Still Believing in ANOK: F.U.A.L. "Veganic wind" Lp, 2017

To this day I am not sure how you are supposed to pronounce the name of this band properly. Is it like "fuel" with the phoneme [əl] something like [ˈfjuːəll]? Or should you pronounce each letter separately like you do for T.S.O.L. or C.F.D.L.? I would be lying if I claimed that I talk about F.U.A.L. often. In fact, to be honest, I cannot remember the last time I did but it would have been along the lines of: "Do you know a band called fuel, or maybe fuale, or F.U.A.L. even? You don't? What a shame, go pose somewhere out of my sight". So not much success in terms of proselytising I'm afraid. And yet F.U.A.L. are absolutely brilliant and I believe that, would people be more aware of their existence, they would probably be right into them and some would make pricy bootleg shirts. 

Tragically, the band suffers from the same disadvantageous bias as many other Belfast punk bands who have often been isolated and forgotten in the very London-centric collective memory of British punk. The work of Ian Glasper, and several other writers afterwards, definitely gave some highly deserved space and context to the Belfast scene and its bands and I am convinced that it allowed some of us to discover some underestimated and overlooked bands from Northern Ireland like the magnificent Toxic Waste (the reissue of Belfast by Sealed Records was long overdue and I am very grateful to the label for resurrecting this classic) or the fabulous Stalag 17 (who should be reissued, I am going to petition labels). I knew Toxic Waste before The Day the Country Died, of course, because I am the coolest kid in town and I already wrote a lengthy article about the legendary split that you can read admiringly and with delight here.       

I first became aware of F.U.A.L. browsing on Ebay which I must say is not my greatest pride. I wish I had an epic story about how I accidentally found a F.U.A.L. Lp while dumpster-diving in Berlin, a tale that would earn me an infinite amount of punk points until I retire and ascertain my dominance over the masses. But I don't have one, sadly. Let's not judge, right? After reading a rather flattering description of the band from the seller, I bought the tape version of the F.U.A.L. album entitled Fuck Up and Live! with the booklet missing of course so that I really had very little information about the band. In fact I was not even sure what the actual name was. F.U.A.L.? Or Fuck Up and Live!? That would have been in early 2006 and I was unable to find much about them even on some message boards I was a part of (they mostly argued about Japanese hardcore and digital downloads on those anyway which sounds pretty adorable in retrospect). At that point, punk blogs were still not that common too so I was left in the dark, in a cesspit of shameful ignorance. 

Fortunately with my best mate, we spent a couple of weeks in Ireland that summer to visit some friends. There was a party one night where I was introduced to a friendly fellow who was supposed to be some kind of experts in Irish punk music so I immediately started to bother him with F.U.A.L.. Or Fuck Up and Live!. Or Fueal. The guy was clearly patient and willing to help but he just did not understand which band I was talking about. Frustrating indeed. But then I remembered that I had actually brought the tape with me. We often traveled with a little tape player so that we could play some music when hiking and I played the F.U.A.L. tape often at that time so it just made sense to bring it to Ireland. So I showed him the tape and he immediately lit up: "Oh right, you mean F.U.A.L., good man, they were grand, a cracking band (and a lot of other Irish ways to say a band is good)". So I got a bit of context and it was a good night indeed.

Fast forward a couple of years in 2009 and Boss Tuneage reissued the Lp and the Veganic Wind 1989 demo on a cd that I promptly bought. And then in 2017, the same label did a limited vinyl repress "made to order" of Veganic Wind that I also promptly bought. And that is the record of today. First, let's deal with the elephant in the room: yes the title is a fart joke. A bit odd considering F.U.A.L. were a serious band with political lyrics from the heart but I don't dislike a good fart joke, especially a vegan fart joke (some members of F.U.A.L. would go on to play in Bleeding Rectum so there could be an arse-related issue in Belfast after all). The band rose from the ashes of acts like Toxic Waste, Stalag 17 and Asylum (Belfast's anarcho Big Three) and there were many changes throughout the years. Let's just say that the lineup on Veganic Wind was made up of Brian (Asylum), Petesy (Stalag 17), Crispo (Crude and Snyde) and singer Louanne. 

The demo sounds like one with all that entails in terms of production and clarity but also as far as punk energy, sense of emergency and sheer emotion are concerned. F.U.A.L.'s first effort is heart-felt and you can sense the emotions, sincerity and passion in their songs and it is just beautiful. The band was not a one-trick poney either as there is a variety of paces, tones and structures throughout, from fast tuneful hardcore punk reminiscent of Dan ("Dead clergymen"), intense anarchopunk like Stalag 17 or Civilised Society? ("And the birdie said") but also melancholy goth-tinged poppy anarcho numbers ("Freedom under animal liberation" or "Repetition...") not unlike Indian Dream or Lost Cherrees. On paper, it could have a disparate feel, like a patchwork of styles and moods but the band managed to create a cohesive whole, a meaningful story. Those Belfast punks were inspired. In some arrangements and songwriting tricks, on some level, F.U.A.L. hinted unknowingly at what would come in the 90's and how political punk would evolve in some quarters. The Fuck up and live! Lp would have a much better production with more focus and impact and some songs were rerecorded but one could argue that Veganic Wind, for its ingenuous spontaneity and raw emotions had more charm. And it had a fart joke. That's difficult to top.

The lyrics of F.U.A.L. are long, detailed and tackled political subjects such as exploitation, ecology and  heavy subjects like the situation in Northern Ireland (from a personal perspective rather than slogans). It's angry but also hopeful. The band was very involved with the Warzone Collective and Giro's, a self-managed social center created in 1986. I recommend you read their chapter in Trapped in a Scene, it is very informative. The demo was originally released in 1989 on Warzone Records. I don't suppose this Lp version is easy to find but the cd reissue might be.

Let's all run with the veganic wind.        

 

Veganic wind