Author:Budgie (Peter Clarke)
I always regarded “Siouxsie and the Banshees” as the last of the great glam rock groups, an arty confection proud to reach beyond themselves (pretentious, moi?), clearly looking in a variety of directions beyond the punk ramalama which often reduced to hard rock without the hair, shrieking, and guitar solos. The tribal drumming of the Banshees was a lot of it – clearly a beat, but with a conscious intelligence and taste rarely heard in drummers beating the crap about of the skins to drive the song along. I’d heard Budgie before he replaced Kenny Morris in the Banshees as I saw The Slits a few times. The Slits of 1977-78 really portended the future of music to me. They were “punk” in that skilled playing was not the thing so much as attitude, and their flavours of dub and soul were far more sincere that, say, The Clash’s efforts at something similar. Clearly feminist in the best ways, The Slits nevertheless replaced all-girl Palmolive with, as it were, a male Budgie. (A bloke replacing a woman in a feminist band? At least he had a bird’s name.) Any man doing this needed the right attitude, and you get the impression Budgie did and does. Moreover, his proto-primitive beats were again just the thing. He knew what he was doing, and had the right feel. No wonder Budgie became involved in one of the best, to me, pre to post-punk bands there was.
“The Absence” is Budgie’s autobiography of his times, and jolly interesting it is, too. Both he and his later wife, Siouxsie, lost parents whilst still children (a father and mother, respectively), and were somewhat traumatised by this, contrastingly reaching out for a replacement to give and receive love from, and sometimes mistrusting the one that presented itself (or rejecting the one being overly needy), showing time-honoured patterns of disturbed attachment therapists will recognise. The “secure base” was the band, and this was rigidly managed by the imperious Siouxsie, perhaps in response to the almost complete band meltdown experienced when Morris and McKay bailed, before thankfully Budgie and Robert Smith stepped in in Autumn 1979 (the tour of which I saw when in the upper 6th).
There were lots of secrets and boundaries in the Banshees, so along with drink and drugs; they were not pretending when they sang about dark, gothic, and morbid subjects, their music created from the shadowy places and a myriad of influences in their cultural hinterland. After relationships with the band’s manager, and Steve Severin, Siouxsie became involved with Budgie, but this had to remain secret, and there is a dark comedy to Budgie’s arrangements to respect his amour’s desire to keep their fling quiet. But this wasn’t a fling, it was a love affair with a sympatico partner, perhaps well manifest in The Creatures’s albums, where the pair of them created music for drums and voice (and a few other toys sometimes – so shall we throw “world music” into their mix?)
In the later 80s the Banshees became less of a draw in the UK and albums didn’t sell so well. There were efforts to break into the USA. Touring the USA can be toxic, and so it proved, as distractions of various kinds got in the way. Still seeking that secure base, Siouxsie and Budgie married in May 1991, and moved to a chateau in south-west France. Though it sounds idyllic, it wasn’t, as alcohol, unhappiness, isolation, and warring expectations took their toll. Siouxsie, I’m sure she will not mind me saying, having a bit of Norma Desmond about her, and suicide attempts and self-harm also occurred. Things broke down between Budgie and Sooz, and suffice to say, Budgie remarried, now lives in Berlin, and has 2 children. He has the scars but whilst he shares some of the pain, I suspect has not shared as much as he could have. Even when setting the record straight, some things should sometimes remain private.
Length of Read:Medium
Might appeal to people who enjoyed…
Any tell-all rock ‘n roll memoir which is more than salaciousness involving coke n’ groupies. The book will particularly appeal those of us who were around at the time, or touched on the 80s-psychedelic, goth or post-punk scenes back then.
One thing you’ve learned
Budgie was really named Peter Clarke. He rated old-school rock drummers such as John Bonham and Bill Bruford, and Siouxsie had to stop him using trad rock drumming licks at the beginning of their working together. Bowlby’s Attachment theory works quite well for thinking about fractious band dynamics. I’d like to hear Siouxsie’s side of the story.
He is on a Word In Your Ear podcast discussing the nook.
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I thought it was a great interview and Budgie came across as very thoughtful and self effacing. A relative attended a book signing a few nights ago and is still swooning.
It was ages ago now but somebody on here said that they remembered a pre-fame Siouxsie, years before the Grundy interview with the Pistols, having enough charisma to convincingly act like an established and successful star – well before she actually became one. That Norma Desmond comment in the OP made me think of that.
From my perspective, the Banshees changed once Budgie upset the dynamics of the band by being just as close to Sioux as Severin was. Overall his influence was clear and he moved the sound of the band forward, keeping them interesting and relevant way beyond most of their peers, who adopt an “if if ain’t broke, don’t fix it” approach.
All of the band members – with the exception of Robert Smith – will always be viewed alongside Siouxsie. It’s the curse of anyone working with a major presence. Given that, Budgie was hugely influential and Tbe Creatures enjoyed a couple of years of success.
A while ago, I chanced upon a TOTP performance of Mad Eyed Screamer and marveled at how much every aspect of the song and the performance were completely at odds with the rest of the show. The audience was silent and unconvinced – as I suspect many viewers were. Not that :Siouxsie and Budgie cared.
The clash-like chart position suggests no one else did either.
It’s all a bit ‘too cool for school’ but categorically ‘not’ too cool for the Golden Age… it went thatta way.
Tee hee – this is where somebody posts that Siouxsie recorded the definitive version of Dear Prudence..
No, that’s The Beatles… look ’em up. Tee hee.
Alongside Wheels on Fire it rather appears she needed to have a regular leg-up from the 60s.
All a bit also-ran? Tough? Kinda true.
But I’m sure she’s laughing all the way to a moderately-sized bank… although The Beatles and Bobby Z. are probably making far more out of her biggest hits, which pleases me!
I bet they weren’t hits in America.
Yes, we get it. No-one after the 60’s is worth listening to. Chart sales are the only measure of success.
Yawn.
No, no, they didn’t sell in their own time.
Anyway I’m happy the Beatles and Dylan are copping the dosh… and I’m woke so I trust it’s going to a better cause!
We really should get a ready reckoner on Punk Chart Positions compared to the Tweets.
If anyone’s dishing out shares, I’ll have some of the latter.
Universal and Sony are ”copping the dosh”. No idea what you mean beyond that.
Hmm … Punk was supposed to be Ground Zero, rejecting the past. Nope, it was all a con, Punk knew about the past, celebrated it, assimilated it, created their own view, and moved on. Punk was proof that time is now, and a good tune is a good tune whatever.
I think It was really only the writers
at the NME and perhaps a
handful of really earnest, really passionate, punk voices that expressed all that ground zero stuff. ELO, Elton, Queen carried on quite nicely despite being pronounced dead by Julie Burchill and Steven Wells.
Julie Burchill has since stated that she couldn’t stand punk rock and after giving glowing reviews for punk bands she used to go home and play her Tamla Motown records. I saw The Slits and Siouxsie and the Banshees in the late 70’s and they were brilliant, so I was looking forward to Budgie’s book. I finished it a couple of days ago and was rather underwhelmed. If you like reading about drumming techniques and which percussion instruments were used on various Banshees tracks, this book is for you. Perhaps I’ll give it another go some other time.
But that’s just Burchill doing her schtick isn’t it? Trying to be pointlessly contrary just to annoy. I bet loads of people went home, stuck on some Motown, but still loved punk. There was a lot in common…short snappy, to the point pop songs in both genres.
“Trying to be pointlessly contrary just to annoy”
NME, innit? That was their modus operandi.
Too many paradiddles, not enough patchouli
Malcolm McLaren tried the” year zero ” thing. Nobody else bought it. The Clash’s “1977” was characteristically insincere sloganising, given the range of styles they wrote songs in.
Looks interesting. It’s not an era that interests me musically now or then but it had some good characters. I loved Viv Albertine’s book (though her second one was a different proposition) because it was filled with famous and interesting characters. I’ll see if the library can get it
Viv Albertine’s 2nd book, or the chapters about her sister anyway, are absolutely visceral. It’s a very uncomfortable, but highly compelling read.
Agreed! Very different to the first one.
I couldn’t have that book in my house. He looks too much like Killer Bob from Twin Peaks. It would give me nightmares.
For me Budgie was the making of the Banshees. His drumming around the JuJu album and especially their cover of Supernatural Thing (b- side of Arabian Knights) were what caught my ear. I really liked some of the Creatures output too although the lyrics were usually a letdown.
I surely can’t have been the only one who spotted the title of this thread in the sidebar and wondered whether the BHMs were putting the band back together for Napoleon Bona Part Three?
Yes, I clicked on it to see which Budgie was being referred to……
Budgie absent: but where are Laughing Spam and Mr Endell?
Have Faith they’ll turn up.