{"id":3061,"date":"2015-03-03T08:06:47","date_gmt":"2015-03-03T13:06:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/?p=3061"},"modified":"2024-12-23T11:04:06","modified_gmt":"2024-12-23T16:04:06","slug":"the-pop-group","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/the-pop-group\/","title":{"rendered":"The Pop Group"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

As riveting as the music that sprang up during punk\u2019s assurgency in the late \u201970s might have been, the subsequent bands and variations that followed in its wake were perhaps even more astounding. Like many of their contemporaries, The Pop Group was an answer to punk\u2019s DIY call to arms. The Bristol-born band took its vitriolic predecessors\u2019 rebellious attitude and applied it to a hybrid of rock, funk, free jazz, dub, and yes, pop, juxtaposing the concoction with a healthy dose of political and social commentary. The group, whose members were teenagers when they formed, released only two albums during their initial incarnation, but those records\u20141979\u2019s Y<\/i>, which featured their most well-known cut, \u201cShe Is Beyond Good and Evil,\u201d and 1980\u2019s For How Much Longer Do We Tolerate Mass Murder?<\/i>\u2014sealed the band\u2019s legacy as a touchstone of the post-punk era.<\/p>\n

In the intervening years, The Pop Group\u2019s influence has touched countless bands. And though the band\u2019s members have continued to challenge musical norms in other guises over the decades, when the band reconvened a few years ago, it was a very welcome surprise. After playing a number of festivals and self-releasing a couple of archival recordings, original members Mark Stewart\u00a0(vocals), Dan Catsis\u00a0(bass), Gareth Sager\u00a0(guitar) and Bruce Smith (drums) emerged this year with a new album, Citizen Zombie<\/i>, and a string of U.S. tour dates to promote it. In anticipation, I got Stewart on the phone to ask him about the reunion, but in fitting provocateur fashion, he put forth the first query.<\/p>\n

Mark Stewart:<\/strong> So what does Agit Reader mean?<\/p>\n

I know you\u2019re familiar with Agit Prop and it\u2019s a play on that, as well as just the general idea of agitating. There\u2019s also a great song, \u201cAgitated,\u201d by the Electric Eels.<\/strong><\/p>\n

MS:<\/strong> I posted that the other day. Superior Viaduct just reissued some of that. They’re great!<\/p>\n

I was born in Cleveland, as was Steve, who runs the label. The Superior Viaduct, which the label is named after, was this huge bridge that connected the east side to the west side of Cleveland.<\/strong><\/p>\n

MS:<\/strong> Cleveland is where Pere Ubu and Rocket from the Tombs were from, right?<\/p>\n

Exactly. Electric Eels were contemporaries of Rocket from the Tombs. And I know you played with Pere Ubu back in the day…<\/strong><\/p>\n

MS:<\/strong> Mate, honestly, the story is just crazy! I was in school and we were playing in youth clubs, then suddenly within a couple months we were in Europe on tour with Pere Ubu while I was still doing my exams. I had to come back early on a ferry overnight after playing the last concert of the tour. I was an hour late to my English exam and I wrote this 30-page Burroughs speedwriting thing with no grammar about Hamlet being a hero of the mind or something. Honestly, going on tour with Patti Smith and Pere Ubu while I was still in school was just crazy. Then sitting having tea with Sun Ra\u2014I can\u2019t believe half the things I’ve done!<\/p>\n

Yeah, I\u2019m familiar with some of those stories. It seems like you were in all the right places!<\/strong><\/p>\n

MS:<\/strong> It\u2019s bizarre! By pure luck, I happened to be 13 when glam rock was kicking off. My older brother came back from this concert with his eyebrows shaved off and told me about David Bowie. So we were wearing glam rock clothes to youth club, with big David Bowie badges. That\u2019s when I first met Gareth and Bruce, playing ping-pong in the youth club, and the Bowie badges would get in the way of the ping-pong paddles. Then seeing amazing music from \u201973 to \u201976, amazing people coming to our town from John Cale to Lou Reed\u2019s Rock & Roll Animal Show. My brother picked up Lou Reed\u2019s cigarette stub and has kept it ever since. That show was amazing! Then suddenly being right in the middle of punk because Gareth\u2019s friend who lived five doors up was in one of the early punk bands and seeing The Clash and the Pistols early on. Then we were in the middle of the hip-hop scene in New York… New York is crucial to the story. We went on tour with Pere Ubu and Patti Smith and then it really started kicking off for The Pop Group. We were one of the very first bands of that wave, even before Gang of Four. We were playing at Tier 3, Danceteria, Hurrah\u2019s, and the Mudd Club and hanging out with Basquiat or sitting next to Keith Haring in some crappy bar somewhere. It was crazy, straightaway after school, and we were there for months on end. We felt really connected to stuff that was coming from the States from an early age. Before punk, the English music scene was a little bit pompous. I don\u2019t know if you had American prog rock bands, but I even prefer Grand Funk Railroad to hours and hours of prog rock!<\/p>\n

Did you guys make it out of New York to see any of the rest of the country?<\/strong><\/p>\n

MS:<\/strong> We went to Pittsburgh. We played at the theater where they did some of the Alan Freed rock & roll shows. I had been reading these books about payola and the rock & roll scene. Some of the Alan Freed rock & roll shows were filmed at this theater in Pittsburgh. So we\u2019re doing all these songs about politics and how much longer do we tolerate mass murder, and right before we go on, this girl got onstage and started doing a burlesque dance with tassels on her breasts. I could not understand what the hell was going on. I was just about to go and ask her politely to get off the stage, but decided I couldn\u2019t do it. It was quite a heavy vibe. She came backstage, and I asked, \u201cSorry love, but what are you doing?\u201d And she said, \u201cI\u2019m Jim Dandy\u2019s girlfriend. I dance before every band that comes through here. My name\u2019s Lydia Laser.\u201d I said, \u201cAny friend of Jim Dandy\u2019s is a friend of mine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Later on with the solo stuff I went to San Francisco a lot. There was a cool scene that developed around the zine Research<\/i>. Rough Trade San Francisco was an important shop. There were lot of connections between England and the States through the \u201980 and \u201990s. The people that I really respected were Mike Watt, Ian (MacKaye) from Fugazi, and Ian (Svenonius) from Nation of Ulysses. The whole thing that Fugazi did and the independence they stood up for is parallel to what we were trying to do, even though it\u2019s a completely different kind of music. That staunch independence is crucial, just flying the freak flag so other people are encouraged to do it.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve been talking about how young you were when all this happened and now you\u2019re approaching the group from an older perspective…<\/strong><\/p>\n

MS:<\/strong> For me it\u2019s just a different perspective. I don\u2019t know how to explain it, but I don\u2019t feel any different. Something happened to me when I was 14. I don\u2019t know what happened, but it\u2019s like my head exploded and it\u2019s been like Technicolor ever since. I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve learned anything more or unlearned anything less. I just know that my transmitter\u2019s been turned on. With The Pop Group, the whole point of making a new record, we all said to each other that we have to make something new that is us now and doesn\u2019t hearken back to something from the past because that would be like necrophilia. We want to do something now and in the next three to four years set up tendrils of an alternative octopus across the world that other people can use. Before we reformed, I did a solo album with a lot of collaborators, and I\u2019m seeing this new Pop Group album as a new commission. I asked myself, \u201cCan I see playing with my old mates in a new way and approach them for the skills they\u2019ve got?\u201d Gareth and I tried to do spontaneous writing and just see where the thing went. We didn\u2019t try to make something that would sound like anything else. We didn\u2019t sit down and try to do a coloring book version of something from when we were young. We\u2019re just dong what we\u2019re doing now, and for me, it\u2019s a new band. I mean, it\u2019s the same people, but we\u2019ve all lived completely different lives and have had completely different experiences. The strength in each individual character is something I haven\u2019t seen for ages. I\u2019m really pleased that everybody has held on and mutated in their own way. There\u2019s more sparks and tension between us than ever. There are no yes men in this band.<\/p>\n

To me, it sounds like a continuation of where you left off and immediately recognizable as a Pop Group record.<\/strong><\/p>\n

MS:<\/strong> I\u2019ve been listening to it myself to figure out how we\u2019re going to do it live, and as it\u2019s me, I can\u2019t see it with any distance, so that\u2019s interesting to know. I can\u2019t analyze it like that. We started as mates in the youth club constantly taking the piss out of each other, and as soon as we all got together in a room, there was immediately that kind of youth club camaraderie, like \u201cWhat\u2019s wrong with your eyebrows?\u201d So if you see it as a continuation, that\u2019s cool.<\/p>\n

You hinted at this a little bit, but was there a synergy once you got together again?<\/strong><\/p>\n

MS:<\/strong> Yes, it\u2019s mad. For the first time in my life, I really don\u2019t understand what\u2019s going on. In other situations where I\u2019ve been experimenting, I had an idea of wanting to go from here to there and knew what experiments I wanted to make even if I didn\u2019t know what was going to happen in the lab. But with this thing, it\u2019s really, really weird. I\u2019ve learned to stand back and watch the thing explode and grow. In a way, we\u2019re running down the road after the horse. Something happened in the studio. I was singing something and suddenly Gareth came over and started improvising in a completely different direction than what was going on. It was jarring and I saw this weird space appear. It was like that movie Phantasm<\/i>. So I\u2019ve been holding my breath and trying not to put too many of my preconceptions onto the thing, not trying to abort something that could be a brilliant idea. It\u2019s weird, but I\u2019m finding it quite exciting. There\u2019s something about this band and what it\u2019s meant to people over the years. We respect what that thing is, but we have to do our own thing.<\/p>\n

In that respect, do you feel like you have a certain legacy that you have to live up to?<\/strong><\/p>\n

MS:<\/strong> For me, it\u2019s always been about context and political context. Back in the day, in the post-punk times, we were really engaged and involved in all kinds of campaigns and independent distribution. If I\u2019m going to be ranting and raving and arguing with myself about the contradictions of reality, then the context is really important, even down to the paper of the posters and the graphics. The last ever Pop Group concert was at a huge demonstration for the campaign for nuclear disarmament in Trafalgar Square. I was also working for the campaign in their office. We were constantly doing stuff with different groups and working with Rough Trade. Now, we\u2019ve only just begun, but we\u2019re trying to align ourselves with other sympathetic people, like getting Cecil Taylor to play with us in New York and working to keep our independence to make sure there\u2019s no one outside from bad labels influencing us. We\u2019re using PledgeMusic, where people can buy a sort of plow share. It keeps us from getting a bad deal from a label who will try to tell us what to do. It\u2019s like Joe Strummer said, \u201ccomplete control.\u201d That\u2019s what I\u2019m trying to do. What I really am trying to fight for is to bring people together. We\u2019re doing a split single with Sleaford Mods, who are really cool. We\u2019re quite close to the Swans. We\u2019re not collaborating with them musically, but we\u2019re working with their agent. It\u2019s sharing with other musicians and gathering people together. To a certain extent, I miss that about Rough Trade and the early indie scene. You\u2019d bump into somebody on the stairs at the label or somebody like Ian Curtis at a gig or Genesis from Throbbing Gristle. There was a real community in England.<\/p>\n

Yeah, back in the day, record stores were a place where you got information as much as bought records.<\/strong><\/p>\n

MS:<\/strong> Yeah, to a certain extent, but to tell the truth, I always bought secondhand. I always bought a lot of cut-outs. I\u2019d go to these weird junk shops. They\u2019d have a load of vinyl and bits of furniture and, like, cups. Then you\u2019d find a bunch of City Lights books, which would blow your head, amongst a bunch of Carlos Castaneda books and hippie stuff. In England, we have these boot sales, and I often buy something that I know nothing about, like some Turkish ballad record. Mike Watt told me he bought the second Pop Group record at a secondhand shop just because he thought the cover was so weird. And that\u2019s still going on. Because everyone is decluttering and going Zen in their bloody interior design, there are amazing CDs that they\u2019re almost giving away at the charity shops.<\/p>\n

You were talking about making these connections, back in the day being a young band with limited resources, how did you hook up with someone like Andy Mackay (of Roxy Music)…<\/strong><\/p>\n

MS:<\/strong> We\u2019ve always had tight control on our stuff because we don\u2019t want to owe anyone or have anyone owning our stuff. So we\u2019re very, very frugal. There\u2019s a saying about the arrogance of power, but from punk we got the power of arrogance. For example, when Allen Ginsberg did a poetry reading in Bristol, I just went up and started talking to him and his boyfriend and we went off for some Chinese. He said that I was exaggerating the apocalypse. From the age of 12 or 13, we always tried to go backstage and talk to the musicians. I remember being in the dressing room with Eno when he was playing with Roxy and going up to John Cale. I\u2019ll always find the thing that excites me, so we\u2019ve always just found a way of doing it.<\/p>\n

Obviously, your interests have expanded exponentially in the intervening years. Were there specific influences that you were trying to bring to this record?<\/strong><\/p>\n

MS:<\/strong> Musically, I\u2019ve been influenced by juke, or they also call it footwork. It’s this stuttery dance thing from Chicago, just some of the sonics and the position of the bass drum and some of the polyrhythms. I\u2019ve been mostly listening to that and Cumbia. The funny thing is, though, the world has kind of caught up to what we were doing in 1979. There\u2019s a new station here, BBC Radio 6, and they\u2019re constantly playing The Fall, The Pop Group, King Tubby, Sun Ra. If only we had a radio station like that when we were kids! It seems like people of all different generations are getting into this kind of music and bands like the Savages and this really cool band Vietcong, who are doing similar experiments similar to what we did. The zeitgeist of then seems to be coming true now. It\u2019s weird. It does seem like there\u2019s a hunger for knowledge. I mean, there\u2019s the zombiefication of society, which I go on about on Citizen Zombie<\/i>, and the X Factor<\/i> and American Idol<\/i>, but there\u2019s also so many people with cool, open minds that are hungry for something interesting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As riveting as the music that sprang up during punk\u2019s assurgency in the late \u201970s might have been, the subsequent bands and variations that followed in its wake were perhaps even more astounding. Like many of their contemporaries, The Pop Group was an answer to punk\u2019s DIY call to arms. The Bristol-born band took its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[1151,803],"class_list":["post-3061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","tag-mark-stewart","tag-the-pop-group"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Pop Group - The Agit Reader<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"An interview with Mark Stewart of The Pop Group, the post-punk legends who recently got back together for a new album and tour dates.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/the-pop-group\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Pop Group - 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