I do think of my formative years a lot – and I think this started to happen more when my parents died in 2022. Music started to become huge for me around 1976 when I was 8 and started playing the cello…but I did have some music differences of opinion let’s say as I got a bit older and started to listen to “bang and thump music” as my dad used to call it – I really struggled to reconcile what I now know is a beautiful instrument with the Ramones, who were changing my life and pulling me in the other direction – it was like I had an alter ego. I mean, it’s not a big deal in the whole scheme of things, but you know, each to their own.
Anyway, I just devoured more and more music – bands like Killing Joke, Siouxsie, Au Pairs, Minutemen, Husker Du - and as I found more and more stuff through, mainly listening to Peel and other local radio – like Steve Barker’s On The Wire and Tony Michaelides on Piccadilly or just taking a chance based on whether I liked the sleeve, I started to get into more of the avant garde, off kilter, skrunky, weird – Neubauten, Alien Sex Fiend, Bush Tetras, The Fall, Butthole Surfers and then there was a bit of a lightbox moment with Tackhead’s Hard Left around 86, I think before Public Enemy came along and changed things again.
There was also another band who completely flummoxed, intrigued and excited me - and that was Fini Tribe. There was the underground and there was Fini Tribe. I had no idea how to describe them. They didn’t sound like anyone else. I had no idea what they looked like. And I didn’t know much about them. And I had no idea what to expect. And of course, we lived in an age of genre obsession – still do - so they were real genre party poopers. So, by the time I was listening to Splash Care or Detestimony, there were frequent shouts of “turn that shit off”. I was very used to this. Especially from the fella that liked Dire Straits.
But Fini Tribe awakened an excitement in me – listening to them was like Alice Through The Looking Glass stepping into another world that felt as distant and exciting to me as when I got those first Killing Joke records…
I never got to see them live so to now have a wonderful compilation of their 1982-1987 years called The Sheer Action of Fini Tribe, diligently and lovingly brought to life by the band with tracks I’ve never heard before including some live tracks, well, it’s well worth the wait.
This is such an exhilarating and fascinating insight with Christopher Connelly and Davie Miller.
https://www.iwannajumplikedeedee.com
I Wanna Jump Like Dee Dee is the music podcast that does music interviews differently.
Giles Sibbald talks to musicians, DJ’s and producers about how they use an experimental mindset in every part of their lives.
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