Jamming! No.18 March 1984, 50p

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Back to top	Front Cover   SPECIAL!   THE REVAMPED JERRY DAMMERS   BIG COUNTRY GENERAL PUBLIC   UNDER TWO FLAGS DAVID JENSEN · STEEL PULSE NEW MODEL ARMY   EXCLUSIVE TO THIS ISSUE A NEW OPTIMISM JAMMING!'S COMPILATION ALBUM   FEATURING:- THE ALARM · THE SMITHS · THE ICICLE WORKS WAH! · BILLY BRAG · AND MANY MORE · DETAILS INSIDE
Back to top	Page 2   2x Half-page adverts:   R.E.M. S.CENTRAL RAIN THE ALARM THE DECEIVER (B.W. REASON 41) NEW SINGLE OUT NOW   Page 3 - WHAT'S IN...   21. Back Issues. 23. Look out for them on 'A New Optimism': SUPERHEAVEN 24. For all the readers who've been requesting this for ages, the long-awaited BIG COUNTRY interview. 27. Final part of the BIG COUNTRY interview. 31. LETTERS
Back to top	Page 21   BACK ISSUES   Admist tales of early Jammings! fetching black market prices of £5 a head, here is the official list of available issues. All mags are 75p each including post and packing, while the whole lot will set you back a mere £5.40.   No. 11 - The Beat/Dead Kennedys/The Shout/Zeitgest/Fanzines A-M/Jam etc.   No. 13 - Paul McCartney interview part 1/Scritti Politti/Bluebells/Birthday Party/Weller on Pop/TV21 in Poland/Pirate Radio/Sex Gang Children/Poetry/U.S. Scene etc.   No. 14 - Paul McCartney interview part 2/Dexys Midnight Runners/The Alarm/Aztec Camera/Cocteau Twins/Crass and Dirt in Belfast/Victor Romero Evans/Books To Grow Up With.   No. 15 - Elvis Costello/Echo And The Bunnymen/Bruce Foxton/Carmel/The Truth/U2 and Alarm in America/Fantastic Something/Poetry etc.
Back to top	Page 23   A NEW OPTIMISM   As promised in the last issue, this time round we are bringing you a special offer, Jamming!'s own compilation album, entitled 'A New Optimism'. The idea behind this record is to say to people "This is what we've been writing about over the last couple of years," and to that effect, we have mixed well-known bands with total unknowns. In fact, when we started putting this album together before Christmas, the only bands to have got anywhere were The Alarm, & Wah!, and so the subsequent success of The Icicle Works, and Billy Bragg, and the growing stature of The Redskins, R.E.M. and Zerra I proves that you'd better get in quick before the other groups become chart-bound as well!   'A New Optimism' is almost totally comprised of tracks either unreleased here or recorded especially for the album. It has been put together with the help of Situation 2 Records, to whom we are most grateful. We are offering this album to Jamming! readers at a special price of E3.45 (inc. VAT) plus post and packing. 'A New Optimism' is available as either record or cassette, both with a full colour cover and informative sleeve notes. 'A New Optimism' is not a shabby compilation tape or record-company assisted promo album; it's a quality compilation that we expect to stand up on it's own merits.   'A New Optimism' will be released on April 2. At the time of going to press, the track listing is as follows:—   THE ICICLE WORKS: Waterline. A new version from that on the b-side of 'Love Is A Wonderful Colour', this is the way it was always meant to sound. Not featured on the group's debut LP.   THE CLIMB: A Wanted Man's Woman. The first vinyl offering from this much talked about, and potentially enormous band.   WAH: Body And Soul. This is the first new material from Wah! in a year; unavailable elsewhere, it's a taster from their long-awaited second album.   ZERRA 1: The Banner Of Love. The hit that wasn't. Now signed to Phonogram, we've included Zerra I's last single so that more people can hear this great song.   THE ALARM: Unsafe Building. Their first single, of which only 2,000 copies were ever pressed, is now changing hands for £15 a head. This gives you all a chance to hear it."   SUPERHEAVEN: Stronger. Ex Rudi, this is Superheaven's first vinyl Offering and shows a marked change from Rudi's well-known sound.   BILLY BRAGG: The Man The Iron Mask. Recorded especially for the album, this is Billy's first non-solo vinyl release, a noticably different version from that on the 'Life Is A Riot' mini-LP.   APOCALYPSE: Don't Stop. Their first vinyl in over a year, this shows the sound one can expect from their future EMI releases.   R.E.M.: Gardening At Night. The much-talked about group from Georgia, USA, have given us this, their first release, previously unavailable in Britain.   THE REFLECTIONS Flower Girl. Again, recorded especially for the album, this is a promising sample from the up-and-coming Scottish group.   UNDER TWO FLAGS: Although the actual title is yet to be confirmed, Under Two Flags, with one big indie hit already behind them, are recording their song especially for the album.   THE SMITHS: Wonderful Woman. At the time of going to press, this track is still unconfirmed, but we hope to be bringing you this unreleased Smiths classic from a Radio 1 session.   THE FIRE: Mothers And Sons: A much-talked about Liverpool band, this is The Fire's first vinyl release, recorded especially for New Optimism'.   THE REDSKINS: It Can Be Done. Again previously unreleased, The Redskins have given us this track from a popular BBC session.
Back to top	Page 24   BIG COUNTRY Tony Fletcher interviews Bruce Watson   It's only just over a year since Big Country did their first proper gigs, at Wembley Arena, when they supported The Jam on the trio's final tour. Playing heavily on Stuart Adamson's name, his unique guitar work with The Skids having set them aside from other groups of the time, Big Country were basically nothing more than another hopeful new band. Their first single, 'Harvest Home' had had the minor success that so many bands have to content themselves with, always hoping it is just a starting point, but terrified it could be their zenith. However, the new year of 1983 saw the release of the classic 'Fields Of Fire' and the start of an incrediblely successful treadmill that Big Country have been unable to get off. With three more top 10 hits and an enormous debut album ('The Crossing') Big Country are now proudly sitting at the top of British rock.   No doubt a lot of their success, as always, comes down to being in the right place at the right time. Whilst U2 and Simple Minds were just beginning to see the fruition of many years groundwork, Big Country's guitar warcry was the chant that so many disillusioned kids were waiting for. And the songs turned out since the group's mammoth beginnings have proved perfect fodder for millions of punters worldwide to get ecstatic about.   Big Country these days are such 'hot property' (yes, the phrase is still used in the corridors of power) that getting an interview is literally impossible. Britain to them, must be almost like another city on a datesheet, but one where they can go back to Scotland to recover their strengths and renew old contacts. Fortunately, when the band headlined The Tube recently, the stopped over the Friday night, and Jamming!'s eight-month search for The Big Country Interview was at an end.   Bruce Watson is not instantly recognisable as a rock star. He is thin, scruffy and almost waif-ish. He drinks, smokes and swears like any good working-class Scotsman, talking in the Strongest brogue I've heard in many a year. He doesn't have any particular pretentions to fame, and is as affable a guitar hero as one could hope to meet. For, make no mistake about it, Bruce Watson is one of the new guitar heroes. As anyone who has seen Big Country live will know, it is Bruce's guitar, so successfully entwined with Stuart Adamson's, that provides the unique touch to Big Country, the touch that has seen them sound like anything from bagpipes to a football stadium of Deep Purples. In a Newcastle hotel room after The Tube, Bruce is easy-going and unbearably honest. It seems only right that I should start the interview with those niggling doubts that have always kept Big Country at least a guitars length from my heart...   You know this 'New Rock' Movement that has sprouted up, that comprises . . . U2, The Alarm and us? Aye.   Well, how do you think it's come about, and what are your thoughts on it? Well it's like when we first went to America, it was totally over the top. Everywhere we turned, it was like "Oh, it's a Great British invasion, it's you, U2 and The Alarm". But as far as I can see it, we're not out to conquer anything; it's just the four of us playing our songs to as many people as possible, which means going round the world. I dinnae see us as part of this Great British movement at all.   But it can't be denied that guitars have come back into fashion. Do you consider it a good thing that other groups are using them again now, because when you came along there seemed to be a conscious effort on your part to declare 'We are using guitars.' The thing is though, that everybody thinks we're anti-synthesizers and we're not. It's just that Stuart and myself have always been brought up on guitars. If we were really good at piano, we'd use a piano on stage.   So are you thinking of widening your sound? Aye, for the next album — although we haven't started recording it yet — if a certain song needs a keyboard or a trumpet or a sax, then we'll use it. And if it doesn't work we'll discard it.   Don't you reckon this guitar dominance borders on Heavy Metal? D'ya reckon? That's probably ma fault — it's probably just the guitars! But it's more than that. Some of the slower songs like 'Chance' and 'The Storm' — it's all very rock, the audience singing along and everything... I know there's nothing wrong with it... No there's not.   Surely a lot of other people have said it to you as well. Aye. A lot of people have been comparing us to maybe Led Zeppelin's third album or something... I've never listened to Led Zeppelin at all! I think it's quite healthy because we played Reading in front of, like, 60,000 and it was a really hard rock crowd and everything, and yet we went down a storm.   That's part of my complaint — the fact that you went down so well proved that you were more than acceptable to a heavy metal crowd. Then again, the stuff we write we just feel natural doing. We dinnae try and copy anyone. I don't think you could categorise our music at all — I know that's been said by loads of people before, but it's true.   I tend to be very cynical, which is my own fault, but when you get the crowd singing along, it always seems very pre-punk. It's just getting everyone involved because everyone's involved anyway. There's no point in a 'We're up here and you're down there' type thing — 'You have come to worship us' — there's no point in doing that at all. Because everyone's the same, like the folk that have paid to come and see us and enjoy themselves.   What about taking four singles off the album? Well they've all been completely different. We used accoustic guitars on 'Chance' for the single, we did a new version of 'Harvest Home' for the album, and although 'In A Big Country' was quite similar, 'Fields Of Fire' was really different.   But when you do a different version, it becomes even more of an incentive for people to buy the track, to get every different recording a group has made. It depends how good it is and what people think about it. I think that the version of 'Chance' on the album is really scummy compared to the single. We dinnae treat every single as like the a-side and b-side, we treat every song the same and put the same amount onto it.   You were talking about broadening out the sound a bit, but I was a bit disappointed in 'Wonderland'. I thought it could have fitted in easily on 'The Crossing'. D'ya reckon? We thought it was completely different from anything on the album! I thought it was a change; it was the first wee thing we'd written for ages.   It's not part of the next album you're working on or anything? No. We get on great with Phonogram, they don't pressure us into writing songs, but they said 'A single needs to come out in the New year', so we went into the studio to try and write something. So it was the first time we'd been in that environment, where we had to sit down and try and work something out. That way of working doesnae suit us at all, because we're quite prepared to rehearse the stuff we've done, and take it out live. But now it's getting to the stage where if we go out and   Page 25   play it live, it might not do as well, as the old songs. I suppose it happens to every group but we don't like to work that way.   How are you finding the pressures of all this sudden success? Finding yourself thrown into the studio to write a songle (sic) and so on? Well, we're not going to do that again. The only pressure I find is the travelling, especially in America, where we travel by Greyhound bus, and it can take up to eighteen hours to travel to one city for a gig. Tiredness is the only pressure I feel, but the playing and the interviews and the TV... it's alright.   I take it you don't mind the fact that it's pretty constant work. I don't mind at all. I'd rather I was doing that than having a rest — well, you've got to have a rest, but two months off has been a bit long for us, and we're all enthusiastic about getting going again.   What would you put your success down to? In Britain, I think a lot of gigging, and just treating people like people. It's not like we come over as pop stars or anything — all living in castles and the rest of it — we just treat it naturally, and if someone comes up and speaks to you, then you just have a laugh with them.   That approachability is something that is meant to connect you with these other 'rock' bands. Aye, but a lot of people don't like to see it. I've got mates up in Dunfermline that I used to work with and I go into the pub and they're like "What are you doing in here?" "I'm staying down the road" "So how comes you're not coming down in a Rolls Royce?"! They cannae handle it. In a way I think it's jealousy "If he can do it, I can do it, but how comes I'm not doing it." It's a horrible feeling really; I'm getting it in Dunfermline all the time, and Stuart's getting it as well.   There's that saying that when you get famous it's not you that changes, it's the people around you whose attitude towards you changes . . . Aye, that is definitely true. It got to the point in Dunfermline where I was playing it down. People were saying "Oh, I hear you've been to America . . . limousines and smashing tellies" that's what they think music is all about, and it's not! It's their attitude that changes you, you get to the point where you go "Oh it's not that good really, it's pretty piss - I wish I was back in the dockyard." You try and play it down, but you cannae get away with it.   What is your actual background? Me, I just worked locally in the dockyard for four years. Just the same as Stuart really. 'Cos we only live half a mile away from each other.   Coming from that, how do you find . . . being this big rock band? It never really hit me until we went to America this last time. Folk go completely over the top over there. We did a couple of shows in Hollywood, and Steve Jones was there, and Adam Ant and Marco, and it was really false. We got all these record company folk coming up to us and saying "This is such-and-such from such-and-such a radio station; they played your single first. I just like meeting the people after the gigs.   Do you make a special point of that? Aye, but there's been instances that have pissed us off during gigs and you can't bear to meet folk, cos you feel embarrassed about the show you put on.   Is it a lot of pressure doing that, 'cos I can imagine you meeting all these people and then not resting while on tour? No, we dinnae mind. The thing that I hate is the screaming girls. We've had that before as well, particularly in America, and I'd rather talk to a normal punter, than a wee lassie screaming "Give me you t-shirt! Give me this and give me that!" I hate that. It's only part of growing up, but I hate it. I'd rather talk to somebody in the pub, not about music, but just about anything.   Is it exciting being famous? I don't even see myself as famous!   I thought you'd say that — that's why I asked! The thing that I hate is when you go out to do your shopping on a Saturday morning, and the young lassies start shouting at you. It gets embarrasing.   Do Phonogram try and push you to bea pop band at all? No, never. Phonogram are a really good company, they work well with us. They took a risk with me and Stuart, us coming from Scotland, and working with guitars, which wasn't in at the time. We do what we want musically, and everything's alright.   There's quite a feeling with the public that Stuart is the leader of the band, which obviously isn't the case. Is that a worrying point? No, it's not worrying at all. Stuart doesn't like it either. He's quite happy with his wife and son, so he just stays up in Dunfermline, he doesn't bother with it. Me and Stuart just go down the pub and talk about football or anything at all.   Do you get worried that people think Stuart is the songwriter? No, because when Stuart gets his picture in Smash Hits and No.l - I dinnae like the papers — I'd rather Stuart was on the cover than another group ken, 'cos it's advertising us.   I don't know if the money's coming in yet, but how's that going to change you? Well it has started coming actually, because we've been told that we've got to buy houses for tax! We're going to have to buy houses for cash, and we're going to do the next album out of the country. We're going to have to do a Duran Duran and make it in Montserat.   You're going to have to leave the country? Aye, to do the next album.   Does that mean you're becoming tax exiles? Aye, basically.   You're only going to be spending 90 days in Britain in the next year? Aye.   I can't imagine Big Country being tax exiles . . . Well it's happening now! But I'm just going to come back into the country anyway, sneak back in through the airport, nobody's going to recognise me. That's what's happened, because the album went double platinum in Canada, it went gold in America, it's platinum in Great Britain... The same's going for Steve Lillywhite as well, because in the last year he's produced U2's album, Simple minds' album and us; with the amount of singles he's done, he's near enough a millionaire now. Another reason we're going to Montserat or somewhere out of the country is because of Steve as well.   You're making the point about going to the local pub, and Stuart being at home with his wife and kid, so surely it's going to be a very different lifestyle. Oh it is. For me, I like staying in Dunfermline, I would never move away from there. It's just natural for me being in
Back to top	Page 27   Continued...   Dunfermline, and going up to see your mates, even though some of them are scummy the way I've been getting treated the last few weeks. It's wierd for me because . . . punk got me going, you were young and you could go out and express yourself, and that was it. But now you're going to be a tax exile and everything, it's a wierd feeling, but I'm trying not to worry about it too much. Money's not the be all and end all.   But if it wasn't, wouldn't you just pay your tax to live here? No, I'd rather have the money! Wouldn't you like to buy your own house some time in life?   Yeah, but then again I'd like to buy the house in England. Oh well, I'm buying a house in Scotland.   But you're not going to be able to live there for more than 90 days a year. Well, we're going to be out of the country for most of that time, because we're going to have to do the album — that'll take two months then we've got about a month in America, two months in the Far East . . . it all helps.   Can you see the day coming when you will just not go down the local pub at all? NO, I'll always go down the local pub. People take the piss out of me, but I'll still go down there 'cos it's my local. What I really there's hundreds of groups want to do is . . in Scotland, and there's nowhere for a young band starting up to play. So when I get all this money, I want to open a big place, like a club and studio and everything built into one. I really want to do it, if I've got the time.   And that would be in Dunfermline? Well as I say, I want to stay there, because I've never lived anywhere else. That's what I want to get into — producing bands, and just helping groups, because so many groups I was in when I was youn, growing up . . . nobody gives you a chance at all. If it wasn't for Stuart I'd have disappeared somewhere.   It would be good if you could do that. That's one of my ambitions, anyway, to do that. There's really hundreds of good bands in Scotland but they never get the chance. A lot of them, I know, when they go down to London, will be completely disillusioned. Someone from a record company will go "Oh you've got one good song, and you'll have to change your image, and you'll have to sack this bloke" and everything. London's the musical capital, and although there's a lot of wee things happening up in Scotland, there's nothing on that scale. A lot of bands are still getting raw deals off companies, and I'd really like to do something about it. Maybe get a few venues going. Just to hire out cost price. That's what I'd like to do.   So what about the long term future for Big Country? I suppose the same will happen to us next year, and maybe the year after that, but it's going to get to the point when we're going to be pissed off with being in a group, and pissed off with seeing each other and the rest of it and when that happens we'll just call it a day, Definitely.   Until that day, Big Country are likely to continue down their yellow brick road, constantly winning friends and admirers, while never forgetting their roots and the plight of unknown bands. For all the well-trodden cliches that I (alone?) can see in Big Country, they care. And that's important. P.S. We went to see The Icicle Works later that evening. Bruce didn't get recognised. Once. Not bad for a tax exile!   Tony Fletcher
Back to top	Page 31   Letters   Congratulations in managing to get another issue out with all the pressures of superstardom from your stints with The Tube and Apocalypse. I do regret that Jamming! has a narrow outlook — it's faith in a new optimism appears to rest on a desire to see a resurgence of rock. Last year showed some breakthroughs with Bunnymen, U2, Alarm, Big Country et al acheiving high places in the charts. Perhaps the symbolism of it all was ABC, spearhead of the golden age of pop with lamι suits and big production jobs, now leaving the Billy Fury threads with the mothballs and picking up a brash guitar. However, power chords and lots of sweat do not necessarily mean passion. Passion can be a whisper, a sweet saxophone sound or even an appropriate silence. I would suggest that putting faith in groups that seem to heave learned nothing from their predecessors and go merrily along the same path is ill-advised. The Alarm were a group I once enthused about like a man possessed but live they performed like they had swallowed the book of rock cliches. More importantly there seems to be no prospect of change or adaption and it could get to the stage where they simply churn out chant after anthem after football terrace favourite. It's such a shame there's so many ways they could change. Big Country are in the same boat and The Smiths could well follow suit. Stay young, foolish and happy. Sean Larking, Bow, East London.   When I bought my long-awaited copy of Jamming! 15, I was quite surprised to find that my previous letter had been published, along with an editorial comment. The only connection between Kajagoogoo and The Alarm which I mentioned was the fact that we shared opinions on both. (Indeed, that's the only connection that exists!) I think I made the distinction between them as clear as you did. In any case, the slur about Americans was unwarranted; I don't like all British music and I love many U.S. groups such as R.E.M., The Bongos, The M.I.B.'s, Violent Femmes and The Smithereens. So I don't think your note was valid. Alicia Cozine, Leonia, New Jersey.

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