Ruts DC - The Fleece, Bristol - 9th March 2013

Ruts DC: well, I've always had a minor issue with the DC moniker - the boys said they chose it because da capo in Latin/Italian means literally 'from the head' or, in common musical parlance, back to the beginning. However, in music, it actually signifies going back to the beginning and playing what one's already played all over again, exactly the same, and this couldn't be further from what Ruts DC actually did, and are doing! What they really did, in my humble opinion, was reference their eponymous first single 'In A Rut', and being close to being in one, boy did they get out of it, and in incomparable and uninimitable fashion.

Events conspired against me even to get to this gig, but I'm a rebel and I in turn conspired against events. My lift to the gig having fallen through, as had my accommodation options in Bristol, 3pm last Saturday found me in my trusty Saab leaving my geographical home for my spiritual one. What - bloody Bristol, I hear you ask? No, dear reader, a Ruts gig! (Though I did have the old Mike Absalom lyric going round in my loaf: If she was French she'd be from Brest / I always did like Bristols best...)

Anyway, arriving in time for the sound check, after a brief meet and greet, as the yanks say, I was taken down a road of olfactory reminiscence. I don't know why, but for me certain styles of music have particular nostalgic triggers; for example I first saw Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, Jimmy Rogers et al at the 100 Club in the mid-70s, which in those days had a doubtful Chinese restaurant outlet at the opposite end of the club to the bar, meaning that the whiff of MSG-enriched sweet and sour sauce often engenders thoughts of Chicago blues in me. In the same way, the smell of stale lager and cider in a darkened, empty venue makes me think of punk gigs. Well, The Fleece, bless it, as I'd observed when seeing and supporting The Members there the other year, definitely lives up to expectations in that department.

To cut to the chase, the set! First, some wonderful deep reggae. How do you know - you know nothing about reggae, I hear you ask? Well, maybe not, but (a) I know great music when I hear it; (b) who better than The Ruts to educate one in this department? (c) I challenge anyone last week to have popped down the road to St Paul's and got the most devout Rastaman they could find, and brought him to the show, not to have had the feedback that the only thing that denoted he wasn't in the tightest soundclash he'd ever been to, was the fact that there was only a band at one end of the hall. Shall I have a little Pus-style rant here? Why not? Damn the expense! Well, people, then and now, talking about punk rock, often cite The Clash - admittedly a great band of creative musicians - as veering from the punk thrash norm because they had a strong reggae influence/content in their material...the old heckles always rise at this, and I think: have these 'people' never heard The Ruts? So...one step forward...and...two steps forward...and, in the case of Ruts DC, no steps backwards now or ever. As is commonly known and told, The Ruts and Misty in Roots have always been close chums and colleagues. The very name Misty In Roots has pantomime undertones, and WHY NOT? An old criticism of The Damned was that they were a 'vaudeville band.' Why a criticism, I always wondered, surely a compliment? I maintain that a small strand of slapstick marbleing the rock face of serious music validates, not undermines it - it helps connect the punter to the product, and should never be knocked, so very nice it was to hear Segs put his tongue in his cheek inbetween numbers.

I'd like to say, after the reggae, what we'd all come for, but I'd be speaking for myself - I'm sure lots of people came for the reggae too, I know I met at least four of them in the pub next door to the gig! Between ourselves - and I hope there's thousands of us - I came for The Crack, and I wanted to hear it. And, guess what? Fucking hear it I jolly well did! Maybe I should have been a music journo, but I'm not, so I made no notes, and enjoyed it so much I can't tell you what order they played the tunes in. My back - not my bum, as we used to joke in the old days - was duly bitten, I was got with SUS, etc., etc. I am unable to report any highlights, as every word, note and harmony was a highlight.

Every song had a special souvenir, in the French sense, for me. Staring At The Rude Boys puts me in mind of a gig on the Grin & Bare It tour at an old civic hall somewhere in the Midlands, possibly I think the Victoria Halls in Hanley. The soundcheck was over, and the doors had opened. Punters were filtering in, and the soundman or DJ had some records on. Now the first Human League album had just come out, and Malcolm loved it. We were sitting in the dressing room having a little libation when in bursts Malcolm, shouting: "Guess what? I've just put the Human League on, and all these fucking skinheads are dancing to it!"

Babylon's Burning hit the charts during a little three month holiday I had with Her Majesty in the summer of 1979, thoughtfully scheduled by the constabulary between my joining the lads as support slot on the earlier Damned tour, and doing so again on their victorious post-hit Grin & Bare It tour on my release, and hearing it still gives me the same joy and warmth that it did bursting out of the old tranny in the cell. Typing that last phrase alerts me to its possible ambiguity, and I can just hear Segs and Ruffy saying: "You had an old tranny in your cell, Aunt? Well you are a dark horse!" Ha, ha ha...

West One (Shine On Me) is a strange dichotomy: from the day of its release, through melting at watching a YouTube clip of Segs singing it at last year's Rebellion festival, right up until last Saturday radiates, pulsates and glories in Malcolm shining on. It never fails to move me, and I would quite possibly find it unbearably heart wrenching, were it not for the levity injected by the fact that I used to labour under the misapprehension that the lyric 'inside it's only me who's straight' was 'lost in a bar somewhere in sunny Spain.' Well, Malcolm's stunning model ex-missus Rocky had moved to Ibiza, things'd definitely gone downhill after she left, and I reckoned he missed her, quite probably correctly!

I find it very hard to say anything about the insuperable guitar, keyboards and harmony vocals. The best way I can find to express it is that they were so wonderful and so appropriate, that they managed to be simultaneously uplifting, driving and undetectable. It might seem a bit off the subject, but I love the Rolling Stones, and the best way Mick Taylor and Ronnie Wood could ever find to be Brian Jones was by being themselves. I had a lovely chat with Leigh Hegarty, Ruts DC's great new guitarist, after the show and he confided in me that he worried he "had some big shoes to fill." I could only respond, and I echo this here, that he has no shoes to fill whatsoever. Ruts DC are a renaissance not a re-creation, and he needs to be very proud of his contribution which underscores, fills, cuts and rocks! He exemplified how to acknowledge and reference a great influence whilst being simultaneously innovative, and without descending to the depths of tribute band territory. To quote Ruffy, in a recent Louder Than War interview: "He'€™s a monster player. We could never find anyone to do that job as well as that. He nails it. He knows exactly what it is."

To finish, as is traditional - one can't rail against every tradition, ha ha - the encore. (Another musical misnomer, as it's French for 'again', and not 'more.') The first single, released on People Unite records all those years ago. Vraiment, the people united last Saturday in Bristol! In A Rut: "You're in a rut, you gotta get out of it" - when I first heard and worked with The Ruts, how I liked to deceive myself into thinking this meant: you've got to get out of it. It took me nearly a quarter of a century, but finally the proverbial penny dropped, and it dawned on me that it meant I should get out of the rut, and not my head. Similarly, with H-Eyes, what harder way to rebel than by demonstrating that they weren't going to fuck my brain?

(Why is it that, when famous people have a tragic demise, they are remembered for this and not their creativity and humour? Take the great Tony Hancock, for example - sad that he died alone in an Australian hotel room, but he made and is still making a lot of people laugh, me included, and jolly loudly too. Now I never met or knew Jim Morrison, but I've read virtually all there is to read in the public arena about him, and as well as liking girls and getting off his head, he was clearly an extremely lively, and funny person. Well, let me tell you, so was Malcolm Owen, who also liked dangerous drugs, pretty girls, and left us at R 'n' R death age. I'd like to take this opportunity to tell the world, already I trust aware of his singing and songwriting genius, quite how amusing his husky idiosyncratic humour was. No, no quotes, I've told you and that'll do - but I like to recall Malcolm, a man who never possessed a driving licence, swinging the band Transit through the goalposts of a college gig football pitch in Hull with Segs and I beside him in the front seat, and a couple of terrified groupies screaming in the back, as the open doors swung to and fro, with a smile on my face, not a tear in my eye...)

To conclude, without wishing to over personalise, and thus render inaccessible, what started off as, and was supposed to be a gig review, I need to tell you that this band has been instrumental in precipitating most of my major life achievements e.g. the release of my first record, travelling the world, and showing hard drugs the door. I'm sure that the lads were as glad as I am that I didn't pitch up at their gig destitute, homeless and wanted by the forces of law and order, necessitating them taking me on tour with them for the combined reasons of subterfuge, compere duties and true love. However, the latter is ever present for me at the very mention of the word Ruts and, wishing to communicate the poignance this show resonated for me, rather than to be unnecessarily corny, I could still feel it in every note! Delighted as I was to be thankfully neither destitute nor homeless - though still penniless, the ongoing plight of most musicians - and having a lovely Georgian flat in Plymouth calling me back down the M5, I knew in my heart that there was a place in theirs for me. I can say no more than that this is forever reciprocated. As I write these words, the boys are about to take the stage at the Middlesborough Rock Garden revisited, where the promoter told me in one breath that I was a living legend since my performance there thirty-four years ago, and in the next breath that I wasn't welcome on the bill. Plus ca change! Well, give 'em hell lads, 'cause that's what they gave me thirty-four years ago!

22 PINTS OF LAGER & FUCK THE CRISPS - Chapter 3: Blood On The Norfolk Broads

Not only was youngpunkfan's dad's flat barren and cold, so was the day that greeted us on Saturday, November 8th, 1980. It was also grey and damp, in time honoured South Yorkshire tradition when, clutching our priceless Woolworth's instruments, remarkably still no more scathed than when we left London, Arthur & I attempted to follow youngpunkfan and dad's directions to the bus stop for the station, accompanied by Dan, weighed down by no more than a pair of sticks poking from the pocket of his Generation X emblazoned Lewis leather jacket. 

Mission duly accomplished, we alighted at said station. I say 'said', but cannot say, at this latter juncture whether 'twas Rotherham or Sheffield. I can say that we determined that we needed to board our train fairly swiftly, and thus through combined reasons of expediency and shortage of tour support funds, our meagre two hundred pounds' tour support from Albion being long consumed, we were running for the rattler. Being the Saturday before Armistice day, my route was temporarily impeded by a poppy seller. "'Ere - mind out!" I exclaimed, as we collided in what I'd like to say was a cloud of steam from the approaching locomotive we aimed to catch - sadly, being 1980, it was just moist Yorkshire fog hanging on the air. "What's that for?" I added. "Armistice," replied the British Legion chap. "Never mind that," replied I, quick as a flash, "Get out my way or I'll MISS this train!" Boom boom! Well Arthur and I thought it faintly amusing, as did some of the audience, when I was inspired to share it with them later that evening.

It was quite a journey, and merits note for our resourcefulness and determination after in excess of fifty hours on the road, or should I say train, in our case. National Rail inform me that, were I travelling today, I could go directly from Sheffield to Norwich. However, I think we had to change at Crewe, as I'm sure I recall larking about on the platform singing Please Mr Porter in deference to Will Hay. This could conceivably be a combination of failing memory and wishful thinking, but I remain convinced it occurred. Regardless, after about three hours we alighted at Norwich station where on the concourse, whilst looking for information for the onward connection to West Runton, we encountered most of that night's audience, already raring to go, fuelled by cider and what one might term vitesse de vivre. Obviously it didn't take detective skills for us to identify them but, whether they recognised us as I'd like to think, or whether we introduced ourselves, I can't remember. Nonetheless, having made our acquaintance, they were both chuffed to accompany us up the branch line to West Runton, and to show us the way to the gig when we got there.

Now, there were a few explanations for our looking forward to arriving at that gig, discounting the obvious one of unwinding by blagging drinks off the fans after a c. five hour awkward train journey. Foremost was the fact that my fantastic lead guitar player and producer Dick Taylor, lead guitarist of ineffable dirty British R 'n' B pioneers The Pretty Things and founder Rolling Stone, was driving up from London to join us, and bringing with him our large, loud and regular drummer Pete (Manic Esso) Haynes, like Arthur an 'ex-Lurker for life'. (This was a band joke at the time as both Arthur and Esso were attempting to pursue alternative post-Lurker careers, and were daunted at every step, or should I say review, by being dubbed ex-Lurkers. Incidentally, Arthur has been a Lurker again now for over twenty years, whilst Esso is playing with original Lurkers' guitarist Pete Stride and bassist Nigel in the aptly named God's Lonely Men, so Lurkers for life it appears they are.) The only thing that had to be resolved was what Dan's role in the proceedings would be as, much as I'd loved to have had two drummers a la Pink Fairies, there was only one borrowed Splodge drum kit to be abused. How this was resolved and the ensuing chaos it provoked will be revealed in good course. We were also looking forward to seeeing Dick for lots of other reasons: principally that he was and is an amazing guitarist and a dear and loyal friend to us all but also because, at the then princely age of thirty-seven he was like a dad to our young selves, getting us out of trouble as he often did, whilst simultaneously often managing to have a hidden hand in helping us initiate it. (Dick was also a great diplomat, a skill he brought into play after the show that night when the promoter didn't want to hand over the dosh.) At the time Dick's day job was as a delivery driver for Jean Machine, the renowned chain of denim emporia, and I used to drive him mad en route to gigs mocking his unelected elder statesman's role by repeatedly singing the country tune Rock 'n' Roll I Gave You All The Best Years Of My Life.  Anyhow, next reason for being over the proverbial moon at seeing Dick was that he'd be in said van and would transport us home - none of us held driving licences in those days - after the gig to warm beds and a heroes' welcome and the accolades that would accompany our exaggerated (or not) tour tales in the local boozer the next day. In the interim, it was to be a long and eventful few hours before we boarded the trusty FUs mobile. Before I proceed to detail said events, let us take a brief detour.

For those of you who haven't read, or have yet to read, Esso's great book God's Lonely Men - ostensibly the story of the Lurkers but in reality a very readable but poignant tale of social exclusion and the demographics of Ickenham, Middlesex from whence The Lurkers hailed, which I myself equate to a kind of English response to Camus' L'Etranger, about displacement and an inability to integrate - I shall recount in brief what happened when we supported fellow Acton punks The Satellites at a Sunday afternoon gig in the Blue Coat Boy at the Angel, Islington a few months after the Splodge tour. In short, The Satellites loyal following had for some time been blessed by the infiltration of some hard core skinhead representatives of the Ealing National Front and it transpired that the Blue Coat Boy was the stronghold of another NF contingent. Esso tells the story in the terms of everyone being desperate to do gigs, but my being so desperate I'd do gigs that no-one else in their right mind would. Least ways, before we could play, let alone The Satellites, the most God awful fight erupted and we fled through the debris of broken glass and furniture to the safety of Dick's trusty van. I have taken this aside as this tale has an amusing and ironic postscript - namely that, when discussing Esso's book with Dick the other year, he reminded me that I'd been delighted on arriving at the venue to find Halfway To Venezuela on the jukebox (an almost unprecedented occurrence) and that, as we'd cast a farewell glance over our fleeing shoulders at the riot that was breaking out, the last thing we'd seen was the ruins of the smashed jukebox and my hit single weaving on its edge, like a punchdrunk marathon runner, through the shards of broken glass.

That was not as irrelevant an aside as it might first appear as we immediately observed that West Runton Pavilion, on the night in question, had a largish skinhead contingent present who were gathered around the then Sounds journalist and champion of the proto Oi Oi movement Garry Bushell. Mr Bushell was then in the process of perfecting the inflammatory inarticulacy that he went onto champion in his later capacity as televison critic for The Sun, an oxymoronic position if ever there was one. On this occasion, whilst he was displaying pride and joy at hanging out with and writing about ourselves and Splodge, we were immediately wary as he seemed all too keen on inciting, if not actually orchestrating, some kind of flare-up to enliven the proceedings and expand his material.

Anyway, back to the dressing room where Esso was offering to stand down from the drum stool for the night as Dan had been playing the tour to date, whether through reasons of deference, personal safety, or just because it would've given him the time to drink more lager, I'm not sure. I'd hazard an educated guess at the latter, as Pete's dear departed brother Dave, also a not insubstantial drinker, had jumped in the van with him, and they probably fancied a night on the lash together. Following a brief exchange and examination of the possible scenarios, chaired by Dick and I, it was determined that Dan would join Dick on lead guitar, in Dan's case one of our spare Woolworths' issue guitars, but wouldn't plug in, as the notes would in fact issue from Dick's guitar!

We duly took the stage, fuelled as usual with ample beer, apart form Dick who remained sober and employed his habitual self preservation strategy of playing his heart out whilst standing in the wings, out of the way of any threatening missiles and/or sputum. Dan took to his new role like a freshly shot duck to water and, as they say, the crowd went wild. The type of wild they went was to throw and gob as much as they could, whilst simultaneously giving us the most appreciative reception of the tour. In the course of all this revelry, a flying beer can struck Dan right on the temple, incurring a large gash, which soon had claret streaming from it. Dear Dick duly abandoned the stage after that number and whisked Dan off to the nearest casualty unit, whilst Art, Esso and I soldiered on for a couple of tunes to what I must say was remarkable acclaim, before we abandoned ship and left the stage to the art school dance cornucopia that was Splodgenessabounds. Instead of quietening down, as we would've expected when Splodge went on, or at least lessening the level of stick they were inflicting, the audience upped the ante, going on to boo Splodge off, when they demonstrated they were less well equipped than us to withstand it.

Whilst we were all cowering in the dressing rooms and the ridiculous Mr Bushell was out the front rubbing his hands in idotic glee at the level of both potential and actual violence, lo and behold, what did we hear but the crowd starting to chant: we want Pus! We recovered from this unheard of adulation and went back on stage. No sooner had the three of us launched into a number than Dick arrived back from the local hospital with Dan, who was proudly displaying a good few fresh stitches in his bonce. They both joined us and I fib not, you should've heard the roar that went up when Dan took up the unamplified Woolys' axe once more. Mr Bushell related the incident thus in the next week's edition of Sounds: '...the crowd decided to respond in strictly bootboy style, upping heckling and missile input to levels intolerable even to Maxwell and after a brief swapping of insults the band trooped off to outrageous chants of "We want Pus".' There you are, dear reader, it was in the paper, so you know it's true! (It is, by the way!) The postscript to this gig is that, only last week, I was directed to a Facebook page commemorating West Runton Pavilion and lo and behold, the chap that threw the offending can owned up in a public forum. Well I have liaised with Dan and I tell you mister middle aged East Anglian punk, you need to be afraid, very afraid...

That, as it happened, turned out to be that as far as the tour was concerned, although we didn't know it at the time. The Sunday and Monday were days off, and on the Tuesday, as luck would have it, Dick had deliveries to make in the area of that night's show, the location of which I can neither recall nor determine via the information super highway. Suffice to say it was somewhere not far from London, and I'm fairly sure North. It was also a bright afternoon, the sun pleasantly warm through the windows of the van as the advance party of Dick and I meandered our way, replete from a very nice lunch in a country tea room that was a haunt of Dick's, to the gig. We soon learned on arrival that it, and the rest of the tour, transpired to be off, at least as far as we were concerned as the PA company were, in the nicest possible way, refusing to work with us due to the high levels of beer, bodily fluids, etc. going in their monitors. When, with Dick by my side exuding tranquility, I duly pointed out that Splodge engendered even more unwanted liquid in their valuable kit than we did, they responded by saying yes, but Splodge paid their bills! As Joey Ramone might've said, hey ho! It was a good lunch anyway, cheers Dick...

There is, dear reader, one final post postscript to this little saga. Namely, that we'd been trying to outdo Splodge in the practical jape and joke department ever since arriving at Manchester, in our own sweet, if meagre attempt to emulate the havoc The Ruts had wrought upon The Damned when the former had supported the latter the year before, all of which is documented elsewhere. To cut to the chase, after speaking to the PA guys, they told me I could speak to Brian Bonklonk, Spodge's aptly named manager and chef de pathetique, to verify the state of play. This I did, and was duly informed, unsurprisingly, that his loyalties lay with Splodge. He put me onto Max, who was faintly and insincerely apologetic. I told him not to worry and that, when he got to their next gig, which was in South Wales, I had a joke for him to tell the audience. Now this was the time during which the renowned Welsh boxer, Johnny Owen, was critically ill in a coma, and there was a dreadful sick joke doing the rounds which went: 'Have you heard the Welsh have changed their national vegetable? It's not the leek anymore, it's Johnny Owen!' Now, I truly never thought that Max'd be mad enough to relay this to a Welsh audience, but I hadn't bargained on Max having been so preoccupied with his dual roles of heavy drinker and newly famous pathetique pioneer, that all other current affairs had passed him by. What actually happened was...Splodge went to Wales, Max told the joke, they had to abort their set in the face of the greatest violence since Plaid Cymru had been burning down holiday cottages a few years earlier (those incidents themselves engendering the joke pastiche gas board slogan: 'Come home to a real fire - buy a cottage in Wales!'), fled in their van, but were chased back to their hotel and on up the motorway in fear of their lives, after their access was barred at their lodgings, by irate bouncers armed with baseball bats. Max has never forgiven me for this and, indeed, was still harping on about it when I saw him last summer at the Auntie Pus London comeback show.