Settle, North Yorkshire - mid-eighties hot-bed of UK grunge. Bands such as The Tone-Deaf Moses and Baby Giro were prevalent on the Yorkshire grunge scene which affectionately became known as 'Reet Dirty Musak'.Enter The Sneaky Bitches.
Formed at a time when Nirvana was still just a form of universal transcendence, Mudhoney was probably the least popular of all sandwich fillings and Soundgarden was what happened when you took your stereo out the back of your house. The Sneaky Bitches were ahead of their time by several months.
The band comprised Bruce 'the Jimmy' Greeves (Vocals), Mookie Blaylock (Bass), Jodie McTaggart (Drums), Neil 'What you talkin' about' Willis (Lead Guitar) and Scottish Jim (Rhythm Guitar 1980-1982). The 'Bitches spent the early Eighties entertaining the gentle Yorkshire folk as a Wham! covers band, whilst funding their pursuits with part-time jobs in the local Woolworths, where the five originally met. It was due to one ill-fated night that the bands sound and fortunes changed.
This particular night the manager was late for a seminar in local Skipton, hosted by Thora Hird (DBE) about the role of the flat cap in BBC TV's hit comedy 'The Last of the Summer Wine'. The five were left in the store by themselves and charged with the task of locking up. Eighties excess took hold as the five gorged themselves on pick and mix, snorting coke bottles and smoking foam bananas. Needless to say it wasn't long before the band found themselves unemployed, homeless and having to pawn their instruments to fund their all consuming habit. On 4 June 1984 Scottish Jim was sacked by the other members of the band. They found him in bed with Neil's then girlfriend Tracey Von Deiter (then of 80s synthers Gentle Mental) and 6,000 assorted gummi bears.
Scottish Jim shunned the name given to him by his band mates and with a little help from his cousin's uncle, Marti Pellow, went on to form Wet Wet Wet.
The Sneaky Bitches vowed to continue without their rhythm guitarist. Their sound changed overnight. They pawned their keytars, persephones and trautoniums and started afresh. Left with nothing between them except for 23 pence, a C&A voucher (expired 1 May 1982) and the flannel shirts on their backs, they were forced to start over again. The group took to roaming the streets robbing small children of their Tesco vouchers for schools. It wasn't long before they had saved up enough for the instruments they needed. The quality of the instruments defined their sound and thus grunge was born on the steppes of North Yorkshire.
Their sound, whilst dirty, was inspired by the choral works of The Malham Moor Primary School Vocal Jazz Choir. This would often lead to their use of drop B tuning and the 5/9 time signature. The group made their name by touring local church halls, rocking the congregation with their self styled noise solos and rollicking percussive interludes.
On the back of their 'Jesus Loves You Dirty' tour they self-released an EP in 1986 titled 'Smells Like Mass Murder'. The 3 track masterpiece is an epic re-imagining of the life and times of Pol Pot as a Yorkshire lad. The title track 'Pot, Settle, Genocide' was a touching piece that charted Pot's early life growing up in the Yorkshire town as a bread delivery boy.
Their only video was a musical first. At first the video appears to be yet another nineties grunge outing charting The Rapture and ensuing carnage. The twist came when the band decided to strap cameras to pygmy goats and in turn pygmy goats to the back of pigs to capture the action. The result is a visual tour de force that reflects not only the chaos of their lifestyle and music, but is also a subtle comment on the human condition. It remains a Youtube mainstay to this day and is consistently rated 2-3 stars.
It was the summer of 1989 and just as The Bitches appeared to be on the cusp of total, local domination, disaster struck. Lead guitarist and songwriter Neil Willis had to deal with one personal tragedy after another. In June he lost his foot in a bizarre boating incident. July saw his girlfriend leave him for Eighties heart throb (and star of hit TV show Gladiators) Gladiator and racial stereotype, Shadow. Psychologically he would never recover. By August he refused to leave the house and quickly became obsessed by hit TV show Diff'rent Strokes, and in particular child-man Gary Coleman. In a bizarre case of art reflecting life Neil tried to put himself up for adoption, demanding that he and his white midget brother be taken in by an upper class black family who would care for him and protect him from the mildly racist attitude of their friends and neighbours. Sadly for Neil there was no midget brother, there was no family and Diff'rent Strokes hadn't aired since 7 March 1986. Neil was sectioned on 15 April 1989.
The band would never recover. Jimmy quit, Jodie got married and many critics said they should have known they would never get that far. The band's last act was to scrawl the words 'Grunge is Dead' across the window of the local BHS. A year later Nirvana released Nevermind and the rest is history...
Footnote
At the end of 2008 talk amongst the population of Settle and the Willis family in particular, perpetuated that, on the back of a number of other bands making successful comebacks The Bitches planned to do the same. The new album, working title 'Bush is Dead', is thought to be an epic 3 hour recording which charts the rise and fall of the grunge scene, ending with the demise of their idols of the same name.
The initial release is thought to be around 20 to 30 copies and will be released for free on Lime Wire and will be available on cassette tape and mini disc in charity shops in and around Giggleswick.
I was reading the other day that in Elizabethan times they would occasionally -and just for japes- strap an ape to the back of a pony and then have dogs attack it. I would be accused of dark comedy if it were not in fact completely true.
ReplyDeleteBarbaric, but it reminded me of the video for this track most vividly and I shall be scouring youhavenotherdtube to find it.