101 Damnations (album)

Background

After completing his education, James Robert "Jim Bob" Morrison got a job at an advertising firm in London's West End. During this time, he formed Jeepster, which went two years before playing their first gig. Although that was the band's only show, Bob left his job to focus on music. While performing with the Ballpoints, Bob came across bassist Les "Fruitbat" Carter of Dead Clergy at the rehearsal space The Orchestra Pit in Streatham, South London in 1979. When the bassist for the Ballpoints left, Fruitbat took his role. the band split and the members pursued different projects, including busking, children's entertainment and solo careers. Bob formed Jamie Wednesday, while Fruitbat used the moniker Cartoon Carter; the pair separately wrote several songs that would later be re-worked for their next project. After obtaining a drum machine,

Jamie Wednesday was initially billed to play that show, but had broken up shortly before, leaving Bob and Fruitbat with one week to write new material. They composed six songs, namely, "Everytime a Churchbell Rings", "An All American National Sport", "The Taking of Peckham 123", "Good Grief Charlie Brown", an early version of "A Perfect Day to Drop the Bomb" titled "Will I Go to Hell If I Kiss in Front of Jesus" and "G.I. Blues". in September 1987, and closed out the year with three more gigs across London.

Development and recording

Between February and November 1988, Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine played further shows throughout London; as Fruitbat was unable to pass his driver's test, they were forced to use buses to travel to their gigs. During this period, Adrian Boss became their manager, and subsequently, their driver of hired cars. They recorded demos at Important Notice Studios, which earned them their first recording contract which was around the time Bob noticed that they were starting to attract a fanbase. The Treworgey Tree Fayre in Cornwall in summer 1989 marked the band's first festival appearance, ending with them not being paid.

Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine recorded their debut album at Important Notice Studios; the band and Painter acted as producers. The studio was located in the back garden of Painter's residence near a council estate. The band would regularly cycle to-and-from the building each day; Bob referred to the studio's size as a "garage ... [and] when I say a garage, I doubt you could have kept much more than say, a Smart car or something Noddy might drive in there".

Music and lyrics

Overview

101 Damnations incorporates drum machines, samples and loud guitars, employing extensive cultural references and puns, while being lyrically concerned with real life events seen in the news. Ned Raggett of AllMusic characterised the album's musical style as "brash, quick, punk/glam via rough early eighties technology pump-it-up pogoers" and described the heavy usage of puns as "Carter's calling card as much as anything". Gavin Stoker in The Rough Guide to Rock wrote that it combined "frantic guitars with samples, hip-hop beats, keyboard blasts and lyrics that namechecked south London haunts with alarming regularity". James Muretich of Calgary Herald considered it to be a mix of the work of David Bowie and Pet Shop Boys "while adopting the literary, politically appropriate, socially sarcastic British pop intellectual stance".

In a review for NME, DJ Steve Lamacq described the lyrics as being adaptive of other media mediums: "the colour and atmospheric backdrops (film), the plot and the dialogue (comics) and the descriptive prowess (if Carter were a book, they'd be a Martin Millar novel - really)". and later after signing, they attempted to call it Cunt. Explaining the samples, Bob said he would be sat next to a TV or a radio and recording bits using a cassette recorder for useable portions. As Fruitbat owned a copy of the film Head (1968), they extensively took samples from it for the album, most prominently on "A Perfect Day to Drop the Bomb".

Tracks

Bob said "The Road to Domestos", the album's opener, was a recording of a hymn they had stolen, ending with the sound of machine gun fire. "Twenty Four Minutes to Tulse Hill" details a train ride through South London; It also features a sample taken from Quadrophenia (1979), which had influenced Bob. "An All-American National Sport", which had gone under the titles "Digging a Hole" and "Cardboard City Cut-Out" with different publishers, discusses a homeless person being set on fire by two strangers. "Sheriff Fatman" was highlighted as displaying the album's characteristic sound; Raggett said "the song itself may be about a total rat-bastard of a slumlord, but the name of the game is energy and fun." Bob said the titular character was a landlord from South London, and was based on two people whom he knew personally.

"The Taking of Peckham 123" is largely about the Peckham area of London, where Jamie Wednesday's label The Pink Label was based. Bob has compared the song to "Evelyn" (1987) by contemporaries Pop Will Eat Itself. and sees him reciting marriage vows in the style of a vicar by its conclusion. HuffPost writer Tom Thornton said "Midnight on the Murder Mile" served as a "depiction of a paranoid, post-nightclub cross-borough trudge home". Its title refers to a length of road dubbed the Murder Mile where Bob would walk from a bus stop in West Norwood to his residence in Crystal Palace. It features samples of the band ringing and hanging up on the emergency phone number 999 and fight sounds from The Firm (1989) during the instrumental portion. "A Perfect Day to Drop the Bomb", which begins with a clip of an Atari ST booting up, reuses the hook from "The Message" (1982) by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. Rob Sheridan plays the piano solo in the track;

Release

Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine embarked on a four-month long tour of the UK between September and December 1989. During this time, "Sheriff Fatman" was released as the lead single from their upcoming debut album in November 1989. The music video for "Sheriff Fatman" consists of live footage of the band with close-up shots of their instruments and the crowd. 101 Damnations was released on 15 January 1990 through Big Cat Records, with distribution from Rough Trade Records. against a white background, while the title is a reference to the film One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961). At the time of its release, the duo were associated with the grebo scene alongside Ned's Atomic Dustbin and Pop Will Eat Itself. Stoker said that "as the rest of the country looked towards the 'Madchester' scene, Carter were starting a riot down south";

Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine promoted 101 Damnations with a UK tour until mid-February 1990, when they embarked on their first tour of mainland Europe, consisting of three shows in Holland. Upon returning home, the band continued to tour the UK until April 1990, and followed this up with a longer stint in Europe. On the latter trek, some of the crowd in Germany were not fond of the band lacking a drummer, often asking "where's the drummer?", with a few of them thinking the pair were miming the entire time. On one occasion, an attendee tried to go behind the stage, expecting to find a drummer there. Preceded by a launch party in Kentish Town, it was promoted with a UK tour throughout June and July 1990, ending with a performance at the Astoria.

Reissues and related events

"Sheriff Fatman" was reissued in 1991 through Big Cat and Chrysalis Records. The two labels reissued 101 Damnations in the UK on 8 August 1991 and in the United States five days later. Big Cat Records reissued it in 2004, and then in 2011 with additional tracks; the latter edition was re-printed in 2018. It was re-pressed on vinyl in 2018 as part of the box set The Studio Recordings 1988–1998, alongside their other albums. "Sheriff Fatman", "Rubbish" and their respective B-sides were included on the compilation Handbuilt by Perverts (1990); "Sheriff Fatman" and "Rubbish" were then featured on the compilations Straw Donkey... The Singles (1995) and Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere ...The Very Best of Carter USM (2000). In addition to those two tracks, "Twenty Four Minutes from Tulse Hill", "Midnight on the Murder Mile", "A Perfect Day to Drop the Bomb" and "G.I. Blues" were included on the anthology compilation You Fat Bastard (2007). In 2009, the band performed their first four albums in their entireties across two shows in London, which included 101 Damnations. That performance and the performance of their second album 30 Something (1991) were released as a two-CD set under the title The Drum Machine Years Volume 1 (1990–1991) (2010) through Concert Live.

Reception

Reviewers generally praised the songwriting found on 101 Damnations. In a retrospective piece, Raggett said in the "duo's own unusual way, Carter were something of a unique and thrilling prospect at its best, which the highlights of Damnations show." Trouser Press writer Ira Robbins called it a "fully realised debut" and "mind-blowing in the most stimulating sense"; Stoke was similarly impressed that the band "had ideas and energy to spare". Muretich said it was: "Clever, yes. Contrived, yes. And that's where this London bridge between social criticism and music falls down. Not enough melodic muscle, lyrical gusto". In Artforum, veteran critic Greil Marcus described 101 Damnations as "the noisiest and smartest record I’ve heard since early Wire—and more hysterical, in both senses of the word."

Other critics were drawn to its sound quality. Lamacq considered it the band's "(Tooting) Broadway debut, a big screen collage on a shoestring budget - rough-edged Rascal Pop with a searching script". Record Collector Jonathan Scott wrote in a 2011 review that the band were the "most interesting" of their contemporaries, saying that their music featured "both a naïve, DIY charm and a rousing anthemic quality".

101 Damnations peaked at number 29 on the UK Albums Chart. The reissue of "Sheriff Fatman" peaked at number 23 in the UK Singles Chart. At the end of 1990, NME ranked it at number 29 in their list of the top 50 release of the year. In 1992, NME included it in their list of the 20 best debut albums, writing that it stood in contrast to the Madchester boom of early 1990 by "[capturing] Carter's live resilience and ability to translate punk's social awareness into a new pop phenomenon", while also praising its DIY qualities. In The Rough Guide to Rock, Stoker commented that 101 Damnations bolstered Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine's reputation as "inventive agit-popsters".

Track listing

All tracks written by James Morrison and Les Carter. Some CD versions combine the first two tracks into one.

Side one

1. "The Road to Domestos" – 0:46
2. "Everytime a Churchbell Rings" – 4:13
3. "Twenty Four Minutes from Tulse Hill" – 3:26
4. "An All American National Sport" – 3:55
5. "Sheriff Fatman" – 4:43
6. "The Taking of Peckham 123" – 4:22

Side two

1. "Crimestoppers A' Go Go" – 2:48
2. "Good Grief Charlie Brown" – 3:39
3. "Midnight on the Murder Mile" – 3:30
4. "A Perfect Day to Drop the Bomb" – 5:42
5. "G.I. Blues" – 3:57

Personnel

Personnel per booklet. Musicians

• Jim Bob – performer
• Fruitbat – performer
• Rob Sheridan – piano solo ("G.I. Blues") Production and design
• Sex Machine – producer
• Simon Painter – producer, engineer
• Carter – sleeve design
• Dee Eff – sleeve design

Charts

References

Citations

Sources

References

1. Bob 2004, p. 13
2. Following a name change to Peter Pan's Playground,Thompson 2000, p. 240
3. Bob 2004, p. 14
4. Bob and Fruitbat played their first show in August 1987 under the name Bob, supporting [[the Men They Couldn't Hang]] at the [[London Astoria|Astoria]] venue in London.Thompson 2000, p. 241
5. The band needed [[backing track]]s for the show; they saw a [[Local advertising
6. Bob 2004, p. 196
7. Bob 2004, pp. 196–7
8. Bob 2004, p. 17
9. with [[Big Cat Records]]; the label released their debut single "A Sheltered Life" in October 1988. The band started playing shows further north in early 1989,Bob 2004, p. 197
10. Bob 2004, p. 20
11. Bob 2004, p. 32
12. Bob, Jim. (14 July 2020). "As I remember it we were supposed to be meeting Jah Wobble to talk about him producing the album. I have no memory of why that didn't happen. We co-produced it with Simon Painter instead. He co-produced all the Carter albums.".
13. Bob, Jim. (14 July 2020). "A lot of the lyrics on this, and on the album are based on real life events. Usually taken from the news. Bostik boys playing chicken in a box I think referred to glue sniffers climbing into boxes on the train tracks and playing chicken with trains".
14. Stoker 2003, p. 175
15. Bob, Jim. (14 July 2020). "The Brothels of Streatham to the taking of Peckham was the original title of the album. When we signed the record deal we told label boss Abbo we wanted to call it 'C***' (No asterisks). Childish".
16. Bob, Jim. (14 July 2020). "Tom Waits & the Band of Holy Joy were a big influence on my songwriting. Most noticeable in this song. The opening line could be from a Tom Waits song. Even though it sounds uncannily (and entirely coincidentally) like 'Eveylyn' by Pop Will Eat Itself.".
17. Bob, Jim. (14 July 2020). "I used to sit with a cassette recorder in front of the TV and the radio recording stuff, hoping for things to sample. Fruitbat had a VHS of the Monkees film Head. We sampled loads of that on the album. All this Drop the Bomb stuff is from Head.".
18. Bob 2004, p. 216
19. Bob, Jim. (14 July 2020). "A Quadrophenia sample there. I said in an interview the film had such a profound effect on me and I was so unhappy at the time that I went to Brighton to throw myself into the sea. It ended up in the tabloids that I'd attempted to take my own life.".
20. Bob, Jim. (14 July 2020). "The song was originally called Digging a Hole. It was part of a publishing deal we signed before we recorded it. So we changed the title and sold it to another publisher. At one point the song was called Cardboard City Cut-Out.".
21. Bob, Jim. (14 July 2020). "Pre Carter and Jamie Wednesday me and Fruitbat wrote a number of acoustic based songs that we'd rewrite later as Carter songs. 'Chuckles And Smiles' became 'Sheriff Fatman'. It was based on Jonathan Jo has a mouth like an O by AA Milne.".
22. Bob, Jim. (14 July 2020). "Mostly about the North Peckham estate. I think the Pink Label (Jamie Wednesday) had their office in a flat there.".
23. Bob, Jim. (14 July 2020). "A song about my parents splitting up. My dad used to send me a ten shilling note every week. Here's a picture of me and my dad. I'm the one without the moustache.".
24. Bob, Jim. (14 July 2020). "At the end of this song I'm reading the marriage vows like a mad vicar. When I finish you can hear me tear them up. Scary stuff.".
25. Thornton, Tom. (24 November 2015). "Ten Early 90s Indie Songs That Say It All". [[HuffPost]].
26. Bob 2004, p. 47
27. Bob, Jim. (14 July 2020). "I'm not proud of it now but to get the 'emergency which service' sample, we rang 999 (not the band), recorded it and hung up. I suppose they could trace the call now and arrest us for timewasting.".
28. Bob, Jim. (14 July 2020). "I think the fight noise in the instrumental break is from the Gary Oldman film 'The Firm'.".
29. Bob, Jim. (14 July 2020). "The songs starts with the sound of the Atari software loading (I think). It's not my department. I was in charge of cymbals.".
30. Bob, Jim. (14 July 2020). "I wrote this about John Savage's character in The Deer Hunter. That film had big impact on me. I can't watch the scene where George Dzundza is making eggs and starts crying without joining in. Crying I mean, not making eggs.".
31. Bob 2004, p. 198
32. CarterUSMMusicVEVO. (12 February 2019). "Carter U.S.M. - Sheriff Fatman".
33. Anon. 1990, pp. 4–5
34. Margolls 1992, p. B1
35. Rooksby 2021, p. 240
36. Hill, Stephen. (29 July 2022). "Attacking TV presenters, ruining Glastonbury and being banned by the BBC: how Carter USM became Britain's unlikeliest chart-toppers". [[Metal Hammer.
37. Bob 2004, pp. 198–9
38. Bob 2004, p. 39
39. Bob 2004, pp. 199–200
40. Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine. (1990). ""Rubbish"". Big Cat Records.
41. Bob 2004, p. 49
42. Bob 2004, pp. 200–1
43. Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine. (1991). ""Sheriff Fatman"". Big Cat/Chrysalis Records.
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45. "Public Catalog". [[United States Copyright Office]].
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51. Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine. (1995). "Straw Donkey... The Singles". [[Chrysalis Records]].
52. Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine. (2000). "Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere ...The Very Best of Carter USM". [[List of EMI labels.
53. Bob, Jim. (2007). "You Fat Bastard". [[EMI]].
54. (13 January 2009). "Carter USM: London Shows". [[Clash (magazine).
55. Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine. (2010). "The Drum Machine Years Volume 1 (1990–1991)". [[Concert Live]].
56. Raggett, Ned. "101 Damnations – Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine". [[AllMusic]].
57. Muretich 1991, p. E4
58. (2000). "The Virgin Encyclopedia of Nineties Music". Virgin Books.
59. Lamacq 1990, p. 21
60. Scott 2011, p. 87
61. Crook 1990, p. 15
62. Robbins, Ira. "Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine". [[Trouser Press]].
63. [[Colin Larkin (writer)
64. The staff at ''NME'' remarked that it was "weighted with a constant stream of clever touches, a sensible line in cynicism and a streak of humour".Noyer ed. 1998, p. 162
65. (March 1992). "Greil Marcus' Real Life Rock".
66. "Carter (The Unstoppable Sex Machine) / full Official Chart History". [[Official Charts Company]].
67. (10 October 2016). "1990 - NME".
68. (22 February 1992). "That'll Be the Debut: A Guide to Rock's Primary Cuts".
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