Band
Profile .
Rich
Sage AKA Sid, Dick, Dicky. Return To Contents Page
Vocals.
Influences.
I
didn’t really get in to music until 1977 although I was always surrounded by it
at home as a kid and I did like certain songs but I didn’t really get IN to any
one particular genre or band. That all changed with the outbreak of Punk Rock.
I was a pissy teenager with grudge against everything, particularly authority
and the establishment, so punk seemed to have been made for me personally. I
immediately fell in love with the music and hooked on to probably the four top
bands, Sex Pistols, Clash, The Damned and The Stranglers. However, I was also
really keen on most bands of the time and brought the singles as they were
released, Buzcocks, Sham 69, Siouxsie and the Banshees, X-Ray Specs, Chelsea,
Slaughter and the Dogs, The Jam and of course the Ramones.
There
was such a rash of brilliant music and bands at the time that I feel highly privileged
to have lived through and enjoyed this era, it must have felt like this when
Elvis, Buddy Holly and all the early rock and roll bands of the late fifties
and sixties were touring together and again with the Beatles, Stones etc in the
sixties. I felt that I really belonged and these bands were actually saying
something about me and my life.
Even
though by 1980 the main punk thrust had waned I followed the second wave of
bands while most of my mates were getting into the Ska revival, Specials, madness
etc (which I have to confess I loved but felt like traitor if I told anyone)
The second wave of bands was more your hard core punk and you either loved them
or hated them, I really got into Angelic Upstarts, Discharge and the
Anti-Nowhere League as well as the Exploited, Stiff Little Fingers, UK Subs,
Chron Gen, Anti-Pasti and GBH I have managed to get most of the early albums on
CD and its good to reminisce in the car with the volume right up to ‘societies
victims’ by Discharge.
Looking
back now I think I had probably four main influences; even though my long time
nickname was/is Sid I didn’t really see him as an influence, although I did buy
a padlock and chain to wear around my neck for a while. The name came from a
time when I first left school and worked in a slaughter house, all the old guys
that worked there knew nothing about punk and the boss was in to Doris Day I
think, and not just the music. He always had the News of the World on a Sunday
and had obviously read an article about Sid Vicious, when I turned up for work
with my hair coloured orange he just started calling me Sid coz it
was the only name he knew. It stuck as nicknames sometimes do and friends and
relatives (even my two sons) still call me Sid. I was known as Rich to my mum
and sisters and Dick or Dicky at school and Sid at work but seem to have
reverted to Rich again now to most people. I digress.
Sid
a la pad lock and chain.
The
first big influence was more about image than music but I guess influences can
be multi tentacled, I think I was influenced by music, image, attitude,
politics and lots more. Johnny Rotten was the epitome of everything a young
punk wanted to be he had the look the aggression the screaming voice and wrote
brilliant lyrics if only for a few songs. I tried to colour my hair like his at
sixteen and went to school one day with terracotta spiked hair, I was really
looking forward to all my mates seeing it but I had barely got of the bus when
the deputy head, Mr Guard, told me to go home and not come back until the
colour was gone.
JR. I can’t believe I once had hair like this!
These
influences are in no particular order, as I go through times where I think one
particular band or personality is my favourite and then my views and
opinions change. A major influence on my musical tastes, humour
and image was/is Captain Sensible guitarist and song writer with one of my all
time fave’s The Damned. Captain Sensible is like a kid that never grew up, a
bit like me I think, he is also a brilliant self taught guitar player and song
writer and has never received the recognition that he or the Damned deserve.
The last album, Grave Disorder is the Damned at their best; it’s the best thing
they have produced since Strawberries for Pigs in 1982. There are a few classic
tracks on the album and I would recommend anyone who liked the Damned
previously to buy it NOW! They are touring regularly and are also in the
process of writing a new album so LOOK OUT for it. They are still a great live
act and Captain Sensible is as anarchic as ever on stage; what I really enjoy
is seeing all the kids and 20 year olds that turn up at the gigs. Great music
always bridges age gaps I think. Captain sensible has also launched a political
party, called the BLAH Party; it is basically a protest movement against all
the other political parties which are fucking useless, his words, not mine. I
once gate crashed a Damned gig that was for special guests only, I got in by
looking over the shoulder of the guy on the door and reading a name that was on
the list; after the gig I was outside deciding how to get back to Bristol and
saw the tour bus so I got on it and who should be on their but the Captain; I
sat and had a chat with him and he offered me lift, what a nice bloke!
Unfortunately they were going up North somewhere so I declined. Anyway god love
you Captain keep going till you’re sixty, you’ve made my world a better place
to live in.
A
Sensible Vote is to Vote Sensible, Good slogan eh? I think he would approve.
Number
three in my list of influences, in case any bugger is in the least interested;
is Jean Jacques Burnel, the Bass player from the Stranglers. When I first saw
them he jumped in to the audience and beat up some bloke who was gobbing at
him, or something, as a fifteen year old it scared the crap out of me but I was
hooked. After all the posing and preening done by the sex pistols, these guys
seemed to me to be the real deal. The aggression in their performances and
songs blew me away but there was something that set them apart from the rest,
they played what they wanted to and wouldn’t be controlled, they were slated
for being too old and having a keyboard! What bollocks, Joe Strummer was the
same age as Hugh Cornwell and both the Clash and the Damned used keyboards on
the second albums. I find all the arguments about who punks were and who not as
spurious and idiotic. It was only the music industry who insisted on putting
bands in to pigeon holes. JJ Burnel made
playing the bass cool again, something that Lemmy and Phil Lynot didn’t do!
Apart from being the best bass player in the world (in my humble opinion) he is
a very nice bloke; I met him at a Stranglers convention in Peterborough and he
took the time to sit down and chat with fans for over an hour, he was quiet and
thoughtful, he didn’t waste his words; “if there’s no reason for your words,
then your silence aint absurd” as he once said. I have taken up playing the
bass and can now play ‘Peaches’ and parts of ‘Down in the Sewer’ but his bass
tabs are bloody difficult to play. The Stranglers have recently released their
16th studio album and to my recollection are still the only ones of
the first wave of punk bands that has never stopped recording and gigging; the
new album ‘Suite 16’ is definitely worth buying it has some classic tracks that
are easily recognizable as The Stranglers work ,,but has some other tracks that
are quite different and prove that they are still prepared to take risks and
not constantly cover the sale ground musically; there is even a Johnny Cash
tribute on their!
1977
Stranglers, best thing since sliced bread.
Last
but by very no means least in my list of people who have influenced my life is
Joe Strummer, he has become a cult figure now as all great rock stars do when
they die prematurely but he was a hero of mine 30 years ago. I was amazed by
the energy of the Clash on stage and by the maturity of the lyrics even in
their early songs. I know their overtly political stance put some people off
but it enamored me to them all the more, Joe was an eco-warrior long before the
term had been defined and had a clear picture about what Governments were doing
to this world. Bands like the Clash were telling it like it is years before people
like Bono came along to preach and postulate before the masses. But as always
the Clash never got the recognition for what they were doing while bands like
U2 walked in where the Clash had already knocked down the doors. You might
guess that I think U2 are not fit to lace Joe Strummers boots! They are fucking
awful! (In my humble opinion)
I
met Joe Strummer when his was touring with his band, ‘the Latino Rockabilly
War’ (name dropping bastard aren’t I?) he was a very down to earth likeably
bloke, I could have been chatting with a mate in a pub. I first saw the Clash
at the granary in
Well
there it is, anyone who has read this far, well done! If you think that it’s
all a load of crap, you are, of course entitled to your opinion but bollocks to
you anyway.
I
think any one who was into the punk thing back in the 1970s would say they were
heavily influenced by many things the fashion, attitudes, personalities and of
course the music. I have many other influences and loves other than those
mentioned above, in the 1980s I really got in to the Smiths in the 1990s it was
Nirvana and REM that I loved and at the end of the century I brought Warning,
Insomniac and Dookie by a band called Green Day, their early albums were brilliant
and I really liked American Idiot, even though they are now becoming victims of
their own success, I sometimes wonder if the Stranglers or the Damned had
become stadium bands would they have held the same mystique for me?? Who
else??? I forgot the Dead Kennedys, they were great and that brings me to the
present, I like the Arctic Monkeys and the White Stripes are brilliant, there
is a little known Ska-punk band from the US that are a breath of fresh air amid
all the shit that spews out of that place, they are called Rancid and are
brilliant go and buy ‘indestructible’ and you will agree.
This bullshit was bought to you by Richard Sage care of the Pork Sirens.
Now go and listen to the Album.