Brixton Tube, 11.45am: Searching for the Young Dole Rebels, I can't find them anywhere! Where have you hidden them? A sharp looking youth in a spivvy camel hair eyballs my red carnation button-hole, sidles over and leers from tight pressed lips.
"Hi, I'm from the Sid Presley Experience. We live live from day to day and that's none of your existential bullshit.
ROCK'N'ROLL
"Rock'n'rolls not playing 'Johnny B. Goode' all night or any of your DANGDANGDANG suck my muscles Gothic crap. What we call rockin' roll, right, is energy. The Pistols, Chuck Berry. When I hear Jerry Lee Lewis it makes me want to pull out me hair and scream. It's music to rip up cinema seats to, it's an upper."
The S.P.E. play the sort of music that tempts young people to pull their hair out, scream and splash the nearest cinema seat. They are not taking the piss.
CLICHED
"Cliched! What? I'll tell you something about the music papers an' his won't cost you nothing, right? When we run out of toilet paper we stick the NME in there. Cliches! You got two twots like D---- W---- who's supposed to know all about music an' you tell him you're in a rock'n'roll bankd and he says (simpers): 'It thought it was dead. Johnny Rotten killed it off'. I said, Tough shit to that mate! That bland faker Weller is going on about how he hated rock music -- what's he been playing for the last six years -- bleedin' calypso?"
A band with a social conscience?
"Too fuggin' right! If these flats get cold tonight these walls are goona sweat an' there's people trying to bring up kids here, you can't ignore it. We play 1984 rock'n'roll--not Cadillacs and quiff--but now!"
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT.
"Come out with your hand up!!!!!
Why don't you come and get me?!!?
Ratatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatar!
eeeeaweeeeaewwwwaewwwwwaewwwwaewwwwwaewwwwaw . . . "
Lyrics from 'Public Enemy No. 1.;
Front page tabloid spreads of John Wesley Harding, the wretched 'Dino; and the I.N.L.A's Dominic 'Mag Dog' (sic) McGlinchey, the murderous, the maligned and the motivated, adorn the sitting room walls. The song, a screaming guitar dub, was written BEFORE Steven Waldorf was quite justifiably shot six times and then pistol whipped by gun slinging peelers for having the wrong haircut.
STAGE GEAR.
"If we went on stage in four identical leather jackets and spiky hairdo's--in six months we'd have 4000 leather jackets, 4000 spiky haircuts following us--Worralowacrap!"
IMAGE.
"We haven't got an image--we just got style!"
THE LIVING DEAD.
"Sid Vicious--Elvis Presley--The Jimi Hendrix Experience. Three stiffs in the name and four live blokes in the band. If we have a name like 'The Exploited' we'd be stuck in a musical shoe box (giggles) -- imagine being exploited by The Exploited."
Do you think it's now hip to be upwardly socially mobile?
"Yeah, Middle class and homosexual is hwere it's at man."
The Sid Presley Experience are:
Peter Coyne: vocals, enforced vegetarianism.
Kevin Murphy: natural aristocrat and drums (absent).
Del Bartle: guitar, shy, strong and silent.
Chris Coyne: ex-port star and amateur mechanic.
Steve: financial advisor and roadie.
BOMB CULTURE.
"Kids go round these days right -- Nuclear Kids -- 'You drop it -- big fucking deal! So what? Sniffin' Glue? Why not? Why should I stop going to die anyway? Look at Vivien's sister, 'What's the point of me living -- getting a boyfriend together -- having kids -- to bring them into what? Nothing! You don't need the pill anymore in this country -- you got the Government -- the biggest contraceptive going!"
GROUPIES.
"Nah. Got more attention off women what I was a labourer."
The photographer interjects: "This is what we term a Negative Groupie Quotient."
"What-sort of fuggin' stupid question is that anyway? Do you want us to come out with a load of Alien Sex Fiend bollocks about shaggin' bats or something?"
Despite being thoroughly obnoxious, The Sid Presley Experience are quite the most honest set of rock careerists I've ever had screeam at me for 90 minutes. Their overriding obsession seems to be with hard and fast, straight from the shoulder guitar music. Their first single ('Public Enemy No. 1' 'Hup One Two Three Four') is out SOON, sounding like a Johnny And The Hurricanes pumped through a cyclone. Get Hip and Dig It whilst it's still small and snotty.
- Susan Williams / Photo by Derek Ridgers