The Newtown Neurotics’ album in NME, 15 October, 1983.
My Sons The Neuro Surgeons
Newtown Neurotics
Baggars Can Be Choosers (Razor)
On the cover of ‘Fast, Grubby And Thick Vol. XIV’ (a compilation of all that’s cheap and shoddy in gobbing noddy-land) Adolf slaps Maggie’s back as wicked pig-peelers shoot the blindfolded but resolute dog soldiers of plastic punkdom. The swatika flies over No. 10 and only a grim Wattie stands between the fascist hordes and a horrid 1984 type scenario… This little piggy went to market.
Shall we then, in our desperation, disillusion and despair, sing the praises of the inch-deep silly billy wild and whacky nothing bands? The theory goes – in times of depression the masses flock to the chocolate box candy floss Hi! Society obsession with gross banality. When the dole queue lengthens, the sticky finger of escapist frivolity beckons. Busby Berkley stomps on Brecht, Ginger Rogers elbows Eisenstein – Gimme passion! Gimme soul! But most of all gimmee Hetero Sex!
The Neurotics’ mouthpiece Steve Drewitt, despite the gruff and ready grunt of a voice he’s blessed with, tears skin apart on ‘Newtown People’ – a heartfelt lament for the trashed polystyrene denizens of the Welfare State’s gravy train graveyard.
The chunky chugging blue punky-pop chopped off-beat is repeated for the chorus of ‘Living With Unemployment’ – a perverted Members retread. Most tracks owe much to Drewitt’s aggressive writing. he sets down his tortured thoughts and bends the rhythm, rhyme and melody to buggery to fit them in a style not unlike that of fellow barmpot Mark Smith. The rest of the album is workmanlike tho’ rarely scraping any heights of insight.
The stairway to 17th. heaven is spit polished clear for bands of the Neuros’ ilk. Go up an octave, hold the guitars at chest height and fill the stage with sexually attractive black women with rockets for tonsils. Every lefty has been’s dream – the sugared slogan and the plagiarised moan. I’ve heard these songs on demos, benefits and picket lines and at parties where the tinsel brained escapees from squalor have hobbled off stage Right in disgust and revulsion.
How’s it go again Malcy? Art is a hammer not a nail polish. Get your hands dirty – Revolt into Action.
Susan Williams