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 . . .

Time to get the old band back together again?

One of the many things that I love about Bath is that it really is a city that respects and reveres music. Whether your tastes are for the Mozart Festival or for Moles, there is something in this city for everyone. It truly is a community paved with melodies.

But it is not just the opportunity to get out and hear lots of different styles of music that makes Bath come alive – for this is a city that positively encourages people to make music all of their own. So, if you are in any length of queue with locals in Bath, the chances are at least one of them is in a choir, gospel group, rock band, jazz outfit et al.

Yes, this is a city of music.

It is for that reason that I am particularly thrilled this week to launch our Song for Bath competition to try to encourage people to write a tune that will encapsulate the city as it is now.

Inspired by the very enthusiastic brains behind the project, Paddy Doyle, it didn’t take long for us to see this as a wonderful opportunity to turn the creativity that is so evident in the Bath musical community into a fun competition. So, whether your tastes are for light orchestra or, err, the Electric Light Orchestra, we hope you’ll think about creating a tune which could lead to some great prizes as well as the chance to perform in a grand final.

It seemed apt to me that we should be running this competition right now because I am personally thinking about doing that classical middle- aged thing – yes, I’m thinking of “getting the old band together” again.

As I grew up in the punk era where the ethos was “don’t go and watch bands, form them and do it yourself”, nearly all my friends and I found ourselves starting bands – and having a fantastic time doing so.

Some of those bands didn’t last very long – I once fronted a group called the Vatican City Dance Band which went no further than coming up with a spectacularly good name – but my longest-serving band was called The Classified Ads (somewhat apt considering I’m now in newspapers!) who were together for the best part of my secondary days.

It was a thrilling time – we only played to youth clubs and relatively small venues in our home town area but, if I say so myself, I think we penned one or two pretty good tunes along the way. Now, some 25 years since we split (millions of teenage girls were NOT heartbroken) there seems to be a yearning among us to do something again.

Inevitably, the five of us have gone down very different paths but we’ve sort of discovered each other again and now have set ourselves the goal of doing a one-off something in the year 2011.

Of course, there are many reasons why this could be an utter disaster – but whatever those fears, even the thought of getting back together again and seeing four of the most important people in my life is enough to get us somewhere.

So, if a jaded old punky “singer” from the ’80s is thinking about bashing out a tune again, there is no excuse for all of you out there not to enter our Bath song competition.And, to make it easy, I promise The Classified Ads won’t enter.

Or The Vatican City Dance Band.

Sad day for us proud old punk rockers....

So farewell then Mr McClaren.

As many of the people reading this will know, I am very much a child of the punk revolution. I was a babe-in-arms (well 13ish) when punk really took off in 1977 and it is fair to say it truly changed my life. The music excited and inspired me (it still does incidentally) and it put me on a musical journey that has never ended to this day. I may not look as 'punky' as I used to but in my heart that is what I still am.

Therefore I was sad to hear yesterday of the death of Malcolm McClaren, the svengali manager of the pioneering punks The Sex Pistols.

He may have been a bit of a wide boy and a player (although to be fair he never pretended to be anything else) but this guy had a massive influence on all the lives of those of us who believe punk truly changed our lives forever.

My own favourite band, The Stranglers, may have pre-dated them (and American heroes The Ramones certainly did) but it was The Sex Pistols that propelled punk to the surface and as a result many of the bands we all know and love got deals, made records and the rest as they say is history. Glorious, unpredictable history.

This sad death has also prompted some great punk nostalgia. Nicky Campbell on Radio Five this morning was talking about his punk days (he called himself Nic-O-Tine in 1977) and he talked about his first 'pogo'. I can still remember mine – I was on holiday with a friend, Nigel, in Prestatyn in 1978 and I bounced up and down on the spot to Five Minutes by The Stranglers and Ca Plane Pour Moi by Belgian pop-punkster Plastic Betrand. Bouncing up and down on the spot..yep, we called that dancing. Happy days.

To be honest I would never list The Sex Pistols in my 'best ever' bands list (when I saw them again a couple of years ago on their comeback tour I realised they had made four killer singles and a couple of cracking album tracks but there was a lot of 'filler' too) but, like every pop fan who acknowledges The Beatles I know the debt I owe to those boys. And they simply wouldn't have broken through without Malcolm's guiding (manipulating?) hand.

So farwell Mr C. A genuine original. A genuine character. A genuine loss.