Article published in NME | 22nd September, 1979
The Barracudas | Sex, Drugs & Fish & Chips | THE Barracudas make punk rock with a capital J, fast, tight loony tunes that extol the virtues of 1965, neighbourhood girls and the ultimate surfari.
The Barracudas are in search of that long lost curl which sometimes threatened to re-emerge in the latter part of the troubled seventies and whose sole Raison d’être was based round the premise of having fun. The boys in the band are young and wholesome.
Two of them hail from the North American continent but we won’t hold that against them. Lead singer Jeremy Gluck (real name) was born in Canada, bass player David Buckley is from Boston and is proud to boast a bloodline with the late Tim Buckley.
Gluck and Buckley provide an ethnic angle to The Barracudas‘ seamless amalgam of surfabilly begat by an adolescence wasted listening to trash rock, garage punk and radical psychedelia.
Pitted against these titans of teen are the English continent, guitarist Robin Wills and drummer Nicky Turner, ciphered via the homegrown kinetic synergy of early Clash, Buzzcocks pop and a mutual desire to re-introduce the words fun, goofy-foot and Quasimodo into the rock and roll vocabulary.
This combo has been building up for the big, wipe out for most of a year. They’ve released the single “I Want My Woody Back” (Woody being a wooden bodied station wagon ideal for carrying surf boards) on the independent Cells Records label.
Although it’s a fine enough slice of nonsense The Barracudas’ real strengths lie in an altogether more potent style of chainsaw attack. They recognise that in the computer age our collective attention spans have been totally annihilated.
The Barracudas | Sex, Drugs & Fish & Chips
So live they rely on an animalistic ferocious two minutes of zip guaranteed to stoke the most jaded palate. In a way the surf angle is a red herring, the influences of Jan and Dean and pre-Pet Sounds Beach Boys mix comfortably with a respect for such early punks as The Seeds, Stones, Standells, and an affection for the harmonic ingenuities of The Byrds and Love.
Robin Wills, a cunning amalgam of Mick Jones, Johnny Ramone and Ivy Rorshach, explains what it is that makes four outwardly normal youths turn their backs on the promise of stardom via, say, Mod tribalism and attempt to present a new music inspired by an alien and distant culture.
The kids in Rough Trade don’t even know that punk music was made in America in that period from ’65 to ’67. Punk now has taken itself so seriously. If you tell people to hate and destroy it becomes an obsession.”
Gluck, Buckley and Turner take up the point.
“Rock music has got to be optimistic and constructive, what the hell else is there? It doesn’t change anything, you might as well accept that. The amount of politics and bullshit being dragged in is painful and boring. So if a group like us wants to have a good time and sing about 1965 that doesn’t make us thought criminals.
They’re so stupid
We do what we do in the vain hope that someone somewhere will think ‘Gosh, these guys are so stupid they’re great.”
The Barracudas are the last great group of the seventies and the first great group of the eighties, or at least the worst group of the eighties. We don’t take ourselves so seriously that we have to have valid opinions on everything.
“The great punk rock of any time was slightly awkward and spontaneous; we might appear to be posers but after two minutes you’ll see we’re messy and having a good time. The audiences generally reach that conclusion too. People say how can this bunch of loonies expect us to like them but of course we do.”
The Barracudas | Sex, Drugs & Fish & Chips
Right now The Barracudas are waiting for a major label to licence their single but contracts, albums and big money are for the future. By night they rehearse in a vacant Sunday School near Waterloo Bridge slap bang next to The Duke Of Clarence, a worthy pub who let the band build up a following in a miniscule corner of the room by the hot food counter.
Barracudas were one of the last groups to tread the Roxy boards and have supported UK Subs and The Clash in their time. Now they prefer to headline on a modest scale and gain momentum in their own right. They are out to prove that Jimi Hendrix was wrong when he vowed that “You’ll never have to listen to surf music again” on ‘Axis Bold As Love’.
“He said that in 1967 and now here we are. He’s gone off to the great beach in the sky. The sucker.”
The Barracudas are upholders of an ancient tradition. Their ambition is to be the greatest punk group in the world, to be better than Jan and Dean and The Cramps. To that end they feature a score of excellent originals and some tasteful covers, ‘Little Red Book’, The Trashmen‘s ‘King Of The Surf’ and Tommy James‘ magnum opus ‘Hanky Panky’.
The notion of a surf band in London that can gel an audience of punks, skins etcetera and keep them jumping and smiling would be ridiculous if it wasn’t true.
For now it’s sufficient to vouch safe that the surfers are back, shooting the tube. Is that fantasy or reality and who gives a flying one? Where is Gary Usher now that The Barracudas really need him? (Max Bell)
Leave a Reply