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The Tom Robinson Band

The Tom Robinson Band (TRB) were regarded in the punk era as a ‘political’ group.

This was apparent in 1978 when Burchill and Parsons wrote that they were

the first band not to shrug off their political stance as soon as they walk out of the recording studio. The first band with sufficient pure, undiluted unrepentant bottle to keep their crooning necks firmly on the uncompromising line of commitment when life would be infinitely easier – and no less of a commercial success – if they made their excuses and left before the riot. Compared to the Tom Robinson Band, every other rock musician is wanking into the wind.¹

TRB are characteristic of the ‘second wave’ of punk bands in most regards. The 1977 release of their debut single ‘2-4-6-8 Motorway’,² and their 1979 split bookend the band’s output within the punk period,³and they were viewed as part of the ‘New Wave’ movement of the late 1970s.⁴ Meanwhile the political subject matter of the majority of their songs, combined with their engagement with causes such as RAR, situates TRB within a lineage of bands from this era whose actions are taken as evidence that punk was a political movement.⁵ However, their eponymous frontman did not become involved with punk rock exclusively to set in motion political

1 Burchill & Parsons, The Boy Looked at Johnny, p. 95.

2It is interesting to note that while it was TRB’s biggest hit, reaching number 5 in the UK charts, ‘2-4-6-8 Motorway’ is a rare song in their catalogue as it has no explicit political context. The song’s lyrics tap into the ‘open road’ fantasy of songs such as Steppenwolf’s

‘Born To Be Wild’, albeit with a British twist; the lyrics describe the journey of a trucker with

‘driving rain on the window frame.’ Tom Robinson Band, 2-4-6-8 Motorway, 7” single, EMI 2715 (1977)

3Steve Gardener, ‘TRB: History’ <http://www.tomrobinson.com/trb/history.htm> [accessed 13 January 2011].

4The terms ‘Punk’ and ‘New Wave’ were fairly interchangeable at this time.

5For Gardner, ‘of all the politically oriented punk bands of the era - the Clash, Stiff Little Fingers, Gang Of Four, and whoever else you want to name - none was more political than TRB.’ ‘TRB: History’. My emphasis.

discourse. We shall see that while his songwriting and public persona emphasised this aspect of his presentation, he was determined to become a ‘star’ – an ambition which, as previously demonstrated, could for some contradict the apparent

authenticity of his motives.⁶

Prior to forming TRB, Robinson was a member of an acoustic guitar-based trio named Cafe Society, who were influenced by the songwriting of 1960s acts such as Cat Stevens, Bob Dylan, James Taylor and Neil Young.⁷ They signed with Konk Records – run by Kinks frontman Ray Davies – whose attitude towards their career ultimately led to Robinson’s exile in October 1976: for Robinson, the label ‘was really the Kinks[’] toy: our whole careers, lives and expectations depended on their whims and availability.’⁸ In May 1976, Robinson experienced punk for the first time, attending a Sex Pistols performance at London’s 100 Club:

At the time I really resented it, and left after about 20 minutes – because I couldn’t relate to it on any musical terms [...]. I was disturbed, turned off, but simultaneously intrigued.⁹

Not long after this initial experience he realised, through the press attention performers such as the Sex Pistols and Clash were receiving, that punk was

becoming the zeitgeist, and, to ‘make any impact’, his music needed to be ‘loud and basic [...] it needed a really big, bold gesture to impress’ audiences.¹⁰ Cafe Society, on the other hand, could be viewed as part of the popular music establishment, which Robinson realised had limitations. The growth in popularity of punk rock demonstrated that there was a shift in popular music reception: the ‘new wave’ held a greater currency with young audiences. These realisations, coupled with

6For discussions of the ‘star’ systems in popular music culture, see Shuker, Understanding Popular Music, chapter 7; Frith, Sound Effects, chapter 6, and Music for Pleasure.

7Pete Frame, ‘2-4-6-8 Tom Robinson Bands’, The Complete Rock Family Trees (London:

Omnibus Press, 1993), p. 46.

8 Tom Robinson, quoted in Ibid.

9 Ibid.

10 Ibid.

interviews given on behalf of TRB, demonstrate that Robinson was not only intent on sustaining a career as a performer, but wanted to be ‘a star’.¹¹

While Robinson’s decision to leave Cafe Society was motivated by careerism, he also cited an inability to express himself fully as a songwriter and performer within the trio – specifically with reference to his sexuality – as a reason for forming his own group. Robinson occupied a unique position as an openly gay rock performer in the late Seventies. He was admired by NME’s Phil McNeill for ‘simply [being]

homosexual rather than pose about and use the “abnormality” of gayness as titillation.’¹²Robinson had ‘a horror/fear of appearing camp, because for him it’s not a flirtation, it’s a hard fact. No bisexual chic, and no gratuitous outrage’.¹³ He was aware of the use of homosexual identity as entertainment, and instead performed the ‘working man’ identity redolent of pub rock, drawing attention to his sexuality through songwriting and political activism rather than his appearance and

performance, telling Burchill in an interview for NME that ‘I don’t want to be known as a fag. I want to be known as a singer’.¹⁴

His song ‘(Sing If You’re) Glad To Be Gay’ became an anthem for gay rights, and led to Robinson’s infamy, with the NME drawing much attention to it and his sexuality in their early coverage of the band.¹⁵ Originally composed during his time in Cafe Society, ‘Glad To Be Gay’ was released by TRB on their live EP Rising Free. The song is a sarcastic attack on the perceived morality which ‘informed’ the persecution of homosexuals in the 1970s. Despite attempts to perform the song with

11Phil McNeill, ‘Tom Robinson’, New Musical Express, 11 February 1978, pp. 25-30 (p. 30).

12 Ibid.

13 Ibid.

14Julie Burchill, ‘“Let’s go cruise the gay bars”: Tom Robinson meets Julie Burchill’, New Musical Express, 29 January 1977, p. 15.

15See Tony Stewart, ‘EMI say “yes” to gay power’, New Musical Express, 20 August 1977, p. 3; Kim Davis, ‘Tom Robinson Band, Marquee’, New Musical Express, 17 September 1977, p. 48.

Cafe Society, Robinson found references to his sexuality met with resistance from his bandmates:

Because the other guys in Cafe Society weren’t gay, I was obliged to

suppress any reference to my being gay. It was alright to sing one line in one song, or wear a discreet badge on stage, but they were very, very paranoid about getting tarred with the brush [...] which is a bit like Bob Marley joining a white band and the others saying we don’t want people to think we’re niggers […]. When I did the first demo of ‘Glad To Be Gay’ with Cafe Society, Dave Barker wouldn’t sing backing vocals on it [...] he found it distasteful.¹⁶

Robinson’s sexuality instigated his politicisation. During his time in Cafe Society he worked as a volunteer for Gay Switchboard – a phone-line service offering advice and counselling – which McNeill posits as ‘his first “political” act [...] although he was openly homosexual by the time he formed Cafe Society, he was not “politicised”

[…]. Being a gay activist began virtually as a hobby, and at first had little or no relevance to his “day job”.’¹⁷McNeill’s rhetoric assists in the crafting of Robinson’s political identity and its framing within the notion of authenticity. Where the

connection to his day job may suggest a cynical use of politics as a marketing technique, his commitment to the cause as a ‘hobby’ demonstrates greater depth.

This transition from ‘hobby’ to ‘day job’ is reflected in another NME interview conducted by Steve Clarke:

Gay Rights is an issue but I’m concerned with far broader rights than Gay Rights. It’s almost a side issue. It’s a side product of general oppression of people’s own liberty, the liberty to decide what you do with your own body.

And that liberty is seen in women’s oppression above all [...]. Oppression of

16Robinson, quoted in Frame, ‘2-4-6-8 Tom Robinson Bands’.

17McNeill, ‘Tom Robinson’, p. 26.

coloured people who aren’t allowed to work at certain things. You have to fight for the main thing. There’s no point in picking out one little area.¹⁸

He adds, ‘it’s not that we stand for this, this, this, this and this. We stand for this [spreading his arms]’.¹⁹ His realisation of these connections between minority groups led to a wider political outlook and identification with, as well as activism for, causes other than gay rights, which were associated with left-wing politics; anti-racism (RAR), women’s rights (Spare Rib and abortion campaigns) and judicial issues (such as the ‘Free George Ince’ campaign.)²⁰ As such, these issues permeated Robinson’s song writing and public persona.²¹

After making their live debut in January and attracting coverage from the popular music press TRB were signed to EMI in August 1977.²² The deal was of popular interest: TRB were the first new wave band to be signed to EMI since their termination of the Sex Pistols’ contract in January 1977.²³ Following the Pistols controversy, such a signing – of a group fronted by a homosexual man singing vehemently political songs – suggested that EMI saw marketing potential in a group that challenged right-wing morality. NME reported the news as a lead story,

speculating that ‘the deal could prove to be as controversial for the company as its relationship with the Sex Pistols was last year.’²⁴ Jon Savage assumes the

suggestion of EMI outlined above, claiming that the deal ‘offered the perfect chance

18Tom Robinson, quoted in Steve Clarke, ‘3-5-7-9 (Laying it on) the little white line...’, New Musical Express, 22 October 1977, pp. 7-8 (p. 7).

19 Ibid., p. 8.

20Tom Robinson Band, ‘TRB Bulletins Part 1’

<http://tomrobinson.com/records/trb/trbltns1.htm> [accessed 14 June 2014]. George Ince was an East London gangland figure who was convicted on armed robbery charges based on the identification evidence of Police Officers, despite having not been picked out of an identity parade by civilian witnesses.

21 RAR has been criticised for not recognising the connections between all oppressions and prejudices. See Kalra, Hutnyk & Sharma, ‘Re-Sounding (Anti) Racism, or Concordant Politics? Revolutionary Antecedents’.

22 See Burchill, ‘“Let’s go cruise the gay bars”’, and ‘Tom Robinson, Golden Lion’, New Musical Express, 29 January 1977, p. 31.

23 See Savage, England’s Dreaming, p. 287.

24Stewart, ‘EMI say “yes” to gay power’.

for EMI [...] to claw back some radical chic.’²⁵ Robinson meanwhile claims that TRB signed with the label ‘because nobody else wanted to know!’²⁶ He remembers that independent labels such as the Sex Pistols’ employers, Virgin Records, ‘turned us down flat, Stiff too,’ which is why after they became ‘successful, [Robinson] had little time for people who used to come up and say things like “How come you’re signed to one of the big multi-national capitalist companies rather than one of the

independents?”’²⁷

After releasing ‘2-4-6-8 Motorway’ and the Rising Free EP, TRB’s debut album, Power In The Darkness came out in 1978. The design of the sleeve can be taken to

reflect either EMI’s decision to market the band with a political angle, or TRB’s retention of creative control. Its cover depicts a large, yellow, clenched fist on a black background, a symbol which became iconic of the group. On the back cover, beneath a black and white photograph of the group appears three columns, the first of which contains the tracklisting. Alongside each track title appears a short

quotation; for instance, the final, title track is represented by an Eric Idle joke titled

‘Conservatives & Freedom’:

The tories believe that the basic freedoms are being eroded: freedom to avoid paying income tax; freedom to hang people; freedom to censor books, plays &

television.²⁸

‘Too Good To Be True’, ‘The Winter Of ’79’ and ‘Man You Never Saw’ are

summarised by excerpts of their respective lyrics, while ‘Better Decide Which Side You’re On’ is illustrated by a lyric from the Clash song ‘White Man In Hammersmith Palais’: ‘You think that’s funny...turning rebellion into money [sic].’ Opening track ‘Up

25 Savage, England’s Dreaming, p. 396.

26Frame, ‘2-4-6-8 Tom Robinson Bands’.

27 Ibid.

28 Tom Robinson Band, Power In The Darkness, LP, EMI EMC 3226 (1978), back cover. As written.

Against The Wall’, meanwhile, is accompanied by a vaguely credited quote which further exemplifies the crisis rhetoric of this period:

‘A friend of mine got shot with a pellet gun – four little white boys attacked him and one shot him in the face. The trouble is, when the backlash comes we wont [sic] know which white people are on our side...’ TEENAGE GIRL, N.

LONDON 1978²⁹

The central column of text provides credits for production, engineering, publishing, photography and art direction, above which are two paragraphs of text which

‘explain’ the band: first a brief biography, followed by an extended quotation from

‘The Tom Robinson Feature by Tom Robinson’, an article from the 17 September 1977 issue of NME, in which Robinson responds to an article published in the same magazine two weeks previously by Bill Nelson, frontman of the progressive rock group Be-Bop Deluxe. Nelson had criticised the discussion of politics in popular music and raised the issue of inauthenticity with regard to those musicians doing so within the capitalist music industries. Robinson, predictably, takes issue with

Nelson’s criticisms, and his concluding paragraphs appear on the back cover of the record:

Politics isn’t party broadcasts and general elections, it’s yer kid sister who can’t get an abortion, yer best mate getting paki-bashed, or getting sent down for possessing one joint of marijuana, the GLC deciding which bands we can’t see [...] it’s everyday life for rock fans, for everyone who hasn’t got a cushy job or rich parents. I got no illusions about the political left any more than the right:

just a shrewd idea which of the two side’s gonna stomp on us first. All of us – you, me, rock ’n’ rollers, punks, longhairs, dope smokers, squatters, students, unmarried mothers, prisoners, gays, the jobless, immigrants, gipsies [...] to

29 Ibid. As written.

stand aside is to take sides. If music can ease even a tiny fraction of the prejudice and intolerance in this world, then it’s worth trying. I don’t call that

‘unnecessary overtones of violence’. I call it standing up for your rights. And if we fail, if we all get swallowed up by big biznis before we achieve a thing, then we’ll havta face the scorn of tomorrow’s generation. But we’re gonna have a good try. Fancy joining us?³⁰

In the third column appears an advert, along with contact details, for RAR. Coupled with the contact details for Gay Switchboard which appear on the back sleeve of Rising Free, this demonstrates a desire to use the access point of the record sleeve

to engender political consciousness. Further, the band distributed ‘bulletins’ at gigs from July 1977 – photocopied, fanzine-style sheets with information on forthcoming gigs, news and lyrics, as well as contact information for organisations such as RAR and Gay Switchboard.³¹They also featured regular articles titled ‘It Couldn’t Happen Here Dept.’ which compared current affairs related to the NF with the events of Nazi Germany, and brought attention to religious fundamentalism in Pakistan and

prisoner rights.

TRB’s attitude, presentation and, most importantly, age placed them within the new wave, but in terms of sound they followed a rock ‘tradition.’ This was recognised by critics: Charles Shaar Murray found it ‘fairly obvious [...] that Tom Robinson really likes The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and The Clash’,³² while Peter Frame heard them as ‘mainstream rock, descended from the Mott the Hoople school, but modernised to meet current audience priorities – the concerned/thoughtful end of the New Wave’.³³Savage, on the other hand, takes affront with TRB’s ‘classic rock’

30Ibid. Robinson’s phonetic spellings emphasise a supposed working classness, in contrast with the people who have a ‘cushy job’ and ‘rich parents’.

31Tom Robinson Band, ‘TRB Bulletins Part 1’; ‘TRB Bulletins Part 2’.

<http://www.tomrobinson.com/records/trb/trbltns2.htm> [accessed 13 March 2011]

32Charles Shaar Murray, ‘Tom Robinson Band: 2-4-6-8 Motorway’, New Musical Express, 15 October 1977, p. 21.

33Frame, ‘2-4-6-8 Tom Robinson Bands’.

sound, describing them as ‘an orthodox mixture of Rock clichés and dragging tempi.

Conservative music was cloaking radical politics’.³⁴ Their adherence to notions of political authenticity was closely related to the classic rock sound they performed.

Songs such as ‘Up Against The Wall’, the opening track to Power In The Darkness, demonstrate a recognition of the punk rock sound world, while retaining an

attachment to rock arrangements. The song begins with an overdriven guitar sound redolent of the heavily criticised ‘big guitars’³⁵on the Sex Pistols’ Never Mind the Bollocks,³⁶ whose I-V-IV-V G major chord pattern is fed further bombast by a hard hit snare and bass drum fill into the fifth bar tutti; Brian ‘Dolphin’ Taylor supplies a solid rock drum beat in time with Robinson’s tonic note bass line, while organist Mark Ambler holds a high G chord distant in the mix. The quick tempo and chord pattern of the verse certainly suggest a punk character to the music, however the instrumental mix and timbres give the record a ‘classic rock’ rather than ‘punk’ feel;

more Thin Lizzy’s ‘The Boys Are Back In Town’ than the Clash’s ‘White Riot’.

The rock theme is furthered by Danny Kustow’s guitar solo after the second chorus, whose string bends, double stops and hammer-on and offs – all in the upper

register of the guitar – contrast with, for example, Pete Shelley’s solo in Buzzcock’s

‘Boredom’ discussed previously. It lacks melodic relevance to the song’s other musical material, appearing to function primarily as a demonstration of Kustow’s impressive technical ability on the instrument. The final verse breaks down into a reggae style; high hat rolls, bass drum and bass guitar staccato hits and palm muted guitar nod towards the perceived relationship between punk and reggae. The sound world of ‘Up Against the Wall’ is completed by the introduction of Robinson’s voice. As a result of the almost exclusively political subject matter of TRB’s songs, Robinson’s vocal delivery is either passionate and declaiming, or sarcastic and droll

34 Savage, England’s Dreaming, p. 396.

35 See Reynolds, Rip It Up and Start Again, p. 5.

36 Both records were produced by Chris Thomas.

(as heard in ‘Glad To Be Gay’), as he disseminates his observations and opinions.

In ‘Up Against the Wall’, which he uses as a soapbox to point out social problems and their solutions, the former applies: Robinson pronounces each word loudly and precisely. He begins by describing a ‘typical’ adult view of youth culture,

experienced as intimidation:

Dark haired, dangerous school kids, Vicious, suspicious, sixteen,

Jet-black blazers at the bus stop, Sullen, unhealthy and mean.³⁷

The boredom experienced by teenagers is further exemplified by their ‘fighting in the middle of the road’ and obsession with Yamaha FS1E mopeds. This provides a generic model of teenage activities, expressed as anti-social behaviour. In the chorus Robinson explains society’s woes as a result of governmental incompetence at a local level, and tyrannical policies set in Westminster:

Look out listen can you hear it?

Panic in the County Hall!

Panic in the County Hall!

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