52 Albums To Shape A Soul : #20

Echo & The Bunnymen – Crocodiles (1980)

“Education, education, education”… and so it was that Tony Blair set his electoral priorities for government in 1996. But it gave me thought as I came to write this latest post. Outside of the obvious increased understanding of a chosen subject, what were the real big takeaways from further education? The experiences or lessons learned that fundamentally changed my own life?

In 1983 I recall approaching my spell at Sunderland Polytechnic with a significant amount of trepidation. Sunderland hadn’t been my first choice, but having failed to make the necessary grades to reach my initial preferences, so it was I headed up towards a town in the North East I knew very little about.

The initial impression didn’t bode well. Getting off the National coach only to witness a gang of skinheads wearing Union Jack T-shirts beating up a guy at the station. I suddenly felt very alone and a long way away from home. Matters weren’t helped as, due to arriving via the UCAS clearing system, I’d been too late to secure on campus accommodation and instead allocated digs in a student B&B in Roker Park a few miles away from the campus centre.

It turned out there were several of us sharing accommodation in the B&B. A real motley crew if ever there was one. All arriving through the same clearing system and assembled from a quite diverse multi-national cross section of society.

There was a body-builder from Leeds and of Ukrainian descent. A hippy acoustic guitar player from Newcastle. An unfeasibly tall Ghanian basketball fan. An Iranian and Iraqi who were both obsessed with darts and Miss World pageantry. A sporty Etonian. Two slightly aloof gothic Liverpudlian brothers and myself. I should add, not all of these traits were self-evident on initial introductions, but they revealed themselves over time.

Another thing that happened as time passed was that, despite our hugely varied backgrounds, we bonded as a disparate group. Not just with each other, but also with the local dock worker community who seemed to take us under their wing and form a security blanket against any outsiders looking to cause us any harm.

But as with so many of the interactions I’ve made throughout my life, the strongest of bonds would always be made over music. The brothers from Liverpool were keen music fans and I recall them once telling me the story of a club called ‘Eric’s’ based in their home city and responsible for acting as a catalyst for an array of incredible local bands. Many of those they listed were bands I was unfamiliar with at the time, but there was one they were particularly enthusiastic about… Echo & The Bunnymen.

Echo & The Bunnymen were a band I was aware of. Their single ‘The Cutter’ had been in the charts and I remember being completely blown away by its rapturous sound, sufficiently so to buy the single. Yet, for some reason, I hadn’t explored the band further. But that was about to change.

One of the brothers passed me a tape with the word ‘Crocodiles’ handwritten upon it, strongly recommending I give it a listen. I realised it was Echo & The Bunnymen’s debut album. It was a strange thing, but I’m sure I was struck by some kind of psychic energy as the tape was handed over and when I placed the tape in the machine and pressed ‘play’, I think the arc of my musical life was changed forever.

There was an eerie psychedelic guitar sound that opened the album care of the track ‘Going Up’. It felt like tuning in to a distant radio station whilst all the while an intense wall of bass and drums came into focus before the band’s singer let rip with the lines

‘Ain’t thou watching my film,
Analysing Me,
Rusty chalkdust walker,
Checking up to see…’

The words seemed nonsensical to me, but the delivery was utterly compelling. Backed by the frenetic energy of the music. As the album continued I found the music casting its spell even further. I could hear shades of bands music I’d heard from the sixties and the seventies. The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Iggy Pop, The Doors even the pop sensibility of The Beatles, but all filtered through the energy and livewire electricity of punk music. The songs were short, sharp and highly economical. Each taking you on such a ride. Take the albums title track ‘Crocodiles’ as an example. With its juggernaut high tempo rockabilly rhythm, layered with Ian McCulloch’s brilliant synched vocal, building in intensity throughout the song before closing with a high-pitched scream.

I felt every track on Crocodiles was fantastic. There was a dark, melancholic moodiness I immediately identified with. There was anguish and despair, yet unbridled euphoria. What I became immediately aware of was I was clearly hearing a band producing music in perfect harmony. Each musician playing a crucial part leading to a powerful and overwhelming whole. Will Sergeant’s hugely inventive guitar playing and sound giving each track a unique signature. Les Pattison on bass and Pete De Freitas on drums providing the tightest of rhythmic backing for Ian McCulloch to lay his off kilter otherworldly lyrics and vocal melody on top.

Tracks like ‘Rescue’ had an immediate hypnotic arresting delivery I found impossible to ignore. Similarly too other gems such as ‘Villier’s Terrace’. When I first heard ‘All That Jazz’ with its marching rhythm and the opening lines:

‘Where the hell have you been?
We’ve been waiting with our best suits on…’

I found myself asking the question… where the hell had I been? How could music like this have been created nearly three years ago by a band not that much older than me and yet this was this first time I was hearing it.

‘Crocodiles’ became one of the first albums I bought whilst away in Sunderland. Quickly followed by the albums ‘Heaven Up Here’ and their latest release ‘Porcupine’. I certainly became quite obsessed with them, finally catching them live at the University of Lancaster in 1984. It was a gig I attended with the same Liverpudlian brothers that had first introduced me to the band.

I remember the night being truly fantastic. They were totally mesmerising live creating a hugely atmospheric presence that completely enveloped you from the moment they hit the stage. Treating us to tracks from their first three albums along with their most recent release, the majestic ‘Ocean Rain’. Looking back at those first four albums I think I’d be hard pressed to think of another band that had achieved an opening run of similar quality.

Oddly the gig was the last time I saw the brothers from Liverpool. I’d chosen to drop out of Sunderland Polytechnic earlier in the summer and simply fell out of touch. But I’ll be forever grateful to them for the friendship and the introduction. I don’t believe it an exaggeration to state I consider Echo & The Bunnymen to be one of the most important bands in my own musical journey. Their ability to combine so many elements of musical styles I adore into a three minute masterpiece will always leave me astounded. And I know I’m not alone in this feeling.

Winding the clock forward to a little closer to today, as we finally found the restrictions imposed by the recent pandemic beginning to ease, Echo & The Bunnymen were the first band I caught live. A wonderful celebratory night in Sheffield’s City Hall, the 1^st February 2022 in which they kicked off the gig with the opening track from ‘Crocodiles’… ‘Going Up’.

As the music played I cast my mind back to the motley crew of Sunderland. A disparate group of people looking to find their way in this complex world. A set of people I’ve never encountered since those polytechnic days. Now here I was surrounded by a similarly disparate group whose pathway here may have been forged along similar lines.

Maybe that was my biggest takeaway from further education. Who knows where your pathway may lead to, but perhaps with a little help from unexpected friends, an open mind and a willingness for curiosity, with a bit of luck you may discover your favourite band along the way.

“Conquering myself until,
I see another hurdle approaching,
Say we can, say we will,
Not just another drop in the ocean”