Monocled Alchemist

Anti-War correspondent BETTY PAGE has a proper gander at VICE SQUAD

Article published in Sounds, 22nd May, 1982

Vice Squad | The Sanity Squad | ON THE face of it, cocktail-cossetted moi doing the business on Vice Squad might seem rather akin to Bushell writing an in-depth doobrie on the Spands.

About as likely as the England World Cup Squad playing Argentina. But then again, maybe he should — it’d be a right old eye-opener, as the slice of Vice was for me.

I cynically expected a slightly aggressive, well surly bunch of tanked up leather-clad hardcore jobs. Got the leather . . . and the booze-handedness, but you’d get that with the Spands, along with a lot of good humour and character. Ditto le Squad.

For the benefit of this exercise, I ventured perilously close to their new elpee, sure to find a rabble-rousing noise — but no dice. Got listenable pop-punk with thoughtful lyrics and (shock) a tuneful voice.

We meet in a downtown Bristolian tavern, the three chaps and Beki all pint-handed, exchanging jokes concerning sexually-transmitted diseases and discussing a nasty operation performed on drummer Shane’s mate’s testicles.

Beki, it must be revealed, is much prettier in the flesh — a striking, tall figurine, charismatic and street-wise. A throaty, knoworrimean chuckle constantly bursts forth from her pouting lips. Her West Country burr lends her charm — and rather reminds one of the classic buxom barmaid or country wench, the saucy lass that would frolic in the hay with the local boys.

Except this one does it with whips ‘n’ chains . . .

Vice Squad | The Sanity Squad

A FEW DIRTY giggles later, we’re transported to the front room of co-manager Sooty’s house-on-the-park, whereupon the foursome plus lanky road manager Igor sit, stunned by the presence of a shining Sony cassette-corder.

They begin by correcting the album review — the Andy Allen credited as engineer is a local lad and has nothing to do with the pay-and-tell ex-Professional.

I decide it’s best to launch straight into their defence of Bushell’s accusations about their anti-war song ‘Propaganda’ — he says you must right against tyranny, they say not even German or South American fascism can justify killing people.

They honestly sounded as if they’d thought it through . . . Beki’s outspoken, rapid-fire thoughts dominated the conversation . . . henceforth The Right Of Reply:

“I wrote ‘Propaganda’ as a totally anti-war song. Everyone is seeing what’s happening in the Falklands, people getting killed, they’re all changing their minds about it now.

“As soon as there’s any conflict going, everyone says great, go off to war, let’s all fight them. As soon as anyone actually gets killed, they change their opinion.

Second World War

“So it was dead right, I was against the Second World War just for the fact that millions of people got killed. So alright, we had to fight off tyranny — I’m not saying we were wrong to fight, I’m saying that the Germans were wrong for starting it. I don’t really know all the facts about it, so really there’s no argument, I’m just anti-war.

“You can never really justify violence if it kills people. All that song was saying is that there’s no pride in war, no pride in killing people or getting killed yourself. It’s just a big con, they ram it down young people’s throats — it isn’t great to go out and get killed.”

Vice Squad | The Sanity Squad

Mark (strong, silent bassist): “That song was written under a different atmosphere anyway. It was written at the end of last year — if people had heard it then, they’d have agreed.

Shane (small but wiry drummer): “Any time in the last 30 years really . . .

Dave (ruddy-cheeked guitarist/tunesmith): “It just so happens that we have a wonderful sense of timing.”

Beki: “It’s like an official testament of our own kind, cos everyone goes on and on about the war but nobody really likes to talk about it. It’s very easy to write pro-war songs, if you haven’t been near one, it’s having enough imagination to imagine what it’d be like.

“I wouldn’t go to war, I don’t start them, I’m not going to fight them, but there’s a lot of people who would go with no idea of what it’s really about.”

Task Force

Dave: “You can look at it another way as well — it is easy to write anti-war songs, cos I think everybody should be anti war in their thinking. Most people are until it comes to the point where you have to fight.

“I don’t think they had a lot of choice about sending the task force, cos where does it stop — someone invades Devon or Cornwall, and you think, not many people live there, we’ll let ’em have that as long as no-one gets killed, but if they get up to the M4, then we might have to fight ’em. So there is a point when you do have to change your mind.”

Beki: “Why join the army or navy if you’re not prepared to die for your country — that’s what it is. All the bollocks in the papers saying ‘be a commando, be a real he man’, you still have to be prepared to die for it. It’s like taking drugs — if you don’t want to be a junkie, don’t take heroin.

“When the Falklands Crisis first happened, I thought, bastards, let’s go and kill ’em, those people are British, we should fight for them, but those islands are nearer Argentina than Britain, maybe we shouldn’t have taken them in the first place. We were wrong in fighting, so are they, the whole idea of war is totally wrong.”

THE IMPASSIONED rant continued, unabated . . .

Vice Squad | The Sanity Squad

Dave: “And you see the propaganda the Argentinians are being fed, and them believing it.”

Beki: “And there’s young boys of 17, 18 getting killed, it’s always the youth who bear the brunt of the old, stupid greed. You don’t defend your country, you defend the rich’s country.

“I love my country, I love the green fields and all that, but I don’t particularly like the people that much. I accept them, but they’re not really worth dying for, not the rich, there’s so much evil in it.”

Falklands War

Dave: “You’re only protecting property and possessions that you don’t own anyway.”

Beki: “Exactly. People are always going on about the British Empire, it really makes me puke. My old man goes on about that, but he never had an Empire, he’s working class — a hundred years ago he’d have been up a chimney pot or something — where’s the Empire in that?”

Shane: “I bet 50 per cent of the country didn’t know where the Falklands were before this anyway.”

Dave: “Most people thought they were in Scotland!”

Beki: “You can’t really discuss things like this anyway, it’s such an emotive subject. We don’t know, we’re probably getting false propaganda anyway.”

Dave: “I think we ought to sum up about Bushell disagreeing with the sentiments in ‘Propaganda’ — we should sort it out ‘cos he’s been good to us, he’s a nice bloke even if he is a piss artist — it’s just that it was written six months before the Falklands, it was nothing to do with that —it’s not our fault they got invaded!”

Vice Squad | The Sanity Squad

Beki: “I’d have written that even if the Falklands had happened.”

Mark: “It hasn’t changed our opinions, it just seems a bit insensitive how it’s been written there.”

Shane: “That bit at the end was about what they were saying, not about what they were standing for. OK, we had to fight that war, but all that stuff Winston Churchill was coming out with was just as much rubbish as Hitler was saying — why didn’t he just tell people the truth?”

Beki: “All this ‘we will fight them on the beaches’ — he never fought ’em! It works, ‘cos you listen to it and think I love my country, but then you think of the bodies and soon change your mind.”

Dave: “If a cause is right, you shouldn’t have to lie for it. That’s a good one! First decent thing I’ve said!”

Fistful Of Dollars

EVENTUALLY, A sidewinder missile was launched to halt their careering conversation and the gang were headed off in a Westerly direction towards their anti-nuke and American song ‘Fistful Of Dollars’, a Shane Special.

Beki: “Shane’s anti-American — well, not completely, he just susses out what they’re up to, ‘cos in this country you’ve got all this pro-American propaganda. It did show them up in the Falklands conflict — we were clinging to their skirts, just crawling.”

Shane: “I don’t hate Americans. It’s the general hypocrisy of the place. I mean — Ronald Reagan . . .

Dave: “It’s just amazing that someone like him can actually run a country. If he has a stupid opinion, he can inflict it on everyone, and he’s got no qualifications to do it at all, he’s just a f***ing cowboy.”

Shane: “No, he’s got exactly the right qualifications, he’s a pretty poor actor, which is what you need to be President of America.”

Dave: “He’s a bloody idiot that dyes his hair black, and I’m sure he’s just had a facelift ‘cos all his bloody wrinkles went back. He’s got big knots behind his ears and no wrinkles on his f***ing face!”

Beki: “When we go over there, I’m having nothing to do with the songs! They’re easy to slag off ‘cos they’re such a decadent nation.”

Shane (defensively): “It’s just that I’ve written about 12 songs and the only two good ones have been about America. Didn’t mean them to be.”

Vice Squad | The Sanity Squad

Shane parries another thrust from the jangling, chuckling Beki and I wonder if they found it important to have their lyrics all printed out for the edification of fans?

Beki, naturally, answers: “Yeah. We’ve got slightly better lyrics than most punk bands and when I write mine, I write them as totally free as I can. If I want it to be damn aggressive, that’s what I write, if I want emotion, I write it in an emotional sense.

“Cos a lot of punk bands would say well, we’re going to have a lot of f***s and shits in it to make it sound punky, but if I’ve got swearing in mine, it’s cos I felt like swearing when I wrote it, I don’t put ’em in for the sake of it.

“I’m really into the music, but being a singer I’m really into the lyrics as well, ‘cos it’s something really important to me.

“A lot of punk bands just bung the lyrics in, as long as they’re nice and crass it doesn’t really matter, everyone’ll think it’s a punk song, whereas it’s not about anything at all.”

The Difference between . . .

So it’s of paramount importance to get some kind of message across?

“Yeah, there’s no point in doing it otherwise, you may as well be in a pop band. That’s what I consider is the main difference between punk and pop bands, the punk bands will come to the front and actually say something that might offend people.

“A lot of our songs would never make Top Ten singles because they’re just too realistic, they’re about what’s going on, but people don’t really want to know they wanna know about love’ and pansy things like that . . .”

Dave (apologetically): “It is a valid emotion, though . . .

Beki: “Yeah, but everybody writes love songs, I’ve written love songs, but I’d never bother putting them to music. I think they’re rather a private emotion, so why tell everyone else about it.

“I think telling about how a heart is broken is a personal thing . . . it’s like telling someone you’ve got a bogey hanging out of your nose . . . well boring! Everyone goes through it, who wants to hear about it, it’s just so you can brood over your next broken affair or something!”

Vice Squad | The Sanity Squad

BEKI’S SENSITIVELY portrayed comparison is one way of putting it, but when punters buy records, do they want to hear about war?

Beki: “I know, I can understand the escapism, I like The Cure — I’m going to be arty farty now — their songs are realistic but they’re very emotionally put, so you can’t quite catch the meaning, it’s a very soft way of producing what they’re feeling to you, whereas ours is a bit more ‘this is wrong, this is right, I think this and that’, theirs is more subtle.”

Pop Bands

Dave: “I think our songs are a lot deeper than most punk bands. You do actually have to think about them a bit, hopefully. There ain’t much swearing in our lyrics, cos everybody takes one look at us and thinks we’re a bunch of f***ing idiots!”

Aha, but pop bands (gasp) swear too!

“Yeah, but in the songs we try and give it a bit more thought cos people are just expecting expletives, so if you can actually think about it a bit more, we might get through to a few more people.”

Beki: “I’ve written some really Oi-Oi-ish songs, like Dave does, his are very cold, he looks at things in a cold way. I do that with some of mine — ‘Stand Strong’ is a pretty cold way of looking at something, so I love the tune, but don’t like the lyrics that much— I wrote ’em, they’re OK, but not wonderful, but something like ‘Humane’ I love, it took me ages to write that song, there’s some real, absolute hatred in those words, I’m really against all that sort of stuff.”

Dave: “It’s good that it does turn out more varied, ‘cos some bands are so ridiculously obvious, others are so obscure — like the Banshees, I don’t know what the hell they’re on about.

“You can just about work out what we’re on about, it does make people think, rather than just sitting there and taking it in Sham-style, where it’s all spelled out for you.”

Vice Squad | The Sanity Squad

Beki: “I don’t see why you’ve got to be a moron to be in a punk band, so many people go around saying ‘I’m thick and I’m proud of it’, if you’ve got a big vocabulary, why not use it?”

ONE THING THAT struck me about the VS elpee was its very presentability — not the fact that it is on Big EMI, but the way it seems to be accessible, the digestible face of punk, although they do tackle quite a cross-section of subjects. But are they looking for a pop/punk crossover?

Dave: “It’s not aimed directly at a crossover, it’s just the fact that if you make a real horrible record, produce it badly and have horrible screeching over the top, then your lyrics could be brilliant — they could be crap — but either way you’ll appeal to the same 5,000 people who already either agree or disagree with you, and it just doesn’t do anything.”

Beki: “They don’t even know what they agree with, they think they’re hardcore but they’re not, they’ve got no brains, it’s all ‘we’re on the dole, we’re proud of it’, and you talk to them, they’ve got bloody f*** all intelligence.

“They don’t feel strongly about anything, all they want to do is rebel, and they don’t even know what they’re rebelling against.

“They say ‘I hate the system’ and take money off it. I hate certain bits of the system, but other bits I’m quite prepared to sponge off.”

76 / 77 Punk

Dave: “Yeah, so the band might be saying something really relevant and important, but they’re only going to affect the same people. Hopefully we might be able to get across to a few extra people.”

Mark: “It’s too late now, after five, six years to start trying to change things. We’re playing what we like playing, basically.”

Beki: “I try and change things, I will till I drop. I probably never will, but at least I’ll die happy knowing I’ve tried.”

Dave: “I think you’ve got to be realistic. The time when anything was going to be changed was in 76, 77 when people were frightened of it — and people aren’t frightened of punk anymore.”

Beki: “The best way you can change is by getting big and famous, then stating your beliefs, then people follow you. That’s the best way, but of course we’ll never do that cos we ain’t ever going to be a pop band . . . I really want to speak for the animals, but I’ll never be famous enough to make more than a few thousand people follow. But I’m very pro-punk so I don’t want to go all commercial — I’ve got the two things conflicting.”

Dave: “That’s the problem, the more people listen to you the more acceptable you are, but it’s something we don’t particularly want to do . . . we’ve got loads of different opinions, and they all come through in the songs, it’d just be much better if we could do what we want musically and get people to come round to us . . . “

Vice Squad | The Sanity Squad

But they don’t wanna be politicians:

“We’re not in it for preaching at all, if we didn’t enjoy it, if we didn’t think it was a good laugh and better than being on the dole, or having a crap job, we wouldn’t do it.”

Beki: “In the leaflet that goes with our fan club we say we don’t agree with forcing our opinions down people’s throats and I don’t either, except when it comes to vivisection, then I would try and force it, because when they’re pouring disinfectant down a rabbit’s throat, you start thinking either they get it forced, or they’re going to keep on doing that.”

Beki can, as most know, hold forth ad infinitum about the evils of vivisection, and she does so authoritatively, but the time came to call a halt to raw emotion . . .

Dave wants us to ‘get on to the laugh bit!’: “We’ve come over as being very concerned young people, which we are, but we also have a good laugh as well. I’m a good laugh, anyway!”

Beki: “Ask us what we think about being sex symbols, piss artists and drug addicts, that sort of thing!”

Vice Squad | The Sanity Squad

WELL, I COULD regale you with tales of mayhemic debauchery in dressing rooms fighting over cans of lager and bananas with The Exploited, getting wrecked in Amsterdam, going down a storm and causing a riot that made front page news, about how Beki ‘goes dogging’ and plans to charge l0p per lash of her bullwhip, or how Shane’s existence was threatened by a mere drum machine and how he’d like to set the Task Force on drum machine factories, or about how roadie Igor’s idea of the War Effort was to tank up a boat with cider and kids from the Fishponds, sail out and fire a few back before coming home again . . . but I won’t.

Maybe the time’s ripe that they were seen as the West Country’s answer to Tony Benn — Concerned Young Bristolians Speak Out . . . Punk may not reach my turntable, but if its views are as spiced as Vice, I’ll listen too.