Sounds From The Junkshop #10 - These Animal Men

 

“Lace your trainers, zip your top ‘cos you’re burning bright!!” - These Animal Men, Sharp Kid, 1994

I can't quite remember exactly when it was that These Animal Men first cropped up on my radar but I do know that for a band who made such a limited splash commercially, they were definitely a group who inspired a lot of people with the New Wave of New Wave movement that they were at the head of offering a glimpse into what seemed like a genuinely dangerous and controversial movement until the music press cut it off at the knees and watered it down to become its safer more well-behaved and more commercially viable bastard child Britpop.

Our story starts in the early days of 1994. Like I say, I can't quite remember exactly where. Either...I read about TAM in the NME or Melody Maker (both of whom hyped the group to absolute high heaven in their early days). Or...I saw the video for their debut single Speeed King on the ITV Chart Show. Or...it was the time when I saw them on a "yoof" TV programme (I really want to say it was Going Live with that perma-grinning berk Andi Peters) where the presenter made the mistake of asking them what the song was about and they promptly pulled out a bag of white powder (which was probably just a sherbet fountain they'd sneakily emptied into a sandwich bag) and offered to demonstrate leading to the programme abruptly cutting to commercial break!

 Whatever, it doesn't matter. What does matter was that These Animal Men represented the sound of '90s indie growing fangs and starting to sound decadent, delicious and dangerous again. With Suede starting to succumb to infighting which would see them slide into inactivity for a couple of years post-Dog Man Star, Blur still being a good six months or so away from commercial lift-off and the Manics still largely stalling outside the Top 20 with their singles despite increasing critical acclaim, there was a brief period where These Animal Men really did look like being the next big thing in British music. "WAKE UP TEENAGE FANCLUB, YOU'RE DEAD!" screamed one headline I remember in the NME at the time. Duly inspired, I went to see them at Leeds Duchess (the first "venue" gig I'd been to since popping that proverbial cherry to Carter about two years earlier - I'd just turned 15 and was sure they'd suss me and throw me out but I somehow managed to sneak it) and the sheer energy and confrontation of the band absolutely blew my mind. It really did feel like this was the way forward being pointed out to us on a cold March night in West Yorkshire.

Looking back, it probably all started to go wrong for These Animal Men right from the first moment that the music press decided that they were going to be the Next Big Thing as it left them with a colossal amount of hype to live up to. They certainly had the looks (spiky black hair, '70s sports gear and wild-eyed amphetamine stares) and their songs referenced the classic dark side of culture - Who's The Daddy Now? was inspired by the dark Borstal movie Scum and their second single You're Not My Babylon was an ode to the notoriously violent '30s US gangster John Dillinger and his girlfriend Billie Franchette. They were definitely a band walking their own path and it was all incredibly exciting. With a number of other punk-influenced groups starting to break through at the time such as S*M*A*S*H* (they of the classic ode to mass murdering Tories I Wanna Kill Somebody), Compulsion, Elastica, Mantaray, Done Lying Down and Blessed Ethel, the NME breathlessly called the scene the New Wave of New Wave and probably instantly put a headstone on the thing by doing so.

By the time of their fourth and best single This Is The Sound Of Youth, These Animal Men were well and truly in the mix as one of my favourite bands. A ferocious ode to spending your teens slogging through soul-destroying menial jobs to get enough money to get enough alcopops and stimulants to make the weekend bearable (as someone who really was "stacking shelves to live for the weekend" at the local Netto, obviously I well and truly gravitated towards it and it's probably no coincidence that overnight my wardrobe suddenly changed to Adidas T-shirts and white jeans and I cut my hair short and spiked it after two years of having it down to my shoulders - I very nearly dyed it black but annoyingly my Mum found the dye I tried to sneak into the house and I got a proper shouting at!). They'd even managed to get on Top of the Pops with Speeed King after the Too Sussed? EP just scraped the Top 40. Unfortunately, something else was starting to stir that would well and truly blow them out of the water, namely Britpop.

It's the same old story - a group comes along with a genuinely original sound but the record industry sees them as being just a bit too uncontrollable to be a "commercially viable prospect" and starts looking around for a band doing the same sort of thing but who are more well-behaved and malleable and less likely to cause the label trouble. The rise of Britpop was clearly the way of the record industry in 1994 saying "yeah, y'know what, we like the idea of this whole NWONW thing but let's try and find some bands who don't continually make proclamations about drug-taking and wanking and don't look all androgynous by wearing mascara and lippie and therefore won't come across as all threatening to mainstream England". Hence instead of the full power rush of TAM and S*M*A*S*H* we got the relatively safe and watered down version of the formula from Oasis and Blur and the legions of imitators that came after them. More fool us.

It's a real shame that by the time These Animal Men had finally got their debut album proper, (Come On, Join) The High Society out that the zeitgeist had well and truly rumbled on without them because it's one of the most under-rated efforts of the era. From the sheer cut-and-thrust of Sharp Kid, This Year's Model and Too Sussed? through the riffed up swagger of Empire Building, Ambulance and Flawed Is Beautiful, it's absolutely killer and really should have been the record to power them on to the big leagues.

Unfortunately by late '94, TAM were already being regarded as last week's news. With drug consumption among the band increasing and them sinking into a vicious circle of paranoia, the line-up started to implode with long time drummer Stevie being ousted and replaced by Rob from S*M*A*S*H* (who'd just broken up themselves). A farce of a performance at Phoenix Festival where their equipment blew out three songs in leading to the band simply sitting around on the stage for the remaining twenty minutes of their set as an increasingly frustrated crowd started chanting "Taxi for These Animal Men!" at them really did seem to sum up the rotten luck they were having. You're Always Right was released as their fifth single as the lead-off track to the Taxi For These Animal Men EP (let it never be said TAM couldn't spot a marketing opportunity when one came along!) with the four new songs backing it up seeing them drifting into more old-skool garage rock territory with a new MC5 influence coming to the fore. 

And then...nothing. For two long years.

It would be early 1997 before These Animal Men reappeared and their image had changed so much that it might as well have been a different band entirely with the group sporting a new leather jackets and pinstripe trousers image. All the more amazing then that what followed was one of the great "crash and burn" albums of all time in the form of their sophomore effort Accident and Emergency. Lead-off single Life Support Machine certainly sounded like nothing they'd done before, like Suede with the '70s glam element well and truly amped up to full effect (Boag's vocals even sounding oddly like Steve Harley in places).

It was nothing compared to what was to follow though - Accident and Emergency really is the sound of a band realising their time is well and truly up, shrugging their shoulders, saying "fuck it" and making the album they've always wanted to make because who the hell's gonna stop them at this point? The sheer adrenalin rush of 24 Hours To Live probably says everything about the mind state of the band while they were recording this while the brooding dark reggae of Going Native, the poison sea shanty of Riverboat Captain and the full on pedal-to-the-metal of April 7th (an ode to Dr Feelgood's Lee Brilleaux unless my ears deceive me) are fine stuff as well. What can I say, if you've not discovered this album yet then you really should rectify that pronto.

I saw TAM supporting the Levellers of all people in the wake of the album’s release but sadly (though arguably unsurprisingly) they weren't long for this world afterwards and would have split by the time 1997 was over. The Accident and Emergency era line-up would resurface, minus bassist Patrick, as soul power rock 'n' rollers Mo Solid Gold in the early years of the millennium. They put out one album Brand New Testament which was a bit hit and miss but still had some great moments such as Personal Saviour and Prince of the New Wave. After that fell through, Boag and guitarist Hooligan would form the more off-the-wall Thee Orphans (who I saw supporting the sadly missed Jonny Cola & The A-Grades in Islington many years ago - they were awesome live but couldn't quite capture that energy in a bottle on record) before Boag moved on to Scare Taxi where he still is now.

Hold yer horses though because for once, this one does have a happy ending. 2015 saw a documentary released about These Animal Men and their fellow NWONW vanguards S*M*A*S*H* called Flawed Is Beautiful. I heartily recommend you watch it if you can find it (I think it's on Netflix and/or Amazon Prime) as it's a real insight into what it's like being at the centre of a hurricane when your band is suddenly flavour of the month only for the plaudits and press to vanish almost as soon as they arrived. Hooligan in particular is an absolute joy to watch in the thing and even 20 odd years later his sheer enthusiasm for the whole thing is well and truly infections.

To celebrate the release of the documentary, the band announced a one-off reformation gig at the Heaven venue in Charing Cross. As I was a London resident by this time, there was no way I was passing this up and duly purchased a ticket. It was amazing to see TAM in a venue about ten times the size of the Duchess where I'd seen them way back in 1994 and well and truly proved just how much of a cult band they'd become in the interim. Clad in their trademark sports tops and skinny jeans (I would've dug mine out of storage but I'm pretty sure there's no way they'd still have fit!) they well and truly rolled back the years to deliver an absolutely killer set (your correspodent's review of it can be found here) and sent us all wandering out into the London autumn night with big grins on our faces.

Do I dare dream it'll happen again? Well, stranger things have occurred. For now though, I really can't recommend both of These Animal Men's albums enough from the sneered-up punk of the debut to the sheer insanity of the follow-up, they really were a band who should have had much more of a bite of the cherry back in the mid-'90s. Also, give the Flawed Is Beautiful documentary a watch if you can find it - it really is essential viewing. Boag, Hooligan, Patrick and Stevie - I salute you sirs.