For reasons that don't need explaining, this column is dedicated with respect and affection to

David 'Screaming Lord' Sutch, musician and politician.

As the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness comes upon us, and Linus begins his annual wait for

the 'Great Pumpkin' to rise and spread joy amongst the children of the world, our thoughts turn to

Hallowe'en, and music that goes bump in the night.

Here for your awe and amazement is a short selection of acts that may not be of the highest

quality or sales, but who for whatever reason, have a special place in our hearts at this time of

year.

Jalacy Hawkins was a semi-successful blues singer when in 1956 he wrote a romantic ballad

called 'I Put a Spell on You'. In the studio, the session producer, Arnold Maxim decide that the song

needed to be scary, but was unable to get the right performance from Hawkins and the band until

they hit on the idea of turning the session into a party with enormous quantities of alcohol flowing.

Hawkins then recorded one of the most startling vocals in the history of rock'n'roll (mostly laying

on his back with microphone in one hand and bottle in the other), descending into a series of whoops,

screams and grunts that reputedly so alarmed the singer when he was sober that he was unable to

listen to the song. But the record was a massive hit and it launched Hawkins on a career as the wild

man of rock which saw him appear on stage springing from coffins and with a permanent stage

companion, Henry the smoking skull. With the addition of tusks and rubber snakes, Hawkins laid

claim to the title of the King of Voodoo rock (virtually unchallenged), and despite numerous

accidents with flash powder, fuse boxes and other wayward stage effects, pursued his singular

career until his death in 2000 of surgical complications from a heart operation. He left the world

with few regrets, its seems, but with one very firm instruction;

'When I go, I don't want to be buried. I've been in too many damn coffins

already!'

'I was working in the lab late one night

When my eyes beheld an eerie sight'

If you are going out partying this weekend, unless your hosts are particularly joyless, you will

hear those immortal words uttered by Bobby 'Boris' Pickett, backed by the Cryptkickers. Pickett

had been a semi-successful nightclub performer with his band The Cordials, and between songs he

did impersonations, of which the best received was a 'Boris Karloff' that he had been perfecting

since he was 9 years old, when his father had owned a movie theatre at which the young Bobby had

watched 'Karloff' movies. Deciding to capitalise on the novelty, Pickett and a friend, Lenny Capizzi

dashed off the Monster Mash in time for it to reach No 1 in the Billboard charts on October 20th

1962 (despite being condemned by Elvis Presley as 'The dumbest thing I ever heard'.) Since then it

is the only song to have entered the Billboard Hot 100 on three different occasions, has sold over 4

million copies world wide and become the unofficial anthem of Halloween.

Bobby Pickett is still alive and well, and his website rather charmingly states that he is;

'Available year round and can be dug up to appear and sing a medley of his

hit.'

David 'Screaming Lord' Sutch was one of the most colourful characters to grace the British rock

scene, and later, British Politics. In the early 1960's, when the British Rock scene was mostly made

up of innocuous acts singing harmless songs for a teenage audience who were still some way from any

act of rebellion, Sutch descended with a stage act which featured coffins, skulls, hatchets and an

alarming brand of sexual innuendo that owed more to Screamin' Jay Hawkins (an obvious inspiration

– Sutch claimed he put the G back in Screaming to represent the extra gore in his act) than it did to

Bobby Pickett's much gentler jive;

'I got two horns on my head and a twinkle in my eye

I got two feet of hair and it makes the chicks all sigh

When I hit them with my great club, start to holler an' cry.'

Sutch was never a talented singer or musician but his lively stage act was one of the highlights of

the Sixties rock scene, and although he never came within a mile of having what might be termed a

hit, 'Long Black Coffin' and 'Jack the Ripper' remain fondly remembered by many.

His backing band, the Savages, at one time or another boasted such luminaries as Jeff Beck, Richie

Blackmore, Noel Redding and Jimmy Page.

Sutch also had a parallel career in politics where his 'Monster Raving Loony Party' was

the first to propose such revolutionary ideas as lowering the voting age to 18, commercial radio

stations (Sutch had briefly run one of the earliest Pirate radio stations in 1964, 'Radio Sutch') and

all day pub opening. Britain now also has its first Raving Loony parish councillor Ashburton, Devon.

(The seat was not contested by any other parties.)

I had the privilege of meeting David Sutch twice, once after a gig at my local (where he greatly

alarmed the organisers by setting fire to his top hat while performing 'Great Balls of Fire')

and once outside Downing Street. On both occasions he was happy to chat about both politics and

music, and was witty about both subjects. His tragic suicide in 1999, brought on by depression and

mounting debts, robbed both politics and music of a much loved figure.

Punk rock produced the unlikeliest heroes. Whilst the 'Sex Pistols' spat and raged at whatever

was going like glue sniffing Marlon Brandoes and the Clash demanded a riot of their own, 'The

Damned' staged their own very English revolt at the end of the Pier. Formed by guitarist Brian

James, drummer Rat Scabies recruited vocalist Dave Vanian when he heard the then gravedigger

singing Alice Coopers 'Dead Babies' when attending the funeral of his sister. In a typically English

fashion, though, The Damned's propensity for shocking was always fatally undermined, usually by

Captain Sensibles penchant for appearing on stage dressed as a nurse, a girl guide or merely as a

naked man.

And so their career was destined to continue. Kicked off the 'Anarchy in the UK' tour for not

being political enough (of course, their chaotic comedy antics were far more subversive than the

Pistols teeth grinding demise), James abandoned the band after their second album, but the band

refused to die, rising like a re-animated corpse to produce 'Machine Gun Etiquette' and 'The Black

Album', the former seeing Vanian fully adopt the alter ego of a vampire (rumours abounded that he

and his then wife slept in a custom made double coffin), the latter seeing them explore subjects such

a psychosis and an anthem in honour of that symbol of horror, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

Vanian it was clear, had a wish to pursue a more Gothic vision of rock'n'roll in such songs as

'Twisted Nerve', a dark and sombre confession by a serial killer, but thanks to the antics of

Captain Sensible and a revolving roster of bass players that would do 'Spinal Tap' proud, The

Damned continued to be more Hammer Horror than Wuthering Heights. As if to underline the point,

their best selling original song remains their ode to the Victorian Penny Dreadful character, the

rather comic vampire, Grimly Fiendish.

And so they continue to this day. After a prolonged absence from the recording studio, Vanian

and Sensible, along with former Gun Clubber and Sister of Mercy, Patricia Morrison (rocks very

own Morticia Adams is now Mrs Dave Vanian) produced an album in 2001 that rejoiced in the

distinctly Beano-ish title Grave Disorder. Still firmly rooted in the lurid Technicolor world of

Hammer Horror, fake blood and silly puns, it is to be hoped that 'The Damned' continue to be the

haunted house at the end of the pier for many years to come.

Just as 'The Damned' were beginning their own version of 'Carry On Gothic' in the UK, a random

hitchhiking encounter threw together Erick Purkhiser and Kristy Wallace. The two natives of Akron,

Ohio discovered a mutual love of old rock'n'roll and Science-fiction 'B' movies. They decided there

and then to form a band, de-camped to New York, adopted the names Lux Interior and Poison Ivy

Rorschach and launched into a 26 year career in search of bad taste and loud music.

Eschewing such traditional niceties as bass guitars (the classic 'Cramps' sound is Ivy's lead

guitar with rhythm provided by the most basic of drum sets and a second, heavily distorted guitar),

'The Cramps' obsessions with PVC, leopardskin prints, sex and horror rapidly became a cult

favourite. Album titles such as 'Gravest Hits', 'Off The Bone', 'Stay Sick' and 'Fiends of Dope

Island' indicate not only a sense of humour but also a healthy lack of good taste, which is ironic

given that the bands best known song is 'Good Taste' from their 'Smell of Female';

'You've got good taste,

You've got good taste

Come and sit on my…

Lap'

If 'The Damned' are a Hammer Horror movie, then 'The Cramps' are a musical journey through

the films of such greats as Herschell Gordon Lewis, director of such classics as '2000 Maniacs',

although the band themselves firmly deny that they are play acting in anyway, but rather an

expression of their lives as they have lived them.

Whatever the truth of the matter, 'The Cramps' remain the true champions of shlock'n'roll, for

who else could write a song called 'Eyeball in My Martini' and sing it with a straight face? After

all, 'The Cramps' live in a world where it is Halloween every day;

'You know some like it hot and down there it's hot as Hell.

Don't forget to write.

Aloha from Hell.'

Rockin' Around the Clock
Archive

Blues Shark

30.10.03 Front Page

Back Issue Page