Article published in Sounds, 20th November, 1982
The Defects | Watching The Defectives | EVEN AS the plane begins its descent over the outer-Belfast countryside, it’s quite clear that something’s not absolutely right. There’s virtually no traffic on the enticingly attractive leafy-lanes, almost no-one on the motorways, and sprinkled here and there, rifle-guarded barriers block the roads; an unconsciously screamed warning of the grim nightmare to come.
If aeroplanes had minds of their own, they’d undoubtedly turn and head hastily back for the comforting security of Heathrow. However this one doesn’t, and with hardly a moment’s hesitation, she moronically thuds to a shaky but conclusive touchdown on the concrete carpet of lonely, windswept Belfast . . .
Buck, singer with the Defects, met the reporter, photographer and man from WXYZ Records, and led them to his car. In the car they drove tactfully through RUC checkpoints, passed solitary road signs decorated by political graffiti, and sat stunned at the sight of entire communities enclosed by enormous brick walls and barbed wire.
With child-like awe, the three Londoners saw the army dramatically surround a crumbling old house, watched in dumb fascination as shoppers were searched in order to enter the city-centre, and smiled with as much angelic innocence as they could muster when machine-gun bearing soldiers peered in at them through the worryingly delicate windows of the car.
“It’s just like watching News At Ten”, commented the reporter, “only more dangerous.”
The reporter wanted to find out what Buck thought of London on his band’s recent trips over there. Were you surprised at how different it was? he asked predictably.
The Defects | Watching The Defectives
Buck answered with positive enthusiasm . . . “It’s brilliant, it’s far better. ‘Cos like you can sit in the pub and you don’t worry about anything, you don’t really. Because in the pubs round here you have to sit and you’ve got to keep an eye open, on your guard, and I’m being truthful. There’s always someone who doesn’t take a liking to you, y’know?”
COCOONED IN the sanity of Buck’s bedroom, the Defects’ guitarist Dukie, bassist Gary, and drummer Glenn, along with the singer himself and the three excited Londoners, all sat together and ate spam-sandwiches.
Outside, inquisitive helicopters hovered about in the darkening late-afternoon sky. In the house, the band patiently answered the reporter’s continual stream of predictable questions . . . Er, so when did you first form the group?
Teenage Kicks
Buck: “It was about, let me think. It was the end of 1979 or so, ‘cos we were just pissing about doing ‘Teenage Kicks’ and things, but it was just a laugh like, we couldn’t play it hardly.
“And then we did two gigs and split up afterwards, ‘cos the bass player didn’t know what to do, he didn’t know how to play or anything. The first gig was brilliant, but the second gig he just turned his back and wouldn’t play. We went down like a pile of shites so we stopped, gave it up.
“Then we got another bass-player in, one of Dukie’s mates, and we played with him for a while, but then he turned a wee bit funny. All he was interested in was booze and girls.
“He used to come to practices and lean against the wardrobe and just go ‘tssk, hurry up, I’ve got to see my girl in half an hour’ or something y’know? So we just said bye bye to him, and Gary is here now. He’s been in since a couple of Christmases ago now, two years.”
Is it difficult to start a band over here?
The Defects | Watching The Defectives
Buck: “Well, I don’t know what it’d be like in England, but I’m sure there’s a lot more groups to borrow gear from and all.
“Most of our early gigs were supporting Rudi and the Outcasts and bands like that at the Harp or the Pound, and then we started to headline, started to get more of a following.”
I don’t suppose there are many places to play here are there?
Gary: “One.”
Where you’re playing tonight?
“Yeah. We only play there every so often.”
Buck: “We can’t play there every week. The last time we played there was August. You can’t play all the time because they’d just go ‘tssk, not them again,’ y’know? So you just leave it for a while. There’s not many punk bands that play.”
Were there, like, any bands who inspired you to form? The Undertones maybe? I mean as it’s not the easiest thing to do over here . . .
Clash gig
Buck: “Well, the others went to a Clash gig here in ’78. I didn’t go, I never bothered going, and they were supposed to be really really good.”
Glenn: “It was one of the first gigs I’d ever seen, apart from Van Morrison, and I fell asleep through him.”
Buck: “It was just them that decided to start it, because they thought the Clash were really brilliant, they thought they might as well. It was something to do.
“But there’s been nothing here really since 1978, apart from gigs at the Pound with either us or the Outcasts.”
How did you get the first EP on Casualty Records released?
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Buck: “Well, we just sent away to stacks of record companies with demo-tapes and things, and there was one we wrote to in Belfast, and they were basically just a country and western thing, and they said they’d be willing to release a record but we’d have to pay for it.
“So we designed all the cover, done the rest of it, paid for it and sold them all, sold every one of ’em. We never bothered re-pressing them. We did 2,000 and sold them all.”
Were you fans of Stiff Little Fingers in their days?
Buck: “Not really, but we’ve seen them, like, how many times?”
Gary: “Millions of times.”
Is there a conscious effort not to bring the ‘troubles’ into your songs like SLF did?
Glenn: “Well, in some of our songs, stuff like politics does pop up. We don’t mean to do it, I don’t know how it comes out, but it’s just like things like ‘Brutality’, you just can’t help it.”
Brutality
Buck: “But ‘Brutality’s not really a political sort of song, I mean everybody’s been singing about police brutality, it’s just that this one’s got ‘SS-RUC’ in it, that’s the only thing.”
Dukie: “It could be about any part of the country.”
Glenn: “The Stiffs used Northern Ireland. I mean every one of their songs was about it, about how such a bombed place it was and all that.”
Do you like your stuff to be fairly tuneful? I mean I was playing the ‘Defective Breakdown’ album last night and my mum came in and actually said she liked it, and I was amazed. Does the idea of getting across to middle-aged ladies appeal to you at all?
Glenn: “Yeah, yeah, it does.”
Dukie: “It’s not an LP made just for punks anyway, anybody can get into it.”
Glenn: “My mum likes the first single and the second one, but she doesn’t like the LP. She says it’s too fast.”
Buck: “My mum doesn’t like it because it’s too fast as well.”
But it’s not that fast is it?
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Glenn: “At first I thought it was too fast, because I don’t really like things all that fast, but the more I listen to it the more it seems to slow down. It’s alright.
“But a lot of the punks about nowadays just judge bands by the way they dress and by the speed they go.”
I noticed the back of the album sleeve looks a lot like the back of the first Generation X album. Is it supposed to?
Gary: “I haven’t a clue.”
Glenn: “Why? Do you think we sound like them?”
On some of the album you do.
“Good, thanks. I love them, I think they’re brilliant. They’re one of my favourite bands, and the Ruts, Clash, and the Damned are alright.
“That’s why Buck dyed his hair black, because people said he looked like Billy Idol. I mean he really doesn’t like Generation X at all, he never liked them.
Heavy metal
“There’s a touch of heavy metal on the album as well isn’t there? Heavy metal’s alright, it’s good mixing them both together. To tell you the truth, I think if we all had long hair, wore denim jeans and cowboy-boots, we’d have a heavy metal following.
“I’m not bothered what sort of followers we have as long as they’re enjoying themselves, and as long as I’m enjoying it too. That’s all I’m worried about.
“As I said, I like something that’s got a bit of a tune in it. I like it when I can play an album for the very first time and look back at it, read the titles, and remember how each one goes. I mean with a lot of bands they just go completely mad.”
Just supposing you became quite successful, do you think you’d leave Ireland and move to the mainland, or would you stay?
Buck: “I would like to move, but I’d like to come back as well.”
Glenn: “Gary hates this place.”
Gary: “Aye, it’s crap. It’s just a typical dead city, it’s f***ed. I mean there’s about a gig every month.”
Glenn: “You have to watch yourself coming home on the bus as well. Gary used to have the shit beaten out of him every night on the bus because he was a punk.”
Gary: “It used to be better about three years ago, when there were stacks of punk groups playing about. There used to be a good wee scene going, always used to be something on four nights in a week, but now . . . “
Glenn: “There’s more punks now, but no groups. Most of the English bands should come over here. You always see bands doing their ‘British Tours’, but nobody ever comes over here, not even to Dublin.”
The Defects | Watching The Defectives
Can you understand why bands won’t come here?
Gary: “We can’t understand it because we’re from here.”
Glenn: “No, we heard a lot about Glasgow, how bad it was, but we still went there. Wattie’s scared to come here in case he gets shot, but who’s going to shoot him?”
Dukie: “The chances of getting shot are pretty slim.”
Glenn: “Especially if you’re in a group like, you’re not going to be roaming the streets at midnight on your own. You’d just get into your hotel and f***ing stay there.”
What’s the usual Ulster crowd like?
Glenn: “Oh they go wild, on a good night when they get going. They beat the shit out of each other. We did a few gigs when we were in England, and they just stand there!”
Dukie: “Because the crowds over here so rarely get a band playing, they make a night of it, know what I mean?”
LATER ON that evening, the Defects played the Pound club in Belfast; the place was packed solid. When the band hit the stage, the local punks grew excited; this was their monthly night out, and not a second would be wasted.
In a horrifying surge of movement, human bodies suddenly began flying here, there and everywhere. People were flung into tables, onto the floor, into each other, and good buddies staged vicious mock-fights, sending even more punters sprawling all over the place.
There was none of the standard pogoing usually seen at mainland gigs, but instead there was this bizarre mini-riot. And everybody was having the time of their lives.
20th Century
The Defects were off-form, but still they powered through breathlessly exciting versions of ‘Dance’, ’20th Century’, ‘Casualty’, and the showstopping ‘Brutality’; all in all a positively rousing and impressive fusion of attack and melody/brute force and tactfulness.
By the time the second chord of ‘Brutality’ had been struck, the London reporter was a cowering shape huddled fearfully at the very back of the room. The sheer incredible fury of the crowd was now very nearly beyond belief.
Buck was amongst them, and numerous gasping voices echoed nightmarishly around the tiny club, each one eager to have its say . . . “SS-RUC! SS-RUC! SS-RUC!! SS-RUC!!! . . . “
A reason for existence, no less. (Winston Smith)
THE DEFECTS ‘Defective Breakdown’ (WXYZ Records LMNOP2) *** 1/2
AS A very successful escape story, the Defects‘ meteoric rise from obscure Belfast thrash-merchants with potential to releasing a brash bristling punk debut LP all within nine months is unsurpassable.
As an artistic success with a merit and relevance of its own, however, ‘Defective Breakdown’ is somewhat less impressive. It’s certainly not a bad debut record (if slightly premature, I think) but, played in between the debuts by the Adverts and the Clash (as I have just done), it comes up lacking.
It lacks a hard edge of excitement, a subtle veneer of creative melodicism and the cutting incisiveness of something to say! All this, of course, is relative – or, quite possibly, simply indicative of punk today as a mere ‘style’ of music.
As it goes, the Defects do have a strong sense of pulverising melody, they aren’t morons and they can play rock’n’roll. Immediately, this puts them ahead of a large section of today’s youth bands.
So what? If I have to describe ‘Defective Breakdown’ (pathetic title!) in terms of other current bands with no talent, then what’s the point of critical analysis/reviewing?
I repeat, this is not a bad album . . . it’s just rather stereotyped, rather uninspired, rather easy to package and sell and dance to and rant about and criticise and ignore!
Probably its saving grace is that it’s a mess! The Defects are loud, arrogant, good to look at, genuine and sincere, and probably quite pleased to loon about a bit if someone else is paying! And quite right too!
But, that doesn’t excuse boring songs, repetitive riffs and thoughtlessly stupid lyrics (‘Bitch’ is embarrassingly sub-Stranglers for those young enough not to be so cynical yet). It’s as though they’re being deliberately cajoled into copying label-mates Anti-Nowhere League.
Producer Tony Spath has injected enough crunch and gloss to lend a credible sense of individuality to the Defects – especially on the instrumental ‘Conscription’, where he’s unafraid to add exploding Trevor Horn-like drums . . . but why no lyrics for surely a band from Belfast have more to voice on this subject than, say, the Exploited? — but ultimately the tracks become indistinguishable, rushing at you with a frantic steam-hammer power.
The worst aspect of all is that the vocals get lost in the overall clamber for ‘wall of sound’ buzzsaw dynamics. Maybe Buck just hasn’t got a strong enough larynx, perhaps the song structures don’t allow him enough freedom — but, whatever the reason, the songs merge all the instruments into a volcanic blancmange.
It might be just as well, really. Because if the most revolutionary (or to take the opposite view, celebratory) exclamation they have is “I just want to follow my rules/Ain’t gonna be nobody’s fool” (‘Live In Pain’), we can all go home right now!
But that’s taking a harsh view. The Defects are incredibly young, and every band writes rhyming nonsense like that at the start, which is why I can’t understand the urgency for a Defects first LP.
Much of the guitar work, all of the energy and commitment, plus isolated songs such as ‘Metal Walls’ and ‘Thought’ show that they have a frighteningly fearsome future.
It’s just that, at present, they’re wasting their time reliving other bands’ past mistakes. Once this ‘Defective Breakdown’ is fixed, the real story will unfold. (Johnny Waller)
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