It is still unclear who wrote the song "Two years too late". Was it Anti-Pasti or the Epileptics? Whoever wrote that song, one thing is certain: Designer Fear were a couple of years too late. They missed the second wave of British punk-rock by eight years and the metal-punk one by four, a discrepancy that may account for them vanishing into punk obscurity.
Designer Fear were an English band from the very late 80's/very early 90's, but apart from this, I know very little about them. This is their only record, released on the always reliable Looney Tunes records in 1990. That and apparently, two siblings played in the band together, Rebecca and Mike. And that's it really. Judging from the inclusion of Charlie Harper, Suicidal Supermarket Trolleys and Trench Fever on the thank-list, they could have been from London, but then they also thank a bloke from Ottawa and SNFU, so there might be a Canadian connection as well for all I know. Sonically, Designer Fear play a mix of UK82 punk-rock and early thrash-metal. This said, the sound is sufficiently raw - some would say weak - to make it lie firmly on the punkier side of things. Imagine a sloppier early Broken Bones or Picture Frame Seduction trying to play metal riffs or Aftermath during their first rehearsal, then add a healthy spoonful of British melodic hardcore like Depraved and voilà!
Designer Fear seemed to have been a rather political band and their lyrics are really good. "Banned from the UDC" is about the class divide in terms of accomodation and how fancy houses are always being built for the toffs while the poor have to deal with shabby housing; "Survivor" is a Mad Max tribute song about a bloke who manages to survive the nuclear apocalypse thanks to his fallout shelter and finds himself the sole survivor in the wasteland; "Cardboard city" is about homelessness and street survival tactics in the face of government neglect; finally "The enemy within" is an attack against sexism and racism within the punk scene and a statement that such behaviours should be fought.
The artwork is good-looking and the red spots - meant to represent drops of blood - are superimposed over the cover so you actually have the impression that somebody bled on your record (granted the blood doesn't look dark enough but I like the intent). On the whole, this is not a crucial record and the songs are definitely impaired by the recording budget, but it is honest, intelligent punk-rock nevertheless and should please lovers of the 80's British punk scene.
Mike was Canadian and Rebecca was his American wife, since long divorced. They were London based. They were pretty much Mikes project by this time. Mike moved back to Canada a while back.
ReplyDeleteOk, thanks it all makes sense now!
DeleteGood to see Chris commenting here. I presume that is Chris who was Designer Fear’s roadie for our mini tour of Canada in 1989. I was one of the original founders of Designer Fear, together with Mike, Charlie, and Mike’s then girlfriend Sheena. Mike and Sheena were from Victoria in British Columbia, Canada.
ReplyDeleteCharlie and I were from the London Borough of Ealing in England. Mike and Sheena had just arrived in London when I met them at a gig in Southwest London. They were staying in a very small bedsit in Archway in North London. We hit it off immediately and soon decided to form a band together. I had already been in a couple of London punk bands, and Charlie had been our drummer in a band called Active Conspiracy. Mike and Sheena were influenced by the Ramones, Canadian bands like DOA and No Means No, and British punk bands from the late 70s and early 80s. Charlie and I were more influenced by the anarcho punk bands on the Crass label and on Conflict’s Mortarhate Records label, although I had been getting into more American and Canadian hard-core bands and straight edge bands like Minor Threat and SNFU.
We mainly practised in a makeshift rehearsal studio in a squat in Angel, Islington in North London, where another local band rehearsed. One of the people living in the squat was Jason, another drummer, who drummed in several bands, including later with The Blaggers ITA. We got a few gigs in London and Brighton, including at the University of Sussex, and we put on a gig at the London School of Economics with DOA from Canada, who Mike & Sheena knew.
Then, in the summer of 1989, we got offered a mini tour of Canada with Mike and Sheena’s great friends, the band Problem Children from Hamilton, Ontario. We were an overtly anti-Nazi and anarcho punk band, but found ourselves playing to a bunch of young white supremacist skinheads in Hamilton one night, which was bizarre. Perhaps the highlight of the tour was us headlining over Nirvana at a show in Ottawa! Sheena and I left the band after that tour, and Mike recruited his new girlfriend Rebecca, whom he later married, and then later still divorced. I wrote the song “Banned from the UDC” and gave permission for Mike to record it on their one and only single. My guitar playing was very basic, and my voice was awful, so they were better off without me. I was always more of an activist trying to use music to spread the message and build the movement rather than a musician. The 1980s were a great time to be a young activist and punk rocker in London.
Thanks a lot for all the details, very interesting. Damn, Nirvana!
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