This article consists of extracts taken from the Gene Loves Jezebel Biography 1981-1985 written Pooh Burgess - for the full article visit http://gljpooh.co.uk/

'At last, a welcome enema has been shoved up the weary backside of a stagnating scene...' - Julianne Regan 1982

The colourful history of Gene Loves Jezebel is a strange and difficult one to document. Sporadic live appearances, erratic record releases and numerous line-up changes, between 1981 and 1985, both helped and hindered the groups career. Ultimately, a combination of these factors accounted for the lack of real commercial success and recognition the band received during this period, particularly in the UK. Behind all of this inconsistency lurked the most startlingly original and powerful band of the early 80's.

Identical twins John Peter Aston (Jay) and Michael Aston were born on 22 August 1957 (or 1961 depending on which 'source' you choose to believe!) and were brought up in the coastal town of Porthcawl, South Wales. During their mid-teens Jay and Mike were known to 'escape' to London from time to time, hitching the 200 miles, in order to go to the, now legendary, New-Romantic club Blitz and pay visits to the trendy King's Road. The brothers admitted to being arrogant and courting attention during their teenage years: "When Mike and I were young, we'd get dressed up to go to a gig and get really pissed off when people looked at the band and not us".

The first Gene Loves Jezebel gig was at the ICA on 30 December 1981. Seven days later on 5 January 1982 Jay and Mike undertook their first ever major interview. This was with Steve Sutherland from Melody Maker who had witnessed and reviewed their debut show. Sutherland, like Peter Kent had obviously seen a great deal of potential in the band because the article that was subsequently published on 16 January was a full page interview with a large picture of the twins and, considering it had come about on the strength of their first official gig, was to say the least, remarkable exposure for such a new band. Thanks to Steve Sutherland and Melody Maker the band had received, within 18 days of their first show, more exposure than most new bands can dream of in a year. The headline of the article was 'Brotherly Love' and the header paragraph read 'Continuing the rock 'n' roll legend ...two lovely boys from Cardiff, a plateful of dreams and enough talent to convince Steve Sutherland - Welcome Gene Loves Jezebel'. The main thread of the article was the Cal and Aron theme and the confrontational nature of the band. References to incest and homosexuality were made by both parties, but in the case of Steve Sutherland more to spice up the article with hints of controversy. However, the overall impression of the band, from the article, was that there was definitely something different going on here. Curiously, a reference (although not by name) is made in the article to the track Walking in the Park, describing the subject matter and quoting a lyric from the song. The track would not be released until nearly two and a half years later, on the B-side of Influenza (Relapse). No other band members were mentioned during this interview - the focus remaining, as it would do for many years to come, on the twins.

 

John Reid, the promoter of the ICA Rock Weeks, was also responsible for booking bands at the mid-size Venue club opposite Victoria Station in London. Gene Loves Jezebel would play at this club often over the next 2 years and supported Nico there on the 18 January (their second gig) - not the last time they would come in to close contact with a member of the Velvet Underground.

A 19 year old Julianne Regan witnessed this show and thought the band were 'fantastic'. Julianne had written to Mick Mercer, the editor of Zig Zag, when she first moved to the Capital and he had offered her the opportunity to write for the magazine. After watching Gene Loves Jezebel she waited in the foyer of the Venue with a view to speaking to someone from the band. That someone turned out to be Jay. She arranged an interview with the twins which was duly undertaken on 24 January at their St George's Square flat - the result was a small feature which was published in the March edition of Zig Zag the opening line of which read "At last, a welcome enema has been shoved up the weary backside of a stagnating scene". The article included a great photo of the twins - Jay brandishing a baseball bat!

While Steve may not have got on too well with Jay and Mike, the brothers had taken an instant liking to Julianne when she interviewed them. So much so that she was invited to join the band on bass - which she did in March 1982. As Julianne explained to me, "After interviewing them, Jay took me for egg and chips at a café and asked me if I could play bass. I couldn't. He said that didn't matter because they liked me and were not happy with their current bassist. I liked them, so, I borrowed a bass from him and took it home and jammed along to PIL for days. I went to a rehearsal and jammed with them and I was IN!"

Jay & Julianne Brixton Fridge 1982

This line up of the Astons, Regan, Hudson, Chater was responsible for the debut single Shaving My Neck which was released as a 12" on 10 May 1982 . This single has been consistently referred to by Jay and Mike as "just demos" apparently being recorded at a 16 track studio (possibly Park Gate) in Hastings in just 2 days. Nonetheless, it was awarded the most favourable write-up of all the singles reviewed that week in Melody Maker (it was up against some stiff competition such as Status Quo and The Anal Fleas!). The reviewers, who were members of the band The Sound, commented that 'It's atmospheric, it's noisy, it's harrowing, it challenges EVERYBODY!'. A good description of the band at the time as well as the single. NME's Adrian Thrills described it as 'genuinely grotesque'. Reviews of later singles would not be nearly so kind.

During mid 1982 keyboardist, and friend of Peter Kent, Jean-Marc Lederman (previously of The Weathermen) joined the band and played some live dates with them. Without a stand for his keyboard he was known to use Peter Kent's ironing board as a substitute. Julianne has worked with Jean-Marc recently recently on a project entitled Jules et Jim. Jean-Marc recollects his time with the band...

"I was introduced to GLJ by Peter Kent. He took me out to see a gig, I think it was at The Venue. I didn't like it actually....they were too loose and shambolic for my taste, but this is what attracted me to them. They were glowing - the essence of adolescence They were THE expression of Youthness and that was so strong, so delightful to my senses - even if musically I wasn't too carried away. I immediately liked Jay a lot and I think this immediate liking was shared by him. The man has class. He might have been very poor at the time but even then he was a King. I remember being very impressed with his shoes - they had holes and stuff. I thought it was cool, very trend-setting when in fact he just couldn't afford new ones. Mike was very casual and he never came across to me as minding too much about where the music should go and how, as long as he was on the ride. He was easy going. Steve (Radmall) was silent, so was James (Chater) and I don't think we exchanged more than 3 phrases together but I can understand this as my English was very bad. Julianne was...Julianne: already a gem and forever".

"In the Pimlico flat, there was also Eve Ghost. She was a mystery to me, so diaphane, so light. My time schedule was very different to the twins' and I would often wake them up early afternoon. The flat would be, as usual, totally in the dark, with just the TV set on. Then they would wake up, make me some rather disgusting coffee and get ready to go to the rehearsal. We would go to Blackwing Studios which was Depeche Mode's main base. Rehearsals were erratic... songs would start well, Jay playing quite a lot of guitar, then Mike would come wailing in. Songs were always rather sketchy and the rehearsals would see quite a few arguments between the bros. I think that Jay wanted a sharpish approach, giving the songs room to evolve when Mike was more anarchic. It is very true that the songs were DIY and very often we would just pick the intro of one of them, glue it to the verses of the next one and make something new. It was that flexibility that I loved at first. It was very enjoyable. It was loud, full of zest and energy. At the same time, it was great and not as nihilist as some people thought. But nobody cared about us. I think it was Situation 2, but it might have been Ivo (at 4AD), that came to us with a proposal for an EP. The money involved was close to nothing and we refused the offer. Shortly after that the agent in charge of GLJ scheduled down his interest in the group. We played the Futurama Festival and we were supposed to be second on the bill. Yes, we were, but the other way round and it was very depressing to me to see that thing weren't moving".

Shaving My Neck 1982

In September 1982, as Jean-Marc states, the band played at the third Futurama Festival at the Leisure Centre in Deeside near Liverpool. The Futurama Festival was a two-day alternative music event which featured around 15 bands a day. The part of the Leisure Centre that hosted the festival was in fact the ice rink which had been covered over with a temporary dance floor. Many of the audience attending the festival stayed overnight in the hall, sleeping on the literally freezing floor! Gene Loves Jezebel played on the afternoon of the second day, on the same bill as The Damned, Dead or Alive and Southern Death Cult.

The band's live set around this time included many songs that would eventually mutate in to more familiar renditions such as Shaving My Neck (which started life as Machismo and later became Punch Drunk); Sticks and Stones (an early version of So Young which, in turn, would one day provide the four distinctive notes heard throughout Influenza); Glad to be Alive (containing snippets of a future Pop Tarantula); a very different and peculiar version of Screaming (for Emmalene); and a slowed down version of Psychological Problems referred to at the time, by fans, as Bury Your Head.

Julianne said of the band's writing process "I was involved in the jamming of several songs but the initial ideas would generally come from Jay. I was involved in So Young ,which I loved most of all, and a song called The Undertaker". I assume The Undertaker was the original title of Screaming (for Emmalene) as it is the only song that springs to mind that includes these words. On the subject of Julianne's lack of credits Jay commented to me recently that it was "more to do with the politics of the day than anything else. The feeling was that "Gene Loves Jezebel" meant Aston/Aston/Chater/Hudson/Regan. Julianne should have got a credit on Upstairs but she left us in the lurch, (we) were hurt & got petty".

Their live performances throughout 1982 met with mixed responses from confused hacks, one of whom (Leyla Sanal at NME) likened them to the sound of 'members of Killing Joke discovering an unorthodox way of neutering a cat'. Certainly the band's sound was a ramshackle hybrid of styles and violently experimental. Furious rhythms combined with cacophonic guitar and vocals, the twins alternating their vocal pitches between them, challenging stereotypes, constantly confusing, always threatening. They played not on the usual twin thing - the similarities- but on the differences between them. Black and White. Good and Evil. Male and Female. Gay and Straight. An awesome, confrontational display of unorthodox bravado. A breathtaking and unnerving experience - one that demanded a reaction. Performance you wouldn't forget. Gene Loves Jezebel were frequently compared to other bands even as early as their first interview. These comparisons ranged from the Virgin Prunes (lazy journalism) to Public Image Ltd (circa Metal Box).

Julianne describes the sound of the band as "dubby, strange, and splintered" and that they "had more in common with left field bands such as A Certain Ratio than the goth movement". She is right. They could easily have been thrown into the late 70's and early 80's category of politicised, agit-pop bands such as The Pop Group and 23 Skidoo. Mike in a House of Dolls interview in 1987 looked back on the band's early approach to their music and described it as "very primitive and spontaneous" which would be just about right. An advert for one of the the Rock Garden gigs, in August 1982, described them as 'Anarchic own-wave that disturbs the sensibilities' which was pretty accurate too! But let's clear one thing up. They were not, and never would be, a Goth band.

1982/83 was a breeding ground for the whole Goth movement in the UK, a label that attached itself to many an undeserving band. Despite what Jay and Mike might say and do these days, they were always vehemently against the whole goth/positive punk scene and were keen not to be pigeonholed with anyone or attached to any movement. Mike said in an NME interview "I always thought we came from a much more emotional backdrop, we didn't belong in the goth field". Jay said of the goth bands that were around at the time "The difference between us and them is that they deal with darkness and alienation while we've always dealt with colour and communication." While the band were colourful and communicative some might argue that some of their earlier songs did deal with 'darkness and alienation' but then so did songs by Joy Division or Lou Reed or The Smiths and I don't remember hearing anyone calling them goth! No - it had more to do with lazy, label-loving journalists and the band's image. The spikey 'tarantula top' haircuts and eye liner later sported by the twins probably contributed to the tag more than the music. The quote that sums it up came from Jay in Melody Maker: " We hated people calling us a gothic band. We never felt comfortable under that umbrella....to us, the whole gothic thing was almost the antithesis of the colour we were trying to create". At a time when the goth scene was all about The Specimen, Alien Sex Fiend and the Bat Cave Club, Gene Loves Jezebel really had nothing to do with it at all - and still don't. Labels, as they say, are for jam jars.
Around this time, someone with a fair amount of authority at, or directly connected to, the record company, who the band have always refused to name, tried to encourage a split in the group and lure Jay away into a solo career. An offer he obviously (and thankfully) rejected.

Julianne "I always felt that the relationship between Mike and Jay was an atom bomb waiting for one of them to press the button on. I always thought it would implode. Too much talent in one band at one point. Too much intensity".

Late 1982 saw the departure of Julianne Regan and Jean-Marc Lederman both for the same reason - the battling twins. As Julianne puts it "I always felt that the relationship between Mike and Jay was an atom bomb waiting for one of them to press the button on. I always thought it would implode. Too much talent in one band at one point. Too much intensity". Jean-Marc comments "I was growing frustrated with the arguments between Jay and Mike and when they decided to bring in some guy to do the guitar I just didn't want to stay around anymore and Julianne and I left."

Julianne remembers the twins as "two of the most interesting and brightest people I'd ever met in my life. They were intelligent and intellectual but hilariously funny. In retrospect, and not just because of the Welsh thing, Mike and Jay remind me a bit of Richey and Nicky of the Manics. Glamorous intelligencia. They were really clean living. No drugs, and just the odd pint..". I was certainly not aware of Jay, Mike or Ian using drugs at all in the time that I was following them or working for them (they were always keen to go down the pub though!)

Ian subsequently moved back over to guitar after his short-lived stint on bass. The band lost another bass player and re-recruited Julianne Regan but things did not go well... "I re-joined because they asked me to play on their forthcoming album and tour. We did the session and a few rehearsals for the album with producer John Brand and I remembered just how fucking awful things had been when I left before. The fighting was a pain in the arse. I was also really insulted that it had been suggested that I would be good enough to play live on the tour but that they should get someone in to play on the album. So I felt that I was being used for the donkey work and not getting the 'nice' bit. It was a mix of the fights and my nose being put out of joint that pushed me to go. I knew I was letting them down but I left again. I'd always had a lot of compliments about my style of playing and I'd learned really quickly. I KNEW I'd be good enough to play on the album"

The 'session' Julianne referred to was for BBC Radio 1 which was/is the UK's largest radio station and at the time was the only one to broadcast 'contemporary' music across the whole country. The band were invited to record a session for the David 'Kid' Jensen Show as a result of the popularity of the Screaming (for Emmalene) single. The Kid Jensen show ran between 7 and 10pm, Monday to Thursday, and played the more accessible end of 'alternative' music at the time. Immediately following it was the legendary John Peel Show that played a very eclectic mix of punk, avant garde, dub etc . Radio 1 sessions were usually recorded about 2 week in advance of their broadcast date and all recording/mixing etc had to be done at the BBC's Maida Vale Studios in West London in just one day. Listeners would avidly tape the latest new sessions that were broadcast because of the unique nature of the recordings and also because bands often turned in amazingly good and inspired performances under the tight time restrictions. The line up of Jay, Mike, Ian, Dick, Julianne and Kym recorded 4 songs for the session (the usual number required) which were Sticks and Stones (a different version of So Young with a great guitar hook at the beginning), a frantic run through of Bruises and ruthless versions of Upstairs and Scheming.

Julianne left the band shortly after the session and was replaced by Stephen Marshall, a friend of Peter Kent who, at the time, was running the Fetish Records label - purveyors of the avant garde and the experimental (Throbbing Gristle being their primary concern). Julianne would go on to form Swarm with Manuela Rickers from X-mal Deutschland before fronting All About Eve who, incidentally, were managed, early on, by Jake who ran Artificial Life fanzine.

The full biography continues and can be found at http://gljpooh.co.uk/

One thing I am sure of is that Gene Loves Jezebel still mean a massive amount to me. They were a unique, inspiring and electrifying band that provided me with some great times, great friends and great music. For these (thin) things I am eternally grateful.

Gene Loves Jezebel. So should everyone else.
Pooh

Thanks Pooh for the permission to print!