Pre Black Pop Workout
 

Ever stop to ask yourself what happened to the Parts, Sheffield's favorite pop group? Pam (Pammo Young, SE) went off to Liverpool then London with the Zoo empire; Gary Birchall ran 'Pink Flag' fanzine till he left university then headed South to work; the other three, Alans Watt and Fish and Ron Wright are now in Hula, along with Mark Allbrown (Albrow, SE), a group who've been together some considerable time but have kept a low profile for one reason and another, playing a handful of gigs in such obscure locations as an art college in St Albans and a CND-gig in Bingley attended by eleven people. They deserve a wider hearing and hope to get it soon.

A new tape recorded at Western Works is about to do the rounds of small record companies and Hula are optimistic that some way it will find its way to vinyl. I've never seen them live, but was motivated to find out what they were doing because I've known them for years and wanted to get up to date on their present enterprise. Two opinions of people who have seen them were 'white noise' and that they were trying to play pop but Cabaret Voltaire's Steve Mallinder was doing the mixing and kept making them sound weird. The CV connection comes about because they're friends from the early Cabs/ NowSoc days an now three of Hula live with Mal in the Hula Kula (whence the name of the group), a gigantic old house in Upperthorpe.

The tape has the classic Cabs produced sound (one day Cabaret Voltaire productions will be as famous as Spector's), though right now it could be said Cabaret Voltaire have some of the Hula sound as Alan Fish has been drumming with them recently. Though they say they hardly use any effects except a echo the sound is noisy, full and powerful. "Ignore the famine" sounds so close to some '69 Pink Floyd works it makes me wish I hadn't given away all my Floyd albums so I could play them back and see how much some groups are borrowing. On the other two tracks - one's called Eat, the other they are still debating the title - they don't get quite so carried away into cacophony, striking a balance between formal structure and experimentation which in inevitably brings to mind comparisons with Cabaret Voltaire.

Anyway, the tape has hardly left my cassette player since I got it and I can't wait to see what they can do live. Whenever that is, they ought to be playing form more than eleven people. How about counting yourself in?

NMX'zine no.21 1981