A post from last year about this record.
As general as Christmas approaches, there are musical departures to sour the mood and make us reflect. Just yeaterday Shane MacGowan. A few days back Geordie Walker of Killing Joke. A mighty musician and a mighty loss.
It was one of those deaths that made me think of my secondary school, forty years and more back now, and its rituals and practices. It's foibles. I went to a reasonable sized comprehensive called Grey Court in Petersham in South West London. An unremarkable place in most ways but the portal to crucial, personal memories.
As we moved up towards the fifth year the students of my year, and the boys particularly used to write the names of the artists and the bands they liked on their bags and pencil cases. I remember certain bands tallying highly. Cramps, Rezillos, DEVO were greatly liked. Killing Joke seeme to be rated and listened to more than anyone.
I didn't listen to them. I wasn't a John Peel listener crucially and primarily focused on what was in the charts an on Top of the Pops until I was in the fourth year and started to be fascinated by Echo & the Bunnymen who were still an underground concern largely at this point though not much discussed by my yearmates in Grey Court in the corridors or plaugrounds or celebrated on pencil or school bags.
Prompted by the news of Walker's death and the sad reaction of a schoolmate of mine for whom they'd meant a lot at the time, I listened to The Joke's second album What's This For! earlier this week. It's impressive first of all. Ritualistic, fierce and primitive. A set of pagan rites as much as songs; a set of circles around a campfire, all driven onward by Geordie's echoey and driving guitars.
Killing Edge were never the easiest of bands to listen to. They recollect the nihilistic and anarchistic spirits of their times as well as anybody, of squats and marches, and would naturally appeal to the teenage boys that we were. It was around the time when you might think of reading Lord of The Flies.There's something almost fascistic and scary about its intensity.
Good as Killing Joke and Walker were it's still not really my thing. I'm glad the playground is far behind. Secondary School was never something I enjoyed. Ultimately I think I found the peer pressure which was king there stifling and claustrophobic. I was glad when I could leave in 1982 and start to develop my own tastes and interests. Construct my own identity Still Killing Joke offer powerful reminders of those times and What's This For! is a fascinating and impressive record.
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