Angelic Upstarts Part 1

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The North East of England was renowned for its ship building, steelworks and coal mines all of which are now mostly long gone. At such it was a strongly working class socialist area and fairly radical  - the Jarrow march started in the North East.

While London, Manchester, Liverpool and other larger areas seemed to have punk scenes the North East was more fractured. Look at the bands. How many can you name that got anywhere? Penetration, Punishment Of Luxury,  Carpettes, Blitzkrieg Bop...any others? There were no major places to play and censorship and bans were rigidly enforced by a police force run like the old wild west.

Forming in Mid 77 in South Shields original members Mensi, Mond, Steve and Decca all came from the Brockley Whims, Housing Estate. While punk became new wave became power pop, The Upstarts with savage shouted vocals, hard men image and street clothes to boot were a breath of fresh air imitated by many a second generation punk band.

The Angelic Upstart's name came from a newspaper headline about some kids in trouble who Mensi thought looked "angelic".

Pictures by Rik Walton

While the Clash may have played at Police & Thieves here was the real thing stripped of romanticism and Seditionaries fashion. This was reality.  Police brutality epitomised on their classic first self financed single Murder Of Liddle Towers concerning a man kicked to death in police custody which was classified as justifiable homicide.

Couple this with The Upstarts stage show of using a pigs head with police hat on, open criticism of the police and a punk rock band to boot made them high profile targets for mr plod who used the Liddle Towers single and pigs head as possible breaches of the law against obscenity and incitement to violence. With this ammunition they used it to unofficially ban the band from playing and spreading their message in the North East and repeatedly harassed the band.
Ironically all this publicity helped the band out and positioned them with others in the second wave like The Ruts and UK Subs as hope for punk continuing. Liddle was picked up by Small Wonder and distributed by them nationally and they also gained a useful John Peel session. It also brought Jimmy Pursey's interest and he signed them up to his package tour. They were nearly signed to Polydor before fisticuffs between Mensi and a Polydor employee after he pelted Polydor secretaries with snowballs scuppered the deal.  Fair play the next day Pursey secured them a deal with Warner Brothers!  They released the album Teenage Warning and even appeared on Top Of The Pops with the single Teenage Warning.

The band went on to release a number of successful albums and minor hit singles before splitting in 1983.

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