STEVE KEATON gets energised with ACTION PACT
Article published in Sounds, 11th September, 1982
Action Pact | Run With The Pact | GEORGE IS an IT girl. So’s Dr. Phibes. And Wild Planet. In fact Action Pact are an IT band. A Schwarzenegger muscled, Clara Bow approved, 99 carat IT band. IT as in happening!
All the omens indicate that they’re about to make a buzz louder than a hive full o’ killer bees, the word is out that they’re gonna be massive. World Trade Centre massive. Something is definitely going on.
My first encounter with Action Pact came with a rather curious little 45 called the ‘Heathrow Touchdown’ EP, a split single co-starring the splendid Dead Man’s Shadow.
The Pact contributed two songs, the mildly infectous ‘London Bouncers’ and a rich send up of Oi!-ness called ‘All Purpose Action Footwear’. While fun, neither really did justice to the group. There was little hint of the style and strength apparent on the subsequent Peel sessions or the sheer whammy so evident on their new single ‘Suicide Bag’.
Action Pact | Run With The Pact
‘London Bouncers’ has since re-appeared on the new compilation album ‘Punk And Disorderly: Further Charges’, an interesting inclusion really seeing as how the sound of the Pact is in fact a red flag to the bulls of thrash.
Anyway, I filed said split single away under a heap of soiled underwear and promptly wandered elsewhere. Then things began to happen. Action Pact were getting hot. It became time for a chat.
“We formed because most punk music was becoming pretentious again,” declares Dr Phibes, their heavily built, dyed blonde bassist. “Too pretentious for its own good. Shallow! And, well, we had the nerve to think we could do better. You know, inject something new.
“Now I don’t mind if you call us a punk band, well, we are on this compilation thing after all, but its got to be for the right reasons. Not for walking around poncing two bob off the people and generally being a waste of a body. You can tell the world: we’re the voice of positive punk!”
Nearby sits Wild Planet, he’s the guitarist. After much interrogation he admits Planet isn’t his real name. “Would you believe Desmond?” he counters. I certainly would not!
PLONKED OPPOSITE the two guys is George, the band’s quietly pretty singer. She’s recently had 95 per cent of her hair cropped. The remaining five per cent is a multi coloured tuft at the front, it looks rather odd.
She’s wearing a cutdown pyjama top too. However while this would look quite ridiculous on me, on George it looks OK. Later on, in a moment of intimacy, she confides that her name is in fact Alison and she’s part Israeli. I ask Phibes where they found her.
Action Pact | Run With The Pact
Phibes: “Well, she found us!”
George: “I’d always wanted to sing in a group, see, and I heard this lot wanted a singer so I went along for an audition. It was very nerve racking.”
Had you had many other hopefuls then, Doc?
Phibes: “Nah, she was the first one.”
Planet: “We told her she had to do it with no clothes on . . .”
Phibes: “I think the reason we took her was because we were too impatient to look for any one else.”
Understandably, the singer gives Phibes the most indignant scowl at this remark.
“No, no — I don’t mean it like that!” he splutters quickly. “We were just bowled over with her enthusiasm. I mean we were three strangers and she just turned up out of the blue. But she was pretty good in the audition anyway! Well it takes a lotta bottle, don’t it?”
George: “I joined on May 17 1981. I was 15. Um, and we had our first gig, um, July 25, no August 1 — no, it was a bit before that . . .”
Phibes: “Anyway it was absolute chaos. Then we were asked to go on the ‘Heathrow Touchdown’ EP with DMS. We had about 10 or 12 songs at the time, most were a load of crap that we don’t do any more!”
If you have heard of Action Pact then its more than likely that you’ve heard them through the John Peel show. They’ve done two sessions, the first good and the second quite excellent. I asked ’em how they managed to get them.
“Well, he seemed to really like the single,” explains George. “So I phoned him up and he asked us to do a session straight away. And he’s since repeated it three of four times.”
Action Pact | Run With The Pact
Planet: “Yeah, and nobody can think why . . .”
All eyes turn towards the pyjamas and George bats her lashes cutely. “We hope it’s for the whole band,” Phibes says, “and not just the female, but everything helps.”
George: “I doubt if it is!”
Planet (laughing): “Yeah, but you don’t know . . .”
George (scowling again): “Oh I dunno, the poor man’s getting accused of being a paedophile now.”
Planet: “I’m not saying that at all, but some people might think that. Anyway, you’re 16 so that doesn’t make him a paedophile.”
If the Pact do have any real problems at the moment it must lie in the fact that they’re currently minus a drummer. Joe Fungus, who once sat behind the kit, has taken off.
“He left just after we were offered the second Peel session. It was the last thing he said he’d do,” says Planet. “We can’t figure what’s up with him. He reckons he’s fed up with it but I reckon there’s a bit more to it than that.”
George (tersely): “Anyway, we’ve got to get another drummer and quick!”
Phibes: “We’ve got all the feelers out but nobody seems keen to join. I can’t think why. I suppose we’re not that magnetic . . .”
George: “We don’t just want any old person though, they’ve got to be the right sort. Like they’ve got to have a good sense of humour — and they must be fairly tolerant because we have a lot of cock-ups, don’t we?”
Phibes: “Yeah, but not enough to make anybody want to leave. He’s dropped us right in the shit actually. We should be out gigging and everything.”
Action Pact | Run With The Pact
PERHAPS THE greatest thing about Action Pact is their unswervable optimism. Talking with them, you just can’t help but be inflated by their overwhelming lust and life.
“The earlier punk bands were full of enthusiasm and spirit,” bubbles Phibes. “They were positive. When Poly Styrene sung ‘Oh Bondage Up Yours’ it was a positive statement! They weren’t whining or anything.
“Look at our new single, ‘Suicide Bag’. Too many bands today just whine about how bad everything is. They don’t even try to offer solutions. At least ‘Suicide Bag’ doesn’t say, oh I’m a dead loss, I’ve got a glue bag. It says throw it away! Think and be positive! That’s the general theme in all our material.”
He points a stubby finger at George. “Look at her, she’s laughing, they love these speeches.”
“We’re anti-apathy,” declares the singer. “People in general are apathetic aren’t they? They don’t wanna do this and they don’t wanna do that.
“You get a lot of groups singing about violence, about razors slashing and stuff like that. And then they say, ‘Well it ‘appens!’ That’s not being very positive, it just glorifies violence. If I wrote a song about a seal cull, an anti-seal cull song, I wouldn’t call it ‘Club A Pub’. Do you see my point?”
“Club A Pup!” gasps George. “Isn’t that just awful!” The pyjamas shake with laughter.
Phibes: “Do you realise that in ’77 she was only 11!” Suddenly I’m left feeling quite ancient.
“There’s not much you can say to that, is there?”
I shake my head dumbly.
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