Demob | Demob Rules

‘Five years on and you’ve still got nothing’

Article published in Sounds, 20th February, 1982

Demob | Demob Rules | THE WORDS on the back of ‘No Room For You’, Demob’s new single, burn into the brain almost as hotly as the song itself. So much said in so few words. And (almost) so true . . .

“Five years ago punk seemed to mean so much,” Demob singer Miff explains in his rich Gloucester accent. “A punk could walk down the street and shock people. There was a real feeling amongst people that we were really going to change something, that punk was more than just another fashion.

“But all the bands we trusted, the Clash, the Pistols, the Damned, they all turned out the same — despite everything they said. They all sold out. Five years on the Clash are the establishment and the punks have still got nothing.”

No Room For You’, a nifty SLF-reminiscent number reviewed in this week’s Total Chaos and currently nibbling round the nether regions of the indie chart, takes up a related theme.

It’s about the closure of Gloucester’s last surviving punk venue Whitcombe Lodge. Needless to say it’s a depressing reminder that despite the country’s legions of punky punters the live punk scene is still little more than a sick joke.

Demob | Demob Rules

Whitcombe Lodge turns out to have a special place in the Demob story, being the venue the band had to gatecrash-gig, Pistols style, when they first started taking themselves seriously back in February 1980.

They’d actually formed ten months before, an ongoing six people getting pissed in the pub and deciding if Sham and Menace can do it, why not us? scenario.

As they hammered out their own street punk style in dingey church hall rehearsals the band slimmed down to a four piece — Miff on vocals (now 20 and on the dole), guitarist Terry Alcock (now 21 and working in a builder’s yard), John Melfah on drums (21, dole-handed and a fanatical amateur boxer) and bassist Barry, who’s recently left and replaced pyrotechnics for a polytechnic, getting superseded by 19 year old plasterer Andy Jones.

Whitcombe Lodge

“All the big punk bands used to play Whitcombe Lodge,” Miff explains, “we used to just go up there with our guitars at four in the afternoon and try and blag our way on stage.”

THANKS TO the punky spirit of the likes of the Subs and the Ruts they got the supports that helped them build-up a hardcore following of some 200 “local nutters” hungry for their ballsy brand of R&B-tinged protest-punk that never forgets its vital singalong sensibilities. As happens all too often the first real dampener came from our old pals the boys in blue.

Miff: “The police started turning up halfway through every gig and trying to stop it . . . there wasn’t any trouble but I suppose they thought the kids were fair game. When they didn’t come in the venue they just used to nick everyone outside as they turned out.”

Hence ‘Anti-Police’, the band’s first single released by Round Ear in February last year, Round Ear being the local record shop who stepped in to see the band on vinyl.

It was a promising debut, albeit a mite poppier than the band’s usual style which is far better represented by ‘No Room’. By the by, though only just reviewed this excellent EP first saw the light of day last October, selling out its initial 2,500 pressing with unpublicised ease. The current version is the third pressing already. Such justice . . .

Demob | Demob Rules

The only thing it made me wonder was did Demob see themselves as one of a kind, or did they relate to the wider punk resurgence?

Miff: “I really like some of the new bands though I can’t see what the hell there is in Discharge except a god-awful noise. But Anti-Pasti are pretty good, and lnfa-Riot are a good band. ‘We Outnumber You’ is ace. The Angelic Upstarts are still my favourite band though, they’re still gong strong . . .”

In London it doesn’t seem like most punks and skins will ever co-exist, is it that depressing down your way?

“No, not at all. Our following are split about 50/50 between punks and skins. The punks are mostly real hardcore with big mohicans and the skins are more like the Rejects type with boots, straights and two or three crops. They’re all together, there’s no scrapping between the local kids at all and nor should there be. During the riots last year all the Gloucester skins and punks joined forces with the blacks.”

Street-punk band

D’you ever get trouble from racists? It must irk them, you being a multi-racial street-punk band.

“No way. The NF in Gloucester are just a load of old blokes, there’s no young kids involved in it. It’s just an old man’s party, I personally don’t like politics in music at all.”

WHAT ABOUT politics with a small ‘p’, benefit gigs, the politics of living?

“Oh yeah, that’s different. I’m really behind things like Right To Work Benefits. I still admire UB40 for the way they’re still letting kids in for half price if they’re on the dole. CND is the other big issue, cos the nuclear thing is the really big threat to people at the moment. CND has gotta be supported.”

You seem to still have a lot of time for the real ideals of punk.

“Of course. I think punk’s really healthy at the moment.”

So do you think you’ll ever go the wrong way?

Demob | Demob Rules

“I’ll say it now. Our ambition is to make it. What I mean by that is we want to be able to keep going gigging round the country and get some decent cash. Not millions, just enough to get good gear and a few things we want like a decent car and a decent telly but just be a band that’s got a good respected name. We won’t shit on people the way the Clash did, but we’re not run of the mill either. We want to be thought of as something special.”

‘Five years on and you’ve still got nothing’

That’s not strictly true, cos five years on we’ve still got bands like Demob proving the spirit of punk’s NOT dead. The spirit, not the pose, not the clothes, not the verbals, but the punk spirit will NEVER die. (Garry Bushell)