Looking over my cuttings from the early 1980s, two things stand out that tell you something about how a local music scene works: the support that Geoff Davies of Probe gave to a diverse range of musicians, and the continuing influence of Eric’s club – which by this point had been closed for three years.
And, yes, I was always very happy to have the conversation about Eric’s. Still am, to tell the truth.
PS Fans of Pete Burns will enjoy his cameo role at the end of the article. He was working in Probe Records at the time.
Oceanic Explorers
Penny Kiley gets passionate about Liverpool's new white hopes EX POST FACTO.
Melody Maker, March 12, 1983
IN a small, cold office above a record shop in the centre of Liverpool, Chris is waxing passionate. "You just can't carry on like this for ever, and it's not going to carry on for ever. The power and the passion in music died two years ago; we need some powerful passionate music again.
"People are getting disillusioned now, but I've got faith that something's going to happen to change aII that. And we'd like to be part of it."
Chris Clarke and her partner Frank Sparks are the originators of Ex Post Facto (it's Latin for "after the deed") who, with their new single "Oceanic Explorers", feel that they are on the way to doing their part in rectifying the frustrating state of modern music. The song (and the live sound that's been evolved around it) proves, like recent offering from the Banshees, that it's still possible to make music that's both powerful - even aggressive - and sensual at the same time, a reminder of musical potential that's been sadly neglected recently.
It's taken Chris and Frank several years working together to reach this point. They met in 1978 - "though by the time we'd saved up and got our keyboard it was '79" - and began by writing together before moving into a variety of other projects from "messing about with tape-recorders" to sound-tracking films in a community arts centre and playing in a group called Foreign Bodies - which evolved into Ex Post Facto.
Until now they've been fairly flexible, in the Liverpool tradition, with only Chris and Frank as the constant factor. The group only came together as a permanent line-up last December: Chris providing vocals and Frank playing keyboards, Mark Coleridge on drums, Paul "Rio" Reason on guitar, and Bernie Carroll on bass, with additional percussionist Kenny Dawick on stage with them.
The first single, "Ex Post Facto", was released in 1981. Totally different from their present material, it was synthesizer-dominated, like so many records of the time, and lacked the individuality of "Oceanic Explorers", but it did at least have the distinction of being more aggressive than most ("Heavy metal synthesizers!" remarked one observer).
That record was put out with the aid of Geoff Davies of Liverpool's Probe records. Since then he's become the group's manager and the record shop's given birth to a record label, Probe Plus, with the "Oceanic Explorers" EP its latest offering.
"We want to go as far as we can on the independent level and see what happens," says Frank. "We want people to come to us, we don't want to push too hard. We want the record to speak for itself. We think it's good ... in fact, we think it's brilliant, and I think a lot of people are going to like it."
Chris agrees: "We're in no rush to get signed up or anything; after all, look at how many bands have signed up and they've been ignored. What we'd really like to do this year is tour."
"Six months of hard gigging and we'll be a brilliant band," confirms Frank. "Six months and we'll be one of the best bands in the country."
Their standards were nurtured in the highly charged atmosphere of the late Seventies at the famed Eric’s, a time remembered with affection and excitement by anyone whose life was inspired and shaped by it, me included.
"We had such a great time," recalls Chris. "Both of us worked at Eric's and there was always so much going on. Punk was valuable because it broke down a lot of barriers. But it wasn't just that, there was so much going on all at the same time. There were so many bands, I forget them all now, but what sticks in your mind and heart and soul is the overall feel of it: people were getting up and saying things and no-one's saying anything now."
THAT positive approach is something they're trying to reaffirm by recreating in their own music what Frank calls "the emotion and the power" that characterised the sounds of those times.
It seems surprising that their way of doing this still involves the much-maligned synthesizer. Although other instruments (including a particularly valuable guitar sound) now augment it, it's Frank's choice of instrument and as such essential to the creative input of the group. "It's an instrument," Frank explains, "and I respect it as an instrument. I don't want to make funny little noises."
"When we started out," recalls Chris, "it wasn't like 'keyboards are the next thing so let's play that,' it was because of our disabilities and our enthusiasm to get things down. The great thing about synths is they've enabled a lot of people to get up on stage and do it, and synths are giving them the same freedom and that's great."
The one band Chris and Frank feel come close to what they're trying to do (in approach at least, because the final sound is dissimilar) are Simple Minds, who they both greatly admire.
"They're sincere about what they're doing, and they write passionate, emotional stuff. They've taken something from what was happening in the late Seventies and brought it up to date," says Chris, sounding as though she's sharing her recipe for the ideal band. She adds disdainfully: "They're not the type of band who do cover versions."
EX Post Facto aren’t the kind of band to do cover versions either. Chris, who writes the lyrics, has far too much to say to need that way out. The two songs on the B-side of the EP hint at only two of the subjects about which she has strong feelings.
"Bast", inspired by a book of poetry by Paul Gallico, stems obscurely from her almost Egyptian respect for cats (hinted at in her design on the record sleeve), and "Marilyn" is "about the way women let themselves get exploited."
Chris's songs try to express her own positive attitude to life and if that leaves her open to criticism for backing too many causes (she also feels strongly about the environment, CND and animal liberation) it's just a part of the same idealism she brings to her musical activities.
"I don't say we should end up like Crass," says Chris. "That might be detrimental to the music - but expressing things in your own way. I might be singing about something political but not sound as if I am, though people will still get the meaning from the mood of the song. All my lyrics have double meanings anyway.
"Oceanic Explorers" is the most obvious example of this ambiguous approach to song writing. Superficially it's just a series of images, conveying an atmosphere, a sense of depth and mystery, but nothing specific, but Chris says, "I suppose you could say it was a love song." Frank adds, "I don't think she wanted to write a typical love song: 'when I look into your eyes' and all that."
When Chris sings "your eyes ... your eyes" in "Oceanic Explorer", she sounds genuinely distraught, as though in danger of drowning, bringing a sea-change to an old cliché: the ocean they're exploring seems a tangible one.
But when they've finished exploring they'll come down to earth easily enough, and after an interview the first thought is for cups of tea. And in the small crowded kitchen at the back of the record shop, Chris is still waxing passionate, but the subject now is not music but the relative merits of various types of confectionery. Pete Burns (a mutual admirer) passes looking for a record.
"Did you know," he taunts, "that every time you bite into a jam doughnut a whale dies?"
Listen to Ex Post Facto
This is one of the songs mentioned in the interview, and one of their best.
Love this Penny, thanks so much for sharing (from the son of Reo Reason!).
Thanks to you, Ex Post Facto will not be among those "forgotten them all" bands. If they're still among us, and can be grateful, I hope they are; if not, I certainly am.