First There Was a Band…

Subjagger arose from the ashes of a couple of bands knocking around London sometime in late 1991. A three-piece guitar band, we started jamming under the arches of a railway line in East London. It was cold and damp that first winter. Our own energy fuelled us though, as we worked to hone our sound which was somewhere between 60’s power pop and 70’s rock.

We used to describe (rather grandiosely perhaps) our music as if The Who played Bowie songs. To those who heard our sound, we landed somewhere in the realms of The Small Faces and so later on we naturally started to pick up a mod following. This was before Britpop made all these sorts of cultural references fashionable. Our manager Ben got into character with his long leather coat and Jaguar car, very much the punk Arthur Daley.

We would call him from the cold rehearsal rooms for encouragement.

He was probably in the Groucho. 

Our first proper gig in ‘92 was at The Dublin Castle in Camden Town and was rammed. We used every bit of influence we had. Every connection we knew. Trying to build a hype. No social media or mobile phones back then, so mainly word of mouth and a bit of ‘FOMO’. Maybe we played it too cool in retrospect. We managed to turn down a support with Jeff Buckley at The Borderline in London as ‘we ain’t supporting a Yank’. Ooops. We played aloof with record companies who called our bluff.

We were good, but… We supported Pulp, we played every Camden pub on the ‘toilet scene’.

We worked hard.

We played hard too.

Eventually in ’93 we signed to Acid Jazz on their new rock imprint Focus

and the ‘Flock’ EP was released soon afterwards, produced by Eddie Piller.

It was (apparently) number 1 (momentarily) in the Japanese import charts (or somewhere). We played some hip clubs in London like Magick and Smashing. Our record was played in the happening Blow Up club in Camden and other mod clubs too. We made a cool video. Leather coats and glitter. We did a couple of UK tours supporting the likes of Corduroy and Mother Earth.

Fun times.

Our tour manager Ian was more rock ‘n’ roll than we were and routinely drank the rider whilst we were on stage. We held our own all-night parties under the arches in East London and followed in the footsteps of our punk heroes playing a regular gig at The Hope & Anchor in Islington just round the corner from our management offices. It became our local, as did the Good Mixer and The Spreadeagle in Camden.

The Coach and Horses in Soho was another regular haunt where we hung out with the Loaded guys and got up to all kinds of mischief. We played the 100 Club a couple oftimes. We played the Kentish Town Forum and the Shepherd’s Bush Empire.

So, for a while it felt like the streets of London were ours. We walked tall, but we were still out of step with the mainstream. And that can be a precarious place especially when we already know fashion can be fickle. 

We moved labels in ’94 and released a second EP ‘I Am Subjagger’ on Lemon records. Unbeknown to us this has been a linguistic reference point for a few 90’s late night stalwarts as in ‘I am totally Subjaggered…’, no I am Subjaggered’ etc… It described the situation well. We made another cool video. Bit angsty maybe. Good amount of eye liner a la Clockwork Orange.

We toured some more and we continued to develop our sound, our songwriting and our look, which remained firmly seated in 60s/70s culture which meant plenty of charity shops had our custom. We played a couple of festivals that summer and hung out with Oasis at Glastonbury. And Margi Clarke, who was funnier than Noel. We found ourselves gradually moving outwards from the centre of that iconic circular Britpop mod emblem though.

Newer, younger, better-looking bands were forming all around us.

No longer the shiny baubles we once were, we continued regardless and put together an album of our best songs, recording them in London initially with Julian Cope’s guitarist Donald Ross Skinner at the helm. They were sounding great.

Perhaps there was life in the band after all?

And Then There Wasn’t…

When the end came in ’95 it was unexpected and in the middle of recording that last album. Three became two. A chair is still a chair with just three legs but with just two we felt broken, falling to pieces. We tried to soldier on and completed the album in Bath with Donald and a slightly different line up.

We will always be grateful to the musicians who helped bring that album in – Ben, Dickie and Brynn in particular.  There are fond memories of those two weeks recording, hanging out and having various people visit to put us off the main task…The wind had left our sails though and we felt adrift.

It had always been the three of us vs the rest… We released the album under a different band name, ‘Realer’ but the spirit had gone and soon afterwards the band split. The album wasn’t really promoted and fizzled out. We all went on to do other things in music, and still do.

Of course, other amazing stuff has happened, as it should. And time has passed. Sometimes it’s only in hindsight that we realise quite what we had.

A couple of months ago Marcus was sent a bootleg recording of one of our gigs recorded live off the mixing desk at the Amersham Polish Club (thanks!) and it sounded groovy. Better than we remembered. Marcus started a conversation around possibilities.

There were people out there who still say the ‘S’ word. So, maybe it could be worth one last hurrah? 

Touring 

The thrill of packing a bag and throwing it into the back of the van with the guitar cases, amps, speaker cabinets and drums then heading out onto the open road is undeniable. We weren’t big enough to have anything more than a small van and a tour manager with the three of us.

We often took it in turns to drive although Dave couldn’t drive and it was accepted wisdom that I was (and still am) a fairly poor driver. So that left Marcus and Ian. Until Ian had drunk the rider at that night’s gig of course and then it was Marcus left to get us back to the hotel to continue the party. One night Marcus fell asleep -momentarily { note from Marcus - it was ICE! }and the whole van turned through 180 degrees ending up facing the wrong direction in the fast lane of the M1. Dave was in the back of the van with all the equipment having a post-gig nap.

That was a wake-up call. We got the van safely to the side of the motorway and remembered Dave in the back. We opened the gatefold doors to find him in amongst all the equipment, shocked but thankfully in one piece. Our manager Ben was always having to sub us money to make things right.

The van was just one of those things. ‘I own you’ he would helpfully remind us.

Arriving at a venue we would park the van outside and saunter in to check things out. On those tours we weren’t the main act and supported Corduroy on one tour and Mother Earth on another.

Our first tour was with in Scotland with a band called The Four Of Us though. We arrived at the first venue – Aberdeen – and walked in casually late – an organised looking guy with a clipboard and things hanging off his belt approached us and asked fairly tersely – ‘where’s your TM’? ‘Erm, TM you say? What’s that’? ‘Tour Manager’ he said coolly. ‘You’re late and the TM needs to tell me what’s going on’.

We helpfully pointed him in Ian’s direction and nipped off to find the drinks. Ian probably didn’t receive a particularly warm welcome that afternoon but we all learned a lesson in keeping to the clock. We became a slick ‘on the road machine’ getting gear set up and then down and into the van after the show ready for the next night.

And repeat…

Some places were bigger than others. Some crowds were friendlier than others. Most of the time we won over an audience who weren’t really ours. The mods would be down the front and sometimes we’d recognise people from another date we’d played.

Starting to build a following. ‘Face’! they’d shout. It was an old mod thing. Faces. Small Faces. Sometimes we had less friendly greetings but thankfully that was a rarity. We didn’t get knifed, bottled or have any rotten vegetation thrown at us.

We had various friends who would ‘roadie’ for us which meant we had a proper gang. And more folks to drink the rider too. 

The only fights we had were amongst ourselves when we’d had one too many. Dave advised us not to pick a fight with a drummer as ‘they hit things for a living’. It didn’t stop us having a go though.

The biggest places we played were Shepherd’s Bush Odeon and the Kentish Town Forum or Town and Country Club as it was known back then. Both, in London. There’s nothing like hearing a guitar chord chime through a huge PA and echo off the back of the theatre, reverberating around the enormous room.

Or hearing the boom of the bass and literally feel the pounding rhythm of the drums in your chest. Seeing row after row of people all the way to the back. We can be fairly sure only a few were there specifically to see us, but who cares when you’re on the stage and the adrenaline is pumping.

One of the venues decided they should drive a mini onto the stage as part of the production. Imagine our disbelief when we saw a well-refreshed Ian at the wheel grinning ear to ear. It all worked out fine in the end. Private property.

Things were simpler back then, of course. 

We played the 100 Club in Oxford Street at least twice and towards the end of our lifespan as a band and it felt like our special place that represented our style, our history, our fans and our London. That is why we are going back to the 100 Club for a reunion gig early in 2024 to celebrate 30 years of the band. We hope this will be a chance to turn the clocks back a bit and revisit some of the tunes we loved (or didn’t) and hear some of the DJs we loved like Blow Up, Magick, Smashing and Acid Jazz. 

Recording

Recording studios as they were back in the 90’s were pretty similar to those they used in the 60’s and 70’s only with more digital gear rather than analogue although we always sought out places where they still used the old equipment so that we could get an authentic sound.

Nowadays it’s all in a single MacBook.

We tried Toe Rag studios in North London where Elvis Costello recorded his first album. It was in one room with little in the way of baffles or dividers between amps, drums and mixing desk so it was a little messy sound-wise. But they had all the old analogue gear and we loved that.

No one else did though so that recording got scrapped. Interestingly Jack White (White Stripes) later cited the place as his favourite studio ever.

We tried Acid Jazz studio with Eddie Piller producing which captured a significant part of our sound well I think. But not the whole thing. That was the ‘Flock’ EP. Out Of My Head was an accidental stand out and videos were made for that one and Don’t Make a Fool.

Lots of leather coats, fur and moodiness!

Whatever we did live was really hard to get on tape though. We tried again with Pat Collier at Greenhouse Studios and caught the intensity but not the full groove of the band. That was the ‘I Am Subjagger’ EP. The video for I Am was fun to make if a bit angsty at times… Good track though, and powerful. 

Hanging around studios is a fantastic way to waste time, chew the fat and listen to tracks being built up gradually from an initial ‘guide’ track with overdubs of drums, then bass, then guitars and finally the vocals. Maybe a bit of extra magic dust is sprinkled over or maybe you keep it live sounding.

The trick is to do both and capture the vibe too.

The producer’s job is to keep everyone on task and loose. This means maintaining a cool, casual exterior but internally staying alert and focussed. Maybe not as focussed as the engineer had to be though. A missed take, a poorly recorded sound, too long setting things up so that the ‘vibe is gone, man’. That is probably the most important role in recording. That and the drummer. But don’t tell them.

Actually, do, as they rarely get the accolades they deserve!

The last record started with a demo at Fortress Studios in London. It wasn’t just a demo though but we didn’t realise that at the time. The songs were sounding great, as was the playing. We had toured most of the songs so they were tight. Some of them were recorded layer by layer with overdubs but generally a live bass and drum take.

Some were wholly live.

Donald was in producer role and also playing lead guitar. His brother Gavin dropped in for some falsetto vocals. It felt good and we were ready for the ‘real thing’, a two week residential (living in the studio) session at Moles Studio in Bath.

That’s when things started to fall apart though (see earlier) and we didn’t have the usual band which made getting the usual sound even more difficult. The sessions were fun and all involved deserve to be honoured. But it didn’t feel right somehow. ‘Ten Stone Wet’ was released under a new band name, ‘Realer’. And that was that. Until we went back to the Fortress sessions more recently and found half the songs on a DAT and half on a cassette.

The ‘lost’ album was ‘found’. Baking, digital transfer and remastering. It shall be released (probably).

Photo Shoots and Videos

This isn’t a particularly lengthy paragraph, probably because we weren’t so interested in this part of the whole shebang, although there do seem to be quite a lot of photos knocking about.

And the videos with Lee and Caroline were a blast.

So, we were a bunch of preening perfumed ponces to some extent. And that meant we were supposed to love the camera, the glam and the glitz. The photo shoots and videos, a bit like the records, had to capture the authentic band in their own habitat.

No small feat.

Not as glamorous as you might imagine but great nowadays so we can look back, smile, outright laugh or cry at these moments in time. And from our lofty places in middle age we can say ‘yeah, we did that, didn’t we?’

Anyway, have a look for yourself and see what you think. Maybe you can spot yourself in one of the videos or photos. Maybe you’re married to the band. Maybe you’re not. At the end of the day, we were Subjagger.

And so were you.