For forty years The Stranglers have been a part of the British way of life, a group of musicians who raised a fantastic two fingers up to anyone who doubted their ability, who threw scorn upon them from every angle and who perhaps may have suggested that the band were no better than the groups around them who would perhaps disintegrate quicker than cheap soap in a washtub.
For me, the band captured my heart in 1982, a lot later than most but in the years between they have become the group I have had the pleasure of seeing more times than any other save Marillion, I have not written about any set of musicians more and it is with foot-dragging reluctance that the time has come to let the sun go down on my time watching them live, to let the memories remain intact and bathe in the beauty of recall. My decision is purely one that I undertake before the time comes when the touring stops, when the moment comes that being at the front, (The Stranglers are the only ones that I cannot watch from a distance, the call to arms, the joy in watching someone that close whilst bouncing in a wheelchair being too much of a pull) is taken away from me. I want to remain in love with a band that has given millions pleasure, I want to remain Unbroken.
With other bands the moment comes before you realise it, the group split up perhaps, they announce their retirement after a great tour and you’re left feeling the sadness of bereavement without an outlet. For me the time is right to bow my head respectively to the group that gave me tracks in which to rage against the dying of the light, albums in which I have adored, (chiefly No More Heroes, Feline, The Gospel According To TheMenInBlack, Norfolk Coast and Suite XVI, to give one final salute the men who have been part of my life.
No More Heroes…technically no longer a member of The Stranglers, ask any fan of the band and they will always say that Hugh Cornwell’s spirit still resounds and lives in the ether of any venue The Men in Black play in. It is impossible to listen to certain tracks without memories of the man creeping into the equation. The night my beloved Grandfather passed on, I was in Inverness with my wife, forever affectionately known as Mrs Pooh Bear, enjoying Hugh’s company, his music and catching up with a man who was a big part of my teenage years. The Ironworks in Inverness is a terrific venue but will forever have the recollection in later years of switching on the phone at the end of the gig to a thousand frantic calls from my distraught mother pleading with me to get in touch as Granddad Topp had finally succumbed to cancer.
It is a measure of the man that he as he saw me rush to the nearest toilet and let out a wail of bereavement , he found my wife and consoled her and kept an eye on her as I was incapable of doing so. For that Hugh will always be a hero.
J.J. Burnell was the only man I have ever come across in my life that I would have wanted to swap places with in an instant; trade lives with or even be half as talented as the man who wields a bass like he is going into battle. There will always be conquerors, they come along with frightening regularity, but there are few that you want to be. On the football field I wanted to emulate Bobby Moore, on the stage I wanted to be like Alan Alda, in poetry I wanted to emulate Jack Kerouc and in life I wanted to be as respected as my Granddad and father but not one of them would I have swapped places with unlike J.J. Burnell.
Jet Black is a legend, a true gentleman in life and one of the reasons in which my decision to call it a day rests upon. It is Jet’s band and without him leading from the back of the stage, the rhythm of a genius, the tenacity and drive of a man refusing to let the fans down and who continues to do things in his 70s that most men would, myself included, think twice at 43. Jim Macauley also deserves a huge mention for his dedicated way of standing in flawlessly in recent times behind the skins and of course without whom perhaps the band could not have continued playing live, at least not in the same way.
Dave Greenfield is perhaps arguably one of the most gifted performers you are ever likely to see on stage and it with a huge amount of shame that I never realised for many years just how great he was, just how much like he controlled the music in the same way as Ray Manzerak from The Doors, an intelligence in perfectness, a sublime character in whom the talent of The Stranglers would perhaps be missed.
Finally Baz Warne, a new hero to me since he came into the band and somebody who I have had the utter pleasure in interviewing a couple of times and somebody who made me so welcome at any gig that I could not help but look up to him. The assuredness of compelling guitar, of the humility required when stepping alongside three legends and watching the man himself become a marvel that would brighten anybody’s day. Even interviewing him on the phone after having put flowers on my Granddad’s grave and being told with the expected tremendous pleasure that J.J. was cooking for him and the pinny he was wearing looked gorgeous made me grin uncontrollably.
I cannot comment on Paul Roberts as I only saw the band once with him at the helm, it was first time back after many years away in reasons that are too numerous and to be fair far too boring to talk over but if it helps, Norfolk Coast wouldn’t have been the beast that it was without.
No more Heroes…This is of course unimaginable, there will always be heroes, you just have to dig deep and find them, for every band you lose upon the way there are ten more waiting for your support, their music pausing patiently to be discovered by you and the initial time you see them live you might just have the same reaction as when you first saw your initial heroes, the big men and women on stage who scoop up your fallen heart and smile with pleasure as the beat of a new guitar starts, the kick of a drum booms and rebounds round the room and the first stirrings of a great lyric grab your attention and make your heart beat that little quicker.
From gigs in Oxford and Birmingham as a young lad, only recently having found out that my Granddad didn’t drop me in it with my parents when I was fortunate enough to see them whilst stopping at his house, to being able to review them at the Robin 2 in Bilston, (my second ever published review but the first I requested) to listening with the excited glee of a boy receiving their first football top as the albums kept coming and the gigs got bigger, louder and generous, to being used as a footstool or static ladder by a man with the intelligence of a dozy wasp in the crowd who thought they could take on J.J. after throwing a bottle of water at him, there is not one moment I would change.
For me it was Golden Brown and like bands such as Marillion, Pink Floyd, Genesis, Supertramp, Icicle Works, The Alarm, Pete Wylie, Queen, Iron Maiden and Megadeth the music has enthused me, has made me fall in love in ways that the fairer sex has never quite managed and continues with groups that I have come across in the last ten years since I made the home of real music my adopted natural soil. Groups and artists such as The Mono L.Ps, Jo Bywater, Jessica’s Ghost, Me and Deboe, Ian Prowse and Natalie McCool have come along and further thrilled me. However without The Stranglers and Marillion I might not have ever become the man I am and for that in their 40th year and my 39th and final reluctanty gig I thank the Men In Black and know that come the morning after I shall shed more than 96 Tears.
Ian D. Hall