Welcome to the ramblings of a man who really should have grown out of listening to "that sort of music" a long, long time ago...A place to share thoughts and photographs on music and related paraphernalia.
Here are some of our favourite gigs from 2023 - another great year for superb live music which included the long-awaited reunion of The Soundtrack of Our Lives and an emotional return to Japan for former Shack and Pale Fountains Mick Head with his new band, The Red Elastic Band. Please check out and subscribe to our Retromanblog65 YouTube channel for lots more original live videos from the featured shows below.
1. The Soundtrack of Our Lives - Way Out West Festival, Gothenburg, Sweden - August 10th
2. Michael Head & The Red Elastic Band - Shangri-La Shimokitazawa, Tokyo, Japan - May 30th
3. Gaye Su Akyol - King's Place, London - May 20th
4. Iggy Pop, Blondie, Generation Sex & Stiff Little Fingers - Crystal Palace Park, London - July 1st
5. Indochine - The Roundhouse, London - June 11th
6. Black Angels - Shepherd's Bush Empire, London - March 3rd
7. Lalalar - The Jazz Cafe, London - September 9th
8. Viagra Boys - Troxy, London - January 25th
9. The Undertones - Electric Ballroom, London - October 5th
10. The Courettes, Oh! Gunquit, Paul Groovy Pop Art Experience - Wedgewood Rooms, Portsmouth
- April 6th
11. Wingmen - Islington Academy, London - January 21st
12. Killing Joke - Royal Albert Hall, London - March 12th
13. The Blue Aeroplanes - Electric Ballroom, London - September 29th
14. Ruts DC - SUB89, Reading - May 17th
15. The Brian Jonestown Massacre - Koko, London - February 15th
16. Shonen Knife - SUB89, Reading - April 13th
17. WitchDoktors & Seeds of 77 - The Half Moon Putney, London - March 5th
18. Duncan Reid & The Big Heads - The Lexington, London - October 7th
19. Thee Moot - High Tide Festival, Twickenham - July 30th
All Photos & Videos Copyright Retro Man Blog. Please support live music and venues.
In our latest interview special we catch up with Suzi Moon following her show at Bannerman's in Edinburgh and welcome her into the virtual Retrosonic Podcast studio for a thoroughly enjoyable jaunt through her career as a musician and life as a music fan. We talk about her love of the Rebellion Festival in Blackpool, where she was soon to appear, and her affinity with European and U.K audiences. Suzi then takes us on an entertaining journey from her upbringing in Southern California and the influence of her older sister on Suzi becoming a musician, inviting her to join her band Civet and encouraging her to write songs of her own. Then there's Turbulent Hearts and the short-lived project L.A. Machina before Suzi finally embarks on her own solo career with the release of the excellent and well-received E.P. "Call The Shots". Suzi picks her own favourites from all aspects of her career right up to the brand new single from the hotly anticipated debut album "Dumb & In Luv" which is available to pre-order from Pirates Press Records now. Among many and various topics we also discuss her songwriting process, the connection between her mum and Alternative Tentacles Records, the New York CBGB's scene and much more. Suzi also plays some of the records that introduced her to Punk Rock and helped shape her own music along with some inspirational bands and people that have supported her along the way. The episode is soundtracked by great tracks from The Hives, Elvis Costello & The Attractions, The Stooges, The Heartbreakers, Nazi Bitch & The Jews, Teenage Bottlerocket, Minatore and Against Me! You can subscribe to Retrosonic Podcast for free at Spotify, iTunes, Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts or direct from our SoundCloud site below:
For more info on Suzi Moon, please check out her official web-site here or her Facebook page here. U.K. and European fans can pre-order the forthcoming album "Dumb & In Luv" here and US and worldwide fans can get the record from Pirates Press Records. With sincere thanks to Suzi.
Here’s another rollicking, rip-roaring Rock ‘n’ Roll memoir from U.K. Subs bassist Alvin Gibbs courtesy of the always excellent Time & Matter Recordings publishing wing Tome and Metre. “Diminished Responsibility: My Life as a U.K. Sub and Other Strange Stories Vol. 2” picks up the tale from the aftermath of Alvin’s sudden and unexpected dismissal from the Subs in 1983 and ends some 11 years later with a cliff-hanger phone call from Charlie Harper and a tantalising offer. First of all, I was pleasantly surprised to read in the foreword that Alvin and T&M have decided to expand this thoroughly entertaining autobiography series to a trilogy of books with Volume 3 hopefully due to be published at the end of the year. This will continue with Alvin’s adventures following that fateful phone call from Charlie right up to the present day.
Cheap And Nasty in Berlin, 1991 by Mark Plummer
Anyway, back to Volume 2 which starts up with Alvin going through a bit of a musically quiet patch following his departure from the U.K. Subs and the realisation dawns that he might have to get some real work to make ends meet. So he gets a job as a Hospital Porter! This is where Alvin’s writing comes into its own and the descriptions of his day job are shot through with a hilarious, if occasionally morbid humour, when it comes to unexpected autopsies and navigating corpses on trolleys through the Hospital car parks. It’s like a cross between Carry on Doctor and the best of Dave Allen’s sketch show. In fact, near death experiences loom large throughout Volume 2 – whether its narrowly avoiding drug overdoses, being hit by an earthquake of magnitude 5.9 on the Richter Scale or getting his parachute cords twisted during a sky dive, Alvin certainly does get into some scrapes. A lot of the danger and the drama however, does seem to stem from one person and that’s Hanoi Rocks guitarist Andy McCoy. On one hand, his - what can only be described as a love/hate - relationship with Andy does offer Alvin quite a lot of opportunities including the chance to join Iggy Pop’s band for his “Instinct” period world tour and the chance to replace Sami Yaffa in Hanoi Rocks. However, the hand that gives can also take away and Andy’s hedonistic lifestyle often scuppers the best opportunities that the pair find themselves in.
Alvin on stage (centre) with Iggy Pop in 1988 by Paul McAlpine
Along with Andy, it’s also Alvin’s relationship with his American wife Mary that’s at the heart of Volume 2 and the strains on their marriage caused by a life in Rock ‘n’ Roll music are laid bare with a searing honesty. The couple move to San Francisco and L.A. where Alvin is immersed in the local music scenes. He tells us of his bands Revolver and Broken Glass and his relationships with Timo Kaltio and Nasty Suicide and mixing with Hollywood stars such as Nicolas Cage, Johnny Depp, James Russo and most impressively (to me at least…) George Wendt or Norm from “Cheers”. There’s some funny tales of auditions including an offer from Kathy Valentine of The Go-Go’s to try out for her band World’s Cutest Killers and an infuriating encounter with John Lydon’s brother Martin.
Alvin in Revolver, 1986
Things do get better after that thankfully, Guns N Roses cover the Subs “Down on the Farm” on their “Spaghetti Incident” LP, there’s a reunion in New York with Charlie Harper and Nicky Garratt and then of course, Andy McCoy recommends Alvin to Iggy Pop. Although the “Instinct” tour is covered in Alvin’s excellent book “Neighbourhood Threat – On Tour with Iggy Pop” he does add quite a bit of extra background info and gossip to his time spent touring the world with Iggy, which makes for fascinating reading. The book ends in 1994 and his time with Cheap & Nasty, which sadly is beset by the usual music industry problems and hassles with management and record labels. It’s another thoroughly satisfying read and as I mentioned in my review of “Volume 1”, Alvin excels with his evocative reminiscing of travels and experiences in places such as India, Singapore, Hong Kong, Guangzhou and Japan and this lifts his books far above any standard Rock ‘n’ Roll memoir. Although, don’t worry, there’s still plenty of on-the-road debauchery thrown in for good measure! I’m already looking forward to “Volume 3”.
For the latest episode of our Lockdown Lowdown Podcast series we welcome
former bassist with The Adverts, Gaye Black into the virtual Retrosonic studio to discuss her life in Music and Art. In this thoroughly entertaining episode, Gaye takes us on a musical journey
from growing up in a small town in north Devon and discovering music for the first time to buying her first record. We then discover what lured her into Rock 'n' Roll and what inspired her to play the bass. There are tales of her experiences of moving to London, being right at the heart of the early Punk Rock explosion and of course her time with The Adverts. This leads onto the bands and the
characters she met and toured with along the way such as Iggy Pop, Lemmy and The Damned. We also cover her DJ'ing and the inspirations on her own Art as well as curating Art Exhibitions and working on the artwork for record covers by U.K. Subs bassist Alvin Gibbs. The episode is sound-tracked by Gaye's personal selection of her favourite songs from The Adverts and some of Gaye's most inspirational
musical moments including Black Sabbath, Rolling Stones, The Stranglers, The Damned, The Beatles, Mayhem, Motorhead, The Phobics, Mayhem, Turbonegro, Cyanide Pills, The Men Who Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing, Iggy Pop, The Stooges, A Place To Bury Strangers, U.K. Subs and the Fireball XL5 Theme...! So, crank up the volume, sit back and enjoy!
With many thanks to Gaye. For further information on Gaye's Artwork please check out her official Gaye Black Art web-site here. Retrosonic theme tune by Adam Donovan.
Podcover photos and artwork by Minna Waring (top left), Retro Man Blog & Gaye Black. You can subscribe to Retrosonic Podcast for free at Soundcloud, Spotify or Apple Podcasts/iTunes.
Correction from Gaye: "I meant the Marquee, not the 100 Club when I was talking about The Stranglers!" (22mins:23secs)
In the third episode of our Lockdown Lowdown series, we welcome Raymond Gorman, guitarist and vocalist with The Everlasting Yeah and That Petrol Emotion into the virtual Retrosonic Podcast studio. In this thoroughly entertaining episode Raymond talks us through some of his most memorable musical moments from hearing The Beatles for the first time and impressing the girls with his dancing to T-Rex. He explains about various gigs and records that made an impact on him and his guitar playing and there are some candid stories of why he stopped playing piano, why he couldn't get into the legendary Casbah Club and how That Petrol Emotion almost signed to Creation. Along the way we learn about his encounters with Iggy Pop, Kevin Rowland, John Cooper-Clarke, Pete Wylie, Dieter Meyer of Yello, Ian McLagan and of course The Undertones. This hugely enjoyable trip down memory lane is soundtracked by some of Raymond's favourite tunes from The Beatles, Marc Bolan & T-Rex, Taste (featuring Rory Gallagher), Horslips, The Undertones, Dexy's Midnight Runners, Iggy Pop, The Sweet and David Bowie. There's also a pick of some of Raymond's own work with That Petrol Emotion and The Everlasting Yeah along with a rare snippet of his first live performance with John O'Neill. "Self-consciousness is the enemy of good art" - Raymond Gorman
Full Tracklisting:
The Everlasting Yeah "A Little Bit of Uh-Huh"
The Beatles "She Loves You"
Marc Bolan & T-Rex "Metal Guru"
David Bowie "Life on Mars?"
Horslips "Furniture"
Taste (feat. Rory Gallagher) "Same Old Story"
The Undertones "True Confessions"
The Undertones "You're Welcome"
Raymond Gorman & John O'Neill "Pale Blue Eyes" (live)
That Petrol Emotion "Keen"
That Petrol Emotion "Lifeblood"
That Petrol Emotion "Abandon" (Boys Own Remix)
That Petrol Emotion "Sweet Shiver Burn"
That Petrol Emotion "Heartbeat Mosaic"
Iggy Pop & James Williamson "Kill City"
Dexy's Midnight Runners "Tell Me When My Light Turns Green"
Marc Bolan & T-Rex "20th Century Boy"
The Sweet "Ballroom Blitz"
The Everlasting Yeah "New Beat On Shakin' Street"
The Everlasting Yeah "The Grind"
Here's a Playlist that Raymond compiled for us featuring some more of his recommended records.
Television "See No Evil"
Roxy Music "Beauty Queen"
Stevie Wonder "Maybe Your Baby"
New York Dolls "Jet Boy"
Love "Maybe The People Would Be The Times..."
Bryan Ferry "Love Me Madly Again"
Buzzcocks "Time's Up"
Bob Dylan "My Own Version Of You"
Low "Congregation"
Free "Oh, I Wept"
New Order "Nothing But a Fool"
Jimi Hendrix Experience "Castles Made of Sand"
Bobby Charles "Small Town Talk"
Useful Links - Please click on the highlighted links below for further information:
Damian O'Neill - Retrosonic Special with Damian on his "Refit Revise Reprise" LP
Podcover photo by Paul Slattery. Subscribe to Retrosonic Podcast for FREE at iTunes or at our Soundcloud site/archive here. This episode can also be downloaded or streamed directly below.
Time & Matter Recordings have announced their brand new venture "Tome & Metre Publishing" with news of the forthcoming release of the first-of-two-volumes of U.K. Subs bassist Alvin Gibbs memoirs entitled "Diminished Responsibility: My Life as a U.K. Sub and Other Strange Stories Vol. 1". In the book's foreward Henry Rollins writes "Alvin puts his experiences across with energy and excellent detail, cheerful, hilarious and armed with insight, you are immediately pulled in by this book’s contents. A mark of not only a great story teller, but of one who has truly lived in full and continues to do so". The book's tentative release date is July 1st, with pre-orders available sometime in May or June so please keep an eye on the T&M web-site here for further announcements. To help T&M with the funding of this new project, they are offering fans the chance to have their name printed in the book for only £5.00, for which your full name will be featured, alongside your town or city and your country, in what will be the world’s first ever book about your favourite band – the U.K. Subs. Please be aware that this payment doesn’t buy you a physical copy of the book, but when it goes to pre-order later this year (retailing at £15.00) you will have played your part in a bit of U.K. Subs book publishing history.
"Diminished Responsibility" book cover
"History" EP Cover by Gaye Black
Talking of History - Time & Matter will be releasing a fabulous new four song E.P. by Alvin Gibbs & The Disobedient Servants entitled "History". The record is limited to 500 hand numbered copies and comes as a double 7" Black & White vinyl single in a gatefold cover designed by Gaye Black, formerly Gaye Advert, the iconic bassist with The Adverts, now a succesful artist. The four new songs "Bad About You", "History", "If Only" and "Pavlovian" continue with the high standard set by the Disobedient Servants' excellent debut album. Alvin is backed by his Subs bandmate, drummer Jamie Oliver and Ruts DC guitarist Leigh Heggarty. The release date for the "History" EP is 30th June and it's now available to pre-order from the Time & Matter web-site here. Alvin has punctuated his stints with the U.K. Subs with spells in Urban Dogs, Cheap And Nasty and of course in one of Iggy Pop's most celebrated backing line-ups around the release of the "Instinct" album. I will never forget a superb show at the Brixton Academy on the "Instinct" tour in 1988, Iggy was in a back-to-basics mood after the commercial success of "Blah Blah Blah" and had assembled a suitably rocking line-up including Alvin and Hanoi Rocks guitarist Andy McCoy. In fact, you can read all about Alvin's experiences of working with Iggy in his thoroughly entertaining book "Neighbourhood Threat: On Tour with Iggy Pop". You can also read our review of Alvin's excellent debut album with The Disobedient Servants in the Blog archive here.
Iggy Pop in conversation with Will Self - photo by Retro Man Blog
Rough Trade East Records in London continued their fine tradition of quality in-store appearances when they hosted Iggy Pop in conversation with the author and journalist Will Self. Iggy was in town to promote his latest album “Free” and although he didn’t play any gigs this time round, BBC6 Music filmed a special live set and interview in their studios, which is well worth checking out on YouTube here. He also found the time to make an entertaining appearance on the Jonathan Ross TV talk show. Iggy will be back in London to play a now sold-out show at the Barbican Centre on November 21st where he will be performing “Free” as part of the EFG London Jazz Festival. Anyway, back to the talk at Rough Trade East, the P.A. system crackles and there’s a palpable buzz of excitement as the cinematic opening track to “Free” washes over the audience with Iggy’s rich baritone crooning the song’s only lyrics, “I Wanna Be Free”. Then he suddenly appears on stage with Will Self to rapturous applause, Iggy looks in great shape, tanned and dressed in black, looking nowhere near his 72 years. Self starts by asking Iggy what he thought of London when he first visited back in the early Seventies. Iggy said he loved going for walks, in particular around Kensington Gardens and the Royal Albert Hall, recognising places he had seen in movies and he recalls the buildings and memorials being all dark and dirty. He liked stores on Chelsea’s King’s Road such as Let It Rock at World’s End or Granny Takes a Trip, where he could get things like snakeskin platform boots. He remembered the band liked to eat at the charmingly named The Great American Disaster, one of the U.K.’s first American style burger joints, but admitted he always preferred Wimpy’s himself, which stirs a murmur of nostalgia from the crowd. He also enjoyed going to Speaker’s Corner to check out the soapbox preachers or, as he puts it a bit more succinctly, “to watch all the loonies”.
Iggy Pop in conversation with Will Self - photo by Retro Man Blog
The talk gets round to the new album “Free” and Self says it’s very emotive and admires the fact that Iggy often follows a period of hard, driving Rock & Roll by stepping back and exploring other, more experimental projects. Iggy explains that even though The Stooges first album may have become a prototype for Punk Rock, initially they were always experimental. After all, they used to put on strange performance-art shows using instruments made from stuff found in junkyards. At one point, this included a drum-kit comprising a 55-gallon oil tank, which they hit with wooden beaters and Iggy would use a vacuum cleaner to create weird noises. He somewhat disappointedly confesses that by the time The Stooges got round to recording their first LP, the others in the band wanted to be a bit more ‘normal’. However, he is proud that the first Stooges record included “We Will Fall”, a 10-minute Hindu chant with John Cale playing viola, a track which most reviewers seemed to conveniently gloss over. Self gets a bit deep and pretentious here, talking about white and black voids and even comparing “I Wanna Be Your Dog” to Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony and Iggy has to ask him politely what he’s talking about. However, Self is spot on when he says guitarist Ron Asheton had an “accidental virtuosity” and he always found that The Stooges music did have a Mantra like feel to it. Iggy thought that was something to do with Ron tuning into the sounds coming from his guitar and amp, using the different tones of the feedback to make noise of their own free will while he was semi-controlling it. It was more like a Ravi Shankar vibe as opposed to someone like Ted Nugent, who just wants to control their instrument.
Iggy Pop in conversation with Will Self - photo by Retro Man Blog
Iggy was confident when he first made records with The Stooges that there would be people who would like it, he just didn’t realise how hard it would be to reach a significant number of them. He goes on to say that The Stooges were not only appreciated by misfits and stoners but that metacritical people always seemed to like them too, “oh how very interesting!” he says in a posh Professorial English accent, a dig at Will Self maybe? Self then talks about vinyl making a comeback and wonders if the current technology of streaming and the internet has affected him at all. Iggy says, not at all, the worse years were the 80’s, when he would walk into a record store and there was Bruce Springsteen posters and advertising everywhere. He would have to find his way to the back of the store to the racks, usually located by the Men’s room and search under the subculture section and he might not even have his own filing card. Now through the internet, people can discover and check out his music much more easily. He then somewhat surprisingly announces that despite it being an “ugly little format”, the advent of the CD was The Stooges salvation. Iggy said he always found that the original mixes of the Stooges albums on vinyl were pretty quiet and weedy as the Record Company people would squash and compress the sound. However, the people who were remastering albums for CD were younger, knew a bit more about music and realised that this sound should be more in your face. “Suddenly in America in the early 90’s I’m surrounded by these Nu-Metal guys with beer bellies and pumped up muscles at the same time, which annoys me. They are all covered in tattoos and have just learned to curse. One band is heavier than the other but they all listen to my band, which is this weedy little thing. So, I said I’m going to make the loudest record in America basically, so loud that even the Rollins band will quiver in fear! I can say that ‘cos Henry Rollins is a nice boy. When I first met Henry, it was like a scene from the movie Robocop when Robocop has to meet the giant machine that dwarves him. So, I remixed “Raw Power” as loud as possible”. In this clip, Iggy recalls that first meeting with Henry Rollins.
They mention that the new album incorporates eclectic ethnic influences and some of the collaborators come from R&B and Hip-Hop backgrounds. Iggy talks about the influence of black musicians on him from way back as a teenager in the 60’s, hearing Latin, Caribbean and African Rhythms in the Top 40 from artists such as Booker T and Joe Tex, although he was just a little white kid living in a trailer park. He was brought up in an area that benefited from the exodus of African-Americans and unemployed poor white people moving north in search of work. From his time at the University of Michigan, he got to know people who were in Blues bands and who had impressive collections of Chicago and Mississippi Blues records. Iggy goes on to explain that one new track “Dirty Sanchez” for example, has a groovy touch with a New Orleans beat played by French musicians and he laughs, saying it sounds like “a sophisticated Tijuana Brass”. Self says that the ballad “Sonali” speaks to him of the problems facing the Southern part of America – the climate emergency, rising sea levels and migration and Iggy, now that he’s living in Miami is in the heart of all that. Iggy explains that the song is about a first generation Sri Lankan who speaks like an American and wants to live that American life. She wants to be accepted but as the signs on the ironically named, freeway say, you have to “stay in your lane” and Iggy admits, “that line in the song killed me, you have to stay in your lane according to your speech, background, job etc.” Self asks Iggy if he was involved in the production of “Free” and he replies that he was involved in choosing the general idea and emotive qualities but he stayed away from asking questions like “shouldn’t the bass be louder on that?” Self then compares “Free” to the Director David Lynch’s later works, which is outside the mainstream with Lynch using his own resources, acting as an artistic impresario. Iggy says these sorts of projects are never going to be the money spinning ones, but if you can pay for it and do it, then it will all be worth it.
In reference to the poem “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night”, which features on “Free”, Self asks if Iggy is raging against the dying light. Iggy replies with a rueful grin, “I’m sneaking up on it!” and admits that when he gets asked to do things now he thinks “he’s chosen me ‘cos he thinks I might die soon, that’s my new qualification. People want to get autographs before I die, I know that”. Self enquires, “At this stage of life, are you just Jim all the time now, have you left Iggy behind?” Iggy tells us that Bowie once wrote a song with the line “Oh, Iggy Pop, when you gonna stop?” and quickly adds, don’t worry it was never released! He says when he was younger he made a couple of good decisions – the first was when he was 18 and decided to drop out of college to play the drums, not to make records or anything like that; he just wanted to be a musician. Then the second decision was sticking with the Iggy name. He explains, “The older guys hanging out in the local record store would start to call me Iguana to mock my High School covers band, The Iguanas. I plotted and got another band together and was thinking what should my stage name be? I thought about Jimmy James but in a review of one of my shows, the writer called me Iggy and I knew that was my break so I kept quiet. Initially, I had a big problem with it personally and insisted that people who knew me called me Jim but I was always Iggy when I worked. I didn’t like it if the wrong person called me Jim in the wrong way. I would say “Call me Iggy” if they were like, going, “I’m not falling for that Iggy shit”. Self then asks Iggy if the myth ever started to eat him up and he replied that it was easy and sometimes convenient, to hide behind a persona. “I started to grow into it little by little but was only really comfortable with when I reached my 50’s, I thought, wow, look what I’ve done; I like this track and I like this album. I resurrected The Stooges and got the guys a bit of money – OK yeah, I like this”. Self says he has met many famous people over the years and he rather touchingly admits that Iggy is “one of the few to be unaffected in a spiritual way by such a degree of fame, you have no side, you are what you are”. Did Iggy attribute this to his upbringing he wondered? Iggy talks warmly about his family, about the hardships that they and the war generation had to go through and suddenly there’s the burden of having to deal with this brat. “Everyone I met after I left school thought I was a rich kid, but my parents had no money, they had a tough upbringing and we lived in a little trailer but they were well educated. They would do everything for me, pick me up from school activities, and try to shelter me from Elvis Presley. They let me set up a drum-kit and rented a piano, and I would try to play along to Muddy Waters records. My Dad never got my interest in the Blues, he used to say, “Son, I can understand why that man is crying, but you don’t have to”.
Iggy Pop in conversation with Will Self - photo by Retro Man Blog
The album “Free” is out now and Iggy also has a new book of collected lyrics published by Viking called “'Til Wrong Feels Right” which can be ordered from Rough Trade here. In the book Iggy offers an insight into his creative world with this collection of lyrics brought to life by full-colour photos, never-before-seen notes and memorabilia, short pieces and commentary from other music legends, including Danny Fields' Johnny Marr and Chris Stein from Blondie. Subscribe to Rough Trade’s newsletter for details of future in-store events or check out their web-site here.
Alvin Gibbs, the current U.K. Subs & former Iggy Pop bassist is due to release his debut solo album "Your Disobedient Servant" on the excellent Time & Matter Recordings label at the end of January. It will be released on limited edition red and white splatter coloured vinyl packaged with a double-sided full colour insert along with a CD of the album and a download code that you can redeem via Bandcamp. Throughout the album Alvin handles lead and backing vocals, bass and rhythm guitar and has assembled an impressive star-studded band, entitled The Disobedient Servants, to back him up. There are some legendary names from the worlds of Punk, Trash and Alternative Rock including Brian James from The Damned and Lords of The New Church, Leigh Heggarty from Ruts DC, James Stevenson from Chelsea and Generation X and Alvin's U.K. Subs colleague Jamie Oliver on drums and percussion. The good thing is that despite the many special guests, "Your Disobedient Servant" still retains a cohesive sound that feels like it's a been produced by a 'real' band. This is mainly down to Alvin's impressive vocals that hold everything together along with a great powerful production. It's also a varied album that runs through some of the musical styles that Alvin has been
involved with over the years from sleazy Glam-tinged Rock'n'Roll to a
full-on Punk Rock and fans of
the U.K. Subs, Hanoi Rocks and Iggy Pop in particular are going to love this record.
Alvin on stage with U.K. Subs - Photo by Paul Slattery
Lyrically, the album could be seen as a soundtrack to Alvin's candid autobiography "Some Weird Sin: On Tour With Iggy Pop", in particular the revised edition which replaced the earlier, and slightly more restrained "Neighbourhood Threat". The book is packed
full of often brutally honest confessional tales of a Rock 'n' Roll
lifestyle on the road with Iggy Pop when he was touring the world to promote the back to basics album "Instinct". I was lucky enough to see a couple of the shows on this tour and it was definitely one of the best line-ups that Iggy had assembled. His band also included Andy McCoy from Hanoi Rocks on guitar and Paul Garisto from The Psychedelic Furs on drums and they were absolutely mind-blowing gigs. "Your Disobedient Servant" opens with the short sharp shock of "Arterial Pressure" a crunching 2 minute tribute to Joey Ramone and the scene is set for the thoroughly satisfactory listen that is to follow. The album includes both sides of the recent limited edition 7" Single "Ghost Train" & "Clumsy Fingers" which had cover artwork designed by another legendary Punk bassist, Gaye Black from The Adverts. "Ghost Train" features Leigh Heggarty from Ruts DC on guitars and has Alvin in great voice, booming out an impressive Iggy style baritone. The flip-side "Clumsy Fingers" is an absolute belter of a song, rocket fuelled by Brian James from The Damned and Lords of The New Church. It recalls the tale of an 'amorous duel' and starts off with a great drum beat before a killer bass riff comes in. You can hear "Clumsy Fingers" in Episode 32 of our Retrosonic Podcast where my
colleague Paul Slattery chats about his time photographing the U.K. Subs for various weekly music papers such as Sounds. Some of his photos were used on the back cover of the "Warhead" 7" single and the front of the compilation "Original Punks Original Hits".
Alvin Gibbs - Photo by Aleksander Korobczuk
"Dumb" is another highlight, driven along on an irresistible hand-clap rhythm and a great guitar motif. "Camden Town Gigolo" featuring the guitar talents of James Stevenson from Chelsea and Generation X, slows the pace a bit and is built around a circular bass riff as it tells the tale of a fading Rock'n'Roll casualty coming to terms with the ageing process. "Back to Mayhem" with Steve Crittall from The Godfathers on lead and rhythm guitars is a full-on Hardcore Punk rush that will certainly appeal to fans of the current U.K. Subs line-up. Here, Alvin admits that he struggles with dealing with the come-down following a long period of life on the road and having to face reality, he craves the excitement and danger. "When life is good, confidence high, I need a dose of chaos, some poison with the wine, back to mayhem, I’m in too straight a place, comfort is a curse". The brooding "Polemic" is one of my favourites on the album with slide guitar by Leigh Heggarty from Ruts DC, it chronicles the impact of seeing his very first live bands in the Seventies and how they "conditioned my ambition and set me free, it’s the blood that fuels my guitar". "I’m Not Crying Now" features Barrington Francis from The Saints on lead and rhythm guitar and it's a candid vignette of a relationship that turns sour when one person finds out the other is maybe not quite as famous and wealthy as was hoped. "Deep As Our Skin" closes the album in some style, it's a classic slice of sleazy New York Dolls Rock 'n' Roll courtsey of Mick Rossi from Slaughter & The Dogs that aptly soundtracks the songs subject matter of a raucous night in CBGB's and Manhattan.
Alvin Gibbs & The Disobedient Servants will be playing some shows in 2019, including this year’s Rebellion Festival in Blackpool and other dates are being announced now. Check out the official U.K. Subs web-site for further details. The album can be ordered from Time & Matter Recordings or downloaded at the Bandcamp site. Alvin's superb book "Some Weird Sin" can be ordered here. With thanks to Mark and Rob at Time & Matter, please check out their excellent and official U.K. Subs web-site and archive here.
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