The Jass Babies (1981-82)

Peter Coyle begun his career as a singer during the early post-punk period (1978-79) with the punk act Tin Ethics. About the band Coyle remembers:

‘The main reason why I make music is because I love writing and singing. It is also very good for me. Its hard to explain but it helps me survive in life. It started when punk was happening.

I was in a school band called Tin Ethics and Pete Wylie (he lived just round the corner from me and he had just made "You Better Scream", a great record) came to see us play live at Kirklands in Liverpool city centre. Pete loved us. We were so excited that we took a cassette of our live gig down to London to play to the record companies.

The only problem was that it was Sunday. That didnt bother us. We played it to the security people and they liked it. That was enough for us so we came back on the same day because we didnt know anyone in London. I think that is a symbol of how aware we were of the music industry. But crucially for me, I thought, if he can do it coming from Walton in Liverpool then so can I.

At that time (I was 17) 1979 I would do gigs wrapped up in bin bags or hanging upside down or something. I was very influenced by Peter Gabriel and Ian Curtis and would perform like a screaming banshee. I have wore so many masks while singing live. I was very intense and if the truth be known I probably would have been more at ease with aliens than human beings. I dont know where my head was but it wasnt on this planet. I used to frighten people. To be honest I used to frighten myself.

After forming a band called No Trace I eventually left to form the Jass Babies.’

Apparently No Trace (1980-81) were remarkable on stage, and some of their numbers, like Talk in Tongues and Africa, became instant favourites for the band’s fans.
In 1981 Coyle formed The Jass Babies with former Visual Aids Rob Boardman (guitar, later Personal Column), Dave Whittaker (bass, later Here’s Johnny) and Steve Brown (drums, later A.O.M. and Here’s Johnny). About the band, Coyle says:

'People seemed to love us when we could get gigs but unfortunately they were few and far between. People didnt know how to take it because we were so aggressive, but I would be dressed up in a red twin set, which kind of blew it. The gigs were not enough to enable us to go full time in music. That was my only concern. I was on the dole. I didnt take my place up at university in London. All my mates had gone off to university but I had stayed behind. I was desperately trying to make music full time. It was very difficult. […]

The Jass Babies did a peel session that went down a storm. We just couldnt get the gigs or any records out. We didnt really fit in with anything. That didnt stop us jamming every week. Those were important days for me musically. We never practised songs. We only ever jammed and improvised new material. It forced me to come up with stuff immediately and to be honest it has been the driving force of almost everything I have ever done since. It taught me that songwriting is at its best when the people involved are channels or transmitters rather than consciously setting out to write a specific song. To write songs is to be in a state of grace. In other words, if you write songs you need to be open and receptive. If you dont like that language, tough, its the truth.

I didnt know it at the time but there are not very many musicians who can let themselves fuck up horribly and be spontaneous. Also writing songs on the spot with three or four musicians gives a song a dynamic that is not found in a lot of music. You can get amazing coincidences where you all join forces together out of the chaos and the results can be truly magical. So even though the Jass Babies were a resounding commercial disaster. For me, they were the building blocks of all my subsequent songwriting. Besides that, I still work with David Whittaker and Steve Brown (the Jass Babies) and we still find those moments of magic.’

On 19th October 1981 the Jass Babies recorded a Peel Session in Maida Vale Studios, with Dave Dade as sound engineer and Tony Wilson as producer. The Session was eventually broadcast on November the 3rd. The track-list featured the songs:

Peel Session (1981)
- Let Me Soak It Up
- My Love Makes You Melt
- Parable
- Talk In Tongues

This recording ‘with the sustained distorted guitar & flanged bass [and] an almost Gothic tinge [to] their sound’ presented a band ‘that really wasn't the norm of the Liverpool bands of the time’ (cf. Fruitier Than Thou). Talk in Tongues was an original No Trace number. The song Let Me Soak It Up would be selected as the band’s first single. Apparently the band worked on it with other fellow musicians like Pete Wylie, Wayne Hussey and John Whitehead, but split, in 1982, while still working on the project. (One track by the Jass Babies would later appear on the Liverpool tapezine Quest N° 2, in September 1982)

Soon after the split of the Babies, Coyle joined Paul Simpson and other former Wild Swans members in the short-lived Living Legend, before eventually joining the remaining Wild Swan, Jeremy Kelly, in the Lotus Eaters. Coyle remembers: ‘In 1982 (I was 20) the Lotus Eaters started off with me singing on a portastudio (a little 4 track home studio) in Jerrys bedroom. This was a major change for me. I was now singing in a softer way. Whats more the melody from Jerrys guitar was a real joy to sing against. We did a version of the First Picture Of You on that portastudio.’

The rest is history.

The Jass Babies’ Peel Session can be found here (thanks to our friend at Fruitier Then Thou, without whom…)

( see: http://www.petercoyle.com/bio.html )