[kj] Join The Youth Club: Why Killing Joke Deserve Kudos As Post Punk Innovators

[Paul]

*Interesting article posted by Killing Joke: Official
<https://www.facebook.com/killingjokeofficial/> on Fakebook earlier.
Posting here as I know not all are on FB (wise people ...lol)*

[image: youth 1.jpg]

*Writer*
John Doran

*As John Robb of the Gorilla Channel speaks to Martin ‘Youth’ Glover of
Killing Joke this week John Doran in turn asks when the ground-breaking
British goth groups of the post punk period are going to get the critical
respect they deserve*

It’s undeniable that Simon Reynolds’ *Rip It Up And Start Again: Postpunk
1978 - 1984 *(Faber & Faber, 2005) is an essential text for anyone
interested in the revolutionary potential of DIY music in the pre-digital
age. This weighty but gripping tome starts with the implosion of the *Sex
Pistols *during their ill-fated American tour of 1978 and concludes with
the explosion of such ‘new pop’ acts as *Frankie Goes To Hollywood*and *Art
Of Noise *seven years later. These two stylistically diverse bookends only
hint at the cornucopia of ragged and revolutionary sonic thrills to be had
on the pages in between. The oppressive gloom of *J**oy Division*; the
herky jerky deconstructed jazz of *The Contortions*; the militant Marxist
funk of *Gang Of Four;* the avant feminist punk of *The Slits;* the
revolutionary machine noise of *Throbbing Gristle*; the rumbling, scabrous
dub of *PiL*; the heady, modernist pop of *Talking Heads,* and so on.

Those flicking through the book could be forgiven for thinking that
Reynolds has something of a blind spot for goth music though. This gloomy
subgenre of rock music fits comfortably under the post punk umbrella but it
barely gets a look in. The entire subject gets wrapped up so quickly that I
don’t think one could be blamed for assuming he has an aversion to bands
with something of a theatrical or androgynous bent. (This is not meant as a
criticism of Reynolds. He remains my favourite music writer and his
book, *Energy
Flash*, should be required reading for anyone who fancies trying their hand
at this job.

Any author facing the unenviable task of providing an overview of an entire
genre of music will always risk annoying some readers during the process of
delimitation; they simply have to place the emphasis where they feel it
fits best. My own take on post punk would more than likely give less
prominence to insufferable, whacky American synth rockers *Devo,* the
pleasant but unrevolutionary power pop of the *Buzzcocks* and the likewise
enjoyable but very much of its day indie jangle transmitted by Postcard
Records from Scotland.)

None of this should be a surprise. Goth music, in its early 80s heyday, was
so astoundingly uncool that even most goth bands themselves would get
annoyed if you accused them of being a goth band, so any such group of
musicians wanting to assert their revolutionary musical credentials has
always faced an uphill battle. While the general criticism that most of
these groups were simply in hock, to glam rock, rings true to a certain
degree; it is easy to accuse nearly any punk or post punk band of the same
thing - and at least the goths weren’t in debt to pub rock, skiffle or
earnest rockabilly as well like many of their more fashionable punk rock
peers. Besides, by the close of the 1970s, any musician looking back a few
years to Brian Eno’s sky-scraping solo albums was obviously still,
essentially, interested in the process of breaking new sonic ground. At the
end of the day, it feels like this criticism is only really applied to men
and women wearing heavy eyeshadow.

It’s easy to disprove any claims that dissatisfaction with the goth canon
is based solely on musical grounds. Goth originators *J**oy Division* (music
journalist Paul Morley coined the term gothic in a very early review of the
group) never suffered the same fate as any of their peers due, in part at
least, to how normal they looked and behaved. While only a fool would
attempt to talk down the importance of the Macclesfield/Salford quartet and
the stunning body of work they produced in such a short space of time, it
would also be a fallacy to suggest that no other ‘gothic’ band shared their
revolutionary potential.

Towering over most of their contemporaries in these stakes, *Bauhaus *cemented
their innovation early doors. Their opening salvo, *Bela Lugosi’s Dead *was
an instant composition/ free-improvised dub reggae epic utilising the
studio mixing desk as an instrument and non-standard guitar and vocal
techniques, immediately placing them on a par with such self-regarding
sonic revolutionaries as the *Pop Group*, and arguably ahead of
conceptually progressive funk rock group, *Gang Of Four*. Any criticism of
this song being camp and dealing in obvious goth tropes doesn’t make any
sense as these conventions - funereal singing, a love for vintage horror
movies, an obsession with vampires and death - weren’t cemented until the
mid-80s. You only have to listen to such WTF-is-going-on-here masterpieces
as *Rosegarden Funeral Of Sores*, *Double Dare* and *Mask *to realise that
when you’re listening to *Bauhaus*, you’re standing on some infernal
continuum that links Berlin Bowie and Iggy with *The Butthole Surfers*, *The
Jesus Lizard *and *Slint.* *Bauhaus* were almost universally derided by the
*NME *and *Melody Maker* in their day but it seems to me their major
‘crimes’ can be summed up succinctly like this: good looking, pretentious,
lipstick, leather trousers, Northampton.

The same story gets played out with *Pornography* by *The Cure*, my
favourite rock album of the 1980s. One of the darkest, most spiritually
crushing yet psychedelic records of the period, it was a black mirror
reflection of sun-dappled Summer Of Love optimism, portraying the collapse
of the ego into existential chaos set against a backdrop of 20th Century
atrocity… and yet it was seemingly treated with suspicion or scoffed at in
some quarters because of backcombed hair and smudged lipstick. (*The Cure* are,
to be fair, not universally reviled as a post punk band - they had a
notable fan in the renowned cultural critic Mark Fisher who revealed a deep
and sincere appreciation of their work when writing about them on his
influential K-Punk blog
<http://k-punk.abstractdynamics.org/archives/006087.html>. And so it also
goes for various flashpoints of inspiration dreamt up out of nowhere by
other often critically derided but genuinely awesome bands such as *Siouxsie
And The Banshees*, the *Sisters Of Mercy* and *T**he Birthday Party*.

*The real question is are Killing Joke originators and innovators?*

One band who seem to be more overdue a reappraisal than perhaps any other
of the post punk era however are the English band *Killing Joke*. Their
critical pariah status is easy to understand (and, some might say,
partially self-inflicted). They dallied with goth’s theatricality while
remaining as threateningly thuggish as *The Stranglers*, meaning their use
of make-up alienated nearly everyone; their spiritual and occult leanings
ran in complete opposition to the rationalist humanism of most serious
music critics of the day; their eschatological and apocalyptic worldview
won them nothing but derision for decades even though reality, sadly,
appears to be hell bent on proving them right. They have, by some accounts,
not always been the easiest or most pleasant of people to meet in person
(though I’ve had nothing but good experiences with them over the last 15
years). But then, all of this stuff is mere ephemera that serves to obscure
the real question: are *Killing Joke* originators and innovators. To me,
the answer is an emphatic yes on both accounts.

Radicalised by punk in the late 1970s, classically trained musician and son
of Anglo-Indian parents, Jaz Coleman had a vision for a brutalising band
which would summon up the spirit of the coming age of societal collapse
which would emit “sounds from a primeval world”. After meeting his
soon-to-be drummer and bandmate, Paul Ferguson, via a chance encounter in a
West London dole queue, the pair hatched a plan to find two other band
members using magic. They organised an occult ritual round at Paul’s flat
which involved them painting the floor black and adorning it with a
pentagram with aligned cardinal points and then conducted an arcane
invocation and ceremony by candlelight. The process was either very
successful or very unsuccessful depending on whether you were the two
musicians or their landlord. A stray candle led to Paul’s flat getting
burned down in the process but not long afterwards (via the more mundane
route of an ad in *Melody Maker)*, the pair had an audition with guitarist
Kevin “Geordie” Walker and bass player Martin “Youth” Glover. Their first
alcohol-fuelled rehearsal led to the song *Are You Receiving?* and within
months they were sharing bills with Northern peers *Joy Division *and
headlining London’s Lyceum venue.

During their entire career, *Killing Joke *have been an influential band -
impacting hard especially in America on everyone from *Metallica* to
*Ministry *via *Nine Inch Nails *and *Nirvana*. (It was obvious to anyone
with ears that self-proclaimed fans, *Nirvana*, half-inched the riff to
*Eighties *for their massive *Come As You Are* single. The circle of
influence was completed in 2003 however, when Dave Grohl joined their ranks
temporarily as drummer.) Their period of innovation however was much more
compact and can handily be summed up as the initial phase that featured
Youth as bass player, between 1979 and 1982. (Reynolds both criticises and
lauds *Killing Joke *in his book, *Rip It Up,* for being part of the
reactionary trough that came after the true innovation of *Joy Division *and
 *PiL,* and then later becoming post punk’s answer to *Black Sabbath *with
the release of *Revelations* in 1982. While I agree with the latter, very
astute view I can’t agree with the former as it ignores the fact that *Killing
Joke *actually hit the ground running in creative terms.)

The band’s DIY independent credentials were impeccable from the start; they
released singles through their own Malicious Damage label, co-run with the
artist Mike Coles. While it’s true that the band shared some similarities
with immediate precursors *J**oy Division* and *PiL*, early tracks
*Pssyche,* *Turn To Red *and *Change *show a group with a carefully curated
sound that didn’t just incorporate stylistic flourishes from contemporary
dance music but instead twisted the genre until it became primarily
dance-focussed. The imperial *Killing Joke *sound of the mid-80s would go
on to be defined by the sepulchral guitar playing of Geordie but in its
initial months and years the catalyst for innovation was brought by Youth
and how he interacted with the hypnotic dance rhythms of Paul Ferguson,
drawing variously on dub, funk, disco and metal, as well as punk.

The heavy, three dimensional bass playing and space echo dub processing on
early tracks can be attributed to Glover: after all, his adopted nickname,
‘Youth’, came from his obsession with vocal reggae chanter Big Youth. (
*Change *particularly is a shining high point of the post punk canon, a
nerve jangling, dancefloor-aimed, Nietzschean reworking of *War*’s track *Me
And Baby Brother *as envisioned by LSD-enhanced occultist punks channelling
the dark workings of Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry’s Black Ark studio. This was an
epochal vibe that would be leant on heavily by preeminent acid house post
punk revivalists, *LCD Soundsystem* for their breakthrough single, *Losing
My Edge *in 2002.)

This new sound was unpalatable to most outside their devoted fanbase

Of course, one of the reasons why *Killing Joke* remain at the sidelines is
a matter of pure un-quantifiability. Reynolds himself was astute enough to
note that a hard-to-define “dark, tribal energy swirled round the group”
and this was one of the reasons they were accused, variously, of being
Nazis, nihilists, devil worshipers and just plain evil. They were none of
these things however, they had simply constructed a brand new sound whose
tension and intensity, stemmed in part from obsessive practice of occult
ritual. This new sound was unpalatable to most outside of their devoted
fanbase. It might sound odd to mention the band’s deep interest in
Rosicrucianism, the Kabbalah and Thelemic practice in relation to their
status as sonic innovators but no more so than the way a working knowledge
of critical theory is often used to plump up the avant garde CVs of bands
such as *Scritti Politti*, *Gang Of Four *and the *Pop Group*.

Critical theory is a relatively obscure blend of Marxist philosophy and
psychoanalysis which was devised by a mainly counter-revolutionary group of
mid-20th Century German academics to analyse the impact of capitalism on
modern life and culture. Thinkers such as Theodor Adorno undoubtedly
inspired some of the best music writing of the post punk period from the
likes of Ian Penman and then later on Reynolds himself, and when they were
talking about the heavily politicised groups that they favoured, this kind
of framework made perfect sense. Music writers of this period traditionally
gravitated toward songwriters who were stridently left wing and who wrote
self-referentially about the business of making music. So when it came to
describing *Gang Of Four’s* (excellent) *Entertainment!* album and its
forensic look at the alienation caused by capitalism (“*Down on the disco
floor! They make their profit!”*), writers had the perfect critical tool in
the form of critical theory. But this framework would prove itself less
useful when it came to music that dealt in the numinous, the sublime, the
spiritually crushing and the existentially nauseating. All of which were
elements of the overwhelming *Killing Joke *experience.

In the weekly music paper* Sounds*, *Killing Joke’s* self-titled 1980 debut
album was awarded a sterling five out of five score. The reviewer also took
the bizarre step of awarding the album one out of five for morality and
made a point of warning readers that listening to it might prove
“corrosive” to the soul. With the benefit of hindsight, such handwringing
seems laughable but it was this sense of a doorway being opened to a
terrifying and unmediated world outside of normal moral conventions, more
than any other reason, that saw the group become more accepted by heavy
metal fans than by any other community. (Which I would say is odd, for a
group who began by violently thrusting together funk, reggae, disco and
punk.) But the way in which *Killing Joke *can suggest the collapse of
normal values and negative transcendence through the intensity of music
alone means they have more in common with such groups as *Slayer*, *Electric
Wizard*, *Black Sabbath* and *Mayhem* than they do with *The Fall*, *Joy
Division,* *Devo *or *The Raincoats.*

The idea that the band could maintain this level of spiritual and sonic
intensity was impossible. The tension it generated was too stressful and
everyone in the group suffered because of it. While roundly mocked at the
time Coleman - who has since been diagnosed as suffering from a bipolar
condition and severe depression - fearing the oncoming apocalypse
disappeared to Iceland in 1982 when the band was on the verge of critical
and commercial breakthrough. Youth stayed in London but was no better off
for it. He had an LSD-induced nervous breakdown and spent some time in a
psychiatric hospital after attempting to break into a Grand Masonic Lodge
in the centre of London.

Killing Joke went on to have their imperial period - their 1985 single *Love
Like Blood* is one of the most fondly remembered alternative rock songs of
the mid-80s and they have now survived long enough to be hailed as pioneers
of heavy music (if not post punk). They continue to play large gigs and
produce new music to this day, now with their original line-up back
together once more. Very few bands have crackled with such intense and
innovative electricity as *Killing Joke *did in those early years however,
and whether post punk scholars will recognise this or not, remains to be
seen.

[image: youth 2.jpg]


*Five Easy Pieces - Essential Killing Joke*

*Killing Joke (1980)*

A post punk essential from the chiming Requiem and riotous tribal pounding
of Wardance to the industrial synth disco of Bloodsport and punkish live
favourite Complications. Completists should go for the 2005 CD reissue
which includes both versions of career highlight, Change.



*What's THIS For...! (1981)*

The band’s second album consolidated what would become the core sound of
tom-heavy tribal drumming, scabrous, insistent guitar riffs, hypnotic,
bouncing basslines and Coleman’s Jester-from-Hell vocals. The result was an
album full of fan favourites (Unspeakable, Tension, Madness) and one bona
fide underground anthem, the anti-Thatcherite death disco of Follow The
Leaders.



*Night Time (1985)*

Killing Joke’s fifth studio album saw them come as close to mainstream
acceptance as they would ever get. While still unmistakably Killing Joke,
as typified by Geordie Walker’s massive reverberant guitars, the early edge
of barbarism was tempered by something almost approaching a romantic pop
sensibility which resulted in three of their most instantly recognisable
songs, the album’s title track, Love Like Blood and Eighties.



*Killing Joke (2003)*

Some would say that Killing Joke made a few wrong moves in the 1990s and
their disappointing 1996 album Democracy was followed by a six year hiatus,
so hopes weren’t that high for their 11th album but their second
self-titled effort ended up being one of their best. The armour-piercing
drumming of Dave Grohl suited the reinvigorated fury of tracks such as The
Death & Resurrection Show and Asteroid.



*Absolute Dissent (2010)*

With the founding members reunited at the funeral of long time bassist Paul
Raven in 2007, Killing Joke mark one reformed musically as well in 2010 to
release an EP (In Excelsis) and then an album called Absolute Dissent
shortly afterwards. The album, a groove-heavy monster of psychedelic
weight, speaks of a quartet keen to make up for lost time.



*The Quotable Youth*

*“We have survived equipment being hi-jacked, tapes being withheld, nervous
breakdowns, family bereavements, blood lettings, and a host of other
challenges of Biblical proportions, But we are now at the final ascent.”*


   - Youth in 2010 on the original line-up of Killing Joke getting back
   together




"What's THIS For...! was a pretty strange album because I'd had an LSD
breakdown, I was 21, I'd just come out of a mental hospital for burning
money on the street in a kimono on the Kings Road and I had a total
meltdown. So that album was kind of me coming up on that, which was great
actually because it made it very psychedelic!”


   - Youth in 2012 taking a glass half full look at his former mental
   health problems




*The Author*

John Doran is the co-founder and editor of The Quietus music and culture
website. He writes for VICE and The Guardian and is a broadcaster for BBC
Radio 3 and 4 as well as the presenter of Noisey’s British Masters series.
His acclaimed memoir about the recovery from alcoholism and mental illness,
Jolly Lad, is republished by Strange Attractor Press this month.
<https://strangeattractor.greedbag.com/buy/jolly-lad-2018-expanded-edition>

*Goth music, in its early 80s heyday, was so astoundingly uncool that even
most goth bands themselves would get annoyed if you accused them of being a
goth band*



*Original article:*
https://uk.lush.com/article/join-youth-club-why-killing-joke-deserve-kudos-post-punk-innovators
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