A whole slew of reasons to love The Prefects, Birmingham, England’s very first punk band:
1. Civic Pride: At their first “real” gig on their home turf, a storm of beer bottles drove them off stage after they debuted their new song, “Birmingham’s a Shithole.” Unfortunately, no recorded versions of the incident exist, nor did they ever record the song. I find this tragic.
2. Brevity (Is the Soul of Wit): The Prefects’ “I’ve Got VD” lasts all of seven seconds. It’s not as short as Napalm Death’s “You Suffer,” which clocks in at 1.3 seconds, but it’s a much better song. Has words and everything.
3. Fuck Product: The Prefects released exactly zero material while they were together. This is, I think, the perfect punk statement. A posthumous single was released in 1979, but only Prefects’ front man Robert Lloyd made it a condition of Rough Trade’s signing his new band, the Nightingales. And it wasn’t until 2004 that a New York City label released a Prefects album, The Prefects Are Amateur Wankers.
4. Madness Prevails: On the live song “White Riot Tour,” which was recorded while The Prefects were on The Clash’s tour of the same name, they do a lot of incoherent screaming before breaking into a very ramshackle cover of the Velvet Underground’s “Sister Ray.” It’s great. It’s not on The Prefects Are Amateur Wankers, but you owe it to yourself to find it and check it out. It’s pure dead unlistenable genius.
5. We’re an American Band!: The Prefects were a shockingly original band. Who else would have thought to release a ten-minute song called “Bristol Road Leads to Dachau”? It’s all very stark and dissonant, with Lloyd going starkers on vocals as the song nears its end. The bands The Prefects remind me of most aren’t English. They’re American. The early Velvet Underground, Flipper, and No Trend, to be exact. With an English accent.
6. Speaking of Flipper: “Going Through the Motions” opens with a Chuck Berry riff and is a slow grind on which Lloyd basically admits to the audience that he’s simply going through the motions because he’s not in the mood. It’s very Flipper and post-punk, and I’m betting the audience hated it. “Going through the motions, and I do it all for you,” sings Lloyd in a tone of total boredom that is a perfect way of letting the audience know he’s not doing anything for them, and probably wishes they’d just go away. And like Flipper, The Prefects feature a saxophonist who plays some really dissonant shit because, well, he can.
7. If You Can’t Say Something Nice About a… : On “Barbarella’s,” their chanted punk sing-along and paean to the Birmingham club of the same name, The Prefects let you know the beer tastes like prune juice, the club has ashtrays and carpets, and sells tickets for the exits. “See the toilets, we’re The Prefects” they sing on the way out, and what a way to go out. The Photos, an English New Wave band, also recorded a tribute to the club, but it’s horrible. Don’t listen to it.
8. Jonathan Richman Lives!The Prefects do a live cover of the Modern Lovers’ “She Cracked,” but you won’t find it on Amateur Wankers, and frankly, it sounds like they’re playing it for the first time. For instance, Lloyd seems to be making up the lyrics on the spot. That said, when they stop singing and the guitarist takes over, it’s a real trip. As is the grand finale, when they come back singing. I don’t know if she’s cracked, but they certainly are.
9. Punk’s Alright if You Like Clarinets: “Faults” is a real punker with the band singing “We got faults!” over and over in tandem, and it’s really cool, especially when this squealing clarinet comes in and you ask yourself, “What kind of a punk band uses a clarinet?” Answer: The Prefects!
10. Lucky You: “Total Luck” opens with some downcast guitar strum and a wild saxophone that seems to go on forever until the band comes in with this herky-jerky rhythm that dissolves into a really dissonant guitar-sax interlude that is post-punk as can be. This one could hardly have been a crowd pleaser live.
11. Title Confusion: Sometimes you’ll find the album listed as The Prefects Are Amateur Wankers but elsewhere it’s listed as simply Amateur Wankers. But on the album cover it clearly reads The Prefects Are Amateur Wankers. It’s right there on the cover! Look yourself! The Prefects Are Amateur Wankers!
12. The Whens and Wheres: I’m told that the bulk of the songs on The Prefects Are Amateur Wankers were culled from the two sessions the band recorded with John Peel in 1978 and 1979. And that “I’ve Got VD” wasn’t recorded until the band reunited in 2001. Just so you know.
13. On their 2006 release Live 1978 – The Co-op Suite Birmingham, The Prefects close the show with a Bo Diddley-inspired number called “Disco Stomp: Ten Pints! Punks Not Dead!” Lloyd laughs his way through it. It’s like the least punk song ever. At the end, Lloyd says, “The police are about to close the bar. So get your drinks now.”
14. “How’s Things?”: That’s how The Prefects open “Things in General,” a chiming punker on which Lloyd sarcastically sings “action packed” and “real life drama” and “enough to write a book” when you get the sense he’s bored and absolutely nothing of interest is happening in his life or your life either. He certainly sounds bored. “La la la,” he sings, without putting an ounce of heart into it, at one point. The guitars are great, noisy, with these great big power chords. Great song.
15. Anarchy!: “625 Lines” is a chaotic blast of pure punk energy with chanted vocals recorded live at the Electric Circus in Manchester, which was located in what one journalist described as a “blighted post-industrial wasteland of rubble-strewn lots, abandoned buildings, and crumbling housing projects.” Evidently, the locals liked to throw bricks at the punks headed for the club. And that’s what the song sounds like. People throwing bricks at your head.
16. Agony Aunt: On the driving “Agony Column” it’s hard to make out the words, but what I hear is Lloyd singing “You make me hate you” and “there’s nothing I can do to make your hardships disappear” before the song stops and another song comes in from the distance, with the boys singing “You’re in love, you’re not in love” over and over until it’s just one guy singing “You’re not in, you’re not in, you’re not in… Oh.” Very depressing it is.
17. Gallop: That’s what “Escort Girls” does, gallop, with Lloyd spitting out the words so fast you can’t make out what he’s saying. What you can make out are the words “What a way to stay alive,” and then the closing chant of “Stay alive, stay alive, stay alive.” I don’t think it’s an endorsement of the sex worker lifestyle.
18. Wire, Schmire: I’ve heard The Prefects compared to Wire, but Wire have always bored me silly, whereas The Prefects don’t, because what I hear when I listen to The Prefects is a hint of Flipper, and The Prefects make me laugh. I could be wrong. I’m often wrong. But I’ll take The Prefects over Wire any day.
19. Aftermath: I’m not much of a fan of the Nightingales, Lloyd’s subsequent band, but the weird hillbilly turn they took on their third LP, 1986’s In the Good Old Country Way, is certainly worth checking out. Is it rockabilly? I don’t know. But “The Headache Collector” is fiddle manic and makes me really, really happy. Ditto “Down in the Dumps,” which is a speed hick classic. And how are you going to beat a title like “Part Time Moral England”?
20. Summation: Evidently, Lloyd was known to shave on stage.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A
