THE BIGGEST SPLASH – DEAF SCHOOL
Have you ever wondered just what that magical ingredient is that makes Liverpool’s musical output different from everywhere else, or even if there is anything at all?
The one that jumps out at me is that irrepressible yearning to entertain. It’s all exactly on their own terms, of course, but it’s in the blood. They just can’t help it. No one epitomised that more than Deaf School. They were, still are, and always will be my favourite Liverpool band. They made me get my hair cut.
Maybe the world wasn’t ready for Deaf School. There are no hit records, after all. But their tale shouldn’t be seen as one of heroic failure. In the 1970s, this quixotic cohort of art school renegades lifted the city’s torpid music scene off its knees, igniting the spark on a movement that still reverberates to this day. Their impact may not be measured in gold discs and sellout arena tours, but Deaf School’s influence runs deeper than the Mersey tunnels. Perhaps the esteemed Liverpool author Paul Du Noyer says it best of all, ‘In the whole history of Liverpool music, two bands matter most. One is The Beatles; the other is Deaf School’. They are our very own Velvet Underground.
And now it’s the 50th anniversary of Deaf School. Or thereabouts. With a typical laissez-faire and chaotic approach, no one is exactly sure when a one-off spoken word art performance in 1973, mutated into that year’s art school Christmas dance entertainment troupe (numbering over 20 on stage) before morphing into the band that became Deaf School (a far more sensible 13). That name though? They took it from the art school annexe building, an old deaf school. A typical, lovely witty nod.
For me, it began in 1976. I was reasonably carefree, though Everton were a concern (I’d soon learn that this would be a lifetime’s worry). That sizzling summer was ending when I fell head over heels in love. It wasn’t the steamy affair of Bobby Goldsboro in Summer (The First Time), though I was open to this, and the sun was a demon. It was when I first heard Deaf School. They stole my heart and never gave it back.
I’m not sure a spotty 15-year-old schoolboy who’d never kissed a girl was who the group had in mind as their target audience when they released the splendid debut LP, 2nd Honeymoon. I was floored when I heard it. Song after memorable song; imaginative, witty pop, with cracking tunes, all delivered with panache, conviction, energy, and style. With tales of doomed romance, suicide threats, illicit assignations, and ennui; heartache never sounded so good. Or so exciting. And, I quickly found out, they were from Liverpool. Get Set, Ready, Go!
The best artists wear their influences lightly; absorbing them, twisting them, adding something extra, not just mirroring it. With three lead singers, at least four contributing songwriters and a line-up of eight (whittled down from 13), all bursting with ideas, those influences were vast. I heard snippets of Roxy Music, Noel Coward, soul, Marlene Dietrich, The Sensational Alex Harvey Band and Isherwood’s Berlin. There were glimpses too of The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, Sparks, Cole Porter, and Dr Feelgood (but with tunes). I could go on. I’d never heard anything like Deaf School, and still haven’t. They even made Rock Ferry sound enticing.
Deaf School were the first band I felt I’d discovered for myself. I knew so little about them then, but the clues were all in that fabulous LP cover and the sleeve notes. A gorgeous work of art by fellow student Kevin Ward. Roxy Music with wit. Just who were all these characters? Enrico Cadillac Jnr, Bette Bright, Eric Shark, The Very Reverend Max Ripple, Frankie Average, Cliff Hanger? And Ken Testi or Frank Silver, they can’t be real names, surely?
Then there was their look. Jaw droppingly stylish. Retro futurism. Maybe David Bowie was right and there was life on Mars. It was dizzying to discover that people who looked, sang, and thought like that, actually walked the streets of Liverpool. It was also clear that I needed a Hawaiian shirt.
Two albums later though, and they were gone. Their final performance on April Fool’s Day (of course) at the Liverpool Empire in 1978. That’s some swansong, isn’t it? Still not 17 years old, I never got to see them live. People told me that was the group at their best too; their theatrical rock cabaret review shows were raucous and raw, whimsical and surreal, chaotic and exhilarating. For me, it looked like it was over before it began. Bands just don’t reform, do they?
When the history of Liverpool music is debated, the received wisdom is that before punk and that whole scene that exploded out of Eric’s club, the early to mid-1970s was a creative desert, the city a musical dustbowl. Sadly, there’s a cold truth in that. The 1960s cast a long, long shadow and I’d been authoritatively informed by my eldest brother that we weren’t allowed to discuss the Beatles anymore as they’d split up. I often wonder what became of them.
Nonetheless, Badfinger had a clutch of pop singles that were as good as anyone’s, at that time. The Real Thing, who are, shamefully, only now being recognised for their prodigious talent, became the most successfully UK black band during the 1970s. Liverpool Express had a couple of hits too. And then there’s ‘60s stalwarts Tony Waddington and Wayne Bickerton, who went under the radar writing a run of hits, perhaps coalescing best with the bubble-gum pop confection, Sugar Baby Love. There were pockets of local activity around the Sportsman and Moonstone bars – part of the new St John’s Precinct – but no real scene, as such. And not much sign of one.
Incredibly, lightning did strike twice. A scene would emerge, and though it wouldn’t rival Merseybeat in terms of global impact, for me, was far more creative, eclectic and enduring. It spoke – no, bellowed – this is Liverpool. Deaf School were in the vanguard. That’s their gift to the city.
Up the hill in the School of Art, and the avenues and alleyways of Liverpool 8, something magical was stirring. And elsewhere too, things were coming together. Roger Eagle’s promotions at the Stadium, The Last Trumpet fanzine, The School of Language, Music, Dream and Pun on Mathew Street, The Everyman theatre and bistro, Probe, O’Connor’s Tavern, even The Back of The Moon, are all important touchstones. Liverpool may have been hurtling towards economic oblivion, but culturally, it was about to soar again – in music, theatre and TV.
When, in late 1976, Roger Eagle, Ken Testi and Pete Fulwell created the basement club Eric’s, barely yards from the Cavern on Mathew Street, the stage was set. Fittingly, Deaf School were the first to play, so early in the club’s inception that it was called the Revolution. Here was a place for misfits, outsiders, dreamers, malcontents, and show-offs. Some made it onto the stage, naturally. Echo and The Bunnymen, Teardrop Explodes, Ian Broudie, Jayne Casey, Wah! OMD, Dead or Alive, Elvis Costello, Budgie, The Christians, Paul Simpson, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, The KLF – that’s some list, isn’t it – members from those acts, in one guise or another, played Eric’s. All cite Deaf School as a major influence and inspiration.
It’s one of life’s great mysteries and music’s long list of cruel injustices that Deaf School never crossed over commercially. If you sat down and created a blueprint for a successful band, it certainly wouldn’t be them, but it still rankles with me. A major record label that didn’t fully understand them and couldn’t capture their live performances on record? Possibly. A London centric music industry that can decide your fate, just like that? Probably. But, when punk went overground in 1977, Deaf School were in exactly the right place at exactly the wrong time. As Sex Pistols manager Malcom McClaren, another admirer, stated ’it’s as bad to be too early as too late’. Punk blew them out of the water.
Ironically, Deaf School’s attitude was always defiantly punk, before it even existed; a DIY approach, valuing interesting people with ideas over any musical proficiency was the one recruitment criteria. Their use of those alter ego pseudonyms became de rigueur in the scene that swept them away; Johnny Rotten, Poly Styrene, Jet Black, Siouxsie Sioux, Rat Scabies, Gaye Advert, Joe Strummer, even our own Elvis Costello. Refusing to be hostages to the city’s past glories, they charted their own course. It was a road less travelled but endlessly more entertaining.
In a parallel world, Deaf School would be millionaires. Monuments erected, honorary doctorates handed out, freedom of the city awards gaily scattered as they are carried through the streets of Liverpool. Alas, there isn’t even a plaque where the arts school annex building once stood, the former deaf school. Beyond the faithful, they remain anonymous.
If success were measured in love and affection though, Deaf School would indeed be millionaires. The adoration is clear, and it’s mutual. The group reformed for a short series of gigs in 1988. I finally saw them then (twice!) and it was magical, probably my favourite ever concerts. Their music was always timeless and made as much sense then as when I first heard them. It was life affirming. And sweaty. You don’t have to take my word for it though, they released a live album of the momentous proceedings, Second Coming.
The city itself has a curiously ambivalent relationship with them. They weren’t part of any of 2008’s Capital of Culture celebrations, nor even the Eurovision Song Contest in 2023. Here’s a thought though. Imagine if Deaf School had been selected and agreed to perform at Eurovision in 1976, belting out What a Way to End It All. They wouldn’t, it’s bang off course of course, but surely that would be as defining a moment as Abba and Waterloo. The Brotherhood of Man was the UK entry. And they won.
Deaf School do have friends in low places though. The Sex Pistols later acknowledged them, Glen Matlock even forming a band with Steve Allen (courtesy of Enrico Cadillac Jnr). Kevin Rowland of Dexys adored them and you can see in their recent performance at Glastonbury, the debt. Famously, Madness loved them too, Clive ‘Cliff Hanger’ Langer going on to produce all their hits. Close your eyes, you hear Deaf School.
The group continue to reunite for special occasions, selecting places dear to their heart; the reopening of The Picket in the Baltic quarter in 2006 (possibly the closest I’ve come to heart failure, it was that packed), the closure of the Everyman in 2011 and the Kazimier in 2015, to name a few.
New material followed too, and they’ve even had their own art exhibition, The Art School Dance Goes on Forever, beautifully curated by Bryan Biggs in 2013. The same year as Paul Du Noyer’s masterful biography Deaf School: The Non-Stop Pop Art Punk Rock Party, as essential as the records.
Some artists give people what they want, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Deaf School gave me, thousands of others, and music, what we didn’t realise we needed. A big kick up the arse. They inspired a whole generation to think differently, to escape the mundane, to make a splash and be yourself. Or be some else. Their appeal is wide reaching – Hope Street dreamers, outsiders, suburbanites, L8 bohos, loners, even scallies in those far-flung urban prairies – they seduced us all and we cherish them.
New scenes are essential though, and their lifeblood is grassroots venues. There are some wonderful things incubating in the city region; Future Yard in Birkenhead, The Studio in Widnes, The Citadel in St Helen’s, Salt and Tar and Lock & Quay in Bootle (both a stone’s throw from my old school, St Winnie’s). Knowsley Festival looks a real gem too and the good folk there have impeccable taste; they’ve invited Deaf School to headline. With warm-up shows at Future Yard and The Citadel too, it’s a rare opportunity for new generations to experience their beguiling charms. Go on, shake some action with, arguably, the second most important band to come out of Liverpool. Taxi!
Words by Paul Gallagher.
