Terrace Anthems

 Issue #7 of Ireland's only football periodical Póg Mo Goal is out now. You should buy a copy from   https://pogmogoal.com and not just because I've got this article about Adrian Sherwood, Tackhead, Barmy Army and other On-U Sounds musical legends in there...

The late, lamented genius that was Mark E Smith never made any secret of his affection for Manchester City, though one suspects the great contrarian was more at home with the Peter Swales era than the unimagined success of his last years. Back in 1983, The Fall released the menacing, fractured terrace tirade that was Kicker Conspiracy. Written from an unapologetic and uncompromising fan’s perspective, with a video filmed at Turf Moor, it takes the authorities to task for assuming criminality is rife among ordinary football supporters. Later MES returned to the subject, addressing the asset stripping that caused the demise of Halifax Town in The Chisellers and, most notably in Theme from Sparta FC that the BBC used as backing music on Final Score, resulting in Smith once reading the full time results, while simultaneously humiliating the oleaginous Ray Stubbs. The Fall were the main inspiration for obscure outsiders I Ludicrous, whose Three English Football Grounds is a nostalgic tribute to Burnden Park, Craven Cottage and The Den, for all you completists out there.

Of course, angular guitars, sparse drumming and declamatory singing don’t have sole ownership of football as a totem for underground music, as dub, electronica and repetitive beats have long been at the heart of some of the finest songs about the game. Witness the eclectic Colourbox, whose 1986 single The Official Colourbox World Cup Theme was one of the standout tracks of that year, though it was eclipsed by the work that would be released soon after by a fierce studio amalgam of the legendary Sugar Hill Records house rhythm section, a polymath dub mixologist and the occasional presence of a slightly deranged toaster and sound system MC. The fact that the work of Tackhead and related projects on the impeccable On-U Sounds label has fallen into obscurity is a crying shame, especially as their football-themed output is some of the strongest material they ever made.

In the early 80s, second only to the stellar duo of Chic’s Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards, the go-to session musicians in the funk, soul and disco arena, were the backing band of Grandmaster Flash and Melle Mel; Skip McDonald (guitar), Doug Wimbish (bass) and Keith LeBlanc (drums). Such was their ubiquity, only the reggae superpowers Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare could possibly have produced such a mammoth body of work. The thing with the Sugar Hill blokes was that they were always experimenting, always changing and always producing their own sounds. Wimbish formed Living Color, an African American heavy rock band, while McDonald moved on to production duties at Tommy Boy Records and LeBlanc created stunning slabs of  his own studio wizardry 

LeBlanc’s groundbreaking Malcolm X: No Sell Out 12” in late 1983 combined thudding beats with sampled speech from Malcolm X to make a profound political statement of uncompromising opposition to state terrorism and institutional racism. It was a seminal moment in the history of dance music, as it caused On-U Sounds founder Adrian Sherwood to make contact and then music with LeBlanc. Their first notable public pronouncement was the shuddering power of the empowering, agitational Support The Miners, released under the moniker The Enemy Within, which sampled Arthur Scargill’s uncompromising rhetoric, welded to earth shattering funk beats and basslines; almost 40 years on, it remains part of the Holy Trinity of early collaborations that climaxed with Hard Left, where Bristolian MC Gary Clail took over the mic, though the cut includes voice samples from characteristically brutal speeches by the Great Satan herself, Thatcher.

One of the key elements of the On-U Sounds modus operandi is the use of a baffling array of names for the various projects releasing music. In 1987, the Tackhead brand was used for the one and only time, as Tackhead Sound System, for the Sherwood, LeBlanc, McDonald and Wimbish debut football release, The Game; an anthemic, slow paced amalgam of dub, funk, crowd samples and football specific lyrics. Brushing the top 40, it didn’t include Clail on MC duties but, almost incredibly, ITV commentator Brian Moore, who gave permission for pieces of his previous game chat to be looped, spliced and generally manipulated by Sherwood. The song is a classic, though typical of the On-U philosophy, it would be the last time the Tackhead moniker would be used in such circumstances, being reserved for Gary Clail’s Tackhead Sound System’s Mind at the End of the Tether album in 1989.  By 1991’s Human Nature set, which provided him with a top 20 hit, Clail was going by his own name.

 

There was no way Adrian Sherwood was going to use his own name; instead, he adopted the moniker Barmy Army for all his subsequent football related music. Sherwood is a West Ham United fan and two of the cuts he made under the Barmy Army name, namely Billy Bonds MBE and Leroy’s Boots (a tribute to Rosenior senior) were given away as single sided flexis with the Irons fanzine, On the Terraces. Obviously, such releases are as rare as hen’s teeth these days, but they were vital in establishing a link between underground sounds and terrace culture, especially at a club more infamous for alleged musical supporters such as the vile Cockney Rejects and cartoon metallers Iron Maiden. Somewhat surprisingly, Sherwood also cut a version of Blue Moon for the Manchester City fanzine Blue Print, though it was a track about a Liverpool legend that is probably the most famous piece of Sherwood sporting genius.

Unsurprisingly, Sherwood and John Peel were a mutual appreciation society and so the mixologist’s tribute to Kenny Dalglish, Sharp as a Needle, was warmly received by the DJ and lifelong Liverpool fan, who described the cut as one of his all-time favourite pieces of music, commenting in 2002; It doesn’t really get much better than this classic Barmy Army track. Incongruously, there is a West Ham reference – Sherwood is a Hammers fan – but the music relates otherwise to Kenny Dalglish, with a sideways nod to Ian Rush… Years after its release, I still can’t hear it without a lump in my throat.

Truly it is a deeply uplifting and emotional track, which deserves the praise Peel gave it and a place on Sherwood’s 1989 football agglomeration, The English Disease, along with Leroy’s Boots and several other tracks, utilising terrace chants from the Boleyn Ground, as well as Ewood Park, Old Trafford and, strangely, St Johnstone’s former home of Muirton Park. As well as LeBlanc, McDonald and Wimbish, other musicians include Al Jorgensen, who I’d never figured as a football fan, and fellow Hammer Jah Wobble, who no doubt approved of the Italian house style piano-driven anthem Devo, dedicated to Alan Devonshire.

Obviously, the subjects for each track on the album are very much of their time, so the long, forgotten travails of the late Bobby Robson when England manager are a surprising memory on Bobby Just Can’t Win, while downright dirty bass driven drudge of Psycho pays tribute to Vinny Jones, Sam Hamman and all those other members of the Plough Lane Crazy Gang. Skip McDonald’s ironic FM poodle rock stylings on Stadium Rock make it an amusing instrumental, followed by the bitter, frustrated words of then Blackburn Rovers manager Don Mackay, decrying his bad luck in a post-match press conference on Mind the Gap.

The album was released in 1989, the year of Hillsborough and the Thatcher government’s kneejerk ID card scheme. After a season when Man United and Chelsea fans proved supporter resistance to the European Super League will be listened to, Civil Liberties is a strong rejection of the proposed, and subsequently dropped, legislation of 1989.  My favourite number is Brian Clout, a hilarious examination of Cloughy biffing a load of Forest fans round the lugs when they invaded the pitch after a 4-1 win over QPR in the League Cup. Combining Old Big ‘Ead’s ambiguously contrite interview with adverts and other snatches of dialogue, the repeated chorus of Clough declaring I don’t want to get physically involved with you is both surreal and hilarious. The English Disease is a certified lost classic.

What needs to be remembered about this album is that, in common with all of On-U Sounds’ output, the musicianship and mixology make these tracks not simply one-trick curios, but vital slices of late 80s dub and funk; Clail and other sound systems would often mix Barmy Army tracks alongside cuts by Lee “Scratch” Perry and Augustus Pablo in dense and smoky basements at late night sessions. Serious fun; music with a purpose.