The Stranglers - a band with a stranglehold on Bath

The great survivors...The Stranglers (left to right Dave Greenfield, Jet Black, Baz Warne and JJ Burnel) 

The news we revealed last week that Bath is to stage a three-day punk festival (see post below this one)  as an alternative to the Jubilee celebrations in June, means the city is getting ever more associated with that particular nice ‘n sleazy musical genre which swept through the nation in the late 1970s.

For, just a couple of miles away from where the festival will be based at the Bath Racecourse, is a house which has become the semi-permanent home for one of punk’s great survivors – The Stranglers.

The band have rented a house in the Lansdown area for the best part of three years and it is there that they have written the material that makes up their critically-acclaimed new studio album Giants which was released on Monday.

And, as further proof of the unlikely connection between the city and the band that brought the nation such memorable moments as No More Heroes, Peaches and Golden Brown, the closing track on the new  album is about the city of Bath – and more particularly the rented house that the Stranglers often call home.

“Yes, the song 15 Steps is about the house I’m actually sat in right now,” said singer/guitarist Baz Warne.



Honorary Bathonian Baz Warne



“We’ve had three years of fun here in Bath getting this album together and we’ve had some proper rock and roll, tear-the-wall down parties here as well as some really heavy sessions of song writing. After such epic nights I used to go upstairs and count the steps to the salvation of my bedroom – it was 15 steps in all so I wrote a song about it”.

Despite originally being from Sunderland, Baz has really found an affinity with Bath and the south-west in general. After joining the band in 2000 – alongside three of its four founder members, Jet Black, Dave Greenfield and Jean Jacques Burnel – Baz found that the band spent a great deal of time in the south west as their management and rehearsal studios were based in Norton St Philip.

He spent some years living in Frome before making the move to Bath where he shares a house with the other three Stranglers when they get together. And he can’t get enough of the place.

“I do love Bath,” he mused. “I absolutely love it.

“I feel I’m going to end up here in my old age as I really have an affinity with the place. It’s big enough to be a city but not too big that it’s an urban sprawl.

“There’s just a nice vibe to it – it makes me smile and I love the west country way.”

As well as enjoying many places to eat and drink in Bath (15 Steps refers to how close the town is for a “spot of libation”) the city has given the band a place to think and write and given them the inspiration behind their new 10-track album which has already earned rave reviews.

The Stranglers fans are famous for their loyalty. This is  a group pictured at one of their tours last year.  

A number of the very varied tracks that make up this powerhouse of an album are set to be showcased alongside an equally eclectic mixture of ‘golden oldies’ on their current lengthy tour which includes a trip to the Bristol O2 Academy on Saturday, March 17.

The album has been a long time coming – it is the band’s first for five years – but Baz believes it is well worth the wait.

“The interest in Giants has just been unbelievable. I honestly do believe that it’s because we’ve made a very good record. When you are so involved in an album at some stage you have to sit back and listen to it objectively and I’ve reached the stage now where I can listen to the album in its entirety and just appreciate it. It takes a while to do that – but I’m there now.”

Although this is the band’s first release since the excellent Suite 16 in 2006, they have certainly not been idle and despite a collective age of over 240 years, the quartet have toured consistently in the interim period playing regualr tours and becoming firm festival favourites. And now they are in the midst of one of their biggest British and European tours for many years. Not bad for a band whose oldest member was elligible for a bus pass eight years ago....  



“You can’t beat live music and there’s been a real upswing in the gigging scene again,” enthused the ‘baby’ of the band Baz ( a mere 47).



Me and The Stranglers. I am the one in the suit!



"There’s no better way of informing people about your music than by just going out there. We like to just chuck our stuff in the back of the van and reconnect with people. For a band like us, especially the three old lads, it’s all in your psyche – the record is out so you go on tour because that’s what we’ve always done.  And the reaction is always great.”

As a band that has continued to defy their critics and are still together 38 years after first registering their name, The Stranglers see no reason why they should ever consider hanging up their famous bass lines and keyboard solos so we can expect to see them strutting their stuff through Bath for many a year to come....

“The Stranglers have survived because they never split up and they now have legendary status. Even the diehards that I’ve seen at 50 gigs down at the front, they’re standing around with their mouths open that they’re still seeing the Stranglers. And that’s brilliant,” said Baz.



Giants is available now and for details of the bands trip to the Bristol Academy – and the rest of the dates on their extensive British tour – see www.thestranglers.net.



A 1977 punk festival in Bath? Damned right...

Bath, as we all know, is a city of festivals. Last week, for instance, we had our fantastic LitFest kicking off and throughout the year there are many other great festival events to look forward to celebrating all aspects of culture and business.

However, I’m sure one newly announced festival this week will raise a few eyebrows.

For a three-day festival to celebrate that peculiarly English musical tradition of ‘punk rock’ has been pencilled in to take place at the Bath Racecourse at the start of June.

It is designed to be an alternative way of celebrating the Jubilee because, as every pop musical historian will know, 1977 – which was the Queen’s Silver Jubilee – was also the year that punk rock really took over the nation to provide an unforgettable contrast between the pomp and circumstance of royalty and the rough and ready excitement of a glorious musical genre which genuinely frightened the establishment.

Now, as some of you who are regular readers of this blog will know, I am an unabashed child of punk and to me the news of this new festival is like three chord manna from heaven.

I can genuinely say that just as ’50s rock ‘n’ roll defined the life and lifestyle of many people who grew up with it and the ’60s pop culture left an indelible stain on all those who lived through it, the advent of punk and its gentler sister, new wave music, changed my life forever.

I was a spotty 13-year-old in 1977 when I first heard the strains of this new musical movement through my tinny (and decidedly non-digital) radio. To say it was love at first sight (or rather first aggressive note) would be an understatement and I went on to be an ardent fan (to this day) of many of the greatest exponents of this particular musical art form – including of course Bath’s own Stranglers who I’ve managed to see the best part of, ahem, 100 times.

The thing about the whole punk era was not just that I think it produced some stunning and challenging music at a time when pop really was in a pretty bad state but it also brought with it a sea change in how music should be perceived. The punk ethos was that bands shouldn’t be aloof, distant figures but everyone should be encouraged to pick up a guitar, learn three chords and form their own band.  And that is exactly what me and my small but proud bunch of punkified-teens in my hometown of Tamworth, Staffordshire, did and music took over our life and has stayed central to it ever since.

As I look at the line up of Bath’s three days of punk prowess at the racecourse (The Buzzcocks, The Damned, The UK Subs, Rezillos, 999, The Lurkers et al)  I know it will be a wonderful if bone-creaking trip down memory lane for both fan and artist alike and should be a loud and timely reminder of a truly unique and exciting period of music which really rocked the nation.

And the fact that the city is hosting such an event is amazing. What other cities could enjoy Mozart and Jane Austen festivals alongside one featuring bands like The Anti-Nowhere League and The Vibrators?

I always said this was a fantastic and eclectic city for music but even I didn’t expect to see a celebration of all things punk right at the same time as our legendary international music festival. 

So crank up the volume – and bring it on . . .

Fashion isn't horseplay at the Grand National

On Saturday I had what can only be described as a 'grand day out'.

For along with 70,000 other people I headed for Aintree in Liverpool to savour the fun and the atmosphere of the Grand National.

I am by no means a big horse racing fan – although I always enjoy my occasional visits to our excellent Bath Racecourse – but this was the occasion of a ‘stag do’ for a friend, Brian, who loves the gee-gees.

As, sadly, both he (and the rest of us) are hardly what you would call young bucks any more, the idea of a debauched ‘regret-for-ever’ kind of stag do was never on the cards so a trip to the National seemed like a sophisticated jolly boys outing.

But the biggest surprise for me was just how sophisticated it turned out to be. One of the things I’ve always enjoyed about going to horse racing is that it is, in the nicest possible way, an entirely classless affair which seems to appeal to everyone from the Duke with millions in his pocket to the lowest paid worker with holes in his. It may be called the sport of kings but when you actually view the crowds at a race meeting, you realise it is the sport for everyone.

However, Grand National day was an altogether swankier and more stylish sporting event than I ever imagined. Among the men I would imagine that at least 75 per cent of them were be-suited (imagine that at football or rugby!) while for the women – who encouragingly accounted for about 40 per cent of the crowd – this seemed to be viewed by many as a high society wedding. Although the Grand National was not strictly speaking a ‘Ladies Day’, it seems that the vast majority of the female contingent had really pushed the boat out and I’ve never seen so many impressive dresses and designer clothes in one place at the same time.

It was, it seems, almost impossible to be overdressed (although I have to say with a slight twinkle in my eye, that many ladies also felt more than happy to be somewhat under dressed!).

Of course, not everyone got it right. One group of girls walked past us in an array of vivid slinky orange and yellow dresses which led one of my waggish companions, Wayne, to memorably say: “They look like a packet of Starburst on legs”.

Talking of vivid colours, one of my other fellow travellers, Gary, had informed us on the bus going up that in his experience an extremely large number of Liverpool women between the ages of 18-25 looked ‘orange’. I didn’t quite get what he meant until I had seen about the 50th young lady who looked as though she had been caught up in a hideous explosion at a fake tan shop. When you put one of those ‘sun’ tanned faces on top of the orange dress, it made you, inevitably, fancy a can of Tango . . .

Despite all this excess, one of the main things that I enjoyed about the way people looked was that I can’t imagine anybody felt uncomfortable in whatever they were wearing. I’m sure many of us have been caught out at events where we’ve either been overdressed, underdressed or unintentionally fancy-dressed but on Saturday in downtown Aintree, as long as you felt happy in your own skin, then anything went.

Of course, you may be wondering why I devoted nearly all this column to a major sporting occasion and haven’t actually mentioned the, er, sport but that is because the Grand National is more than just a race. It is a fantastic event and having tasted it now first hand, I’m even more fond of this delightfully British tradition.

And in case you’re wondering, no I didn’t make any money – but at least unlike many women of Liverpool, I wasn’t bankrupt before I got there after purchasing a Starburst dress.