The
Fall and Rise of the Pork Sirens
A brief history.
Imagine a
rural village hall with a tin roof and a D J who played all the latest disco
tracks for the teenage girls to bop to. By the end of the night there are a
group of disaffected, inebriated youths who scream out the old adage from
Steven Morrissey, 'this music say's nothing to me about my life' . finally,
in an act borne of frustration they implore the D J to play something that
represents their life, attitudes and feelings. So for twenty glorious minutes
the little tin hall is rocked with sounds of that generation; New Rose by the
Damned, Anarchy by the Sex Pistols, No More Heroes by the Stranglers, White
Riot by the Clash, Sham 69, UK-Subs, Ramones and the Buzzcocks. The dance floor
is now a heaving, sweating mass of thrashing po-going boys, several members of
a splinter group mount the stage and take up brooms and mops for guitars and
mic's and ape their
heroes...........................................................
And so it
began.
Barry
Reade, Pat Hodge, Hugh Pearce and Iain (Lice) Gilbert decide to form a band.
Cheap guitars ordered from mums club book, £5 a week for a drum kit and away
they went. Practising in the large attic of Hugh's parents farm house they soon
honed their sound, into a bloody awful racket! In the spirit of punk they
arranged a gig at Felton village hall before they could play their instruments,
Hughie and Barry holding down various strings, Pat screaming down a totally
inadequate microphone and Lice assaulting the drum kit. Memories of this first
outing are hazy, Hugh said 'the sound was awful' . I remember the hall being
packed well beyond fire regulations and a local bobby losing his cap which was
thrown like a Frisbee across the room.
The Fall and Rise of the Pork Sirens
A brief history.
Imagine a
rural village hall with a tin roof and a D J who played all the latest disco
tracks for the teenage girls to bop to. By the end of the night there are a
group of disaffected, inebriated youths who scream out the old adage from
Steven Morrissey, 'this music say's nothing to me about my life' . finally,
in an act borne of frustration they implore the D J to play something that
represents their life, attitudes and feelings. So for twenty glorious minutes
the little tin hall is rocked with sounds of that generation; New Rose by the
Damned, Anarchy by the Sex Pistols, No More Heroes by the Stranglers, White
Riot by the Clash, Sham 69, UK-Subs, Ramones and the Buzzcocks. The dance floor
is now a heaving, sweating mass of thrashing po-going boys, several members of
a splinter group mount the stage and take up brooms and mops for guitars and
mic's and ape their
heroes...........................................................
And so it
began.
Barry
Reade, Pat Hodge, Hugh Pearce and Iain (Lice) Gilbert decide to form a band.
Cheap guitars ordered from mums club book, £5 a week for a drum kit and away
they went. Practising in the large attic of Hugh's parents farm house they soon
honed their sound, into a bloody awful racket! In the spirit of punk they
arranged a gig at Felton village hall before they could play their instruments,
Hughie and Barry holding down various strings, Pat screaming down a totally
inadequate microphone and Lice assaulting the drum kit. Memories of this first
outing are hazy, Hugh said 'the sound was awful' . I remember the hall being
packed well beyond fire regulations and a local bobby losing his cap which was
thrown like a Frisbee across the room.
Origin of the
species....
Hugh was
working on a farm in the 1980s (and still is) and Rich (yours truly) was
working in the local slaughter house (not anymore thank someone!) Hugh used to
drive his tractor up to the back door with the unfortunate lambs from the farm.
'Lambs to the slaughter' sounds like a good name thinks I!
Hugh being far
more subtle, observed that the noise the pigs made reminded him of a siren, as
one pig's squeal dies out so another takes it up, so you get this rising and
falling wailing noise. This is while they are in the pens not while they are
being slaughtered you will be pleased to know. Pigs just make a lot of noise!
..............Hence
the origin of our species
.................The
Pork Sirens.