The first time I travelled to see a group outside my immediate hometown area was in 1989 when I went to see The Vandals at The Duchess Of York in Leeds. This also happened to be the first show organised by the gig promoters Flame In Hand – the same people behind Crackle record label and mail order.
I knew of the Vandals from seeing them on the movie Suburbia and I had probably managed to get myself a copy of When In Rome… by this point, so I was expecting a pretty exciting punk show – what I wasn’t expecting was a load of Hell’s Angels to turn up and start beating the crap out of people and even set some guy’s hair on fire.
Despite this traumatic initiation, I soon became a regular attendee of shows at the Duchess (most of them organised by Flame In Hand) and Leeds in general, especially when I went to University there a few years later.
It was also shortly after this show that I bought the new Vandals album Slippery When Ill – once again I was expecting some exciting punk rock and once again I was in for a shock, it was cow punk!
I’d never heard anything like this before. Despite my initial disappointment this album quickly grew on me, partly because of the humour running through all the songs, but also because I found I really liked the mixing of punk and country as it really seemed to work. I’d always had a bit of a soft spot for my Dad’s Johnny Cash, Marty Robbins, etc records and the added element of punk really appealed.
In retrospect, of course, I can see there were lots of groups throughout the eighties that had been taking punk and mixing it with more traditional types of music – especially genres that maybe had a tradition of protest or support of the outsider/underdog, such as folk and blues as well as country. The Pogues were already a popular group at this time and then of course there were others like Gun Club, Blood On The Saddle, Tex & The Horseheads, Blyth Power – all groups which I went on to discover and love.
01. Clowns Are Experts(At Making Us Laugh) 02. Susanville 03. Desert Woman 04. In America 05. Elvis Decanter 06. Goop All Over The Phone(Pleasant All Over The Bill) 07. Shi’ite Punk 08. Gator Hide 09. Long Hair Queer 10. (Illa Zilla) Lady Killa
