“Typical – twenty years of punk .. “Ooh,I like the Sex Pistols” – Fuck the Sex Pistols!”
The words of Chaos,by then vocalist of Chaos UK, on stage in 1996*, but I’m sure there are many in the punk scene expressing similar sentiments this weekend as we witness the official history of punk rocktrotted out again, declaring it dead by 1979. There were many bands that helped to drag punk kicking and screaming through the 80s and 90s and a prominent one that you may not be aware of are Chaos UK.
Starting out in Portishead near Bristol in 1979, Chaos UK were a rowdy drunken bunch who (judging by their choice of covers) were influenced by some of the lesser known bands of the late 70s such as Johnny Moped, Valves, Albertos Los Trios Paranoias,(“Damned, Sex Pistols and Stranglers records were too expensive” – Gabba on CD sleevenotes), but went on to produce something much noisier.
Chaos UK were signed up by local label Riot City (“Never had I been subjected to so much abuse, violence and just downright bloodymindedness by a completely uncooperative and generally nasty, rude bunch of bastards…I love ‘em!” – Simon Edwards, Riot City boss, CD sleevenotes)
They released the EP Burning Britain in March 82. Musically uncompromising with a nasty guitar sound, pounding drums, shouted vocals and mostly unintelligible lyrics, this record is up there as one of the best ever punk EPs. The first impression you might get from tracks like Four Minute Warning is that they were earnest Crass-style political agitators. One review of a retrospective CD in Record Collector even sneered that they failed to realise that to be John Lennon they needed decent tunes. This missed the point that for Chaos UK politics came on the list of priorities somewhere behind making a racket, warped humour, drinking huge quantities of cider, and a Wurzels fixation. Being the new John Lennon was probably not anywhere on the list of priorities. There was social comment though, eg Victimized, one of their few mid-tempo tracks, but still an anthem for punks who were getting bored with police harassment.
Burning Britain sold well and was followed up with the Loud Political And Uncompromising EP, which saw the band getting faster, tighter and more intense, apparently with the assistance of a £2,000 amp that they broke out of a locked cupboard in the studio after being told they weren’t allowed to touch it. The lead track No Security attacked smug types who poured scorn on the unemployed only to find their jobs were next for the chop, so applies as well today as it did then. Not that you can make out the words. It did have one of the best intros on any punk record though. Here is the studio version with live footage on the Channel 4 documentary UKDK.
Things began to change after this with vocalist Simon leaving. They put out their prosaically titled first album Chaos UK LP in 1983 with bassist Chaos on vocals. Not a bad release but not a great one when compared to the 7”s, and further band departures followed. At this point if you’ve read other instalments of this series on other bands you might assume this was the end of the story, but Chaos recruited new shouter Mower and “guitar hero” (according to band t-shirts) Gabba and started producing even more extreme music, notably the Short Sharp Shock album which was very influential although unlistenable to some with more refined tastes (like me). The band became very popular abroad, particularly Japan. Chaos UK continued through the 90s, when Chaos took over as main vocalist and amusingly obnoxious frontman, and the band took on more of a 77 punk influence – 77 style punk played at Motorhead volume that is. These years produced some classic tracks – Head On A Pole, Cider I Up Landlord, Ronnie Was A Rebel, King For A Day, Little Bastards, and the ridiculously noisy The Chunderer.
By the mid-2000s Chaos had buggered off to go raving, Mower briefly came back, and then Chaos UK finally staggered to a halt and probably threw up in the gutter. But never mind, Gabba soon hooked up with a slightly younger character apparently called Cliff Vicious, and has continud his assault on punters’ eardrums with FUK.
*as I remember anyway – can’t trust the memory!
Really cool and intense. I hadn’t heard of Chaos Uk before – thanks for this, Wyngate.
Glad you liked it. I agree it was an intense sound for the time. Later on they were a bit more tongue in cheek – but still very loud!
Great write-up, Dr Carpenter.
Thanks. It’s become more of a struggle to do these in between changing nappies and screaming sessions but I’ll keep at it
Noisy fuzzy guitars, shouty incoherent lyrics, thunderous yet incompetently played drums. What’s not to like ?
I’m not one who thinks punk “died” in 79, it did change though ( a process over the 2 or 3 previous years rather than a sudden lurch).
For me it was the increasing violence ( genuine kind) at gigs that drove me away and the “sell out factor” of the bigger groups signing to major labels and getting all rock starry.
Much of the retrospective written in the papers lately is 100% crap, I think, totally missing the point by a considerable distance.
I’m glad that punk is still inspiring young folks to whack instruments into submission all over the world and consider myself very lucky to have been “in” on the tail end of the first wave.
“What’s not to like ?”
Exactly.
No disputing the violence issue, loads of bands have given it as at least part of the reason for calling it a day in the 80s. It’s pretty much a thing of the past in the UK. Funnily enough in the documentary there’s a follow up clip from the gig with the band pleading with the audience to stop fighting.
As for selling out I suppose one of the reasons punk survived was that as soon as some of the big bands sold out pissed off fans would start up their own bands.
I liked that, good stuff. What did you make of the recent BBC programme about punk?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00s81jw
Not sure I agree with the views expressed therein.
I’ve watched the first episode which to I think was good as far as it went. There seemed to be a bit of an overemphasis on pub rock when there were other influences. What I’m wondering (my opening paragraph is a pre-emptive strike!) is where they will stop – with only 3 episodes I can’t see them getting past 1980, which would be typical of these sort of documentaries. Other “Britannia” series if I remember have followed the genres pretty much up to date, so I don’t see why they can’t t least go up to the mid-80s when there were still bands with huge followings. I’ll reserve judgement – but I bet they don’t!
The thing that I learned from the first episode was about that Eggs Over Easy band being the first (the way the documentary tells it) to play in a pub. It hadn’t really occurred to me that there was a time in the history of rock when bands didn’t pplay in pubs!
Another great post Wyngate – thanks.
We have a bit of Chaos UK in the house in the form of the “Loud, Political & Uncompromising” 7″ (courtesy of Mrs Panthersan’s collection of course) but I hadn’t heard anything else apart from that before and didn’t know the back story……
…..I just stopped typing and asked Mrs Panther why/how she knew them enough to buy the 7″…..”What do you mean?” she retorted, “Chaos UK are really famous” !! You gotta love Japan !!
…..where was I? Oh yes, I really liked the other tracks too!
I just watched Punk Britannia too after reading the above comments earlier. It was pretty good, but I fear you are right and they won’t follow through much behind the early 80s, but we’ll see.
Reggae Britannia was great, but Heavy Metal Britannia was just appalling. It just rolled out a load of old farts and stopped when metal started to get good – this is in my humble opinion of course…DsD may well disagree with me !
I knew they were pretty popular in Japan, they’ve had a big influence over there and a lot of their records have been put out by Japanese labels, some very hard to find. The 90s stuff is definitely worth checking out imho – different but just as punk!
I haven’t watched many of the Brittanias but stragely I saw an episode of Soul Brittania on the 80s and I was surprised by both the fact they were following soul this far instead of just sticking to the 60s, and also that it was a really interesting programme despite the fact I wasn’t into any of the music. It’s disappointing that some of the other genres haven’t had the same treatment.