The story of UK DIY: 131 experimental underground classics 1977-1985

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41. FURIOUS PIG
‘I Don’t Like Your Face’
(Rough Trade, 1981)

Here Rough Trade are digging deep into the DIY/RIO hinterland – Furious Pig were a short-lived collective, all voice, whose 12” for the label was fabulously wrecked, an aggressive tangle of vocal chords that took the vocal improv of legends like Phil Minton and Jaap Blonk into post-punk terrain. But I was surprised to recently find that in amongst the Furious Pig crew were future members of Lights In A Fat City and Het, two great groups whose records stumbled around in that post-RIO/weird-beard improv space: Het’s Let’s Het, on Woof Records, is particularly potent. As if that wasn’t enough, the only other Furious Pig release was a flexi-disc on the ultimate obscuro electronics label, Japan’s Vanity Records (an honour ‘tha Pig’ shared with Gilbert/Lewis and Brian Eno, among others).


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42. GARAGE CLASS
‘Terminal Tokyo’
(Gymnasium, 1980)

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A good part of the charm of ‘Terminal Tokyo’ is the weirdly dry, droll delivery of the singer, who sounds like he’s been caught in the studio with a particularly bad case of hayfever. Connections here with the Happy Refugees, who Crystal Stilts have sung the praises of in the past, and I can’t help but see the song title here as a concatenation of several Pere Ubu titles – certainly, you can hear the ghosts of American punk in ‘Terminal Tokyo’’s slightly stilted moves (I mean that in a good way). This track turned up on one of those cool Cherry Red Seeds compilations, which make for a great set covering over the crossing pathways that existed between DIY, experimental, art-punk, post-punk and avant-pop in early ‘80s UK.


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43. GENERAL STRIKE
‘My Body’
(Canal, 1979)

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David Toop, Steve Beresford and David Cunningham in fine form here, from their first single, released several years before the classic Danger In Paradise cassette (reissued a few years back by Staubgold). It’s sad to think this single is still largely unattainable, though – what a great, dubbed-out clatter it is, an itchy-scratchy rhythm track plunged into the abyss with rib-shaker bass, gorgeous metallic melodies submerged in reverb while one of the trio flails around in falsetto. Check out the label of the record, too, for the Quartz Publications copyright – Quartz was Toop’s label of around this time, which released a bunch of stunning albums that made explicit connections between free improvisation and world music (the recordings of the Yanomani Shamans are justly legendary).


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44. GODS GIFT
‘Jacqueline’s Admission’
(Newmarket, 1980)

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No apostrophe please! Dark and meandering, with a spoken-word delivery that’s like a blunt, dispassionate Mark E Smith, it’s no surprise that Manchester-based Gods Gift had a downcast outlook on life. ‘Jacqueline’s Admission’ is a real-life detail of one of the patients at the Prestwich Asylum, where several members of Gods Gift worked. They also had a self-destructive, aggressive streak – on their first single, ‘People’, Gods Gift replaced any lyrics with a recording of an onstage fight. Perfect. Connected with the Manchester Musicians Collective, Gods Gift eventually hooked up with Richard Boon, who released a few of their records on his New Hormones label. They’re all great, and well worth checking out, most easily on Messthetics’ Pathology compilation.


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45. THE GOOD MISSIONARIES
‘Attitudes’
(Unnormality, 1981)

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AKA Alternative TV under another, wilder guise. ‘Attitudes’ is the B-side of their second single, the brilliantly titled ‘Deranged In Hastings’. When Alternative TV jumped off the cliff of consensual structure, they re-emerged, chrysalis-like, as The Good Missionaries, though that mythical tale – of ATV disrupting all wisdoms – is rather belied by the muscularity of ‘Attitudes’, its diamond-sharp guitars pulling at the fabric of the song. Though there’s a real fierceness to the performance, the overwhelming sensation is one of fragility, psychological near-collapse, carried most effectively in ‘Spikely B. Deranged’’s voice, which functions, much like Wire’s ‘I Am The Fly’, as a trenchant critique of late capital, this time from the armchair.


46. GRAB GRAB THE HADDOCK
‘I’m Used Now’
(Cherry Red, 1984)

More post-Marine Girls goodness, this time from the Fox sisters, who’ve joined forces here with Lester Noel and Steve Galloway. In retrospect, Grab Grab The Haddock come across as the gateway drug between DIY and C86, though they’re far from twee – there’s a sturdy, tough spine to the songs and the delivery that makes perfect sense of stories of the Marine Girls baring their teeth when heckled. There were only two Grab Grab The Haddock singles, both on Cherry Red, both sublime: they really should have done so much more.


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47. GREENFIELD LEISURE
‘L’Orange’
(Strange Orchestra, 1981)

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This lot are a bit of a mystery, much like their parent group, the Normil Hawaiians. Stumbling across them by accident, I’d discovered a weirdly dinky psych-punk outfit, who move a little like The Fall when Una Baines was on Casio keyboard – and then those chanting chorus vocals kick in, and everything gets that little bit stranger. A pretty great use of one lyric for the entire song, too – am I correct in thinking the entire lyric is “l’orange, l’orange, et tu l’orange l’orange”? What kind of genius is that? There was another Greenfield Leisure single in 1982, the Those Far Off Summers 12”, and then it appears Simon Marchant folded into the Normil Hawaiians line-up – about whom, more later…


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48. GUS COMA
‘Meet Our Employees’
(It’s War Boys, 1983)

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This one’s a real pinnacle of DIY. Submerged, fusty and at first blush incredibly mysterious, the warped non-songs of Color Him Coma, the only Gus Coma cassette, who, according to the Paradigm Discs website, was “Lepke B’s dwarfish cousin, who renounced showbiz to work as a Heavy Goods Vehicle driver.” That’s that sorted, then. It’s no surprise that Clive Graham of Paradigm ended up reissuing this cassette monster, as it’s right up his alley. No surprise also that it was apparently an inspiration for Steven Stapleton of Nurse With Wound. Loops, percussive clutter, farping brass, incidental noise, there’s some Burroughs on the tape somewhere… Come meet our employees!


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49. HAPPY REFUGEES
‘Hamburger Boy’
(Gymnasium, 1984)

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Another great record saved from near-obscurity by Dan Selzer at Acute Records, Last Chance Saloon was one of the last great gasps of the DIY era. Songs like ‘Hamburger Boy’ punch out their melodies with roguish aplomb, Tim Shutt’s voice full of breath-held frustration, squeezing “please don’t die on the sidewalk, it’s so embarrassing” out of his frame with real life force. It’s worth grabbing Acute’s Return To Last Chance Saloon so you can hear their first single, ‘Warehouse Sound’, from 1982. Again, it’s no wonder Crystal Stilts are big fans – you can hear some of their nervous twists and turns in Happy Refugees’ declamatory pop songs.


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50. GEORGE HARRASMENT
Masai Sleep Walking
(Black Noise, 1983)

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Okay, this is it. Bruno of The Homosexuals, I think, in solo mode, digging deep into his psyche and delivering one of the finest one-man-in-the-studio, underground blasts of direct non-communication I’ve heard. Some of these songs bled over onto that essential Homosexuals 3CD set, Astral Glamour, but eventually you’ll want to hear them in their original context. I’m not lying when I say I’ve listened to this record more than most any other in my collection, hence why I’ve linked you to the entire album. You need this in your life.