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UK Decay,
after changing their name
from The Resistors. Picture from
The Split Single spring 1979.
from the left, S.Harle, Segovia, Abbo
A general History of UK Decay
with quotes from Ian Glaspers 'Burning Britain''
"When imagination rules the
head
Evoking instincts undead
The animal will rise to cry wolf"
"From your heaven
- the worlds our stage
Romance lived by repetition
Freedom - in our prison of passion
Stage-struck-struck-stage
Stage born stage bred
Soul torn stage dead"
UK Decay was
formed out of the ashes of a band called The Resistors.
who were, Steven Abbot (Abbo) guitar, Steve Harle on drums, Paul Wilson
vocals, and Martin (Segovia) Smith bass. After P.Wilson left during
the spring of 1979, they changed their
name and released the ‘Split Single’
7”
with local band Pneumania,
on their own Plastic records label, under the new
name, UK Decay.
There were two tracks from each band, UK Decay contributing
‘UK Decay’
and ‘Car Crash’, and Pneumania, ‘Exhibition’ and ‘Coming
Attack’. The 'Split
Single' sold extremely well, mainly thanks to a damning review in the NME
who's Danny Baker and Charles Shar Murray described them as one of the
worse punk bands
of all time!
Late 1979 with Spon in the new line-up
left to right, Spon,Abbo.Segovia, S.Harle
Summer 1980 photo taken outside Matrix
records, for 'For my country'/'Unwind'
Left to right: Spon, Segovia, Abbo and
S.Harle.
At
the same time the band produced their own monthly fanzine, ‘The
Suss’ And ran their own Punk record and clothes shop, 'Matrix'.
Abbo now on vocals as well as guitar, soon found this new role difficult, so
staying on vocals he poached guitarist Steve Spon from Pneumania . It was an
inspired move as the new line-up clicked instantly and the chemistry within
the band came dramatically to life.
“With the new line up and name, it wasn’t long– a matter
of weeks, before we played our first live show,” remembers Steve
Spon.
“It was at Luton Town Hall. By the end of the show in the midst there
stood Abbo, in this 35-degree sweatbox, fully dressed in a long heavy Macintosh
coat shouting necrophilia!
There was definitely a vibrant rapport between us…even though the
show ended in a massive riot, which was quite common for us in those days!”
The next release for Plastic Records was the band's Black
Cat EP, which came out in early 1980 and made the Indie chart for three
weeks,getting to no 42. Alex Howe from Fresh Records, offered to license the
first two singles off them and signed UK Decay to the label for several new
7"s and an album
It was around this time that UK Decay played their first out of town gig, with
Bauhaus at the Northampton Racecourse Pavilion. "The first
official release for Fresh was the September 1980's 'For
My Country' single, which became a huge Indie hit, spending eight months
in the
chart and reaching (Appropriately enough for such a superstitious band!) No.
13.
The single was promoted by a UK tour with raging
political US punk band, the Dead Kennedys
“By the end of the tour - we did twenty or thirty shows over about
six weeks - we had both the Black Cat EP and For My Country riding high in the
Indie charts and even entering the bottom end of the national charts. There
were also endless interviews with the national music press and scores of fanzines.”
“Nothing mattered more to us than our audience; whatever the critics
would say, negative or positive, didn’t have any affect on our relationship
with our fans, apart from the fact that the numbers kept growing. And yes, I
think at the time we felt we were being innovative, but what was more important
for us was to create our music the way we wanted to and not to be compromised.”
Late 1980 from 'Unexpected Guest'
from the left Steve Harle, Abbo, Spon
UK
Decay in Brussels early 1981 with Lol(left) Steve Harle, Spon and Abbo under
the manaquin!
By 1981 two further singles, 'Unexpected
Guest' and 'Sexual', were unleashed, "both
effervescent waltzes of dark intent", the
former actually achieving the band’s highest Indie chart placing of No.
4, and paving the way for UK Decay’s splendid debut album,'For
Madmen Only', released by Fresh in December of that year.
The band had taken a year in recording, but had to delay recording to tour the
US with the Dead Kennedys and to do several gigs in Europe. There were further
frustrations with finding a permanent bass player.
After Segovia left, Lorraine 'Lol' Turvey from The Statics stood in for some
UK dates and a European tour in late 1980, but after the US shows, the band
invited Creetin (AKA Jason) back to the UK for their first headlining tour with
The Dark and Play Dead supporting.
Following that stint he returned home and Eddie 'Dutch' Branch (AKA 'Twiggy')
from Northampton joined on bass, just in time to play on the album.
In early 82,Fresh Records collapsed soon
after the album's release, and the band were caught up in the ensuing management
buy-out by what would become Jungle Records.
With the help of John Loder and Southern
Studios though, they managed to buy up the rights to their back catalogue and
set up their own UK Decay Records. John Loder also introduced them to Penny
Rimbaud from Crass, which resulted in the 'RisingFrom
The Dead' 12" coming out on Crass'sCorpus Christi label in August 1982.
However, despite encouraging sales, an ‘extremely fatigued’ UK Decay
split up in late 1982, and a posthumous live album, ‘A Night For Celebration’,
was
released during the summer of 1983.
"I will never in my whole life forget that last gig of UK Decay, it was
pure
emotional!
We played a pair of shows at Klub Foot, and Abbo announced at the first of
the two shows that the following gig was to be the last, so that set the stage
for the end So the gig was like some kind of celebratory wake with tears from
nearly everyone that was there! It really was the ultimate night of celebration,
with Abbo screaming, "it's not the end, it's a new beginning!"
UK Decay summer 1981 on their return to the UK with 'Creetin Chaos' (left) now
onbass. Abbo, Steve Harle and Spon (right)
Finally later in the summer of 81 Eddie ('Dutch or Twiggy') Branch (bass),
settled into the line-up. Spon (right)
In the short time the band were around
they had played over 450 gigs, all around the UK,with tours of Germany, Holland,
Belgium and France as well as the West coast of the US and Canada.
They also released six singles and one studio album and one Live album cassette,
They also recorded two shows for the BBC’s John Peel.
The influence UK Decay had on
the emerging ‘Post punk’ and ‘Goth’ movements is well
documented and cannot be underestimated.
thanks to Ian G. Quotes Stevespon 'Burning
Britain: The History Of UK Punk, 1980 - 1984', available through
Cherry Red Books in August 2004
Read more Press reviews
Return to History Index
Released October 1981 in gatefold sleeve. Later re-issued on UK Decay RecordsDKLP1
“Rising from the Dread” 12” EP:Corpus Christi Records Christ
ITS 1. Released August 1982.
A Night for Celebration” UK Decay Records DK6: Recorded at Hammersmith
Klub Foot on 30 December 1982, the final UK Decay gig.
UK DECAY
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