Shriekback - My Spine is the Bass Line
Shriekback - Click the image to hear the song Accretions on YouTube
What goes around comes around… My email box has been buzzing with news about the Disco Not Disco compilation, a post-punk electro compilation that was released earlier this year. I’m told that college radio had latched on to Shriekback’s ‘My Spine Is The Bass Line’ a band classic that’s on the comp.
When I took a break from Gang of Four in 1981 I formed Shriekback with Barry Andrews of XTC and a new friend of ours, Carl Marsh - Wikipedia has the dirt on Shriekback here. Anyway, I did a little digging and found a video on YouTube of a song of ours entitled ‘Accretions’ which came from our first 12″ vinyl release called ‘Tench.’ Below is a MP3 of my favorite Shriekback cut, ‘My Spine Is The Bass Line.’
Shriekback - My Spine [is the bassline] [MP3]
June 2nd, 2008 at 10:17 am
I heard a remix of Shriekback the other day…I wish I had it to share.
June 2nd, 2008 at 11:23 am
Nice! Is that a Linn Drum on that saucy beat?
June 2nd, 2008 at 5:40 pm
Erik,
not a Linn no, that came later with our second album Care. Martyn Barker was the drummer on Spine I believe…
June 3rd, 2008 at 3:51 pm
no band can ever top the rhyme of nemesis and pathenogensis. i never connected GoF and SB…
June 3rd, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Ah yes, not as critically acclaimed but a bigger selling band than GOF
June 4th, 2008 at 7:25 am
hey - if you have a reunion tour (hee hee), i want front row tickets! i love “my spine is the baseline”!
June 4th, 2008 at 7:31 am
anyone know what became of 23 skidoo?
June 4th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
Good stuff. Now, how long until the Elastic Purejoy revival? ;)
June 5th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
Whoa. I was just on a bass player forum and someone posted the question “Who was your biggest influence” as to why you started playing bass. As is my pat response always to this question, I immediately thought of Dave Allen. Before I posted I googled Dave’s name to try to link a pic, and here I am, stumbling across this site like a blind man through an endless hallway.
Mr. Allen, it seems you might hear what I am going to say, so here goes. I am not generally a slobbering fanboy, and I’ve met and known and played with a lot of well-known musicians, but some of my fondest memories making music are of me sitting around my bedroom when I was 14-15 years old, learning to play along with Go4 and Shriekback tunes. I cannot tell you what an influence you have been on me. I consider you the quintessential bass player in many respects…always delivering the line between being the melodic rhythm instrument and the rhythmic melody instrument with solidity and just the right touch. Funky, sinister, slithery monster bass lines that always take a track in an interesting direction and create a “spine” for the rest of the musicians but without being flashy or grandiose in the “shredder” sense. Taste, class and pummeling thunder 100% of the time.
Spot on, mate. Hope you are doing well. Here’s to ya’.
June 6th, 2008 at 6:28 am
I saw Shriekback at the (intimate) Stone in San Francisco and I thought Dave Allen was going to break his neck flying off the monitors as he flew around the stage. Fo all of his wild movements, he still cranked-out those super-tight and super-grroovy bass lines! Great, great show… Now if you guys could just get the albums re-released! Cheers.
June 8th, 2008 at 7:51 am
@David D—I have to say, Shriekback is one of a nice little subset of groups I all thought fit together well because they didn’t fit well anywhere else. I’d lump Tuxedomoon, Dome, Shriekback, Download, Nik Turner, Mark Spybey, NWW, several albums by Legendary Pink Dots, and a deliciously unknown compilation called Acid Ranch 2000 (Uncle Buzz Records) in this sonic Twilight Zone.
(and p.s.–While an old stage moniker of mine does appear on the Acid Ranch disk, it’s the other people’s tracks that I still can’t get out of my head after many years–Prismatic Otter, Daddy Monkey, Hyperbubble’s “StarJacker”).
June 13th, 2008 at 11:49 pm
I have often wondered if the lyrics to this song were a cryptic reference to the Marxian notion of the distinction between the economic base (or, in this case, “bass”) and the cultural superstructure (the spine being that with which one works). Perhaps I just liked to think Shriekback had some of the same political commitments that GoF had, if just more subtly presented.
Am I reaching or on to something? It is also one of my favorite Shriekback songs, in any case. It has a fantastic kind of motion to it, as did all of Shriekback’s best tunes. “A Kind of Fascination” continues to fascinate as well.
June 15th, 2008 at 9:52 pm
This song will never sound dated, never tire. I’ve still got the original 12″ in my collection.
Even if the music sucked - which of course, it does NOT - just the title alone is the absolute tits.
I can still drop this in any DJ set, and the bodies keep quivering. A masterpiece, Dave - thank you!
PS - I recently dropped “Sexthinkone” on the radio show.
Mixed out of Meat Beat Manifesto’s “99%” and into The Talking Heads’ “The Great Curve”….
PPS - Did you guys write that in a brothel or a bathhouse? :)~
June 16th, 2008 at 10:10 am
@Steven,
I think that’s an interesting idea but I don’t believe Carl Marsh who wrote the lyrics and sings them would agree that he was writing from a Marxian basis. Although Shriekback was not as overt lyrically as Gang of Four with our political commitments we were just as active in supporting causes and movements.
June 16th, 2008 at 10:13 am
@Paul V,
I’m glad you agree on the “timelessness” of Spine. I too play out with the 12″ when I’m DJing and it always goes over very well. SexThinkOne was another fine lyrical excursion from our singer Carl Marsh who also wrote the lyrics and sings them on Spine. It may have been written in a bathhouse but I can’t confirm……maybe Carl can.
June 16th, 2008 at 10:14 am
BTW, my new outfit Faux Hoax intends to do a 2008 update version of Spine.
June 16th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
@Dave–BRAVO re Faux Hoax/Spine