Soft spot in my heart
I've always had a soft spot in my heart for lost causes.Hmmm... Perhaps that's why I support Sheffield Wednesday football club?
No matter.
This morning before work I am listening -- over and over and over again -- to "The Pressure's On," a 1979 release by one of rock's greatest lost causes, Rudi.
Rudi were perhaps among the top 10 of Britain's second-generation punk bands in talent. Yet with all this talent, the band sank without a trace -- apart from a tiny devoted cult following -- because of where they called home.
Singer/guitarist Brian Young, bassist Gordon Blair and drummer Graham Marshall hailed from Belfast, during a time when sectarian violence flared to such a degree that clubs were closed and live music opportunities were scant.
Unlike Derry's similarly styled Undertones, Rudi also lacked the hip patronage that could have helped secure them a record deal. Rudi put out a few adrenaline-infused singles, such as "The Pressure's On," and they became legends in Ulster. However, geography and politics conspired to limit their potential for success and their inability to crack London eventually confined them to footnote status when compared to peers such as the Buzzcocks and The Jam. During a 1978 trip to London, poverty stricken Rudi members even resulted to siphoning gasoline from cars to keep their van traveling to the capital.
They are one of rock's great "what-if" stories. What if they had hailed from Manchester or Leeds instead? Or even Dublin? Would people consider Rudi one of rock's great trailblazers had they come from anywhere but strife-torn Ulster? Or was this a band doomed from the start to sink into undeserved obscurity?
For more on Rudi's story, check out this page here on the excellent Punk77 Web site.
posted by erik hogstrom at 10:31 AM
1 Comments:
I remember them. Terri Hooley came to Cork in 1979 with a film called Shellshock Rock. Because he couldn't get it shown at the Cork Film Festival, he showed it in a concert venue called the Arcadia.
He also had Rudi and the Outcasts with him. Each of them played a set. He sang a song himself called "Laugh at me" and one of the young groups poured a glass of beer over his head.
I think I bought Rudi's single Big Time there and got it signed. I was more interested in the Undertones at the time but they'd moved on to better things at that stage.
I didn't see anything very special about Rudi or the Outcasts but I liked these groups - maybe because of seeing the film. Protex was another band in the film. I think I saw them with a very young U2 a few months later - same place.
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