1. Harry J. All StarsLiquidator
In Coventry, when I was a youngster, it was slightly invisible. You’re in the mid-Midlands. The only thing that had ever happened was that it was bombed and a naked woman [Lady Godiva] rode on a horse some time ago. In the playground, kids started appearing with white socks and pork pie hats. We were Irish, although we didn’t take part in any community, my parents had a suspicion of clubs or any kind of communal gathering. We never went to the working men’s club. We never went to the Irish club. As a kid, you’d think, why aren’t we going to The Four Provinces? Everyone else is. Mum would say, ‘if Ireland was that bloody good, why didn’t they move back there?’ She was from Donegal. I feel quite lucky that I have a Catholic heritage, because it’s rich in language and imagery. I went to Bishop Ullathorne school. We had Father Jeery and Sister Philomena. She knew everyone’s name, which made you very frightened of her. Every day she’d say, ‘good morning, George,’ and you’d think, how did she know my name? She must know Jesus!
Before Two-tone, I remember thinking ELO were the coolest thing in the world; like most young teenage boys, you’re interested in fantasy and stuff. At the same time as Two-tone landing on the playground at school, it landed on the estate and then it landed on Top Of The Pops. When they were introduced, they said, ‘and from Coventry…’ as though it was as much of a shock to them that anything could possibly come from here.
One of the things The Specials did was introduce a whole generation of us to music which we probably would have never heard. And then you had Rico, who had this massive legacy behind him. So we started to hunt out records from another time, which were influencing the pop music of the contemporary, and I suppose then, by extension, that goes on. The Specials covered ‘Liquidator’ on their Too Much Too Young EP. Harry J. All Stars was the first record I bought on that first weekend that I moved to Sheffield as a student in 1986. I bought it for 50p at a record shop called Hitsville on Rockingham Street and took it home where I had a record player in my artist’s garret in Nether Edge. It was huge with a big bay window, a single bed and a sink in the corner that you could piss in. Liquidator was the first record I ever played in there.
