The Blackburn five-piece Bradford were once proclaimed as the rightful heirs to The Smiths by none other than Stephen Patrick Morrissey himself. In fact, Morrissey covered their 1988 debut single ‘Skin Storm’ as the B-side to ‘Pregnant For The Last Time’ and occasionally performed it live.
Their self-titled debut arrived in 1988 to widespread acclaim from the music press, but it was the 1990 follow-up Shouting Quietly that cemented their reputation as one of the most intelligent and politically charged acts to emerge from the post-C86 indie scene. Produced by Stephen Street and released on his Foundation label, the album now receives a long-overdue reissue titled Thirty Years Of Shouting Quietly via A Turntable Friend Records next month (9th February). This edition includes thirty tracks: the original LP, the extremely rare French mini-album (withdrawn by their former label Midnight Music before release), and several previously unheard songs.
Here, lead singer and principal songwriter Ian Michael Hodgson walks us through every track on their critically acclaimed second record.
This track also opened our live shows and “set our stall out” both politically and musically. It’s a nod to little left-leaning skinheads kicking a Doctor Marten toe at the Thatcher years, with a Dexys-inspired brass section before the chorus. One of the first songs we began working on for the Shouting Quietly sessions with the wonderful Stephen Street in deepest Wales during summer 1989.
I was going through a heavy wordplay/pun phase, as the title again shows. This song has a lot of chords—I think songwriters go through a phase of using many chords, then relax and stop trying to impress fellow musicians. Eventually, you return to bashing three chords with renewed respect for the form. I believe Bolly’s (John Baulcombe) keyboard work coming out of the middle eight is some of his finest.
Speaking of bashing chords… I love this one because it captures our live sound and energy—the choppy guitar texture interplay is fantastic, and I’m proud to be in there sawing away as well. Yes, another wordplay title! A classic misfit anthem for all the misfits out there—it takes one to know one.
Hats off to Jos for his spontaneous bass playing on the outro. Ewan (Butler) also delivers lovely guitar interplay throughout—Ewan is my favourite guitar player. Just as Charlie Watts never overplays on drums with the Stones, Ewan does the same across the album, providing perfect backdrops.
A Bradford “oldie but goldie” from our earlier sets. It’s hard to imagine how awful it is going to Blackburn nightclubs as a young man, feeling like you’re on a bad game show. Out pops a song, of course. This one. The hair I was combing in the song has since disappeared, along with any semblance of Blackburn nightlife.
Stephen Street’s production and ideas throughout the album are superb, and this—our second single from the album—shines radiantly with them. It’s funny how nearly all the songs on this album, except ‘Radio Edna’ and ‘Gary’s Going Down’, come from a highly charged emotional perspective. We were all very switched on during the three weeks of recording—miles from anywhere, with only cows, gravel, and dodgy Betamax videos for company. I frequently went on walkabouts—a kind of pseudo-shamanistic vision quest. I used red and black boot polish to decorate my torso, found a big stick, made a fire or two, and went off on solo treks. A picture exists.
A real person—now sadly departed. She had the sweet shop at the top of the street where I was born—incidentally, I was born on Stephen Street, a lovely coincidence. The band barely features on the instrumentation here. Mr. Street got busy with strings and harpsichord, making me feel a bit like Paul McCartney in 1965—and you know that can’t be bad.
I like the jaggedness of this one—it’s short and rattly with a strange attitude. Again, I love Ewan’s guitar work and smile at some of my own.
Trivia: the line “Give it some gas” came from Ewan’s driving instructor, who used to shout it at him during lessons.
Thankfully NOT any kind of pun or innuendo in the song title. It used to mean going to prison, or it’s used in boxing, but here it simply means the poor boy is sinking in the post-school eighties dole quagmire—a swamp every Bradford member had waded through at some stage. Nice acoustic feel to this one—the most unembellished of all the album tracks. I’m surprised I used a key change at the end; it’s a tired old trick that works. Again, I must’ve been trying to impress…
The chorus lyric came to me during one of my rare late-night stays in a heightened state of consciousness—I wanted to write about sex in an almost completely non-macho way, as an act of worship. For obvious reasons, I have great affection for this song—it now has a life of its own. There’s even a techno version and a ukulele version out there. I’m very grateful that people have recorded one of my songs.
Stephen had great vision when it came to realising a song and freeing it from its initial acoustic guitar inception. A real downer of a closer, and once more totally heartfelt. And you all thought skinheads were tough and that.
Back in the day, Ewan and I enjoyed one of our first pop star moments when the song started playing in a record shop as we went up the escalator—and we were actually in Liverpool at the time. This was our first proper recording session with Stephen, in Essex I think. I remember hay bales. I’m so moved and proud of the production on this—it’s glorious in its sweep and majesty—timpani for crying out loud! Big strings! A bit of falsetto! Home of The Beatles!
Thirty Years Of Shouting Quietly is out on 9 February via A Turntable Friend Records.
For more information on Bradford, please visit their Facebook page.
