HAPPY REFUGEES RETURN TO LAST CHANCE SALOON

HAPPY REFUGEES
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RETURN TO LAST CHANCE SALOON
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could make the tracks work. I invited another
friend, Paul Johnston (PJ), along to help out.
Studio in Kennington, South London called Pet
Sounds. We recorded four: Warehouse Sound,
Enshrined in a Memory, When the Tide Turns
and Cold Shower. Generally we were pleased
with the outcome, although it was hardly the
PJ had played guitar with me in a band called
—Warehouse Sound could be a great track but
needed more work. Something was not quite there.
Williams (The Pits). He had relocated to London
the same day as I did after switching university.
session was a surprising success with everyone
playing some part in producing, playing backing
vocals or percussion. This in essence was to
provide the spark for Happy Refugees.
Happy Refugees formed in London in 1981, initially as a four piece comprised of Tim Shutt (singer),
Paul Johnston (guitar), Paul Lamb (bass), and Kevin Rodgers (drums). Nick Flynn (piano), and Paul
Harvey (guitar) joined in 1982 and the band continued as a six piece until 1983 when it disbanded.
and Paul Johnston, with no other original members. They played and recorded for the last time in 1986.
The early 80s in the UK were desperate times politically, economically and culturally; Happy
Refugees were born out of this climate. Lyrically, they were a gasp for air as Thatcherism strangled
the notion of community. Musically, they were a plea for individuality as the post punk scene blanded
out, churning out clothes horse pap music. The band seemed to sit outside everything else that was
going on, which of course was a good thing.
Last Chance Saloon was released by Gymnasium Records. Over
time, this album and an earlier single have intrigued avid record collectors of this era with their varied
they came from. So, who were Happy Refugees?
TIM SHUTT
I split from The Pits (a.k.a. Garage Class) in late
1980 and relocated to London from Alasger in
North West England to go to college studying
Mechanical Engineering. Immediate thought
after the split was to record two songs that we
Switch. I turned to two friends from another band
from the Alsager area, Colors Out of Time; Phil
on guitar. I needed a drummer. Kev Rodgers,
who was sharing a large house with me at the
time, agreed to play on the sessions.
Kev was a brilliant student studying Chemical
Engineering. He had not played in a band before.
He did not even have his drum kit with him, just
a bongo drum. In addition he was pretty nervous
about the session. In retrospect he was probably
Following the session in February 1981, I reI toyed with the idea of going solo, but soon
realized that what I really wanted to do was form
my own band. This time, though, it would be very
different from The Pits. The Pits had a certain
kind of negativity and the songs were generally
impersonal. I wanted the new songs to be more
ing around me.
The new band needed a bass player. Kev and
I had met Paul Lamb at college. He had played
area. He was an edgy and nervous kind of guy
studying computer science. When he heard
volved. At this point, we had not heard Paul play
bass, but as with Kev, we decided to give Paul a
chance. We decided that when we all returned to
college after the summer, we would start playing
together. I was writing lyrics for the new band
during the summer. One of the songs was entitled Refugee from the Creek
positive outlook: “I got a new deal.” I like the idea
of us all being refugees from something. “Happy”
was added to the band name. PJ was adamant
that it should not have “The” added as well. The
name of the band was to be Happy Refugees.
less than 100 metres from the well known
London venue Hammersmith Odeon. Unusually
for a new band at the time, the target was to
record new material rather than play live. A few
the Christmas college break. This was at a
We wrote enough new songs for a live set. In
live appearance at The Rock Garden in Covent
Garden. This was followed soon after by an appearance at the 101 Club in Clapham. London
had many similar venues at this time—plenty
of places to play, but no audience. Without any
record to help promote you and with minimal
payment from the venue, you were effectively
paying to rehearse live. I still had 2,000 singles
with no labels left over from The Pits, but knew
getting vinyl out was the only way that the band
could realistically progress.
Gone studio in Wapping, where Hamburger
Boy had been recorded, to record a double A
side single Warehouse Sound/Enshrined in a
Memory. The studio was a large conversion of a
warehouse building next to The Thames. It had
a great atmosphere. Timpani drums and hand
cymbals were hired in to create the percussive
sound on Warehouse Sound. At last we had
managed to grasp it; less was more.
I created Gymnasium Records, continuing my
positive energy theme and designed the single
sleeve, not my greatest creative moment. The
sleeve note lambasted the sterile music scene
now that the majors had bought out Punk and
New Wave. The terms “Indie” started to be used
widely. In many cases this usually meant just
crap with people putting stuff together who could
hardly play or did not want to play. It was shockingly awful. You either had manufactured pop
or pure Art-School rubbish with some notable
exceptions. The single was accepted for distribution by Red Rhino, part of an associated group
of independent labels called The Cartel created
by Rough Trade. The Cartel had set up their own
distribution to independent records shops.
in a factory in Stuttgart, Germany where I wrote
lyrics for a new set of songs. Upon my return
I hooked up with Nick Flynn in Alsager. Nick
played piano. We worked on several new tracks:
Last Chance Saloon, Screaming and Shouting,
This is Cold, Politics (A Kick in the Shins),
Your Appeal? and Inertia. Paul Harvey was
drafted in to help work on the songs. In October
Arts Centre as a three piece. Nick and Paul had
to the early 1980s recession there was little
work easily available outside the South East of
England, so they both relocated to London and
joined Happy Refugees. In some ways, this led to
a fuller sound and a greater variety in the music,
but now there were six people including several
strong characters. Nevertheless, everyone worked
together to help promote the single, which was
released in the October of 1982, and to work
towards recording a new album.
Radio 1. Eventually we achieved “Nearly Single
of the Week” in NME and a few evening plays on
Radio. I also released The Pits single Terminal
Tokyo/One Hell of a Kiss under the name
Garage Class on Gymnasium early in 1983 to
try to recoup some of my losses and to increase
awareness of the Gymnasium label.
for the album front cover and enlisted artist Ivan
Unwin who made the idea become a reality. The
album was released in 1984 on Gymnasium.
The remainder of the band continued to work
together in a new band, although Paul Harvey
band. We released an album on Gymnasium
called A Frozen Chicken Lives under the name
The Hotel Complex. PJ and I got together a
Happy Refugees played several gigs in London
time in this line up in May 1983 at the Ad Lib
Club in Kensington. In May we also recorded the
additional tracks for the mini album Last Chance
Saloon. The recording session was at a studio
in Sydenham, South London. The key factor in
choosing the studio was the baby grand piano
for Nick. As usual there was no producer as
such, but I was determined that the band needed
to get their own identity and sound. I directed the
skeptical sound engineer. All the tracks were recorded in one nine hour session, which included
a certain amount of experimentation as on previous recordings. There was another session to
re-record vocals, add percussion and to mix the
tracks. The sessions were frantic to minimize the
recording cost. A Kick in the Shins was dropped
from the album due to constraints on the duration limit on a mini album. This was the end for
Happy Refugees in this line up.
PJ and I returned to the Alsager/Stoke-on-Trent
area in the summer of 1983. I devised a concept
complete new set of songs. We played several
times in the Stoke-on Trent area. We recorded a
single, Socially Secure/Slaving for a Rainy Day,
together as a duo under the name of The Happy
Refugee late in 1986.
PAUL JOHNSTON
I arrived in London in October 1980 with unmany ways: never reaching much of an audience
or selling many records. We always felt like we
were waiting for our audience. We always played
like it was our last performance, as it never
seemed that far away. Happy Refugees did not
get together to be perfect in terms of musicianship or vocals, although we always strived to
sound as good as we could. This was never
seen as a limitation. We were honest and we
were real. The songs and the way they were put
across were always the imperative. The songs
us for a period of a few years. The aim was to be
lyrically interesting and emotion provoking with
some kind of pop sensibility.
Living and playing together in a band is not easy
at times and things could get fractious. Ultimately
everybody was loyal to what we were doing. We
received little recognition and we were reticent
extent, but not in an arrogant way. I liked this
music. I liked these people in this group on
different levels. I was comfortable with what we
were doing and how we were. For a brief period
of time we were happy in what we were doing in
our own way.
been spent playing in a succession of Alsager
garage bands, started by the UK punk scene but
a stretch. Style over substance. And then the
protagonists went their separate ways.
Tim and I played in some of those Alsager
bands, and hooked up again in London. Kev,
and Paul Lamb met Tim at college, and Happy
Refugees was born. It was an adventure, with
band should sound like; what emerged was a
sparse, stripped down band, with tracks like
When the Tide Turns a million miles away from
3 chord trash. I was immensely proud of that
Garden in Covent Garden on 1st March 1982.
The day was chaotic—we arrived at our rehearsal rooms to collect the gear and found the
drums locked away, and had to beg to borrow
a kit from another band at the gig. We were all
frantically nervous, but the gig went well and we
got a reaction. We got paid £6.70, and it cost us
£38 for van and gear hire. Nobody gets rich on
underground rock.
Warehouse
Sound b/w Enshrined in a Memory. For us a double A side, for the record buying public a double
trouble the charts, but I loved that Velvets riff.
The chiming guitars on Enshrined in a Memory
still sound fresh to me, and the lyrics punch. The
death of your grandmother is not the usual inspiRefugees were not a normal band.
So surely we would kick on from here. More
hard to be ignored and keep your energy especially when so much of the music of the time was
so embarrassingly awful. So Nick and Paul H arrived, old mates from Alsager. We grew, developing a fuller sound, with new songwriters taking us
in different directions, and a new energy for the
band. More gigs and more recording, leading to
the Last Chance Saloon sessions. Seven songs
in a day and another day back to really screw the
I mostly loved playing in the band. Live we were
unpredictable, meaning that none of us knew
what Tim would do next, but that was part of
the thrill. Eventually we ran out of steam. I hope
this record captures some of what was good
unrecorded material, as is always the way.
messy, exciting, frustrating, exhilarating, and
too short—a metaphor for life.
KEVIN RODGERS
Eternally grateful. There were some bands you
pretty much had to like to be a Refugee, others
inhabited a grey area. Essential bands were
The Fall and Iggy Pop and the Stooges. I have
no idea how many times I have seen the Fall in
my life but almost all of those times were with
members of the Happy Refugees. I always loved
Wire, Richard Hell and the Voidoids, Suicide, the
versially, the Ramones. Of contemporaries, it
enthusiasm was considered spooky and weird.
Other types of music were universally hated.
Anything remotely connected to heavy metal was
played in strange time signatures by fey bands
with long hair was equally despised. Indeed, any
overt display of excess musicianship in practice
was likely to be dismissed by the rest of the
a six piece I bought a really rather nice ride
cymbal which I used (or probably overused)
whenever possible. If you are a drum anorak
use it was for the kettle drums at the start of
Warehouse Sound which Tim insisted on using
Age. It was important to be young. Most of us
were in our teens. Scene: a gig in a student bar
some time in 1981. Tim and I and a couple of
others are there. First band up is some kind of
dreary pub-rock combo trying desperately to be
new wave. They look to be in their late twenties
which means they might as well be ninety. They
have sprayed blue and red into their hair to look
keeps yelling it. People start laughing. The band
(especially the ninety-year-old guitarist) look
pissed off and try to introduce the next number
ends; scattered applause. Tim starts up again,
I still feel almost physically ill thinking about
some of those bands and it has been thirty years.
then, all around us, they take up the cry. After the
The band leaves the stage shouting abuse at us.
chosen way of playing in the early days of the
band (e.g. Cold Shower). Too techno. Later on I
stripped it right down. Just before we turned into
really is my dad you know.”
Hamburger Boy. This was recorded some time
in late 1980 or early 1981 before the Happy
Refugees existed in a formal sense. It was a
Pits song and I was given a cassette tape with
a ropey live recording of it to learn the song
from a few days before going in the studio. The
both were a little older than me (though not my
dad) and I was a bit in awe of them to be honest.
Rock Section had just been released—great
single—and they seemed impossibly cool. I
second take which was a relief because playing
it was bloody exhausting. I always hated playing
the song live for that reason. Tim and I did the
falsetto Hamburger Boy
King uses the song for a global ad campaign
and small children in Shanghai or Sao Paolo will
learn the chorus.
Cold and Hair. Some of us were students. Some
of us were unemployed (there was a lot of it
about back then). The one thing all of us were
was skint. It is striking to me now how many
times the lyrics in the record reference cold.
Striking, but not surprising since the places we
could afford to live were inevitably freezing in
Peculiarly, I have only ever had one for about 10
PAUL HARVEY
Happy Refugees was the reason I moved from
Stoke on Trent to London—it therefore changed
my life. I was living a 26 hour day on the dole
in Stoke, gradually staying up later and later,
playing records, painting all night and sleeping
all day, until the cycle completed and I returned
to watching TV in the day time and sleeping at
toy police car in Woolworths).
Halfway through one of these cycles I noticed
The Tennant was on TV at 10pm
that night. This was in the days before video
recorders—whatever time it was on, that was
when you had to watch it. I set my alarm for
9pm, got up and watched it whilst having my
bothered shaving and then went on through
natural lethargy and sloth. I never had one before;
exists of this band has me with a beard. Which
is odd.
Finally, Thank you. Thanks for buying this record;
the proceeds will be spent on drink.
have to do something about my situation—either
dress up as a woman and throw myself out of a
window like Polanksi, or do something a bit more
positive. Two days later a letter arrived from Tim
Shutt suggesting I move down to London and
join Happy Refugees, so I did, getting a place in
Kensal Green which by incredible coincidence
was directly opposite where Tim lived.
Tim introduced me to some records that have
stayed with me ever since, particularly Scott
3
Nature: “This album will not only groove you
get you on the right track so we can live, love
and respect each other and work together for
a TOMORROW that in my opinion will be what
God intended—for people to work together as
come back to set our musical record straight
My roots were still very much punk rock at the
The Fall, Television, The Ramones, the usual
heavily disciplined experience when compared to
similarities: Tim always had very shiny shoes for
example. He was also organised, and knew what
he wanted from the band. I remember him telling
me to ring the NME one day to invite the rock
journalist (and singer of The Redskins) X. Moore
to our gig. After X. Moore stated that there was
NICK FLYNN
come anyway. Kim Fowley also rang me from his
me our band was shit.
high rise in the east end of London, but most
of the time sleeping on a camp bed in the west
with the band ended. Soon after the album was
released though, I left London for Newcastle
upon Tyne to play guitar for Pauline Murray from
the punk band Penetration, touring throughout the 80s and eventually helping to re-form
punk rock (and Stuckism, a painting movement
of which I am a member), which would have
been a laughable idea during the time of Happy
Refugees, and probably still is. Our punk roots
out—across the road from each other in rooms
rented from a corrupt, money grubbing landlord
We used to go down Portobello Road, Ladbroke
Grove, Camden Lock to buy records from Rough
Trade and the Record and Tape Exchange:
actually retired from playing to concentrate on
painting when the possibility of re-releasing the
album happened. Listening again to it after all
this time, and working out the songs, made me
realise just what a good band we were, even if
in some respects it was more about potential
year, I remember working over Xmas in a record
shop on Oxford Street: “Excuse me, have Renée
and Renato made an LP?” “I fucking hope not.”
I was an angry young man. There was much
to be angry about: a virulent Conservative
Government in power, sludge on TV and grating,
sentimental pop music in the charts.
The key word for me is “happy”—the songs were
And yet I reckon it was out of all this that the
the right reasons. It cleaned our minds and got
us on the right track so we could live, love and
than fractious boy/girl relationships, the Happy
Refugees gave us something creative to do,
and making up songs in cold rehearsal rooms
at the end of the tube line—“Paul, how many
times do we have to tell you to turn your fucking
amp down”—usually creased a smile. We were
never the greatest of friends, but for a while our
everyday lives were closely bound up together
with the music we played, and what and how we
played was key to who we thought we were. It
seemed enough then.
was just as God intended.
Paul Johnston (guitar) Laid back, beyond
horizontal was always my recollection. I played
with Paul both in the 4 piece and 6 piece band. I
were playing—it just seemed to emerge somehow. His playing was unobtrusive but spot on—
Sounds 4 piece demo, especially on Tide Turns,
his playing was integral, and has a warm easy
of invisibility sometimes, its interesting to hear
that away from the rehearsal room he was a
sounding board, a check and a balance on what
infuriating sometimes (just tell us what you think
PAUL LAMB
Paul Lamb was the bass player in the Happy
Refugees. We had all completely lost contact
with him since the 80s but in the process of
making this record found out that he had died in
2007. The following are the (slightly) edited mails
that passed between some of the remaining band
members in the hours following this discovery.
Tim (singer)
lunchtimes at Imperial College. I am not sure
why, but I think it was through a mutual friend,
doxically, was that he was quite abrasive and
challenging. Initially I was not sure I liked him.
The thing we had in common is that we had both
played in post-punk type bands. In the October
rehearsal room as Happy Refugees. At this point
I had not even heard him play bass, but as we
all know that was not the point. Over the next 2
years Paul became my sounding board. He was
supportive, but challenging and always fair. More
shared a room with him. I slept at night. He slept
in the day. When I came back from college, he
was usually waiting with something to say about
a song, the band or something completely out
of the blue. He was always our biggest fan. He
seemed to have a sleeping intelligence about him.
I like to think we were not all bastards to each
other, particularly as far as Paul was concerned.
For sure we were always taking the piss out of
him: Corduroy man, 2 hour shaving sessions in
a hot bath, his nocturnal lifestyle, Tabasco sauce
on everything meal; but we all wanted to help
Paul get it together, even then in one way or
another. I think Happy Refugees him some kind
of focus—that and Johnny Guitar Watson.
The following year we all split in terms of
accommodation and Nick and Paul Harvey
joined the Happy Refugees. Paul moved into a
Channel 4. I think it was Countdown. We always
had a common interest in daytime TV. Later in
1983 he moved in with others across the road
from me in Kensal Green. In the band and in the
house he was always seen as the voice of reason.
I could always rely on him to stop me or help me
with a song, deal with a band issue or something
personal. One of my last memories of Paul was
again a paradox. A group of us went to play football
together at a local hard court area in Kensal Green.
Paul transformed from his normal self into some
kind of driven maniac, culminating in him slide
tackling me with serious intent. At this point I got
up and punched him. He was the last person I
have ever punched. Enshrined in a memory.
Nick (piano) Although I would never have used
guy. While the rest of us were prone to acts of
one-upmanship—to trade insults and act like
for the life of me I cannot remember Paul ever
saying a bad word about anybody. Slightly bashful and a little unsure of himself on occasions,
but a genuinely decent, honest person.
Kev (drummer) I met Paul in 1981 when we
were both students at Imperial College where
he was regarded as a brilliant but utterly disorganised student. Eventually he left and went to
another London college that could put up with his
nocturnal lifestyle and total inability to wake up
in time for lectures with a bit more a sense of humour than Imperial did. What I remember most
about him was that he would stay up literally all
ing the machine heads against his skull so he
could hear what he was playing), drinking coffee,
smoking and reading and re-reading an ancient
dog-eared copy of the NME Book of Rock. He
had an encyclopedic knowledge of even the
most obscure corners of this book and would
often hold impromptu quizzes on it—“How many
albums do you reckon Magma have made? I
on a diet of salami sandwiches and Mr Kipling
cherry bakewell cakes until I began insisting
on him eating with me when I cooked. He once
was convinced that he had sneezed out a piece
of his own brain and I had to reassure him that
fell ill with what he claimed were recurrences of
malaria—a claim I thought was total hypochondriac balls until I read up about it and realized
of sitting around in various pubs drinking pints,
smoking (although we were both always on the
point of giving up) and talking utter shit. He was
a very funny man.
Paul Lamb. R.I.P.
CREDITS
SIDE 1
3. FALLING FOR YOU
4. INERTIA
5. LAST CHANCE SALOON
SIDE 2
12. KICK IN THE SHINS (POLITICS)
DIGITAL ONLY DOWNLOAD
14. FALLING FOR YOU (REEL 2 VERSION)
15. INERTIA (REEL 2 VERSION)
16. LAST CHANCE SALOON (ORIGINAL LP VERSION)
1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9 + 16 from the Gymnasium Records 1984 mini-LP LAST CHANCE SALOON
8 + 9 from the Gymnasium Records 1982 single HAPPY REFUGEES PLAY WAREHOUSE SOUND
5, 12, 13, 14, 15 + 17 from LAST CHANCE SALOON alternate session tapes
10, 11, 18 + 19 from 1981 PET SOUNDS DEMO
Lyrics by Tim Shutt except Kick in the Shins, lyrics by Nick Flynn. Music by Happy Refugees.
email: [email protected]
Transfer and initial restoration by Michael Train.
©2011 Acute Records
www.acuterecords.com