Garbage Days Revisited #22: The Barracudas - "Drop Out With The Barracudas" (1981)

 

"And now it's gettin' dark, too late to stay between today and yesterday..." - The Barracudas - Somewhere Outside

Talk about a band out of time. The Barracudas were essentially a full on Nuggets style garage rock band who unfortunately crashlanded that crucial 15 years too late right in the middle of the punk explosion. Bursting to fame with a novelty minor hit in Summer Fun, their problem was that no-one really knew what to make of them and after a brilliant but criminally ignored first album, they would sort of fade into obscurity. They managed three albums in total but the second and third ones were only released in France (a nation much more attuned to this sort of music than us Brits at the time) and didn't surface on this side of the Channel until Cherry Red re-released them twenty plus years later. But I'm getting ahead of myself here, let's rewind to the beginning...

The group would form in 1979, put together by Canadian Jeremy Gluck who'd been working as a junior journalist at the Melody Maker. Recruiting guitarist Robin Wills from the ashes of first wave punks the Unwanted (who bizarrely would later mutate into goth perennials Specimen), drummer Nicky Turner from Kurt Cobain approved legendary Cambridge post-punks the Raincoats and bassist Dave Buckley, the group would put out an indie single I Want My Woody Back (named after the type of car popularised by surfers) sounding like a revved up Beach Boys which brought them to the attention of EMI who would sign the band to its punk/garage label Zonophone (also home of the Cockney Rejects, the Angelic Upstarts, Vice Squad and, briefly, the Toy Dolls). The group's first single Summer Fun, gave them a Top 40 hit and was a supremely tuneful slice of summertime Beach Boys style pop - hell, even listening to it in the middle of a thirty degree heatwave as I write this it still sounds good.

Unfortunately it would be the group's one and only hit as subsequent efforts failed to trouble the charts. His Last Summer was a Jan & Dean style ode to "surfin' suicide", clearly aimed as a logical follow up to Summer Fun but (I Wish It Could Be) 1965 Again saw the group shifting their focus slightly from surf pop to classic garage rock like the Seeds and the Standells. Fourth single I Can't Pretend (which really should have been a hit) rammed this home further, a great snotty slice of spite ("I don't need to feel sorry to see the mess you're in/It doesn't break my heart to see you cry") which definitely owed a big debt in its sound to the teenage angst of the mid-'60s.

By the time the group's debut album Drop Out With The Barracudas surfaced in early '81, it's fair to say that Zonophone had pretty much given up on 'em and it failed to really do anything chart-wise. A real shame because it's a great album which fully bears rediscovering. Divided into a dark side and light side, the first side contains some supremely sinister musings on mortality such as We're Living In Violent Times, Don't Let Go, a lurching cover of the Charlatans' ('60s US version not the better known UK band) Codeine and the frenetic This Is My Time which sees Wills' spiralling guitar work, Turner's ultra-frenetic drumming and Gluck's supremely paranoid vocals combining to devastating effect.

By contrast, Somewhere Outside which closes side one is a lovely twelve-string led wistful look at trying to move your life forward ("I'm lookin' everywhere, tryin' to find a way, before the dark clouds cover up what's left of the day") and is still my favourite tune on this album (without wanting to sound morbid, I'd like to put it on record that I want this song played at my funeral). Just genuinely lovely stuff which everyone should listen to.

On the surface of it, side two seems a lot more light and poppy with the likes of Summer Fun and 1965 Again making an appearance plus others such as On The Strip but there's still a fair bit of darkness lurking underneath such as on the defiant Somebody, Campus Tramp's tale of teenage heartbreak and the sinister California Lament which tells of a guy trying to make his way to the Golden State only for the plane he's on to be blown up by a terrorist before it can land. The first time I heard it was a year or so after 9/11 where people were still very paranoid about this sort of thing and it definitely sounded disturbingly relevant.

EMI would wind Zonophone up towards the end of 1981 and the Barracudas would find themselves between labels. It was around this time that Nicky Turner jumped ship after Stiv Bators and Brian James poached him for their new Lords of the New Church group. He would be replaced by Graham Potter formerly of the Little Roosters, fronted by ex-Cock Sparrer man Garry Lammin (and another group whose album may well be a future GDR entry). The group would also switch bassists with Jim Dickson replacing Dave Buckley. Although there was little interest in the UK, Drop Out had done much better in France and the group would secure a new deal there with Closer records after a brief spell with Flicknife for the Inside Mind and Next Time Around singles which saw them going in a more psychedelic direction (as indeed a lot of former power pop and mod revival bands did around this time, even a few one-time punks were getting in on the act!). They would also pull off a major coup by expanding to a five piece by bringing in Chris Wilson who had just left legenday San Francisco garage rockers the Flamin' Groovies after helping to co-write their acclaimed '70s albums Shake Some Action, Now and Jump In The Night.

The resulting album, 1983's Mean Time actually included quite a few songs that the Drop Out era line-up had demoed for a possible second album before their Zonophone deal fell through and the likes of Grammar of Misery and the ultra-sinister Dead Skin are particular highlights. However, the band would last for just one further album, 1984's Endeavour To Persevere, before quietly dissolving. Gluck would go on to do a collaboration album with the late Nikki Sudden, formerly of Swell Maps and the Jacobites (another group who are likely to feature on GDR at some point) called I Knew Buffalo Bill which went even further into psychedelic territory and is definitely worth a curiosity listen.

Gluck and Wills have reformed the Barracudas a few times since and your correspondent was lucky enough to finally catch them live headlining the first Pump It Up Powerpop Festival in Finsbury Park in 2018. They rolled back the years to put on a great set and from what I remember (I seem to remember a girl I was friends with suggesting that we should all drink some absinthe which might not have been the best idea we've ever had...) I had an absolute blast. Anyway, I've often waxed lyrical in these columns how I'm a sucker for any album that coats dark subjects in a sugar pop sweetness and Drop Out is a fine example of that - great pop hooks, killer choruses but some deceptively deep lyrics lurking underneath. I really can't recommend it enough - go out and give it a spin and here's hoping we get some more Barracudas gigs in the near future.