MUSIC
Radiohead Was Shit and We Booed Them Off Stage
They were no match for the Sultans of Ping
It was October 1992. Driving a shit-stained yellow mini was Tall Tony. Besides him was mad Alex. Squeezed in the back were Karate Kid Ron and me. I fucking hated that car. It barely moved especially with lard-ass Ron in the back. We were on a mission to see the hottest band from Ireland and had enough weed to stun a small rhino.
We were on our way to Southend-on-Sea. It’s the arse-end of Essex where local lads roam the strip looking for a fight and a quick shag. This was heartland Essex. Style and class are two words never used to describe Essex culture. Women danced around handbags wearing white stilettos while the lads sported Fred Perry shirts and waist-high jeans. Popular music began with Right Said Fred and ended with Wet Wet Wet. This was enemy territory full of loathing.
In the days before GPS, we hoped we wouldn’t get lost. Ron was hammered. He was in charge of the map but was making his usual fuck-uppery over the details. A cherry hole had just opened up somewhere south of Romford burning Ron’s balls as he desperately tried to flick the rock off his crotch. Tall Tony continued to whine about his seats while Alex produced spliff after spliff skinning up like a pro. I’m not sure how we found the venue but we had arrived.
The Sultans of Ping, for that brief moment (and isn’t life all about those brief moments?), was the hottest band in the world! The world, back in 1992, consisted of the UK and nowhere else. NME and Melody Maker, the UK music press, had the power to make or break bands back then. It was the dark ages pre-internet. A time where you discovered a new sound thanks to shitty clubs and bands playing endless tours in shitty vans eating shitty food. It was all a little bleak. Shoegazers everywhere and fucking Fields of Nephalim and New Model fucking Army. Bloody goths and their garbage outfits of army surplus! Robert E Smith had a lot to answer for.
Then came the Cork explosion.
Here was a lead singer talking smack and really not giving two fucks to any kind of scene. They literally were a band out of time. It was that in-between moment before Britpop hit and after grunge. They were exciting. They were wild. They were pretentious and bratty and wore feather boas and pink sunglasses and PVC bondage gear. They were upstart gobshites and the press loved them.
Every time we heard ‘Where’s Me Jumper’ start-up in the local clubs, we went mad! It was an anarchic tune that thrashed and squirmed its way into your brain. The refrain of ‘Where’s Me Jumper?’ bounced around your head rent-free. There was so much energy in this one song we couldn’t help but fall in love with it. The song begins with Karl Marx and ends three minutes later with a lost dog. Total bonkers.
“My, brother, knows, Karl Marx, He met him eating mushrooms in the people's park, He said ‘What do you think about my manifesto?’ ‘I like a manifesto, put it to the test-o.’”
We entered the swill that was The Pink Toothbrush completely and utterly fried. The place was heaving. Sweaty teens with bad acne lined the walls. There was no way we were getting to the bar. The band third on the bill had already been and gone. I could feel the crowd surge forward as the next band took to the stage.
I tried signaling to Tall Tony to get the beers in but he was a tight-fisted wanker. Despite his height and clear view, he pretended to not see me and stood passively at the back like the lanky streak of piss he was. I was now locked into the mosh pit and turned my focus to the stage.
There stood some weird dude with dyed yellow hair and a black leather jacket. He looked odd. It was as if he was in constant pain as he squinted his way through his set. There was nothing remarkable about the band. Their sound was similar to all the other jangly guitar bands of that time. And they had a crap name too…Radiohead. What the fuck is a Radiohead? The crowd was getting bored and restless. They began throwing beer at the singer's head. Alex scored a direct hit before being knocked to the ground by one of the band’s groupies…they were a vicious mob north of London. And then they played ‘Creep’.
We were to leave the club that night convinced we had witnessed something special (so fucking special!). We even went out and bought the album. It’s shit (Pablo Honey) and all the tunes sound like generic alt-rock. But this one song pointed at future stardom. When they played, the atmosphere in the Pink Toothbrush completed changed. Thom Yorke had the crowd in the palm of his hand as we all swayed together lost in the music.
The Sultans came and went. I’m sure we all had a great time jumping around to their anarchic punk doodlings. In truth, I can’t recall any part of the Sultans of Ping gig but thirty years later I still remember the moment I heard Creep.
Radiohead was to become the biggest band in the world and Thom Yorke would be lauded as a legend. Sultans lead singer Niall O’Flaherty would end up becoming a lecturer in the History of European Political Thought. Their drummer would one day be Radiohead’s merchandise representative in Sweden.
It’s weird how history works out. The music press soon forgot all about Cork and the Sultans as the Britpop wave hit. It was all Blur and Oasis and the battle between the Northern working class and the Southern softies. Radiohead meanwhile simmered along for months being ignored by everybody until they broke in the US.
Such is life. One moment you’re selling out The Pink Toothbrush on your way to a life of rock stardom and the next…you’re a foreign language teacher in Sweden.
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