Love, Blood and Rhetoric

After a few years when I've probably only listened to Neil Hammond's group intermittently, I rediscovered them when I was doing that covers thing a few weeks back. And now I can't stop listening. Pop meets a 30 piece orchestra with Hammond as the Cowardeaque frontman and possiblyt he only band with songs inspired by influences as diverse as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Michael Caine, Fellini, Steve McQueen, Anton Chekov, quantum mechanics and William Wordsworth. And provided songs for Doctor Who, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galazy and Father Ted.

National Express

There's a certain genius about taking a glorious anthem to the rather crap intercity bus company and creating a video for it set in an asylum. Neil Hannon's a comedy genius in the video for this.

Posting that link to Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine's version of The Impossible Dream has reminded me of something - there were and still are one of my favourite bands.

God knows they were never the greatest songwriters or musicians in the world, but they were earnest and likable blokes from an age where indie music wasn't afraid to be silly and was rarely dreary. Crashing onto the scene in the late eightes, Jim Bob and Fruitbat (aka James Robert Morrison and Lesley Carter, lending his name to the band), the pair, and their pet drum machine and a pocket full of samples, stumbled through their first album, 101 Damnations, hopping onto the indie scene with their own brand of thrash agit-pop, students political sensibilities, a silly name, a flair for daft designs and the dress sense of drunk Australians.

Take, for example, the video for the punningly named Do Re Me (So Far So Good) off their hit number one album 1992: The Love Album. Notice the fringe that recently earned Jim Bob the Most Tragic Barnet in Pop. Notice Fruitbat's adorable little cycling shorts and cap. Notice they both look like total wankers.

But how adorable are they? With their angry punning pop posturing and desire to make music that actually said something and wasn't just love ballad slush, they earned a highly loyal following, a following that saw them a personal heroes as the pair became very supportive and personally involved with their fanbase, responding to the letters they would get from many troubled fans personally. (Inspiring the song Lean On Me, I Won't Fall Over.)

They came from the same school as Madness and Ian Dury (who they were friendly with. They supported Madness more than once and Ian Dury features on 1992: The Love Album as well as the video for The Impossible Dream.) They had the same playfulness, love of puns and dark underbelly as Dury with the same bounciness as Madness. Although often described as "the punk Pet Shop Boys", that's not entirely the greatest likeness, though they may not have helped their case by covering the band's song Rent. Just one of many cover versions recorded for the bands B-sides.

During their time they were, perhaps, flukily successful. Sherrif Fatman was their first big hit, all drum machine, backing tapes, samples, puns and thrashing guitar over cynical lyrics in a tale of abuse in old people's homes. Not the typical pop song then, but it soon became a student favourite.

But then some of their fame came from infamy more than their music. Bloodsport For All, their anthem about bullying in the armed forces was banned by the BBC when the Gulf War started. Another single, After the Watershed saw its controversial subject matter (child abuse) overshadowed by the subsequent legal battle with the Rolling Stones when they took offense at the use of the words "Goodbye Ruby Tuesday" in the lyrics. They didn't really help matters when performing the song at The Smash Hit Poll Winner's Party, they tackled presenter Phillip Scofield live on television in a moment of pure anarchy after he decided to be a sarky bastard.

Of course, they didn't go easy on their subject matter after that either. there was Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere, a diatrade on alcoholism and The Only Living Boy in New Cross about the AIDs virus. And they didn't avoid controversy either. Even when top of the album charts, the band's headline set at Glastonbuty was cut violently short because other bands had overrun, leaving Fruitbat to rant at Michael Evis and get them banned from the festival forever.

That was certainly their commercial peak and post Love Album their next album, Post Historic Monsters, was a lot more downbeat and weary, probably losing them fans in the process. But musically they were improving and their next album, Worry Bomb gave birth to their unashamedly pub pop anthem Let's Get Tattoos and Cheap 'n' Cheesy (a deceptively titled song about an alcoholic screwing up his relationship) saw them flirting with sensitivity as well as powerful, kitchen sink instrumental ballads.

They finally started earning their punk Pet Shop Boys crudentials with And God Created Brixton, another of their later songs that I adore. Ironic that they sounded most like an electronic band on this one, since by this point they'd formed a full band with a drummer, keyboards and another guitarist. But burn out had arrived. I saw them for the third time towards the end and though they were as passionate live and the fanbase seemed as loyal as ever, the hits had dried up. I personally think A World Without Dave, the mini-album this track came from, was one of their strongest, but they decided to slip away gracefully, making the mutual decision to split on the eve of their tenth anniversary and just one more album was released, I Blame the Government, which was mostly comprised of songs in their demo form and was stripped down and raw because of it. And sometimes strangely beautiful.

So that's Carter. They had something to say. Sometimes they were politically naive, but they wore their hears on their sleeves, were unashamedly sometimes stupid and funny, had my same fondness for bad puns and I can't hear the phrase "you fat bastard" without thinking of them.

They're the only band I ever miss.

And Falling On A Bruise can still reduce me to tears.