Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Content
- Foreword by Suggs
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Tramcar to Frankenstein
- 2 Didn't You Have a Beard?
- 3 ‘It Was the Death of the Loon’
- 4 Bunny Money
- 5 The Invisible River: A Liverpool Interlude
- 6 Hypertension
- 7 America Was Our Hamburg
- 8 ‘Sound of Rock Fades for Deaf School’
- 9 The Stopped Clock
- 10 That Thread of Affinity
- 11 In Town Tonight!
- Epilogue: Deaf School and the Icelandic Constitution
- Appendix: Liverpoem, by Tim Whittaker
- UK Discography
- Sources
- Index
- platesection
2 - Didn't You Have a Beard?
- Frontmatter
- Content
- Foreword by Suggs
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Tramcar to Frankenstein
- 2 Didn't You Have a Beard?
- 3 ‘It Was the Death of the Loon’
- 4 Bunny Money
- 5 The Invisible River: A Liverpool Interlude
- 6 Hypertension
- 7 America Was Our Hamburg
- 8 ‘Sound of Rock Fades for Deaf School’
- 9 The Stopped Clock
- 10 That Thread of Affinity
- 11 In Town Tonight!
- Epilogue: Deaf School and the Icelandic Constitution
- Appendix: Liverpoem, by Tim Whittaker
- UK Discography
- Sources
- Index
- platesection
Summary
The Randy Vicar – The Sage of Accrington
– The Portsmouth SinfoniaThey were not ‘Deaf School’ immediately. ‘I wanted to call the band Counterculture,’ says Clive. ‘But it was just a bit Guardian, a bit Hampstead. Or the other name I was pushing for was the Rovers, but it sounded like a folk band.’ One of their singers, Sandra, recalls someone suggesting Bex Bissell & the Carpet Sweepers.
Nobody asked about your musical aptitude. Clive Langer:
The idea behind Deaf School at the beginning was not about choosing people who could play the best. Music was in a frightening state, and normally the people who could play the best were playing bad rock music. So we wanted people who could play enough to get by, but who looked good or had something very interesting to offer. It was partly through our lack of musical ability that the sound of Deaf School was created.
At that time people's clothing was mainly very boring, it was flared loons and the girls wore dresses that were like curtains, skirts straight from the waist down to the floor, a bit bedraggled. And even glam was coming to an end, or was very commercial. The Kilburns were inspirational in the way they dressed, with old suits. I had a suit made at college with images from Exchange & Mart stamped on it, that Steve Hardstaff made for me. And seeing Ian Dury mixing and matching different clothes, I had a demob suit that cost nothing and it looked good with short hair.
The girls were allowed to do whatever they wanted; later the Bright Sisters became a bit more organised but initially there was four or five of them. They were just there because they were girls at college that we fancied or liked.
While they acquired accomplices, Steve and Clive were also writing material. Their first effort, ‘Ding Dong’, was inspired by the doorbell campaign for Avon cosmetics. Another, ‘Wah Ching’, was prompted by New York graffiti. Having, as yet, no expectation of making records they wrote songs specifically for live performance. And performance, in their eyes, was not confined to music.
- Type
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- Information
- Deaf SchoolThe Non-Stop Pop Art Punk Rock Party, pp. 23 - 46Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2013