SHRIEKBACK ....ON A SHORT FUSE

SHRIEKBACK ....ON A SHORT FUSE

FEATURES

Caroline Sullivan

By

“I’m bald so a lot of people think I’m a weirdo,” grins Barry Andrews, the weird, bald one in Shriekback. “This woman came up to me on the tube the other day and said, ‘You’re following me, you’re from Amon, aren’t you?’ It’s apparently some sort of cult. I’m not sure of the nature of it. We had a brief altercation, in which I was outraged to be wrongly accused, and she said ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, but these people have been ringing me up.’ I found it quite interesting that a shaved head is a cipher for that.”

There’s this tacit import/export arrangement ’twixt the U.S. and the UK, and it goes like this: truly groovesome American artists who can’t get a hit at home are virtually assured of a rapturous reception in Britain, while Blighty’s most tedious, stadium-oriented rock-types, the ones who do zippo business indigenously, invariably hit pay dirt Stateside. Thus, you sent us the Stray Cats and the glorious Was (Not Was), while we fobbed you off with (haw! haw!) the Outfield and Foghat. Sometimes, though, the process goes skewiffy, and you guys over there end up with.a Brit band that ought to have made it big on their home turf.

Which is how Barry Andrews came to be riding tubes and sitting around pubs (this one’s in the shadow of the Cannon Street railroad bridge, London SE1, exotica fans), and, y’know, relating tales of ordinary madness when, in America, he’s accustomed to limos and radio play and big acclaim. Shriekback’s first two U.S. albums, (the preceding two, Tench and Jam Science, were UK-only releases) have sent them to the top of various charts and propelled them to the top echelon of cultdom. Their new release, Go Bang!, should turbo-charge them the rest of the way up. Shriekback will, I prophesy, be on the coliseum circuit any month now.

Go Bang! is more of what made Shriekback so cryptically lovable in the first place. There’s voluptuous, dreamy sensuousness in “Over the Wire” and “Night Town” and raving danceability in “New Man” and “Shark Walk.” There’s even a nod to the currently-cool-in-London 70s revival with their cover of KC’s “Get Down Tonight.” Pretty chart-happy stuff, I say. What say you, Barry? Are

you frustrated at not being a bigger deal at home?

“I’m not that bothered about Britain,” he claims, nibbling at a half pint of lager. “Shriekback’s raison d’etre has always been to be something that seems to us to be forward-looking and exciting and creative and all those other old-fashioned things.

“The attitude in Britain is such ... it’s got to do with being a small place and, so, consequently susceptible to the overall control of the national press and radio. You can have a national phenomenon in two days.” (True! Just look at the case of Mark Moore, six months ago an arcane London club-DJ, five-and-a-half months ago number one in the UK charts with his “Theme from S’Express.”) You can’t do that in America. Consequently, you have to contend with whatever the prevailing attitude is in Britain. There aren’t really any alternatives the way there are in the States, and Shriekback have historically been an alternative group. I think there are aspects of our music that will never appeal to Reg and Doris Punter in Ealing. If we wanted to succeed in Britain we’d have to be Kylie Minogue, or something, and that’s so far from what we want to do that it’s not even a question of frustration.”

Barry was, of course, in XTC, sticking with Swindon’s seminal new wavers for two albums. XTC were verbose punmeisters—unusual in an era that deified the post-punk popthrash simplicity of, say, 999. Shriekback have always been renowned for their lyrical dexterity, and half an hour’s drinking-time ripostry with Andrews, whence the lyrics come, leaves yours truly fumbling for snappy comebacks. With the recent advent of wall-of-noise outfits like Megadeth and a-Grumh, however, wordplay in songs seems to have been devalued. Whaddya think, Barry?

“Speaking as an ex-XTC, I never liked wordplay that much. It always seemed quite naive, in that you’d be making incredibly labored puns—no, I can’t think of an example,” he anticipates. "You know the kind of thing I mean, the sort of thing that leads you to say, That person writes clever lyrics.’ You can see they’re re-using naive poetic tricks. Stuff that would have been old-fashioned in T.S. Eliot’s time is being touted as ‘Look, we’re dealing with some heavyweight lyricist here.’ Elvis Costello, he’s never pleased me very much. I like words when they’re a lot simpler and more elusive, so what they leave you with is a kind of dreamlike impression.”

Photo by

“Dreamlike" as in “seductive, drugged, opiate,” the feelings evoked by your exemplary Shrieksong?

"I don’t know about your dreams—I go to sleep quite straight and soberly.”

You know—like that trance state you created in the “Hand On Your Heart” single?

“I think it’s interesting the way that, with the conscious, waking mind we think about our dreams as being misty and vague. But when you’re actually in a dream, it’s anything but misty and vague. Your dad’s coming toward you with a pick-axe and you can’t run because your feet are in treacle. It’s like there and real."

Has your dad?

“Only in my dreams, baby. I had one where I was climbing a huge column in the middle of the sea and when I got to the top there was a huge, saber-toothed bulldog with slavering jaws that was coming at me. I knew if I fell back in the sea I’d drown, or die of exposure ’cos it was a cold sea, and if I carried on up I’d be horribly disfigured by a bulldog.” ’Tween a bulldog and the deep blue sea, huh? “So what happened? I flew.”

Barry’s amour turns up, her pockets full of shells. She’s spent the interview beachcombing along the south bank of the Thames, just under London Bridge. An incoming tide has forced her out of the briny. Barry inspects the haul.

“They’re oyster shells. Obviously thrown off the bridge by some bon viveur. Uh ... I have to go to New York tomorrow and this is our last night together for a while, so is there anything else you need to know?”

Let the curtain fall discreetly over Barry and Julie as they sort through the oyster shells. 0