Seething Weels aka Steven Wells (formerly aka Susan Wells) has died. I learnt this news from The Register which was odd in itself.
Seething Wells was a journalist but "back in the day" he was a Punk Poet of some renown, appearing alongside my favourite of the era Attila the Stockbroker and, amongst others, Porky the Poet who was to become/return to being Phil Jupitus at a later date.
The only piece of vinyl I still have of Seething Wells is his 1982 joint EP "Rough, Raw and Ranting EP/Ranting Verse at Wandsworth" - half his own work and half that of Attila the Stockbroker. Seething Wells' contributions were: Godzilla v The Tetley Bittermen, Police Dog, Cadillacs In Bradford, Agro-Britain and Ha Ha Ha. I must say that I did prefer Attila's contributions: A Bang And A Wimpy, Pap Music For Wreck People, Andy Is A Corportist, I Don't Talk To Popstars, Foyer Bar, They Must Be Russians and Russians In The D.H.S.S.
As I write this it is incredible how many of these tracks I remember some 27 years later. Here is the only one of those tracks that I could find on line and it's a much later recording of Attila the Stockbroker's Russians in the D.H.S.S.
Once again I question why I, a right-winger even in 1981/2, loved the music and poetry of such renowned leftists. And once again I suppose it is because as with Paul Weller, Gil Scott Heron, The Housemartins and Billy Bragg, the left does have the best tunes, if not the best policies.
According to a comment under the Register's story:
"He is on record as having asked for an open coffin in which he is sitting upright, with a mechanised arm moving his hand up and down gripping his artificially engorged deceased todger. I really, really hope he gets this."What finer memorial could there be?
Update:
From Guido Fawkes's site, where I mentioned the death of Seething Wells in the comments re Michael jackson, this comment caught my eye:
"E J Thribb (17.5) says:
So
Farewell then
Seething Wells
Poet of punk
I thought you were
A village in Dorset
Keith’s Mum says you were
Big in the 80s
But now you are about to become
Much smaller"
Here's some Attila the Stockbroker
Alright mate, can´t believe there´s a tribute to Steven Wells on a blog that links to John "hang me upside down from a lamp-post" Redwood!? Takes all sorts eh? If I ever come back to this site it´ll be in my capacity as a post revolutionary cheka type checking up on the undesirables but good on you all the same, the left have all the best skinheads and tunes but you can´t be all bad. cheers.
ReplyDeleteI was just going to say "thanks for the comment" as you are one of the small band of people who knows who Seething Wells was. But then I thought about your Cheka reference and I remembered what I know of the Cheka and the people they killed in the name of protecting the "revolution" and the Soviet State. I thought of my distant relatives who were murdered by the Cheka and its ilk in the 1920s and 1930s and I decided to add the following.
ReplyDeleteThe Cheka, you so glibly reference, were in part resposible for the running of the Gulag system that killed millions of "criminals" and political prisoners. The Cheka also murdered many of the Soviet leadership's political opponents and tortured many other "enemies of the state" before killing them.
I am indeed not "all bad", I'm not even half bad (a little nod to Rocky Horror there) but I think you need to rethink your value system if you think the Cheka are in some way a decent model for any "post revolutionary" system.
Moving on to John Redwood:
So far as I am aware John Redwood has not killed anyone or called for any political opponents to be skinned alive, scalped, "crowned" with barbed wire, impaled, crucified, hanged, stoned to death, tied to planks and pushed slowly into furnaces or tanks of boiling water, or rolled around naked in internally nail-studded barrels. I can find no record of John Redwood pouring water on naked prisoners standing in the freezing outdoors until they became living ice statues. I don't believe that John Redwood has ever attached an iron tube to the torso of a bound victim and inserted a rat into the other end which was then closed off with wire netting. I have my doubts as to whether John Redwood has ever then held the tube over a flame until the rat began gnawing through the victim's guts in an effort to escape.
To refer to John Redwood as "John "hang me upside down from a lamp-post" Redwood" - I assume a reference to Benito Mussolini - seems crass (not the band - yes I have albums by them too). John Redwood is an intelligent politician, you may disagree with his views but to insinuate that he is a fascist worthy of being killed is plain insulting and wrong.
I am happy to continue this discussion here if you want, just as I did previously with Crushed by Ingsoc, but please think about your terms of reference first.
http://www.killyourpetpuppy.co.uk/news/?p=698
ReplyDeleteThis is very sad news. And where was I when this news broke? Did Seething Wells mean anything to me? I'm still searching for that long-lost Peel session so that I can hear Cadillacs In Bradford (done to music it was) and Godzilla again... thirty years on I can still recite these poems word for word (I even used to try mimicking the Yorkshire accent!). Please if anyone can help or would like to get in touch, visit my website and leave a message via the guestbook... he can't have been very old then, Stephen Wells... he meant a lot to me, a great deal in fact... R.I.P.
ReplyDeleteGraham
www.splendidisolation.webs.com