Reminiscing about a couple of wonderful 1980s/1990s Brighton bands who merited a far larger audience.
Introduction
Arriving in Brighton in October 1987, I already had a passion for watching live bands. Over the decades I have enjoyed watching many bands at Brighton venues, and still have a few tickets as mementoes.
If I could time travel, I would go back to the 1980s/1990s to watch Attacco Decente and Manos performing live at the Southover Community Centre and Komedia Brighton respectively. In the absence of an effective time machine, I am going to reminisce.
By way of introduction, political/social context is crucial to understanding the 1980s. Magaret Thatcher became the Prime Minister in 1979 and continued to rule over us throughout the 1980s. During what was a challenging decade the Falklands war was initiated and the coal miner’s strike had been provoked. Some might remember it as a decade of transformation/renewal, but for me, it appeared to be a decade of suffering and inequality. The ideological rallying slogan of the politicians of the day was that there is no such thing as society. And sadly, the government went about this agenda with ruthless zeal. Party political over, it is back to the music of Attacco Decente and their big themes of love, life and politics.
Introducing Attacco Decente
How did I discover this unusual band? There was neither internet nor social media, so I guess it was the local nature of the band. If I had still been living in Sheffield, I wouldn’t have come across this band, everything wasn’t as digitally connected as it is today.
It wasn’t the name which attracted me, even my computer spell checker wanted to change the name of this band. That said, I love everything else about them – the musicianship, the recordings, the lyrics and the live shows. Listening to them as I type, their sound stands up well to the passage of time. One of their CDs carries the slogan Play it Loud! However, there is also subtlety here, blending very percussive music with more reflective music.
The Will of One CD sleeve provides an introduction to the early membership of band and their unique collection of unusual instruments:
Mark Allen – Vocals, Flamenco Guitar, Attacco Zitherharp, Tiple, Appalachian Dulcimer, 12 String Guitar, Penny Whistle.
Gray Barlow – Vocals, Flamenco Guitar, Acoustic Bass, 12 String Guitar, Appalachian Dulcimer.
Geoff Smith – Lead Vocals, Hammer Dulcimer and Tongue Drums.
In 1979, the quintessential rock music photograph was Joy Division, looking cold, lost and moody on Epping Walk Bridge in a very black-and-white Manchester. I concede my main reason for choosing to study in Sheffield was the grey industrial music landscape of that era. Whereas, on the south coast on the back sleeve of The Baby Within Us Marches On album, the band are seen cheerfully smiling against a sunny Brighton backdrop.
So unpretentious for a 1980s rock band, NME journalists would have strongly disapproved of these overt signs of cheerfulness. At the time I thought they were being ironic. Today, I think they were just being themselves; such authenticity was unusual and out of sync with the angst of the 1980s. On my desk today, I have the company of most of their CDs:
Album – The Baby Within Us Marches On (1988),
Album – Crystal Night (1994) (Smith and Allen)
Single – I don’t care how long it takes (1988),
Single – The will of one (1988)
I did own a vinyl version of the mini album – U.K.A. United Kingdom Of America (1986), but lost it long ago in a home move. Discogs helpfully provides details of the recorded output for this band (see link).
The Discogs profile taken from the Wikipedia page is a succinct, yet illuminating “group from Brighton, England. They were notable for using unusual acoustic instruments.” This is my attempt to go beyond the limited “notable for using unusual acoustic instruments” epitaph.
The Rose Grower is the penultimate track on The Baby Within Us Marches On. On the surface, an innocuous title, with a pleasant melody, which builds and builds. Yet, the lyrics sound closer to a Guardian editorial with references to Special Branch, MI5, the Sizewell Nuclear Reactor and the Belgrano. The band offer an explanation for why Hilda Murrell a rose grower as well as an environmentalist was murdered, which certainly challenges the official version of events.
Attacco Decente reviews on the internet are few and far between. However, the Revival Records review (see link) of The Baby Within Us Marches On, is informative. As the reviewer writes, “I would be hard pushed to pigeonhole Attacco Decente in any one genre, but maybe that’s a good thing.” The reviewer offers many comparisons including; the Proclaimers, XTC, Abba, Gene, Simon and Garfunkel and The Waterboys, but the frustration of the reviewer is tangible. I agree with the comparisons and I agree with the challenge of classifying this band. However, there was a distinct/unique dulcimer sound unifying the whole album. I believe to this day I would know an Attacco Decente track if I heard it for the first time. In an age when everything is standardized, similar to an offering in an American-inspired burger bar, their uniqueness is to be applauded.
The Crystal Night album was mellower and less political, perhaps reflecting the shift in the political landscape. Now, political emotions make space for the expression of more personal emotions. Beneath beautiful melodies and wonderful musicianship dark themes still lurk, such as within the title track Crystal Night. Themes of romance are apparent on this album though a different kind of romance to the tv reality show romance of today. For example, a track called Chastity explores the theme of being locked in chastity. Whatever, the musical merits this isn’t a chart bound sound as the radio DJs used to say. More hopeful than being in chastity, When I’m in You (and You’re in Me) is a celebration of union both metaphorical and literal.
I was fortunate to watch this band live six or seven times. On one occasion we were in the room above the Prince Albert. It was a live rehearsal with a small audience to test out a forthcoming album. At the beginning of the set, they asked if there was anyone who did not know anyone. I knew no one, yet I was too shy to speak up. This was my problem, but their question spoke volumes about their human-centred values. I also think I saw them at the Brighthelm Centre. However, the concerts I remember the best took place at the Hanover Community Centre.
Hanover, a very liberal part of liberal Brighton was the right location for this band. The centre had an intimacy which worked well with the dulcimer-driven percussion. Acoustics were good and you felt physically connected to their percussive rhythms. Also, it was close enough, that I was able to walk home after the concert, humming merrily to myself. The venue was set up cabaret style and for a couple of hours, you were transported to another more humane world.
Geoff Smith and Mark Allen performed the Crystal Night album together, but after that, they appeared to go their separate ways. Geoff Smith focussed on his passion for the dulcimer which is celebrated on his site (see link). Post Attacco Decente, I only saw him perform once. He provided a live dulcimer film score for a screening of the black and white film Haxan: Witchcraft through the ages. It took place at the Duke of York cinema in Brighton. I found it to be simultaneously unusual and enjoyable, offering a very Brighton evening. Though, I am not so sure what the friends I took along made of it.
Manos – La luz del sol
Post Attacco Decente, subsequently I only saw Mark Allen perform once as part of a four-piece band called Manos. They were playing at the Komedia Brighton, the ceiling was low with tables and chairs set out once again cabaret style. My memories are distant, but I seem to remember a wonderfully mellow evening. I was struck by the shift from the very male percussive sound of Attacco Decente, towards a softer more ethereal sound. Guitars and percussion conjured up the light and warmth of the sun, a happy relief from the political and economic turmoil of the UK in the 1980s, politics had moved on (or so I thought at the time).
Martin Denny refined his craft by performing live in Hawaiian tiki bars and hotel lounges. I could imagine Manos doing a hotel lounge bar residency. There are parallels with Martin Denny, but Manos music was gentler, more rounded and less quirky. Labelling their music background music sounds critical, but it is a strength. Whereas Attacco Decente appeared to want to lead your thinking, Manos appeared to want to accompany your thinking.
Over the decades I have often revisited their only album when in need of a mellow state of mind. The album title Warm was well chosen, this music evokes warmth, very different to the hot energy of Attacco Decente. The album was released in 1999 on the Music of the Continents Records (MOTCCD001). Once again, the CD sleeve introduces the musicians and their instruments giving you a flavour of the sound of Manos.
Mark Allen – Nylon and Steel Guitars, Vocals, Zither, Percussion
Per Villez – Nylon and Electric Guitars, Guitar Synthesizer, Melodica, Sampler, Percussion
Kate Smith – Surdo, Claves, Shakers, Caxixi
Pat Power – Pandeiro, Snare, Timbau, Bongos, Ago Go, Afuche Cabasa, Luna, Gourds
Another eclectic mix of “unusual” instruments, although please note that the dulcimers have left the building. Tracks on Warm fit together extremely well, transporting you to a warmer more relaxed climate, sometimes Spain at other times a South American beach.
Thought-provoking agit-pop lyrics of Attacco Decente, are now replaced with the voice as an instrument. This works particularly well on one of my favourite tracks, the opening track What I Want to Say. There are no lyrics on this track or the other tracks. So conceptually we will never know what they wanted to say or perhaps more likely if they wanted to say anything. In a similar spirit, Always There again effectively features the voice as an instrument. I cannot help tripping on the sunshine these floaty and ethereal melodies evoke.
Sampling as a still fairly new technology in 1999 was put to good use on The Hands of Xamora. You hear vocal sounds, similar to the voices of ancestors you might hear if you were fully participating in a shamanic ritual. The art of this album though is that this track doesn’t sound out of place. It seems to fit into the dreamscape they creatively yet fleetingly conjured up.
Talking of dreams there is a track called Boat Dreams. I love the River Man by Nick Drake partially because his playing captures the rhythm of the river. Boat Dreams, flows but what comes through even stronger is that this mythical boat has oars as represented by the rhythm of the melody. Finally, on Suntan 60 Kate and Pat are credited with playing “toys”. I think they made a humorous thing of playing these toys as instruments when they played live at the Komedia Brighton. What I take from this is that these were serious musicians, but they didn’t take themselves too seriously.
The album and the concert convinced me that Manos would be embraced by others and for a vague yet foreseeable future. I eagerly looked out for the next instalment, but it wasn’t easy to search in a pre-digital era. Today, in a digital era where everything and I mean everything is digitally captured, I find no trace that Manos ever existed, not even on the comprehensive Discogs platform. So, this post leaves at least a digital trace, so that big American IT company web bots can samba, on their next late-night crawl all over this site.
The unifying belief at Woodlanddecay is that we all return to nature, with memories and folklore existing beyond physical demise. Perhaps vague and dreamy half-memories of yesterday are more meaningful than the sometimes soulless digitally enabled smartphone snaps and recordings of today. The joy of the la luz del sol was the warmth of the music and the melodies within that particular moment.
NB – I have attempted here to retrieve, archive and publish my fading memories from decades ago. I am willing to update this post, please use the Contact page.
I have attempted to include the Manos – Warm album on the Discogs site, though this was learning by doing and I wasn’t certain what I was doing.
Links
I found these links informative writing this post and they may be informative if you want to learn more.
Discogs
As always Discogs is a useful resource for information about Attacco Decente recordings. Unfortunately, there is no entry for Manos, which will have to be rectified.
https://www.discogs.com/artist/784678-Attacco-Decente
Revival Records
Accessing the internet in search of a fellow traveller I found this fascinating album review (April 30, 2022) on the Revival Records site. The site and The Baby Within us Marches on review is well worth a look. They used to sing I don’t care how long it takes, perhaps their time has come.
Geoff Smith
The Dulcimer site is comprehensive and informative, majoring on Geoff Smith work post Attacco Decente. However, for anyone who wants to listen to Attacco Decente for themselves this special offer may be of interest.
https://www.dulcimer.co.uk/store/product/attacco-decente-recordings-special-offer-3-cd-package
Vienesewaltz.net
Richard Rees-Jones was present at those memorable Attacco Decente concerts and effectively captures the political context informing this band in his fascinating review of The Baby within us Marches on.
Manos and Attacco Decente: Brighton’s Musical Legacy
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