#32- The Fort Police

What do you think of when you hear the words "garage music"? Perhaps you think of Apple's attempt to take anyone who owns a mac and turn them into someone you have not heard of? Perhaps your first thought is of UK Garage? We're sorry if your first thought is of UK Garage. We really are.

But perhaps you are thinking of the genre of garage music, of teenagers struggling to sound like Bo Diddley. If so then we have a story to tell you; and if you were honest, you'd tell us that you have not heard it before.

Have you ever visited West Germany? If you're an American, the answer will probably be: only when I was serving in the Army in the 60s. Of every 10 Americans serving in the US Army in the 1960s, 9.76 of the spent some time in West Germany. And 2.82 of them tried to run away rather than get posted to Vietnam. How do you try and stop vast swathes of fit young trained soldiers escape barracks? You call the Military Police!

3 of the military policemen tasked with preventing anyone cheesing it were Frank Sutton, Roy Stuart and Ted Bessell. They would search high and low for escapees, deserters or other ne'erdowells and only stop when they had caught their man. Or so it appeared to their commanding officers. In actual fact, Sutton, Stuart and Bessell were involved in quite a large amount of assisting people from fleeing the army into rural Germany and assisting their flight to constitutionally chicken Canada. They had to take the occasional one back, and drive around for days looking like they were looking for someone, but they were most certainly part of the informal group of people able to assist conchies in avoiding the horror of Vietnam era Vietnam.

In their long afternoons driving around in their Army jeep, pretending to look for deserters the MPs discussed ice cream, home made pie and the music they all enjoyed. As they were riding together they realised that perhaps they could form an influential rhythm group that melded percussive strumming with layabout antics. They just had the remainder of their tours to serve first.

Honourably discharged in 1966, the band got to Great Britain just in time to assist Pickles the dog in finding the Jules Rimet trophy. Deciding to keep their names out of the spotlight for the time-being, the band agreed to let Pickles take all the credit. (Pickles died some years later in a freak cat-chasing incident. The band attended his funeral along with his owner, David Crobett, and Saint, but not Greavsie.) Following a short stay in Oggsford the band took themselves to Alberta, where they were able to link up with their old Deserter networks and hire practise space for less than a nickel an hour.

The first album, "Storebror" played on the paranoia of the late 60s American underground. The band attempted to describe the government as both corrupt, formidable and incompetent. Their argument seemed to say that the government was not above extreme nastiness to it's own citizens, it just wasn't really able to carry through on it or clean the mess up afterwards. Musically, the album sounds like how a buzz cut must be experienced by a louse, with fast and repetitive two-chord movements getting louder and quieter and louder again. The Canadian general public (who by this time were a minority considering the number of draft dodgers in the area) generally did not interact with the band and the audiences were mainly young, American, morally forthright (or downright cowardly) and rich.

A second album, "Shelled on the Tips of Fingers" saw the band encouraging other people to come and join those already in Canada, ostensibly to avoid the draft but more probably so that their live shows could be even more packed. By this point the Canadian government had had had enough. The band were sent packing over the border, choosing to be deported to Alaska rather than arrested as soon as they hit the mainland. It must also be remembered that Alaska has a very narrow maritime border with a foreign country, Russia. Sensing that this may be their way to get out of the States as soon as possible, the band did actually try to cross the Bering Straight. Indeed, they made it across the Straight only to find out that Russia is a freaking huge country and they could not actually get anywhere approaching a city without months more walking. The band walked back along the Straight and decided to drop anchor in Archorage.

Settling into the lives of American iconoclasts, the band continued to find an outlet for their strum-heavy brand of political activism. Some 17 albums, of mixed and declining quality have since been released. The band are still considered fugitives in the mainland United States and John Rich has personally declared that he will punch them in the nose if he ever gets the chance. Surprisingly, Alaska doesn't care much for mainland rules and the band are free to move about and gig in such interesting places as Trapper Creek, Healy and Anderson. They don't go much further up Alaska Route 3, for fear that they may inadvertently end up Eileson Air Force Base. The rumour is that the Military Police is not what it once was.