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Vim: There aren't any sheep in Mongolia!
Den: That's a good name for a band...
Bad News by Bad News © 2004 Parlophone Records Ltd.
Horny Viper
By Andrew Buns Origins: Complete geek-fest this one! We were watching the quiz show "Only Connect" and teams choose categories defined by Egyptian hieroglyphs, one of which is the horned viper. To up the geek score (because it isn't already stratospheric) some participants refer to it as the "Horn-ed Viper". Deliberate mishearing of this gave us Horny Viper- a good name for a band... As the magnesium-bright-burning anger of punk dissipated it was largely replaced with sadness, melancholia and introspection and no one epitomised this musical flavour more than Horny Viper. Formed by schoolmates Max Dwyer and Martin Oxford almost the second they left the Sex Pistols gig at Manchester's Lesser Free Trade Hall (what aspiring 80s rockstar was not present that night?), it was Dwyer with the vision, drive and, arguably most important as far as Horny Viper are concerned, the personal style to really make things happen. With Dwyer the principle songwriter, vocalist and lead guitarist and Ox on synth duties they advertised in the NMM for a bassist and drummer and were joined in short order by Rob Glover and Sid Andres who had both been drifting around local bands looking for somewhere to stick. With Horny Viper stick they did. Very quickly the signature look was established- Dwyer's melancholia given visceral embodiment in ghoulish makeup, back combed hair and dark clothes to match, the rest of the band dutifully following suit. The signature sound was not too far behind, chiming guitars layered with twisted, snarling synths delivering deceptively catchy pop songs that spoke of aching emptiness and self-perpetuating loneliness, teenaged familiars that few others have captured before or since. Their debut single, "Love Darkly" made it into the top 10 in the UK. In 1983 the follow up, "That Which I Want" went top 5 in the UK but topped the charts stateside and cemented Horny Viper's position as superstars of the world after punk. Their first two albums drip with ache and vulnerability. This was Post Punk for a generation less driven by political outrage, more by the pain of rejection, unrequited love and the sense of displacement in the world that is part of the teenage condition. As they grew older their music changed and mellowed and while this changing musical direction over time produced some truly brilliant pop songs they will be forever associated, fairly or not, with those early albums and their many imitators. Perhaps Dwyer's refusal to change his look even as the band and their fan base have aged is part of the reason, but also the strength of that early work refuses to be eclipsed.
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Cape and Hogan
Origin: This one was offered up by my (then) 8 year old while she was telling me about a family member's trip to the capital of Denmark... Thomas Cape and Graham Hogan came together having both enjoyed significant success in other bands, but it is arguably the work they did and the plaudits they garnered together through the 70's and 80's for which they will be best remembered. On the face of it they had little in common- Thomas Cape, the divisive prima donna blamed by his erstwhile band mates for tearing apart Humble Pumpkin, the pre-eminent exponents of pop psychedelia in mid-60's California; and Graham Hogan, the working-class boy from Sheffield, UK, who, as the bassist in Random Cat alongside his 3 school friends rode the wave of the British Invasion all the way to the top of the US pop charts. But together their lush, soaring harmonies achieved legendary greatness and assured their position in the annals of rock history. As the 60's were coming to their end Tom Cape had lost his way. Ostracised by his former band mates and experimenting heavily with drugs he was seeking peace and support to get his life back on track. Unfortunately he sought these with charismatic cult leader D. Beau Harrison and his mysterious "Collective". By the time Hogan also encountered (albeit briefly) Harrison, Cape's position within The Collective was breaking down (having allegedly slept with at least 3 of Harrison's "designated concubines"). Hogan, then as always the straight talking Northerner, left The Collective almost as soon as he arrived having decided in short order that their particular brand of dysfunctionality was not for him. Cape, seeing an opportunity to escape, went with him. The rest as they say is history. They wrote the first album (the classic "Live in Cape 'n' Hogan") over the next couple of months and recorded it in the dying days of the 60's. It was, to indulge in understatement, a huge hit. Despite the Folk/Rock flavour being stylistically a departure for both of them they built a huge following both for their recorded work and as a live act. They toured the world prodigiously throughout the 70's. By the turn of the decade this was taking it's toll and the recording of 1983's "Hogan's Cape" was fraught (more understatement) and even before it's release the partnership had broken down. The two remained estranged for most of the next 10 years as Cape wrestled his inner demons and Hogan produced two hugely commercially successful solo albums. Despite the sales they generated both of these works were critically savaged, dismissed as "Dinner Party Pop". The music world's collective eyebrows were raised when Tom Cape was announced as a headline act for the 1991 Glastonbury Festival in the UK. Rumours circulated almost immediately that it was both Cape and Hogan who had been booked, but it was not until Cape appeared on the hallowed Pyramid stage, guitar in hand and played the first few bars of the great "Dying Days of Summer Light" that Graham Hogan's presence was confirmed and he joined his musical brother on stage for the first time in 12 years. That performance is now legendary, with it seeming that everyone claims to have been in the 60000 strong crowd. This reunion sparked a resurgence in interest in the duo, both in their back catalogue and in the new work they continue to produce. They are rightly considered as one of the most important acts in popular music of the last 40 years. |
AuthorAndrew Burns really should know better and has so many more important things to be doing than writing this drivel. Please offer him no encouragement either via social media or through the contact page Archives
September 2017
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