Published in Sounds, 13h March 1982
Blitz | Gig Review | Skunkx 1982 | SKUNKX is a new club at the Bluecoat Boy, Angel, next to the tube, and although everybody tells me that Skunkx means punks and skins, I have a sneaking suspicion that it means drunk skins, and at 80p a pint they were a truly dedicated crew.
The first band were a shoddy mob called Psyco Sluts, though how this bunch of daisies can call themselves Psyco I’ll never know. They were about as hard as Muppets, with amazingly forgettable songs and a stunning lack of tunes, power or personality.
Several yawns later — on trot Obsession. They were better than the other band, but they were still pretty bland, doing chestnuts like ‘Wild Thing’.
Then came the showman Lee Wilson, and the band everybody had been waiting to see. The Infas opened with Girlschool’s ‘Emergency’, and the lager handed, domino legged rabble at the front danced, fell and dodged low flying “Seig HieIs” from the three or four idiots who had obviously left the collective brain cell at home and had decided to play skinheads gutter press style and get the place closed down.
Blitz | Gig Review | Skunkx 1982
As Lee said “This is music not politics, lads” Next song was ‘Five Minute Fashions’, with Lee mincing every time he sung “You was a mod too”. Other highlights included the frantic ‘Each Dawn I Die’ and ‘Still Out Of Order’.
After wandering about most of the next day with the wrong size sandpaper wrapped eyes in, I was back in Skunkx with a strong compulsion to sit in a dark corner and stick to cokes.
Subculture, the support band, were all about seventeen. They sounded very like a young Cockney Rejects even down to the Micky Geggus guitar riffs, especially in ‘Better Than You’. They didn’t really get much of a reaction until they did a cover of ‘Badman’. I wish they had done a longer set or an encore though, because they are the sort of band you could find yourself raving about after seeing them a few times.
Red Alert had travelled all the way from Sunderland and deserved a far bigger audience than they were playing to. They have loads of power and charisma but unfortunately I couldn’t make out the names of most of the songs because of their Bill and Ben accents.
There wasn’t any that weren’t great, though. ‘We’ve Got The Power’ (one of the few I could decipher) was bazzing and their three mates from Sunderland threw a wobbler on the dance floor, leaping about like spastic Can Can dancers while Steve, Red Alert’s sparkly eyed singer bounced around, grinning, kicking and falling over.
Blitz | Gig Review | Skunkx 1982
The whole band gave 100% but hardly anyone danced until the encore of ‘SPG’ and singalonga Rejects time, where Micky Fitz of the Business and several other pissed up herberts got on stage to make noises sounding vaguely like the words of ‘Badman’, ‘Greatest Cockney Rip Off’ and ‘Ready To Ruck’.
Choruses of “Ooh-Aars” greeted Intensified Chaos when they admitted to coming from Somerset, but other than silly voices they were a bland bunch.
The impregnable guitar, solid bass and drums, raw vocals and compulsive songs make the mighty creation of Blitz. They start with ‘Youth’ a powerful sing-a-long explosion from the ‘Carry On Oi’ album.
The crowd go mad. From the first chord the room was a seething mass of frantically dancing bodies who shouted along with every word.
Next was ‘F**k U’ which everyone knew because it had been played all night on a dodgy tape. One drawled “Tuckers ruckers ain’t no suckers,” from Nidge and a “You’re all animals” from Carl later, the band wazzed into ‘Escape’.
All out attack
They played all the tracks from the ‘All Out Attack’ EP and both sides of their new single ‘Razors In The Night’ (which makes Motorhead sound like the Dooleys) and ‘Never Surrender’.
The encore was a riotous version of ‘Borstal Breakout’ that dissolved into chaos about half way through as the bouncers, bounced and people fell over, Carl forgot most of the words.
The only thing that marred the night was the staff gorilla, one of those large graduates from the security lobotomies school also known as the Officious School Of Bastards.
Well trained in the art of standing right in front of people so that all they can see is a face full of sweaty back, if this tried and tested bounce fails they resort to playing tiddlywinks with anyone within five feet of the stage, known in the trade as punt the punk.
But even they couldn’t destroy the feeling you get from Blitz, the same pride you get from watching The Warriors. They were bazzing. (JAI)
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