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I had all I needed to survive and spent most of my nights in pubs. We basically remained how we were. Their light shows were amazing. Everyone went out and got projectors, made light wheels and freaked out in their own homes.
At twenty-five, what compelled you to rekindle your association with scissors and a hairdryer? I got married in She offered me twenty pounds a week, which was pretty good so I took the job. It was. It was like a revolution in hairdressing when he came along. Then Vidal Sassoon arrived with a completely different style — no rollers, just blow-drying, another big revolution. She had this short, sharp, sixties haircut, very punky. Every girl wanted this haircut, and I was the only person in the shop who could do it, so I learnt to cut hair pretty well pretty young.
Oh yeah. You become a bit of a psychiatrist. Everyone tells you their woes and worries and you become quite good at reading human nature. It was also quite arty. My shop was on Tooting Broadway. By seventy-six we were one of the first shops offering leopard-skin print dye jobs. Did you ever attempt to glam up, a lick of face paint during the Ziggy age?
Meanwhile, you were still making music. Were The Marauders as musically aggressive as the name might suggest? Not really. The guitarist would jump off stage and go around the back of the audience, tie them up in his guitar lead. I like the chaos of wires: tripping up, being unplugged.
I let photographers come on stage because I love the chaos of it. It was a great community. The big place was the Tally-Ho in Kentish Town, a lovely pub. Kilburn And The High Roads played there. I got pally with Nick Lowe, and remember telling him a couple of bands were moving on and he ought to get Brinsley Schwartz down there. He was worried they might be too pop.
But they were a brilliant band, and ended up with a residency. Most of the bands just did covers, but the Kilburns pioneered doing original stuff and it soon became fashionable. We were into Bowie and dressed pretty wild, so we used to go to this lesbian club called Chaguaramas. There was no straight night, but Friday was band night, so they were a bit more lenient and let us in.
Then one week it had all changed and was called The Roxy. I love this, but I play the blues. They came back and changed my mind for me. What did you do so right? It was just our energy. Everyone was talking about punk-rock energy, and we just went for it. If people wanted to see punk for real, that was us. We loved our music so much that we got mesmerised by it. Suddenly the U. Subs are hot, things are moving fast and the band has got to be more than a hobby.
What were your circumstances by this point? What responsibilities did you have? Nothing, really. My marriage had split up when I was about twenty-nine so I was pretty free.
So I was doing quite well. The first-wave punk scene and London music media being what it was, they got a bit sniffy about the Subs arriving a couple of months late to the party. We were just happy to have people for us, like John Peel. When Farewell To The Roxy came out he kept playing our tracks.
So we called him to try to get on his show. Which he then plugged. We were known globally because of the BBC. The songs, and their musicianship and ideas when they were recording, were really spot-on. How did your life change when Stranglehold put you on Top Of The Pops and gave you the first of seven successive hits? It was fun. The end of the hits was our own doing. So we went on Top Of The Pops with Warhead , more or less a punk protest song with very strong anti-war sentiment.
Instead of being a flash in the pan we earned ourselves longevity. When you released Another Kind Of Blues had you already decided to name your albums alphabetically? I was in five different bands the year before I got the Subs together, so I made a vow to myself to stick with this band.
Many people imagine their 70s will be a peaceful time: perhaps pottering around in the garden, going for country walks or taking a cruise round some historical sites in the Med. Not Charlie Harper. He will be 71 in May. The band hardly ever feature in the now-regular TV histories of punk.
I first came across the Subs on the radio charts rundown in when Stranglehold had reached No 26, which saw Harper and pals make the first of several Top of the Pops appearances. That was their second single; C. Those early singles were everything a punk schoolboy wanted — vicious blasts at all forms of authority from the government to the police, replete with killer hooks, and available on blue vinyl.
Their matinee show for children at Leeds Fan Club in was my third gig, and I vividly remember the room spinning with the volume, and the thrilling sound of Harper at full pelt. I wanna be teenage! The classic lineup was probably Harper, Garratt, bassist Paul Slack and drummer Pete Davies; while Harper has been through 20 or so Subs since, bassist Alvin Gibbs has performed with the band since , and Slack, Davies and Garratt have been drawn back on several occasions.
The current lineup Harper, Gibbs, Jet on guitar and Jamie Oliver — no, not that one — on drums has been stable for a decade.
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