finger. My Dad just spluttered with laughter and said “Probably a punk record. Shouldn’t imagine it was played anywhere”.

I had a long wait to discover what it sounded like, and when I finally heard it on a compilation tape a friend made for me, I was slightly disappointed. The long build-up had been too much and left me as disappointed as Jello Biafra’s sexual partner. So this was it? A demonic chugging riff beneath some lyrics about a limp penis? And what, I suppose, really did I expect? My Saisho music centre to splinter into fragments on impact with it?