Heat, I’m on heat
Don’t you wanna treat
I’m on heat
Welcome to the complex and nuanced world of The Lurkers Fulham Fallout. Ferocious live reputation notwithstanding, they were once described to me by an older guy who I worked with as ‘third division punk’, I think that’s a bit unkind there’s some stuff I really like here, I’d promote them up a division to second division, just. In fact in football terms, Fulham might be a bit of an apt comparison.
They were birthed in the white-hot ferment of 1977 punk, but Fulham Fallout took two years to arrive so whilst they weren’t bandwagon jumpers they ended up looking like it and they were, label nerds, the first band signed to Beggars Banquet Records, this LP is BEGA2.
Whether stemming from adolescent hormones, white powder or just the beat, speed is the name of the game here. Speed and energy that is. Just pop the virtually instrumental ‘Go Go Go’ on your turntable and marvel. To my woolly ears it sounds a hell of a lot like Motörhead, just check out Nigel Moore’s bass! It’s freaking brilliant, it’d make a dead man pogo and contains some real guitar heroics tucked away inside so the young punks wouldn’t notice them. This is a really great track, which justifies all the readies I had to fork out to get hold of this LP and lights up my CNS. Ditto cue up the Phil Spectre cover, ‘Then I Kicked Her’*, it’s another great punk whizz-bang-crash! Played almost too fast for the human ear to register. Great music for a ruck.
The Lurkers weren’t all brute force though they had some decent pop smarts too, check out ‘Shadow’, ‘Jenny’ and ‘Ain’t Got A Clue’ – the latter a great statement of intent for an album opener! In their more restrained moments they sound like 1537 punk pop faves The Boys, but not quite as good. Hey, there’s no disgrace in being second division sometimes. When the Lurkers were able to channel their tunes and energy flash in one go then they really caught fire. I have a real soft spot for ‘I’m On Heat’, less of a sex song, more of a mating call really, it was the first track of theirs I ever heard on a compilation and it was good enough to make me investigate further. It’s as good as it needs to be, totally bypassing any cognitive processes you may still have left and lodging itself firmly in the bit of the brain that controls jumping up and down and mindlessly shouting the words.
The Lurkers were often called the ‘British Ramones’ but I disagree – the Lurkers sound like a Ramones made up of four Johnny Ramones. They borrowed the energy and pummeling speed, but the Lurkers’ sound owes far more to sped up versions of R&B like Eddie & The Hot Rods and Dr Feelgood (at their most basic), the other thing they’re missing is that odd otherness that Joey Ramone brought to the proceedings, that tenderness. When Joey sang ‘Beat On the Brat’ you couldn’t take it seriously, when Howard wall sings ‘Then I Kicked Her’ it’s morally more taxing. There were a lot of bands out there who could, and did, bang out walloping facsimiles of ‘Cretin Hop’, but not many could cut ‘I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend’.
Even though Fulham Fallout was their debut there’s some filler on it, the great stuff flashes past, some like ‘Gerald’ with an ill-advised spoken word bit, and the clumsy ‘Total War’ take an age to drive on by; establishing their second division credentials perfectly. In the final analysis the Lurkers seem to have been competing with Sham 69** to fill in that gap between the initial British punk flash with all its artiness and the kids on the streets. It all eventually got more hooliganated and, literally, threw up the whole Oi movement, but at this remove this is for completists, survivors and those who don’t mind-blowing a bit of cash on a historical artefact with a few great tunes lumped in. Altogether now:
Heat, I’m on heat
Don’t you wanna treat
I’m on heat
535 Down.
*see if you can work out the ‘joke’ – it’s not as bad as it sounds, they change the final chorus once at the end. The end result is hardly threatening – face it Babes In Toyland would have eaten this crew alive and spat out the pips.
**a much better band.