scans.
LIVE FOR TODAY
FACT FILE
NAME: Ned's Atomic Dustbin. FORMED: Stourbridge,1987. BASE: West Midlands
(in and around Stourbridge). LINE-UP: Jonn (vocals), Alex (bass), Rat
(guitar), Dan (drums), Mat (bass) SONGWRITERS: Lyrics mainly by Jonn.
Music by the band. RELEASES:
• The Ingredients" four-track EP (Furtive), October 1989.
• 'Kill Your Television' single (Furtive) February 1990.
• 'Until You Find Out' single (Furtive) 1990
• 'Happy' single (Furtive) March 1991.
Once labelled "crap no-hopers", NED'S ATOMIC DUSTBIN are defying
their critics with hit records, powerful stage shows and a corking debut
album
HERE'S A puzzler.
Three hours ago, before they took the stage at Reading University and
set fire to the audience's hair, so to speak, Ned's Atomic Dustbin seemed
in high spirits. Their dressing room was some kind of nursery, with
coat hooks about two feet off the ground, which added to the general
atmosphere of nervous frivolity.
Now, back at the hotel, the band (well, two of them) seem to have aged
20 years. A lamp barely illuminates their faces as they talk so quietly
my tape only picks up consonants. Did someone die on the way home? Jeez,
it's like an Ingmar Bergman movie in here.
"This is what we're like after a gig, always," explains Alex,
number one bassist.
"People come into the dressing room and we've all got long faces
and we won't say anything, but it's not because we're pissed off. It's
just that we're completely drained. There's two things that let you
know you've done a good gig -we're sweating like mad and we're completely
drained. And I enjoyed that one. It was the best gig of the tour."
"I thought it was the worst gig of the tour," says Mat, number
two bassist. "I couldn't stand up because the floor was wet. Even
in bare feet I was having trouble standing up."
This from the man who spent the gig impersonating the 1980 Olympics.
To the Neds, the gig is everything. It's this that's given them a fan-base
more secure than some warm chewing-gum affixed to a sheep's back. Since
they formed in '87, it's got to the point where 60 per cent of their
audience display official Ned T-shirts.
Little is said of their corking debut LP, 'God Fodder' - a collection
of wildly electric, catchy pop songs - because, good as it is, the LP
is simply a postcard from the stage. If the Neds are ever mentioned
in <i>The Guinness Book Of Rock Stars</i>, it'll be a miracle,
or a printing error, because the band are living in and off the moment.
So bugger tomorrow.
"It sounds like a cliche," says Alex, "but when you're
on tour or on the road - man - you don't care where you are, or what
time it is, or what day it is. All I'm aware of is Vern our tour manager
telling us we're on in 15 minutes..."
Earlier, watching the gig from the balcony, the power of The Moment
was wonderfully obvious. Wherever you looked, madness. And with the
heat waves coming off the audience, being above it was like looking
down on the sun.
The band seemed to need a runup before they hit a note. And they hit
it with such force their feet almost left the floor. Later, the withdrawal
symptoms will set in (compounded by news of a story in the Daily Star
which characterised their audience as members of the dogs-on-string
brigade), but in the heart of The Moment, the Neds are in a delerium
of movement and sound.
Why they've suddenly kicked into the public consciousness with their
single 'Happy', after four years of luminous music press coverage, is
anyone's guess. But no one's complaining. The single charted at number
17, and people were forced to take notice.
"When we went on <i>Top Of The Pops</i> it was horrible,"
says Mat of their recent performance of 'Happy'. "Everybody was
horrible to us, except for the make-up ladies and Jimmy Savile. And
with the guy running up and down getting the audience to look like they
were enjoying themselves...it just got me really angry.
"But when we were actually recording I just couldn't stop laughing.
The show had nothing to do with music, but it was hilarious. And anyway,
why deny yourself the audience?"
Why indeed...
INTERVIEW BY GRAHAM LINEHAN
LIVE PHOTO BY ED SIRRS