What finally got me back up there was a concert in Camden – Department S and Spizzenergi.  I have actually lost count of the number of times I have seen Spizzenergi now, but I had never seen Department S.    Stalkers may remember that I was going to take Chrystal up to see Spizz in December, but Crawley got snowed in so she had to go on her own.   Much to my surprise she actually liked it.  She had never shown much of an appetite for punk rock before, but said that she had a great time.

Department S were interesting.  I never really knew much about them at the time although obviously I had heard Is Vic There?  I was glad to get the chance to hear them play it live because it is one of those iconic songs.  There are a few punk/new wave bands who never really reached much beyond their core audience but had one song that everybody had heard, or at least heard of – like Bauhas with Bela Lugosi’s Dead, the Ruts with Babylon’s Burning, the Psychedelic Furs with Pretty in Pink or, I guess, Spizzenergi with Where’s Captain Kirk?

They did do the big hit, but I found the rest of their set to be excellent too, even though I didn’t know any of the songs. The singer has a real presence and they are still writing new songs, which is good to see.  I thought the end of the set was strange though: in the last song the singer put his jacket back on and did the “we’ve been Department S, goodnight” bit and went off stage, but the song carried on for what felt like five minutes after that in an extended instrumental.

Spizzenergi were exactly what I’ve come to expect.  Part of me would like to be surprised by new material or a very different selection of songs, but the other part of me quite likes to hear the same songs.  That is not to say that it is always identical, the arrangements gently evolve over time rather than get a radical re-working.   The highlights for me are Soldier, Soldier, Central Park, Kirk, the Model, Virginia Plain and Island.

I think I’m largely responsible for Island to get on the set list.  Years ago Spizz gave me some copies of old demo and rehearsal tapes from the Spizz Oil days and there was one track on there that had never been on any record at all even though, to my ears, it was better than some tracks that had been released so I asked about it and it ended up in the repertoire, despite the rest of the band not really liking it much. I think.

Thinking about it, there aren’t really many other songs they could include.  Quite a lot of the older stuff is really quite experimental and arty.  Much as I love the Do A Runner album, a lot of it probably wouldn’t work live and a lot of it was quite keyboard-centred.   I wouldn’t mind hearing Dangers of Living though.  I reckon that would sound good with this line-up.  A couple of the football songs would go down well too, even if they are a bit too specific to past tournaments.

It was all good fun and it gave me a chance to try out the Flip video camera, with mixed results.  I learned a couple of things about it.  Firstly it has trouble focussing in very low light, which is true of most auto-focus camera I suppose.  Secondly it doesn’t like it when a really big bloke stands right in front of you.   I only filmed two songs – here is one of them:

One of the things I like about the band are thet they all seem to be really enjoying themselves, and it was a pleasure to be able to share the evening with our daughter, who seems to be loving life up in that London.  I don’t think there is much chance of her moving back home after her course finishes.

Now I’ve got the taste I mustn’t leave it another year before going up to town.  Maybe I’ll pop up to see that vorticists’ exhibition at Tate Britain and see a few other sights.  Perhaps take Jayne up the eye [[Oops.  That came out ruder-sounding that it was supposed to]] or pay a visit to the zoo?

One thing I won’t do is make the mistake of walking from Euston to Camden again.  What a depressing area the hinterland of Euston station is!

It’s a tradition or an old charter or something.  Just as the England team raise our hopes only to get knocked out in a penalty shoot-out, so Spizz comes up with a tournament anthem miles better than either the official one or the more-popular unofficial one which never gets the attention it deserves.  Maybe this time will be different – for Spizzenergi and for England.

For the record, my favourite was We’re the England, but this one is rapidly growing on me.

I have all the Spizz singles (somewhere) from the first Spizz Oil 7-incher through to the Spizzles, plus the Spizzenergi:2 single ‘Work’.  I have both the A&M albums and all the compilation CDs that were officially released plus a lot of the home-brewed ones sold at gigs. On top of that I have quite a few tapes of live songs and demos.

And yet I am pretty sure I have never heard Burning by Spizz’s Big Business off the Freedom to Rock compilation album, which I know I have never heard of.

I have to say, it is not the best Spizz song ever and no substitute for Soldier, Soldier or any of the other better-known songs.   For now, if you want Spizzenergi online you have to stick to Amazon, who have all the hits available to download for 69p a track.

During an interval, a bloke came up to me and asked if I went to the Spizzenergi show earlier in the month at the 100 Club.  It turns out that he had bought a couple of tickets for it but forgot to go!   He had bought them, he said, about 6 months ago and in the meantime lost track of exactly what day it was on…

Oops.

In case anybody is interested, my team won the quiz by a point after a tie-breaking extra round.  The prize was a huge tin of choccies (Celebrations) but being Christians my team-mates decided it should be shared not only by the team but by everybody else in the room too.  Managed to bag a couple of Galaxy truffles though.

No Captain Kirk or Soldier Soldier online from that show yet but I am keeping my eyes peeled.

Spizz on stage at the 100 Club 3/9/9

Went to see Spizzenergi (again) tonight.  I’m not keen on going ‘up west’ when I have to work the next day, but it was to mark 30 years since the first Spizzenergi incarnation, and having seen them on tour back then in 1979 I thought it would be good to make the effort.

As always it was a cracking show.  The current band have been with Spizz for a long time now so they know the material intimately.  It helps that they are all very good musicians individually.  I’m always surprised that none of them has been ‘tapped up’ by a bigger band.

Bigger defined as one that plays often enough to make it a feasible full-time job.Spizzenergi played for over an hour, starting off with 6000 Crazy, finishing off with their cover of The Model and inbetween doing Soldier Soldier, Kirk, No Room, Central Park, Spock’s Missing, Energy Crisis, Amnesia, Mega City 3, Virginia Plain, and a few more.  They did the whole of Clocks Are Big Machines Are Heavy as well.

One interesting song was Summer in the Greenhouse, which is basically their football song We Are The England with environmental lyrics. I was still hearing the football lyrics in my head.

Another little highlight for me was hearing the song Islands.  I think the band don’t really like it much, but I do.   It has never been released before but I heard it on some old Spizzoil demo tapes ages ago and kept asking Spizz why he never released it or played it live.  Whether it was my nagging that eventually got it on the playlist I don’t know, but good to hear it live at last.

Spizzenergi onstage at the 100 Club 3/9/9

It was a lively show though, with a varied audience.  There were some traditional punks (i.e. younger people in old school outfits and hairstyles) and some real old punks – some who have become more respectable than others.

The mosh pit was a chaotic beer-storm of people who should know better – i.e. people my age and older – which was good to see.  At one point Spizz did descend into the crowd to physically threaten somebody who had lobbed a pint glass on the stage – and then the stage was invaded by a drunken dwarf.

I don’t think I have ever seen that before…  look closely in the photo here and you can see him shortly before he started causing trouble.  Quite a sight seeing a three-foot high bloke being manhandled off the stage by two bouncers of typical bouncer build!

There were also some lukewarm attempts at stage-diving, which is ambitious when the stage is only a foot off the ground.

All together it was a good night, spoiled slightly by having to dash off to get a train back out to Sussex.  A shame there was no Airships, Hot Deserts, Risk! or Dangers of Living on the set list – but you can’t have everything can you?  I wonder if the band can be tempted out of London to do a LMHR benefit in Crawley or Horsham?  I’d love to see some of the local young bands getting a chance to share a stage with one of independent music’s true originals.

Spizz at the Tate Modern in August 2008

I went online tonight and bought my ticket for the Spizzenergi 30th anniversary gig at the 100 Club.  I decided that it wasn’t worth the risk of just turning up because with all the publicity there is a real chance of it selling out.Just recently Spizz has been getting very active on Facebook so a lot more people who would want to go now actually know about it.  On top of that he got some mentions and quotes in the Guardian on Friday in an article about the indie charts – because he was No. 1 in the first indie chart.  At the end of the article there was a plug for Sept 3rd.   That was what made me think I needed to get a ticket booked quickly.

Should be a good night.

Apart from being a brilliantly funny and offensive comedian, Sadowitz is one of the best close-up magicians around.  The video I have of him is one of the reasons I still keep a VHS player in the house.   I think a little trip to Brighton next month is on the cards.

Sort of sums up Spizz’s luck over the years:  on the one had he gets one of his songs covered by one of the biggest bands on the planet at the time, but on the other hand it was only on a given-away-free single.  Had they shoved it on the B-side of Losing My Religion or something like that Spizz would probably be living in the South of France now instead of South London.