The Photos, July 1980

“Is there a Photos sound? I think it’s developing.”

Photo © David G Bailey

The Photos were a punk-pop group from Evesham who were playing in Birmingham, the nearest thing they had to a hometown gig. I’d been sent to interview them and went down on the train with Liverpool photographer Dave Bailey. (He was using the byline David G Bailey, to avoid confusion with his famous namesake.)

We were booked into the same B&B as the band. It was near the BBC studios at Pebble Mill, which meant it was geared up for showbiz guests. In other words, you could get breakfast after 9 am. I interviewed the band in the lounge, before we went to the gig. They looked out of place in their rock’n’roll threads against the sort of carpet you might find in your grandmother’s house. They were nice people.

The name, of course, was ripe for puns. Afterwards the PR sent me a note saying “Thanks for the piece. I thought it turned out well.”

The Photos have no negative

by PENNY KILEY

Melody Maker, July 5, 1980

NEVER trust a publicity photograph, especially where a woman is concerned. I went to meet the Photos expecting one glamorous, unapproachable lady singer and three gauntly anonymous male backing musicians. The truth came as a relief.

Wendy Wu turns out to be just a pretty girl with good bone structure and approaching flu. And Steve Eagles, Dave Sparrow, and Ollie Harrison (guitar, bass and drums) turn out to be three slightly unkempt individuals in battered leather jackets. Dave is the most outgoing, and within minutes of piling into the van that takes us across Birmingham we discover that Dave, the bassist, and Dave the photographer have met before, Dave (the bassist) had been temporarily inebriated and impressed by Big In Japan's Jayne Casey, enough to later ask her to fill the vacancy for a singer in his group. Fortunately for both the Photos and Pink Military, Jayne declined.

By the time we've exhausted this story and fed the Eric's myth a little more, the press feel quite at home. First example of the Photos gift for communication with strangers.

My favourite Photos song is "Barbarellas" (on the present LP and forthcoming EP). It's a true life story and a song to touch the heart of anyone who's ever had their favourite club closed down (but whoever heard of a song called "Eric's"?).

Barbarellas in Birmingham was as important a part of Wendy's life as Eric's was of mine, and much of our conversation is spent on the subject. Behind the two names we’re talking about the same place.

But Barbarellas is now, as the song puts it, "just another rotten discotheque", and tonight's gig is somewhere calling itself the Cedar Ballroom. It turns out to be really called the Cedar Club, but it's cosy and the atmosphere is right, with a disco that plays all the old favourites and lots of reggae.

Rival gigs from UB40 and The Beat haven't hurt attendance and there's a comfortably sized audience. There's the odd skinhead and quite a few punks and the inevitable musical illiterate who just likes drinking until 2a.m. But the audience is composed mainly of non-trendies: "the normal kids" as the group predicted.

Pogoing

The band open with their version of "Do You Wanna Dance," which owes a lot to the Ramones, and it's particularly appropriate. A hard core of fans at the front are pogoing wildly and it's a warming sight as hands punch the air and faces mouth the words, an aura of sweat, leather jackets adorned with the band's name, and unpretentious enjoyment. No-one stops to care whether it's hip to like the Photos or whether it's punk to like the Photos. And it's nice.

The gig makes clear what our initial meeting had suggested: the Photos' vital ingredient is rapport. It's hard not to identify with them. The familiarity of the music makes it accessible, and the lack of strong image keeps them closer to the fans. The Photos are a fun band, as Wendy keeps saying. No doubt the fans feel the same way. There's no mystique about the Photos. They play the sort of music they've enjoyed, with freshness and innocence. Their other secret ingredient is youth.

Wendy may be a selling point for press and record company, but in person she's neither sophisticated nor unapproachable, and she acts her age, which is 20. Debbie Harry, you must remember, is old enough to be her mother.

Photos' songs share experiences and the lyrics are the most individual and interesting part of their LP. Lots of groups claim to write about people, but not all do it so specifically. Several songs on the LP are based on real people, and the types are easily recognisable. The best pop lyrics always carry, or at least hint at, a story.

The finest exponents at present are Squeeze, and like theirs the Photos' lyrics carry the small everyday details that ring true. The major difference is that Photos' lyrics are seen from a female viewpoint, and are unmistakeably contemporary. Most interesting is the use of punk.

It's part of a collective past shared with their audience, with a strange honesty. Music's usually a framework for subject matter but here the music (and attendant subculture) is the subject matter, and it's a fan's eye view.

After all, this is Wendy's first band, but she did spend a lot of time at Barbarella's under several layers of make-up and her dad's old clothes.

Risky

"Maxine", the story of an ex-punk, is a lament for those days. "Her hair is normal and she's got a normal face/Normal again cos she's in a normal place." It also shows the naivety in some of the songwriting. "Anarchy In Birmingham" indeed.

Photos music is less interesting than Photos words. The strength is in the tunes but things like innovation are noticeable by their absence. The Photos sound is successful on its level (the tunes won't go away after you've heard them), but hardly as adventurous as the band seem to think. The stage sound is concerned with energy and speed, while the LP is sweeter, letting the tunes through. This they think is ambitious.

"We wanted a studio album," they stress. "We didn't want to recreate what we were doing on stage." This is what they see as being "risky". Most people would think putting strings on an album as playing safe, but the band think otherwise.

Potential

There is a risk of alienating the present audience. But, of course, there's a wider audience (similar perhaps to that of the Tourists). "We are not fashionable," they admit But being unfashionable can be a good long term proposition, for there's a vast potential audience in the great un-fashionable majority.

Are they trying for a commercial sound?

Wendy (vehement): “We’re doing exactly what we want to do.”

It seems to be true. So is there a Photos sound?

Dave: I think it’s developing.

The first LP defied expectations, both for the audience, who might have expected a vinyl version of the stage set, and for the critics who expected a record aimed at the Blondie market and found something less slick. ("We don't need to jump on other people's trends," is the first remark to show anger). The first LP marks the middle ground between two possible directions, just as this stage set is a cross between the studio sound and the rough anonymity of the early demos.

These demos appear on a limited edition LP, included with the official album called "The Blackmail Tapes". It's the most plausible explanation for the record's phenomenal leap into the charts, and a moral tale for all the large record companies who whine about lost profits and then blame their own inadequacies on the bootleggers.

It might be only a marketing ploy as far as CBS are concerned but it's a sensible one. For the band, too, although it wasn't their idea, it's an advantage; showing the direct they're coming from and refuting any accusations of being a manufactured group. Any manufacturing can only have been done by the press, noticing Wendy, who incidentally joined a ready made group in nucleus of ex-Satan's Rats (how embarrassing!) Steve, Dave, and Ollie.

Comparisons with other female-fronted groups are unconvincing, suggested possibly more by the visual image than the sound. Even the visual image isn't that strong. The boys won't let Wendy wear her leather jacket or denims on stage but there's no pressure make her a sex symbol. As she says: "No-one looks glamorous 100 per cent of the time. I won't be pushed into that trap because everything I do is natural to me."

Natural

It's one of the most noticeable things about the band: they are natural. Confidence not arrogance is their attitude. Within weeks of release their first LP is high in the charts. Yet while professing surprise they seem almost indifferent to the implications. All it means to them is a reward for hard work and a reason for more work.

They're very matter-of-fact in their approach. They've been touring country extensively but were shrewd enough concentrate on London (their home town is Evesham but they've played nearby Birmingham twice), until they got a record contract. They've no illusions about touring: it’s a way of building up an audience and of gaining publicity — which they disarmingly call "free advertising".

Interestingly they've chosen to tour without record company backing, even now.

The word "work" crops up a lot. The band feel pressure but don't seem to resent it They're one of the few groups I've met without a bad word for either the press or the record company. They haven't yet learned cynicism.

Their attitude is commonsense bordering on naivety. It's a refreshing change. Unimpressed by the trappings of the business they keep themselves untainted by image. Like their audience they're unfashionable and innocent. There lies their charm.

Listen to the Photos

This is the song Barbarellas that we talked about in the interview.