86 aPriL 2011
t he l aSt word
MUSIC
Auricular Spectacular
Deaf School were just too cavalier and fun to survive punk’s
strictures. But the revived art-rockers’ latest is a treat for the ears
DEAF SCHOOL Enrico & Bette xx deaF ScHooL
By Paul
du Noyer
the art school dance goes
On Forever, declared an old
album title, and here is new
evidence. Deaf School were
pure art college, somewhere
in the lineage of the Bonzo
Dog Band and Ian Dury’s
Kilburn & The High Roads.
They last made a record in
1978, but jubilant reunion shows have indicated
something indestructible about the band. So
now, 33 years later, they’ve made a mini-album
of new material that picks up exactly where
they left off.
Wonderfully, it sounds as fresh and gutsy as
the original model. Deaf School are the stopped
clock that is right twice a lifetime.
It began like this. Back in the mid-1970s,
mere months before punk rock
changed the game, Deaf School
were a cheerful gang of rockcabaret
chancers, mixing cheap
glamour and showbiz pastiche.
They brightened up the dead
years of a Liverpool music scene
still pole-axed by The Beatles’
desertion. They were such a blast
that a whole new local scene
sprang up around them, spawning
Eric’s Club and a dozen
future legends, from Echo & The
Bunnymen to Frankie Goes To
Hollywood. Deaf School’s sprawling,
uncertain line-up was eventually
honed to about eight
people and they were briefly
poised, as Warner Brothers’
much-hyped signings, to become
the new Roxy Music.
Well, that never happened, not
least because punk rock was a
puritanical moment, hard on
cavalier romantics. Warners wondered
where the hits were, and
soon Deaf School’s disappointed
members scattered. A few, sad to
say, have since passed on, but in
2011 we still have the two main
singers, Enrico Cadillac and
Bette Bright, as well as guitarist
Clive Langer (a renowned pro-
ducer in the intervening years) and other survivors,
including the accordion-playing vicar
they called The Reverend Max Ripple. Admittedly
the vibe might strike you as larky and
twee, but this band really do have
wit, grit and great big tunes.
Part of their supposed problem
in the punk days was that Deaf
School wanted to be entertainers.
Even so, right now I enjoy their
wildly contrived 1976 debut, 2nd
Honeymoon, more than nearly
anything by the more “honest”
acts of that time. At live shows
they are sometimes joined on stage by Kevin
Rowland of Dexys or by Suggs, who both know
the value of showmanship. (The young Madness
were such disciples of Deaf School that
The quality of Mersey:
Deaf School’s Bette Bright
and Enrico Cadillac.
%
Deaf School are
the stopped
clock that is
right twice
a lifetime
%
Suggs actually married Bette Bright.) There
are only five songs on this new collection, but
every one of them has a vivid story to tell you.
Then the melodies clutch your arm like a madman’s
bony hand.
Clive Langer, who co-wrote Shipbuilding
with Elvis Costello, is once again composing
with Enrico (alias Steve Allen), his writing
partner. Their bassist Mr Average (alias Steve
Lindsay) also contributes, shoring up the classic
teen-pop tendencies that Deaf School always
showed when they were not playing at Noël
Coward or Marlene Dietrich. There is adoles-
cent nostalgia, perhaps, in the
album’s title, Enrico & Bette xx;
and a track that deals directly
with that subject, The Enrico
Song, offers a genuinely touching
memoir of one boy’s first forays
into town at night (“Mum…
Mum… Where’s me shirt?”). The
School’s saxophonist Ian Ritchie
is a stirring presence here, just as
he was the first time round.
Bette Bright, whose career after Deaf School
also produced some real delights, shines in
I Know, I Know, a chance to revisit her affinity
for vintage soul-girls like The
Marvelettes or Sugar Pie
DeSanto. (God, I hope I still have
my vinyl copy of her performing
The Angels’ My Boyfriend’s
Back. It’s fantastic.) The Suggs
connection is brought to mind by
another track, Scary Girlfriend,
with its very Madness-like combination
of bittersweet comedy,
pub piano and music-hall chorus.
“You’re lovely, lovely you
are… But you smashed all the
windows in my car”.
So where are we now? The
young Deaf School were signed
to Warners by The Beatles’ early
pressman Derek Taylor, who
honestly believed they were the
greatest thing since his former
clients The Byrds. That, with
hindsight, was a fond excess of
zeal. And the economics of the
music industry have changed
drastically since those champagne
days. But who knows?
This is a fine record. With a puff
of breath from some celestial
cherubs’ cheeks, there may yet
be a following wind for Deaf
School. And the Art School
Dance might yet go on to delight
us a little longer. n
www.wordmagazine.co.uk
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