Ok - so in my inaugural contribution to this challenge series, dwelled quite a bit on the notion of “punk” music, in the sense of tunes that inspired me to try to make music myself, as opposed to simply consuming it. Music that you could technically master even if you were technically terrible, and cover up any remaining inadequacy with a bit of swagger and some inspired fashion and hairstyle choices.
I started in January by identifying the almost perfect, but almost attainable sound of Green on Red in their one great great album Gas Food Lodging. An album that for all its musical perfection contained songs that could be delivered (mostly) with a few cowboy chords on a cheap acoustic guitar. And propelled me somewhat into what became a brief period of musical hyperactivity and creativity.
This month I want to move on to the record that made me feel like I could actually be in a band. Which was a major step forward in all sorts of ways in terms of music, lifestyle and bad bad decisions. Of appalling noise made during bedroom rehearsals in the houses of friends with permanently absent parents (and hopefully largely deaf neighbours), of bitter feuds and fallings out, of half baked recordings, half assed practice sessions, and far to many (in retrospect) terrible (indeed memorable terrible) gigs
Rose of Avalanche were a band from my home town. They were a mid-late 80s era goth band who broke cover just after the (much better, much more influential) Sisters of Mercy acrimoniously broke up. Their name (although they denied it in later years) was derived from that of “Doktor Avalanche”, the Sisters’ nickname for their series of drum machines (for those who care, initially a 606, then an 808, 909, DMX, RX5, and finally an Akai S1000 and finally a MacBook Pro).
They announced themselves in the local music scene with handbills that claimed they “Took off where the Sisters left off”. And I saw them not long after, supporting Nico on the Leeds show of her tour notoriously (and brilliantly) documented in Songs the Never Play on the Radio - one of the funniest, most gruelling music/touring memoirs ever.
Four local kids - two guitars, a bass and a drum machine, and a singer in shades and a tassled black suede jacket affecting a transatlantic drawl as he sang over a bunch of pretty awful (and a few almost decent) tunes. Including some truly dreadful cover versions that are probably best forgotten.
They never made it particularly big. Probably deservedly so. Most of their songs were at best adequate, particularly when they swapped the drum machine for a really drummer and tried to be rock stars. But they had that one song.
And listening to it as they ground through all seven and a half minutes of it as we milled around waiting for Nico, it was mind-blowing. LA Rain, a song about precipitation in America written by four Yorkshire lads who had probably never got quite as far as Manchester, let alone Los Angeles, ground on and on and on. On one level it wasn’t much. A kind of Velvet Underground-y thing, if the Velvet Underground had used a drum machine instead of Moe Tucker, and been helmed by a notably short long haired Leeds lad in aviators affecting some sort of generic American twang. On another level, it was revolutionary. Mostly because it only had two chords to it. Well maybe two and a half. The bassline had even less about it. The drum machine just played one simplistic beat. But the entirety became more than the whole by virtue of the excessive use of fuzz and reverb.
The revelation was there. I too could stand on stage in shades and a tassled jacket and play just two (or perhaps two and a half) chords and get away with it. Provided I got myself a fuzz pedal. So I did. With a few of the friends who attended the show with me. Within a few months we had a tape released on the front of a local music scene zine, the contents of which were even more basic than LA Rain. And we had gigs to play and attitudes to strike. The concept had been proven, and we were well on our way towards execution.
As to Rose of Avalanche. That song, and a follow up (not quite as basic or as good), got played on John Peel, hit the top of the indie charts and the briefly had their moment. They put it out on an album which was mostly disappointing, but still deserves a spin on account of the one great tune. And I rolled forward, inspired, able to become a rock star, and liberated from the need to be any good at it by virtue of ownership of effects pedals.