The Ned Wood Archive

When the kids had killed the man,
I had to break up the band

Last week of August, first week of September. The festival was slowing down. The crowds were thinning out. In many ways it felt like the end of something important. The end of summer always feels like that anyway. Time. His trick is you and me, boy.

The Only Ones were breaking up. From the outside, you never know what’s going on in the band. All you’ve got is the albums, the gigs, and the music press. You get hints about how the band are feeling from the interviews in the NME. You know they think they’ve got a good thing going and you get a sense of the frustration they feel at not being more widely recognised. And not being more successful. What you don’t know is that they nearly broke up after the tour in May but kept together when the Who got them to play as support on their US tour. You don’t know all of the details of that tour: getting thrown off the Who tour because Daltrey didn’t like them; Perrett knocking over a car park attendant with his motor and having to run away from the cops; the band giving up again, only to stick around for the odd gig later in the year. Breaking up is hard, but keeping dark is hateful.

The album that they released back in March was pretty good. Better than most of the other stuff you could buy that year. But it was always going to be damned by our faint praise. The cover wasn’t any better than the last two (a low bar to clear). There were some typical Only Ones tracks and at least three classics. Why Don’t You Kill Yourself is an excellent dark put down with Perry’s guitar screaming in a faraway room and Kakouli’s sweet backing vocals contrasting with Perrett’s trademark sneer. Me and My Shadow has Kellie in great form on a rocking Bo Diddley number with more haunting Perry interjections. Oh Lucinda is a pop classic. But too much of the album is muddy. Too many of the tracks are just a bit routine. Too often the band sound disinterested and ordinary. Perrett always said that he would stop if he didn’t think he was improving. The door to dreams was closed.

Anyway, I played it all the time. I got Fiona singing some of the words. Why Don’t You Kill Yourself! The wee Fies were fans now. They taped a Peel session from June which was better than listening to the album. Tracks which were ordinary on the LP were clearer and more interesting on the session. Like the band were much happier. Perhaps you’re smiling now, smiling through this darkness.

When they started, they were press darlings. The NME said it was like hearing Roxy Music for the first time. They were “a genuinely creative British band”. Live their shows were “displays of unequalled class”. Now the same press said they were “could’ve-beens rather than has-beens”; “straightforward, leaden boogie”; music of “unrelenting predictability” and “abject expressive redundancy”. Snipers in the brain. Incestuous and vain.

Someone in the music press said that folk who never bought an Only Ones record were directly responsible for the death of one of Britain’s best ever bands.

Well you guys in the press need to look at yourselves too.