“Jet Boy Jet Girl” / “Abortions” | “Subway Sadist” (Secret SHH 129) February 1982
Chron Gen | Jet Boy Jet Girl | (Secret) | Top marks for anti-macho to Chron Gen, the likeable face of Oi, for covering this faggy pop romance. Unfortunately, they zoom through the damn thing so fast that most of its silly, catchy tune (remember Plastic Bertrand’s ‘Ca Plan Pour Moi’?) gets lost along the way.
Still, it’s more trash than thrash, and given the choice of this lot or the Exploited, I know who I’d prefer to see on TOTPs.
Rather fifth-rate Buzzcocks than nth-rate Clash any day, mate. (Record Mirror, February 1982)
Again? Reasonable version of arthritic song. De-Damned and pointless. (Sounds, 20/02/82)
Glum punk grumblers loosen up a little, with skittish ditty, a version somewhere between The Damned and plastic Bertrand. But closer to Bertrand. (NME, 27/02/82)
The Wardrobe Chronicles
Article published in Melody Maker, 27th March, 1982
THERE are signs . . . signs everywhere. Signs that Chron Gen are about to justify their reputation as the punk band most likely to; feelings in the air, whispers on the breeze and . . . girls at their gigs.
The increase in female attention was the change in fortune most vividly noted by the band on their recent headlining tour of Britain; the fact that started to convince them of their own growing importance.
“It’s just funny cos we’re not used to it,” said guitarist Jon Thurlow. “No one wanted to know before cos we were third on the bill. In photos, Pete (Dimmock — bass) and Glynn are the best looking, so the girls chase after them. Obviously they go after Glynn cos he’s the focal point of the band.”
Glynn Barber, who’s just ended his relationship with Vice Squad‘s Beki Bondage, wasn’t exactly wasting his new opportunities, though he wasn’t over-impressed by the whole situation either.
“Beki and I started finishing about two months ago,” he said. “We kept arguing all the time . . . I don’t know why. We were together for about four weeks, but that was stretched over six months. Nothing was said, but it was obvious we’d split up, and when we did, I was quite relieved.
Chron Gen | Jet Boy Jet Girl | (Secret)
“We’ve been having women coming up to us on the tour, though I wouldn’t go out of my way for them. I don’t really mind it, but it’s quite sickening. You know they’re only coming up because you’re in the group. I don’t find it that flattering.”
I wondered how the girl felt, the girl who’d followed the whole of the tour and was sitting in a Norwich hotel room draped round his shoulders as he spoke.
THE gig earlier that evening, at Norwich’s Gala Ballroom, had shown exactly what the band are capable of musically, although there were no packed crowds to appreciate it (due, I suspect, to a Theatre Of Hate gig in the vicinity at the same time).
Chron Gen are one of those bands who shudder with the vibrant urgency of punk but manage to incorporate elements of melody and surprise, always ready with the unexpected chord or the sudden change of course to produce a relatively commercial and out of the ordinary impact that sustains its interest throughout the set.
LSD
At the Gala — a thoughtfully-run and enjoyable punk club — the first song was “Lies”, juddering with a forceful smoke bomb explosion into “Jet Boy Jet Girl”, the last single and a considerable success in the indies charts.
The set took in most of the material from the band’s forthcoming debut album (due out any day), and ranged in feel from the frantic hurry of “LSD” — one of their more traditionally punk songs — to the more considered arrangements of their later compositions and the fun-for-all rattle through “Living Next Door To Alice”. The crowds pogoed, Chron Gen kept up a visually and musically exciting pace, and the night ended happily for everyone involved.
Glynn: “For some time we weren’t that popular because everyone was looking for someone like that Exploited. But now people seem to be looking for a little bit different.”
Chron Gen | Jet Boy Jet Girl | (Secret)
“They’re probably looking for something that’s a bit more entertaining and catchy,” elaborated drummer John Johnson. “Something with a tune they can sing to themselves. You can’t exactly do that with bands like Discharge.”
“We’ve got songs like ‘LSD’,” said Glynn. “It’s a three-chord bash with the vocals just a string of words that follow the chord sequence all the way along . . . . but we’re moving towards songs that are thought out, with the chord sequence going a different way from the vocals. Songs that sound like songs, not just something we’ve knocked up.
“This is music we’re interested in doing; music we’ve always wanted to do. We’re all on £50 a week and we don’t want to work. So if we can make a living out of it, that’s great.”
IT wasn’t the best time for an interview. Elated and more than a little inebriated after the gig, the band were in one of their least serious moods back at the hotel. There was a lot of talk of Johnson’s exploits in the wardrobes of Britain; and Johnson, for his part, was indulging in a wine-induced obstruction campaign, throwing insults over to the others from the corner of the room where he’d isolated himself.
“I’m a cantankerous bastard,” he warned us. “And I’m an arrogant c***. I’m going to sit here. I don’t suppose Cozy Powell sits on a bed and says ‘I ain’t moving’ but I ain’t fucking moving.”
His theatrical belligerence was actually quite endearing. The talk drifted round to drugs, a subject which seemed to enliven the band, especially talk of acid, which has cropped up in the lyrics of several of their songs, most blatantly “LSD”.
You’d have been forgiven for thinking that the psychedelic/punk/pop fusion might be starting with Chron-Gen.
Chron Gen | Jet Boy Jet Girl | (Secret)
“We’re not a drug band’, insisted Glynn. “We’ve got quite a few songs about drugs. ‘Lies’ is probably the best . . . it gives both points of view how great and how bad it is to be speeding. Other songs about acid, like ‘Reality’ . . . well if people didn’t know about acid, they wouldn’t know what we were on about.
“I’ve only had acid about 15 or 20 times . . . it opens your eyes. That’s why we call it ‘Reality’ . . . acid makes everything seem so clear and obvious; it’s my favourite drug.
“I wrote ‘LSD’ about four or five years ago when I was about 14, walking the dog. It made it up in my head, but I hadn’t even taken acid then; it was just about what I’d been told. I didn’t change the words cos I thought it was funny. When you see the words on the album you’ll probably piss yourself, they’re so stupid.”
And at that very appropriate moment, Glynn went to take a piss himself. In the sink. Hey Glynn, somebody has to wash their face in that tomorrow. “Yes, I have to wash my face in it tomorrow.”
THE scene was set once again. Pete Dimmock, bassist, had his pissing anecdote too.
Pissing on a railway line
“I once got done for pissing on a railway line,” he admitted. “And for motoring offences.”
None of the rest of the band have criminal records, although Jon Thurlow did once call a copper a bastard outside the 100 Club. Thing is, before you meet Chron Gen, you tend to think of them as the nice boys of punk, the ones the little girls wouldn’t mind taking home to mum — an opinion that may be reinforced by the knowledge that the whole of the band live with their families still in towns like Hitchin (Glynn), Stevenage (Jon and Pete) and Letchworth (John).
In a way, it’s encouraging to discover that this band are up to all the mischief, and probably more, of other more notorious punk rockers. They look the way they do because they want to; they play a relatively accessible form of punk because that’s the way they like it; and they live at home because they don’t particularly feel that they have to move (although Glynn’s quite taken with the idea of moving to London).
Chron Gen | Jet Boy Jet Girl | (Secret)
“All we go on is the music,” said Glynn. “That has to be good; we make sure of that first. Our following isn’t there because of what we look like or where we come from.”
“We may also have looks,” said John from his corner. “I think we have. But we don’t dress up. We’re just the way we are. We don’t roll up at the soundcheck in a certain type of clothes and appear differently onstage. We just try to be ourselves. Glynn just looks like Glynn. You can’t compare him to anyone else, and you can’t compare us to anyone else.”
“You don’t have to look like Wattie,” added Jon Thurlow. “If you told Wattle to wear a full head of hair or get a bloody big quiff, he’d say ‘I’m Wattie, I’m not Glynn and I’m not Chron Gen and I’m not anybody else.’ “You do acquire a certain style of your own in the end, but it’s not that important. People should only want to listen to the music.”
Somewhere around this time, it seemed wise to wind up the conversation. John had gone back into the wardrobe, the rest of the band were looking tired and the whole of Norwich had gone to sleep hours ago. Even trusty Jon Blackmore had had one over the eight . . . he left his camera behind.
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