Another run round the WIS block, with six tunes from the 80s created by artists from the city of Leeds, the cultural heart of West Yorkshire. Enjoy!
First Word
So I dreamed up this week’s playlist on a train travelling to Leeds to see a few old work colleagues. For reasons I won’t bore you with (other than it makes me sound more of an international man of mystery than I actually am), I was actually travelling north to Leeds from the that there big London town in the south east. The blog has featured a couple of six song playlists associated with trips south to The Smoke, so I felt it was time to give Leeds some of WIS’s thin supply of oxygen.
While London’s streets, areas and buildings have inspired many songs, few songwriters tend to wax that lyrically about Leeds. With the obvious exception of English Teacher’s wonderful The World’s Biggest Paving Slab and it’s “You should see my Armoury” line. It’s already been playlisted and I decided to settle for a more straightforward ‘music by bands associated with Leeds’ approach.
I spent a bit of time in Leeds in the early 80s as my great pal Mark moved down there to work for YTV. So it tends to come with memories of drinking vast amounts of Tetley’s Bitter, eating curry and ending up in dubious late night establishments on the coat-tails of various local media people. I went back and forward to the city occasionally through work in the years that followed, but in considerably less debauched circumstances.
Choosing six acts has been difficult. I started off to try and include modern bands like the aforementioned English Teacher and Yard Act, whose singles I have admired over the last couple of years. But my emotional resonance with the city comes from the 1980s and I gave in to that when compiling the tunes. In my defence there are still three WIS debuts on the list and two acts only making their second appearance in over 700 tunes.
Outside the Trains Don’t Run on Time – Gang of Four (1980)
I’ve banged on about the brilliance of the early recordings of Gang of Four before on the blog. Indeed, Paralysed, the opening track from their second LP Gold, appeared on the very first edition away back in WIS Feb23. To me, they are the archetypal Leeds band, coming to prominence out of that very late 70s post-punk scene in the city alongside Mekons, Scritti Polliti and Delta 5 [Spoiler alert: only the latter don’t make it on to this playlist but fans of the 5 can find them on WIS 5Jan24] The University and the Poly had art departments with strong counter-culture undercurrents and radicalism seeped into the music of the bands that were forming. Gang of Four famously took their name from the Maoist political faction led by Mao Zedong’s former wife Jiang Qing, the joke being that her name sounded like the band’s vocalist Jon King.
I could have picked any early Gang of Four song but it seems fitting for a Leeds playlist to pick the a-side of their third single which had a grainy picture of Leeds Town Hall on the cover. Led by Dave Allen’s driving bass underpinned by Hugo Burnham’s frantic drum beats, Outside the Trains Don’t Run On Time comes thundering out the speakers at you. The lyric riffs with the Mussolini propaganda in a critique of authoritarianism, reflecting the idea that order and control is an illusion that doesn’t result in efficiency. “Discipline is his passion!” yells Jon King over Andy Gill’s idiosyncratic crashing guitar.
Two of the three times I saw the original line-up play live I was with my pal Mark who I mentioned in the intro. The first was one of my most memorable gigs when they played an explosive set on the tiny stage of the Glasgow Tech Union in 1979, before Mark had moved to Leeds. The second time I went down to their hometown gig in Leeds in 2005 when the original line up had reformed to tour. It was an equally memorable night spent where Mark and I fell in with a very drugged up Keith Allen and a much more sober Andy Kershaw, the DJ and broadcaster who sadly died a week or so back. If you’ve never seen them live, I can highly recommend this 1980 video of them blistering their way through the b-side of this single, He’d Send In The Army. The guitar playing of the late Andy Gill is quite simply unique.
Go For Gold! – Girls At Our Best! (1981)
I recall that the Leeds post-punk scene was notable for rejecting the male-dominated ethos of the era and many of the bands featured a mix of men and women in their line-ups. Most prominent of these were the three front women in Delta 5 but there were other strong independent women at the centre of the stage. Judy ‘Jo’ Evans was the singer with a band who started life as The Butterflies in 1979 but changed their name to Girls At Our Best! for the release of their self-financed debut single Getting Nowhere Fast in 1980.
Forming out of Leeds University’s arts department, they burned brightly but briefly, like many bands of the time. In their short two-year career, they recorded only four singles and an LP, Pleasure. John Peel was a big fan and a session they did for his show (produced by Mott the Hoople legend Dale Griffin) was released as an EP later in the 80s. All their singles made respectable appearances in the UK indie chart and the LP even made No 60 in the ‘big’ album chart. While second single Politics is great, I’ve decided to playlist their third single, Go For Gold!, complete with its matching exclamation mark. No memory of where I first heard it but I bought it at the time and love its kinda Yorkshire funky spaghetti western vibe – the opening spoken word section is Morricone-esque. The guitars jangle and the drums rumble and Evan’s bittersweet vocal sings of “Señoritas with smiles on their lips”. And when the ‘Funky Cowboy’ chorus kicks in with layers of backing vocals, it’s a total joy! [Those exclamation marks are infectious!!]
In doing a wee bit of research for this piece, I came across a wonderful fan website for the band at https://www.girlsatourbest.com/. Last updated in Dec 2024, it’s not clear who has built it but it is an obvious labour of love and crammed with the kind of trainspotter minutiae that makes an old music fan like me very happy. Give it a visit as its absolutely what the internet is for!! [Yeah – there’s another couple…]
Memorabilia – Soft Cell (1981)
When I discovered that pioneering electro-pop band Soft Cell began their career when Dave Ball met Marc Almond studying art at Leeds Polytechnic, I was astounded to find that fate had not conspired to give one of their tunes a slot on the blog over the last three years. Quite incredible really, given I bought all their singles (I think right up to Down In The Subway, No24 in 1984) and have the limited edition Art of Falling Apart LP with the bonus 12” single with their medley of Hendrix tunes on it. But here we are.
Their body of work is not as venerated as The Pet Shop Boys but Soft Cell’s vocal/synth duo sound was a key inspiration for Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe to form their group. I’ve decided to playlist Soft Cell’s first proper single, the wonderful Memorabilia which was originally released in 1980. I first heard it as a b-side when I bought an early pressing of the 12” of Tainted Love in 1981, their follow-up mega-hit northern soul cover. While I retain a love for the a-side, like many other songs from this period, it has been tarnished by over-exposure. With the very occasional exception of the sublime Say Hello, Wave Goodbye, the algorithms on those horrible Hits “radio stations” never stray beyond that Gloria Jones song.
The sleeve for my 12″ copy of Tainted Love is silent on the extended version of the a-side morphing into the group’s cover of Where Did Our Love Go. Apparently neither band member were terribly happy with their recording of that song but the record company insisted that later pressings of the single dropped Memorabilia to put The Supremes cover on the b-side. While this probably helped take the song to No1, it is a shame as Memorabilia is a terrific piece of 80s electro pop, all pulsing rhythms on sequencers and wonderfully squonky synths from the fingers of Dave Ball. Almond’s characteristic vocal soars through the mix as he chants about the pointless pieces of plastic that connect us with other places. The Spotify ‘single version’ playlisted here is slightly shorter than the one on my 12”, but there is still plenty of of opportunity to enjoy the “Keychains and Snowstorms” refrain, which went on to become the title of a huge 40th anniversary 9 CD career-defining box set in 2018. Also listen out for the weird way Almond chants “Torremolinos” – for some reason, it’s absolutely brilliant!
Soft Cell disbanded in 1984 but reformed for a few years at the turn of the millennium. A further reformation for 40th anniversary live shows in 2018 kick started their recording careers but after a serious fall where he broke his back in 2022, Dave Ball’s health declined. Sadly, he died last year at the age of 66 just days after completing a new Soft Cell record which will be released this year.
Scritti Politti – Lions After Slumber (1981)
Along with Soft Cell, Scritti Politti probably had more commercial success than any of the other bands to emerge from Leeds in this period. They weren’t in Leeds for long, though. Green Gartside founded the band after seeing the Sex Pistols on the ‘Anarchy’ tour in 1976 at Leeds Poly where he was doing an art degree. By 1977 the band had relocated to a Camden squat and taken the name Scritti Politti after the work of Italian Marxist writer Antonio Gramsci. Compared with the sophisticated pop of their 80s success, their early music was very much of that intellectual, left-wing art-rock ethic. Have a listen to the big bass and scratchy atonal guitar of their first single Skank Bloc Bolgna from 1978, the same year as Gang of Four released their debut Damaged Goods EP – you can definitely hear the Leeds-scene sound.
I playlisted Wood Beez (Pray Like Aretha Franklin) on the blog back in March 2024, I talked of the transition from between this early sound and their commercial success. I am shamelessly cut and pasting the following from that blog:
“When I got my copy of the NME C81 tape (yes, those tapes again!), I was taken aback when the hiss of the drum machine kicked in on The “Sweetest Girl” and Green Gartside’s echoey vocal began over that gentle piano skank beat – played by none other than Robert Wyatt. The dramatic change in sound had come about during a long convalescence period following Gartside collapsing on stage in early 1980. I bought the single when it came out in October 1981 and recall it becoming a big favourite among the friends that I spent the new year of 1982 with in Glencoe (hello, Carmela!). But it was the b-side Lions After Slumber, with its incredible funky bass line that really showed the direction Gartside was headed in.”
So this week I’m playlisting that b-side (of course I am!) where Gartside’s astonishing stream-of-consciousness lyric skips between the bass notes listing what appears to be his personal qualities and likes, prefacing each with the possessive pronoun. It’s all quite hypnotic and I love the rhythmic repetition of “my drummer” part way through. After nearly six minutes of this outpouring, the song suddenly drops to a finish with the only line which is not preceded by “my”.
“My wish and my despair, my erasure, my plantation, my chocolate
My thoughtlessness, my gracelessness, my courage and my crying
My pockets, my homework
Like lions after slumber, in unvanquishable number”
In the last line Gartside is quoting from the last stanza of Shelley’s renowned poem, The Masque of Anarchy which was written as a call for freedom in response to the August 1819 Peterloo massacre of Manchester workers protesting peacefully for a democratic vote. Don’t say you don’t learn anything on this blog.
Kennedy – The Wedding Present (1989)
Another surprise in putting this list together was that, for some inexplicable reason, WIS has never featured a tune from The Wedding Present. Founded by David Gedge in Leeds in 1985, the band are still active today carrying a hugely loyal fanbase, many from the band’s early days.
My first encounter with them was hearing their fast guitar playing on their self-financed 1985 debut single Go Out and Get ‘Em, Boy on a compilation cassette belonging to my mid-80s flatmate (and occasional WIS guest blogger) Mick Lynch. The band’s playing increased to heartstoppingly fast when an exhilarating version of the band’s third single This Boy Can Wait appeared as the final track on the legendary C86 NME cassette with the addition of (A Bit Longer!) in the title. I just could not fathom how Gedge could strum his guitar that fast – still can’t!
I was tempted to playlist something from their debut LP which Gedge decided to title George Best. Given the city rivalry, for a band from Leeds to name their record after one of the greatest Manchester Utd players of all time seemed contrary in the extreme. Especially when the cover featured a photo of Best in his bearded 70s pomp, resplendent in his red strip. But I decided to go for Kennedy, the 1987 single which gave the band their first top 40 hit and which many fans consider as their greatest song. It’s a thumping tune and those guitars couldn’t be anyone else, but it has real depth to it – those descending chiming chords are terrific – and a typically brilliant Gedge extended outro. Apparently, he wrote it after reading about the Kennedy assassination and the theories about mafia and CIA involvement. But apart from a fleeting reference to a “Lee” in the lyric, I’m not sure I see the connection. Great chorus though: “Lost your love of life?/Too much apple pie” .
Gedge is prolific writer and is also someone who loves a cover version. One of the many they’ve released is their cover of Gowing Nowhere Fast, the first single by Girls at Our Best! discussed above. It’s almost like this blog is thought through, eh?
Ghosts of American Astronauts – Mekons (1988)
Those of you with the stamina and perseverance to have made it this far will be delighted that I’m going to finish with a shorter narrative about Mekons, the last of the Leeds bands of the 80s to be featured this week.
Just over a year ago, I featured the band’s brilliant second single Where Were You in WIS 11Apr25 and clicking this link gives you all you need to know about the group’s art-collective beginnings in Leeds – the post references Gang of Four and Delta 5 so the linkages to this blog are strong! In those days the band were known as The Mekons but if we spin forward a few years towards the end of the decade, their musical style developed and the definite article was dropped on their recordings as they became simply Mekons.
During the 80s the band began to experiment with traditional English folk music and the darker side of American country, particularly as espoused by the outlaw tendencies of Hank Williams and Gram Parsons. I had lost touch with their output by the time of their seventh LP So Good It Hurts in 1987 but see now that reviews commented on the breadth of styles on show and the pop polish of the production – something that could never have been said about their early bare-bones punk recordings! Evidence for this can be heard on the gentle, jangling and chiming strum of Ghosts of American Astronauts, the only single from the LP and playlisted here. I first heard this single only in the last ten years or so and could not believe that its was by (The) Mekons. The haunting, echo-filled vocal melody has a lyric which flirts with images of late 60s America and it all sounds rather lovely.
“John Glenn drinks cocktails with God
In a cafe in downtown Saigon
(High above them)
Ghosts of American Astronauts
Are drifting too close to the sun”
Last Word
Well, I hope you enjoyed that stroll through the dark alleyways of Leeds in the 1980s – I certainly did, but it was probably more like a very long walk if I’m honest. I really need to get myself a good editor!!
By the time this blog goes live, WIS will be on its travels again, this time on a six-week long road trip to the Italian Lakes and back in the campervan. The laptop is under the driver’s seat and, while the digital nomad in me managed to keep the weekly posts going in the past, my aim this time is maybe to publish one issue (or two at push) over the next few weeks. We shall see.
Finally getting round to adding the songs to the Master Playlist from the last two editions, maybe this one will be quicker. Link below anyway.
AR
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