Eric’s Last Band
The Psychedelic Furs witnessed Eric’s Dying Moments. Mike Nicholls hears the tale or a new band
that doesn’t slip slickly into any of the easily -identifiable, credibility -
enhancing categories labelled variously heavy metal, soul, ska, regurgitated
R&B, synthesized nouveau and so on, the Psychedelic Furs are doing
remarkably well.
Not only has their debut album hovered around the Top 20 for
some five weeks now, thereby notching up sales the average new band can barely
muster on its first three long – playing outings, but they also recently earned
the distinction of being the last band to play Liverpool Eric's.
As any peruser of gig guides will be able to repeat in his sleep,
for the past era Eric's has been the nation’s top provincial rock club, having
hosted every major act, from the Pistols and The Clash through to Costello and
numerous American cults, often at half the admission fee of many of the
capital’s counterparts, and boasting superior facilities.
For several reasons, not least increasing harassment from
the forces of law and order, Eric's has scheduled to lock its iron doors once
and for all anyhow, but its demise was viciously pre-empted by the brave boys
in pointed hats and ritual blue uniforms.
The Furs were right there on the case, not to mention the stage
and are able to provide as objective an eye - witness report as anybody. Over
to John Ashton, our man in hand-cuffs, but a fine guitarist nonetheless. “Two
minutes after we’d finished our set about 60 plain clothes burst in. But they realized
they’d blown it by arriving too late so they took the place apart before
carting a load of us down to the cells." And unfortunately for him, John
was one of them: ‘Anyhow, they locked me up and one police woman down there was
as snotty as hell but Les, our manager, bailed us out. It was a real piss-off.
The show had gone-down well and then the atmosphere suddenly turned heavy. The
coppers throwing people out, chasin’ 'em
down the Street, threatening them with truncheons
and turning over all our gear.”’ “Yeah.”’ affirms a passing roadie. ‘We only
just managed to stop one of them ramming a screw-driver into the mixing desk.”’
The passing point of this particular hero was Manchester's
Russell Club where I had travelled to interview the Psychedelic Furs and see
them in action for about the fourth time inside a month The Russell, once known
as the Factory has been beset with problems of its own of late, but thankfully
it is once again open and can comfortably accommodate a good thousand punters.
Tonight it is providing the Furs with their fourteenth consecutive date of
their own headlining tour which follows hot on the heels of those excellent dates
with Iggy.
What other kind of places have you been playing? ‘Toilets.’
deadpans Duncan Kilburn, the erudite saxophonist, “we’ve played some rooms smaller
than this,”’ he gestures to the (ahem) hospitality room around us, ‘‘The
Paisley Bungalow! What a lark! You reviewed us about a year ago, didn't you?”’
he continues before remarkably quoting chunks of that particular piece. During
the interim, the band have been busy building a sizeable following as their
recent success suggests. But for the first two years of their existence things
were far from easy. When was your first gig? “February 1977,”’ answers vocalist
butler Rep, the semi - aesthetic, lean - featured front –man ‘”at the Roxy
during the height of punk."’
With a name like Psychedelic Furs? “It was instant death “’
he replies, ‘but what we were doing was reacting against all the other bands of
the time, I mean it was ridiculous even then, all those razor blades and safety
pins. But there was the problem that we couldn't get that many gigs. The consequence
was that most of the six-piece kept their day jobs, which were as varied as the
band’s tastes in music. John, for example; was a graphic designer for a couple
of years, whilst Duncan worked for Reuters, the international news agency.
When did you knock that job on the head? “The day we signed
with CBS!" he retorts, “though I'd been playing for three - and - a -half
years and learned the trombone at school.” Kilburn’s blowing is a distinctive
feature of the Furs’ sound, but no more an integral part than the brilliantly
weaving guitar patterns of axe-persons John Ashton and R Morris, so fluid is
their style that you'd be forgiven for thinking that there's a synthesizer
bleating away in the foreground as they swirl and sway above Vince Ely’s dry drums
and the bass guitar of Robert’s brother, Tim.
Hanging ethereally on to this shadowy wall of noise are the breathy
vocals of the gaunt Rep, who writes most of the verbose lyrics he sings. Few of
these make a lot of sense to the casual listener which prompts me to ask Butler
whether, like Richard Jobson of The Skids, he intentionally writes impressionistically
and deals in terms of images rather than facts “Well, that applies to a lot of
the stuff I’ve done over the past few years,”’ he begins, ‘‘but I'm trying to
get out of that now and write more concretely. No, I'd rather not say what the
words are about — it takes all the interest out of them.”
“It's very much a personal thing.” adds John. ’Not from our
point of view, but the fans’. Like with Dylan albums, anyone can make their own
interpretation.” “Cop out! interjects Vince. Hitherto he had kept fairly quiet,
but having overcome his ‘initial shyness, he was to unleash a fusillade of
cynical remarks. None of them less than humorous.
‘‘Actually.’” Duncan comes in helpfully. “It would be fair
to say that the songs are ends within themselves, each being a set of self -
contained statements, if you like.”’ “The words have been misinterpreted so
many times that: don’t think we should talk to journalists about them anymore.”
rejoins John.
Duncan Kilburn recalcitrantly, ‘Then on the other hand the
Press have been pretty good to us so it wouldn't be fair, some of the criticism
is plain bitchy but quite a bit has been constructive and we've taken notice of
the remarks about our playing. Then at the other end of the scale some writers
have gone right over the top. One even called us ‘demi-gods’."’
I thought the single. ‘Sister Europe’ deserved to do better
than just achieve cult status. ‘Yeah, so do I.’’ says Butler. “But what can you
do? It wasn't made with the radio in mind. It was made for people, not the BBC
playlist.”’ ‘We were asked to cut its length.”’ Vince confesses. ‘Like, you're
not supposed to make a six minute record unless it’s ‘Hey Jude.’’ he adds laconically. The single’s lack of
success, however, has been more than compensated by high album sales. Who do
you reckon has been buying it? Would you say you've gradually infiltrated the
prevailing rock consciousness and built up a considerable following?
“I reckon we've increased in popularity since last August's John
Peel session."’ John replies vaguely, ‘which in turn led to a lot of
interest about the release of an LP.” “That's true, actually.’’ Duncan agrees,
‘apparently there’s been quite a build-up in the record shops, people asking
when it’s coming out and so on. A bit like The Pretenders, I suppose, only on a
smaller scale, unfortunately.” “It seems all our psychic research has paid off.’
Vince interrupts with perfect timing, “It's certainly not a case of brilliant
marketing by CBS. In fact, if anything they've been rather stingy with adverts
and stuff, though I don’t want to slag them off.”’
Just then the promoter wanders in and announces that
although the place is sold out, the audience are very quiet. “Probably all
tripping.”’ retorts the ever-witty Ely, which brings us back to the band's name
— how did they come by it? Did they feel it matched their intuitive type of
music? “Well, it certainly conjures up something.’’ suggests Vince, for once
giving a straight answer and yet hitting the nail square on the head, ‘and it’s
so obviously against the grain of fashion.”’ I guess that accounts for the
bizarre range of audience out there. Everything from hard-core punks to austere
– looking budding computer operators, “And girls.’’ continues Vince. “I've
never met a girl that didn't like us.”
Some bands have all the luck. Then again some deserve it
more than others. The Psychedelic Furs fall into the latter category. Let's
hope they enjoy a long trip before the colours run dry.
