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MAKE SENSE OF THE SENSELESS ! / QUESTION THE QUESTIONABLE ! / SHOUT ABOVE THE NOISE !

Sunday 31 May 2009

UK DECAY - Live @ Bowes Lyon House, Stevenage 4/1/81


This is the first in a series of live shows recorded by the legend that is Simon Herd. UK Decay were a favourite of mine in the early 80’s saw them on several occasions, as they were regular visitors to my local venue Bowes Lyon House when I was younger, always a good night out, even if at times the atmosphere was a bit tense. Listening to these tapes and thinking back, the early 80’s were pretty messy times and UK Decay seemed to capture those feelings into sounds. They were dark, intense and errr…. atmospheric, almost claustrophobic and as uplifting as they were gloomy. Swirling guitars pounding bass lines and heavy tribal drums, with vocals more akin to chanting and shouting than singing. Described by in an early review by NME as; the worst punk band ever, and then later as gothic. (possibly the first time the term goth was used in the music press to describe a band.) With song titles like The Black Cat, Necromancer and Rising From The Dead its easy to see why, not that all their politics were of death. For My Country along with The Mob’s No Doves Fly Here remains one of the best ever anti-war songs, another; Dresden was a slab of social commentary about the allied bombings of Dresden during WWII. Wait up, perhaps their songs were all about death . As for Punk, well UK Decay weren’t yer average 3 chord punk trash, I mean their Guitarist only had 5 strings on his guitar. They were beyond punk , I cant recall any other band that appears in both Gothic Rock, Mick Mercer’s account of Goth and Ian Glasper’s book Burning Britain about 80’s Punk. UK Decay were that kind of band, distinctive and different for the times but a product of the times and at times listening to them again now, ahead of the times. See what yer think with this here recording. The first of a few, which will follow over the passing weeks. Enjoy!

5 comments:

Longy said...

Fantastic post Nuzz. I saw em 81 or 82 down here and they were bloody brilliant. Still cursing swapping the UK Decay-Pneumania Split EP with my Sister for some crap I can't remember.Grrrrr!

Cheers mate. Mucho appreciated.

Anonymous said...

Cheers for this, presume you are aware they have got back together and have/are doing a few dates. Will be on at Rebellion(Sunday) this year.

Seaside Moz

Harry The Fat Bastard said...

LU7 ran from the skins that night, unfortunately Badger of the Belts got caught and was duffed up, still he survived to tell the tale!

Longy, you didn't swap it for something really bad did you?

Steph said...

Fantastic post, one of my fav bands from the time. Great to finally restart getting live stuff (and the Madmen CD) available.

Look forward to your other UK Decay downloads.

Stephanie

Anonymous said...

Thnaks Nuzz never saw them but did see Furyo a couple of times don't suppose you have any Furyo live do you?

Gino (Assassins)