CALL OF THE WILD (PART ONE) Interview with the Polecats.

Originally published in TRAX the London music paper March 11th 1981- Journalist Jan Brown

The yellow transit van bursting with the big slap bass was enough to tell me I had found the Polecats.  It's the Royalty Nitespot in daytime.  Empty ballroom, central dancefloor, shiny round tables with beermats and ashtrays.  I rattle around until I strike Polecats.

Naturally the first thing I ask about is that bass.  "You just get a better sound - sort of heavier really", says Phil Bloomberg, the group's own Mr Bassman, his normal puzzled expression breaking out into a grin.

"I painted it", adds Tim.  "By hand".  Tim's a colourful guy - ginger quiff, palest pink drape(?) and socks to match - and he has enhanced Phil's prized possession with a couple of cats in his favourite colour.

A meeting with the Polecats is like getting folded between the pages of a superman comic and the script for FireballXL5.  They're an odd concoction of past and future tenses.

Four young guys, hailing from North London- in Boz's words "rockin' people".  They've known each other since school days,and "don't have no politics". They're more Youth Club than Youth Movement.

For two or three years they've been playing together, with the exception of Neil whom they pinched from a rival rockabilly band just about a year ago.  At the spearhead of the British scene they've gigged around the country with Rockpile, and more recently supported the Cramps, who they blew offstage at the Lyceum.

"We just go ape-shit from the first number", Tim tells me enthusiastically.  "People don't dance exactly, they have a tendency to throw each other onto the stage though, which I have been known to encourage".

A recent innovation to their act found its beginnings at the Royalty, where Tim, with his normal urge to "do something different", took a swallow dive into the front row of the audience.It is already quite normal for fans to jump onstage and emulate this trickery. They call it The Polecat Dive.

Boz chimes in:"Down at our Marquee gig there were about 45 different people on stage, it was really wild".

"I just managed to get my guitar up above my head so I could still play.  I was lying on the floor at the time and there were people jumping around all over the place, it was brilliant.

Eighteen months ago the three founder members were being refused gigs in and around London because their set was too wild.  To imagine these neat looking guys striking fear into the hearts of promoters and agents used to post-punk activities is difficult, but stay tuned.

They took their rockabilly education on the regional circuit, sneaking in at 14 years to the Orange Tree and The Bobby Sox in Willesden, where they could get to here their favourite American imports.  "Our act is half original rockabilly and half our own material", Phil says.  "But even the original material is so obscure that people think it's our own".

"We give it our own treatment", adds Tim with a wink.

Part 2