...and the Native Hipsters' grew out of another band, 'The Patterns', who themselves grew out of 'The Wildings' and 'The Blue Poppies'.

While we were doing bedroom recordings for a planned Patterns record, we started to introduce Blatts' vocals. It was immediately obvious that we'd cracked it. 'There Goes Concorde Again' was one of the tracks recorded, and we decided to release it and the Patterns material already recorded.

We pressed up 500 copies of each, settling on the Hipster name at the last minute after a brainstorming session. To reduce costs we hand stamped each record label and made the covers by cutting up huge hoarding posters of Kevin Keegan.

For about a week we formed a production line to produce the finished records. We shipped them out to Rough Trade and waited. About a month later John Peel played Concorde. Within days we had an order for another thousand copies. Then a further order for another 4 thousand.

...Try making that many covers round the kitchen table.

from interview with Colin Irwin.
(Melody Maker, April 10, 1982)

The Hipsters could have been huge (yeah right, in your dreams). The trouble was we decided not to have drums, little bass, and hardly any rhythm whatsoever. At one stage Tony Visconti phoned up and offered to re-mix 'There Goes Concorde Again'. But I thought he'd make it too commercial.

Now, of course, I'd love him to. But he's probably sucking up rice off the belly of a large green frog as we speak, and too busy to come to the phone.

It still gets a play every so often. John Peel played it again recently.

When Concorde crashed a year ago. we thought we'd never re-release it. Then Tom Fawcett happened to mention to Pete from Rough Trade that he'd been in the band and ...

When the hipsters first formed, computers were little more than a twinkle in Bill Gates wallet.

native hipsters ... WILDING & BLATT

pic by Tom Sheehan.
(Melody Maker, April 10, 1982)

If I wanted to sample something I made a tape loop.
Back then of course it wasn't called 'sampling', it was called stealing.

In fact the Hipsters 3rd record, 'Larry's coming Back', originally had a loop of a ska record 'Kingston Town' by Lord Creator. But Cherry Red Records, who released it, said that to do this would be illegal. It didn't occur to anyone to ask permission. Pity, the sampled version was much better. And we would have been 20 years ahead of our time.

The brilliant musician of the band was Robert Cubitt. He could pick up any instrument and make it sound like he'd played it for years. He had this huge Marimba. Perhaps thats why he walked with a limp. He also drove a Reliant Robin, which has to be an asset in any group.

Of course, after the success of the first single I decided to split the band up. I had a very good reason - I was clinically insane. He's refused to talk to me ever since. If you have news of him,
email me.

Tom Fawcett was also multi blessed with the ability to force squawking sounds out of inanimate objects. He played the early synth Wasp on Concorde. He throttled that thing to death, wringing every last ounce of twiddleiness out of it. Tom was squatting with Jim Moir in New Cross. They recorded a few things together. Tom went on to form 'Design for Living'. I'm not sure what happened to Jim.

Tom has recently started a new band. 'Fraff'. He also runs a music magazine site called artrocker.

From the very first moment Blatt opened her mouth to sing, people told her that she had an awful, out of tune voice, and no sense of timing or rhythm.

Up to the moment I first started recording her voice she was convinced she couldn't sing. But it soon became obvious that her voice was perfect for what we were doing. In fact it became impossible to imagine a hipster track without her voice on it. Which was a pity because both Tom and myself thought of ourselves as brilliant vocalists, and here we were, outdone by a tone deaf musical virgin.

Blatt and I wrote all the words, I thought up the name, and did various other things... Like insisting that all guitars sounded like chickens pecking up grain.

For the past 11 years I have performed comedy
under the stage name of Woody Bop Muddy.
The wonderful thing about my act, is that I get to
smash and destroy loads and loads of crap records.
check out Record Graveyard.

You can check this and the story of the Coat Club, at www.dotcomedy.co.uk

Playing Live.

The original line up of '...and the Native Hipsters' only ever played one live gig.

We supported Bauhaus at Northampton Race Course. It was a dream come true. Tom had sent them a tape of our stuff, heavily edited to make it sound competent. They invited us to support them at this gig in their home town. While we were on the crowd went mad and smashed up all the toilets.
We never found out if it was because of our music, or just the fashion at the time in Northampton. However, we certainly warmed them up.

At first they just stood at the front laughing at my bananafinger bass playing. When Blatt started wailing they swayed back and forth like middle aged Rod Stewart fans under the spell of "Sailing".
But they weren't Stewart fans, they were Bauhaus heavy duty Goth and Punk Mutants. I guess they grew tied of waiting for the main event and took it out on the plumbing.

Many toilet bowls were smashed and partition walls booted in. But the event organizers didn't seem phased at all. It probably happened every time they ran a gig.

Afterwards we went back to David J, the Bauhaus Bass players house and had a cup of tea. Later, he sent me a tape of some noise, which I am going to add to the mix of some future recording.

After Robert and Tom left, Blatt and I did a few gigs.

We supported 'Eyeless in Gaza' somewhere. Played a couple of times at the 'London Musicians Co-Op', and supported Toms new band 'Design For Living' at 'Chelsea School of Art', and the 'Sol a Somba' club in Soho, we released two other records. The band personnel changed from gig to gig. But at various stages included Lester Square from the 'Monochrome Set' on Guitar, Ludwina van der Sman on Sax, Annie Whitehead on Trombone, Chris Cornetto on Cornet, Simon Davidson on piano, and all manner of noises, some rude, supplied by me, William Wilding.

from interview with Colin Irwin.
(Melody Maker, April 10, 1982)

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