The Comedy of Errors: The Kingswoods - Purty Vacant (29 May 1992)

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“John had also resumed gigging in the late nineties, though instead of returning to the university circuit, he was restricting himself largely to more ambitious and prestigious events....Anything at which he seemed like an unlikely choice, such as the Tribal Gathering or Big Chill extravaganzas or the Sonar festival in Barcelona, held a special allure....He had determined beforehand to play different kinds of music (at these events).  Not just dance music, but music people could dance to.  That was his motto...So he played The Fall, some guitar-driven soukous from the country formerly known as Zaire, a few reggae tunes. Status Quo.  Yes, Status Quo.  John had told several people that he wanted to go down - or as he put it, down, down, deeper ‘n down - in history as the man who played Quo at Tribal, so he was obliged really.” (Sheila Ravenscroft, Margrave of the Marshes, p.449-450, Corgi, 2005)

Peel, was according to his autobiography, always convinced that his club dates over the late 90s & early 00s were going to be a disaster.  A lot of that was probably down to the fear that rather than going into those gigs armed with a box of 30/35 phat bangers, he was instead taking an eclectic mix of records - essentially a John Peel show in a club - so that for every Elementz of Noize he was dropping on the assembled throng, he would counter it with the  Cheviot Ranters.

We are able to get a decent idea of what Peel’s sets must have been like thanks to the release of Fabriclive 07 in 2002.  Blasting out of superclub speakers, this mix of dance, happy hardcore, blues rock, funk, girl-group soul, reggae, indie, barbershop and  The Undertones must have sounded impressive enough to banish any doubts amongst the crowd.  Nevertheless, I’ve often wondered whether he was trading on the crowd’s goodwill with the presence of quirky covers in his set, namely the bluegrass versions of Lust for Life by The Bad Livers and this present track, a break(red)neck country romp through The Sex Pistols, Pretty Vacant.  Or maybe, he figured that while he could give the crowd what they wanted, he would be failing in his brief as “John Peel” if he didn’t give them what they actually needed.  There’s something admirable in that.

The thought of Peel playing something like this to hardcore clubbers was a laughable fantasy when he gave The Kingswoods 1983 recording a spin early in the 29/5/92 show.  I’m not especially enamoured of it, but it owes its place here to the certainty that the 16 year old me would have found a country take on a punk classic absolutely hilarious.  Indeed, I remember a few years after this, standing backstage with a friend during a show at Falmouth Arts Centre and whiling away the time before we were next due on by suggesting absurd musical covers - Take That covering Megadeth for instance, though ultimately we had to make do with them covering Nirvana.  Well, we had to make our own entertainment in the mid-90s.
Despite the pitch perfect, good ol’ Southern Boy vocals on this recording, The Kingswoods were actually from Brisbane, Australia.  Peel may well have thought he would get Fabric, Tribal Gathering etc up and grooving along to it, but I think that Paul Jones’s 1978 take on the track may have been even better.  Under Tim Rice’s “Welcome to LA” style production, it really takes on a discernible Studio 54 airhead quality that complements the intentions of the Pistols original very nicely.



Videos courtesy of W ookieSnort (The Kingswoods) and Cover Heaven (Jones).