THE DEVIANTS
Robin 2 Club, Bilston, Wolverhampton
6th June 2012
The fact that there were three original members in this
line-up alone warranted more of crowd than that which ventured forth to the
Robin 2 Club, to see what was billed as The Deviants’ ‘only show out of
London’. It may have had something to do with a collective post-Jubilee fatigue
brought on by an extended bank holiday weekend; it may have been the diabolical
weather (there’s nothing like a depressing wet and windy Wednesday afternoon in
the West Midlands to dampen the spirits after all!). Or it might just have been
that others were waiting to see them in London the following week, sharing a bill
with Dirty Strangers, Sonja Kristina’s Acid Folk and headliners Beatnik Youth among
others (as it happened that event had just been cancelled by the promoter but word
had not yet filtered out). Or maybe it was a combination of all the above factors
as to why this was so criminally under attended.
That said, those that did make it were treated to a mighty
fine performance by this recently reconvened and ever improving line-up of The
Deviants; featuring the original Deviants frontman Mick Farren and rhythm
section of Russell Hunter and Duncan Sanderson, as well as latter day Pink
Fairy Andy Colquhoun, and Nik Turner’s Space Ritual alumni Jaki Windmill on
percussion and backing vocals.
The Deviants opened with a song that the Pink Fairies’ used
to play live way back in the day: a cover version of The Velvet Underground’s ‘I’m
Waiting For The Man’. Sandy’s vocals may have been a little rusty at times, but
there’s still nothing wrong with the way he handles the bass! As the first song
ends Mick Farren enters and takes to his now customary stool - centre stage. Andy
Colquhoun introduces him as the “Godfather of it all” and the band then launch
into an old favourite from Farren’s 1978 solo album Vampires Stole My Lunch Money. Next up is a thunderous rendition of
‘Leader Hotel’ - originally an acoustic number by Farren’s Tijuana Bible
project.
Although the spectre of former Deviants and Pink Fairies
guitarists Paul Rudolph and Larry Wallis are never far from fans’ thoughts, it
can’t be denied that Colquhoun is a more than capable guitarist in his own
right and he’s surely earned his spurs as the official Deviants guitarist. After
all, he’s been a long time musical collaborator of Mick Farren’s since way back
in the mid-1970s when Andy was in the punk band Warsaw Pakt. Since then he’s
worked with Farren on numerous recordings, including different variations of
The Deviants. He also joined Hunter, Sanderson, Larry Wallis and Twink for the
Pink Fairies Kill Em and Eat Em reunion of 1987. Continuing as Flying Colours
with Hunter and Sanderson after the departures of Twink and Wallis, they
recorded a raft of new material, including a song called ‘Police State’. The
Deviants performed it tonight with Colquhoun stepping up to the microphone for
vocal duties whilst administering some blistering lead guitar.
Farren returns stage-front again and introduces the band
before concluding “We’re still standing”, until Sandy points out the stool, to
which Farren then adds “... except me. I’m sitting - I’m getting too old for
this shit!” That’s as maybe, but Farren’s still an imposing stage presence even
if he’s not as animated as he once was, and given some recent health issues
too, you’ve really got to hand it to him, at least he’s still getting out there
and doing it.
The tempo slows down a bit on two new compositions, ‘Cocaine and Gunpowder’, from a new collection of poetry and other musings by Farren
called Black Dogs Circled, and ‘Beautiful
Women And Broken Machines’ - both go down equally as well as the older, more
well known numbers. Having said that perhaps one of the loudest cheers of the
night was reserved for ‘Billy The Monster’, that peculiarly oddball cross
between the Bonzos, Zappa and the Fugs from the Deviants’ eponymous third
album. Although live it lacks the unique basso profundo call and falsetto
response routine as provided by Boss Goodman and Russell Hunter respectively on
the original recording. Jaki Windmill handles the chorus part admirably enough,
and it’s just amazing to see The Deviants, including three of that 1969 line-up,
up there doing it anyway!
Another old Farren favourite benefits from the full band treatment
as they barnstorm through a rollicking version of ‘Aztec Calendar’, before Colquhoun
takes over on lead vocals again for ‘Stopped At The Border’. Then it’s another
new song -“a narrative of old” as Farren describes it – called ‘Something To Do
Between Cigarettes’. Fittingly enough it lends itself well to Farren’s suitably
smoke ravaged voice - he recently had to quit the weed for health reasons. The
last Deviants album proper, Dr Crow
from 2002, is then visited for the jaunty blues number ‘Taste The Blue’, but the
evening is made complete when they round proceedings off with the only other
song from their ’60s canon of work to make the set – ‘Rambling B(l)ack Transit
Blues’.
As if to prove that the whole is greater than the sum of its
parts, the band come together magnificently. Farren’s spoken intro gives way to
the familiar explosive blues workout: Sandy’s bass rumbles like a B-52, and the
way Hunter effortlessly pounds his kit it’s obvious he hasn’t lost any of that
old skin-thumping magic of yore either, whilst Andy Colquhoun replicates the
original guitar breaks with considerable verve over the distinctive bolero
style section. Then it really is “time we all went home now” as the dying
lyrics admonish us. There’s no encore, and the weather may have dampened the
ardour of less doughty gig goers in the Black Country that night, but this
doesn’t matter, it was a more than memorable occasion for those who did make
it.
It may well have been billed as The Deviants’ ‘only show out
of London’ on the posters, but after this solid performance I doubt it somehow.
And there was more than enough enthusiasm generated among those present for this
ever improving line-up of The Deviants to hopefully take encouragement from
this and do some more provincial dates in the near future.
Rich Deakin
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