Press and Interviews

I'm not that obsessive a fan of ex-Fall members new projects; I couldn't tell you how many other bands Karl Burns was in, but I never brought anything by any of them. I once saw the Blue Orchids supporting Echo and the Bunnymen in April 1981 and was impressed enough to buy 'The House That Faded Out' single on Rough Trade. Paul Hanley was in a band called Kissing the Blade, but I never even go to hear them, even if they apparently supported The Fall in Newcastle in June 1986. No, Marc Riley and the Creepers were my only extra-Fall dalliance. It all came about during a hot, drunken July evening in 1984 at Newcastle Tiffanys Ballroom, a small lounge.

At this time I was at University In Northern Ireland, living without access to a record player and with only a scabby tape deck. I read the NME and whenever I came home during the holidays, hit our local indie shop, Volume with a shopping list. In the Summer it was easier as a job chalking up the odds in William Hill's in Gateshead left me flush enough to buy records without enduring the wrath of the bank manager. After seeing the Creepers, I had my biggest purchasing session of the summer, buying up as much of their back catalogue as I could get my hands on as they had been breathtakingly good.

The band was a four-piece, consisting of Riley on guitar and vocals, Eddie Fenn - who had been with Newcastle proto-Goth miserablists Crawling Chaos many years before - on drums. Pete Keogh on bass and Paul Fletcher was on guitar both of whom later turned up in kissing the Blade. That said, with the exception of Keogh, the rest of the band often swapped instruments and took turns with an ageing set of keyboards perched precariously on an ironing boards.

They began with 'Gross' their stand out track at the time and the title track almost of the 'Gross Out' album that the tour was intended to promote. This song is blessed by atrocious lyrics, including the infamous 'there was a yound lady from Ealing' limerick as one of the verses and a chorus of 'I've always been an artistic fucker'.

Musically though this was a perfect replication of 1978-1982 Fall which seemed reassuring to those of us disconcerted by the switch to Beggars Banquet and the new pop vision of 'O! Brother' and 'Creep'. I wasn't the only one of this mindset, although an audience of about 100 didn't exactly suggest that the Creepers were going to be the next big thing.

The gig finished with an astonishing encore, 'Railroad', a perfect rockabilly pastiche featuring Eddie on vocals and Riley on drums and 'Hey, Marc Riley' to the tune of 'Hey, Bo Diddley'. Classic. I hung around after the gid and found Riley to be an engaging wit, albeit with a large chip on his shoulder about You Know Who.

As I said, the next day I rushed out to attempt to buy their entire back catalogue. I almost managed it: 'Pollystiffs' single, 'Gross Out' LP, Cull compilation LP that included their second single and first Peel session, including 'Jumper Clown' a savage attack on MES that uses the tune to 'Room to Live', but not their first single 'Shadow Figure', that I'd pay good money for still. All were of excellent quality and I settled down to wait for the next instalment.

It was a long time coming. In September I returned to university and it was only the following June, when returning form the end of the second year, that I caught up with them again. Newcastle Riverside was opening on 12 June with the Creepers supporting Terry and Gerry, a dismal act I don't propose to go into here. To prepare, I purchased the next Creepers release, 'Fancy meeting God' LP. This was a major disappointment, apart from the manic instrumentals 'Breakneck 1 and 2'.

Live though, they were as good as ever and Riley even dedicated 'Gross' to me, a backhanded compliment I suppose.

Terry and Gerry were unspeakable, but Marc maded things better by putting me and a couple of mates on the guest list for the next term, an end of term ball at Durham University. This was my best memory of the Creepers, stuck in a cellar surrounded by an audience of tuxedoed Oxbridge wannabes poleaxed by Pimms no.1, the band having been supported by a video of 'The Rocky Horror Show' and having to endure a mass rugby version of 'The Timewarp'.

When it was time for their set, the Creepers took the piss. Riley palyed a solo out of tune, version of 'Stairway to Heaven', and encored with 'Louie Louie' and 'I Will Follow', after introducing the bloke who sold the T-shirts as The Edge and getting him to play guitar. The audience did include a bunch of Fall devotees from Co. Durham, known as the Ferryhill Young Drinkers Club, who obviously knew their onions, but blotted their copybook by constantly requesting 'The Classical'. An excellent night, and almost worth having to wait until 5.30am for a train home from Durham station.

After this night, I never saw the Creepers again. There were two more Peel sessions, the first which made up the excellent 'Four A's from Maida Vale' EP and the second of which was broadcast the night before I graduated in 1986. There was a live LP from Amsterdam's Melkweg, tellingly entitled 'Warts 'n' All', but which is a very honest, engaging release. A 12" single cover of Brian Eno's 'Baby's on Fire' preluded the last album 'Miserable Sinners' (sic) which I never managed to track down.

The Creepers then split into Kissing the Blade and the Lost Planet Crusaders, who also featured a couple of ex-Beefheart Magic Band types, but never released anything. I ran into Marc Riley at a Pere Ubu/ Mekons gig at Leeds Astoria in March 1988. He was working with Jon Langford of the Mekons (my second favourite band of all time) on an AIDS charity album of Johnny Cash covers called 'Till things are Brighter'. It was an excellent record, Riley's contribution being a version of 'Wanted Man'.

Since then it's been Hit the North, Mark Radcliffe and Lardy boy. The Creepers were never the best band in the world, but they made some bloody good records.

(The Biggest Library Yet: No. 7, September 1996, pp21-23)