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reWRITING THE INDIE CONSTITUTION

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

housemartins 0, hull 2

i've only been to hull a couple of times.
the first time was to help a friend of mine move up there to do his degree.
i found a smashing record shop and spent a good hour or so looking through the records.
can't for the life of me remember what it was called - it appeared to be in the basement of a house (or at least that's how i remember it). down some steps outside and into the store.

i went back up there once to check the shop again but couldn't find it - i went through a stage of travelling long distances to record shops.
how the internet has changed life eh?

but that's not the reason for this entry.


apart from "sheep" i didn't like the housemartins - i bought their "london 0, hull 4" album, listened to it once and filed it away.
i think it might have been due to the overkill of the "happy hour" video on TV.
it was everywhere.
drove me mad.
perhaps i ought to dig the album out and listen to it again.
though i doubt time will have been kind to it.

however, there were two bands from hull that i really liked.

one of them was 3-action. a band that seems to have been written out of the history of 80's indie pop.
i'd not heard of them until they appeared on the "gimme shelter" video (man, i really ought to write something about the "gimme shelter" video. it's as important a document as the "C86" album).
the footage on the video was a live recording of "i get around" and it was ramshackle, falling apart, amateur, but GREAT.

3-action | a breath of fresh air-gency

i checked my cartel catalogue - yes, i was sad enough to buy the distributors catalogue and browse it, marking off things as i bought them.
3-action had two 12" EPs out on ediesta and i ordered them both (i later foudn they'd released a 7" but could never get hold of it).
"i get around" was an instant top tune. very surfy, like a schlock jan & dean, trumpets blaring and two chord chugging guitars.

3-action | <don't lose that> stealin' feelin'

"if only i had the guts" from the other 12" was the killer though.
another two chord wonder, but this time far more spiky and a little bit lurchy.

death by milkfloat | the absolute non-end

death by milkfloat were the other band from hull.
the BEST band from hull.
the trebliest bIG fLAME-y guitars scratched like fingernails on a blackboard, the bass was all thundering funk and the drums were a rollercoaster of jazz mess.
and their longest song came in at under two minutes.
for a long time they were THE band for me.
they captured all the best bits of my favourite bands, mashed them all together, and spat them out in bursts of pure joy.

death by milkfloat | uninformation

in 1988 vinyl drip released "uninformation" and death by milkfloat could do no wrong.
they're still welded into my iPod and i still listen to them just about every day.

6 Comments:

  • At 7:15 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Blimey! Thought I was the only person in the world who remembers 3-Action! To be fair to the Housemartins, when they called themselves "the fourth best band in Hull" they were counting Gary, Graham and Dodger as one of the top three (mind you, one of the others was the Gargoyles, who were Hull's answer to Half Man Half Biscuit, with one notable difference... they were crap.)

    3-Action were great live - at the time I thought they were like the Jam if Mark E Smith had been their singer. There was also an earlier 12" EP called 'On The Journey Of A Lifeline', which had four songs on it; "What You Gonna Do When Your Lifeline Snaps?", "Snail With A Gold Plated Plastic Shell", "One Track Mind" and "Matter Batter" - all great! I've got that and 'A Breath Of Fresh Air-gency'... didn't even know about the other one until about five minutes ago (moved away you see.) Wonder what they're up to now?

     
  • At 4:01 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    hola
    busco todos los temas posibles de 3 action
    gracias
    kalo...from valencia spain

     
  • At 8:11 AM, Blogger Gary said…

    Now then Crayola / john
    Great surprise - just done a search for £ Action the band I used to be in and found these comments - cheers. Ive got a CD of our "greatest misses" if youre interested? get in touch and i'll get a copy to you.

    All the Best

    Gary (nee Garyaaction)

     
  • At 7:22 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Hi

    In case your interested try

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsAybsfNNx4

    or

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAL8YEcO028&feature=related

    As Garyaction will tell you, fat lad exam failure has it labelled as Matter Batter not Matter of Time.

    Hi Gary how is it going?

    RW AKA Dodger

     
  • At 3:29 AM, Blogger Gary said…

    Dodgy 1, Where Did Our Love Go? Ive got a DVD of the full anti facist gig that Matter of Time is taken from featuring Uncle Gordon! I'll get a copy too you if you get in touch. Hope youre all ok by the way

    gshock@gshock.karoo.co.uk

     
  • At 2:44 PM, Anonymous Alison said…

    I remember 3- Action and they were a great live band. Would love to find a CD of them, all I have is one very old 12 inch single.

     

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