IT'S TIME FOR... FIVE THIRTY. THE TARA MILTON INTERVIEW (2018)

“Five Thirty are a blissed out, centrifuged guitar pop trio. Every song, and they’ve got more than they know what to do with, rushes at you with hot, sweaty, power.” Sounds, 1990

In Brett Anderson’s recent memoir, Coal Black Mornings, he writes how a fledging Suede attended gigs at the University of London Union to watch “now forgotten, marginal bands like Five Thirty” and “drench ourselves in the giddy world of dry ice and the squeal of feedback, the press of bodies and the thrill of noise”.  One can debate the contradiction of recalling something now forgotten, bristle at Brett’s use of marginal, but his description of Five Thirty as they exploded onto the live music scene in 1990 is on the money.

Placing them at the ULU is significant too as it was there during a Friday afternoon showcase organised by their friend Jon Leslie-Smith, a member of the student union, the band lit the fuse for a record company bidding war. Gary Crowley, then doing A&R for Island, recently said he thought all his Christmases and birthdays had come at once due to the band “sounding like a cross between The Jam and The Stones Roses”.

Island eventually lost out to East-West and during the following 18 months Tara Milton (vocals/bass), Paul Bassett (vocals/guitar) and Phil Hopper (drums/vocals) released five singles (most consider them EPs as the three or four tracks on every 12 inch were essential), an album and played a continuous string of electrifying live shows. A formidable and versatile act, blessed with two gifted songwriters in Tara and Paul, they then shot themselves in the foot by carelessly losing drummer Phil, then hobbled along for the best part of a stuttering and mostly silent year before being quietly to put to sleep. It was a strange end; a band whose star burned so brightly, fading away, almost unnoticed.

Five years before ‘Abstain’, then as The 5:30!, they were a second-tier Mod band. Young and inexperienced they played on a few Mod bills, most notably Clacton Mod Rally and the Mod-Aid Alldayer in Walthamstow and released their ‘Catcher In The Rye’ EP. Few would have predicted of all the Mod bands knocking around in ’85 it would be they who’d subsequently achieve a degree of commercial success and create a collection of recordings that still hold up today. No band has made an album I’ve listened to as often as Bed.

Only Tara Milton remained from that early Mod incarnation but it’s important to note here Tara’s schoolfriend Chris Drew, who tirelessly championed his mates from the start, sending off introductory articles to the network of often unforgiving Modzines and ran the grandly named 5:30 Information Service. Chris remained a constant in the band for the rest of his life: designing record sleeves, logos, backdrops, painting guitars and being a creative confidant.

Fast forward to 2018 and Tara Milton – baker boy cap jauntily placed, vintage Adidas, old Jam badge on his lapel – is sat opposite me in a pub down the road from the Small Faces’ former home in Pimlico talking about releasing his debut solo album, Serpentine Waltz, on Steve Marriott’s birthday. It’s a wonderful record that is quite rightly receiving across-the-board rave reviews. Cinematic, literate, disconcerting; a series of vignettes from the darkest corners of city life. After discussing the record (see piece in Shindig magazine) we turned our attention to Five Thirty.

What follows is an in-depth look at the band; grab a cuppa and a biscuit, make time for it. Enormous thanks to Tara for his patience at my probing – I can’t lie, I was borderline obsessed with Five Thirty, traipsing around the country nearly 25 times, cutting out every mention I’d find the music press – and his thoughtfulness and candidness in his replies. It sometimes felt these were memories that had lay dormant until I came poking around but it’s a story that hasn’t been told before. 

Read the interview at Modculture.

Serpentine Waltz is out now and available from taramilton.co.uk

HEAVY SOUL! ISSUE 1

Is there a need for fanzines or are they simply a quaint throwback to pre-internet days? My hunch is like elsewhere in the publishing game it’s increasingly difficult to sell what people can get quicker, easier, and cost-free elsewhere so any fanzine will need to offer something different. Beat Scene, covering the beat generation, is a good example where I can’t think of an internet equivalent covering the ground it does in reviews, articles and interviews. Their website supports the magazine without duplicating it, making the printed version essential.

Throwing its 26 stapled A4 pages into the almost empty ring is Heavy Soul! - “A fanzine for today’s sussed generation”. One might call it a modzine. It has a big target on the cover and a random picture of Steve Marriott as clues. It costs £2.99 and another £1.50 postage and includes a free four track EP. The editor wrote on the Modculture forum he was “trying to get back to that authentic 80s/90s style of zine. Amateurish but readable”. I’d gladly take an enthusiastic amateur over a weary professional but thinking back to old zines of yore I wonder which ones acted as inspiration.

The best ones, even twenty five years later, stick in my memory. Extraordinary Sensations was a trailblazer both for content and opinion, Go-Go did an astonishing job in producing a monthly issue that pushed the generally accepted musical boundaries of the young moddybods, The In-Crowd was a blinking eyesore but covered every tin pot band in laudable detail, The Right Track made me laugh, and the production values and unique attitude of Hipster were outstanding. Then there were heaps of other simple cut and paste jobbies, now forgotten, that although crap at least had an undeniable passion in them. They were all very amateurish (bar Hipster) but did their best and acted as little central hubs of communication.

Does any of this apply to Heavy Soul!, you may ask. The fact I’ve built up to the answer suggests not and although I’m loathe to be too critical if I don’t offer some, hopefully constructive, balance no-one will and all you’ll read is “brilliant fanzine” comments on Modculture, when clearly it isn’t. It doesn’t come close to touching any of those attributes mentioned above and more importantly it stirs little passion or enthusiasm in its subject. Fanzines should be a labour of love, this looks like an ugly child born begrudging out of need. That need? For Rowed Out Records to offload its unsold stock.

One strong selling point is “our friends at Rowed Out Records have kindly donated one of their first and now collectable EPs”. Those “friends” feature quite a lot. Lots of advertising, promotional gumph and even a record review of “another storming release on the productive Rowed Out label”. Because, it seems, they are one and the same and Heavy Soul! is a convenient way to shift those “collectable” EPs (four current bands) that have been gathering dust for three years. I say “it seems” because the fanzine, incredibly, includes no contact details whatsoever. No name, no address, not even an e-mail. Who’d produce a mag and not put their name to it? Who’d not want people to get in touch? Bit weird. No editorial or introduction either. Odd. I’ve no problem with Rowed Out producing a fanzine; it makes good business sense, just no need to be so damn disingenuous and underhand about it. It could actually work well tying the two together. I’ve no idea how many copies they sell of their singles (low hundreds max) and I’ve never bought one before but would be more inclined to buy a fanzine with a free record than buy a single on its own and vice versa.

But, of course, that fanzine needs to have something to read in it (and something to say) and I’ve probably spent longer writing this review than any of the articles here. Heavy Soul! doesn’t say anything. It is mostly pages of filler, stolen filler at that. Two pages for Randy Cozens’ Mod Top 100. Oh Lordy, how many times has that been published over the last 31 years? It’s not relevant now, merely an old curio, mildly interesting, and yet it’s cut and pasted straight from a Modculture feature less than a year ago. Another page for DJ playlists, again lifted (uncredited) from Modculture a matter of weeks ago. Two pages about Pauline Boty. That’s more interesting, and it’s well written – it should be; it first appeared in the The Guardian. What about northern soul cover ups? The list is so ancient it’s totally pointless and looks suspiciously like something pinched from northern soul fanzine Soulful Kinda Music. Want a Slim Harpo discography? Use the internet. I’m paying for what I’ve read already here. Have I got mug written on my forehead? It’s lazy and insulting. A tick though, finally, for the review and photos of the recent Welcome To Dreamsville Mod Rally - a new piece (I think, I hope, I pray) by Keith Jones that gives a good sense of what the event was like. Hallelujah. More please. There are some single “reviews” but they’re so flimsy they read like adverts (bet they are) rather than genuine reviews. There’s a page plug for a Rowed Out band. Why not interview them instead? Write a feature? Fuck’s sake.

It isn’t 1985, 1995, or even 2005 any longer. It’s 2010 and the bar has been raised – by technology, by experience, by demand - things should be measured against that, especially if you’re charging increasingly hard earned money. Today’s “sussed generation” surely deserve better.

Heavy Soul! is available via eBay.
Modculture is available here.

THE SCHOOL - LOVELESS UNBELIEVER

Howdy pop pickers. I've reviewed this album over at Electric Roulette and Modculture. Rather than repeat it again, here's the video to the opening track "Let It Slip".

Loveless Unbeliever by The School is released on Elefant Records.

DOUBLE BREASTED ISSUE SIX

Fanzine editors, don’t know they’re bloody born. Back when I were a lad (cue Hovis music) I’d be there in my bedroom, kneeling on the floor, leaning on the bed, using my Prehistoric Animals book as a table, armed with a portable Woolworth’s typewriter, some scissors, some Pritt Stick and a wad of third generation photocopies of pictures of The Action, spouting off about records, books, clubs and whatnot. You can imagine the result: not unlike an uglier MonkeyPicks but with more spelling mistakes and even worse grammar (if you can believe that).

But that was then, things move on, and I’ve nothing but admiration for those who continue to self publish in paper and ink like the trio responsible for the unashamedly Mod, Double Breasted. Issue six is the first one I’ve seen since the first couple and it has really come on in leaps and bounds. Along with a strong layout and design (no sign of Pritt Stick) there’s plenty to read. Next to the usual club pieces, record and book reviews, and adverts dressed as articles, the big scoop for me is the interview with Stan Lewis who formed the R&B label Jewel Records in 1963. Good work. I also like the interview with Dave Walker from the Modculture website whose curmudgeonly mood contrasts nicely with the everything’s fab tone of much of the rest. If I was going to offer one piece of constructive criticism (which I am) then it would be for a stronger editorial personality to come through.

I got my copy from my tailor George Dyer (Threadneedleman), who is featured here and now I’ve given him another plug I’ll be looking for a few bob off my next hipsters, but I think it costs about £3. Find them on Facebook or e-mail them at doublebreasted@hotmail.com. The next issue is due in June.

I'M NOT LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE: THE 1990s BRITISH MOD SCENE by ENAMEL VERGUREN

This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours.

I started to write a quick review of the above and it ended up as a long look at the 90s mod scene. It begins:

"Go grab a cup of tea, pull up a comfy chair or click away now, because you’re about to get a chunk of my life story, wrapped in a history lesson, masquerading as a book review..."

To continue reading the whole epic yarn, see Modculture.co.uk.

I'm off for a lie down.

GEORGIE FAME - MOD CLASSICS: 1964-1966

A fabulous new Georgie Fame collection, Mod Classics: 1964-1966, was released on Monday and Monkey Mansions has swung to little else all week. To read my gushing review, see over at Modculture. Rather than repeat it here, let’s instead watch the man at the NME Poll Winners Party, Wembley in 1965. You’ll have to grit your teeth to get past Jimmy Saville but it’ll be worth it.

Georgie Fame – Mod Classics: 1964-1966 is released by BGP.