The infinitely capable, infinitely charming mega-salespeople at Discovery Records have done a magnificent job for us. Born In A Barn is finally in the record shops, just waiting for the good people of the UK to snap it up.
Thanks, Discovery Records.
I'd heard tell the album was on sale in HMV on Oxford St, which is surely the biggest record shop in Britain these days. And under the guise of making sure the system worked, that the barcode was readable by the scanners and more than anything to see it for myself in this new and illustrious setting, I happened in there and bought it. 
The amazing thing about this is not that I bought a copy of my own record, (after all, that's more pathetic than amazing), but that someone had already been in and bought a copy. To the best of my knowledge, Discovery put four copies in there, and there were only three by the time I got there. So someone (probably a relative) had snapped one up. This is immensely pleasing.
You hear so many grim messages from the record industry about how CD sales have slumped, how illegal downloads are killing their business and how this means the demise of recorded music forever. So the only assumption I can make is that these two sales of The Scaremongers' Born In A Barn must put us at the Number One slot on the Album Chart. Surely. If things are as bleak as they say, then obviously we are Toppermost of the Poppermost. All hail us!
So today, we celebrate our first Number One.
Another point of note is that we're a HMV import. Excellent. Devises is abroad now. I must remember to take my passport next time I go to Wiltshire.
Seriously, big thanks to Discovery - keep up the good work, you're doing a fine job for us.
After several months of sonic in exile, The Scaremongers return!
The People's Pop Group, the very definition of Super 8, the Sound of Aging Huddersfield are back with their first gig since Latitude and a distribution deal for their album, Born in a Barn.
On Friday 12th March 2010 they play Bar 1:22 in the centre of Huddersfield - their first ever home town gig. The gig is part of Huddersfield Literary Festival, which runs from the 10th March to the 14th.
BROCHURE - HUDDERSFIELD LITERARY FESTIVAL 2010
On top of this, The Scaremongers have secured distribution.
Discovery Records, specialists in Specialist Music since 1978, and The Scaremongers, Chancers in Popular Music since 2006, have come together in the kind of creative liaison Michelangelo enjoyed with the Medicis, or something along those lines. We're very proud to align ourselves with this thorough, knowledgeable and likeable crew from Wiltshire, and very hopeful this can be a beneficial partnership for both parties for years to come.
This afternoon, at the time of writing, The Huddersfield Giants are playing in the Rugby League Challenge Cup Final. We did a kind of tribute song for them called 13 Men, which you can hear on our MySpace page:
http://www.myspace.com/thescaremongers
Neil Atkinson of the mighty
Huddersfield Daily Examiner interviewed Young Armitage about it, and printed the lyrics - thanks, Neil:
13 Men in the Huddersfield Daily Examiner
Best of luck this afternoon, Giants.
Hiya. Craig 'Clattermonger' Smith reporting.
This is something of a long shot, but Sue lost a ring in the the Latitude Performers' Campsite last weekend. If there's any chance you were there, or you found it or you know someone who was there, please can you let us know because it has great sentimental value for her and she'd love to have it back.
Thanks ever so much.
The Armitage-carrying Observer Music Monthly provides the first national press review of the Scaremongersa€™ star-laden first masterwork. You can read its pithy and positive summation at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/jun/14/the-scaremongers-born-in-a-barn.
The last twelve months have seen the Scaremongers soar. Out of the long-cherished dreams of Armitage and Smith, they emerged, fully formed, their sound resonating along the backbone of England. Early gigs, a body of immortal double A-sides, representation on ITunes, Cherry Red and Cloudberry, radio airplay aplenty, first TV appearance on The Culture Show, and now first long-player, the instant classic Born In A Barn.
What constitutes this illustrious north country outfit? Armitage, again and again proven a colossus in the cultural life of these islands and beyond. Smith, the power behind, in front and on top of the throne. And the supporting Scaremongers, those vital moving parts in the band machine, sometime penumbral shapes who now and again step forward into the light. Time we got to know them all better . . .
The last year also saw the demise of Shoot, football magazine of choice in my youth. In a retro-fixated way, here we replicate the famed Shoot Focus ona€¦ interview format. First up, chief Clattermonger himself, Mr Craig Smitha€¦
Name:
Craig Smith
Height:
An even 6 foot
Weight:
Fluctuates. 14 stone and a few pounds
Previous club:
Lloyd Almighty, The Dez Lawrence Soul Explosion, Route 56, Conscience, Phase
Famous relations:
My uncle's an Ewok!
Married:
Yes
Children:
None
Car:
Car-less
Favourite player:
Nick Watts, the keyboard player - I could listen to him for hours
Favourite other team:
Today it's Can. Any other day it might be Orange Juice, Jesus and Mary Chain, Black Keys, Smokey Robinson, Stereolab, St Etienne, Radiohead, Go Team, Lo Fidelity All Stars, Public Enemy, The Supremes, Beastie Boys, Velvet Underground, The Buzzcocks, Music For Grown Ups, The Walker Brothers, Otis Redding, Sam Cooke, The Cookies, The Shangri Las or any of a million other bands
Most difficult opponent:
The guitar - it beats me every time!
Most memorable match:
Presteigne - the gig at The Gramaphone was great, but we were a chucked-together group of musicians at that point. Presteigne was the first gig where we coalesced a bit, where we got an inkling that we'd the makings of a proper band
Biggest thrill:
Born In A Barn - I've wanted to release an album for 35 years
Biggest disappointment:
Born In A Barn - sometimes I can only hear what's wrong with it
Best country visited:
As a 'monger, it has to be Wales - it's the only country we've visited as a band.
Favourite food:
Ready Brek
Miscellaneous likes:
A Telecaster through a Fender amp with a bit of overdrive, dogs, pigs, donkeys
Miscellaneous dislikes:
Moths - we have an infestation
Favourite TV show:
Futurama, League of Gentlemen, The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer, Match of the Day
Favourite singers:
Dusty Springfield, Otis Redding, Sam Moore, Beth Gibbons
Biggest influence on career:
Thin Lizzy's Live and Dangerous - it's why I picked up a guitar
Best friends:
My little brother, Armitage, The whole Scaremongers Crew
Biggest drag in soccer:
Not having enough time to dedicate to it. Or money.
International honours:
We did the gig in Wales - does that count?
Personal and professional ambition:
To do another album. And one after that. And another one after that.
You can also buy Born In A Barn at the Cherry Red download store: http://www.cherryred.co.uk/downloads/: Eleven tracks of tuneful flair and lyrical drollery whittled with their own hands from West Riding clints and crags by our favourite purveyors of Yorkshire Grit-Pop.
Our cricket team lost by one wicket at the weekend (and I was bowling the last over, arthritically) a€“ we haven't won a game in four years and if it does happen, if therea€™s a mote of justice in the world, I reckon we'll be on News at Ten, second Big Ben bong after 'Non-poet laureate and talented mate's group hits top of charts'.
I can dream a€“ but The Scaremongers really are the stuff that dreams are made on.
CORPORATION POP and OPM MUSIC PROUDLY PRESENTS:
The long-awaited (twenty years in the making) debut album from Huddersfield based band The Scaremongers. Never ones to be rushed, non poet laureate vocalist/lyricist Simon Armitage and multi-tasking guitarist Craig Smith crafted the songs over the past two decades, letter by letter, quaver by quaver, and now feel that the galaxy is ready for their unique brand of a€śkitchen-sink snow-shaker pop-rocka€ť as they casually refer to it.
Songs range from the swirling, up-for-it-indie-dancefloor-hum-it-in-the-bathroom-classic You Can Do Nothing Wrong (In My Eyes) to the soul hugging, shoe-gazing, hair-shirt wearing, seven-and-a-half minute From The Shorelines Of Venus, to the heartfelt and cryptic (even to the band themselves) Grouse Beaters Boysa€™ Club, to the stomping Derailleur, the only song ever dedicated to the sprocket-activated, variable-ratio transmission system frequently deployed on the modern bicycle.
a€śCaesar came from Rome,
picnicked here then pushed off home.
The dashboard music soared
from a Russian car,
I could have sworna€¦ in the chrome,
your face, and next to it my own.a€ť
Derailleur
Full track listing:
You Can Do Nothing Wrong (In My Eyes)
Grouse Beaters Boysa€™ Club
Tea Leaves
Cardigan Girl
Legendary
Less Is More
Nodding Dog
Long Ride Home
Derailleur
From The Shorelines Of Venus
Porch
Official Release Date: Friday 7th May 2009
Picture CD, including lyric booklet and artwork by Lyndon Hayes, A?8.99 available from Vinyltap Records: http://www.vinyltap.co.uk/shop/item/951171950968.aspx
Downloads available from Cherry Red Records Download Shop.
Further information:
http://www.thescaremongers.com/
http://www.myspace.com/thescaremongers
Seeing (and Hearing) Is Believing: catch The Scaremongers on their Small But Perfectly Formed 2009 mini tour:
Hebden Bridge Trades and Friendly - 27 June
Latitude Festival - 16 July
Nantwich Festival - 10 October.
Contact Details - OPM:
Trevor Jenkins/David Carroll
OPM LLP
Aquarium Studios
122 Wardour Street
London
W1F OTX
t. 020 7 734 7224
m. 07793 671813
The Scaremongers' Blogger-in-Chief, Neil Sentance - Forest Fan In Exelsis, the West Country's Adopted Son - was in London with his stupendously talented wife Kate Scott to catch up with old pals. One of the old pals they caught up with was the stupendously pleased-to-see-them Scaremonger, Craig Smith:
Photos from the Scaremongers gig at Ilkley Literature Festival:
With characteristic modesty and grace comes news of the Scaremongersa€™ potentially a€?ifficult second giga€™.
As a kid growing up in the 1970s, Saturday evenings would mean waiting for the Football Post, the weekly sport supplement to the Nottingham Evening Post. Its unwavering hub of attention was, quite rightly, the fortunes of Forest, County, and maybe Mansfield Town and Lincoln City. But in the gutter margins would be the late kickoffs and scores wired in at the eleventh hour from the turbid realms of the non-league, a litany of lyrical names: high-born Shepshed Charterhouse, Ilkeston (sang out to the tune of Glen Campbella€™s Galveston), remarkably unremarkable Alfreton Town, sodden-sounding Borrowash Victoria, folksy Brigg Town of the Midland League or the Northern Premiera€™s Hyde United, South Liverpool, Gainsborough Trinity. Waiting to hear of the Scaremongersa€™ adventures last Saturday night in the land of the poetic Thomases (Dylan, Edward, R.S., Mickey) conjured a similar childlike thrill. But maybe I should get out more.
Anyhow, Smith reports that the Presteigne audience was very appreciative, to the point of not rebuffing the banda€™s offer of playing two encores! Supported by silver anniversary-celebrating The Mood Index (author and friend of the Scaremongers Ian Marchant on vocals), the set list (surely itself now an object of veneration or an Ebay item) included the standards we know so well: Cardigan Girl, Less Is More, You Can Do Nowt Wrong In My Eyes; and rarer gems, airing in public for the first time: Cricketera€™s Delight, Grouse Beatera€™s Boys Club, Derailleur (can you tell this band is the invention of wordsmiths?).
Next on the never ending tour: Ilkley with engineer/producer Steve Whitfield standing in for Glen on bass. News of that gig wona€™t be limited to the gutter margins.
After a suitably extended laurel-resting period following the triumphant Shoreditch debut in May, the Scaremongers are to reconvene on stage once more. On Saturday 13 September they breach Offaa€™s Dyke to play the British Legion Hall in Presteigne on the Radnorshire/Herefordshire border, with support from The Mood Index and DJ-ing from Everything's Pointed At Now. Presteigne sits aptly for our purposes on the River Lugg a€“ so all of you in the Welsh Marches with an ear for great music, etc., etc.
And a few short weeks later, on Saturday 18 October, Armitage, Smith & Co. play their first (already sold out) Yorkshire gig at the Ilkley Literature Festival (http://www.ilkleyliteraturefestival.org.uk/user/index.php), amidst such luminaries as Louis de Bernieres, Lionel Shriver, Graeme Garden, Barry Cryer and Kate Adie (oh, and also Cherie Blair and Chris Patten). Rendition of local folk song about headwear-eschewing fell-walkers is unlikely.
My friend, actor, one-time Huddersfieldian and man who knows the a€™80s music scene better than anyone alive, David Reakes, says:
There is a point to this, so bear with me.
Contrary to popular belief, Messers Fairlight, Hardcastle and Horn were not the first samplers in pop music. The first samplers that I came across in my pop life were those Netto-cheap compilation LPs that record companies would put out as (no other word for it) bait to snare the curiously weak willed and their wallets.
Hairy-handed record exec? Got a few pallid debutants on your rostra? Then just bung a tune by each of them on a hastily packaged a€?imited Edition!a€™ LP, add one song (too poor to be even a b-side) by your biggest star, put a sticker on saying BUY ME FOR BUTTONS! and watch all your young turks curdle up the charts on its coat tails.
I fell for this cheap stunt not once but three times.
In 1986 Mercury Records released Beat Runs Wild. It cost A?1.99 and a nineteen-year-old student called, well, me, paid his money and took it home. It showcases such luminaries as Tom Verlaine, Pete Shelley, Topper Headon and, er, Wet Wet Wet, Swing Out Sister and Curiosity Killed The Cat.
Ia€™m playing it now.
The sleeve was shocking, only partially redeemed by the strap line: a€?lso available on Cassette.a€™ As if anyone would buy it twice a€” memories of macaroni cheese and Henrik Ibsen notwithstanding, it hasna€™t aged well. I do seem to remember playing it quite a lot. Or at least bits of it, as both Pete and Tom are on form and Ia€™ll still defend to the death a€?nother Lost Weekenda€™ by Swing Out Sister, whose first two singles I bought after that (so crack open the Asti, Mr Hairy Hands, it worked!). But as for the others, all it did was pre-warn me, and I can safely say that I was the first person on the Humanities course to be able to say with total conviction that a€?ove And Moneya€™ and a€?erra Onea€™ were irredeemable rubbish. And then Bena€™s beret and Martya€™s smile ate the charts and I snorted my derision and hid my copy.
Next up was Sampled (yes, I nicked their gag) released by ZTT. This was a different kettle of fish entirely, for me at least, as I already had most of what was on it, because I had fallen, hook, line and multi-format release for the whole ZTT shebang. Ia€™m not proud, but nor I am repentant of the fact that I was a bit of a (whisper it) ZTT completist, so the fact that this LP cost less than any of that labela€™s ten cassette singles (or Zanglettes, since you ask) I had already shelled out for was a mere bonus.
Ia€™m playing it now.
Sampled has a sleeve that is beyond parody, tracks by all the ZTT acts youa€™ve ever heard of and quite a few by those you havena€™t. Instinct, for instance, never managed to release anything else other than a€?wamp Outa€™, their contribution here. Did they get bored waiting for the in-house producers to get round to them? Or were they the only act here that actually bothered to read the small print on their contracts (which would shame even a Vietnamese sweat-shop owner) and thus quite rightly and in the nick of time give it all up for landscape gardening and accountancy? Perhaps wea€™ll never know, though I did get to see them live and can report that they were pretty good actually. There, I told you I was a completist.
Oh, and if anyone out there is laughing at my ZTT fixation, you should check out Frankiea€™s live take on a€?orn To Runa€™ thata€™s included. I never thought Ia€™d say this about anyone ever, but they, ahem, rocked.
Finally, about a year later, Doing It For The Kids was released by Creation Records: a€?n LP for the price of a 7a€ť singlea€™. I think I played it once at the time.
Ia€™m playing it now . . .
. . . and I was really expecting to hate it. I was going to re-name it a€?reation: The Doldrums Years Pt 1a€™. Of course Pt2 would recall the post-Oasis crash when, flush with Gallagher groats and cocaine supernovas, for every Super Furry Animals, Arnold and Primal Scream there was a Three Colours Red, 18 Wheeler and Hurricane #1. Back in a€™88 there were similar villains but lots of heroes too. Felt, The Jazz Butcher and Razorcuts are all bringing unexpected smiles to my jaded chops. The sleevea€™s good too, if a little familiar. And that reminds me . . .
The daddy of all these sampler LPs, or at least the dotty old aunt, was Pillows and Prayers, released by Cherry Red Records in, oooh, 1982 was it?
Ia€™m not playing it now, because I never bought it.
My sister bought it for the princely sum of A?1.99. I say a€?rincely suma€™ because she bought the picture disc, which was a whole pound more costly than the frankly much better packaged regular release (so the whole ZTT thing was her fault!).
Apologies if my guess of the date of release is wrong, likewise if any of the following is wrong too, but Ia€™ve decided to eschew boring old Google and rely on memory, just to prove how much this wonderful record has stayed with me over the years.
The first time I ever opened an NME and saw that Pillows and Prayers wasna€™t No. 1 in the Indie Chart I thought it was a typing error! It seemed to be the only island of sanity in a sea of Crass and Dead Kennedys. So, let me see: Monochrome Set, The Passage, The Marine Girls, Tracey Thorne, Ben Watt, Everything But The Girl, Joe Crow, Attila The Stockbroker, Quentin Crisp, Kevin Coyne. Hmmm. Frankly, Ia€™m annoyed, as I thought Ia€™d have done better than that. Oh, hang on, wasna€™t Thomas Leer on there? (I wona€™t bore you with his ZTT connection.)
So, I can remember 11 acts out of about 18. Not bad considering I havena€™t heard or seen this LP for, I dunno, nearly twenty-five years now. And I can still reel off most of a€? Bang And A Wimpya€™. And my impression of Quentin Crisp still ends dinner parties with embarrassed silences. And Joe Crowa€™s a€?ompulsiona€™ would still be in my Top 10 of Lost Classicsa€”so much so that when I heard that the little bloke with the leather skirts from Depeche Mode had covered it I AVOIDED IT LIKE THE PLAGUE! The sleeve was great to, obviously influencing Mr McGeea€™s efforts (see above).
So, when I was told that our beloved Scaremongers had signed to Cherry Red, my first thought was a€?limey, are they still going?a€™ Then my second thought was Pillows and Prayers. And Ia€™ve been thinking it ever since.
By the way, in writing this piece, I found out that spellcheck doesna€™t recognise a€?ooglea€™, but it does recognise a€?ooglya€™. A cause for celebration, methinks. Now, excuse me while I Googly the life out of Pillows and Prayers.
David Reakes
A heads up, as they say in Shoreditch, for ScaremongersWatchers out there for a rarer than hena€™s dentures TV appearance for our favourite Colne Valley Combo.
The BBCa€™s estimable flagship arts magazine, The Culture Show, returns on BBC2 on Tuesday 4 June at 10 pm and toppermost amongst its items is Mark Kermode (like Armitage, another alumnus of the old late night Mark Radcliffe Show) who a€?ccompanies Simon at the ordeal of his first ever gig as the lead singer of the Scaremongers in super cool Shoreditcha€™. In this post-Top of the Pops/Whistle Test world this is surely as good as it gets. (For this viewer, apart from the obvious thrill of this televisual treat, wea€™ll be seeing if the footage of the now legendary Gramaphone Club gig corresponds with our memory of it a€” particularly as we were standing right next to the camera operatora€™s ear hole like supernumerary key grips or summat.) Anyway, catch the show on Tuesday a€” another accomplished first for the Scaremongers.
Neil S.
Armitage and Smith have told how they had to wait till, well, middle youth, to realise the dreams of their pomp and form a band. In a not dissimilar way, Ia€™ve waited 20 years to become a slavish band follower, adoring fan and vicarious pop-thrill-seekera€¦
Thursday 8 May 2008, the Gramaphone Club, Shoreditch, London. Been in a state of giddy anticipation for some time. A rare visit to the steaming capital to see our old mate and his new band a€” the Scaremongers. We walk out of sweltering evening streets, city swallows dipping round the lampposts, and into the dimly lit, crypt-like rooms a€” an updated image of the Cavern for sure, the walls sopping with the sweat of a hundred upstart bands. Immediately, therea€™s Smith, calm, authoritative, his smile as broad as the portico of Huddersfield station. He welcomes us and thanks us for coming in his ever-charming manner. Hea€™s sticking to a solitary pint. Like Keith Richards someone says. My wife notices Armitage in the corner but she is uncharacteristically shy and gets into drink-ordering at the bar. Ia€™ve already had a couple of pints; Smith introduces me to his chief bandmate, whoa€™s understandably a touch nervous pre-gig and feeling laryngeally challenged; luckily he wona€™t have any registered any of the nonsense I spout at him. A fine fellow, worthy of Smith.
In turn we meet other members of the Scaremongers in toto, all top guys and wait for the support act to wheel through its numbers.
9.45 pm: the seven Scaremongers are ranged across the stage, averting their collective headlight gaze from the expectant eyes of their new hardcore fans in the front rows, and the angling BBC camera. The first number, Cardigan Girl, an instant classic, and all is well. Smith has them marshalled and adept, quashing nerves, soothing qualms, fixing errant amps. Armitage proves himself a king in yet another arena, his north country timbre finding a perfect counterpart in Suea€™s skylarking support. Seven or eight songs breezed through, and then the great finale, You Can Do Nothing Wrong in My Eyes. The music and lyrics, ita€™s the whole thing, the synchronization a€” ita€™s self-evident, an everyday miracle maybe, but how they do such things, so well, are beyond my envious grasp. Gaping Gill. I remember someone told me you could fit the whole of York Minster inside it. York Minster would be small-time for this band I reckon, but then Ia€™m smitten.
Ita€™s over, cheers ring out and another band has the unenviable task of following. We all drink more beer and talk of the night wea€™ve been a part of as if ita€™s already a grand memory.
In the 1980s, the sounds of the Smiths and others with their enchanting disenchantment rarely reached my bedroom door deep in rural Lincolnshire; Peel was only half-heard in stifled snatches. The musical tribal divisions in the small town where I went to school were archetypal, arrayed on the bus every morning: desperate grebos, balding-but-bequiffed rockers, disaffected remnant punks, a smattering of sullen goths (are there any other kind?), the odd mod, a phalanx of menacing soulboys with their aggressive suits and perfect hair. School rucksacks with band names inked inexpertly across the canvas. One lad even had a MA¶torhead logoed jumper his mum had knitted him. At the time I liked to think Ia€™d taken the road less travelled, back into past, to eras through which my folks had lived but from the sound of it hadna€™t really been there at all. When I finally escaped to university, I found many such like minds and lost souls, refugees from the 80s demonic chart sounds of SAW and their ilka€¦
Spring 2007 and Ia€™m listening to Mark Radcliffea€™s late night radio show. With him is his oft-times guest Simon Armitage, poet, author, unhurried wit, a man I unwittingly spooked after a reading in Devon in the 90s by running up to him in the dark street as he left a€” I can still see his dona€™t-mug-me expression. Now hea€™s ruminating on the possibility of achieving a long-cherished dream a€” his own band. He mentions his old mate Craig a€¦
I first knew Smith on the playing fields of Eton. Well, the five-a-side court in the crumbling concrete Fusion Centre in Elephant & Castle, southeast London, to be sure. A doughty opponent, solid in defence, incisive in attack, possessor of an old-fashioned shot seemingly learnt at the feet of Peter Lorimer. After pretending to be other such 70s heroes for an hour (most of the famed Forest team of that time in my case), many times wea€™d retire ruby-faced to the Hampton pub, sink a few ales and talk about the football and music, what else. Some years pass. Ia€™ve left London but start to hear faint rumours about the nascent Scaremongers and their first tentative gurgles in the world. Of course, these rumours are from Smith himself. That first wonderful double A-side appears, another appearance on Radio Radcliffe, an article in the Weekend Guardian. All they needed now was a first gig. Theya€™ve done it now, and they should be proud.
Neil S.
If the rate we blog on this site is anything to go by, it's no wonder we were 20 years between coming up with the idea of The Scaremongers and actually doing anything about it. We've been ridiculously lax, and we are duly ashamed of ourselves. I've been getting into a little bit of bother for not posting on here, (sorry, Maria!) so knowing that I'm not going to get any more diligent at it, and knowing the Lad Armitage is somewhat bewildered in the face of technology, we've chosen to ask a couple of pals to help us out.
First up is the great Neil Sentance, a man who knows more about the Scaremongers than I do! He was the chap who emailed me last April to tell me that, according to what he'd heard on the Mark Radcliffe show, I was in a band with a renowned poet. Since then, Neil and his wife, the great poet Kate Scott, travelled from Devon to see us play our first gig, which is a herculean effort by anyone's standards.
Check out his gig review - it's so good, I wish I'd been in the audience watching!
