Sex Gang Children Blog

11/21/2024

BASTARD ART - THE ANDI SEX GANG AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND ART MANIFESTO FOR THOSE WHO DARE.

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BASTARD ART - THE ANDI SEX GANG AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND ART MANIFESTO FOR THOSE WHO DARE.
Some years on and off in the making, this book is in the final stages of completion. In my book I have endeavoured to write about a period of British music history drawn from my own experiences within that movement of the early 1980s and to offer a true and clear picture of that time as experienced by someone who was in the thick of it. With the exception of John Robb's excellent book The Art Of Darkness, there have been too many mis-writes on that period and too many omissions of what really happened and how things really were. I want to set the record straight.
My book is also about giving hope. No matter how hopeless a situation might seem, you can always win through. It's a positive account of how to struggle against the odds. In a time when people are worried about their mental state, take it on the chin and just fucking do it. Just get out there and do it. They say that history is often written by the victors. Well, I'm still standing.
Below are some composite excerpts from the book. Please feel free to read on if you so wish, for this story must be told. The story must always be told.
"I moved to London when I was seventeen and got involved in the far-left political movement of the late 1970s, partaking in the massive Anti-Nazi demonstrations of that period among other political activities. It was during this time that I was arrested and interrogated by Special Branch Officers for my involvement in the alleged kidnap attempt of UK Tory politician Christopher Chope, a nasty man indeed. The method of interrogation those Special Branch officers employed included beating me on and off for several hours, holding a lit cigarette close to my eyes and attempting to shove my head down the jail cell toilet at which point I successfully resisted. I'm half Irish and half Greek and there was no way I was going to suffer such a humiliating act of submission. You might think to yourself this sort of thing could never happen in the UK. Well it did. However, short of a forced confession, they couldn't charge me and I was eventually released. After that dust settled I played the main character in a short independent film inspired by a Graham Greene novel, also contributing to its soundtrack. Next I had a small part playing opposite Phil Daniels in the British film 'Breaking Glass'."
"At the time, I was friends with Boy George and Vaughn Toulouse (Department S), and we used to get together and talk about how things were going, and what we wanted to do. We talked about how we would change the world but we had nothing in our arsenal to change it with, except our balls, and we felt we could do it. Towards the end of 1981 I formed Sex Gang Children. I had been looking for a good strong name for me and my band of bandits and I got that name from George. It was one of several names he was mulling over to use for his own band, but eventually deciding on Culture Club instead. George suggested that I use Sex Gang Children for my band, as it suited my revolutionary fervour. George had got the name from Malcom McLaren, but its original source was William Burroughs."
"Approaching the first gig as Sex Gang Children in 1982 I felt that this is who we are, these are our songs, they mean something. It was the moment of arrival, everything had come together. We were in a different arena. But when word got back to us that with our name and ‘sort of music' the major record labels, with their usual arrogance, would see to it that we would never get past the starting block, I realised that we needed to send them a message. So I devised a plan to raid and occupy one of their buildings. Hansa Records was chosen for many good reasons, least of all their crimes against good taste. Having unleashed several bad novelty records upon an unsuspecting British public in those post-punk years, they were in my opinion a perfect target. The key to it all was surprise and speed. Holding one of their A&R men hostage, in his own office, news of the raid spread like wildfire to all the major labels within a week. That message was loud and clear, THIS BAND BITES BACK!"
"As a music artist I've never had the comfort and security of serious record label and management backing. I've never been part of that 'connected set', but I always believed that if your art is pure then you will attract the right people to your cause, even in an industry where it is deemed you cannot exist without major financial backing. So I've had the absolute privilege to work with and learn from some of the UK's great and talented mavericks. The wildly imaginative Tony James, that great torch singer Marc Almond, the highly skilled and legendary Mick Ronson, that beautifully baroquial film-score composer Simon Boswell and Oscar nominated film director Peter Webber who directed the video for my single ‘Seven Ways To Kill A Man’. We shot that one in Paris where Peter was able to pull favours from his film industry connections there as our budget was pitifully small and we needed all the help and freebies we could get."
"I tend to write all the music and arrangements in my head and this is certainly useful when you don't have access to any musical instruments. As happened in my case when I spent ten long months on remand in a maximum-security jail in the desert outside Los Angeles. Falsely accused of heinous crimes, I was facing over nine major felony charges with bail set at five million dollars. I was looking at two life sentences plus 25 years without parole. However, I had an album to save and that meant I had to leave all the melodies and production notes on a friend's answering machine, as and when those ideas came. I’d hum the music and string arrangements down the phone while other prisoners were waiting in line behind me. Never a complaint though and certainly never a dull moment for them. Phone use in US jails and prisons is heavily restricted and considered a privilege and that was my biggest obstacle. That and my Greek pride and Irish temperament which got me thrown in the isolation hole for a week for insubordination to one of the guards when I flat out refused work detail, telling him to shove it up his arse. Low light, blissful silence, but no phone. Still, most of the songs in my head were saved and ended up on the album 'Veil'. Also on a good note, I managed to get use of art materials and painted furiously over those long months. Several of those pieces were exhibited in cities across the US as part of the 1995 Con-Art Prison Exhibition. I was also commissioned to do the artwork for the cover of a prison magazine. No matter what the situation and restrictions, creative nature and a determined will always finds a way forward. I never went to trial and was eventually released."
"I always felt that the music should give hope to people - no matter the odds you have against you, you can shine through. When I come on stage I look at the crowd, to feel if they are with us, but if they are not then it's down to us to turn them around and show them that they can be with us. It's up to us to earn that special and privileged relationship. We don't come on stage to crowd please, we don't dot the i's and cross the t's, we do what we do, and hope that the people in front of us get it. And if they do, it's a beautiful connection. True music is spiritual - and it's a spiritual communication between us and the audience."
"I've spent my whole career as an artist literally fighting to get heard. I made a lot of powerful enemies in the music industry over the years and ended up getting blacklisted. I have no regrets about that as I don't see compromise as an option. This is art, not politics. Be a warrior not a slave."
photo by David Hobbs

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