Crispy Ambulance - The Plateau Phase (1982/1999) / Frozen Blood 1980-1982 (2000)

The genesis of Crispy Ambulance, one of the more obscure Factory Records-related bands of the Manchester post-punk scene of the late-1970s and early-1980s, can be traced back to The Sex Pistols' first Manchester gig in June, 1976, which Crispy Ambulance vocalist Alan Hempsall later described as having taken place "in front of an audience of about 40, made up mainly of Bowie clones and hippies." While The Sex Pistols left a lasting impression on Hempsall and guitarist Robert Davenport, it was only after seeing Howard Devoto's first gig fronting his new post-Buzzcocks band, Magazine, that these lifelong friends felt compelled to start their own band; thus Crispy Ambulance was born. The name itself has garnered a fair share of ridicule over the years, even being cited on occasion as the chief reason they were fated to languish in relative obscurity, rather than becoming heirs to Joy Division's lofty post-punk mantle following the suicide of Ian Curtis. As Hempsall explains, "People asked about the name and how it originated every time we did an interview. The answer is, I'm afraid, quite a boring one. It is simply that a close friend [...] thought it up. He has a way with words, and I thought it was such a nondescript name (silly too) that we decided on it. Also, at the time every other band was called 'the...' (fill in blank space) whereas our name gave nothing away with regard to image, musical style etc., but at the time captured the imagination."

Original Cover of First Single

After adding bassist Keith Darbyshire and drummer Gary Madeley in 1978, Crispy Ambulance began playing regular gigs throughout the Manchester area, eventually catching the attention of the band they would later be unjustly accused of imitating. Hempsall: "Joy Division stumbled upon us in July 1978 at a gig we played in Manchester, and they liked our approach, even if the material was a little weak- to say the least. They dragged Rob Gretton, their new manager, down to see us some months later, and as a result we did a gig with them at The Factory around the time that Unknown Pleasures was released." Despite such connections, the band's first single, "From the Cradle to the Grave / Four Minutes from the Frontline," was turned down by several local independent labels, so Crispy Ambulance decided to release the single on their own makeshift imprint: Aural Assault. Hempsall: "The idea for Aural Assault came from the fact that we'd already tried Rough Trade and Factory and they'd turned us down, but Rough Trade gave us loads of info and addresses for a do-it-yourself single, which Rob Gretton encouraged us to do. So I came up with the bank loan and the name." Crispy Ambulance would eventually be signed by Factory, but only after the tragic death of Ian Curtis in May, 1980, which lead to the demise of Joy Division and their manager, Rob Gretton, joining Factory Records as shareholder and an A&R man. His first priority was signing Crispy Ambulance despite the protests of the label's co-founder, Tony Wilson, who never liked the band.

Martin Hannett

However, "The Crispies" much anticipated move to the Factory roster was both a blessing and a curse. On the back of a few initial singles that had garnered the band a number of critical reviews accusing them of being little more than Joy Division wannabes, Hempsall, Davenport & co. went into the studio with producer Martin Hannett, already a Factory legend due to his significant role in shaping the sound of Joy Division's studio recordings. The result of this collaboration was the confusingly titled single, Live on a Hot August Night, which did not win Crispy Ambulance any additional supporters at their label. Hempsall: "Hot August Night was the first time we actually went into the studio as a Factory band. As a matter of course Hannett was used as he was The Factory producer [....] Tony craftily got us off his back by depositing us on Factory Benelux, which we didn't object to because Tony was only making things difficult for us whilst on Factory, whereas Michel Duval, boss of Factory's Belgian counterpart, genuinely liked us, and had an enthusiasm for the records almost as strong as our own."

Live on a Hot August Night (a decidedly un-Joy Division-like title) was roundly dismissed at the time as little more than a product of Hannett once again taking on the role of production- booth auteur, this time attempting to turn a group of nondescript Manchester post-punkers into the second coming of Joy Division. For example, Melody Maker had this to say about the single's a-side, "The Presence": The best and worst of Martin Hannett and, as usual, you can forget the band. 'The Presence' illustrates his genius for that eerie, evocative snare-obsessed sound, cleverly maintaining interest in another Curtis clone crooning another doomy dodo of a tune." And NME chimed in with, "After the power and the passion that was Joy Division, imitators like Crispy Ambulance just sound listless and unoriginal." While it is obvious Hannett saw the Crispies as mining similar sonic territory to Joy Division, the single itself suggests a sonically restless band largely uninterested in remaining in any particular place very long, a trait that would fully take hold the following year on their brilliantly innovative full-length, The Plateau Phase. Listening to "The Presence" thirty years after the fact, it's hard not to describe the song as a long lost post-punk gem, undoubtedly reminiscent of Ian Curtis & co., but moving in a number of additional sonic directions at once, such as the ironically boyish charm of Hempsall's vocals repeating the mantra-like lyric, "there's no sense in trying / it changes nothing," and the languid, uniquely proggy atmosphere that sets it apart from their more famous label-mates. It stands as one of the Crispies', and Hannett's, finest moments.

Joy Division - "Transmission" (1979)

As the holy grail, the heroes, and the heartbreaking maestros of the post-punk movement, Joy Division deserves to be a huge focus of this blog.  Within the next week, I will be beginning my Manchester series where I will be scraping the fascinating grime from the grim streets of the mecca of post-punk.  I will begin with Joy Division, and also explore their influences, Factory Records, and beyond. For now, I leave you to revel in Peter Hook's brilliant bass lines, and Ian Curtis's tragically passionate stage performance.  Oh, and not to mention John Cooper Clark's fucking fantastic introduction.

Au Pairs - Stepping Out of Line: The Anthology (2006) / Equal But Different: BBC Sessions 79-81 (1994)

Stylistically, The Au Pairs are most often compared to Gang of Four, the legendary Leeds band that played a seminal role in rise of post-punk, and while both bands were well-versed in radical leftist politics, structuralism and a jaggedly dissonant yet entirely danceable musical aesthetic, The Au Pairs were anything but derivative, as the band was fronted by the awe-inspiring Lesley Woods, one of the first openly lesbian musicians of the rock era, whose voice was equal parts bluesy sultriness and punky aggression and whose stage presence was a force to be reckoned with. Joining Woods were fellow Birmingham natives Paul Foad on guitar, bassist Jane Munro and drummer Peter Hammond, a lineup that was unconventional in itself for being equally comprised of males and females in a truly collaborative context, while the songs also set the band apart by putting forth an uncompromisingly feminist perspective on gender politics during the early years of the Thatcher-era. Jane Munro: "At the time- to me anyway- the stuff that we were doing didn't seem that out of the ordinary because most of the bands we were gigging with or who were influential at the time also had political and/or feminist lyrics- the Gang of Four, the Slits, the Clash, the Raincoats, the Mekons, to name but a few. In retrospect though, to judge by the number of people who remember and were influenced by the band, I guess we must have stood out- possibly down to Lesley terrifying the audience!" As with some of the other bands Munro mentions, lyrically, The Au Pairs could occasionally come off a bit politically didactic to certain ears, but musically, post-punk rarely sounded this dynamic and this fierce.

Lesley Woods

The Au Pairs formed in 1979, with Jane Munro being the last to join: "I joined the band by a kind of happy accident, really. I was on the periphery of the Moseley music scene and the other band members and I had a mutual friend, Martin Culverwell, who later became our manager. I'd bought a bass guitar and had progressed as far as the bass line from 'Peaches' [by The Stranglers] and Martin said he knew a band who were looking for a female bass player. Lesley rang me. The four of us had a jam together at a room over a pub, and the rest is history." After playing a number of gigs together, the band wasted no time in recording their first single, "You," and after releasing their second single, "Diet / It's Obvious," a year later, they were invited to record some BBC sessions. This momentum allowed The Au Pairs to begin recording their debut album, Playing with a Different Sex, which was issued in 1981 on Human Records, a label owned by a friend of the band. Munro: "We wrote the songs by jamming around a riff or melody line that one or other of us had come up with; it was very much a joint process. Lesley wrote the lyrics and, no, we didn't always agree with her views but she was a very strong character and invariably got her own way." Comprised of a heady mix of Punk, Dub, Reggae, and Funk, along with Woods' whip-smart and ironic evisceration of bourgeois notions of sexuality and gender, Playing with a Different Sex was a stunning, defiant debut that garnered the band immediate attention from the music press. Songs such as "We're So Cool," which is sung from the perspective of a woman halfheartedly trying to convince herself that "things are cool" with her emotionally vacant lover and "Armagh," which details the torture and sexual abuse of wrongly imprisoned Irish women at the hands of the Tory government, were matched by the album's memorable cover, an iconic Eve Arnold photo of women fighting in the People's Liberation Army. Lesley Woods: "The Chinese woman on the cover isn't wearing a uniform but this searing dress. It's not like when people say women can fight as well as men because they usually dress up in a uniform; this woman is going into battle as a woman, running into battle carrying her gun."

Paul Foad

Due to Woods being the driving force behind the band's aggressively politicized lyrics as well as a mesmerizing figure on stage, the music press began to focus almost exclusively on her in terms of album reviews and interviews, something Jane Munro feels didn't always offer an accurate picture of The Au Pairs: "They became more and more obsessed with the band's political stance and Lesley's lyrics. As a result she became the unelected spokesperson. I was never in my element doing interviews anyway and they always seemed to be dredging over the same old ground, so to some extent it suited me to let Lesley get on with it. If the rest of us had been more assertive it would probably have been better for the band though- we might even have been able to demonstrate we had a sense of humour, although I doubt the press would have been interested in that- not controversial enough." Make no mistake, however; the early eighties were highly politicized times, and music gigs in the context of the punk and post-punk scenes were always about anger in response to the corrupt values and general apathy of mainstream culture. This also made the gigs as much about connecting with others ideologically and sharing information as they were about hearing music; in other words, these gigs were a catalyst for political activism. Paul Hammond: "You could have a go at attacking issues through music because there were places to play for bands [....] We'd play to thousands of people, mainly students and all in anger- all wanting to do something. That's gone now."

Cocteau Twins - Garlands (1982/1990)

Elizabeth Fraser, Robin Guthrie and original bassist Will Heggie formed Cocteau Twins in Grangemouth, Scotland in 1979.  The band was heavily influenced by Joy Division, The Birthday Party (who they would later go on tour with), and Souixsie and the Banshees.  Soon after their formation, they recorded and sent out two demos to John Peel and Ivo at 4AD Records.  The band was contacted immediately by John Peel and booked for a recording session.  4AD soon followed. Out of this came their debut album, Garlands.  The album cracked the top 5 spot on the independent charts, but many critics found this album left something to be desired.  I beg to differ.  This album is blissfully dark, and quiveringly beautiful.  Elizabeth Fraser's voice is like nothing I have ever heard before, or will ever hear again.  Even in its formative stage, the woman inspires a galvanic response with her vocals.  Tracks like "Wax and Wane" illustrate her immense talent. Robin and Will's guitar and bass playing are haunting in a way that was only possible in 1982. This is the only album Will Heggie appears on. Curiously enough, Gordon Sharp of Cindytalk sang back up vocals on "Hazel" and "Dear Heart".  After first listening to this album, I knew it belonged in my list of all time favorites.  Do yourself a favor and immerse yourself in the ethereal gloom that is Garlands.