Punk Pathetique
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Punk Pathetique is a sub-variant of UK punk rock, principally active circa 1980-1982, and named after a term coined by then Sounds journalist Garry Bushell, who actively championed many of its exponents. Punk pathetique was initially an attempt to characterize a group of London bands that embodied Cockney culture with a Dickensian working class attitude. Musically it was related to, and had crossover with, Oi!. The seminal Bushell/Sounds compilation album Oi the Album (1980), described itself as featuring "ruck 'n' rollers and punk pathetiques".[1]
According to Bushell:
During 1980, hooligan audiences, especially in South East London, found new live laughs in the shape of Peckham-based piss-artist pranksters Splodgenessabounds, whose brand of coarse comedy and punk energy scored three top thirty singles that year. Their debut single, "Two Pints of Lager" was a Top Ten smash. Tongue in cheek, I dubbed them "punk pathetique" along with equally crazy bands like Brighton's Peter and the Test Tube Babies and Geordie jesters The Toy Dolls.[2]
Other key Punk Pathetique bands included TV Personalities, The Shapes, The Adicts and the Gonads. Rather than the "ruck 'n' roll" of harder Oi! groups, Punk Pathetique focused lyrically on the ephemeral and the trivial. Max Splodge, of Splodgenessabounds, said: "The pathetique bands are the other side of Oi! We're working class too, only whereas some bands sing about prison and the dole, we sing about pilchards and bums. The audience is the same."[2]
Splodgenessabounds' stage show sometimes went to carnivalesque extremes. Police were frequenting their live shows by December 1979, due to reports of public nudity and "farting on demand" during renditions of "Michael Booth's Talking Bum", and "Blown Away Like A Fart In A Thunderstorm", during which "Max gets a blowjob onstage from his female singing partner."[3]
The group was prone to humorously grandiose press release claims, such as the announcement that their debut album would be a triple, including a side of "old material transcribed from their own cassettes, coupled with their 'Pathetic Movements Manifesto'", and including a free Christmas tree with every copy.[4]
Peter and the Test Tube Babies were first featured in Sounds in July 1980, and made their vinyl debut on Oi The Album later that year. They favoured absurd lyrics and strange titles, "The Queen Gives Good Blow Jobs" being a typical example. Lead singer Peter Chinhead confirmed that they had a new working class approach to punk rock:
It's a lot better now than it used to be. When it started it was all the art school lot, now it's working class kids... just kids playing for the kids. And you don't have to buy a thirty quid pullover or hang about down the King's Road any more. Punk now is about short haircuts, boots and jeans.[5]
Toy Dolls, based in Sunderland, shared the Pathetique approach to entertaining nonsense. Singer Olga Algar told Sounds in March 1980: "We're a new wave group, but we're not serious. All our songs are pretty childish and infantile, but they're all based on things and people 'round here."[6] They proved they could match the London-based bands for ridiculously long song titles, with 1986's "If You're In A Pop Group You'll End Up Paying A Fortune Practicing At Peter Practice's Practice Place." Other acts aligned to the movement included John Peel’s favourites The Postmen, Desert Island Joe, Pierre The Poet (Garry Butterfield), Paul Devine and his appalling ‘Stop That Drumming’ and later Case, Lord Waistrel & The Cosh Boys, the Alaska Cowboys and the Orgasm Guerrillas. All of these acts recorded songs (except Pierre). Even later, the mantle was inherited by the Macc Lads who did comic punk singalongs such as Charlotte The Harlot in very much the same style.
Bushell writes that Punk Pathetique peaked in autumn 1980, with the Pathetique Convention staged at the Electric Ballroom,[2] but critic Dave Thompson has stated of Splodgenessabounds' 1981 album:
Music historians find their attention drawn to "We're Pathetique", Splodge's rallying call for a musical genre which precious few people even remember today. But the Punk Pathetique movement spawned not only Splodge, but also such joys as the Toy Dolls and Peter and the Test Tube Babies, and it still has an impact today.[7]
Pathetique punk bands did in fact have notable successes in the UK charts. The Toy Dolls got to number 4 in December 1984 with Nellie The Elephant. Splodge reached number seven in 1980 with Simon Templar and number 26 with Two Little Boys later that year. As of 2006, Toy Dolls, Peter and the Test Tube Babies, The Gonads and Splodge continue to tour and record. The Postmen and the Orgasm Guerrillas have recently recorded the as yet unreleased Oi Along The Watchtower.
[edit] References
- ^ Gimarc, George (2006). Punk Diary 1970-1982. Backbeat Books, San Francisco, 393. ISBN 0-87930-848-6.
- ^ a b c Garry Bushell. The Story of Oi!. garry-bushell.co.uk. Retrieved on 2006-07-07.
- ^ Gimarc. Punk Diary 1970-1982, 271.
- ^ Gimarc. Punk Diary 1970-1982, 386.
- ^ Gimarc. Punk Diary 1970-1982, 348.
- ^ Gimarc. Punk Diary 1970-1982, 312.
- ^ Dave Thompson. Splodgenessabounds album review. allmusic.com. Retrieved on 2006-07-07.
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