Exclusive online Stranglers PDF Issue two: June 2006 Issue two

Page 2 Issue two In this issue…

To The Manor Born 27 Issue two Joe Ordinair investigates Startling Studios June 2006 JJ Burnel: And the gods made love 28 Editorial Dom Pilgrim gets JJ Burnel’s take on the meninblack period Welcome to issue two of The Burning Up Space Oddity 35 Times, your free Stranglers PDF created by Writer John Robb is into UFOs and astral matter. Mine’s a stellar Stranglers fans. In Second Coming, we focus our attention on the ground-breaking ‘But, time was on our side?’ 37 fifth Stranglers album, The Gospel Mark Tall was unimpressed with the follow up album to The Raven According To The Meninblack – and what a journey it is! A spell in prison for Art of the cover 38 possession of Class A drugs, incarceration John Pasche, designer, gives a brief insight into the cover art in a French jail for inciting a crowd to riot, You have been informed 4 Dissecting Dave’s organs 39 disjointed recording sessions, 10 things to know about The Gospel According To The Meninblack Jamie Godwin checks out Greenfield’s gizmos, circa 1980 management litigation, assets frozen, UFOs and a spectacular flop in the charts! 1980-1981: Who Wants The World? 5 Boys on film 41 The band were on the verge of bankruptcy Not me! says Stephen Howard Stuart Bolton explores a soundtrack to a veneration and breaking – and Golden Brown was just Meeting Jet Black 7 MiB Transmission impossible 42 around the corner. What a period to have An invitation Gary Kent could not refuse Black Documentary production team reveal dark concerns been a Stranglers fan! Thank you to everyone who helped. Fancy a fortnight with The Stranglers? 11 Whoarethemeninblack? 43 Special thanks to: Chris Alderton did, and she’s here to tell the tale Andy Helgesen and Chris Balden explore the MiB phenomenon Chris Alderton, Adrian Andrews, I’ll get my occult 14 The real Gospel according to the MiB 45 Christopher Balden, Stephen Baker, Gary Kent gets backstage at Guildford Dom Pilgrim takes a look at the ancient history behind MiB lore Steve Beaumont, Aldo Bocca, Paul Begg , Gary Binnie, Stuart Bolton, Jean Jacques The Bold Testament 17 Being there… 47 Burnel, Steve Churchyard, John Cochrane, Gary Kent receives inside information from Hugh Cornwell Gary Kent relives the Lyceum 1980 gig Lol Cole, Gary Cook, Hugh Cornwell, Clark Who needs Hugh? 20 MiBs on tour! 49 Crass, Laurence Diana, Jim Drury, John No Hugh at the Rainbow, John Ellis was Lancaster, Liverpool, Cleethorpes and more tell the tale Ellis, David Fagence, Jamie Godwin, Ian Grant, John Hallsworth, Andy Helgesen, Ian Grant: Jean Genie 23 I was a teenage ‘dead body’ 50 Stephen Howard, Mitch K, Simon Kent, Gary Kent meets Mr Fix It Donald Mackay nearly dies at Edinburgh Playhouse Doug Kerr, Donald Mackay, Davey Essex Boy 24 Means to me! 52 McLaughlin, Keith Morris, Andrew Stranglers producer Steve Churchyard on making the Meninblack Aficionados pay their respects to the Meninblack Nicholson, Joe Ordinair, Karen Parfitt, John Pasche, Steve Pool, David Pritchard, Last Tango In Paris 25 Boots, boots, boots: the Meninblack era 54 Jamie Radley, Stephen Reid, John Robb, Meninblack engineer Laurence Diana ends up in Paris Icecube analyses the live bootlegs from the period David Scott, Barry Spooner, Mark Tall, Chris Twomey and X-File of SE1. The Italian Job 26 Mean Two-mey 59 Meninblack engineer Aldo Bocca is in a confessional mood Chris Twomey met Hugh in 1980, his life was never the same again... Please accept our apologies to anyone we have inadvertently left out. This issue is dedicated to Gary Cook, Burning Up Times is published when it’s ready. It is available free of charge from the website and you are free to distribute it to whoever you want. Issue two, Second RIP, Stranglers fan and Strangled PDF Coming, June 2006. Original material © Planet Earth, otherwise copyright is maintained by the original holders of material contained in this PDF. Editor: Gary Kent Production Editor: Dominic Pilgrim Webmaster: Ian Keiller Contact: [email protected] Website: www.strangled.co.uk contributor.

Page 3 Issue one You have been informed 10 things you should know about The Gospel According To the Meninblack

The Gospel According To The Just Like Nothing On Earth, perform-in-black on a hill in Meninblack is The Stranglers’ first Manna Machine and Turn, The the Kent countryside while a 1 concept album. It was also the first Centuries Turn were done in Man In Black prances about. album the band produced themselves. It London… as were Bear Cage, Manager Ian Grant, who played the was Jet who first chanced upon the UFO Vietnamerica and Who Wants The World? perambulating MiB recalls the days’ shoot: phenomenon of the Men In Black in – although they never actually made the “They gaffer-taped my hat down onto my January 1978’s Flying Saucer Review. The final track listing… head so my hair didn’t show – after all you band were writing Black And White at the can’t have a MiB with blond locks! It time. …Three singles precede the album’s nearly killed me trying to get it off release, but only Thrown Away gets afterwards. I was alright by the time we Dave teased fans in January 1981’s 7 on the album. Incidentally, did you got to the pub in the village, though!” Strangled magazine when he know Bear Cage was written 2 revealed he and Jet wrote Second during a sound check in France? Coming – with a 13/4 piece that didn’t Bien sur! make the final cut: “I’m saving that for another song.” And we all know what that On the original demo became, don’t we? Waltzinblack segues neatly Waltzinblack was originally mooted 8 into Second Coming. Just Meninblack bore two singles; to follow up Thrown Away. The Like Nothing On Earth sits Thrown Away, which made Number 4 redundant artwork featuring two between the two on the final 3 42, and Just Like Nothing On Earth dancing MiBs, turned up in Grip ‘89. vinyl. – the first Stranglers single not to trouble the UK Top 75 singles charts. Two Sunspots was first recorded at Also on the demo was an Eden Studios at the end of 1978 for instrumental called 5 a proposed January ‘79 single 9 Freezer. But then Hugh release, bridging the gap between Walk wrote lyrics for it, and it became On By and Live (X-Cert) LP. When the Manna Machine. Apart from the idea was shelved, the artwork was used for inclusion of vocals, the other 1980’s Who Wants The World?, and The difference was the bass drum was Stranglers IV IRS import LP. much more prominent in Freezer. Boom, boom. Recorded and mixed in Europe, January to August 1980: Thrown Talk about keeping it 6 Away and Second Coming were “in-house”….Who recorded in Germany. Waltzinblack, Four 10 Wants The World? Horsemen and Hallow To Our Men In was the first single the band France, Top Secret and Man In White, in produced themselves – and in the Italy and Waiting For The Meninblack, excellent promo clip, the band

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Steve Howard revisits the period that spawned a monster... 1980-1981:Who Wants The World? ARS, RIOTS, prison hunger charter – Soviet occupied Afghanistan Soviet invasion of Afghanistan continues strikes... The Stranglers threatens both Iran and Pakistan and is a as the British Olympic Association defies W résumé? You’re not far off, stepping stone to possible control over the government and votes to go to the actually. While the band experience a much of the world’s oil supplies.” Moscow Olympics. spiralling chain of misfortune – perhaps We don’t need no education? In March ends in misery when 123 partly attributed to their fetish with UFOs Britain, concerns are voiced by both people are killed in a North Sea oil rig and Men In Black – planet Earth was also parents and teachers of children being collapse during gales. A massive wave behaving badly. encouraged to rebel in school because of breaks one of the supporting legs of It’s January 1980, and the new decade Pink Floyd’s Number 1 hit, Another Brick Phillips-owned Alexander Kielland kicks off with unrest in Britain’s steel in the Wall. By the end of the month, it platform, at the Ekofisk field 235 miles industry with workers staging their first was forgotten as the Pretenders topped east of Dundee, sending 208 people into strike in 50 years in support of a 20% pay the chart with Brass in Pocket. the sea. Some make it into lifeboats before rise. The dispute lasts 14 weeks before the Meanwhile, in a tiny pub venue in West the platform capsizes. Most of the dead Lever Inquiry recommends a 16% increase London, new Irish band U2 played to a are Norwegian. in return for an agreement on working half empty Moonlight Club. In April, there are more invasions. practices and productivity deals. In India, The Ska revival started at the tail end This time, it’s the Rubik’s Cube. Now we embassy siege in London. It ends when Indira Ghandi returns to power after three of 1979 gains serious momentum in know what we all did with our hands SAS commandos launch a daring rescue years in opposition and in Zimbabwe, February with the Specials’ at Number 1 before mobile phones. Shoppers can’t wait attempt, killing five Iranian gunmen and Robert Mugabe also takes control. with Too Much Too Young. The charts to get the hands on fashion shoes Kickers, making one arrest. Nineteen hostages are Afghanistan witnesses the intensity of the also see My Girl by Madness, Tears of a or rather, their feet in. Music press is a- set free but one dies and two are injured Cold War as the Soviet Union invade in a Clown by the Beat and Booker T & the buzz with The Stranglers and Friends in the cross-fire. The gunmen belonging to move described by US president Jimmy MG’s with Green Onions. Heavy Metal concerts at the Rainbow, while Hersham’s a dissident Iranian group opposed to Carter as “a callous violation of also enjoys a renaissance led by Saxon, hermits, Sham 69 are banned from all Ayatollah Khomeini, and ordered 91 international law and the United Nations Def Leppard, Samson and Iron Maiden – London venues because of the behaviour political prisoners held in Iran to be all packing out clubs across the UK. of their fans. released, along with an aircraft to take However, the rock world mourns the loss May starts in dramatic fashion as them, and the hostages, out of the UK. of AC/DC’s Bon Scott who dies on possibly the first example of reality TV. At least nine people die after the February 20th following a drinking spree. Millions tune into all three UK channels massive eruption of Mount St Helens Back in the UK pop charts, it’s for live broadcasts of the five-day Iranian volcano in Washington State, USA. The Blondie and the Jam dominating during independent music scene mourns the loss March with Atomic and Going of Ian Curtis, lead singer of up and Underground. In contrast, the best-selling coming Manchester band Joy Division, album artists are not quite as explosive: who commits suicide on the eve of a US the Shadows and Johnny Mathis. tour. His wife discovers his body hanging The world of television is hardly in the living room of their Derbyshire inspiring when the top BBC shows feature home. The band announce they would a woman who trains dogs and female cop continue, but under another name, and with a bubble perm. (That’s Barbara New Order are born. Woodhouse and Juliet Bravo, by the way!) In June a little piece of UK history In the real world, the fallout from the disappears as the sixpence ceases to be

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legal tender whilst unemployment in the competitors from 81 countries arrive to Vatican. UK reaches 2 million. The charts are compete in 22 sports despite a US led Top of everyone’s Christmas lists is topped by Don McLean and the theme boycott in protest at the Afghanistan Pacman – a new computer game. It’s from TV show M*A*S*H. Porridge is invasion. Some 10,000 athletes were based on an old Japanese tale about a served to The Stranglers (not Dave, originally expected. The Soviet Union wins creature that protects children from scary though) in the south of France for 197 medals while Great Britain bags 21. monsters by eating them. supposedly inciting an audience to riot. At Allegations of chart rigging surface in On 8 December, the world mourns the cinema, the big films are Fame, The a World In Action TV investigation in the loss of John Lennon, shot dead outside Shining and Malcolm McLaren’s version September. British Phonographic Institute his New York Dakota apartment by crazed of the Sex Pistols story, The Great Rock Chairman John Fruin resigns. fan Mark Chapman. Lennon signs a copy ‘n’ Roll Swindle. And 1980 sees the Trouble brews in the Middle East of his Double Fantasy album for release of Ridly Scott’s sci fic horror film where three weeks of Border clashes Chapman, who then fires five .38 calibre classic Alien in the UK. between Iran and Iraq erupt into an all- bullets into the former Beatle’s upper Malc remains in the news in July with out war to last eight years. body, killing him instantly. his latest venture, Bow Wow Wow, and In October. in the UK, an array of The silver screen loses film maker their debut single C30-C60-C90 Go! Lead rockers suffer hassles: John Lydon is Alfred Hitchcock and actor and heart singer 14-year-old Annabella Lewin was found guilty of assaulting two men in throb, Steve McQueen. pictured topless on the cover. Deaths Dublin. Joe Strummer is arrested for Lennon’s legacy reaches the singles include The Ruts’ lead singer Malcolm possession of a handgun and ‘“certain charts in January 1981 holding 3 of the Owen who dies in the bath from a heroin substances” and the Specials’ Jerry Dammers Top 4 places. Double Fantasy heads the overdose, funny man Peter Sellers and the is charged with a breach of the peace album charts both in the UK and US. Shah of Iran. In a shadow of present day following an incident at a gig in Cambridge. Adam and The Ants hijack the UK singles events, Iraqi security forces shoot dead You really got me now? Or have you? chart with Ant Music. Violence erupts in three gunmen who attack the British Ray Davies, lead singer of The Kinks, is Northern Ireland as civil rights

The bible scrawled on by Mark Chapman, left at the scene of murder embassy in Baghdad on the eve of the first taken into police custody accused of campaigner and former Westminster MP national assembly elections for 20 years. unpaid hotel bills. It turns out he has a Bernadette McAliskey, is shot by gunmen Iraqi officials say the attack was an lookalike who used his name to book who burst into her home in Coalisland, attempt to disrupt the ballot. reservations and leave without paying. County Tyrone. In Poland in August. Gdansk shipyard Blond bombshells The Police take In February, another rocker dies: Bill workers stage a strike in protest over the control of the singles and album charts Haley, passes away, aged 55. He sold over dismissal of militant crane driver Anna with Don’t Stand So Close To Me and 25 million copies of Rock Around The Walentinowicz. The Lenin shipyard strike Zenyatta Mondatta. Clock – the biggest selling single of the was seen as part of a growing campaign to By November, a new pop culture rock era. In the UK, Adam and The Ants’ gain political freedom and to improve scene emerges in the UK; the New LP, Kings of the Wild Frontier, gets to economic conditions for Poland’s labour Romantics. Spandau Ballet becomes the Number one. Joe Dolce’s Shaddup A Ya force. It also led to the worldwide first of these bands to chart with To Cut A Face tops the singles charts. Street party prominence of Lech Walesa who led Long Story Short. planners go into overdrive when Prince workers to a sweeping victory in a two- In the US, Ronald Reagan succeeds Charles announced his wedding to Lady month battle with their Communist rulers Jimmy Carter at the Whitehouse while Diana. As the Meninblack UK tour gets for the right to independent trade unions Michael Foot is elected new leader of the under way, Thrown Away fails to achieve and the right to strike. The agreement Labour Party in the UK. Meanwhile Top 40 status. It is The Stranglers’ 13th meant Poland became the first Eastern Bloc 20,000 people are killed as two large single release. The Gospel According To country formally to recognise an effective earthquakes hit Algeria. The Queen makes The Meninblack, despite initial sales of and independent trade union movement. history by becoming the first British 50,000, peaks at Number 8 and within At the Russian Olympics, 6,000 monarch to make a state visit to the five weeks, it’s gone.

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I have been summoned to meet Jet Black – and I’m late. The office of Stranglers Information Service lurks quietly behind the modern concrete edifices that Meeting Jet Black characterise the south side of London Bridge, dwarfed by Southwark Cathedral. And I’m almost there. I’m shitting bricks as I take a short cut across the craggy flagstones and leafy graveyard. I’m running, sweating, dripping wet when I suddenly find myself face to face with a man in black. His suit is old, his tie is thin, and his hair is wild – No! This ain’t Jet Black! This suit belongs to the lanky frame of punk poet John Cooper Clarke, bumping right into me, mumbling what might have been an apology, or even a curse. Who knows? With a girl in tow clutching a camera and tripod, the pair hurry round me across crowded London Bridge. The next issue of new style magazine The Face features the photo session I’d stumbled upon, and soon I was about to come up with my very own front page story…

FTER STRANGLED ISSUE one volume 2 came out I grabbed pen Aand paper. In a fit of teenage pique, I wrote a scathing letter to Suze, the new editor of the renascent magazine, condemning the uninspiring writing, slating the charcoal sketches and panning the poncey and irrelevant artwork. “Stranglers fans deserve more than this second rate effort.” I declared. “Must try harder.” The moment I posted the letter I feared I’d been over-the-top but reasoned that, with all the mail they must get, who’s going to read my letter anyway? Unbeknown to me, all of issue one’s content came courtesy of drummer Jet For Gary Kent, 1980 was a time of inspiration and excitement… Black’s fair hand. How was I to know? He used a nom-de-plume, Suze – based on

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Suzanne, his girlfriend, to kick start the ’M ON the Central Line the next day, magazine following the publication’s City-bound in my Stranglers uniform hiatus after Tony Moon left. I of black shirt, black trousers and Strangled at birth… So, one day, I’m up in my bedroom, black monkey boots; I polished them with working on my still life portfolio for an Dad’s boot polish the night before. The Back in the dark days before the Internet and online shopping, the Stranglers Information Service upcoming Art college interview, when only thing was my tie – it looked odd, not handled the bands merchandising, inquiries and fan mail with the help of a motley flock of fans willing suddenly the phone rings. This is followed quite as black as it should have been. “Dad to devote their time and energy to the band. by the sound of my Mum’s dulcet tones must have a funeral tie”, I thought to hollering up the hallway: myself as I rummaged through his big Although often credited to Sniffin’ Glue fanzine, Strangled first published the classic punk dictum: “Gary! Phone! It’s Jet Black!” brown and beige kippers before I left the ‘Here’s 3 chords – go out and form a band!’ Initiated in 1977 by the band’s then publicist Alan Words echo up the orange and brown house. All I found was a medium thin blue Edwards. Tony Moon took it over from his south east London home until 1979, when Jet took over the stair carpet to my poster-clad Stranglers one. “It’s nearly black”, I thought, running of SIS. Strangled became bi-monthly, although some remember the term a little optimistic! cocoon like a rocket. He’s read it. I’m reassuring myself now in the glass Moving into a part-converted warehouse between the Thames and Borough’s fruit and vegetable market, fixed into position in front of the hi-fi windows of the carriage, recalling Gary Jet enrolled the assistance of his family and volunteer fans; the backlog of unanswered mail went clutching a copy of Rattus. What’s he Numan on the front cover of Smash Hits down, merchandising went out as Strangled went from strength to strength. Not only that, but opinions gonna say, I wonder? The afternoon lull is in a black shirt and red and blue tie. of the band could be expressed, as well as the fans, and articles the music press weren’t interested in, instantly blown into orbit and turmoil. Kids a year beneath me sat at the were published. But it was funny hearing my Mum saying opposite end of the carriage, eyeing me up Jet Black – as if she knew him; well, she with envy – if only they knew who I was Operations relocated to Kingston, and editors changed. By the did in a way – each time she vacuumed meeting! Thoughts drifted back when end of the 1980’s, JJ had taken the baton, running it from my room, he was there on the walls, Rutter came to school saying he’d met Jet Dave’s old flat in Cambridge. On the plus side, subscriptions watching. She also heard his drumming in Oxford Street in a black Crombie coat had increased considerably – but Strangled had become high through the ceiling most nights. And days. like he wore on Black And White. maintenance: while the glossy quality had eclipsed its earlier Downstairs, my legs are jelly and my Of course, we didn’t believe him, as incarnations, print costs were soaring, postage increased and guts are full of butterflies as Mum passes kids don’t; he was probably just trying to funding was withdrawn. me the phone. Is he gonna have a go at ingratiate with us Stranglers fans. But By 1992 it was all over. Strangled was well and truly choked. me? Don’t forget, I wrote to Suze, the then, intriguingly, he revealed that Jet had For the subscribers-in-black, mornings were never as exciting editor. Perhaps I’ll deny everything. holes in his beard. Now that was a funny as the ones that started with I listen intently for a second, but my thing to say – unless he’s a good liar, that that welcoming ‘plop’ on your SB pencil behind my ear clicks on the is. Note to self: “check out Jet’s beard for parents doormat! earpiece… holes.” “Hello? Gary?” Says the gruff voice on I’m late when I discover Bank and the phone. The voice is monotone, how it Monument are not the same station like was on the Nicky Horne Capital Radio the topographic Underground map seems interview with Jet I’d taped in March to suggest: a lengthy subway connects the when Hugh lost his appeal. Fuck. It’s him. two, where I get confused, and start to Jet Black is talking. To me. panic. “We received your letter…” I expect I am finally struck by a white-painted the worst. He’s gonna take me apart. doorway of New Hibernia House in “You’ve obviously got some ideas – can Winchester Walk, but there’s nothing to you do any better?” convince me I’m in the right place. It’s “Erm – yeah…well.” I splutter. just an old warehouse. I can’t see any “Then you’d better come down and name on the buzzers, but the door is ajar, see me for a chat then. What are you so I go in. It’s dark, there are no lights on. doing tomorrow?” I can see a door to the left. Wooden

Page 8 Issue two pallets are spread across the ground. I couple of bailiffs: they also come in two – check to see what’s on them: Stranglers so you knew they mean business. I told Meninblackincolour posters. Mail bags overflow with them how it was: Party time at the SIS HQ! the support on the tour, so I had seen her perform envelopes. There are a couple of desks “The artwork was shit. Sorry... did New Hibernia House. 1980. One morning, a quite a lot. When I saw her bass guitarist, Wild with a rubber stamp sitting poised on top Suze do it?” delivery man pitches up with a colour television and Oscar, I thought about asking him if she was coming. of a red ink pad. I pick it up and turn it Suddenly, Jet’s son, Anthony, arrives. a video cassette player. He unloads it and sets it But then, the TV suddenly lit up. Showtime! upside down. It reads: The Stranglers. He is in his early 20s, lean and friendly. up on the table over the back. Apparently It’s from It’s like the Marie Celeste: has Jet gone He says he helps out with the fan mail the record company. It was the first time I’d seen a Jet set the video to play, a stream of Stranglers home? I suppose he’s fed up waiting. mostly, ploughing through the back log. video player. But why was it here? We were about promo videos appeared before us – videos I had “You must be Gary? How do you do?” Then another boy appears in the doorway to find out. never ever seen before. I remember seeing the Gruff, monotone-voiced Jet appears, who Paul seemed to be expecting. His video to complete with sunglasses even though it’s name is Steve, who said he was interested Saturday night, and it’s Jet’s SIS party – and what a Five Minutes for the first time, and my jaw almost touched the floor. And seeing the band in dark. I meet his big outstretched hand in helping out with the merchandising do it was. I got there about 8pm and discovered Jet Nuclear Device with my uneasy teenage wet fish accounts in his spare time while he studies serving drinks with the help of his girlfriend, , in khaki shorts and hats with corks had the room in stitches. Ian was so impressed handshake, and I suddenly increase my accountancy. Suzanne. They were stood behind a makeshift bar, with the televisual treat, he went over with a piece grip in a more manly, adult manner. I stop Jet rounds up the family, and the two with mein host Jet making sure all the chaps had a of cardboard and placed on top of the telly. It read: at the point where I’m squeezing as hard new boys. “Let’s go to lunch, shall we?” tin or two of room temperature Carling Black Label, “What price the 4th Channel?” (We only had three as I can – that won’t do, jeopardising the he says. while Suzanne poured out beakers of Liebfraumilch in those days.) percussive dexterity of the worlds best for the ladies. I took along a girlfriend, or rather, a drummer. What was I thinking of? EXT TO BANKSIDE power friend who happened to be a girl, but I was very The night was an unforgettable moment in my life. Fuck. I’m star struck… dumbstruck. station lies the quaint Anchor & keen on her. She was a beautiful blonde who But it wasn’t quite complete: I hadn’t got the girl at What do I call Jet? Jet? What do I say? Hope pub. Never has watching a happened to harbour a soft spot for Mr. Burnel N the end. Shall I call him Brian? No. perambulating pair of legs been so (what girl didn’t in those days?) Later, when JJ I pick Jet, which passes without any engrossing: Jet’s feet amble along in ten-to- arrived on top of his roaring Bonny, half inside, half We found a sofa on the far side of the room, and objection or correction. We’re small- two fashion along Clink Streets in Winchester Walk – JJ spotted her: he couldn’t settled on it. I’d only got as far as a kiss when the talking but words shoot right past in a cobblestones... his legs are hidden by the take his eyes off her. She must have been well light was blocked out by the arrival of a certain whirl as my head drifts in and out of drum kit. Usually. made up. Naturally, I was angry and jealous, but no bass guitarist. JJ, coming to whisk away my album covers and photos. None of them Inside the pub, I’m treated to a pint as karate expert. I was only 17. squeeze? No – it was Oscar, who was hurtling for look like Jet: he looks so… normal. You we circle the food bar. I’m starving, but us, pissed rotten. He sprawled out on top of us and wouldn’t know he was a rock star in his I’m really too nervous to eat food. I need Dave and his wife were there, sitting cross-legged proceeded to puke up all over us and the sofa. Is tired black T-shirt and baggy grey strides. drink. on the floor, smoking and drinking in a dark corner. that where Foxtrot Romeo Oscar comes from? He looks like any dad decked out in “Make that a lasagne,” Jet tells the With them was Stranglers manager Ian Grant, Anyway, my romantic moment had passed, and I regular Marks And Sparks gear and black woman behind the hotplate. “What you whose offices were upstairs; the lettering on the ended up escorting my belle back to London Bridge plimsolls. having, Gary?” windows on the first floor read ‘Black And White station. I didn’t go back to the party. I went straight His hair was browner than I thought it Something simple, I think to myself. and Management, and Modern Management’. home, depressed. was – it always looked black like the rest And something relatively inexpensive so These were hippes, maan! Dave in his clogs and of the Men In Black – and there were they don’t think I’m taking the piss out of sheep wool coat, his tiny wife with her long auburn Monday morning, and I’m back at the office. holes in his beard. He introduces his their hospitality. Moreover – something I mane of hair, and Ian with centre parting, Anthony and Steve are there. Aware of the brother, Paul – his polar opposite: he’s won’t choke on or embarrass me in front sunglasses and long suede trench coat. noxious stench of puke coming from the other thin and wiry, his handshake is not so of such esteemed company. room, we knuckle down to watch the videos over firm. He is dressed like a lecturer in fawn “A Scotch egg please.” The place was filling out, and I was looking out for and over again. corduroys and pince-nez. “Scotch egg. Just one?” Hazel O’Connor, Hugh’s then girlfriend: even though “I hear you weren’t that impressed “Please.” Hugh hadn’t turned up, I liked her. Her band provided What price MTV?! with the last Strangled?” he says, “And chips…?” solemnly. The pair stand side by side like a “No thanks.”

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was the most the decking before plopping into the when the band aren’t recording or touring. innocent, Thames for a whopping six. He is a warm, fatherly figure, always inoffensive and Horrified and embarrassed, I swig approachable and decent. In fact, no inexpensive thing some beer to conceal my face behind a windows get smashed, no jukeboxes are on the menu. One pint, praying nobody saw what happened. trashed, nor are there any temper out of three, it They probably did. Of course they tantrums. As soon as he sets foot in the turns out. fucking did! My hunger suddenly building I bombard him with questions The five of us disappears. gleaned from the fan mail, without any huddle round a protestation. wooden bench on ACK AT THE SIS office, Jet clears I get to know who Fred Grainger is the jetty some desk space for me and my art and who Choosey Suzie was. I discover overlooking the Bideas. He brings me a clutch of pens unfathomable lyrics, like “Money round Thames. The and paper and he sits next to me, cutting to buy a Morry Thou” and also the fate warm sunny haze, out the good stuff and laying out in front of Lot’s wife. I find out what La Brea is the view of of him. How bizarre was this? Jet sitting all about, what mastodons were, and London and a next to me cutting out my sketches? I what a gerrymander did. A myriad of second pint of drew JJ, some Men In Black, and a mock minutiae get explored and discussed. lager lubricates advert for that summer’s new tune, Although one day was particularly the chat. It Vietnamerica. fraught. doesn’t get much At that point, a call comes through Jet turns up one day and walks over to better than this. for Jet. It’s Steve Churchyard, producer the radio cassette and sticks in a tape Jet: on US import, Stranglers IV. Jet goes in without saying a word. He turns it up, and “Where do you the office so I go for a piss. Then I notice we listen intently. But it’s all crashes and live, Gary?” an arch leading to an open door. clunks… it’s like someone playing a tape “Leytonstone.” Furtively, I sneak in, and I make an inside a biscuit tin. “I used to play amazing discovery. There, at the far end “Jet – is this the new album?” I along the wall, lies the Raven backdrop, hanging enquire. Leytonstone High resplendent and noble. Perhaps the band Jet stays mute, smiling smugly now. Road. I played in rehearse here too? Anthony and I concentrate on the tunes, jazz bands before My inaugural day ends with a pile of right up until the end. The Stranglers – Stranglers goodies to take home to “Well… what do you think?” Asks Jet. do you know the Leytonstone: posters, a Rattus T-shirt Anthony and I had just shuffled and Plough And and a pocketful of badges. Anthony squirmed uneasily throughout. It was Harrow? I used to offers me a lift part way to Mile End in disheartening. It was shit. New Hibernia House now play there many his Morris 1100, throwing teasing titbits. “Not a lot.” I say. “I didn’t like it.” “Salad, or something?” years ago – is it still there? Is it still Now I know JJ’s whispered “allow me to “It’s different.” Anthony adds. “It “No. I’m alright, thanks.” rough?” rearrange you face ...” coda. Anthony is doesn’t sound like The Stranglers…” “Three lasagne and chips… one tuna Lunch comes quickly, and my orange just as fanatical about The Stranglers as I “Don’t worry.” He says. “It’ll grow on salad…. And one Scotch egg, on its own bread-crumbed cricket ball appears in the am. you,” Jet sagaciously adds. Of course, he please. We’ll be outside.” centre of a gleaming white plate. Everyone was right. I could have murdered the lasagne, stabs at their steaming hot pub grub. With NABLE TO STAY away I’m back But at the time, neither of us sitting but it was too late now. I should have the beer going to my head, I unravel my the next day, helping Paul. Anthony there could quite appreciate the privilege ordered chips, but you can’t have that cutlery to slice the egg in two – and watch Uand Steve answer fan mail and and gravitas of hearing a sneak preview with a cold Scotch egg… At least I’m in paralysing terror as half of it flies off merchandise. Over the next year I spend The Gospel According To The Meninblack safe in the knowledge that a Scotch egg the plate, across the table, down through all my spare time. Jet comes in most days – six months before its release.

Page 10 Issue two Fancy a fortnight away with The Stranglers?

Chris Alderton did! And she lived to tell us the tale!

N 1980 I worked on a national business mind, had the idea of pinning up was a big misjudgement on my part. After looked like chunky retards, though! newspaper; highly paid but under T-shirts onto it. realising just how hard they worked and The Bristol gig itself was amazing. The Ioccupied. So I volunteered my services I’d never met the road crew before, how talented they were, I got to like them. band played a set of the old favourites for the SIS, and it wasn’t long before Jet’s and initially they came across as a surly Setting up took several hours, although intermingled with the MiB material. Just brother, Paul, asked me if I had any more bunch of wankers! That, I soon found, taking down took half the time. They still Like Nothing On Earth with the strobe spare time to help out with merchandising lighting turned the audience into a frenzy on the Meninblack tour. You bet! – I wondered if any epileptic fits were I detected a beef between the band induced? Strobe lighting has this magical and management over money; the coffers effect that turns everyone into a great weren’t exactly rolling in and money was dancer, it was the same at every gig, a tight. Which is why the SIS was so reliant flurry of arms in the air and energised on an exuberant bunch of volunteers and people jumping up and down. loyal fans. We had a lot to do: stacks of Back on the stall, “Raven” and “Rat” letters were piled up in the corner shirts were selling like hotcakes. So were awaiting opening and T-shirt orders to be the new MiB shirts, with a profile of the despatched. band in white on the front. When the MiB Jet’s other brother, Kevin, was drafted material first arrived at SIS HQ, someone in to distribute merchandise from gig to said: “they look like the Stranglers are the gig, aided and abetted by his partner men covered in birdshit” It might have Lynn, a former nurse. Even I was been Paul’s idea, I can’t remember, but a embarrassed being around those two – series of “Birdshit” shirts were duly they couldn’t keep their hands off each printed – and duly sold out. I recall that other! London fans came to the rescue every single shirt that had been lovingly setting up the merchandise stall at gigs all pinned up on the velvet drape got ripped over the UK, cadging overnight stays with down leaving gaping holes in it. friends. Paul issued temporary crew passes The fans were terrific. At the end of in return, plus a chance to watch most of each gig, they’d march out drenched in the gigs. One chap, Steve, who was there sweat with an exuberance and a buzz that to do the books or something, came to you knew would last them for days. It was help out at gigs but spent most of his time the same for us on the merchandising stall on the side of the stage pogoing! except that we couldn’t crawl back to a warm bed immediately. Kevin made us Bristol Locarno count every T-shirt, sweat-shirt and poster The tour kicked off at The Locarno at that hadn’t been sold. Everything had to Bristol – my first gig. We got there early. be sorted into sizes ready for the next gig, The crew were already set up and the then we had to unfold all the sweaty five band sound checked. Behind the stall, a pound notes screwed up into balls and put couple of tables put together, was a thick them in neat piles with the Queen’s head velvet drape. Kevin, with his keen facing up a certain way, of course. Kevin, Lynn and Dave, Nottingham

Page 11 Issue two

The band and crew were booked into and not the sort of chap you would pick the local smart hotel. We on an argument with, but with an immense merchandising duties had to make do with psychological understanding of the fan whatever guesthouse we would find, the population. Very rarely – and this is where cheaper the better. So, after a night in a his instinct would kick in – would he stop damp B&B with barely enough warm a fan coming on the stage. A gentle giant water, it was on to Plymouth and then and a gentleman. next stop, Southampton. There were some diehard young fans following the band Canterbury and beyond around, with an assortment of WiBs and Next up, Canterbury – where we stayed in NiBs (that’s women in black and nubiles one of the nicest guest houses on the in black!) If they didn’t turn up at the whole tour. The ever-so-middle class next gig, we worried about them. So did landlady even asked if we could get a the crew who made sure they were fed signed photo for her son. JJ did the from time to time. honours and got the entire band to sign, although he slightly spoiled it by drawing Sister’s in Southampton an enlarged penis in the corner of it! I was My little sister Jill was at Southampton sharing a large family room with one University, and in return for helping with other that night and ended up sharing the merchandising, got on the guest list, with six stranded London fans who along with a couple of her friends, Pam couldn’t get back. Kevin paid the extra the and Clare. They arrived just in time for next morning when our landlady looked the sound check and were thrilled to have somewhat surprised as me and my official a long chat with JJ and Hugh at the gig. sharer plus six cheerful skinny kids They were living in Derby Road, dressed in black made a b-line downstairs probably the most notorious road in for the best breakfast we’d had so far on Southampton, where all the prostitutes the tour. Her son, by the way, was hung out. Ghastly dolls would sit in the delighted with the signed photo. front windows. If the light was on that Then it was Brighton on the Friday. would mean the occupant was available Rest and recreation was reserved for for business. Perhaps Derby Road has Saturday in preparation for the been gentrified now? Hugh somehow Hammersmith gig on Sunday. Luxury managed to work his acquired local kicked in when I had the opportunity to knowledge into his repartee with the sit back and relax with a lift back to crowd which raised a big laugh. Pam was London in the crew bus where the press ganged into writing a gig review sometime surly crew, who had by now, which appeared in Strangled, April 1981. cast off their mantle of stress and strain JJ with fans, Nottingham I remember she opened by saying: from the first week, were getting into “There are several things which one (6) Cameo appearances from over cover of that issue, which he named “The relax mode, becoming amusing human has come to expect from a Stranglers enthusiastic fans...” Holy Strangled Magazine” and Clare did beings in the process! Alan was the main concert … (1) Sweat (2) Someone says She was spot on, and ended by the artwork for the back cover. Talk about man – with his co-evil compatriot, Bruce. ‘wanker’ (3) Gorilla bouncers who come remarking how refreshing it was fans making good use of all available resources! I remember a tense, stoical guy who drove out with things like ‘that French git – he’s who’d jumped onstage were left alone and Have to mention Joe here. Joe the articulated lorry with the equipment a head banger’ (4) A lot of black clothing not hurled off in front of 2,000 people. (Seabrook) was the official bouncer to the from place to place. A Paul (5) Loud throbbing rampant music and Our Gary Kent did the artwork for the band. A lovely man – three feet wide, tall, Hogan/Crocodile Dundee lookey likey!

Page 12 Issue two

Pete, the driver of the crew bus, became serious personal issues. (They’re our complaining? No way! There’d be the least eight of these cocktails, I flipped. the envy of all the alpha males when he readers, Chris! – Ed.) Nonetheless, where occasional flare up or temper tantrum Kevin kindly let me have the night off and pulled a gorgeous Swedish girl in a would any band be without their fans? from someone on the crew. That was watch the band and I was in heaven Notting Hill hotel. Especially with such energy, high spirits considered normal behaviour. My temper seeing the MiB spectacle from the side of and enthusiasm. tantrum came the following night in Stoke the stage. Week two Touring takes its toll. A sleepless night where I had a bad encounter with a door The second week started off in in damp squalor without the pleasure of a in the ladies loo which came off the door Sheffield, Nottingham Birmingham – where we endured the decent shower – then it’s up early and off frame and I vaguely recall a sink parting Then it was Sheffield, then Rock City in prime contender for Britain’s worst bed to the next gig; set up, clear up and fall company with the wall. The crew had Nottingham – where I remembered to take and breakfast. The odour of damp, rotting back into bed. There’s no time for introduced me to Screwdrivers – orange my instamatic camera with me! My final wood stayed with us for days. Ah! A word headaches or stomach cramps. Am I juice with vodka. Having consumed at date on the tour was Liverpool Royal about the band here. Yes, we saw them Court, where I said goodbye to the B&Bs every day. And yes, they were lovely. We and stayed with my friends, The Poyntons also had Access All Areas passes – (UK Karate champions) that night. Gary amazing how blasé one gets! Once you’d Kent came and stayed over and was party been backstage a couple of times, you to the wonderful Liverpudlian humour didn’t need to go again. JJ always had a that night, and then forced to endure a ribald comment to make and Hugh, a ride with me on the Mersey Ferry the profound remark laced with sarcasm. following day. (I kept down your lovely Dave was always Dave, the most brilliant scrambled eggs, didn’t I?? – Ed.) tunesmith in the world, and happy doing Sadly for me, it was back to the day what he was doing. He always said if he job on Monday. But every single night for wasn’t in the band he’d like to tune the next two weeks, I failed dismally to peoples’ pianos. Jet was the gruff and get a decent night’s sleep. All the time I grumpy ubiquitous presence. Never had the opening notes of Waltzinblack smiling. Always there. He’d come to us doing my head in! And just as I began to after the gig and check on how the drop off to sleep, I’d get the sinister hee merchandising went. At Birmingham, hee hee hee hee hee’s. I’d have total recall we’d sold 66 pairs of “Jet Black of seeing JJ on stage doing his standing on Drumsticks”. It was scary to see Jet smile one leg thing with perfect balance, so broadly! wearing his spray-on tight black jeans. I’d Considering every fan wanted a piece fear for his future fertility. of the band’s time, they were always Actually those jeans were sooo charming – making an effort to have a memorably tight, I once asked him if he word here and there. I don’t know what it got his mum to take them in for him! He was about them, but they sometimes found them in Japan and came back with attracted the most dysfunctional and several pairs. Hugh would encroach into extreme people wherever they went. There my thoughts in a strobe light singing: “a was always one fan with the over-the-top woman in Wellington wet her whistle with personality competing to be the loudest, a wild man from way back when” and funniest or most outrageous. Some were there was Jet bashing the drums like a downright dodgy and dangerous. In these demented Muppet. Dave looked like the politically correct times, I suppose another devil incarnate! way of putting it would be to say that All in all, my two weeks on the many fans appeared to be struggling with Meninblack Tour was quite an experience! Joe Seabrook, the bouncer, Nottingham

Page 13 Issue two I’ll get my occult The further encounters of Gary Kent with the Men In Black

T’S JUST like any other boring Sunday milk. Suddenly the phone rings, spurring when I read about a song written by a the afternoon into action. IHungarian composer that was deemed It’s Anthony, Jet Black’s son: so depressing the BBC slapped a ban on it “The Strugglers are playing in in the 1920s. Intriguingly, many of those Guildford tonight. Do you wanna come who played the record committed suicide with us?” straight afterwards. To an attitudinal, hormonal teenager like me, gleaning such NTHONY’S BATTERED blue- facts from the Sabbath’s tabloids was grey Morris 1100 suddenly morbidly fascinating to say the least. The A appears, gyrating the junction of song in question was Gloomy Sunday, and Fillebrook and Fairlop on two wheels. today is just that. I’m depressed – and Four heads in wraparound sunshades skint, strapped for cash. Trapped in shout out the chorus to Go Buddy Go in suburban isolation, stifled by the distant synchrony; the Sunday congregation has Guildford Civic Hall linger of congealed Sunday roast dinner, arrived. The door bursts open and I portal into the future sound – inspired, better,’ calls out Hugh to the unseen while the chime of church bells mangle the squeeze in the back between Hazel and eccentric and unique. Obscure and sound man. “Hello, hello… Yup, that’s cheerless lull. Rob, with an offer of petrol money. obtuse, a very different band from the one fine. That’s it.” Caged within my parents grown-up “I’ve got us backstage tonight.” I fell in love with in 1977. And the last Next to him, slouched in a canvas void, I find myself in limbo between Jim Anthony reveals, matter-of-fact, as we fortnight integrates the final Meninblack assembly hall chair, is JJ. Positionally, he’s Bowen’s Bullseye and a supper of ham speed off in a cloud of grey smoke. I recording session, making tonight the first on the wrong side of Hugh, on the stage. sandwiches, tinned peaches and Carnation wonder if the car will make the journey in a handful of gigs to precede the With a leg cocked on a wedge monitor, he and christen the car Puff The Tragic American tour. thumbs away on the black Fender Wagon and say goodbye to gloomy Precision nonchalantly like a coiled spring ‘I looked, and behold, a whirlwind came Sunday. IVE O’clock and we’re spilling out waiting for some action. Jet crouches out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire My thoughts turn to meeting all of my from the beryl-coloured chariot in behind his drum kit and screws a butterfly unfolding itself, and a brightness was idols at once… ‘hallo’ to our men, you front of the oblong Civic Hall. We nut into submission. Dave reverently about it, and out the midsts thereof as F might say. Imagine how exciting it was follow Anthony into the foyer where his stands behind his pulpit, patiently waiting the colour of amber, out of the midsts of being a Stranglers fan in 1980 – on the Uncle Paul solemnly sets out the his moment. He plays a rhythm with the fire. Now as I beheld the living verge of a new album. Maledictive merchandising stall like a vicar tidying up analogue synthesizers, layering this eerie creatures behold one wheel upon the turbulence abound, band interviews are the WI stand. But then, from within the fairground elegy; it’s playful and spooky, earth by the living creatures, with four laced with talk of Men In Black, UFOs main hall, a jagged bass riff cracks through dark and peculiar… dexterous Dave faces. The appearance of the wheels and and sinister goings-on. building like a power drill. Not wishing to Greenfield unfurls his two-handed version their work was like unto the colour of It comes as no surprise there’s a miss a trick, I quickly follow the others of Waltzinblack until the tune collapses a beryl and they four had one likeness: and certain an element of danger combined into the darkened crowd-free auditorium. couple of bars in. their appearance and their work was as with jubilation felt by proxy: MiB’s At the furthest point, up on the stage, the “Aarrgh!” He cries out, “I’ve run out it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel. suppress information, silence eyewitnesses Guildford Four are clad in black and of hands!” When they went, they went upon their and bend minds. Something is bound to sound checking their equipment, and I can The other Stranglers laugh out aloud four sides, and they turned not when rub off by the time the album comes out. scarcely believe my eyes. as I soak up the scene with forensic detail: they went...’ The Lyceum gig revealed a an exciting “Hello, hello, one-two, hello, that’s their reaction tells me this was the first, The Book of Ezekiel

Page 14 Issue two and probably the only time Waltzinblack T’S JUST gone 7.30 and table to the left. I make mental knee at his chin, looking down, bowed in is ever played on a stage. pensioners in peaked caps notes what to say to each Strangler, concentration, intense, pensive, or just “We’re needed in the foyer,” says one Iunlock the doors. Half of but it’s impossible to come up with plain bored. Talk turns to singing; he of Anthony’s mates pulling us away from Guildford’s youth stampede the chatty and witty ideas, smart explains how his vocal technique has the spectacle, “the Ayatollah wants us.” foyer, crowding the stall. I grab retorts or small talk for that matter. recently changed: Idle hands are put to use as Paul wrinkled pound notes from sweaty I’m shitting myself. Jet joins us, “I used to shout songs, you know, like supervises the last T-shirt pinned to the palms in return for the most and chuckles when I asked him Go Buddy Go, Something Better Change – wall, and boxes are hidden from reach. Jet popular T-shirt, The Raven. I what happened in Who Wants The but now it’s more of a whisper… The arrives from sound-checking. recognise Jimmy Pursey of Sham 69 World: Raven, Don’t Bring Harry… Ice. It’s “Gary – do you think we need a poster weaving through the crowd, on his “I probably thought I was doing because I’ve not really got a singing voice, advertising Choosey Suzie and Tomorrow own, with nobody hassling him for the next song. It was all my fault –I not like Hugh…” I’m enthralled, Was?” He suggests. “We’re selling them autographs. The anti-Sham hold my hands up to that one. Just particularly when he shares his beef about tonight. I’ve brought you some paper and backlash in the music press is in one of those things…” being the underdogs of the media: pens...” full swing this summer. Anthony and his mates vanish, “We don’t have chart success in the Jet brings out a draughtsmen’s A1 size The Stranglers arrive at the but then I see Hugh over to the UK because they won’t play us here. They pad, and clears space for me on the stall alter to the sound of Waltzinblack left, talking architecture. It’s the blank us out. Because the radio stations to squeak my black magic marker pen to booming out like a clarion call, first time I’ve seen him in the flesh, don’t play us, people won’t buy our his nodding approval. Talk on the stall and stall helpers take turns to go hearing his anodyne spoken voice. records. I mean, look at Bear Cage – it revolves around the loss of the artwork in and watch the spectacle. I get to He sips from a plastic cup as a was commercial enough to have done for the proposed song book following the go right down the front for Down journalist scribbles notes. JJ holds well in the singles charts, but they didn’t demise of artist Kevin Sparrow. In The Sewer. Next up, Who court to an attentive scrum of play it.” “What do you think – one pound- Wants The World? – but it all goes disciples in black leather bomber I interrupt: “It wasn’t that twenty?” awry. The song starts, but jackets. I edge my way nearer to commercial.” A boisterous crowd gathers outside, something is amiss. Instead of Jet’s them, standing on tiptoed monkey JJ raises his head and locks eyes with banging on the glass as I complete my familiar tom-tom rolls, we get a boots, craning my neck to listen. I me. masterpiece. Jet and brother Paul hop up ride cymbal being tapped. Jet catch the odd softly spoken “Sorry? What did you say?” He says. some steps to drive their golden drawing curses, the others look at him and sentence – and discover JJ doesn’t “Well, Bear Cage – it wasn’t pins into each side of the poster, forming he smiles. The audience are sound a bit French! I weave around commercial… for the charts I mean. It’s the foyer’s centrepiece, and I struggle to awestruck into silence, and the the perimeter wall of bodies as not what they call commercial, is it?” process the surreal sight of the brethren- band restart the song – with toms. bony elbows and biceps flex, “Oh yeah? Okay. Define commercial, in-black pinning up my poster art. When the gigs ends, Anthony territorially pissing, guarding then?” “Up just a little bit on your side, Jet.” I gathers us together to take us back against invasion of their precious “Eh?” say. “Just there.” stage to the bands dressing room. space with the best bass player in “Go on, define commercial.” It’s a big white-walled room the world. He’s talking Karate: I “Okay – not Bear Cage.” rammed with black-clad bodies, hate Karate. He stands with one Succinct and to the point. But, oh and there’s food and drink on a foot on the back of a chair with his dear. How about I now define who needs a lippy, smart-arse like me in their dressing room? The daggers are out, there’s some uneasy shuffling and I’m made to feel like Judas Iscariot. The elbows are back, flexing, and one rude greasy-haired disciple steps right in front of me and showers our leader with embarrassing sycophancy. I despise such talk, and shove him aside

Page 15 Issue two

to finish my sentence. I nervously remind JJ of the postcard I My heart races as the lofty frame of ‘Now as I looked at the living creatures, “What I mean is – Bear Cage isn’t like received from him last year, postmarked Hugh steps forward to shake hands. I’m I saw a wheel upon the earth beside the any song other Top 20 single, it’s very Tokyo, when he dutifully responded to a instantly struck by his overwhelming eyes living creatures…’ different from what actually sells. It was long list of questions I sent him, signed – deep hazel in colour, they’re magnetic, never a single, was it? Be honest.” off with: OK take care Gary, or is it Clark hypnotic, and dilated. struck. Dave looks impassive and helpless. “What’s your name?” JJ asks. Kent? JJ Burnel. Of course, he “Very pleased to meet you. Thanks for In silence we watch each other’s mouths, “Oh – you’re one of the helpers at doesn’t recall writing it, and all the help – it’s very much appreciated. waiting for something to happen, someone Hibernia House, aren’t you? gets distracted when Hugh Are you from round here then...?” Hugh to say something. Suddenly Dave spots an Pleased to meet you.” comes from the loo. JJ says he vaguely recalls writing me his imaginary friend calling him and goes over beckons him over: postcard from Japan, where he confesses to the drinks table to top-up his beaker. “Hugh, this is Gary – to driving a white van. Visit over, Anthony reforms the he’s a helper – “It’s a Ford Escort.” congregation, and we get back into the down at The Stranglers are all so different – spaceship and head for East London. I’m the and I haven’t even found Dave yet. He’s in the front this time, where I stretch out SIS.” probably tuning pianos, or solving puzzles my legs and sulk quietly to myself, – maybe even conjuring up a spirits in consumed with mortification, rewinding dark corner. But no. He’s right in the the Dave transcript over and over again. centre of the room with his ubiquitous I should have asked him what they did black shoulder bag swung over one arm. in the studio last week. I could have asked He’s standing all alone, holding a plastic him when the album’s coming out. Then I cup. I’m gonna go up to him – but what would have asked him about the biblical shall I say? Having just read Dennis vein running through the lyrics, had I Wheatley’s non-fiction piece, The Devil & known them. I might have discovered All His Works – I move in, brimming with alternative theories within parables, confidence, beaming with excitement. wheels within wheels, new theories behind “Dave!” I exclaim. I may have the Gospels. My eyes grow heavy along frightened him, as he froze like a rabbit in Grove Green Road as I imagine myself as the headlights. He removed the cup from Ezekiel, dwelling in melancholy, waiting his visage, and his mouth was locked in for something to happen at the edge of the an expectant gawp. It was now time to go Khobar. in with my firelighter of a conversation It’s late as the headlights swing round starter. “I hear you’re into the occult?” Leytonstone’s hedge-lined houses. Those photogenic cheek bones in the Anthony turns the wheel into Drayton Who Wants The World? video suddenly Road, and then a sharp right hander into rear up and expose a larger set of Fillebrook, when Puff The Tragic Wagon gnashers than I ever imagined. Tension decides enough is enough. The awkward mounts as Dave is on the brink of road camber causes the car to go into a revealing all about his mysterious interest. spin. The nearside front wheel beneath my “Yes.” feet shears off from its axle, sending the That’s all he said. I pictured an car into anarchy, crashing into the enlightening lecture on witchcraft, kerbside and sliding into the lamppost by numerology, sorcery and flying saucers. the synagogue. The jolt shocks everyone The moment is gone, vanished, words are on board, but no one is hurt, just shaken. lost. I was stupefied in a hiatus, star We walk away unscathed.

Page 16 Issue two The Bold Testament Erstwhile former Strangler Hughinblack talks to Gary Kent about The Meninblack – and why the drugs don’t work

my wife and I met him backstage for a Hugh tells the fan he is trying to behave Park stomping ground, Hugh does his pre-gig chat. himself: “That’s right. I was policing porridge at Pentonville where he washes “So what are you having?” He asks as myself. I didn’t want to end up in any up in the canteen and scrubs floors. “It’s we go through the Mediterranean-style more trouble than I already was.” Who all in Inside Information…” he says, café’s glass door, “I’m getting this, by the Wants The World? is recorded at The reminding me of the booklet he put way.” Church and two days later, Hugh loses the together with Record Mirror journalist We sit at a granite-topped table in the appeal. On 21 March 1980, Hugh begins Barry Cain. middle. Hugh blends in with the his custodial sentence: As a steaming plate of lasagne is cappuccino-swigging throng, and no one “I really thought I was gonna get placed in front of Hugh, my stuffed stares or over concerns themselves with off….” he says, with charming naivety. “I peppers and salad arrive, and together we who or what he is, or does. It must have thought I was gonna pay a huge fine and unravel our napkins and cutlery in been a different story at the height of The get a suspended sentence, but it wasn’t to mirrored synchrony. The smell from the Stranglers’ intra-punk heyday. be.” food is delicious, but before we tuck in, I Twenty-six years ago almost to the day, A stone’s throw from his old Tufnell show Hugh the pack of photos that

Hugh, November 2005 Hugh was in a car driven by tour promoter Paul Loasby coming back from UGH CORNWELL ARRIVES on Wales. It was the early hours following time for our noon date outside a the penultimate concert of The Raven Hbank in Notting Hill towards the Tour. When the car hit West London, they end of 2005. “Did you get my text? He were greeted with a random police stop asks. “I was going to say we could drive to check, and Hugh was nabbed in a nice café I know...” possession of what he has describes as “a With my car in a Tube car park the small chemistry set”. other side of London, we set off on foot to Tucked away in his bag is a gram and a one of Hugh’s favourite daytime haunts. half of coke, a wrap of heroin, half-an- He walks with the same spirit he displays ounce of dope, resin, some grass, and a onstage: purposeful, pragmatic and couple of packets of magic mushrooms – ergonomic. His six foot plus frame zigzags in case he gets the munchies, perhaps? the windy and winding streets, carving out Two months later, on 6 January 1980, the a crow’s flight path like a GPS device. All authorities penalise the high-profile ex- the time he is talkative, and listening punk rocker and fine him £300 and serve intently: small talk is effortless, like his him with a punitive eight-week prison gait. One step behind, I shuffle through sentence. the wet leaves of West London, trying to Out on bail pending an appeal, he joins keep up and chat simultaneously. He is the band on new tracks Bear Cage and interested in future editions of The Waiting For The Meninblack at Air Burning Up Times and whether I enjoyed Studios where a Stranglers fan spots him his solo gig in Brighton in August when with JJ most evenings in a West End bar. Holloway 25.04.80: Hazel is there to meet Hugh upon his release

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arrived on my doormat just as I was about Meanwhile a story leaks out to the press to leave the house. A reader sent his about Hugh being denied a guitar in his collection of rare snaps from July 1980 of cell, and the prison authorities are alleged the band sound checking in Rome, and to have replied: “There’s a bus driver in eating ice creams (Dave with fag in one here and he hasn’t asked for his bus.” Ian hand, cornet in the other) in St. Peter’s Dury tells Sounds: “At least Hugh will get Square. enough material for an album in there.” “Look who that guy is, just there…” “Yeah – Second Coming came from Hugh points excitedly at a photo, “that’s Pentonville...” Hugh adds, taking in a fork Barry Cain!” (Barry Cain can be spotted full of lasagne. After serving just five in this issue somewhere... Ed) weeks, Hugh is freed. But 57 days later, At the time, the jail sentence sends Hugh is in clink once more, a second spell shockwaves throughout the music in a cell, this time for inciting a riot at fraternity, but Hugh remains resolute. Nice University. With an ironic twist, When Thin Lizzy’s Phil Lynott appears in news comes over the café’s radio that court shortly after for possession of cocaine France has suffered a further night of and cannabis, Hugh sends him this rioting in the capital. message: “Tell Phil I’ll see he’s alright in “Nice was the worst point of my life.” here.” Hazel O’Connor, Hugh’s girlfriend at He admitted. “I thought I’d left all that the time, passes on his perception of behind me and turned over a brand new Pentonville to Sounds readers: “the food is leaf to get on with work, and then palatable but the room service is non- suddenly I was back in jail again. I got existent.” I ask Hugh whether the rest of very depressed.” the band made visiting time: I had to find out if he was still taking “Yeah, they came. But they didn’t drugs around this time, in spite of his bring any money with them – so they well-documented declaration to the press couldn’t even buy me a cuppa tea! The outside Pentonville it was the end of both only time you get a cup of tea in prison – his drug career and prison career. I get my that didn’t contain Bromide – was when answer. Out of the blue, Hugh throws me you had visitors. I thought great, a nice this exclusive: cuppa tea. But not one of them had any “Well…. when I was done for money. Can you believe that? The band possession of heroin – I hadn’t actually came to see me without any bloody money taken any up until then. Someone had to buy me a cup of tea!” given it to me on tour in the dressing Two Stranglers gigs go ahead that room, so I put it in my bag along with all Easter sans Hugh at The Rainbow Theatre the other drugs I’d been given. I wouldn’t and prisoner F48444 sits in his cell a mile take the heroin till after the tour because I up the road. Filling his shoes, a wealth of didn’t know how I would react to it. So musicians and friends step in, including the funny thing was, when I actually got Hazel, Toyah Willcox, The Cure, Steel sent down for heroin, I hadn’t tried it yet. Pulse, Richard Jobson, Phil Daniels and When I came out, there was no reason not Ian Dury. to try it – which is what I did for the next The concerts are originally planned to two years. It was just the beginning.” showcase the band’s new material, but the The entire cafe almost chokes: a fat

Castel S. Angelo, soundcheck, 2 July 1980: five days after being released from jail in Nice Castel S. old numbers are revived for simplicity. man in a cloth cap sitting bang opposite,

Page 18 Issue two facing me and gorging his food heartily, is date: the lorry containing the band’s to be off-the-wall. Was it wide-eyed in wonderment from that point instruments and equipment is hi-jacked – a concept album? Well, on; his bulbous eyes almost burst, and none of the gear is insured. “It was lyrically, it was – but it although he never stops scoffing. A one thing after another. Me being busted didn’t sell, did it? I mean, slender-legged lady shuffles in her seat and everything, our equipment going it was a commercial and crosses her legs, quickly redirecting missing in America, a telephone guy disaster. But we got it out her gaze outside towards Notting Hill blowing up the studio in Munich which of our system. Had we not normality. It was like we’d all reached the put us out of action for ages… The Nice come up with Golden Brown juicy bit in the book together. I bet now incident... it was all a catalogue of though, the record company they were all wondering who this denim- disaster.” Looking back – was this the would have dropped us.” clad guy talking into my microphone was. malevolent handiwork of the Men In Hugh leans back, sated All they probably know is it’s not Pete Black? “We were in a doom-laden state from his lasagne. “That was Doherty. With an eye on the slender legs anyway – heroin brings you down. There really good, how was adjacent, Hugh sits bolt upright and digs a are accident-prone people out there who yours?” The girl silver spoon into the froth of his coffee seem to bring on their own bad luck and I with the legs gets cup: think we brought on our own disasters. I up and goes “Heroin. You know, it’s very interesting. think we were at the top of our tree then while the fat It gives you the most amazing feeling. You – but it was a huge relief to get out of that man with the don’t need sex, you don’t need booze, you period alive.” bulging eyes don’t need food – you want for nothing. On Monday 9 February 1981, The watches over That’s why it’s so dangerous.” Hugh scoffs Gospel According To The Meninblack was us. We were at drugs fuelling creativity: “If you’re released. Initial sales of 50,000 elevated it about to go creative, you’re creative. It can give you a to Number 8 in the UK album chart, but in our weird slant on it, but I don’t think you can it quickly disappeared after just five separate say drugs make you creative. I mean, I weeks. Beautiful calligraphy on the front directions: don’t take any drugs and I feel as creative cover art work reveals recording work the Tube for me, now, if not more than when I was taking took place between January and August while Hugh walks loads of drugs. So I think it is misnomatic 1980 – and Hugh was bewildered why its home in preparation thinking. All this stuff about opening the release came a massive six months later. for the Blondie tour doors of perception, it all rubbish.” “Maybe the record company didn’t support slot. But not Out on bail, work on The Meninblack want it coming out at Christmas? I before I get out my album resumes, but a prison sentence dunno…” camera to snap the artist looms until the court hearing, set for the I proposed it was due to the Nice formerly known as end of the year. Hugh recalls finding it incident: inciting a riot came with a Hugh-in-black. difficult to knuckle down: possible 10-stretch; the court hearing “Look mean and “We were just eating out in Rome the didn’t occur until December and on 13 moody, “ I tell whole time. We’d come back to the studio January 1981, suspended jail sentences him. with our bellies full, trying to work. So not were awarded to JJ, Jet and Hugh with a “No… no.” a lot of work got done, that’s for sure.” F17,000 fine. He says, with A three-week tour of the UK finally “Ah, of course. That would be it – in the feint showcases the new Meninblack material, case we went back to prison. That’s why!” hint of kicking off at The Rainbow and Of the finished product, Hugh is proud: irritation. culminating at a dazzling Lyceum gig. Off “I think it’s great. Some people might say “I can’t.” to the States for a two-month tour, when some of the songs are a bit obtuse and a He smiles calamity strikes following the New York bit too experimental, but we just wanted instead.

Page 19 Issue two WhoWho needs Hugh?Hugh? Joe Ordinair recalls the Rainbow gigs without Hugh and meets John Ellis

ND THEN THERE were Sleazy, Nicky Tesco toasted – more three…” Jet Black tells the dreadful than dread – and then slipped up “A expectant Rainbow audience. on Ice while Phil ‘Jimmy the Mod’ The third and fourth of April 1980 sees Daniels impressed the hardcore with his two concerts performed by The Stranglers Stranglers sweat shirt, as well as Toiler sans Hugh; pre-booked ahead of his spell and Dead Loss Angeles. Pete Hammill in Pentonville, they were to have (who?) destroyed Tank, The Raven and showcased the new songs. Dismissing the Shah, but full honours go to Jake Burns option of postponement, a sympathetic for a blistering call to arms with Sewer – and eclectic coterie of rock’s but there was more: blond bombshell contemporaries agreed to step in, and Billy Idol appeared… and promptly Easter gigs went ahead – with a little help vanished, courtesy of a Good Friday from their friends. kyokoshinkai from JJ. It really was truly “Paul McCartney has been extraordinary. approached…” according to Jet, being John Ellis talked to to BUT about that interviewed on Capital Radio’s Nicky extraordinary gig: Horne Show the day Hugh lost his “At the end of the Euroman tour, I appeal, as was “…Kate Bush, plus there had a fight with JJ on the last night, and will be a some surprises in store...” vowed never to work with him again. A The surprise was that neither Macca year on, there I was, for my sins! The nor Kate performed! While the three Rainbow gigs were interesting because I Stranglers plus John Ellis provided the had to learn a lot of Stranglers material backdrop, the visitors languished in the very quickly. I knew the songs in as much karaoke limelight – and in case we forgot that I’d heard them, but now I had to who was missing, a cut-out of Cornwell learn them. Of course, Dave was very was lowered by rope to a loud cheer from helpful, but I was quite used to learning the crowd: “I can think of a lot worse stuff very, very quickly, which was places to be… like in Pentonville nick,” probably why I got the call in the first growled Ian Dury in sunshades during place. I had to do just that when I Peaches – prior to successfully culling worked with (Peter) Gabriel. In fact I Bear Cage. may have been in between American and Richard ‘Jobbo’ Jobson pitched up European tours, so I was in that mode. with the biggest quiff ever witnessed, but “Rehearsals took place over several still managed to ably belt out Nubiles, days round the back of The Stranglers Heroes and Five Minutes while Toyah and headquarters in Southwark. I remember Hazel took turns in upstaging duties. On teaching Robert Fripp guitar parts, which

From the official programme for the Levi’s Rock series of Rainbow gigs

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From the official programme for the Levi’s Rock series of Rainbow gigs

night how absolutely fantastic it was. The vibe was brilliant. I really enjoyed it. It was such a good idea – in The Stranglers vein of having great creative ideas. “Backstage there was a massive amount of cocaine waiting there. Jet was sat at the table looking after several large bags of the stuff. There was certainly a lot was strange. But of gabbling going on backstage. Robert these were such interesting people… Ian Smith talking the price of cabbages to Dury… Peter Hammill, I always liked his Hillage? I dunno – but that’s what voice. There were a lot of strange happens when there’s a load of cocaine connections too. (Steve) Hillage – ended around. up mixing one of my solo singles, and we “I was pissed off I originally only got nearly did an album together. Jake Burns credit for playing on one song. So I of Stiff Little Fingers was there – he phoned up the record company and told named his band after a song I wrote in them I played on every song. After the the Vibrators, of course. That was kind of gig, the management sent out thank you weird. The gigs were very exciting; you letters to everyone who participated. I never knew what was going to happen found mine in the loft the other day, and I next. Didn’t JJ jump on top of someone stuck it on eBay. I don’t really hang onto on the stage… Toyah maybe? I remember the past – I’d rather have the cash in my thinking as we came off stage that first pocket than a letter in the loft.”

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Flyer left on seats for the Rainbow gigs without Hugh, no good if you like the set list to be a surprise!

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collapse, creativity in the Stranglers camp was somewhat jaded, in spite of having Ian Grant: Jean Genie Gary Kent already thought out their next opus, The Meninblack. “Well it was their limpest time, to be SAT IN court and watched Hugh connections with her... we knew Fripp… the late 60s. It was part of a staple diet honest. They released Bear Cage – it was get sent down. Hugh thought he Nik Turner… Dury… I remember we were along with a spliff. I think Jet was big on lame – Who Wants The World? was “I was going to get off – even his doing Billy Idol’s press at the time, but JJ it. Backstage, a huge mirror was put on a slightly better. What they should have flatmate, Nick Pedgrift, the bands lawyer – didn’t want him on the bill, but he turned table in one of the dressing rooms with the done was take a breather. The was telling him he was gonna get off…” up anyway and if I remember rightly, JJ bags on top.” Meninblack period was sheer lunacy all Stranglers manager Ian Grant was around. I mean, they thought they were depressed, and gave the waiting the Men In Black. Jet used to sit out in newsmen their sound byte: “this decision Warminster looking for UFOs. How much will cost £200,000 and to be honest I can of it was real and how much of it was see it being the demise of the group.” unreal – only they know. Most of it was Ominous tones pointed the way The for real. The Meninblack was complete Stranglers were already heading. Their commercial suicide. I think it was after finances were frozen in a dispute with the gear got nicked in America that Jet Albion, the bands former management, told someone I was extravagant. He may and now a ground-breaking tour of have said it tongue-in-cheek, but he India and the Far East was scrapped. printed 10,000 Strangled magazines in Two sold-out concerts at the Rainbow French.” that Easter now hung in the balance. With the recording of The Meninblack “We drove from the court back to complete and a US tour booked, Ian was New Hibernia House with Andy becoming increasingly invidious in his Dunkley and Sheds in the car, both trying kicked him over onstage.” role. That September, Ian quit. to buoy me up, giving me moral support. With support acts including Joy “We never got to that big stage where Then I thought ‘okay – let’s go for it’ and Division, UB40 and Hazel O’Connor, we were all filthy rich and never had to I started phoning around to find anyone nobody left feeling short-changed. worry anymore. They resented me for who was feeling charitable to do the gig in “I’ve been able to pull off some feats in quitting, and maybe I resented them for a place of Hugh – the highest rock star first. my time, you know, up against the wall short time after – in that they denied me So I started with Mick Jagger and Paul type situations, but doing these nights was that success because they fucked McCartney and worked downwards. I a fantastic feeling. Both nights were While The Stranglers and friends took everything up. They went to America, and thought these guys have been busted, sponsored by Levi’s. We were given advantage of the white powdered rider, they alienated all the Americans. They they’ve been inside. Of course, we didn’t £25,000 – a significant amount of money Hugh was sitting in his cell a five minute were rude to audiences, rude to press end up with those giants at all, but we did in those days. I was on one fifth, for what bus ride away. people, radio people, everyone. get a most interesting bunch of people.” it was worth for the most part since “Obviously I felt for Hugh. I went a “As much as The Stranglers could be Ian had just 13 days to get a roster of joining the band as a partner. But the couple of times to see him in Pentonville, pains in the arses, my memories are only unpaid artists to stand in for Hugh. controversial thing with those gigs was and he wasn’t very happy because we of fun, from the first time I saw them play “I think we got Phil Daniels because of that everyone was paid in cocaine – went ahead with the concerts. How would at the Nashville with Dai and Derek to Jan Stevens, who worked with me, was £1,000 worth! I went and got it from a you be, sitting in a cell and suddenly you 1980. JJ will always be in my top three going out with him – they’re married now, friend of a friend in Worthing. Everyone heard it given out on the radio? That’s favourite bass players – Jack Bruce and got a kid. Richard Jobson was easy because was doing cocaine then – the band were how he first found out. So eat your heart John Entwistle being the top two. of our connections with The Skids. Hazel big on it in those days. At the time it was out Pete Doherty!” “I had very good days with very fond was obvious, Toyah was obvious – I’ve got part of the culture, part of my culture of With finances loitering on the brink of memories of the period. “

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Burnel karate kicking at your head as you’re at the mixing desk? Laid we got one, we were seriously behind Steve Churchyard recorded back producer Steve Churchyard takes all that in his stride as Clark schedule.” and mixed four Stranglers Desperate to make up for lost time, Crass discovers… albums – including The Steve was once again in for a shock when he came face to face with Jet’s Meninblack. unconventional method of recording the drums: Pentonville, Second Coming and Thrown “Jet laid down the drums playing just Essex Boy Away were laid down during the last week the kick drum alone onto the first track of of May at Georgio Morodo’s Musicland the tape. Then, he went through and IKE JET, STEVE Churchyard hails when suddenly the door bursts opens and Studios in Munich. For such a famous added a snare, which he played again, on from Essex. When he left school he the band all file into the control room. studio, Steve was surprised at its unusual its own on the next track. And that’s how Ljoined Air Studios under legendary They’ve all got sunglasses on – and set-up: I recorded him! The same for the hi-hats, producer George Martin where he cut his dressed in choirboy outfits – white “It was situated in the basement of a crashes, toms…all separate tracks, and teeth on tracks by UFO, Cockney Rejects cassocks, the lot! They’d just finished the hotel. I was expecting some fancy place, recorded solo. It was really weird!” and The Pretenders. video for Duchess. So I’m sitting there after all, this was where all those disco Perhaps without the pressure of time, Now a resident of San Diego, mixing, when the next thing I know, Jean hits by Morodo came from… Donna Steve could have appreciated Jet’s California, Steve has enjoyed sessions over Jacques is throwing great karate kicks all Summer, Sparks… Queen and Led methodology more: the years with Joni Mitchell, George around me, missing my head by a whisker. Zeppelin also.” “Oh yeah – I mean, looking back I can Michael, Billy Joel, The Eagles and more What did I do? I made sure I didn’t move The studio, according to Hugh in see what they were doing. This way, it recently, The Darkness; he is also a thrice- – I kept my head down! Otherwise I ‘Song By Song’ possessed a wealthy cache gives you complete control over each part nominated Grammy engineer, producer would have lost my head!” of porn-flicks, but Steve was more of the drum kit. Particularly when we and mixer. But back in his Strangling When The Raven sessions overran, interested in the drum room: “It was mixed it, because we used a lot of MXR days, he twiddled knobs on no less than Steve stepped in to take over from Alan completely lined with mirrors. I often Flanger, but we could put it on just the four Stranglers’ albums. Winstanley who had moved on to his next think about that. I’d never seen that cymbals, or the snare drum, or the tom- “I first met the guys in 1979 at Air. I project, at Hugh’s suggestion, having before.” toms and not affect anything else. was halfway through mixing Duchess already succeeded Martin Rushent on Unfortunately, luck wasn’t on their Whereas if he’d played it live all in one Hugh’s Nosferatu. An side when a telephone engineer walked go, then we wouldn’t have had such Air session at the tail into thew studio one day: control. So it was something that Jet end of January 1980, “We were all sitting around the studio developed recording The Raven, as far as saw Steve and The discussing which tracks we were going to I know. It was a mixers dream.” Stranglers record record. Suddenly this guy came in from Steve was even more complimentary Bear Cage and the Munich Telephone Company and towards Jet: Meninblack (Waiting picked up a telephone. He started to pull “Recording like that, Jet’s timing had For ‘Em). a cable which went round the back of the to have spot on accuracy. So full marks to “That’s when Ian rack and the mixing desk, and then all of him for that! And also his curries… did Grant, asked me if I’d a sudden, the whole console went down. you know Jet has an amazing culinary be interested working He managed to blow the power supply. side? He can make something really tasty on their next album. I Needless to say, he got well and truly out of virtually next to nothing… we had said: ‘Sure, I’d love thrown out, but that wasn’t all. Back then, some great curries, courtesy of Jet.” to.’ So Ian said: there were only two of these Harrison As Who Wants The World? is released ‘Great – you’re on a desks in the whole of Europe, and getting in the UK, The Stranglers reconvened in plane to Munich!” hold of a new power supply became a real Paris with Steve. At Pathe-Marconi Once Hugh was problem. Tracking down a replacement Studios at Boulogne-Billancourt, released from took days of studio time and by the time southwest of the capital, they laid down Steve Churchyard, third from right, with Herbie Hancock among others...

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Waltzinblack, Four Horsemen and Hallow from airport to airport, when the news Last Tango In Paris To Our Men.” broke. I didn’t know what to do, where to “It was my first time there, but the go. I’m phoning London but there was no Laurence Diana tells Gary Kent how his weekend with the family was disrupted by the Meninblack second time for the band. They recorded answer, but Ian was probably on his way The Raven with Alan Winstanley the to Nice. But then I got a message to “A FRIDAY NIGHT. In May, I think of recording the kit all together, he previous June – and the Rolling Stones continue to Rome, and wait for them it was a Bank Holiday weekend. recorded each part individually, one were next door. A year on, and they were there. When Dave was freed, he joined me Anyway, I’d just met my girlfriend. drum at a time. He started with the still there on the same album!” in Rome ahead of the rest.” We set off for Devon to visit her kick drum on it’s own, and it was laid Now with the assistance of engineer Out on bail, with the prospect of a 10 parents for the first time. But, no down onto tape. Then the next… Laurence Diana, the modus operandi year jail sentence still on the horizon sooner had we arrived, I was given a That’s how each part was recorded. changed: pending the hearing, the band hightailed it message to contact the studio.” So, track one would have the kick “Me and Laurence worked with two out of Nice to hook up with Steve and Laurence was an engineer at drum – track two, the snare – track Stranglers each – I was with Hugh and Dave in July. Advision in London’s West End. When he three, the hi-hats and so on. He basically Jet, while Jean Jacques and Dave worked “Rome was great, I’ll never forget it. called his base, he received a surprise: “They stripped apart the drums. And drum fills with Laurence. It turned out to be a very One night, we all got drunk, and we said: how would you like to go to Paris would also be recorded on another separate good system. I remember one night, they jumped into this little Fiat and went out to tomorrow with The Stranglers?” track. It was extremely time consuming and, were all there together. It was very late… a restaurant. On the way back, with Jean Accepting would mean leaving in fact, soul destroying! I’d never come across there was a lot of booze around. I had to Jacques driving, we got a bit lost, and immediately, which is what happened. that way of recording, but they were paying take a pee. When I came back along the ended up going along a one way street – Twenty-five year old Laurence and his my wages, so I said nothing! But that’s how corridor, I could hear them playing this the wrong way. Then the inevitable girlfriend turned on their heels and headed they wanted to do it.” lounge-bar sort of track – I’d never heard happened – a set of flashing blue lights for Heathrow where they flew to Charles de Following these arduous stints in the it before. As I listened, it came to me – appeared and suddenly there are these Gaulle. Laurence was no stranger to The studio, Laurence would take a taxi in the wee this was a slowed-down, jazzy version of two armed police quizzing us in Italian. Stranglers having previously assisted small hours into Paris in search of food. Bring On The Nubiles. It was hilarious, We tried to explain we were lost and on producer Martin Rushent mixing Black And “It was usually at an odd time when you but I didn’t let them know I was back in our way to our hotel. But instead of White, Live (X-Certs) and Euroman Cometh. can’t find anywhere open, and I was starving. the control room. I quietly sneaked in nicking us, you know what happened? In March 1980, he recorded Who Wants The The sessions were hard work, but great fun and recorded it without them knowing – The police both laughed, and ended up World? at The Church in Crouch End, north too. But The Stranglers were really friendly – just on two-track. As the song goes on, I giving us a police escort back to the hotel! London. In Paris, Laurence was surprised at nice people to work with. But I think manage to reach up and stick on a bit of It was incredible. We thought we were the altered working pattern: recording the way they did caused the songs reverb. I left it till they’d finished and going to get nicked! Top Secret might have “The band wanted to work round the to lose some of their vibrancy, and I must made out I’d just walked back in – and come from Rome session. Man In White, clock with me and Steve Churchyard on a confess – when the session were over, I was then I played it back to them – they too. I remember Hugh taking me to St. rota system… so I ended up doing the quite relieved!” loved it.” Peter’s Square to record the Papal address graveyard shift. Steve had Hugh and Jet, and Away from all the big studios, East Cocktail Nubiles formed the flip side with a portable tape recorder one day – I had JJ and – oh gosh… I can’t remember the London-based Laurence concentrates his time to the first Stranglers Information Service you can hear that on the record.” keyboard player’s name… What was it? on his current venture transferring analogue release that year – Tomorrow Was The Was it the booze or the pasta fuelling Dave, that’s it…” recordings to digital format. I wondered if he Hereafter. the creative spark – or was it really Waltzinblack, and Four Horsemen (the ever made that trip to Devon, and if there The Stranglers slotted in some speed-balls and heroin Hugh and JJ one sung by, er… Dave!) were recorded at was a happy ending. European concerts, and just as Steve was indulged in? Pathe-Marconi old EMI studios. “Oh yes!” He laughed. “Many times – in about to leave for Rome, disaster struck: “I really can’t tell you. Y’see, I look at “The thing that struck me was how the fact, we’re married with two children!” “I heard on the news they were being it like this: when you’re in the studio, it’s drums were laid down on Four Horsemen. It held in prison in Nice for inciting the a bit like being in a submarine. With that was weird. Jet used a cassette with the drums Laurence Diana recorded and crowd to riot. I literally was on my way to sort of thing – what happens there, stays recorded to a click track, and then matched engineered Waltzinblack and Four Rome to record them straight after. So there.” Horsemen. the exact sound with his drums. Then, instead there I was, lugging these 2” reels around Forever the honourable Essex Boy.

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Aldo Bocca recorded and say – Mickey Mouse even! I think it was a engineered Just Like Nothing 24 track, although half the stuff didn’t work! It had pokey little rooms and a crap The Italian Job On Earth and Turn, The mixer – but the control room was good. Engineer Aldo Bocca leads a quieter life these days, away from music Centuries Turn. We were there for something like four and all the madness of his former life in the biz… Joe Ordinair reports days working on two songs, possibly even In his Eden days, Aldo worked with a third.” only just got my copy of The studio in the world! It closed down eight New Wave luminaries such as Elvis There was a pub across the road that Meninblack, I found it in a months later.” Costello and Joe Jackson, as well as Dr. once was a notorious haunt of local Teddy “I record shop, picked it up, and A tape-op post at Novasound, near Feelgood, the Damned and the Boys with its weekend rock ‘n’ roll disco there on the front cover, was my name.” Oxford Street guided him to becoming an Undertones. One session in March 1980, nights. Aldo recalls a typical Stranglers Today Aldo Bocca is proud of his part engineer before joining Eden Studios in saw Hugh produce LA outfit, Ouida & the session: on this Stranglers album: Chiswick where he became Chief Numbers. The very next day, Hugh lost his “After the studio we’d end up having a “It’s terrific – it sounds great. I don’t Engineer. possession of drugs appeal. lock-in until three or four in the morning know why I never got it back then. Maybe “That’s where I met Jean Jacques – he “Hugh never once mentioned going to over the road. Then we’d go back and sometimes you just forget – by which time was a lovely bloke.” prison, so I don’t think he was expecting carry on from where we left off. I you’ve moved on to the next project.” JJ booked a heavily stylised Japanese to get sent down. I remember it was a remember the landlord very well – I think His sound engineer career now behind band called Lizard into Eden in August really long session, right through the he was gay. I was convinced he thought he him, Aldo recalls those days with 1979 to lay down their debut album: night, and we finished around eight in the was in with half a chance with any one of affection. In his teens, his Italian father “We went to see them at the Music morning. So maybe he was trying to get it us! Maybe that’s why he let us play pool edged him towards a career in catering, Machine in Camden. At first, me and JJ finished – just in case he went down? It all night for free?” but while at college, music took over. A didn’t get on. He came across as was certainly a huge shock to everybody In contrast, the session in Berkshire chance meeting between his father and a belligerent. Perhaps it was the drink? But when he did.” was a more sedate affair. “Startling Studio studio owner lead to Aldo’s first job after a while he was alright – we got on Following on, JJ called Aldo one night was weird – there were life-size statues of working in a London recording studio. really well. We were out nearly every night at home. dinosaurs in the garden! I’ve never seen “I became the tea-boy in the worst after that.” “He said: ‘would you like to work on anything like it, but it was a beautiful some new Stranglers songs?’ And I place. Ringo Starr owned it – you used to jumped at it.” see Zak playing around in the garden. “There was a lovely heated pool too – ust Like Nothing On Earth and Turn I was in it almost every night. The house The Centuries, Turn were recorded had a fantastic musical feel, as well as J over two sessions at two separate being really comfy. The natural acoustics studios. Worthing’s Pebble Beach Sound were great, and there were mic points Studios near Brighton was the venue for fitted in the walls of each room I believe Just Like Nothing On Earth. Interestingly, from when John Lennon had it.” this was the very studio The Stranglers Aldo reflected on the excitement of recorded their Glitter Band handclapping being in the same place Lennon recorded demos of Go Buddy Go and Bitching four Imagine: years earlier. Meanwhile this backwash “Just standing in the same room was studio was the venue for Penetration’s incredible, even though the famous white Don’t Dictate, The Adverts’ Larry Wallis- piano in the film had gone. We used a produced Gary Gilmore’s Eyes, as well as small cinema in to record Turn, The an album by Chris Spedding. Aldo recalls Centuries, Turn.” a spartan set-up: With Aldo’s last Meninblack session in “It was a bit Heath Robinson, shall we the can, there was always time for a party:

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To The Manor Born Joe Ordinair investigates Startling Studios

1969: John Lennon and Yoko Ono move into Tittenhurst Park, a Georgian mansion and 72-acre estate in Sunningdale, Berkshire. It’s 18th Century name was Crack’s Hole. Renovations uncover an unexploded incendiary shell from WW2. Lennon installs an eight track studio for private use and christens it Ascot Sounds. Many interior walls are demolished and the entire ground floor interior is painted white. Cannon microphone sockets are installed in each room so that recording can take place all over the house. An upright piano with a brass plate reads: John Lennon wrote Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds on this piano in 1967. Two days after the Beatles final recording session (Abbey Road) the house provides the setting for the final photo session. For his 30th birthday, Lennon invites his father – but an argument between the two ensues; Lennon tells him to stay out of his life; Tittenhurst is the last place he sees his father alive. In the hour-long ‘Imagine: The Film’ (EMI, 1972) the “Usually at Hugh’s place, and you would drink and drugs – too much Charlie in whole house and grounds are featured extensively. At the start, John and Yoko walk through the door (literally) always spot a well-known face there… if particular… It started with Jean where letters in the fanlight display: ‘You are not here’ leading onto the famous scene sitting at the white you’re involved with these people all the Jacques!” piano. Cheeky former Wham star George Michael is rumoured to be the current owner of the said Joanna. time, you don’t take too much notice. But In his 50th year, Aldo is a successful When the Lennons leave for the States in 1971, Ringo Starr buys Tittenhurst, upgrades the studio to 24-track that’s what it was like then… If it was double glazing sales manager, after and opens it for public hire. Startling Sounds attracts many of the UK’s heavyweight rock bands of the 1970s now, I’d be going – hey! See who that is?” chasing several ventures, such as and early 80s; from Whitesnake to Def Leppard. In 1980, Judas Priest make use of the numerous mike Pretty girls were always a feature at managing a music shop and running one of these soirées: “Once the whole of Croydon’s coolest wine bar: sockets during the recording of British Steel, by miking up a large door being slammed (for a thunder sound) Pan’s People were there – or was it Legs “L’Apperitif was the only place in the and a guitar flight case being whipped on the kitchen table for the song, Metal Gods. The smashing glass and Co?” whole of South London where you would sound in Breaking The Law comes courtesy of Ringo’s empty milk bottles being dropped in the porch way. A few Moving on to freelancing, work took get Led Zeppelin blasting out one minute, months later, The Stranglers arrive to record tracks for The Gospel According To The Meninblack album. Aldo to Japan and the States. But by then, and The Carpenters the next. It was great. In 1988, Ringo sells Tittenhurst to former United Arab Emirates president Sheik Zayed Al-Nahyan – purely to all the excess of the 1980s started to With me out of rehab and teetotal, it was go to the races at Ascot for two weeks of the year! £55m is spent gutting and rebuilding it, adding a three- snowball. It was during one studio session funny watching everyone else getting silly metre high perimeter security wall. Many Beatles personal effects and studio ledgers are destroyed in a Aldo finally came to a big decision: this time.” “I was over in LA when I decided When a supermarket in Eastbourne bonfire. Andrew Nicholson, whose parents worked on the interior refurbishment in the early 90s had this to enough was enough. I booked into rehab was up for sale, Aldo went in with his say: “Anything left in the studio was taken outside and burned – if only I’d got there twenty minutes sooner. as soon as I came home. I went into father: Handwritten sheet music and film scripts..... And some instruments too. They would have been worth millions Warlingham – and I packed in music for “What a mistake. We sold it the day now. My parents salvaged the front door and auctioned it at Christies in the late 90s. I believe it ended up good. You see, I got to work with some we opened up. We just looked at each being sawed into pieces to mount some collector’s gold discs of the Imagine album. I took a piano, but only greats; Dave Edmonds… Nick Lowe… I other, and said: ‘this isn’t us, is it?” the keyboard section was salvageable.” played some guitar on his album too, and “I haven’t seen Jean Jacques for years. Oh… and there are reports that the 50-foot high model of a Tyrannosaurus Rex that once stood so so came all the partying. So I succumbed When you see him, tell him I wouldn’t to the famous rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle – mind bumping into him for a beer.” majestically on the lawn suffered extinction by bonfire, rather than the Ice Age.

Page 27 Issue two JJ Burnel: And the gods made love Dom Pilgrim met JJ Burnel in a West London boozer on May Day 2006 to talk about 1980, 1981, the Meninblack and alien colonisation…

The first major event of 1980 is Hugh and he wasn’t let in. We were meant to be going to Pentonville. What did you feel playing in Toronto so we hired an when he went down? Everyone seemed immigration lawyer that day and to think he would get off. eventually he got to the gig – a few hours late – by aeroplane. We had driven there, Well he was definitely made an example cos we were on tour. So, we managed the of. It was nothing personal. It was just gig in Toronto. But even before all that it that there was a bit of residual was a nightmare. We were meant to play Establishment angst about the Stranglers. in India. Other bands had split up by then, and we were still going. And it’s most unusual for And The Police made a mint out of doing someone to be put in prison for just a that. small amount of drugs, even then. Yeah, they beat us to it in the end. The So it was a shock. situation affected us in quite a few ways in the long term. I never resented Hugh It was a surprise, yeah. Our lawyers had for it. I just thought it was a bit silly of told us not to expect a custodial sentence. him to have it all in his front pocket really, Normal people would have been given a and not hidden. fine, and it would stay on the books, but not custodial. So Hugh spent some He says now he hadn’t taken heroin custodial time and we had to cancel a lot before that… of stuff. Of course it made things really difficult, and basically helped fuck up our Yes he had. North American career, which was just starting to blossom. Cos once you’ve got a …and it was only afterwards that he drug record that’s it. And in subsequent started to take it. years we had trouble getting into Canada and the States. No. Well that’s conflicting with what he’s written in his own books isn’t it. In fact But you toured the States later that year. the best way to see the truth is to see the output material: Don’t Bring Harry. I We did yeah. Funnily enough in those think it’s safe to say that Hugh days the computers weren’t all linked up. introduced me to drugs rather than the But the Canadian computers were linked other way round. Because he socialised up to the UK. So we tried sneaking into much more than I did. I think it was Canada from the US. But the red lights members of The Tubes who introduced flashed on the Canadian border when him to heroin. So he knew about heroin Hugh’s name came up on passport control way before then. JJ, W10, 1 May 2006

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So the Rainbow gigs you did with a guest rehearsals at New Hibernia House. And remember trying to debag Billy Idol, cos since. I would have, and I still have, three line up while he was in prison. How did we had easily enough support to cover all he was trying to be tough and we knew he tracks of bass. One track with DI’d sound, they come about? Why didn’t they get the songs in the set. People would come wasn’t. There was Phil Daniels and our that is direct sound, just the sound of the cancelled? along and do two or three songs, or just friends from Steel Pulse. There’s a really guitar. One track with the sound of the come on for one song as a musician or a good recording of it, Stranglers And big speakers, 15-inch speakers, and one Well, immediately we thought they’d be singer and we thought, “yeah, we’ll carry Friends, which really captures it. track of the smaller speakers, the 10-inch cancelled, but we got this groundswell of on with this and it will be a big fingers speakers. With the combination of those support all of a sudden. And we weren’t up. Why not?” But the funniest thing I remember is Kate three elements I can mix my sound. But expecting to get any support from anyone. Bush coming back stage, and she was on that album I decided to double track. I And we were quite touched by it. And we pulled it off. It was an event. sweet and naïve and saying: “Can you give played my bass over what I’d already There was tons of drugs backstage, tons me Hugh’s phone number?” [laughs] And recorded. So it wouldn’t be perfectly in Support from the media or musicians? and tons of coke. And I think we were we were just incredulous: “Well, I dunno sync and it would give a real depth to the just grateful for the support. Ian Dury was if he’s got a phone in there Kate!” sound and a weird sound. Fellow musicians. And Ian Grant just lovely. People we’d had clashes with [manager], who was always a bit a rabble before just came along and were really Moving on to the Meninblack album. The I also remember, and this is amazing rouser and a rebel, milked it – in the nice. whole thing was done in bits. You’d really, that we could not afford the hotel nicest possible way. Basically up till now already started some of it by this time. in Paris for the month we were there. The Stranglers had been considered a kind What do you remember most strongly of pariah, no one would touch us, about it? Yeah, bits and bobs. Waltzinblack was When you were at the Pathe Marconi certainly not in our peer group, or the started in Advision studios in the West studios. media, and we were quite impressed with I remember meeting Toyah. I remember End somewhere. It was actually while we that. her husband played, Robert Fripp. I were doing the Raven album and doing Yes. And EMI weren’t gonna bail us out. wonder if that’s how they met. She’s never the Meninblack track. It was then that So, he organised it and we started having claimed that, but I’m sure it is. I Martin Rushent didn’t understand it, he But surely after the success of The Raven said: “What are you guys doing?” He you were on a commercial high. wanted only commercial stuff, and there was an empire being built up – his empire We were yes. and Albion’s empire. And we didn’t know what was commercial and what wasn’t So where did the money go? and Meninblack obviously wasn’t a pop song – it was Two Sunspots slowed down. Well most of it went to our management. And it was then we parted company with Not much came our way. We’d bought our him in the middle of the recording cos he houses by then and that was it. It was didn’t get it. And we said that we had a only years later that we discovered people vision and we had to carry on. So coming were taking a cut much more than us. back to the recording of the Meninblack album, er, what was the question? Tell us about the sound of a song like Thrown Away. On the album it’s much There wasn’t one actually. Tell us what tamer and more robotic than the heavier you remember about recording the version you were playing live. album. Was it? I can’t remember. It was meant to All the Meninblack tracks have got six be a pop song, meant to be a disco track. tracks of bass. How I recorded it was We recorded it in the home of disco at really weird, I dunno if anyone’s done it Musicland, in Munich. And that was were Hammersmith Odeon, 15 February 1981

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haven’t found the Missing Link, and, b) I The whole of Greek mythology is just cannot believe that humanity just about one big experiment on mankind, appeared like that. I believe that we’ve and playing with people, and affecting had some kind of, I wouldn’t say divine their destiny and giving them tests and intervention, but intervention. Though if tasks. There are loads of mutations in you were a primitive person you’d Greek mythology, let alone in Egyptian consider it divine. I just think there’s been mythology and anywhere else. a bit of playing around. So the band were fascinated by all this It doesn’t make sense does it? How stuff at the time. can you go from an ape to this, just like that. Yeah, we were discussing it, reading around it writing about it and we met this I think there are accounts throughout the guy in America. Funnily enough world of intervention from some kind of Meninblack was the album the Americans being that, to all intents and purposes, said was a work of genius. Yeah, it would have been considered divine, or charted! But we met this well known godlike. And mathematically I’ve never writer on the meninblack at the time that been able to accept that we were the only Jet was in touch with, John Keel. And we life form in the universe as we know it, let met him with the editor of High Times. alone other forms of life, not as we know They were both interested in the it. I just think it’s a mathematical Stranglers and they came back to Jet’s impossibility, so that leads me to an open room one night. A mutual appreciation verdict at the very least. society.

We’re getting towards to that new It is well documented that a lot of dark Lyceum Ballroom, 27 July 1980 Lyceum buzzword, Intelligent Design here. things were happening at the time. Your Georgio Morodo and Donna Summer did pork, because there’s no way of storing it. Looking at the latest theories on the Strange Chain of Coincidences article in most of their disco songs and we wanted And milk couldn’t be stored, before you subject they seem to point to genetic Strangled is a good record. How do you the same beat that Donna Summer had had refrigeration. So, wherever you engineering of monkey DNA mixed with look back on that now? done, 111 beats per minute or something. landed you’d give practical information, a alien DNA. 10 Commandments if you want. Laws by How I look back on it is this: We were It’s one of my favourite songs. The lyrics, which they could thrive. The story is I’m Yes. Until they got it right. Until they got doing two things that were mutually mood, singing. It’s intrinsic to the MIB an astronaut, landing on planet earth, I something they thought would have legs, exclusive, which cancelled each other mythology on the album. leave religion and I fly off again. so to speak. But throughout oral history, out. One was trying to have an open and written history, around the world mind about religion, for instance, which Yeah, the story is basically about other This mythology then, as a band did you there is talk of mutations. Demi-gods that has always been a bugbear for Jet beings landing on the planet earth and believe in it? weren’t quite right, whether they were anyway, and trying to explain religion instigating religions so they can fuck centaurs or minotaurs; the experiments and the Old Testament, and to a lesser themselves up, and which is also a means Yes we did. that went wrong. The gods throughout, extent the New Testament – the Bible by which people can organise themselves. not just in Greek mythology, are very basically – and also explain cultures And if they landed in the desert they Do you still believe in it? human. They fart about, they fuck about, worldwide and “why do we need to have would definitely give a bit of advice on they have infatuations with mortals, and religion?” That demonstrates quite a food, for instance: don’t eat pork. Now Yes absolutely. No one’s proved to me the product of these liaisons are largesse d’espirit, a willingness to learn, the Semitic and Arab people don’t eat conclusively otherwise. Well: a) we sometimes quite scary. not to be blinkered. On the other hand

Page 30 Issue two you take heroin and your world becomes Very soon after 1980, 1981. The song People didn’t understand. The press didn’t are till now... It actually helped. I don’t smaller and smaller. You lose interest in Golden Brown was meant to be on the even like The Raven, all these squiggly know how many other groups could have physical things, you lose interest in Meninblack album. There are different synthesiser noises, and then 20 years later experimented or been independent people. Your frames of reference get versions of this story. Now I am sure we everyone can do squiggly synthesiser noises. musically for so long, because we didn’t narrower and narrower and that’s what were rehearsing at my house in take anyone’s silver. we found taking heroin. On the one Somersham in Cambridgeshire, and the It reminds me of Radiohead a few years hand we were trying to expand our back room was full of gear. And Hugh ago, with Kid A and I forget the name of You were doing a lot of touring in 1980 minds. On the other, our world was and I one day got a bit bored, and we said the other one … [Amnesiac] there was a and 1981 and there was the Nice incident getting more and more restricted. It to Jet and Dave, “Write a song, we’re off similar reaction to their progression after of course. Which is so well documented. can’t work out. down the pub.” the hugeness of OK Computer. But what about the bail for Nice. Is there a story attached to that, about a dispute Heroin to me is like the ring in Lord of We came back a couple of hours later and I haven’t heard those albums. over £10,000 to get you out? the Rings. It gives you something. And they had about seven pieces of really every time you use it, and derive complicated arrangements between Jet It’s the difference in style, the way they Yes, well the boss of EMI Cliff Busby had something from it, ie, sensual pleasure, it and Dave. I think Dave had been working progressed, which was similar to the been the boss of United Artists, so had takes a bit more of your soul away. So on things anyway. And eventually we shift you made from The Raven to been our only friend at EMI. And I think every time you use the ring it corrupts you stripped parts of the arrangement out, Meninblack. they weren’t very willing to bail us out. a little bit more. It’s awful. And the more kept three pieces of this arrangement, They wanted us to suffer in the nick for a you go down that dark alley – the more Hugh did the lyrics and it was Golden Absolutely. And we did it 25 years ago. while. I think it came through in the end, negative you become – the more bad luck Brown. And it was about heroin. And it The problem with the Meninblack is if it but I was the one who came off worst, you attract. It’s something we went was written during the Meninblack was another band doing it we might have through, and I’m glad we came out the period. But it was too unwieldy as it was, been hailed as geniuses, but because it other end, all of us. It’s something that and it surfaced later on the next album. was the Stranglers it was not possible to scars you for ever. It’s not cool, or Which we recorded that summer. even give us begrudging praise. anything to be proud of. It’s just something that we did. I listened to the Meninblack album What about the European press? recently on my hi fi and holds up really As an artist you owe it yourself to try well, sounds really good. They were less biased. There wasn’t the everything that can affect your head. In baggage that we had with the British our case, at the end of it, we created the I think the production has not dated at all. press. No one wanted to do us any favours Meninblack album. Which has got lots I think it was ahead of its time then, because we were on the wrong side of the of different layers on it. In the end we sonically. I think there aren’t so many fence. The Clash were the new gods, the didn’t care. We were going broke but songs on it as usual, as The Stranglers are Pistols had finished, and the Clash took all we were having such an exquisite time quite a well known song-writing band. We the plaudits. in the studio, spending two days to get a like to write songs, with a beginning a snare sound with a cassette recorder middle and an end, with sometimes Well they’d released London Calling at microphone. You know those flat catchiness and a bit of intelligence. But I the beginning of 1980. recorders with little condenser mikes? think the songs were lacking. There were We discovered that if we used two of pieces of music but not quite songs. The Yeah, which is a good album. But those we could record with those. So on only songs on it are Two Sunspots and everyone was on their side, and no one top of the ordinary microphones, we’d Thrown Away. The rest are musical was going to accept that we were smarter use those mikes as well and get a good landscapes. But that’s cool. or brighter, or making more interesting sound. stuff than the Clash, or anyone else for Well it was a bold progression wasn’t it? that matter. So we were destined to be the When, for you, did the heroin stop? A lot of bands wouldn’t take that risk. bridesmaids one more time. And we still

Page 31 Issue two and got a prison record. And I already When you came out what do you had a prison record in France, for remember about your first gig, which desertion, which I don’t think was quite was Castel S. Angelo in Rome, which resolved at the time. I still have a record was five days later. in France, I got a year and a day [for the Nice incident] suspended. The others got That was incredible, absolutely under a year, which means they don’t incredible. I’ve never seen so many have a record in France under French people in my life. And of course they law. started rioting cos they wanted an encore, and we hadn’t planned on doing an So who caused most of the trouble at the encore so we had to get out quick, or gig? I heard a rumour that as a parting there was going to be another Nice. shot Jet said “Smash the place up”. Another riot.

No, Jet didn’t say that. I was speaking in We had meant to have played Athens as French, trying to translate what Jet and well. The road crew went to Greece, Hugh were saying, and obviously adding waited around for us for a few days and a few things of my own. And all I said then took the ferry back to Italy. We did a was “Look, please respect our bit of recording in Rome as well, at the equipment”! And this is in a glass RCA studios. amphitheatre, so … well some people say it gave them licence to smash up The live sets you did then featured Raven everything but our gear. and MiB material, and not much from the first three, what was the method in Did they respect your wishes? choosing the set list?

Yeah. Our gear was intact. It was I can’t remember the set. I’m sure there everything else which was smashed up. are records of the set we were playing at the time. Is there a recording of that anywhere? You opened with Shah, Ice, Toiler then I dunno. Duchess…[I could go on]

It’s one of the holy grails of bootleg Yeah, well there’s always been a method. collectors. Some songs lend themselves to starting a set. The best song now is Norfolk Coast. It would be wouldn’t it. Mind you, the Fantastic to start a set. We sometimes number of people I’ve met who claimed to used to start with Sometimes, and have been there. It’s like, I didn’t realise started with Down in The Sewer a few there were so many people at that gig! times.

So there were about 50,000 people there? In those days you did Sewer in the middle of these set. Yeah, something like that. But it was only about 500 people. Did we? That’s weird. Fuck. Angelo, soundcheck, 2 July 1980: five days after being released from jail in Nice Castel S.

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weird stuff. There were a couple of Meninblack was on the Liberty label Finchley Boys who were actually wasn’t it. Basques. One of them is the guy naked on stage at Battersea. And a lot of Yes, which was part of EMI. And it was people think that he is me, saying “I’ve not a success. They were used to us seen a picture of you naked on stage at selling hundreds of thousands of albums. Battersea,” and I’m twice the size of the bloke and it’s obviously not me. Louie I But it charted at number eight. So all think his name is. But nevertheless we the hardcore fans must have rushed out bumped into them in Basque territory, and bought it. and we never knew what they were doing there, and they never quite Yes, but it was of no interest to anyone explained themselves. else. It was a huge failure, and with people cancelling us, what with the Your celebrity was growing all the time Hugh thing and drugs and Nice most during this period though, although you pundits thought that was the end of the say no one liked you, you were properly road for us, finished. Dead in the water. famous by this point. So we made one last effort, with no help Castel S. Angelo, soundcheck, 2 July 1980: Castel S. from anyone. Funding it was a real Is it because you were in a contrary mood A classic album closer, with the UFO We were famous, yeah. problem. In fact our accountant helped at the time? leaving at the end. us out, and saved our bacon, and we How did that affect the dynamic of the band. managed to do the La Folie album. I can’t remember. I can’t see it as a middle Four of them. When we came back [from the last US kind of song. We’ve done it as an ender as Nothing really changed in the dynamic of tour] we had nothing. We were skint. well. But, oh well. Four? the band. Hugh and I would go off and We’d spent all the money on the write songs together. He’d have an idea Meninblack album. We obviously had to So what are your favourite tracks from Yeah, if you listen to the album, at the and I’d look at it and vice versa. And that do another album as quickly as we could the album? beginning there are four landing; each dynamic only changed four or five years write one and record it, otherwise we representing a member of the band later with Aural Sculpture. We didn’t were just written off. And if we’d sat on Well, I like Two Sunspots. That was meant [impersonates four UFOs landing] and spend so much time together by that time. it for a normal two-year period we to be a single. then at the end there are four And the advent of portastudios meant you probably wouldn’t be here talking about [impersonates four UFOs taking off]. could develop ideas on your own, which it now. So we immediately went back in What happened? was not a good thing, well not for The the studio in August, I think. What about the Finchley Boys, it seems Stranglers anyway. Well, it was either that or Thrown Away. to be about this time they stopped Was it a conscious decision to make the And Thrown Away was considered more following you around everywhere. Meninblack came out in February 1981 songs more accessible? Or did they disco-ey. and La Folie later the same year, even come naturally like that? Yes. But we were going further afield and though all of Meninblack was finished in It got to number 42. it just was not possible. But having said 1980. Kind of. Well, no, they were still weird that we played in northern Spain in San pop songs. La Folie is kind of weird. It’s Well there was no way anything from that Sebastian, in a big sports hall, and Well there was a lot of pressure to leftfield pop. But that’s as commercial as album was going to be a hit. I used to suddenly there they were: a few of the release La Folie, or something that was it got for us at the time. And Golden love Hallow To Our Men. I just liked the Finchley Boys. But they were doing less of a turkey. Basically that coincided Brown saved everyone’s bacon. And of sonic-ness to it, the build up. The weird naughty things by then. I think they were with United Artists being taken over by course EMI had written us of, and they times to it. involved in gun running or something … EMI and no one at EMI liked us. couldn’t believe it. We had to force them

Page 33 Issue two to release the single. So they released it was a heroic thing to do. at Christmas, which as most people know is death. You’re up against mega Nowadays though, your music is subtly whatever, but it just developed legs. pervading the collective conscience, you’re frequently on Eastenders or on So we did another La Folie tour. We had BBC ads and such like. done a La Folie tour before releasing Golden Brown, and we weren’t really selling them Really? out as quickly as we used to, our star was beginning to wane. You must remember Oh yeah. that our audience at the time were mostly teenagers, so some of them hadn’t decided Great. I just think now there’s a to go on our intellectual journey. begrudging respect. We’re a British institution, whether people like or not. I remember at school when MiB came And there’s a belated recognition of out at age 14, I was in to Madness and what we’ve achieved musically. The rest Specials at the time, but the hard-core is bollocks. Your stunts, getting arrested. Stranglers fans were mortified by the I mean, when what’s-his-name, Pete direction the band had taken. Most of Doherty, grows up, if he gets a chance to them stopped being fans. grow up, rather than kill himself, what will be left? It’s not his arrests every They were like: “This is shit, what this week for this and that it’s the music. all about!” Yeah, I understand that. And if he hasn’t written a good body of music he’s just gonna become a joke, a A lot of people got into the band later laughing stock. And if he has got a good in life, and this is one of the albums body of music then he can carry it off, that got me hooked for sure. rather than just be another sad causality.

Well it was that kind of work wasn’t it. What would happen if you got an When you reassess it now you think award, like a Brit Award? “Wow, this is way ahead, these guys are way out there”. This isn’t disposable Well, we did get an Ivor Novello award shit, there was an awful lot of time spent for Golden Brown. And we sent Bill on it and it broke us. Yes, so we did La Tucky our tour manager to pick it up. Folie and the rest is history really. But it was touch and go. I mean now. Let’s say next year.

Anything else you can remember from Oh, we’d have an existentialist crisis. Do the period? we accept it or not?

Yeah, I do remember one thing. Oh no, And who goes along and who accepts this was during The Raven period. it? Anyway. I tried killing myself a couple of times. And then I woke up with a sore I dunno. I dunno what we’d do... We’d head a couple of days later. I thought it have a big discussion about it. St Peter’s Square, Rome, 2 July 1980

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Golden Blade and author of ‘Punk Rock: An Oral History’ John Robb as fascinating alien theories. They veer songs and a really strange dank spectacularly from being the principal atmosphere. There is darkness afoot and a takes us on a cosmic journey into the unknown… we are over the moon! tough-edged pop band of their generation collection of lyrics pondering visitations into a place that’s as dark and weird as one and other weird phenomena. The Bible is of Jupiter’s many moons. alluded to and sinister government cover They hinted at this detour with the up agencies. There’s a paranoid quark track Meninblack on The Raven album – about the album, a strange beast that after Space Oddity a very strange affair of tapes of ‘almost’ repeated listens really grows like some sort single Two Sunspots being sped up an of intergalactic slime. The weird time slowed down as Stranglerfied aliens structures seem like mathematical HERE HAS ALWAYS been a The sheer size, the sheer scale, those icy screech ‘human flesh is porky meat’ over progressions but pretty soon they were touch of space travel in rock ‘n’ planets, those cosmic moons, the endless the top. It was enough to piss off their making sense as a far superior psychedelic. T roll – a sense of musical eternity of it all – the emptiness. producer Martin Rushent who quit at this The band explored their true roots of their wonderment at the eternal. A quest to And if that isn’t weird enough, you point. The single Who Wants The World? late 60s mind-altering era and dragging it soundtrack the cosmos. might question if anything really is out and its B-side Meninblack (Waiting For bang up to date with an early 80’s From Joe Meek’s amazing Telstar to there? If Earth is the only planet ‘Em) further signpost the band’s fixation production via a punk rock gnarledness. Sun Ra’s cosmic freeform jazz to the supporting life as we know it, that would with UFOs and outer space oddness with The Stranglers, now completely MC5’s interplanetary freak outs, through be about as weird as a universe teaming a still quirky piece of pop that draped in black, explore some stranger to Syd Barrett’s space trips on his solitary with life – you can’t win either way. mysteriously never troubled the Top 10 places with a soundtrack to match them. debut Pink Floyd album before he split for As a kid I immersed myself in UFO like it should have done. Drugs are, of course, involved: there’s his own personal cosmos in the late sixties books, and I still ask the same questions… When the Meninblack album arrives, hardly a drug that doesn’t get taken and it music was attempting to fast forward to What were those tantalising marks in the it’s a genuine head-fuck: a difficult, affected their music. Acid gives the the future. South American desert? Has there been brooding piece of work, with long complex psychedelic spook and heroin, the gloomy In the 1960s, space was cutting edge alien interference? Are we some sort of and hip. I remember doing a school cattle for the aliens? Are they amongst us project on the moon landings when I was with their ESP? Is religion a mask for nine and being enthralled by the fuzzy alien visitation? And what with all the pictures coming back with Neil Armstrong folk tales and religions – odd hints at bounding across the bleak landscapes. Pop something else, a cosmic mysticism and was modern and so was space – the two strange tribal customs alluding to space were forged in white heat technology. It travel. Cranky costumes seen in deep, all went hand in hand, this was the future, dark forests, exploding bushes in the a future of space travel and celestial Bible, immaculate conceptions, second exploration. The very sound of the space comings... Folklore and mythology all missions, the static radio communication mixed up with technology. Had we been sounded like pop music. visited before? Why are we here? Has And space became a lifetime there been alien interference? Are we the fascination for many. No amount of trippy product of alien meddling? And what are drugs could equal the mind-fuck of letting those bright lights in the sky? Was there a your mind wander into deep, dark space, cover up? Was there an alien in Roswell? a personal journey floating out into the Intriguing, huh? beyond, thinking: what the fuck is out It’s 1981 when I realise I’m not the there! only one reading this stuff. The Meninblack Space is weird – the more you think themselves – the mighty Stranglers – are about it the more it fucks your head up. heavily into dark and gloomy drugs, as well “Cinque gelati, per favore!”

Page 35 Issue two cosseted come down. Never again will The commercial disaster (but still Top 10 in Stranglers sound this tripped out. Wilful the album charts.) commercial suicide it may be, but It’s their greatest album. It’s aged somehow they make innate melodic sense really well. On a dark night up in the leak out, causing even the darkest pieces moors driving around with this blasting to display their catchy hallmark tunes. out of the sound system, it makes utter As ever they write about stuff that no- sense. Every listen turns up a new sound, one else dares to and it’s pretty wild to a new texture and still retains a mystery hear your favourite band sing about the after all these years. The very sound has UFO stuff that had you enthralled you the spook – the weird twisted psychedelic when you were a book chewing teenager. that made The Stranglers so great. I love The Stranglers dark psychedelic is one its atmosphere and subject matter – its of their great strengths. From the start, the quest to make sense out of the madness of punk floyd twist heads with music that’s religion and aliens. not just fantastically aggressive (in an And the band’s playing is at the peak aggressive time) but was also 3D in its of its powers. If you loved Hugh soundscapes – the songs make little Cornwell’s Beefheart-splintered guitar pictures in your head, with a weird twist licks then this album is stuffed full of taking you somewhere else. That lysergic them. The gnarled bass sound has streak pulls their songs out of the ordinary. returned after having rest on ‘The Raven’- In 1977 everyone pretends to hate the state of the art electronics employed hippies. But as we gobble the magic on the album makes it, dynamically, one mushrooms, The Stranglers acid rock of the best sounding Stranglers albums. makes total sense. Some of the resulting There are fantastically spooky albums are liberally peppered with weird instrumentals that plod along with a dark trips (trips in a late 70’s have a harsher, eternity – as mysterious as ever and maybe more brutal reality to deal with than the the best tracks on the album – they sprawl idealistic freaks at the UFO club in the outwards like the cold dark universe itself. mid 60’s.) This is ‘dole queue Britain’ – Fantastic weirdness. not the idealistic Swinging London scene. There are sprightly disco pop songs Everything is filthy and everyone is pissed like Thrown Away, odd quixotic almost off – nobody wants to trip out on it. mediaeval melodies like Just Like Nothing Down In The Sewer is perfect for this – a On Earth, and a newly sung Waiting For bizarre eight-minute long zig- zagging the Meninblack – as well as the all time rush of psychedelic that is street cred and Stranglers classic Waltzinblack that sets tough enough to make total sense in the the mood perfectly at the beginning of the punk rock era. album. Now it’s 1981 – The Stranglers, like Lyrically, Cornwell and Burnel are in MIB promotional postcard most of the old punk mob, look for an great form – there is pessimism and On Earth. Once released, there was no perhaps? They missed that urgency. escape route from the shackles of the disillusionment, space travel and the way back for the band. No retreat – they Meninblack is a triumph. Perhaps the scene. The Raven – the fans favourite – Bible, cut up beat poetry and even a good had no choice: they couldn’t dwell in such true sound of The Stranglers. A daring shows a striking exit. Jet Black devours old fashioned Stranglers leer all mashed a mind state. record to make, it is also thought- books on aliens and hooks the rest of the together here – and it’s still great the way With this temporary chemical provoking and fascinating. It still fucks band into the extra terrestrial. Add the Cornwell twists the word “Earth” into imbalance behind them, they were never with your head after all these years – a prodigious drug intake, and you have weird new shapes on Just Like Nothing this weird again.. until Norfolk Coast true psychedelic experience.

Page 36 Issue two

‘But, time was on our side?’ Mark Tall was distinctly underwhelmed by the follow up to The Raven...

heady year was1979. The Raven had was the tease single, the rest of the album much lauded Last Supper inner sleeve lacked cohesion. It didn’t feel together. The catapaulted the Stranglers to a new must be amazing we thought. picture was a five-second thrill at best. Raven had flowed perfectly. The Gospel Alevel of musicianship, enigma, critical September came and went and no Compare this album sleeve to the intricacy slouched and skipped and flattered to acclaim and creativity. The band were album landed. We then heard that the and texture of the 3-D Raven outer shell deceive. making the best music of their career so far – release had been put back to the New Year and its wonderfully entertaining and full The only bright spots were Just Like dense, melodic, absorbing songs that showed for US tour reasons. Fair enough, but we inner sleeve. Nothing on Earth with its intense. clever a broadening of experiences and a started to wonder. Either this LP was so The song Waiting For The Meninblack and humorous lyrical approach, pulsating blossoming of creative interplay. They had amazing they were busy perfecting the mix was a huge disappointment. Not only was it bass and burbling keyboards and the divine also exchanged speed for power and become or something was wrong. The delay between exactly the same mix as the b-side to Who Four Horsemen. This was the only track a different proposition to 1977. They were to LPs was now stretching longer than ever Wants The World?, but it sounded better that could have graced The Raven, the only be taken seriously as a band and as a force in before. without the lyrics. Why was a b-side on the song of real quality, the only song that music. During the Who Wants The World? tour LP when Who Wants The World? was fulfilled the promise of these four People recognized the change, began to in July, media interviews had uncovered that omitted. The latter being every bit as worthy musicians crafting and gelling together as expect and were intrigued by how the band the new LP centred solely around the Men of the storyline as WFTMIB, immensely they had in 1979. might grow further and extend their obvious in black phenomenon first introduced on more enjoyable and could have fitted nicely It was disheartening. We had expected talent for melody and arrangement. The Raven. For some fans this seemed odd as a “sayonara” conclusion to the story so much. Maybe too much? Intelligence was flooding into and out of – to be doing a “concept” album like before Hallow and off we go back to our But there seemed so much burgeoning their songs. At different times it was Genesis so early in their career? How could planet. potential. If The Raven could have been challenging, euphoric and breathtaking. The you possibly write 10 songs about UFOs? And, speaking of singles, where was the achieved in two weeks in Paris, what had band had made a huge leap since 1977 and What’s more, the track Meninblack was single? Thrown Away was alluring, they done with all the time in all those many felt that the world was now theirs to interesting and fun, but kind of wore out its intriguing and exciting on the Who Wants studios across Europe through the whole of take. We waited in anticipation. welcome after a few listens. The World? tour when Cornwell unleashed 1980? Where had the creative spark gone? 1980 opened quietly, but news of two The album was finally released on 10 his guitar from the second verse and Jet Where was the melody? singles in the spring satiated appetites. Word February 1981 – oddly enough to little crashed into his drums with enthusiasm. But Though the melody returned the was that the album was well underway. fanfare or promotion. Sadly, it became clear here the song was morose, mundane and following winter with La Folie, we can now Bear Cage surprised us with its incessant why as it was a huge disappointment after ultimately quite perverse as a choice of look back and recognize that the summer rhythm, teased us with Burnel’s insidious the majesty of The Raven. single. Once more, it was an idea that had of 1979 was arguably the peak of The bass line but disappointed us somewhat It lacked melody and hooks – only so much potential that went unfulfilled. No Stranglers core creativity. Yes, they tried with its flat, linear delivery and lack of hard Waltzinblack, the finale to Four Horsemen, wonder it debuted at No.42 and after a new styles in future years; yes, they hook so prominent in previous Stranglers the central keyboard motif to Hallow To dreadful TOTP appearance stayed there, remained a force as a live act. But The singles. Our Men and Thrown Away offered any denying the band of more exposure and Meninblack was the start of the inexorable Who Wants The World? on the other solace. more interest in, and sales of, the album. slide down. Maybe they were plagued by ill hand thrilled us with its irresistible chorus, It lacked the classic, clever Stranglers Finally, the classic final song epic we had fortune? Maybe there was uncertainty in jolly keyboard runs, clever storyline, stop- intros that peppered and thrilled on The grown used to with Sewer, School Mam and the band camp given the unsettling run ins start bouncing bridge and enthralling break Raven. There was a dearth of good “songs” Genetix had been attempted with Hallow To with authority of 1980? Maybe taking so where all band members once again danced – several seemed weak and underdeveloped Our Men. But the middle section was bereft much time in such a diversity of places around each other leading to the minor – Two Sunspots, Second Coming and of creative direction and meandered into a hindered cohesion to the project and the chord aside of Greenfield that heralded the Hallow To Our Men to name but three. lost “when are we going back into the main songs? Maybe with a concept at its centre, rousing finale. This was one of the classic Burnel’s bass was muddy and dull. keyboard riff?” plod. Seven and a half certain things or songs were over thought Stranglers singles and bode well for the new The gatefold sleeve was an exciting idea minutes that could so easily have been and lost their direction? Whatever the LP, which was promised in the autumn – a at first but an immense let down once enough in five. truth is, the opportunity of 1980 was, to a year to the month after The Raven. If this encountered. There was nothing to it. The Though a concept album, overall the LP large extent, just thrown away.

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John Pasche, graphic designer, and winner of NME Best Sleeve Art of the cover Award in 1979 for The Raven, gives us a brief insight into his art... Below: The original artwork, images supplied by an anonymous source think the sleeve was interesting because of it’s “turned inside out” I concept with the track listing on the front and the image on the inside. The Last Supper image was great fun to do with the Maninblack retouched into the pose of Judas. Unfortunately the calligrapher Jim Gibson died some years ago, a deep personal loss as I had known him from our student days at the Royal College of Art where he was awarded an honours degree. He was regarded by many as being one of the talented and creative calligraphers of his time and worked together with myself on many projects. John Pasche is now a freelance designer working from home still loving what he does and listening to rock ‘n’ roll. www.johnpasche.com

Page 38 Issue two Dissecting Dave’s organs The last time Dave Greenfield saw his customised keyboards was after a gig in New York. The hired lorry carrying his, and the band’s equipment, roared off into the Manhattan night – never to be seen again. JamieJamie GodwinGodwin takestakes aa looklook atat whatwhat DaveDave hadhad atat hishis fingertipsfingertips forfor TheThe MeninblackMeninblack album.album.

T THE START of 1980, The over creating a feeling of alien suspense. Stranglers set to work on their The Obie supplies the poppy monophonic Dave’s keyboard rig A most abstract album ever. The line over the top of the track whilst the circa 1980 BH* Gospel According to the Meninblack CP-30 brings us the chorus chords. dabbles in religion, UFOs and of course, According to Stranglers folklore, • Hammond L100 custom with 2 MXR the men in black. For Dave Greenfield, Golden Brown came about from a section phase 100 and vari-speed this meant creating an amazing synthesizer of Second Coming that was thrown away • Yamaha CP30 piano soundscape to showcase this, which must (!) in its earliest life form. This harmonic • Oberheim FUS-1 Polyphonic Moog 4 have been a labour of love considering piece was originally intended to be an Voice his interest in the occult, and all things extended instrumental break composed by • Oberheim FUS-1 Polyphonic Moog 4 spooky. Dave in 13/4 time signature. Voice and4 voice extension While the keyboard rig didn’t vary too A slice of reverb comes in and • Oberheim sequencer much from 1979’s The Raven era, the disappears on zany CP-30 intro lick in • Oberheim memory unit Meninblack album set-up was stolen Second Coming. Interestingly, while the • Mini Moog during the bands 1980 US Winter Tour. Oberheim features heavily throughout, • 2 Wasp synths Despite being uninsured – courtesy of an many sounds are embellished with studio • Wasp Spider sequencer admin oversight – Dave managed to Hammond’s antiquated tone wheel giant effects, such as flangers and compressors. • Korg Vocoder amass most of his keys with newer models deemed too anachronistic for a visionary Tape recorders hung from the ceiling were • Kelsey/Morris 20-4-2 desk by the UK leg in 1981. concept album. Perhaps. fed into the mixing desk creating strange The Hammond was more or less Track one, side one, is the bizarre and distant tinny drum sounds helping to Amp rack containing: resigned to the back seat following Who Waltzinblack. and here the keyboards bring their extra-terrestrial vision to • 2 Turner A 500 amps Wants The World?: its harmonic form Dave’s own eccentric tour de force fruition. Backwards guitar was used on • 1 Turner A 300 amp backwash had been their hallmark; with the bass end courtesy of the big bold Turn, The Centuries Turn however, there • 1 Pro Audio cross over 3 way especially in No More Heroes and lower notes of his Oberheim with the top is no evidence that our Dave’s talents • 1 Stereo 11 band Klark-Technic Hanging Around, where Dave holds down end riff from the Wasp. The surreal and were used in a similar way, and why Graphic chords with his left hand whilst eccentric flavour of this song has seen it should there be? He is quite capable of embellishing the compositions with his receive many TV endorsements by the doing that kind of thing himself! 2 JBL cabs with: right. For the Meninblack, the sound is likes of nutty celebrity chef Keith Floyd Taped loops also feature – perhaps this • 2 x 15 JBL K140 saturnal, less dynamic. More spacey. and the odd bizarre commercial. was The Stranglers version of Pet Sounds? • 1 x 12 JBL K120 Now stripped of goatee, ‘tache and The didgeridoo warble of the tiny Joe Meeks’ 1960’s space sounding • 1 x 2440 JBL Horn windswept hairdo, a clean shaven and yellow and black Wasp synth rumbles into production also receives a welcome nod; trimmed Dave appeared to embrace the life as we launch into Just Like Nothing amazing considering three years Source: Strangled, May 1980 electronic era, clearly revelling in the On Earth – Dave holds down a solitary previously, they were one of the UK’s * Before Heist analogue synths of the day – with Lauren note whilst the sound modulates over and seminal punk acts.

Page 39 Issue two Soundcheck at Castel S. Angelo, Rome, July 1980 Thrown Away possesses the simplest Stranglers melody ever and was probably made by the Mini-Moog. For gigs, maybe it was played on the Obie? But the chorus runs came courtesy of the Obie, and there’s a hint of a Hammond in the quaver stabs in the choruses. On Waiting for the Meninblack we really get to hear some of the vast array of sounds available on the Obie with dabs of dark bold highlighting from the Mini- Moog. The way Dave uses the sustained chords to create the sublime mood on this I’m guessing this is a wasp track is nothing short of genius in much The instrumental break halfway through is the same way that the tinkling affect on pure genius and once again showcases not Turn, The Centuries Turn subtly created only his melodic sensibility but the an astral image in the listeners mind fantastic warmth and depth. Who said without ever over egging the cake. The synthesizers are cold-sounding? Stranglers finally discover how to use the Manna Machine, the bands very own musical understatement however this tribute to studio effects brings us to the went largely unnoticed at the time end of the album with Dave using the amongst the howls of derision from the three analogue synths – Moog, Wasp and music press. ubiquitous Obie to create the pulsating More Obie on Two Sunspots, not too rhythmic push of a song dedicated to the dissimilar to the spine-tingling sound used biblical story of the Jews living on honey- on the breaks in Genetix. Dave was like manna from heaven. Abstract aural obviously having a lot of fun in the studio sculpture meets grizzled punk-rockers – laying down these great sounds. This track you really couldn’t make it up! grew from a speeded up Meninblack from The end song: Hallow To Our Men two years previously, proving the guys were dabbles with Middle Eastern motifs that good at recycling waste way back then! hint at mysterious Egyptian tones from the Onstage, Dave would be seen Obie. Whether this was a conscious frantically reprogramming his synths attempt by Dave to conjure up images of whilst finding time in easier moments to biblical times is subjective, more likely swig a gulp of warm lager straight from a than not it was an amalgamation of tin, as the strategically positioned electric Russian folksong and Eastern ideas born fan blew his flowing hair across his face. from JJ’s eclectic musical interests Apart from all the gear going missing, combined with his wont for sweeping and the saddest aspect of The Meninblack is evocative melodies, like Toiler On The Sea that it featured Dave’s final vocal outing. and The Raven. Four Horsemen is a typically sinister affair The final sounds come courtesy of the with the trademark vocal special effects marvellous Mini-Moog as the mother ship thrown in (Korg Vocoder? – Ed.) to help leaves our skyline. And so ends a most make him sound contemporary and less unusual, but quintessentially eccentric, ‘croony’ but what a farewell number it is. Stranglers album… forever and ever.

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surprise, surprise – the second coming of Christ, but who’s to Boys on film say if alien visitors haven’t already been here before? Stuart Bolton explores the cinematic potential of The Meninblack Hypnotic and evocative music like Waiting For the Meninblack HE MENINBLACK – THE suppressers of UFO information?!!! Sales and it’s instrumental relation, SOUNDTRACK’ of the coolest movie soundtrack would Meninblack (Waiting For ‘Em) ‘T have topped the album charts. On Top Of and Turn, The Centuries Turn – …It’s there, isn’t it? Right at the top The Pops, JJ could have had a couple of a song described in No Mercy as of the album cover’s flip side… A wind star actors-in-black up on the big screen “begging to be used in a movie up? I’m sure The Stranglers could wind for a mimed rendition of Thrown Away… soundtrack”. (Incidentally, it up a clapped-out cuckoo clock! Or did and Just Like Nothing On Earth might was recorded in a film theatre at they once harbour cinematic aspirations just nudged the Top 75. Then again, Startling Studios – Ed) for the album? In Strangled in 1981, Second Coming would have been the The cheeky innuendo of Two Hugh reveals: “…there is a soundtrack to transatlantic hit, so it wouldn’t really Sunspots could be slowed in the the Meninblack album we’re working on matter anyway – The Stranglers would final bars to become Meninblack … the film is taking even longer.” Hugh’s have been stars! But no, it didn’t happen, – questioning our perception of cinematic interest is evident, with did it? The closest we got was Hugh and face value. Four Horsemen takes Nosferatu inspired by the silent film of Jet’s Black Documentary in 1982, us up to the impending doom of the same name – and thoughts of making although it did feature the album’s two the apocalypse, and in total his own clearly crossed his mind when he instrumentals. Then in 1997, Hollywood contrast, features some of the said: “every track suggested certain released ‘Men In Black’ and the most exquisite and beautiful scenarios.” mysterious aura of The Meninblack was keyboard-playing imaginable as Apocalypse Now… Chariots of Fire… shattered forever. The UFO theory was a Dave scatters stardust throughout the Kubrick could have conjured up. After Blade Runner… The Meninblack. Just comedy. final refrain. Thrown Away is another all, it was him who made the only film imagine the hype had Hollywood seen the But it’s not difficult imagining the contrast; poppy, but questioning Man’s that seriously deals with Man’s evolution light in 1981 and made a movie about album as a soundtrack. The order of ability to curate the planet successfully, and his place in the universe in 2001: a tracks suggests a narrative – and could while the moody Manna Machine, ticks Space Odyssey. He would surely have explain why such effort went into the and whirrs away with sound effects. been number one choice to turn a production end. Not only that, the album Finally, the bleak and barren landscapes concept album into a celluloid reality. feels like a soundtrack. Sinister are visualised in Hallow To Our Men While the album’s contrived sound Waltzinblack opens… the spaceship lands where linear musical passages are sits uneasily with the bands usual and we’re into Just Like Nothing On interrupted by the MiB Prayer and Close earthiness, after a while it makes sense. Earth as engines wind down and Encounters-like finale. It’s a semi-techno noise combining occupants familiarise to their new The fact that many of these tracks are science fiction – or faction, even. And surroundings. The lyrical tongue-twists not “songs” in the conventional sense sound bites of film dialogue could link tell us it’s Earth – but not as we know it, again lends itself to the idea that we are the tracks, luring the listener ever more. and aliens mock earthlings in the chorus, listening to a soundtrack – in much the Is this The Stranglers’ best album then, as with vocals harking back to Meninblack same way that tracks like Irate Caterpillar Hugh Cornwell insists? It’s not my (off The Raven) as well as the TV and Big Bug were used in Nosferatu. favourite cup of tea, but it is a fantastic Martians in the “For Mash Get Smash” Given such evocative imagery, surely film concept nonetheless. And what a ads in the 1970s. It’s humour, Jim, but makers would have given their eye tooth soundtrack it is. not as we know it! to work with a score such as The Can somebody get Mr. Kubrick on the Second Coming speculates on – Meninblack. Imagine what Stanley line! 2001: A Space Oddity

Page 41 Issue two MiB Transmission impossible

HE STRANGLERS OBSESSION with all things “in-black” drew to a close with their well researched short film made for BBC West. The Black Documentary T was transmitted in March 1982, and provided Hugh and Jet with a forum to explore the polysemic connotations associated with the colour black; they get to mimic the MiB in black suits, drive an old black Cadillac around the southwest England, knock on the doors of supposed UFO witnesses and look menacing. Talking heads come no cleverer than boffin Prof. Gregory of Bristol Uni, here explaining electromagnetic spectrum sound bites. Meanwhile Hugh takes to the streets in search more, with insightful results; he finds a post-punk layman looking for 15 seconds of fame: Hugh: “What does the colour black mean to you?” Sid Snot: “I enjoy black cuz it’s a sombre colour… brings out the masochist in me.” Jet sensibly narrates while the sinister soundtrack of Turn, the Centuries Turn and Waltzinblack set the eeriness knob to 10.

Producer David Pritchard: “RPM was a Bristol-based rock magazine-come-arts television series. It featured revues, bands, architecture, fashion and trends – a sort of TV version of The Face. Having recorded some excellent local Stranglers gigs in the early 1980s, we got to know the band quite well – well enough to go out for a beer. At that time, being young and enthusiastic, I thought they were the best band in the whole world – and still do! Hugh and Jet said they wanted to make a film about the colour black for RPM – and being the producer, I said; “why not!” I allocated a talented director to work with them, but it was all Hugh and Jet’s own work – and a very classy bit of film making it was for the time. The thrust of the film was the significance of the colour black – its use in religion, the judiciary, the secret service, the dollar bill, not to mention coal and oil ...... in essence, power. I remember Hugh and Jet saying at the time that something might happen, and the film would never be shown. I didn’t know whether to believe them, however, we did spend an unusual amount of time looking over our shoulders on the way home! I now understand the film has since gone missing… and I shall try to find out if this is the case… I will get in touch with you when I have some news… By the way; because I liked The Stranglers so much, I used Waltzinblack for the opening titles for the many series I did with Keith Floyd – and Peaches for the closing credits.”

Director Steve Poole: “I remember having serious concerns during filming. There were conspiracy theories around at that time, and the topics the documentary covered were very heavy... the design of the dollar bill, for instance… you don’t know who is going to see this. It made us both feel very paranoid – I wouldn’t have been surprised if any one of us had got a knock on the door from a Man In Black! So Hugh and Jet agreed to meet us one Sunday night in a pub not far from Jet’s to discuss our concerns. You see, we were new to this- they weren’t. They just thought we were weird, but we ended up agreeing to carry on filming.”

Page 42 Issue two Whoarethemeninblack? Andy Helgesen-in-black Vico, Italy. Like Bender, he at first kept it admit he had photographed an ordinary a door slam while she was at home. She he Men In Black – who are they? quiet, but when he returned a few weeks man. Templeton refused, and they became went to see who was there, and found Over the years, there have been later, he was approached by a strange man angry, and drove off leaving him there to what she described as a horrible little old T many reports of visitations by the in a dark suit. He had an extremely find his own way home. man, about 5’ tall in a black suit tie and a mysterious Men In Black, with many angular shape, speaking Italian with what Robert Richardson from Toledo, Ohio funny black hat on. His face was strange- witnesses noting their odd behaviour. sounded like a Scandinavian accent. He was driving in his car on 16th July, 1967. looking and his eyes were dark. Suddenly Naturally, they are described as being questioned Rossi about whether he’d seen He suddenly collided with a UFO, and he grinned at her, and she noticed he was dressed in black suits, black hats, white anything unusual flying in the area turned back to find a piece of metal lying wearing lipstick. He took off his hat to shirts and black ties, but also with a poor recently. Unnerved by the strangers in the road, and he took it to a UFO reveal a poorly fitted hair piece, black in grasp of the English language. They also demeanour, he denied everything. The group. Two Men in Black with an Asian colour. He told her: “We would ask you to seem unfamiliar of basic customs. man offered Rossi a cigarette, and he took appearance arrived and questioned him cease your studies,” adding, “the lights in Physically, they appear quite short and it, noticing a peculiar gold mark on it. about his encounter. The black Cadillac the sky always the lights in the sky.” He thin, with almost Oriental features. Upon the first inhalation, he felt nauseous they came in was a 1953 model, but in then told her: “Cease and dream easy…” In 1952, horror and sci-fi writer and the man snatched the cigarette away pristine condition despite being fourteen before giving her a long stare, and walking Albert K. Bender formed the International from him and threw it away, before years old. Richardson wrote down the back down the driveway. Right away, she Flying Saucer Bureau in Connecticut USA. leaving. registration plate, but when it One day three mysterious men in dark In 1964 in Cumbria, UK, fireman Jim was checked for authenticity, the suits got out of a Cadillac and paid him a Templeton took a photograph of his young number did not exist. A week visit. After suffering a bout of dizziness he daughter out on the marshes overlooking later two different Men In Black went to his bedroom. As he lay there he the Solway Firth. He noticed a strange paid Richardson a visit, and tried became aware of the three shadowy atmosphere, with cows in a nearby field to get him to admit that he had figures joining him. He described them appearing distressed. When the film was not seen a UFO – and they asked looking like clergymen with hats similar to processed, a man in a silvery white space him for the piece of metal he’d a Homburg. Under the shade of the brim, suit appeared in the photo behind the girl. picked up from the road. Once their eyes were lit up and focused on The police were informed, and soon he told them where it was, they Bender. An intolerable pain appeared from Kodak offered free films for life for warned him to get it back – if he around his eyes as they warned him to anyone solving the mystery. However, the wanted his wife to stay pretty. forget his study on UFOs. They went on police insisted it was a double exposure In May 1967, a man with an to explain the US government was aware with one negative accidentally printed on olive completion and pointed face of the alien origin of UFOs since 1951 – top of another during the processing. But introduced himself to a female and the reason why they were here. then, a few weeks after the incident, UFO witness from Minnesota as Bender revealed his encounter a decade Templeton received a visit from two men Major Richard French, who then on, claiming they were aliens in disguise in dark suits who got out from a Jaguar. complained of an upset stomach. whose purpose was to extract sea water, The men referred to each other by The woman offered him a bowl having flown him to the Antarctic to scare number, and took Templeton to where of jelly, which he picked up and him into submission. he’d taken the photograph, asking about attempted to drink before he was Another report involves Carlos Rossi the weather conditions on the day, the shown how to eat it using a and a strange mystery object as he fished activities of the local bird life in the area, spoon. One week after spotting a on the River Serchio, near San Pietro a and so on. They then tried to force him to UFO, an English housewife heard

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felt dizzy and crawled to bed where she monotone voice then began to slow slept for three hours, whereupon she dramatically, saying his energy was woke to find the house smelling of burnt running low. He stood with difficulty and Hallow To Our Men rubber. left in an unsteady manner. A flash of blue Chris Balden In January 1976, a Lancashire woman light appeared and the stranger vanished was made with the aid of drugs. Engineers worked in had a terrifying encounter. After receiving like the coin. Hopkins family returned The Gospel According To The Meninblack a series of strange phone calls at her later that night to find him sitting in the shifts, and hi-tech drum loops were made from tapes wound round pencils around the studio. parents house, two men arrived – one kitchen with a loaded revolver in his They got the sounds right to form one of the best Stranglers albums of the 1980s. It must have holding a black box, the other with one hand. been the most advanced too – right from Waltzinblack and the space ship’s arrival – to the final arm missing – and quizzed the girl about a Another doctor was asked to examine , where it exits our planet. At the Glasgow Apollo I stood and watched track, Hallow To Our Men UFO sighting in the presence of her a boy’s arm which was marked with an in awe as this final track came into itself… the winding instrumentation became almost parents. It was reported the family felt unusual abrasion. He asked the boy how hypnotic in the sweat and the heat. With the album in my hands, I wondered if the Last Supper powerless to act, as if they were under a he got them, to which he replied “the sleeve bordered blasphemy – or were the band merely making us think? I’m sure the album, strange spell. space doctors.” He went on to explain particularly this closing track triggered off something within my subconscious, something that September 1976 saw a doctor’s son how he’d followed a low flying plane near made me more receptive, and respectful of the extraordinary. encounter a couple who were dressed in his house, and was confronted by a group I speculated about Men In Black, I still do. Are they from this world, or they aliens from black. The woman appeared physically of strange people who took him hostage, ) made another planet or dimension? Reptilian? Greys, Nordics, or Horlocks?Strangled, Suppressors Volume 2 Number of UFO 3 lop-sided, and the man wore lipstick, subjecting him to a lot of physical and IQ eyewitness information? Jet’s account of his UFO sighting ( which was smeared – odd fitting clothes. tests. fascinating reading: standing in his kitchen washing up, he noticed this bright light move across They asked some inane questions, and Five years on, the same doctor the night sky... One night in the winter of 2004, I was standing in my garden observing Saturn added they were running low on energy. received a visit from two Men In Black, when three lights suddenly appeared together, silently and slowly, moving south to north. There On the evening of September 11th asking questions about the boy. were no navigation lights, and I’m convinced this was no satellite. It was a UFO. 1976, Dr. Herbert Hopkins from Maine, John Keel is one of the most learned There’s a book available called ‘You Can’t Tell The People’ of strange sightings at an USA was alone in his house when he scholars on the subject of the Men In American-leased RAF air base in Suffolk back around that time. Both the British Government received a telephone from someone Black. He too has had an encounter, and the RAF suppressed eyewitness reports of suspicious flashing lights and in the aftermath, claiming to be from a UFO group in New referring to these strange entities as denied hardcore evidence, such as suspicious marks left on the ground and high levels of Jersey. He asked to come over to discuss a cadavers – people who appear to have radiation. Secret agents visited witnesses to hush them up, and the cover-up is now referred to case Hopkins was involved in. died a long time, with their clothes No sooner had he put down the hanging off them and their flesh, pasty as Britain’s very own Roswell. But why can’t you tell the people? Is this why we know so little phone, a man appeared at the house. white. Even the FBI were not immune about Men In Black? They have had the finger pointed at them for the deaths of Munro and Once more, the visitor was dressed in from the Men In Black. In January 1953, Kennedy…. And there are stories of MiBs present at Witches Sabbaths…. witnesses say they black, but noticed he had no eyebrows or two tall, emaciated men arrived in Los have the symbol of the eye of Horus….. perhaps they work for the Nation Of The Third Eye? A eyelashes. During the conversation that Angeles. They were given temporary work powerful symbol linked to Sirius… Within the confines of The Stranglers mysterious fifth album, ensued, the stranger drew his gloved hand by the Director of the Attorneys Office, I am still left wondering… and waiting. across his face, smearing the lipstick that and it was discovered they could trace he was wearing. Hopkins realised the missing persons in a fraction of the Further reading: make-up had given the impression of normal time. It was also reported that http://www.ufoevidence.org/topics/meninblack.htm having lips. He spoke in monotone they possessed strange hands. The bones and also: throughout, and told Hopkins he had two were different, and there were no joints. You Can’t Tell The People, Georgina Bruni. coins in his pocket, asking him to take One of them had leaned over a steel top (Pan Macmillan, 2001. ISBN: 033039021X) one out and place it in the palm of his filing cabinet, and his hand gave an (Sidgwick & Jackson, 2000. ISBN: 028306358O) hand. The coin turned silvery blue and indentation of about 1 ½”. http://www.rendleshamincident.co.uk/ then disappeared altogether. He then told The men then mysteriously http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Can%27t_Tell_the_People Hopkins the coin will never be seen again, disappeared, and the FBI were left with http://www.forteantimes.com/review/rendlesham.shtml#Easton and to destroy all UFO records. The this damaged filing cabinet. So they

Page 44 Issue two The real Gospel according to the Meninblack… according to the webinblack Dom Pilgrim runs down the latest oldest theories...

hat is the ancient mythology beings known as “Anunnaki” (Sumerian: then apex of post Neanderthal ape-like behind this dark album? The “those who came down from the creatures. The resulting cross breed W Meninblack have been heavens”; or in Hebrew “Nephilim” Homo Sapiens is us. popularised in movies, cartoon books and (“those who have fallen”). This empire of theirs is based on have been the subject of serious In Sumerian Mythology they were a slavery, expanded from its origins in the investigation by Ufologists and such like pantheon of good and evil gods and Indus Valley, Mesopotamia (Iraq) to since the 1950s (see separate feature). goddesses who came to Earth to create Egypt, India and beyond… But humans While the MIB are merely characters the human race. Some writers, such as had varying degrees of Anunnaki genes in the mythology, the bigger picture goes Zeccharia Sitchin, believe that aliens depending on their role. Those with the back a long way… all the way to the visited earth some 400,000 years ago, highest amount being the Illuninated beginning according some theorists. purely for our gold. Humans are the ones, designated local kings, pharoes, The current consensus seems to place result of genetic cross-breeding, possibly heroes… charged with controlling the the MIB as a kind of enforcing agency – cloning techniques between themselves, more animalistic, more human masses. the CIA of the dark force that really the Anunnaki, and Homo Erectus, the For their number was increasing steadily…. controls the planet: the Illuminati. The MIB are said to represent the Nation of the Third Eye (according to John Keel). The accepted logo of the Illuminati is the Eye in the Pyramid – the very same as seen on the back of a dollar bill. The pyramid symbol takes us to Egypt. The pyramids of Giza are aligned in a formation that perfectly matches the constellation of Orion, above. The Egyptians’ chief god was Osiris, carried out tests on the indentation, and symbolized by this constellation, and his discovered the force that caused it would wife by Sirius (the Dog Star). One theory equate to 2,000 lbs – and contained traces for the function of a pyramid is that it is of two dozen unknown elements. The a vehicle for the Pharoah, a demi-godlike Mysterious Men In Black – inspirational being, to return “home”. Tunnelways and for The Stranglers album, The Gospel passages lead directly from the burial According To The Meninblack, and the chamber to the centre of the Orion possible link to the strange chain of events constellation at specific times of the year that ensued, attracting two years of (July 1st). misfortune. So perhaps if you see a So who’s going back? Ancient texts strange object in the sky… from Sumerian and Hebrew culture (Old Keep it quiet! Testament) are littered with references to The constellation of Orion, left, pyramids at Giza, right

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In Genesis in the Old Testament, once material and the knowledge and wisdom high they were dreadful and their rings control be preserved. seemingly innocent Bible-speak, can now they possessed to take care of the planet were full of eyes, round about them To monitor and coach the various be seen to be telling us a bit more than themselves. four. And when the living creatures leaders and keep an eye on things, the maybe we once thought when reading this Texts such as the Bible served as a went, the wheels went with them for master shape-shifters were never far from at school…. From Genesis 6:1-4 mask to the real story. The idea of an the spirit of the living creature was in the action. It is generally believed by hard When mankind began to increase omnipotent god perfectly serves the the wheels. (Ezekiel 1; 4-20) core conspiracists that the Three Wise and spread all over the earth and purposes of social control. Knowingly or Ezekiel was a prophet working some Men visiting Jesus at his birth were MIB daughters were born to them...the sons not, characters in the Bible, interact with 500 years BC, comforting and preaching in disguise. They weren’t following the of the gods saw the daughters of men these god/alien beings at regular to the Israelites exiled in Babylon. By this bright star, that was their ship. Jesus were beautiful; so they took for intervals… Jacob is famous for his ladder. time, the gods were communing with their obviously had a high concentration of themselves such women as they chose. But maybe he is also the first recorded brighter humans, and using these prophets Anunnaki DNA, and hence a key part of In those days when the sons of the alien abductee …. to keep order in the various tribes the Illuminated bloodline. And thus, his gods had intercourse with the daughters And he [Jacob] dreamed, and roaming the planet. birth needed a bit of attention. Suffice it of men and got children by them, the behold a ladder set up on the earth, to say at this point that the author Dan Nephilim were on earth. They were the and the top of it reached to heaven: and No free will Brown may have even missed the real heroes of old, men of renown behold the angels of God ascending and But what of the MIB? Alien mythologists conspiracy in his Da Vinci Code book… The Bible isn’t the only text that hints descending on it. And, behold, the Lord draw a distinction between two types of The Illuminati have always had one of other-wordly things… India’s stood above it, and said.... thy seed entity: The Nordic and the Grey. The aim, control. In the old days, it was easy, Mahabharata, written perhaps as long ago shall be as the dust of the earth, and Nordics equate to the demigod, direct what with the population of the earth as 3000 BC is said to recount great wars thou shalt spread abroad to the west, descendants of the Anunnaki visitors. The being so small… and getting monuments and events that maybe included the Indus and to the east, and to the north, and Illuminati as described. to their greatness built, such as pyramids Valley civilisations. At several points in to the south: and in thee and thy seed The greys possess no free will, smaller and such like, was easy. It also seems that the text, the authors describe what are shall all the families of the earth be anthropoids with huge black eyes. One they like to leave their mark, offer clues. called Virmanas, or ‘flying machines’. blessed. And, behold, I am with thee, Sumerian story describes these creatures Such as the arrangement of the pyramids They are quite clearly described as flying and will keep thee in all places whither as being developed to watch over all the of Giza in the shape of the belt of Orion. vehicles used for military purposes and thou goest.... And Jacob awaked out of inhabitants of Earth as loyal and Is this their homeland? are often piloted by Indian gods. One of his sleep... And he was afraid, and said, unquestioning servants … the enforcers of Nowadays the Illuminati, (the name these is called the Agneya weapon and it How dreadful is this place! (Genesis the alien will – the MIB. Their strange has been used in retrospect here) exist to appears in one classic passage: 28:12-17.) speech and odd habits, penchant for dark achieve the goal of complete control over A blazing missile possessed of the And Ezekiel also has a few cosmic glasses and pallid skin could tally with the planet: ie, the one-world government. radiance of smokeless fire was discharged. visions: this theory. What with population expansion and the A thick gloom suddenly encompassed the And I looked and behold a So, after the great Flood of Noah, the creation of nations, countries cultures and hosts. All points of the compass were whirlwind came out of the north. A Nordics removed themselves from the the carefully fostered illusion of free will, suddenly enveloped in darkness. Evil great cloud and a fire and out of the earth, retiring in to the sky, or the there is still work to be done. And anyone bearing winds began to blow. Clouds midst thereof came the likeness of four mountains, or secret places. The rulers who threatens this plan, by “proving” the reared into the higher air, showering living creatures. And every one had gave way to the rule of Kings. And passed existence of the alien genetic project, is blood. The very elements seemed four faces and every one had four into mythology; a great example of these likely to com up against “the boys” or confused. The sun appeared to spin wings. As for the likeness of their faces, yarns being the legends of the Greek gods. MIB, that most loyal and dispassionate round. The world, scorched by the heat of they four had the face of a Man, and Here they clearly describe a distinction servant… that weapon, seemed to be in a fever the face of a Lion on the right side, between the gods and the heroes and the And what do the MIB make of George An early nuclear device? and they four had the face of an Ox on ordinary man. In Western esotericism, the Bush and Tony Blair, messing about Eventually, it is likely the original the left side and they four also had the creation of secret societies, cabals, occupying Iraq..? Well they might be very settlers either died out, or moved on… face of an Eagle. Their appearance and brotherhoods and cults existed to preserve interested indeed. Iraq is the heart of the leaving the resulting offspring with the their work was as if a wheel within a the knowledge, and pass on the secrets Sumerian civilisation... and maybe the high concentration of alien genetic wheel; as for their rings, they were so only to the chosen few, in order that social keeper of a few a sought-after secrets...

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Waving their ‘get out of jail free’ card in Nice, the band are back in blackness. The heat is England, airing new material from The Meninblack overbearing and oppressive. Bowing out, I shift sideways, backwards, outwards, elbowing, edging away, to a Being there… darkened stairwell. Gotta get some air. Up a flight, up The Lyceum Ballroom, London 27 July 1980, Gary Kent another. My lone ascent goes unseen and unchecked but still I claw higher like a HAH SHAH A distinctly and unbelievably bright. But panther to lofty echelons Go Go kicks off that’s The Stranglers for you. with that ludicrously S the torrid night Tonight IS the future. It’s the last night pernicious bass throb with speed and spunk – – and I witness The Stranglers at full charting my path. on the very day the Shah dies, proving throttle (pun intended) – and how! The A seamless segue way into Ice beneath Then a familiar bass stab stamps a boot Nostradamus ain’t the only prophet. crowd go mental: the animated sea of – and I suddenly find myself on a ledge print on the intro to Toiler On The Sea. I Tonight is the hereafter. It’s also fucking black bomber jackets jostle and sway, the looking down on the manic spectacle. The can see JJ bobbing and weaving his stage hot. There’s a heatwave in the capital and mayhem is engulfing, stifling, yet view is superior from this summit, the air domain in front of a hunched up, it’s like Kew Gardens in here. Bodies get infectious. But the euphoria soon turns is pure and clean. The marvellous portal I twitching Jet. Hugh with his collar up tugged out the crowd like boiled eggs from dysphoric and uneasy. They’re only one am about to witness is breathtaking – all snipes at the mic and gnarling guitar a bubbling pot. Fifty weeks of shit weather song in and it’s pandemonium down the flashing white lights, all luminescent and before Dave’s burbling organ wizardry, and suddenly there’s a stack of adjectives front. I’m trapped. I turn round to my wondrous, Here I am, up in the theatre’s magically morphing into a whooshing to chose from; torrid, moist, clammy, mate, and he’s disappeared into the Gods, safe and sound, and I can see wave of white noise. Hugh: close, humid, muggy… your super sizzling, everything; spindly legs-in-black, set lists “I’d like to take this opportunity to sultry sexy soaraway Sun. gaffered onto monitors and amps, shapes dedicate the gig to someone…” Imagine being a Strangler… Not of hairy roadies in the shadows, banks of The Ayatollah…? Malcolm Owen, content with a five stretch (weeks, that is) keyboards with tiny red lights glowing, maybe? The Nashville pub, even? for drugs possession in March, last month battered snare skins and scattered cymbals “… Inspector Clouseau.” sees Hugh, Jet and Jean Jacques in French and electric fans billowing Jet’s face into Duchess, one year on, gives jail for inciting a crowd to riot following misshapes and playing havoc with Dave’s affirmation and afflux of taste – but now the aborted gig at Nice University due to locks in the songs ice-tingling closing more new: what’s this? Bass drum, four to the venues intermittent power supply. passages. Hagakure with perfume… the floor, as the crowd clap in time to a Then égalité and fraternité went out the Finally, a reprieve. Hugh: buzzy synth riff, and not unlike a 12” window, so to speak, and they lost their “Wotcha London. Erm – I’ve just been disco mix either! Enter the bass line, and liberté – ou la mort, in the case of the kindly donated a shoe up here which is the JJ vocals: caged JJ, who wanted to end it all right really good but I unfortunately I’ve got “If ever you had counted…” Delivered there in the cell, according to press two feet, so I mean, if you really want to in black, menacing Gallic pomp and reports. give me clothes, then make sure they circumstance, this stinks of a hit song… Several uninspired ‘jailhouse rock’ come in pairs, cos really they’re no use to “Even though we tried, time wasn’t on tabloid titles later, The Stranglers IV are me just one, right?” our side…” JJ dictates with with cool, cool bailed and back in Blighty – and back in One shoe, three songs – three singers: Sparta in his eyes and DMs on his feet. business on the Who Wants The World? Four Horsemen – a new song, sung by Hanging Around contrastingly, sounds fly- tour. With the possibility of a 10 stretch Dave – with an instrumental coda to end blown and bloated in comparison, and (yes, years this time) hanging in the on, and die for. Shameless creation here: then there’s The Lord’s Prayer…?! Jet’s balance, the future tonight sounded the future looks brighter and brighter. ride cymbal cracks through the ether like All pics: Lyceum, 27 July 1980

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incredible rate, with the climactic Genetix, Set list: Baroque Bordello. and magic ends with Intro: Waltzinblack; Shah Shah A Go Go; Ice; Four the swansong of The Raven. Horsemen; Toiler On The Sea; Duchess; Thrown Being here tonight,, witnessing four Away; Hanging Around; Hallow To Our Men; Waiting artisans with wings unclipped at the top For The Meninblack; Down In The Sewer; Who of their creative tree, liberated and let Wants The World? Princess Of The Streets; Just loose, left no doubt in my mind of their Like Nothing On Earth; Tank; Nuclear Device; loftiness in the stature department. Who Genetix; Baroque Bordello; The Raven. could measure up to The Stranglers? a What other band can do what they do – reveille, endorsed by a canon-fire kick and do it so well? drum, futurist synth notes, surf guitar, and But now I’m left hollow. I’m empty, a quasi-Raven bi-note bass line. A like the vacant stage beneath me. Too tumultuous and sinister build goes into a scared to find the bands dressing room, I rhomboid jazzy 5/4 shape, meshing the retrace my steps in reverse to search out cardinal points into a bewildering maze my missing mate as The Cure’s Another that trips into a mantra chant: “Forever Journey By Train fills the trashed and ever… Forever and ever…” More auditorium. He ain’t around. Ushered into Hugh: a chilly Wellington Street, there’s no place “Are you all in mourning or summink? left to go except Charing Cross station. I I know the Shah died today but this is step along The Strand in sweaty black getting a bit ridiculous!” There’s been a shirt and tie mentally reliving my night to few mutations down the front – they’re myself. dropping off like flies.. so who do you Tube train, brain drain. Key in door, think’s gonna be next in the old school of I’m back at home in pensive solitude. The going down? John Wayne’s already died.” reassuring snore from my parents room Waiting For The Meninblack – fades as I quietly shut off and withdraw flashing strobe lights, Cardice and smoke into my zone. The post-gig gloom mixed with dope; is it me or does Hugh saturates the room in melancholic come look like a puppet? Hugh halts and cups a down. A soaking Strangled mag comes hand over his brow. With an arm out from my shirt all fragmented and wet. outstretched, at first, he points right at The little typed letters make little sense as me, before lowering the angle of his arm: I lie back and relive the event in my mind “Something has struck me about what again and again: a synth riff – JJ bobbing this bit up here – has anyone seen The on the spot, pouting at the mic, puffing Muppets? Just a load of Muppets up there. out his pecs, pouring out a low-baritone It’s great…If you got strings up there, drone, draped in black, Precision on those guys at the back, can you just go like pelvis… How did it go…? this with them? Maybe they’ll move their “Even though we tried, time wasn’t on arms around? Aah – there you go. There our side… then there came a day, we you are, working… thought as much.”” threw it all away… Waldorf and Staedtler wouldn’t dare Blown Away.. Blown Aw – “ interrupt:… Well, that’s how it sounded to me. But “Call out the flying doctor, Dave…” I’m no Clouseau! signalling Nuclear Device, played at an

Page 48 Issue two MiBs on tour! Gary Cook recalls the Lancaster They were still unmistakably onto the De Montford Hall in Leicester know what to say, but I was desperate to University gig (28 February 1981) Strangleresque… with the surprise where I was caught trying to sneak say something to him. I racked my brain Part of the fun as a Stranglers fan is the addition of Meninblack. The segues of onstage by JJ. Suddenly I came face to for inspiration. I then recalled one of his expectation a new album brings, and of Second Coming and Meninblack – Shah face, almost touching noses with a smiling onstage retorts to a request for Peaches, course, the accompanying tour. Since Shah A Go Go and Hallow To Our Men JJ… I scrambled back into the crowd so I asked him: 1979, the bands set lists had seen them and Nuclear Device and Genetix left no immediately! Then, the final UK date at “Are we gonna have some Peaches shying away from the singles – 1981’s live doubt as to The Stranglers’ musical ability London’s Rainbow, where I recall tonight, Hugh, or has it been a bad outings continued in this vein with the and dexterity. someone from the crowd invited up summer?” bulk of the set drawing upon the Black onstage to sing Hanging Around. They He just smiled – and then he dropped And White and The Raven albums Barry Spooner went to more than said he was a their greatest fan. I wonder the bombshell. He said the gig might have interspersed with The Gospel According one gig… if he still is? Who was he? Overall, the to be pulled. To The Meninblack. I was lucky enough to catch the band four new material, in my opinion, didn’t stand I was distraught. I didn’t know what This album may have divided the times during the Meninblack UK Tour of up to the classics of old – and quite often to say. Apparently, the stage wasn’t big critics, but as ever, The Stranglers were 1981. The first gig was at Rock City in the MiB tracks were all over the place enough, and I could now see half a dozen undeterred and uncompromising. Nottingham where JJ jumped into the live. And I remember long pauses between or so council workers rebuilding the stage With the use of dry ice and crowd to sort out a punter who had been songs while Dave struggled to get his under Jet’s direction supervision! predominately white stage lighting, the gobbing at him. Classic! At Manchester, keyboards right. Perhaps technology let But then work suddenly stopped, and strobes lit up Lancaster in a psychedelic all I can remember is that it was freezing them down? everyone disappeared out of the venue. maelstrom on par with the Syd Barrett Floyd cold, even in the Apollo. We sat there and The moment was gone, as quickly as it at their hallucinatory peak – like in Just Like shivered, and afterwards, ended up Things didn’t go to schedule for the came, and the gig was indeed pulled. We Nothing On Earth – with Hugh’s Robertson roughing it overnight in British Rail Cleethorpes gig, as Mitch K reveals ended up consoling ourselves in a nearby Gollywog badge standing out on his lapel. waiting rooms with my two mates. Then I played the MiB album to death from pub, and a couple of pints later, and lots right when I got it – it was a “grower” of table-top pacman, we grabbed a after I was a bit bemused by it at first! takeaway from the Kentucky Fried But my anticipation and excitement was Chicken and headed down the M180 for building up at the prospect of catching the the trip home. What a disaster! But could band play in Cleethorpes. It was almost it get any worse? too much to bear, even though it was a My car – a poxy Vauxhall Firenza – horrible schlepp in the car to get to from was playing up. It wouldn’t top 40mph – Hull; there was no Humber Bridge back which was unusual, as I could normally then. But I had company for the journey – get 55 out of her! On top of that, it was I gave a friend of a friend a lift in return VERY foggy and dangerous, at which for petrol money. point, my passenger threw up his We arrived at the venue that afternoon Kentucky in the car – with an hour and and were instantly surprised to find the a half to drive ahead. Parked up on the front doors wide open. With nobody in hard shoulder, thoughts crossed my sight, we went inside, to find Hugh mind whether or not I should leave him standing there in the main hall, with a cup here. I bet The Stranglers would have! of coffee in his hand three feet in front of To my eternal regret, I didn’t! Not the me! I nearly pissed my pants! I didn’t best of nights. Hammersmith Odeon, 15 February 1981

Page 49 Issue two I was a teenage ‘dead body’ Edinburgh Playhouse – 24/2/81, Donald Mackay

t all started so calmly. Costello! towards the Playhouse Box Sitting in my room at But wait a minute, near the back of Office. A man on a mission. IPollock Halls, doing the paper, hidden low down on a page in a I thought I’d be in with a anything to avoid little section of its own, I finally spied the chance of getting good seats, so I revising for my term exams, I flicked all important heading “Stranglers Tour wanted to see for myself what was through the Sounds Xmas double issue, Dates.” This was more like it! I guess the available. “I’m looking for tickets looking for signs of the dates for the details had been added at the last minute, for The Stranglers,” I said upcoming tour to support the as yet probably cos the Nice riot court case was earnestly. The woman behind the unreleased new LP. This Thursday ritual only settled late in the year, so the tour counter happily replied, “You can left me disappointed this time, so I announcement must have been delayed. have any one you like,” and resigned myself to the compensation of the This was the first news of the dates. You showed me the totally empty extra features and photos in the special can guess that my text books remained seating plan – no seats sold! I issue. Yes, Debbie Harry was still looking firmly shut, as I grabbed my coat and couldn’t believe it. I was the first black clad youth converging to more appealing than Ian Dury or Elvis headed out on my half hour march one down there for tickets! (I presume see their band; mainly guys, but also others had also missed the small music several foxy punkettes to fall in love with press tour dates item). Blimey. What do I and dream about later. The merchandise do now? I hadn’t even thought who I stall was doing a roaring trade as all the would get to go with me, and I must have new stuff got snapped up. And the real had a bit of a mad turn cos I decided in sign that the band was big business: the my excitement to buy nine tickets! I Scousers were on the pavement with their thought front row centre stalls seats wash ‘em once only T-shirts and tempting would be seriously special (how naïve!). but flimsy posters. They weren’t getting Everyone will want one, I reasoned, so I my cash, but good to see them there bought the extra tickets for some of my though! uni mates who’d never seen the band live I was expecting my one and only time before. Yeah, give the guys some decent in a Row A seat to be something of a education! privilege, but things didn’t go as smoothly I eventually got rid of all eight tickets, as I had hoped! We were seated because The Stranglers were big enough comfortably slap-bang in front of the to be of interest to even casual music fans. stage, watching the roadies do their gaffer Of course, I could never understand why tape thing, waiting for the band’s these people couldn’t quite see the band’s entrance. The dickie-bowed bouncers greatness. I expected them all to be were on patrol, making sure you stayed in converted by the gig (naivety strikes your seat – what a joke! The first surprise: again!) Waltzinblack came over the speakers and this seemed really unusual to hear a band We have come to make you function song before they came on stage. Were they This was the real deal. A classy 3,000 going to join in the playing? In no time seater venue, sold out signs, and a sea of the lights went down, a massive cheer

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went up and I casually got up and moved out of the madness at the front. Hugh us, cos he eventually moved over to the to the front, only to be hit by a wall of confirmed my thoughts by announcing impostor and sideways booted him up the bodies slamming into my back as every that the floor had caved in, although he arse, and he went flying across the floor. JJ teenage headcase in Edinburgh charged to seemed to make this into a joke! I doubt if then adopted the facial expression of the the front. Mayhem ensued! This was not he knew how serious a situation this was, innocent schoolboy prankster. Funny as what I had been expecting! but I certainly wasn’t laughing. fuck (as they say). And The Stranglers I was right at the front, crushed Once I got out of the throng I realised wonder why they kept losing their fan against a flimsy wooden barrier, which that the bouncers were trying to get base! alarmingly looked like it had very little everyone away from the front area, as It was surprising to hear them do the support, staring down at a 15 foot drop to there were now some huge holes in the song Meninblack live, and I liked it. the concrete floor of the orchestra pit. wooden floor, which made pogoing a bit Appropriately, hanging over the front of Aargh! To make things even less pleasant, risky! All in all, the start of this gig was a the circle was a banner, with clever MiB there was a stream of nutters clambering scary and unpleasant experience, plus I LeTtERinG, saying “We have come to over me so they could get to the front to was missing the bleeding performance! make you function.” Nice touch. jump over the wide gap to the stage Hugh made a few comments Not everyone I knew liked the gig. In (bonkers!) and later dive feet first back. throughout the set about dead bodies fact, a couple of my pals walked out half I was getting really pissed off with down the front, and hoping we’d brought way through! They were expecting this but couldn’t move! Stuck with our own ambulances, which weren’t too something a bit easier on the ear, and the nowhere to go, and trying to avoid getting amusing at the time, I can tell you. When MiB stuff was a bit too much for them on a boot in the face, it couldn’t get any I hear the comments now on the bootleg I first listen! They weren’t the only people worse…could it? have mixed feelings. Kind of funny, but who drifted away from the band around During the first couple of numbers, I pretty serious really! this period, as the MiB album put off a lot was so distracted that I was hardly It is a bit weird how the band just of people. noticing what was happening on stage; carried on with the set as if nothing was The local Student newspaper gave the not really listening! It was hard not to happening, but I suppose they didn’t gig a stinker of a review, saying the music look down at the concrete below, thinking realise what a close call it had been for was “dirge, dirge, dirge”. The student this barrier could go quite easily. Then I the sardines at the front. Someone trendy who wrote it was subjected to my noticed some movement down there in the suggested to me that maybe Hugh’s staring hatred every time I saw him. I gloom, with a couple of guys running apparent ambivalence was chemically really felt like punching him for having backwards and forwards in and out of induced. Who knows? the audacity to give the lads a poor view. Eh? What’s that all about? Then it Strangely, since this gig, I have never review! started to dawn on me...things were not been that keen on getting a front row For me, the overall gig had an electric all hunky dory down there. I realised they seat! During the less hectic moments I atmosphere, and though the bootleg were manhandling big objects and trying managed to take a few snaps with my low confirms that the band were superb that to prop them up under the floor, the same tech 110 instamatic. One of them shows a night, playing a fantastically floor that me and a few hundred pogoing fan looking at the cleared area where the uncompromising set of challenging songs, nutters were bouncing around on. holes were, rather than looking at the this gig will always stick in my memory Hmmm, not the greatest feeling on band! mainly for the off-stage events. Do you OOUARTH! think the Meninblack had anything to do By this time I was very worried for my Mixed reactions with it? safety, and instinctively knew I just had to I think this was the gig where one of the P.S. Next time you listen to this get out of there, no matter what it took. I stage invaders just didn’t look the part at bootleg and think the crowd noise is had no interest whatever in what was all (green parka and baggy green faint, spare a thought for us Toilers in the happening on stage! It took all my trousers). JJ let him dance near him for a mayhem. I’m just glad I got out in one strength, and two or three songs, to get while but must have thought the same as piece! Edinburgh Playhouse, 24 February 1981

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No it’s not just a chance to use to use up the editors leftover puns! Here, naivety, the worst Stranglers LP – and by the fantastic Waltzinblack. Just Like aficionados-in-black say what The Gospel According To The Meninblack … some distance. But a quarter of a century Nothing On Earth and Second Coming on, it’s one of my favourite albums, are acceptable, as are Thrown Away and behind Black And White. Magnificent, if Two Sunspots which provide the album somewhat flawed. with a welcome lift – the latter leaning towards The Stranglers of old, although Tits on the radio not quite up to scratch. Musically, Hallow Means to me! John Hallsworth To Our Men starts off in the vein of I remember tuning in to the Radio One Toiler and Sewer, but all hope is lost Turn, the table turn groundbreaking, radical departure from album chart and hearing the rundown for when the vocals come in, while Waiting Jim Drury the previous, not too unlike Radiohead’s one very special new entry: The Gospel For The Meninblack should have stayed The day before I interviewed Hugh for output after OK Computer. And no doubt According To The Meninblack. Whether it in its instrumental form. Turn The Song By Song for the chapter on MiB I just as alienating (pun intended) for was Peter Powell or Kid Jensen I don’t Centuries, Turn was just not good played my vinyl LP. Halfway through side existing fans who couldn’t handle the know. But the album was introduced it as enough, ditto Manna Machine. The album one it stopped for no reason; the needle pace. Progressive and hypnotic in places, The Gospel According To Theme in Black! over indulges itself. Perhaps The was still on the record but the record had it could have been a film soundtrack to a Compounding his mistake, the DJ added: Stranglers had too much artistic freedom? stopped in its tracks, despite the power drug fuelled UFO abduction. The Men in “I think I pronounced that correctly.” Maybe they took themselves far too supply being on. There was no Black have never sounded blacker, and Needless to say, I was livid – and phoned seriously? And who really gave a fuck explanation. Weird. let’s not forget the strange chain of events the BBC to tell them off… but they about the UFOs? that almost engulfed the band. While it wouldn’t answer the phone. Just as well! Turn, the table turn (reprise) was bold, creepy, funny and weird, it was Turning Japanese Jamie Radley ahead of its time. But Techno? No way! Art for art’s sake Simon Kent I was only six when it came out, so I Barry Spooner I bought MiB on the day of release from didn’t know much about it, but got the Hear Hugh here 1980 marked the time when The Gloucester’s HMV Records, along with vinyl when I was thirteen: I played it to Mitch K Stranglers became Men-in-black. But who The Stranglers IV US import – the selected death on my little Asda record player – it I just listened to MiB for the first time in could imagine taking what I consider to bits off The Raven… But how could they wobbled all over the place and the sound ages – with headphones and a joint – and be the worst track off The Raven, and follow up The Raven – their finest album? quality left a lot to be desired. My mother now I realise how awesome Cornball’s making it the sole theme for the next First introduced to the subject of Men In came upstairs once, looking very serious. guitar work is! Wow… couple of years? Post-Raven, it started off Black then, and here’s an entire album on She said: “Dad doesn’t like that weird business as usual with Bear Cage. April’s it. Highlights are Four Horsemen and record you keep playing – stop playing No way, sis Rainbow gigs promised more new Thrown Away – their best single ever, it!” MiB was my first CD purchase when Stuart Bolton material when suddenly, Hugh was forced closely followed by Second Coming and CDs came out – and suddenly the guitar I bought MiB the day it came out from to eat porridge in Pentonville. Without Waltzinblack. I still get a shiver down my cuts right through like a sheet of steel: ‘Mister Sifters’, the record shop in him they were not a pretty sight, nor spine when the lights go down at gigs and cold and metallic, and essential with Burnage, Manchester immortalised in sound. Who Wants The World? was a you hear the PA booming it out. Not long headphones. I met Hugh recently and told Shakermaker by Oasis. I’ sneaked out return to form, and that summer’s UK back I tried to get my company, Mitsubishi him, and he agreed with me. from school at dinnertime, risking the tour finally showcased new material, like Cars, to use Just Like Nothing On Earth wrath of headmaster Mr. Marshall and his Waltzinblack, Just Like Nothing On for their TV ads, but unfortunately, it they Techno notice dreaded strap – knowing that it was Earth, (or Just Like Living On Earth as I chose not to. Davy McLaughlin probably worth the risk. Back home after heard it!) Four Horsemen, Thrown Away It was never a Techno album despite several listens, I didn’t like what I heard. and Waiting For The Meninblack. But it Career opportunities subsequent claims from Mr. Burnel. Sure Where were the catchy riffs? The rousing didn’t make ‘easy listening’ – especially John Cochrane it was inventive and technically choruses? The scratchy guitar solos? The after The Raven. They then made us wait I so desperately wanted to get MiB the proficient, and most definitely un-punk established Stranglers sound was not on a further six months to have the new morning it was released – only I had my (and why not?) For me, it was a this album. It was, I concluded in my album on our turntables. The best song is very first job interview, at 9.30 that

Page 52 Issue two morning. So I phoned the company and for her to bring it back. Thrown Away Hallow To Our Men, in spite of the intro fobbed them off with a forgotten dental had already set the tone, and I was being one of their finest before it falls appointment – and they gave me a new looking forward to a Dave Greenfield- down in the verses. However, I admit to time – 2.30 (tooth-hurty? Surely not – fest. Press reviews described Waltzinblack being spooked by the mysterious Men In Ed.) I now had the chance to buy it, take as a macabre carrousel ride. Intrigued, I Black connection, and as I type, a funeral it home and give it a good listen. First could hardly wait. As soon as I got it, cortege has just entered our close… as off, I didn’t like it, but after a few more Waltzinblack filled my bedroom with Hallow To Our Men provides the morbid plays, I got into it. I think it prepared me swirling keyboards and menace-in-black. Lord’s Prayer soundtrack. Weird? well for the interview because I But after that, I wondered where all those remember feeling very relaxed sitting catchy choruses and pogo-able melodies Manna -tovani there that afternoon. I got the job! had gone? I was stunned, and yes – Lol Cole Listening to the album nowadays, I think disappointed. I played it again, and again. When I got my copy from Portobello it has stood the test of time. Quirkiness was being taken to the Road market, I got home to find the extreme, and soon I could detect those record inside was not Meninblack, – but Savage breast melodies, those bass lines, and sheer Mantovani! Argh! Gary Binnie inventiveness within the layers. The first The MiB album was quite poignant for me three tracks are gems, but it slumps with Synth you went away as I was heavily into UFOs at the time and Turn The Centuries, Turn and Waiting Gary Kent I thought I’d seen one then. I still recall For The Meninblack. It was better left as The Stranglers – specifically Dave how spooky it made me feel – just like the an instrumental on the back of the single Greenfield – made me buy a synthesizer album did when it came out! The first Who Wants The World? Side two more in 1980. I plugged in my little Yamaha thing that struck me was the superb Last than makes up, though – particularly Two CS-5 into dad’s rarely used Selmer-Elka Supper gatefold sleeve, and I knew I was Sunspots – the single that never was, and Partita organ where I conjured up the in for a real treat. I loved Four Horsemen Four Horsemen – with Manna Machine Burnel bass and Greenfield organ sound – with its stop/start, pulsating errie-ness, sounding ten years ahead of its time. into them – although Thrown Away was left hand on the bass synth – right hand and Two Sunspots is a good catchy Suddenly all thoughts of my illness an immediate hit with me. I still love it on the Hammond vamps: the absolute number too… but I never knew it was disappeared, but while it may not be my just as much. When I play it today it Stranglers hallmark. I wasted away too about nipples until I read Hugh’s book! favourite Stranglers album, it contains takes me right back to playing it at my many nights like this playing Stranglers Manna Machine and Hallow To Our some great moments: an occasional airing youth club in the early 80s, and hearing songs… and then MiB came out! Men… Mmm. What were they all about? is still rewarding. Almost a quarter of a JJ’s deep monotone voice. When I think of Greenfield’s nursery rhyme Thrown Away Waltzinblack is still a very clever piece of century on, and my thoughts on MiB how long ago this was and how fresh the riff… Four Horsemen… Waiting For The work, and played before each gig. How album remain the same. It was no wonder song still sounds, I’m amazed. Just Like Meninblack… the Just Like Nothing On did Hugh manage to squeeze in all those record producer Pete Waterman once Nothing On Eaurrrth and Waltzinblack Earth intro – sample and hold saw tooth words into Just Like Nothing On Earth? declared there had only been two great are also my favourites. No gig would be wave – it was the same! As soon as my From this album on, we all wore black, British bands, the Beatles and The complete without hearing the latter, along parents went out for the night, I’d fill the and copied the band by calling each other Stranglers. The hits may not have been with seeing the lights go down, the huge house with a continuous didgeridoo-ing Pete-in-black and Dave-in-black. there on MiB, but like The Beatles, they cheer and that rush of adrenaline. While loop of JLNOE – all in glorious analogue successfully explored new sounds and other albums sat on my turntable more – although the album itself missed the Manna the earth stretched sonic boundaries. often, The MiB is a grower. Second mark slightly – somewhere between Stephen Howard Coming, Waiting For The Meninblack production and song writing …drugs? ? The MiB album sat amongst the pre- Hallow hurray! What a nice (love JJ’s voice on here – sounds very Greenfield’s keyboards saved the album, orders in the record shop – but I couldn’t day young) and Four Horsemen; Dave has a and captured a little of what was get hold of it. I was laid up in bed, off Karen Parfitt great voice and I wish he sang the lead happening with all the fantastic electronic school, too ill to pick it up. Mum went MiB didn’t fit with what I’d heard so far after this, but he didn’t. The rest of the stuff around that time of its release in off to the shops and I sat there waiting from The Stranglers – I was just getting tracks are a bit repetitive, especially February 1981.

Page 53 Issue two Boots, boots, boots: the Meninblack era

Boots. We are talking bootlegs here, not fans (of varying quality) but also one or two any other recordings in your possession 1977 to 1979 and some of Hugh’s patter, boots of the Doc Martens variety! other gems straight from the mixing desk the editors would, of course, be very especially with the North American The Stranglers, in the 12 month period and even the odd radio broadcast. pleased to hear from you! audiences (more of that later) is rich and from June 1980 to June 1981, played Over the years I have been lucky This is amongst my favourite periods highly entertaining. somewhere in the region of 120 gigs. enough to get my hands on most of these as the band were probably at their darkest There have been no official live Today, there are more than 30 bootlegs recordings and this has enabled me to put and menacing best. The live sets, although releases from this period and demand for from these gigs in circulation; mainly together the following “rough guide” to somewhat repetitive in 1981, were decent live material consequently audience recordings made by enthusiastic bootlegs from the period. Should you have generally big departures from the years of remains high. Icecube The bootleg list…

Rouen 12/06/80 A very decent audience recording. The band is somewhat rusty and out of sorts as Who Wants The World? is stopped and restarted. An interesting set with an emphasis on stuff from The Raven. Thrown Away and Waiting For The Meninblack make their first appearance on a bootleg, some 8 months before their eventual release on The Gospel According To The Meninblack. JJ engages the audience in French throughout “this is one of our first gigs in France since our guitarist was released from prison”. (See track list over page)

Recommended ** Cournevue Festival Paris 14/06/80 An identical set to Rouen. The quality of this audience recording is not so good. Who Wants The World? is again stopped and restarted, they were obviously struggling with this despite it having just been released as a single in the UK. Sound quality deteriorates quite noticeably for the final six tracks and these tracks play far too fast on my tape, probably as a result of “fast dubbing”.

Worthwhile * but only just A typical Stranglers fan bootleg collection on the carpet of a typical

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Castel St Angelo Rome here” he announces before the start of Lyceum Ballroom London 02/07/80 Shah Shah a Go Go. The set includes Track Lists 1980 27/07/80 The first gig after release from jail in Nice. Waiting For The Meninblack and Thrown An audience recording which was recently Rouen 12/6/80 : Shah Shah a Go Go, Ice, Toiler On A poorish audience recording which is Away (but not Hallow To Our Men). made available as a web download having The Sea, Duchess, Hanging Around, Baroque Bordello, rather hissy and with some chatter from These two new songs are well received. been “remastered”. Good quality. A full set Waiting For The Meninblack, Down In The Sewer, Who the audience. Hugh is surprised by the Not much chatter from Hugh. The quality with a total of 18 tracks. Waltzinblack is Wants The World, Thrown Away, I Feel Like A Wog, size of the crowd and compliments the of my recording gets worse for the final used as an intro. There are four tracks from Tank, Nuclear Device, Genetix, The Raven. Italians on their hospitality (both few tracks; becoming too fast and rather The Meninblack featured; Four Horsemen, comments obviously relate to the Nice fuzzy. By the final track, Genetix, it’s Thrown Away, Hallow To Our Men, Bath Pavillion 18/8/80: Waltzinblack (intro), Shah experience). He also talks about his visit awful. Waiting For The Meninblack and Just Like a Go Go, Ice, Toiler On The Sea, Four Horsemen, to see the Pope and later informs the Nothing On Earth. Perhaps a little lacking Duchess, Hanging Around, Thrown Away, Down In audience they are not the first people to Worthwhile* (but only just) in atmosphere but that is hardly a criticism. The Sewer, Who Wants The World, Baroque Bordello, have been “strangled” in Rome. Just Like Nothing On Earth, Tank, Nuclear Device, The set was extended with additional Leisure Centre Crawley Recommended ** Genetix, The Raven. tracks: Threatened and Peaches are 10/07/80 included and Hallow To Our Men makes An audience recording of very average Pavillion Bath Rockstage (Theatre Royal Nottingham) 19/8/80: its first bootleg appearance. quality and rather distorted right from the 18/08/80 Shah Shah a Go Go, Ice, Who Wants The World, start. Waltzinblack is played through the Audience recording of fair quality but Toiler On The Sea, Thrown Away, Tank, Nuclear Average but of some historical PA as an intro. I have only the first 10 there is a little noise from the audience Device, Genetix. interest. tracks on my tape with Thrown Away and some annoying distortion to the bass. (cut) being the final track. Hugh tells the Waltzinblack is used as an intro. Down In Bilzen Festival Summer 1980: Shah Shah a Go Go, Palasport Parma audience the story surrounding The The Sewer is stopped (but not restarted) Ice, Toiler On The Sea, Duchess, Hanging Around, 03/07/80 Stranglers first gig in Crawley at The to cheers from the crowd for no apparent Four Horsemen, Waiting For The Meninblack, Down Also an audience recording with plenty of White Knight pub. reason. A standard set which also includes In The Sewer, Who Wants The World, Baroque hiss and some chatter. A similar set to the There is a recording of several fans Four Horsemen. (See track listings) Bordello, Just Like Nothing On Earth, Tank. gigs in June but also with Hallow To Our talking to the band on the other side of Men and finishing with an excellent 5 the tape but I have never sat through and Worthwhile/Average * NB: The track lists were not necessarily the Minutes. Hugh informs the audience listened to this, personally I would have complete set lists “mine is very small” a reference to his preferred the whole gig! Theatre Royal Nottingham grasp of Italian. Down In The Sewer 19/08/80 finishes with a chorus of “heys”. Average Corby Northants The Rockstage performance from the 23/07/80 television broadcast. This is now easily Average to good Colston Hall Bristol An audience tape (of pretty good quality) available as a web download and is 11/07/80 and probably the best from the British excellent having been “remastered”. Rainbow London An audience recording with the Who Wants The World? tour to be Shame about the brevity of the set and the 08/07/80 Waltzinblack intro. Waiting For The reviewed so far. This was a benefit gig and rather savage track breaks but I’m not Audience recording of reasonable quality. Meninblack, Thrown Away and Hallow To Hugh thanked everyone that had helped really complaining! Hugh is obviously pleased to be home and Our Men are included in the set. Average out. Hallow To Our Men, Waiting For The back at the Rainbow, “it’s great to be quality, my copy plays rather fast and Down Meninblack (cut) and Just Like Nothing Essential *** In The Sewer is cut as is the final track On Earth are included in the set. Just Nuclear Device. Hugh mentions his before Hanging Around Hugh has a go at Bilzen Festival Strike Rate University days to the crowd but overall the people at the front….I can’t quite hear Summer80 The number of bootlegs available as a percentage this is not a terribly exciting boot I’m afraid. why. Not sure but this is probably an audience of the total number of gigs played. The Meninblack recording. The quality is very good. Superb period has a strike rate of 28%. Average Worthwhile * drumming on the opening track Shah Shah

Page 55 Issue two a Go Go and crisp vocals throughout. Toiler enough! Then we get the crackerjack New Orleans Track Lists 1980-1981 is stopped “we’re not the Ramones, that’s pencil gag, Hugh was on top form that 26/10/80 Keystone Berkley 13/11/80 (radio broadcast): why we stopped ‘cos we’re out of tune…” night. Out of the blue we also get a “fuck An audience recording of very average Toiler On The Sea, Duchess, Baroque Bordello, Hugh then explains that JJ is not going to you too, buddy” from Jet. 16 tracks in the quality. The band were now using hired Hanging Around, Down In The Sewer, Who Wants translate due to the Nice problems. He then set, all good stuff. equipment as all of their gear had been The World, Threatened, Just Like Nothing On sees a guy with a tape recorder and asks if stolen in New York following the Ritz Earth, Tank, Nuclear Device, Genetix, Dead Loss he’s making a nice recording of the concert, Worthwhile * (close to being Club gig on 21st October. In the Angeles, The Raven. super stuff! Includes Four Horsemen and recommended for the banter alone) circumstances a pretty decent performance Just Like Nothing On Earth. This is listed shame about the quality of the bootleg. Toronto 26/11/80 (radio broadcast): with several different dates, including Aldo’s Hideaway, NJ There is some chatter from Hugh but it’s Duchess, Hanging Around, Baroque Bordello, 5/7/80 and 17/8/80, take your pick. From 16/10/80 difficult to hear what he’s saying. Hanging Down In The Sewer, Who Wants The World, Belgium, in case you wondered. (See track An audience recording that has only been Around turns into an impromptu jam as Threatened, Bring On The Nubiles, Tank, Nuclear listings) “released” recently and which must the guitar stops and Hugh then complains Device, Genetix, Dead Loss Angeles, The Raven, I therefore be considered to be fairly rare. about the equipment. The opening notes of Feel Like A Wog. Recommended ** Decent quality but rather spoiled by more Nuclear Device sound very limp and Dave hoopin’ and hollerin’ from the enthusiastic is obviously using some “shitty” gear too. Locarno Bristol 9/2/81: Emerald City New Jersey audience with continuous requests for I JJ sings the last couple of lines of The Threatened, The Raven, Toiler On The Sea, Just 10/10/80 Feel Like A Wog. Unfortunately it’s Raven in French. Like Nothing On Earth, Thrown Away, Who Wants The opening night of the US tour. A very difficult to pick out everything that Hugh The World, Don’t Bring Harry, Four Horsemen, good recording (possibly an audience says but the band were in good form. JJ Average Second Coming, Hallow To Our Men, Nuclear recording but I can’t be sure) but with persists with his heavy “English” accent, Device, Genetix, Duchess, Hanging Around, Down only eight tracks on my tape. Opens with especially on Thrown Away and Dave Whisky A Go Go, LA In The Sewer. Thrown Away and it seems that JJ is trying seems to forget to turn off the alarm clock 08/11/80 hard to sing this with an exaggerated at the end of Ice. The gig finishes on a An audience recording of pretty good Palo Alto 8/5/81: English accent. Great version of high with 5 Minutes and then The Raven. quality. Waltzinblack is used as an intro. Threatened, The Raven, Toiler On The Sea, Just Threatened too. Not much chatter from Toiler On The Sea is the opening track Like Nothing On Earth, Thrown Away, Who Wants Hugh but this is unlikely to have been the Recommended (only just) ** and this is stopped within moments of The World, Baroque Bordello, Second Coming, full set. Finishes with 5 Minutes and The starting, JJ and Jet want the coloured Meninblack, Tank, Shah Shah a Go Go, Hallow To Raven. This is one for the JJ fans. Ritz Club New York lights turned off; “this is not a showbiz Our Men, Nuclear Device, Genetix, Down In The 21/10/80 extravaganza” and you immediately get Sewer. Recommended ** (short but good) A radio broadcast of the US BBC Rock the feeling this is going to be a great Hour show, also available (if you can find bootleg. “You’re in Dead Loss Angeles” NB: The track lists were not necessarily the The Channel Boston it) on transcription disc 148. Superb says Hugh. Who Wants The World? is complete set lists 14/10/80 quality and the band were on great form. again dedicated to “Ronnie Boy” although An audience recording, a bit fuzzy round The commentary and commercial breaks this track is cut on my tape as is Genetix. the edges but very worthwhile. Hugh asks detract little from the atmosphere of the Great version of Threatened and, of the mix and very clear, “Is this the bean town?…I hope you gig. Some funny remarks too from Hugh course, Dead Loss Angeles. thumping bass and drums too. Not the haven’t had any beans otherwise you’re and an American with a very large mouth full gig (13 tracks) but a very worthwhile going to be farting all over the place”. in the audience. There are plenty of Worthwhile * and welcome addition. A bit of banter Hugh apologises for coming late onto highlights including the opening track from Hugh “I’m sorry I don’t understand stage, apparently “the BBC were due to Hallow To Our Men with some amazing Keystone Berkeley American” adds to a great atmosphere. record the gig but they couldn’t get a gas work on the bass. There are 10 tracks in 13/11/80 Interesting backing vocals on Nuclear supply for the tape recorder” later he total and all of these sound great! A radio broadcast that has only very Device and also on one or two others. refuses to piss on a member of the recently surfaced. Available on the web. audience as he doesn’t know him well Essential *** Superb sound quality. The keys are high in Essential ***

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Locarno Bristol worst one here by some considerable Rainbow London 09/02/81 distance, with terrible sound quality. I 07/03/81 An audience recording from the opening could not sit through all of this I’m afraid, An audience recording of a Live at Masonic Hall, Toronto, Canada, 26/11/1980 night of the UK tour. Pretty ropey quality it really is that bad. reasonable/average standard that is very but a very interesting set. The band often similar to the Hammersmith Odeon boot used an experimental set on the opening Worthless of 15th February. Unfortunately, there are night and this is no exception as Don’t several cuts and breaks that are really Bring Harry was featured. It was Playhouse Edinburgh annoying, Second Coming and Hallow To subsequently dropped from the rest of the 24/02/81 Our Men are badly affected. Hugh is very tour and has only made (to my knowledge) Mixing Desk. THE definitive Stranglers chatty but it is quite difficult at times to only one subsequent live appearance (in bootleg which, like a bloody good woman, make out exactly what he’s saying; some 1993). A vocorder is used to address the has just about everything in exactly the remarks are directed at the people spitting crowd but it is very difficult to make any right proportions. The “remastered” in the audience. Hugh messes up with the of this out. Waiting For The Meninblack version (which is readily available on the lyrics on Hanging Around (nothing new starts but is immediately cut on my tape web) is almost certainly at official release there then). Overall a decent enough and this track is not therefore included on standards. 16 tracks in total, including bootleg. Keystone Palo Alto the track listing. Quite a few tracks are Meninblack. The set became somewhat 14/11/80 otherwise featured from the new album; shorter as the tour progressed and by this Worthwhile * Probably just about the best audience Just Like Nothing On Earth, Thrown stage, Down In The Sewer, which was recording from this US tour and almost Away, Four Horsemen, Second Coming used to finish at Bristol and Hammersmith Creations Club, NJ, USA certainly the full set with 15 tracks. Not too and Hallow To Our Men. Odeon, had been dropped. 07/04/81 much chatter from Hugh. The band were in Audience recording. Good quality. Only top form, even with hired gear. Some great Average Essential *** 12 tracks so this is almost certainly not stuff here including, for example, Hanging Around and a blinding Down In The Sewer Hammersmith Odeon which sadly is cut. Just Like Nothing On 15/02/81 Earth sounds rather weird and we even get An audience recording of average the same plug (as 13th November) from standard for the sixth night of the UK Hugh for Ronnie Reagan’s forthcoming tour. By this stage the set had “settled” films on TV. Dead Loss Angeles is superb and was pretty much the same for the rest with thumping bass guitars. of the tour. Sound quality is rather fuzzy and it occasionally drops to a single Recommended ** channel but this boot is pretty enjoyable all the same. Meninblack is added and Toronto Waiting For The Meninblack is dropped 26/11/80 from the set. Hugh recalls the last gig at A near perfect FM broadcast from CFNY Hammersmith Odeon with Patti Smith radio in glorious stereo. 13 tracks in total. and also passes on a message from the Get a low generation copy if you can find GLC! one. Down In The Sewer is drastically cut (probably for the radio broadcast). Lots of Worthwhile * highlights, I Feel Like A Wog, the final track, is superb. University Durham 23/02/81

Essential *** An awful quality audience recording, the Hammersmith Odeon, 15 February 1981

Page 57 Issue two the full gig. Plenty of loud Americans of A, didn’t we invent the tape drawing to a close (there were only a recording but by no means the best from hoopin’ and holerin’ in the crowd, Hugh recorder? handful of dates played after this show) this tour. Contains a couple of “odd” advises them to drink some more as and this is quite a long set with 18 tracks tracks (5 Minutes and I Feel Like A Wog) they are still coherent! Some funny Recommended ** in total. The delivery of the “bring me a but perhaps it was necessary for the band comments, also from Hugh, after Toiler piece of my mummy” line in Threatened is to mix things up a bit as they almost On The Sea, as the gig was obviously The Stone San Francisco a long drawn out affair. Hugh is quite certainly played a second set later that close to getting pulled “there wasn’t a 09/05/81 chatty and even manages a joke at Ronald same day. stage here this afternoon”. Enough of Yet another very good quality audience Reagan’s expense. Hugh then warns the this frivolity…. A cut on Nuclear Device recording. 16 tracks in total. Great audience about flash photography “if we Recommended ** towards the end of the gig is rather version of Thrown Away. Some funny see one more flash that’s the end of the annoying. stuff from Hugh who has by now finely music”. Great version of Meninblack and tuned his “stand up” routine although the some ad lib stuff from JJ at the end of Ice. Worthwhile * jokes and wisecracks are getting rather Bring on The Nubiles is included here too predictable. There is some stuff about but on this occasion it starts with the Top Picks Emerald City, New Jersey Prince Charles and Diana’s forthcoming cocktail version. If you were to select only half a dozen 11/04/81 nuptials (and a reference to a goat!) boots from this period you could not, in Mixing Desk. Good quality and before Duchess. Finishes with a superb Recommended ** my opinion, do any better than the recommended. Recently remastered and Hanging Around. following: made available on the web. 13 tracks in Bonds New York total, excellent stuff from start to finish. Recommended ** 20/6/81 ■ Rockstage 19/8/80 Some funny stuff from Hugh too, This has only recently surfaced and was ■ Ritz Club 21/10/80 including the premature ejaculation The Palms Milwaukee the source of an interesting debate on the ■ Berkley 13/11/80 routine before Second Coming. 24/05/81 Burning Up Time message boards. It was ■ Toronto 26/11/80 An audience recording of good quality previously assumed that the US tour ■ Edinburgh 24/2/81 Recommended ** (but not quite as good as some of the finished at Le Club Montreal on 3rd June ■ New Orleans 20/4/81 other audience recordings from this tour). and several people (including me!) Ole Man Rivers New Orleans Pretty much the standard set with 17 questioned this boot assuming that a gig However, all of the boots marked as 20/04/81 tracks in total. “We don’t need any on 20th June had never taken place. It Recommended ** are excellent quality Audience recording. Good quality. Good gig. cheerleaders” Hugh tells the crowd and took a post from our man in New York recordings and they should be on the wish then “I hear this is a bit of a drinking (who had been to one of the shows at list of all serious collectors. Essential *** town” before Just Like Nothing On Earth. Bonds) to convince the doubters. A scan The ratings given for all of these boots Two people in the audience put their hand of his ticket (which was subsequently are based entirely on the material Palo Alto, CA up when Hugh asks if anyone suffers from incorporated into the artwork!) helped reviewed for this article. Lower of higher 08/05/81 premature ejaculation, he then prescribes matters too. generation copies of the same boots would An audience recording of very good Second Coming two times a day! Bring On In the gig Hugh refers to the obviously attract different ratings. Shop quality. 15 tracks in total. Hugh informs The Nubiles is included in the set after a “nappynee” performance so I think it is around before you trade and get the the audience that Palo Alto is “a skinny few comments from Hugh about Prince reasonable to assume that this boot is lowest generation boots that you can get tree with no leaves on it” and we then Charles. from the matinee performance on 20th yer mits on! get the scrumpy reference before the June. There are two versions available band launch into Just Like Nothing On Recommended ** (both are of equivalent quality) one with My Dessert Island Boot (1980 – 81) Earth. JJ does Thrown Away in his best six tracks and the other with nine tracks. A bootleg from the Nice gig (20/6/80) (exaggerated) English accent. Fantastic Toronto Get the longer version if you can, the when the band were arrested would version of Hallow To Our Men. 30/05/81 three extra tracks are Thrown Away, Who certainly be something of a landmark for Excellent stuff but why are most of the An audience recording of very good Wants The World and Second Coming. collectors, just like RGTC from Surrey decent 1981 boots from the good ol’ US quality. The North American tour is Overall a decent quality audience University in October 1978, dream on!

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Writer Chris Twomey exclusively reveals to The Burning Up Times how At some point during the spring of 1979 we showed up at a small venue in Bristol, penning the first Stranglers biog left him with a sour taste – and almost whose name I have long forgotten, just as JJ’s Euroman tour rolled into town. Posing as two broke him in the process. contributors to a West Country punk fanzine, we somehow managed to persuade the tour manager to fix it for us to interview JJ back stage before the gig. We nervously stuttered through the encounter and watched the gig in the smug knowledge that we’d been invited to the after show (which, just to increase our awe, was attended by Jet and his then partner Suze.) Mean Two-mey When we got back to Okehampton Comprehensive a couple of days later, our street cred had gone through the roof. More importantly, I’d leant the power of polite persuasion. The next time I met a Strangler was early 1980, by which time I was a trainee radio FEW months ago a friend sent me some information about an item journalist based in Falmouth, Cornwall. As we had to end our course by compiling a radio selling on eBay. It was a copy of The Men They Love To Hate by documentary on a subject close to our hearts, I chose – guess what. Again there was an A none other than moi – which would normally cost you the price of element of bullshit in my pitch to Ian Grant, who was handling most of the day-to-day the Old Testament CD box set, the only place you can get it. Good luck to the managerial duties. I told him I was compiling a half-hour anthology of the band’s career so person who eventually paid £12 for the book, they got a bargain... or did far (true) and that it was going to be broadcast on Plymouth Sound radio, and possibly other they? ILR stations (turned out to be true, but I certainly wasn’t commissioned in advance). He I was flattered by the seller’s accompanying description of The Men They invited me to bring my cumbersome Uher reel-to-reel tape machine up to London to Love To Hate as “a well written and researched effort – a must for any fan”. interview Hugh. It’s probably all those things, but to me it’s an inconsequential legacy for the I caught Hugh on a good day – looking back he should have been glum as hell as he was four years I spent working on it. Yes, four years, resulting in a book that was a few weeks from a possible prison sentence at the time. His misplaced confidence at barely 110 pages long and that no one could actually buy from a book shop winning an appeal must have been sky high. Not only was Hugh charming and witty, – the normal place for these things – or indeed buy as a separate item at all afterwards he offered me a lift from central London to West Hampstead, where I was staying (until matey on eBay flogged his copy). I’ve always wondered how many with friends. It just got better and better – on the way he stuck head phones on both of us, hundred, if nor thousands, of Stranglers fans felt compelled to buy the Old Testament over and turned on this weird little cassette machine he’d recently bought in Japan. It was called a the years simply because it contained the one thing they didn’t already have – a book. Walkman or something. Of course The Men They Love To Hate wasn’t the book I’d set out to write almost 10 Anyway, what he played me were several completed tracks from the early Meninblack years earlier, in 1982. If things had gone to plan, that would have been one of those thick sessions. I certainly remember hearing Two Sunspots (something about the song tickled tomes that could double as a bar-bell. In the end we got an odd-shaped thing that wouldn’t Hugh because he chuckled a few times while it was playing), Bear Cage and Waiting For The give a spider backache. The original manuscript is never likely to see the light of day, Meninblack. He may have played me another track or two, but I’m not sure what. The half- although I occasionally trip over it in my attic. I’ve never had a chance to explain why it’s up hour or so journey was a bizarre and wondrous white knuckle ride. On the one hand I was there gathering dust instead of being read by the people it was written for – Stranglers fans – mesmerised by this amazing, other-worldly music that was filling up my head (the sound so after all these years I think it’s time to spill the beans... quality this Walkman thingy produced was amazing.) On the other hand I was counting the My relationship with The Stranglers was probably a heartening example of how, if you seconds I had to live as Hugh periodically turned around to change the cassette, taking his want something badly enough, you can get it. Certainly when I was 17-18, no one else eyes off the road for what seemed like obituary-inviting minutes at a time. inspired me the way they did. They seemed to me the embodiment of everything I was feeling A couple of months later, Hugh’s incarceration in Pentonville for that infamous drugs – angry and energised, but their nihilism was wrapped with a hint of irony and humour bust was a big enough story to make the national press. I was stunned by the news, but I unlike many of their peers. Their music was edgy and uplifting, in an ugly-beautiful sort of couldn’t help noticing the kudos I acquired overnight amongst my fellow radio journalists at way, and they looked cool as fuck. They seemed to be a more grounded, grown-up version of Falmouth, and especially the course tutor. They all knew how recently I’d cosied up to this the punk bands us rebels in Devon (!) had heard so much about, and as such were easier to jailbird rock star, which not only showed them how fearless I was (!) but how I had a nose respect. When I saw the cover of Rattus for the first time I was hooked. I analysed it in for a breaking story. It was a complete fluke of course, but I didn’t tell them that. The forensic detail, usually while playing the album on my shitty old turntable. I was intrigued, publicity surrounding Hugh’s prison sentence also made it easy for me to sell my humble on the way to becoming obsessed. little documentary to independent radio stations. Within a few weeks, it was being broadcast I soon discovered a fringe benefit of my new obsession. The best looking girl in my sixth everywhere from Aberdeen to Brighton. form, Mary, was also a Stranglers fan. As a way of ensuring we’d be an item for longer than two Crucially, Hugh liked what he heard (when he finally got out of jail.) I instantly acquired weeks I promised her that one day soon we’d meet the band. And I gave as good as my word. “Trusted Journalist” status – making me part of a very rare breed. My next interview with

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Hugh sold to Record Mirror, thus opening up another door, and to increase my They were always very obliging. On a couple of occasions I stayed overnight. One of the trustworthiness and familiarity I started contributing to Strangled. strangest experiences of my life was getting very pissed and stoned at JJ’s one night, only to From there it was just a short skip and a hop before I was pestering the band to let me wake up in a spare room with my host crouching over me. It was actually a life-sized write their official biography. At first they declined – JJ’s common refrain was “Why don’t cardboard cut-out from the Black And White sleeve shot, but in my monstrously hung-over you wait until we’ve split up?” (Just as well I didn’t, eh JJ?) But the whole mood in the camp state it took a few seconds to process this information. suddenly changed dramatically with the success of Golden Brown. It was as if the band Then there were the tours. I was invited to follow the whole of the 1983 autumn French suddenly recognised a more urgent need to get someone researching their story. After all, tour, and the 1985 British tour, staying in the same hotels as they band – living pretty much they were obviously going to last a bit longer than everyone thought. I was still a relatively the way they did for each four-week duration. In order to pay my way, I’d work on the SIS inexperienced journalist, but that didn’t matter – the right man in the right place at the right merchandise stall at all the shows, which I actually quite enjoyed. I have particularly fond time nearly always gets the job. memories of the French tour – there was something thrilling about arriving in France just as Unfortunately, getting this far was the easy bit. The deal I struck with the band would they were riding a wave. In September 83, Feline was one of the biggest selling foreign virtually guarantee the project’s long-term failure. Instead of taking what I now know to be albums in France, and The Stranglers were on the cover of every music magazine that the conventional route – finding a literary agent to represent us, or negotiating a book deal mattered. directly with a publisher – the band insisted a contract was drawn up between me and them. That mid-80s era was undeniably a buzz – at times I couldn’t believe my luck. The longer In other words, I would get their full co-operation only if I agreed to them having the final I was around, the more I was accepted as “family” by the band. Thanks to them, I even made say on the book’s content. They would be responsible for finding the publisher and would my own pathetic attempt at pop stardom – adding my anaemic vocals to a Jet-produced retain copyright. They would pay my expenses while I was researching and writing the book, version of My Young Dreams. The single sold 4,000-plus copies via SIS (probably enough to but the author’s royalty would be split five ways – between me and all of them! get you into the Top 40 these days!) and has since ended up on a couple of CD compilations, No writer with any sense would ever agree to such terms – and I did try, unsuccessfully, including, to my intense irritation and embarrassment, EMI’s Stranglers compilation Rarities. to re-negotiate – but ultimately I needed them more than they needed me. I knew that if the I was having a ball... but inevitably it all went sour. Alarm bells started ringing around book came out and did well, it could be the making of me. I went ahead and signed the the Dreamtime period, when I realised that each member of the band had their own theories contract in their lawyer’s London office. They were all present too – I can’t remember exactly about when and how the book should be published. As far as I was concerned, as soon as I why, although Strange Little Girl had just reached the Top 10, and I think they were off to do caught up with the present, my task was complete. I’d reached that point. I wanted the band a TV appearance somewhere. to secure a publisher and get the thing into print (I wasn’t the only one – hardly a week went Deal signed, I got started. Jet had already been through his address book and made up an by without someone writing into SIS and asking when the bloody book was going to come exhaustive contacts list. It contained the phone numbers of virtually everyone of any out). We could always do updates in the future. significance who might have a story to tell about The Stranglers – including, bizarrely, Diana Eventually Jet – who was always the most supportive of the book project – agreed that Ross and Kate Bush (I can’t recall why!) When I cold-called these people and told them I we should start fishing for a deal. But there was a catch. The band wanted their lawyer to was writing a book about The Stranglers, doors seemed to fly open. Not everyone would see seek out a deal, which made my heart sink. I had no idea how much, if anything, he knew me, but within weeks I was having coffee with Harvey Goldsmith and Cliff Busby (former about the book publishing world, but I did know that even the biggest advance a rock head of EMI Records), lunch with Martin Rushent at his wonderful pad somewhere beyond biographer could negotiate wouldn’t pay for a hot shot lawyer’s lunch. What incentive would Reading (Human League were recording at his studio at the time), and afternoon tea with he have to shove his A list clients aside for a couple of minutes and secure a deal for my George Melly at his place just off Ladbroke Grove. I’d have piss ups with the likes of Johnny poxy book? The answer, quelle surprise, was none. Rubbish and Brian James – I remember meeting him and his current band The Lords Of The Month after month dragged by without any news about how my manuscript was being New Church at his favourite pub in the Portobello Road. received in the publishing world. So of course I started to push – at first meekly, and Then there were the endless ex-employees, ex-girlfriends, managers, accountants, eventually aggressively. Then we started to get the first bunch of rejections. Trouble was, lawyers, roadies, security men, early fans and Finchley Boys... I met them all (incidentally, there was no feedback from anyone. Why were publishers rejecting? Was the book too long, Garry Coward-Williams, aka photographer and one-time Stranglers roadie Chiswick Charlie, too short, too this, too that? Was the lawyer putting unrealistic demands on the table? Or now editor of Amateur Photographer magazine, is a regular drinking buddy of mine. Many of was he simply biking my manuscript over to someone and passively waiting for them to Garry’s excellent early photos of the band were used in The Men They Love To Hate, make a decision? although sadly he went uncredited.) Sometimes I’d travel hundreds of miles just to fish an One thing I knew for sure – he wasn’t doing a hard-sell because he hadn’t read the book. anecdote out of a lunatic pyrotechnical who’d once adorned their stage with fireworks. He didn’t have a clue what was in it. Then of course, there were the countless hook-ups with band members. I’d tend to work A few more months went by and I eventually got the band (well, Jet) to see reason. I argued through a couple of years of their history (Jet also loaned me his numerous volumes of press we should get a literary agent – book publishing is their world, after all, and how would any of cuttings) and then do a round of interviews with each of them, preferably at their homes. us recognise a good deal? We soon got one of the best agents in the business to represent us – a

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guy called Tony Peake at the prestigious flower, just ask yourself how you’d feel if you spent four years working on something you London Management on Regent’s Street. were passionate about, only to realise you’d been wasting your time. We decided to give Tony a chance and Not long after I got back from that trip, another offer was put to me. Encouraged by the within a couple of weeks he’d found an massive success of Greatest Hits 1977-1990 – and with lots of encouragement from Nik interested publisher – Blandford Press, who Yeomans, who ran SIS following Paul Duffy’s long tenure – EMI decided to revitalise the back were based in Dorset. The publisher thought catalogue. As Nik was a friend and ex-flatmate of mine, he told the project manager Tim the book was too long and wanted one of his Chacksfield about my unpublished book and suggested it might be a perfect accompaniment editors to re-shape it a bit, but essentially they to a possible box set. Tim, not surprisingly, saw the huge marketing potential of a free book to were happy with the contents, including the slot in with a four-CD set, and when the band agreed to the idea I got down to work. hilarious Steve Beaumont illustrations that the It took me six weeks to write a heavily abridged version of The Men They Love To Hate, band had commissioned. The financial side of using my original manuscript as the only source of reference. EMI, incidentally, paid me a the offer was okay, pretty standard for a rock nominal one-off sum to cover my costs, but I didn’t care – I had something to show for all biog, and after Jet and I travelled to the my exhaustive research at last. publisher’s offices in Poole to discuss the finer What surprised me was how well The Men They Love To Hate went down with fans and points of the deal, I thought we were at last critics. Jet was also chuffed to see something in print at last. He called me a few times to getting somewhere. But I reckoned without discuss the possibility of re-vitalising the book project, but in all honesty my heart wasn’t in the biggest stumbling block of all – what the it any more. One day he phoned – this must have been 1994/95 – and I said that without a book should be called. publishing deal I couldn’t afford to write another word. He said, “I’m cool with that” – I’d already suggested The Men They Love which I assumed meant “let’s look for a publisher” – and that was the last time we spoke. To Hate as an obvious title, and everyone I didn’t hear another mention of Stranglers book projects until a couple of months before agreed it said it all, but it was the tag line that David Buckley’s biography No Mercy was published. It came as a huge shock. At first I felt was causing the problems. Blandford Press very angry and betrayed. But then I became curious to see what my rival had pulled off that I wanted to market the book as “The Official Biography” and wanted to enlist the band’s help never could. in promoting it – perhaps by attending a couple of signings and giving a few interviews. But When I finally read No Mercy I was more than quietly envious. I know David’s book has at this crucial point in the process, The Stranglers distanced themselves from the project. been subjected to the usual microscopic critical scrutiny by hard-core fans – a few of whom Even though I was contractually bound to give them copy approval on everything I wrote, found it wanting in one way or another – but, trust me, I don’t know how he did it. and they each stood to earn as much from the book as me, they categorically refused to allow Although I gather a lot got taken out, what’s left is far more personal and revealing of the it to be called “authorised” or “official”, or enter into any promotional agreements. I think band as people – rather than Stranglers as a rock ‘n’ roll machine – than anything I was ever they were afraid that the book would look like a subjective account of their history – even able to do. I’m not being disingenuous, I think he did a really good job – it must have been though that’s exactly what it was. one hell of a balancing act with so many awkward sods to please. For a while the publishers tried to find a compromise but when the band refused to allow These days I reflect on my time with The Stranglers and I think a couple of things: the book to be called “The Definitive biography”, they lost faith. As soon as the deal was Firstly, of course, what a bummer it ended like it did. I still have a lot of affection for them called off, the agent also got cold feet and pulled out. We weren’t just back to the beginning, and a lot of fond memories. I also have to give that extremely difficult apprenticeship some we were seriously adrift. As far as I was concerned, the band appeared to be asking the credit – on the back of it I got to write the official XTC biography and co-author a book on impossible of any publisher – full editorial and copyright control, but without any guarantee Crowded House, and now earn a pretty good living writing and editing, and previewing TV of demonstrable support. It wasn’t going to happen. I instinctively knew the book was fucked. for magazines. While I waited and prayed for a change of heart, I started to go a bit mad. One of my But the other thing I think – and this is hugely ironic – is thank god my book never came less wise ventures was to record a couple of Purple Helmets gigs on my brand new out. If it had I would have been crucified by critics for being embarrassingly sycophantic. Recording Walkman, get loads of cassette copies duped and flog them at subsequent Purple Fans would have discovered that I was good at recounting the funny stories, the action, the Helmets gigs for £5 a throw. It was reckless and, guess what, I got caught. I remember finally accomplishments and the chronology, but balked at giving any sort of critique of the band’s coming before a perplexed-looking JJ wondering whether he was going to thump me or work, or any insight into them as human beings (they wouldn’t even entertain the idea of forgive me. (He sort of forgave me.) talking about their personal lives when I was involved with them). Not long after that, I sold and gave away all my possessions and buggered off around the My failure to stand my ground and get the band to agree to certain reasonable demands world for several months. In retrospect I’d so obviously lost the plot and the book experience is why the project ultimately collapsed. But let’s be pragmatic about this: nobody who makes undeniably played a big part in that. Before anyone accuses me of being a delicate little demands of The Stranglers stays in their company for very long. Get my meaning?

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Stranglers in Rome, July 1980

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