6. Dave BallIn Strict Tempo
If the Christmas before had been spent with Lou Reed and Syd Barrett, then fuck me, the following Christmas would seal my fate because I got the Dave Ball record. My aunty bought me it from Woolworths. I knew it was going to be great but had no idea how it would be without Marc Almond singing. I knew of the people on it because they all had silly names – the first track ‘Sincerity’ was a guy called Genesis P-Orridge, and the second it came on I just knew something was going on inside me, I can’t explain it. My friend Richard always said that Genesis P-Orridge had the potential to scare you in your own room – this is when you’re young, but that’s how I felt with all this. It was so brave for Phonogram to support the keyboard player of a band, labels usually go for the singer, but it was such a brave album – it had Genesis on a couple of tracks, Gavin Friday, these were some of the most interesting vocalists I’d ever heard up until that point. I knew they were the wrong side of everything. The artwork was amazing, this huge Peter Ashworth picture, this guy straddled over a huge kettle drum, and I later found out that it was this guy Geoff Rushton. Who’s Geoff Rushton? Oh, he’s in that other band, the guy in Coil. The jigsaw fell into place. Through this record I discovered so much and it messed with a lot of what pop music could be. Soft Cell were like the posh kid at school who has all the best things – all the wronguns were attracted to them.
