DIRECT HITS ON THE WEB
DIRECT HITS ON THE WEB
Articles and Features on The Direct Hits from around the web.
www.thedirecthits.co.uk ©2014
Mod DJ Mark Ellis looks back at his first mod event – at the Assembly Rooms in Rotherham.
Memory can be very a choosey bugger…’Should I wear those rose tinted numbers, them ray bans that I can hardly see in or maybe strap Jodrell Bank to my head. Or try and peer backwards through the bottom of a pint glass of Tetleys finest.’
I’ve been consorting with my memory recently and boy is it mixed up…vague one minute…crystal clear the next. Of course you could blame this on the fact that I’m no spring chicken any more and hitting a more mature age has delivered me into the hands of creeping senility and….no no no…stop talking to yourself Mark.
Well, let me see…Summer ’85..Thatcher Inc in full flower and yes the mod scene…Countdown label compilations, mod societies, almighty ‘ding dongs’ with the casuals, skinheads, psychbillies, trainspotters (it happened!), poodle haired metalheads, scooterboys, rugger fans or anyone else who so loved the mods…I REMEMBER IT WELL!
Waiting at Leeds Rail Station in the late August sunshine for the train to Rotherham with me old ‘mukkahs’ Paul Molloy and Steve Chaffer – ‘moddyboddies’ all – excited as hell – The Prisoners and The Direct Hits in one go…’fan-bleedin-tastic’.
Jump on the train (those old ones with the corridor running down the sides), I catch sight of some dapper chap ‘high tailing’ it down the platform to our carriage.
‘Hi, my name’s Nick.. you guys off to Rotherham?’
And so began our long strange friendship with a certain Mr Nick Brady of Leeds 9 modernist repute!
Rotherham was (and still is) a large ‘rough and ready’ township, situated somewhere between Sheffield, Barnsley and the Twilight Zone – the writing was on the wall in some respects.
Standing outside the Assembly rooms in Rotherham after running the Rotherham gauntlet of taunting, jeering, ‘fat knacker’ townies and the atmosphere was electric. Hipster clad, very cool looking girls, smart modernist chaps and a whole bunch of hip Brian Jones lookalike ‘psychedelics’ (the first time I’d clocked this style) and every person looked like a million dollars.
This essentially was my first ‘sojourn’ to a major event with a high mod count and just remembering the sheer ice cool style on display that night brings it all back – the passion and audacity of the whole thing – smack dab in the middle of what had to be the most culturally devoid decades (only surpassed by today’s sorry excuse).
Into the ‘cavernous’ interior of the Assembly Rooms (or is that my memory being myopic) and you couldn’t move for people shooting the breeze with each other and everyone and then the dancing!
Selective Memory does not kick in here…the dancing supplied by the mods in the 80′s was, to be quite honest, utterly fantastic and this night introduced me to (and perfectly illustrated) some of the best dancefloor moves I have ever set eyes on.
Memory…
‘Wack da doo doo doo de doo doo Wack Wack’ – my introduction to Young Holt – nifty jazz and niftier dancing – hipshake, windmill, turn on a sixpence. But it was the bands we had come for and they didn’t disappoint. BLISTERING! This word will suffice – Graham Day and the Boys rippin’ the paint off the walls with the best set I had seen. The Direct Hits giving it some in an equally superb set. Sweat and noise.
Now memory has decided to squint its eyes a bit and a detailed synopsis of the set list of both bands is kind of impossible to conjure up. But it’s the whole sense of that evening that shoots back into clarity…a sense that something BIG was afoot. The mod scene was really starting to ‘rev up’ back then. Amongst the fray, mutterings that the local soccer casuals were waiting outside, beating the hell out of anybody who didn’t fit their bill…us!
This added to the excitement in the Assembly Rooms…our heads were spinning. GIG OVER!
Outside – let’s face the music and dance. The police were outside, mopping up, a couple of vans full of natives baying for our blood.
Now to get home.
We could have left at 10.30 and got the last train back home but The Prisoners were still sermonising at that time so…what to do?
We wandered…15 of us around the town – slangin’ match with big ‘biffers’ and then we had to decide where to flop down. Roughing it was and is not my style but needs must as the tiny little Rail Station was shut up till 6am. I tell you my friends, that night was cold and the eventual sleepless night huddled in a factory doorway covered in branches was not a particularly happy memory!
We staggered cold limbed and bleary eyed, down to the grand opening of the piss ant station by a very ‘nazi looking’ female guard at 6am…ears ringing ‘Won’t you please come back to me, Melanie’
We thought we were a foolhardy lot – braving the elements and an Industrial ‘OK Corrall’ – a reckless Wild Bunch (Brady Bunch!) until……What’s that noise coming from the end of the platform?
A movement in the mouth of the rail tunnel – 12 parka clad figures stumble out of the gloom after a post Prisoners snooze in said tunnel!?! ‘Morning boys!’ The Humanity!
The Direct Hits were Geno Buckmaster, guitar and vocals, Colin Swan bass and vocals, and Brian Grover on drums. They were a South London based trio, formerly known as The Exits (who had a single called Fashion Victim). The Direct Hits released a couple of singles and two albums Blow Up and House Of Secrets. And for a couple of years they were quite possibly my favourite band.
Blow Up came out in 1984. It is, like a lot of their material, very 1966 influenced. Groovy pop that leans into the psychedelic. Touchstones would be The Beatles Rubber Soul, The Who A Quick One and The Jam All Mod Cons. There are close harmonies and backwards guitars and in the 8 minute long Henry The Unhappy Inventor a mini rock opera. It's all incredibly melodic and occasionally verges on the twee, but with a sense of melancholy that never fails to move me. Great music for sitting back and daydreaming. And, for all the obvious influences, The Direct Hits were very much their own band, with a very very individual sound. Live they were also one of the loudest bands I've ever seen!
In the summer of 1984 I almost didn't listen to anything else but Blow Up. The second album House Of Secrets featured some great songs, but it lost the magic a little. And then that was that. I'm not sure what they did next. I know Colin Swan, who sang the majority of the songs, turned up a couple of years ago in a band called This Happy Breed. But apart from that nothing else. It almost makes the band perfect for me. No long slow decline into the ordinary; just a little burst of wonderful pop music that still stands up today.
You can find their music out there if you look hard enough. A compilation called The Magic Attic came out on CD in the 90s and looking through the iTunes store the other day I found Blow Up.
Somewhere it's 1966 all year round, the scene is swinging and The Direct Hits are playing....
After the mod revival died, another mod scene rose up from it's ashes that featured some of those same players and some new faces. The Direct Hits had previously tread the earth as The Exits, but reemerged in 1982 in this new guise. The band was less in the punky power pop style they'd previously favored, and more in line with the heavily 60s influenced beat sound that was being pushed forward by The Prisoners, Makin' Time, Fast Eddie and other of the 80s UK mod bands. The Direct Hits favored a more psychadelic sound, and a more melodic sound, than some of the other mod groups of the day. And mods favored them, making them favorites in the scene during the middle part of the decade. This track, "What Killed Aleister Crowley" seems soft at first, but when you listen to it there is a subtle strength that seeps through. It's got a bit of sixties folk, a hint of psychadelia, and solid base of power pop, tha goes well with a sort of macabre subject like Aleister Crowley.
Mr. Suaves Mod World
Items for sale found on line:
DIRECT HITS MONTHLY Issue 24 ( With news of the bands appearence at Mod-aid, a mod charity cassette featuring amongst others THE GENTS, THE RISK, ELEANOR RIGBY & THE THREADS, letters, a catalogue and rare photos.) £5
DIRECT HITS MONTHLY Issue 25 ( Great Fan club magazine from the band, with articles on band members, photos, tour news and what they are recording at the moment. From October 1986) £5
DIRECT HITS MONTHLY Issue 26 ( Includes news of their up-coming calender !, a European tour, letters, photo's etc. From November 1986) £5
DIRECT HITS SONGBOOK (A4 scrapbook of lyrics, photos and descriptions of the songs used on the 'House Of Secrets' LP) £8
MODESTY BLAISE THE DIRECT HITS
.."as you can imagine, the direct hits were a mod revival band, in fact they were a second wave mod revival band. that's not as bad as it sounds, because they were a pretty quirky lot, quirky enough for dan treacy to sign them to his whaam! record label. as a 3-piece, they were clearly influenced by the jam, using 'english rose' and 'life through a window' as templates for a lot of their songs. this ode to the evening standard heroine, is probably their most well known recording although maybe not their best..."
track 'em down
Direct Hits - “Ever ready Plaything”
Aside from its incredible catchiness– I think I played this more than any other archival song during my five years of radio shows– I love how “Plaything” uses a standard “every woman in the world has complete control over my entire life”* narrative, only sung with no audible resentment. He even sounds enthusiastic about the idea in spots, and momentarily sad that he can’t be her obedient toy; not “won’t be”, but “can’t be”.
Also, the guitar lead (which makes me nod spastically on the offbeats every time I listen to the song) is exactly the kind of perky, unending melody I associate with toys that play music when you press a button. When I was doing radio, I never heard the word “mod” except maybe in the context of Quadrophenia. People didn’t even like The Jam in that reflexive “Well, of course they’re great, but who listens to them anymore?” way that they treated a lot of the canon. Once I started digging through the library stacks, though, it became clear that early-80s British new wave had contained this vein that was not just out of fashion but really kind of forgotten. And in retrospect I guess it’s what people mean by “mod”. Expect more of this soul/pop/new wave kind of thing to turn up as I post more.
http://www.pastemob.org
POSTED ON YOU TUBE
redtodgers 3 months ago
@redtodgers i'll forgive 'em with tunes like theirs lol....
MarkRevival 3 months ago
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i loved the direct hits. a great band from the mod revival.
67roko 1 month ago
One of my favourite mod bands in the 80s
In 1987, I heard them in Hamburg.
Gundolf62 1 year ago
Loved The Direct Hits saw them play live quite a few times.
Blow Up is a classic album.
macjnr99 1 year ago
I used to be in touch with Colin Swan..
Anyone know what he's up to these days.
What a waste of talent these three were.
Saw them several times and brilliant live and great people.
ronowldo 1 year ago
Like the Modesty Blaise Jingle at the start. Top band...
hard to find anyhing by them..Shame!
rogan71 1 year ago
i know brian grover the drumer lol hes my other halfs dad!
ktugzie 1 year ago
One of my favorite bands. Saw them live in 1984. Thanks for posting!
PKPurvis 2 years ago
cool tune mark
billmm79 2 years ago
The Direct Hits were Geno Buckmaster, guitar and vocals, Colin Swan bass and vocals, and Brian Grover on drums. They were a South London based trio, formerly known as The Exits (who had a single called Fashion Victim). The Direct Hits released a couple of singles and two albums Blow Up and House Of Secrets. And for a couple of years they were quite possibly my favourite band.
Blow Up came out in 1984. It is, like a lot of their material, very 1966 influenced. Groovy pop that leans into the psychedelic. Touchstones would be The Beatles Rubber Soul, The Who A Quick One and The Jam All Mod Cons. There are close harmonies and backwards guitars and in the 8 minute long Henry The Unhappy Inventor a mini rock opera. It's all incredibly melodic and occasionally verges on the twee, but with a sense of melancholy that never fails to move me. Great music for sitting back and daydreaming. And, for all the obvious influences, The Direct Hits were very much their own band, with a very very individual sound. Live they were also one of the loudest bands I've ever seen!
In the summer of 1984 I almost didn't listen to anything else but Blow Up. The second album House Of Secrets featured some great songs, but it lost the magic a little. And then that was that. I'm not sure what they did next. I know Colin Swan, who sang the majority of the songs, turned up a couple of years ago in a band called This Happy Breed. But apart from that nothing else. It almost makes the band perfect for me. No long slow decline into the ordinary; just a little burst of wonderful pop music that still stands up today.
You can find their music out there if you look hard enough. A compilation called The Magic Attic came out on CD in the 90s and looking through the iTunes store the other day I found Blow Up.
Somewhere it's 1966 all year round, the scene is swinging and The Direct Hits are playing....
http://thesongsthatpeoplesing.blogspot.com/2008/08/direct-hits.html
AN ARTICLE ABOUT SONGS THAT
SOUND LIKE THE BEATLES
"Angelina" - The Direct Hits
Demo Recording; 1986
The Direct Hits were another British mod band that sprang up in the wake of neo-Beatlemania in the 1980s. This alternate take of the song that would become “Christina” from The House of Secrets album is done in the same soft French jazz-cafe rhythm of “Michelle” and has a similar on-the-beats melody. Tangerine Records put out a collection of Direct Hits material, but since Tangerine appears to be no more, the CD is probably only slightly easier to find now than the original albums. But that’s what the Internet is for.
“The Light That Shines In” – The Direct Hits
The House of Secrets; 1986
Backward drum loops and guitars, droning offbeat rhythm, tape effects, audience noises -- the whole shebang. And what would a pastiche of “Tomorrow” be without some cryptic, surreal philosophizing? “Don’t look at what you’re seeing.”
http://www.silentbugler.com/Lets_Be_The_Beatles/Albums/Rubber_Soul.htm
AN ARTICLE BY SIMON L
FROM THE WORD ON LINE MAGAZINE
Once Favourite Beatles influenced bands/artists
Posted by SimonL on 21 September 2009 - 1:35pm.
The Direct Hits:
A South London based Trio from the early to mid 80s The Direct Hits were unashamedly Mod. They sounded like what you imagine a cross between The Jam circa All Mod Cons, The Who and Beatles in 1966 would sound like, with more than a passing nod to those other Beatles influenced bands XTC and Squeeze. Two albums, Blow Up! and House Of Secrets and then they were gone.Blow Up! is one of my all time favourite albums, full of lovely melodies and whimsical psychedelic pop. I'm especially fond of A Place In The 80s and My Back Pages (not that one...)
