Nick Sanderson RIP

[23 Daves]

I'm really shocked to hear about Nick Sanderson's death.  Some of you may be familiar with his work as a drummer for The Gun Club, Clock DVA, World of Twist, Freeheat or the Jesus and Mary Chain - but I'll always cherish him most for his role as the lead singer of Earl Brutus.

They really were an extraordinary band (named after an imaginary pub which would be "a bit rough, but they'd do a nice carvery on a Sunday") although they divided opinion completely.  They only managed to release two albums, "Your Majesty We Are Here" and "Tonight You Are The Special One", both of which combined elements of glam rock and punk with techno, and even synthpop and krautrock.  They made a fantastically ugly sounding noise which nonetheless had a pop suss to it - their incessant use of slogans in their songs was something the resulting chaos used to be hung on brilliantly.  They were frequently hilarious too, having spinning garage signs on stage with "Music" written on one side and "Chips" on the other on stage with them.  They also once had a giant banner on stage saying "Music is Wasted On The Young" at one point (they were all in their mid thirties by the time they were signed).

I interviewed Nick once and he was a perfectly nice chap who made it quite clear the band weren't ironic at all, and genuinely were ripping what they saw as the mediocre post-Britpop scene to shreds, as well as attempting to piss all over the rapidly declining state of popular culture.  He also mentioned in another interview that it was his ambition to arrive on stage on Top of the Pops "on horseback, with fireworks going off".  It never happened, obviously, but it stays in my mind as a nice image.

They probably won't mean much to most of you lot, but I always thought they were wonderful.  They sounded genuinely different at a time when everybody else in their field seemed to be harking back to the past, and this is particularly sad news for me.

"Let's have none of that bollocks about great songwriters and their craft", declared singer Nick Sanderson. "Let's have a trucker's beat and some big, bold sounds."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yi_mTvH4HMI

[lazyhour]

I'm heartbroken.  I didn't know about this until coming into this thread just now.  Thank you for your sweet post, Daves.

Earl Brutus have been one of my favourite groups since I was 17 or so, back in the mid-late 90s.  I don't listen to them so much these days, but about once a year I pull out their albums and my own compilation of b-sides and stuff, and remember how brilliant they are.  Only a week ago I looked for them on a whim on YouTube and watched the above video for the first time in ages, and thought to myself that it was time again to pull out Your Majesty, We Are Here.

What awful news.  Ever since seeing their hiatus-breaking gig at the Garage (not sure when that was, but they played a song called "Teenage Taliban", so it must have been after Sept 11 2001) I have been waiting and waiting for a reunion and the release of Twenty Brutus Greats...

[23 Daves]

What awful news.  Ever since seeing their hiatus-breaking gig at the Garage (not sure when that was, but they played a song called "Teenage Taliban", so it must have been after Sept 11 2001) I have been waiting and waiting for a reunion and the release of Twenty Brutus Greats...

So far as I know at least some of Twenty Brutus Greats was recorded, including "Teenage Taliban"... they just didn't have a label to release it on.  So somebody, somewhere must be in a position to put it out, but I've never quite managed to get to the bottom of who owns the rights or what's standing in the way.

There's also their planned football single "Mouldy Old Dough" which never got a release (though was definitely completed and ready to go, according to Select magazine) and God knows what else out there.  They were still a going concern until as late as 2003, with their last singles release being in 1999, so there must be other material as well.

Maybe, slowly but surely, this stuff will begin to surface.  I think it might help people begin to appreciate how great Nick Sanderson was.

[simondykes]

That's a bit of a shocker.I only own one Earl Brutus single - 'Navyhead' (whose b-side has one of my favourite song titles of all time:'North Sea Bastard') - but I was a big World Of Twist fan.Seeing as the 'Twist's Tony Ogden died a couple of years ago too,that pretty much puts the kibosh on any chance of a reunion there.I've had a quick scout about,I'm curious to know how old he was (partly for selfish reasons:was he that much older than me?),and found a post on this blog here (which also includes some Brutus mp3s):
http://www.redpenguin.net/blog/2008/06/rip-nick-sanderson.php

[Johnny Yesno]

I hadn't knowingly heard of him before reading your post, Daves, but if he played with ClockDVA and the JAMC then I really should have been paying more attention. RIP.

[El Unicornio, mang]

Lung cancer at 47? Jeez that's rough. RIP.

[Neville Chamberlain]

Sorry to hear this. I've only got Your Majesty We Are Here, but it's a damn fine album. I remember the dark days of Britpop, stuck in my uni accommodation being forced to listen to the sound of The Bluetones/Ocean Fucking Colour Sodding Scene/Dodgy/Oasis/Cast seeping through the floor from below, the ceiling from above, or the walls from all around seeing as every sodding git seemed to be playing that shite, and thinking to myself "When's someone going to release a record with a bit of balls?!?" and, as if by magic, along came Earl Brutus! Well done them! A great, original band who, quite possibly, popped up at completely the wrong time.

[explodingvinyl]

What crappy news.

[eddiecurry]

http://www.redpenguin.net/blog/2008/06/rip-nick-sanderson.php

That was from an old blog I wrote which I am trying to resurrect (time permitting, which it doesn't).  I also uploaded the Come Taste My Mind video to Youtube, that was from the very early days of MTV2 (1999) when you could actually go to the website and pick an hour of videos.  I don't think I ever saw Earl Brutus on TV other than that and the chart show.

In case you don't know, they are carrying on (best they can without Nick) as The Pre New, http://www.theprenew.com/ .  Have caught them live a couple of times and all the old madness is still there.

[lazyhour]

404'd.

And there was me thinking he'd died again.