BACK TO BASSICKS
September 1978: The Buzzcocks issue Ever Fallen In Love as a taster for their second album. John Peel unveils the debut single from The Undertones. And all over the country a plethora of raw, new, bedroom indie labels are springing up, to release the next wave of punk and post-punk bands who are channelled through the Peel programme and the pages of the music press.
September 1978 - Colne Engaine, Essex. Population - tiny: I will soon be 14. Tonight though, I am standing outside the Chelmsford Chancellor Hall in a motley queue of punks, feeling just a tad anxious. This is my first ever gig.
The Lurkers weren't the most fashionable of bands. Even by punk standards they were seen as being a bit strange. But there was something great about their 'outsiders' chic - and their slightly world-weary, underdog position on the edge of things.
Described by one paper at the time as "West London's answer to The Ramones", I'd first heard them on Radio 1 when, bizarrely, Kid Jensen had made their single Ain't Got A Clue his record of the week. What on earth was this record? It was two and half minutes long, but it seemed to describe every single awkward emotion that my adolescent head boiled up on a daily basis.
I saw them on TV a while later - on the must-stay-up-for Revolver programme - but more importantly (to me anyway) they were the first group I ever saw live. Well, that's not technically true - local Epping band The Sods, who supported them, were the first band. But after standing at the front of the stage for hours, marvelling at the array of bin bags and safety pins around me, they finally ambled on. And BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM! The crowd at the front went mad. I lost my footing and nearly choked when I was flung forward against the stage, but then scrambled back to my feet in time to see singer Howard Wall looming above in a bright pink jacket and what looked like massive brothel creepers.
And I've said this before, but it was simply the most exciting thing that had happened to me in my life at that point. Later, as I squeezed to the side of the stage, they rampaged through most of the tracks on their Fulham Fallout LP, a record which I can still cheerfully listen to today. It is fast and dark and simple. It's a bible of the misunderstood.
30 January 2009 - Shepherds Bush Empire: I'm not quite down the front for The Lurkers this time. Although 30 years on, neither is Howard Wall. In fact none of The Lurkers I saw in '78 are on stage.
This is the new Lurkers, the one being kept alive by original bassist Arturo 'Arthur' Bassick (who featured on the group's first two seminal singles Shadow and Freak Show, before quitting and forming his own band Pinpoint).
Bassick picked up the name years later, after it was left unused on a shelf. Although when I bump into him later by the merch stall, he seems a little deflated - possibly hurt by suggestions that he's run off with someone else's toy.
"I didn't sack anyone," he opines. "It's just that the others don't want to do it anymore."
Thus we have Arthur's Lurkers: at pains to celebrate the work of the original lineup (he name checks virtually all of them, applauding the intuitive genius of founding guitarist and songwriter Pete Stride). But at the same time we get the latter-day Lurkers, which Arthur has refined using the original blueprints and the influence of The Ramones. One of the new-ish songs is even a cheeky attack on the punks who are stuck in the past, brilliantly titled Come And Have A Go If You Think You're Old Enough.
They start though with I'm On Heat and I Don't Need To Tell Her from Fulham Fallout and finish with two songs which featured in the earlier career of the band - the Jensen-endorsed Clue and their ballsy cover of Little Ol' Wine Drinker Me, before leaving the stage to tonight's headliners (in a nice moment of synchronicity, the Buzzcocks).
And it was good. Arthur has a big heart. I smiled and 'sang' like a loon, while wondering what it must have been like watching The Lurkers at 13 without a pint in my hand.
And it was never going to be the same, but oddly the essence of the older songs still rings bells with me. And I have to admit, as I handed over my tenner for a T-shirt, I was thinking 'once a Lurker, always a Lurker.'
PS There is a great book by The Lurkers' drummer Pete Haynes about his time in the band and the ethos of the group and those involved. A really thoughtful and (at times) funny read, it's called God's Lonely Men. More information on that and his other writing on his website.
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hello my niece candy sent me your blog thing about her dad howard wall, the lurkers. Arturo all though a very nice bloke, was not the original bass player of the lurkers, his name was Nigel, I cant remember his surname without going up in the loft to find the single "shadow, but all the Lurkers including their roadie Plug (pete edwards) went to the same school in Hillingdon. Arturo then joined later and then left and started Pinpoint. So unfortunately there are no "original" members but still people having fun is always a good thing. Unfortunately none of us have seen or heard from Howard for years, I've not heard from him for 12, so if anyone should let you know please tell him we all miss him.May be he's gone back to being a chef, as he was very good. Thanks for reading this. janine
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Dear Janine and Candy, I am a good friend of Pete and Nigel from The Lurkers and they too would love to make contact with Howard again. We all went to Abbotsfield together in the 70's and as it happens we were out together last night at a gig (Viva Las Vegas). It has been too long without word. If Howard wants a route to contact them and Pete Stride he can do it via this board or my e-mail clubska1@aol.com. To Steve, enjoyed the review. Best wishes - Mark (Geno)
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Mark, thanks for mssg re: howard, i'm gonna try your email but i'm fairly crap at this computer stuff. Crikey you lot all still friends and out going to gigs. I contacted Beggars Bqt to see if anyone there new anything and had a reply from Pete Edwards, I wondered if he was still doing his Mick Jagger impersonation, lmfto, my mum loved him, poor bugger. He'd not heard from Howard either, cheers Janine.
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