There were a number of factors contributing to the formation of the F*** F***ers, in so much as it is possible to form a band with oneself. These factors were as follows:
1) Kall-Kwik on Chatham High Street (or Prontaprint or whatever the place was called) offering a high quality and relatively cheap colour photocopying service which made me wish I was still shoving out crappy tapes of my music, because it would be great to do one with a colour cover.
2) Carl of the Dovers introducing me to his friend Alan, an enthusiastic Scotsman whose enthusiasm was at that point seemingly focused on his collection of thrash records, or at least that's the impression I got. I'm fairly certain he used the term thrash in reference to music of a specific type, generally American in origin, about five-hundred times during the course of our first meeting, which amused me because I had no idea what or who he was talking about, and to this day I'm still not sure. It was during this encounter that I first heard Big Black because Alan had their album, although I'm not sure if that's relevant.
3) My increased frustration at how difficult it had become to record music since my stereo blew up when our house was struck by lightning, and because I was no longer a student at Maidstone College of Art and was thus without access to their sound studio. I had been doing some things with John Jasper on his portastudio, but John was fairly unreliable; thus did I get to the point where I just wanted to record something quickly, and to enjoy recording it without giving too much of a shit about whether the end result resembled a Jim Steinman production.
In addition to the above I was horrendously depressed, living in a shitty bedsit, and listening to a lot of Foetus records; and I had a burning need to record something similarly vile, which unfortunately explains the rapey tone of the first track. I suppose it might have turned out less shite were it better produced, but that probably depends on whether you regard G.G. Allin as something to aspire to. I don't, and never really did, but as I say I simply felt like producing something vile and indefensible. I had a guitar, microphone, fuzz pedal, a couple of basic drum machines from which I could generate preset rhythms, and John Jasper had lent me a karaoke machine with two tape decks and a limited echo effect, allowing me to multi-track by bouncing sound from one hissy cassette to another. I Don't Wanna Have to Hurt You, Baby turned out sounding somewhat ludicrous to my ears, and so having decided to keep going, it seemed wise to play to my strengths rather than continually fail to emulate Jim Thirlwell in a twenty-four track studio. So I started to have fun with it, improvising lyrics live onto tape, mostly inspired by a combination of Sexton Ming, the Born Bad albums which Carl had been lending me, and a ton of comic books - both mainstream X-Men type things and the undergrounds of Crumb, Skip Williamson and others.
The name came from the song F.F. America by the Leather Nun, as it is discreetly listed on the compilation album upon which I first heard it. The track made me laugh without obliging me to give much thought to the possibility of it referring to a practice with which some people might actually engage themselves; and so that became the name, because it's both disgusting and funny. A person of my former acquaintance suggested I change it to the Fist Funkers because then people would hear the name and look at each other and pull that face Terry Scott pulls when he thinks he's heard June Whitfield say bollocks in front of the vicar, and she actually said bollards, a quite different word. That way, the person suggested, I would be able to get a record contract and have my songs played on Steve Wright in the Afternoon, because that's always been an ambition of mine. Everyone would be able to join in the fun, he proposed. I've censored the name here so as to avoid casually outraging delicate facebook relatives and Google searches undertaken by perverts.
I did these six tracks as a C15 in a run of ten, or possibly a couple of runs of the ten, and just gave them to friends as something short and stupid with a fancy cover, something you weren't obliged to take too seriously
1) Kall-Kwik on Chatham High Street (or Prontaprint or whatever the place was called) offering a high quality and relatively cheap colour photocopying service which made me wish I was still shoving out crappy tapes of my music, because it would be great to do one with a colour cover.
2) Carl of the Dovers introducing me to his friend Alan, an enthusiastic Scotsman whose enthusiasm was at that point seemingly focused on his collection of thrash records, or at least that's the impression I got. I'm fairly certain he used the term thrash in reference to music of a specific type, generally American in origin, about five-hundred times during the course of our first meeting, which amused me because I had no idea what or who he was talking about, and to this day I'm still not sure. It was during this encounter that I first heard Big Black because Alan had their album, although I'm not sure if that's relevant.
3) My increased frustration at how difficult it had become to record music since my stereo blew up when our house was struck by lightning, and because I was no longer a student at Maidstone College of Art and was thus without access to their sound studio. I had been doing some things with John Jasper on his portastudio, but John was fairly unreliable; thus did I get to the point where I just wanted to record something quickly, and to enjoy recording it without giving too much of a shit about whether the end result resembled a Jim Steinman production.
In addition to the above I was horrendously depressed, living in a shitty bedsit, and listening to a lot of Foetus records; and I had a burning need to record something similarly vile, which unfortunately explains the rapey tone of the first track. I suppose it might have turned out less shite were it better produced, but that probably depends on whether you regard G.G. Allin as something to aspire to. I don't, and never really did, but as I say I simply felt like producing something vile and indefensible. I had a guitar, microphone, fuzz pedal, a couple of basic drum machines from which I could generate preset rhythms, and John Jasper had lent me a karaoke machine with two tape decks and a limited echo effect, allowing me to multi-track by bouncing sound from one hissy cassette to another. I Don't Wanna Have to Hurt You, Baby turned out sounding somewhat ludicrous to my ears, and so having decided to keep going, it seemed wise to play to my strengths rather than continually fail to emulate Jim Thirlwell in a twenty-four track studio. So I started to have fun with it, improvising lyrics live onto tape, mostly inspired by a combination of Sexton Ming, the Born Bad albums which Carl had been lending me, and a ton of comic books - both mainstream X-Men type things and the undergrounds of Crumb, Skip Williamson and others.
The name came from the song F.F. America by the Leather Nun, as it is discreetly listed on the compilation album upon which I first heard it. The track made me laugh without obliging me to give much thought to the possibility of it referring to a practice with which some people might actually engage themselves; and so that became the name, because it's both disgusting and funny. A person of my former acquaintance suggested I change it to the Fist Funkers because then people would hear the name and look at each other and pull that face Terry Scott pulls when he thinks he's heard June Whitfield say bollocks in front of the vicar, and she actually said bollards, a quite different word. That way, the person suggested, I would be able to get a record contract and have my songs played on Steve Wright in the Afternoon, because that's always been an ambition of mine. Everyone would be able to join in the fun, he proposed. I've censored the name here so as to avoid casually outraging delicate facebook relatives and Google searches undertaken by perverts.
I did these six tracks as a C15 in a run of ten, or possibly a couple of runs of the ten, and just gave them to friends as something short and stupid with a fancy cover, something you weren't obliged to take too seriously
Tracks:
1 - I Don't Wanna Have to Hurt You, Baby
2 - Beat You Up
3 - Stupid
4 - Terminator
5 - Rockin' Amoeba
6 - Violence
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I still maintain that this is one of the best songs I've ever written, and am amazed that it was improvised. Feel free to humiliate yourself by singing along.
STUPID
There's one thing you must do in life,
For you to get along,
In order for you to get it right,
You got to get it wrong,
It ain't a lot of money,
Ain't no arrow from Cupid,
In order to get along,
Well - you got to be stupid.
Duh!
Ug!
Duh!
Ug!
I used to be intelligent,
I used to be able to read and write,
Then I learned the truth,
And I finally got it right.
I threw away my spelling books.
I changed my looks.
I wore flared trousers.
All of a sudden I was stupid.
Duh!
Ooh ooh!
Duh!
Ooh ooh!
[shit guitar solo combining Bod theme music with Ants Invasion by Adam & the Ants]
Thank you, Jimi!
Duh!
Ooh Ug!
Duh!
Ug!
I never knew a thing,
But then I learned to sing,
And now I'm very stupid,
A fact that no-one can deny.
Duh!
Ohh ooh!
Duh!
Well, what's that word just there say?
Oh!
I understand.
It says dog.
That's one of those things with a tail, isn't it?
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