The Men They Couldn't Hang

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The Men They Couldn't Hang
General information
Genre (s) Folk punk
founding 1985, 1996
resolution 1992
Website www.tmtch.co.uk
Founding members
Philip "Swill" Odgers
Stefan Cush
Paul Simmonds
Shanne Bradley
Jon Odgers
Current occupation
Philip "Swill" Odgers
Stefan Cush
Paul Simmonds
Ricky McGuire
former members
Nick Muir (1989-1991)
Live members
Bobby Valentino

The Men They Couldn't Hang are a British folk-punk band. In the late 1980s they were often mentioned in the same breath as the Pogues . The group still operates in different line-ups and sub-formations today.

history

1984 to 1991

The group The Men They Couldn't Hang was formed in 1984 in the southern English city of Southampton . Two of the founding members, brothers Philip "Swill" Odgers and Jon Odgers, were originally from Oban , Scotland , but moved to Southampton early with their parents. There they met the native Southampton Paul Simmonds, the former street musician Stefan Cush and the bassist Shanne Bradley.

The band was decisively influenced by the punk movement in the late 1970s . The comparison with the Pogues, which was regularly sought in the following years, had both musical and personal backgrounds: Both bands played a more or less rough mixture of folk and punk and made more or less positive reference to the living environment of the working class or the common people. There was also close personal contact with the Pogues: Shanne Bradley knew the Pogues singer Shane MacGowan from their time together with the punk band The Nips; Stefan Cush temporarily worked as a roadie for the Pogues . The band name The Men They Couldn't Hang is also said to go back to Shane MacGowan: It referred to a traditional story from the 19th century, according to which the rope failed several times during the execution of a man sentenced to death on the basis of evidence.

The newly formed band with the line-up Philip "Swill" Odgers (guitar, vocals), Stefan Cush (guitar, vocals), Paul Simmonds (guitar, mandolin, keyboard), Shanne Bradley (bass, flute) and Jon Odgers (drums, percussion ) initially played in regional clubs and at smaller festivals. The first release in 1984 was the single The Green Fields of France . The song, written by the Scottish-Australian folk singer Eric Bogle , described the retrospective experiences of a fallen soldier in the First World War . Thanks to intensive airplays in the John Peel Show on BBC , the title achieved a relatively high level of awareness. The official debut album of The Men They Couldn't Hang (also: TMTCH for short) was released the following year. Night of a Thousand Candles contained other socially critical pieces. The last stanza of the title Ironmasters , in which the conservative British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was referred to as Iron Bastard , was no longer included in the adjusted single version. With this self-censorship measure, the group did not want to completely block the chance of being played on the radio.

For their second album, the band moved from the independent label Demon Records to MCA . "How Green Is the Valley" (1985) also took a clear political stance. Ghosts of Cable Street dealt with the so-called Battle of Cable Street in London's East End in 1936 when there was a violent uprising of the population against a march by the right-wing British Union of Fascists under Oswald Mosley. Shirt of Blue addressed the great British miners' strike in 1984/1985 organized by the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM). The third single after these two was Gold Rush . After completing the album promotion, Shanne Bradley left the band and was replaced by Ricky McGuire (ex- UK Subs ).

In 1987 there was another label change - this time to Magnet Records . The third regular album Waiting For Bonaparte made the band known and popular. The single, The Colors, dealt with a political and historical topic in the now well-known band manner: a mutiny on an English warship during the wars against Napoleon. Nevertheless, The Colors reached number 61 in the British Top 75. Their reputation for extensively wearing out both record labels and agents, The Men They Couldn't Hang remained true to their subsequent release. Silver Town (1988) appeared on the independent label Silvertone ; outstanding songs on the album were Company Town , Rain, Steam & Speed and A Place in the Sun . The last studio album of the "classic" TMTCH was also released in 1990 by Silvertone. The Domino Club has received critical acclaim as the group's most musically mature album. In 1991 the band broke up. The final concert in London's Town And Country Club , which soon enjoyed a legendary reputation among fans of the band, was released as a CD under the title Alive, Alive-O in 1991 .

Since 1991

Between 1991 and 1996 the members of TMTCH went their separate ways. The formation Liberty Cage , founded by Philip "Swill" Odgers and Paul Simmonds, offered a similar mixture musically and lyrically. The album Sleep of the Just (1994) and the maxi I'll Keep It With Mine (1995) appeared as publications . In 1996 the original line-up was finally reunited - albeit without drummer Jon Odgers, who is now for the band project Therapy? worked. With a changing drum line-up and other studio musicians, the reunited group released the album Never Born to Follow (1996) and the mini-album Six Pack (1997). In 1998, two “Best Of” compilations were finally released: Majestic Grill and the now out of print CD The Mud, the Blood and the Beer .

The combination of the main band plus musical side projects continued to lead to a number of different productions. The two albums Baby Fishlips (1999) and Folk at the Fortress (2002) were released as solo releases by Phil Odgers and Paul Simmonds after the reform . The Men They Couldn't Hang themselves started talking again in 2003 with the studio release The Cherry Red Jukebox . A small tour with a total of seven club concerts took the reunited The Men They Couldn't Hang to Germany in September 2003. Regular live appearances - mostly in smaller clubs in Great Britain - testified to the active presence of the band until the summer of 2006. In 2006, Elvis Lives Here was the second release of Philip "Swill" Odger's band side project Swaggerband . The Men They Couldn't Hang are also represented with one piece on the alternative country / songwriter sampler Seka - Sister Volume 3 , the proceeds of which will benefit surviving women and children in the former Yugoslavia. In 2006 the group announced as a follow-up project a new album with acoustic folk numbers as well as new recordings of classic TMTCH pieces.

Style and reviews

The mix of classic rock band line-up, punk attitude and folk-heavy pieces that is typical for The Men They Couldn't Hang led to the style name Folkpunk in the mid-1980s. Initially, the Pogues were particularly influential in this direction. In addition to them and The Men They Couldn't Hang, this direction, which caused a sensation especially in the late 1980s and early 1990s, includes The Levellers , New Model Army , Billy Bragg and Frank Tovey . In contrast to bands with similar music that are purely on the pop market, such as the Hooters ("Johnny B."), the artists and formations listed deliberately positioned themselves in the politically left spectrum. Stefan Cush said in an interview in the German music magazine Spex (11/1985) about the reasons for the combination of folk and punk: "We wanted to get away from this pure folk story straight away. We are more influenced by ideology than by music . Folk is music for the people, just like punk. The two go hand in hand. "

The comparison with the (commercially somewhat more successful) Pogues has stuck to the band since its inception. Critics sometimes referred to them as "simple epigones ". The British "Guinness Who's Who of Indie and New Wave" put it in a more friendly and appreciative manner; it dubbed the band as "The Pogues' Sparring Partners". The group itself named punk, folk and especially the country music of Johnny Cash as musical influences . In a CD review of "The Cherry Red Jukebox", the online music site folkworld.de described the band's sound, which is dominated by classic rock instruments, as follows: "The Men They Couldn't Hang hang out, they rock as usual. The old themes are varied in catchy rock'n'roll songs. There is a Gunman story (here a Gunwoman), under the scorching sun, people travel (this time from Spain to Cameroon) and their own past is evoked: Elvis sounds from the cherry-red jukebox. "

Trivia

  • First names and nicknames only: On the group's first albums, the band members were only listed with their first names or nicknames. Philip Odger's nickname "Swill" means something like "drinking nose" in English.
  • Formats, media, rarities: as with a number of other independent bands, the releases of The Men They Couldn't Hang in different formats and media are difficult to keep track of, even for insiders. An interpretation of the well-known Western title track " Rawhide " was originally released on Maxi, but was later included on the CD version of the debut album "Night of a Thousand Candles". The live CD with the 91 final concert is no longer available; as an alternative, the independent distributor Rough Trade released a DVD in 2005 that now contains the concert as a film. Since 2006 the albums from the 1980s can also be downloaded from the iTunes Music Store .

Discography

The publications marked with * are no longer available in official stores.

Studio albums

Live, Compilations & Maxis

  • Alive, Alive-O (live; 1991) *
  • Smugglers and Bounty Hounters (live; double CD; 2005; recall)
  • Majestic Grill (Best of; 1998; Demon Records)
  • The Mud, the Blood and the Beer (Best Of; 1998) *
  • Six Pack (mini-album; 1997; Edsel)

DVD

  • 21 Years of Love and Hate (2005; SPV)
  • The Shooting (2005; Rough Trade)

Presence on samplers

  • Seka - Sister Volume 3 (2003; Twah!)

Liberty Cage

  • Sleep of the Just (1994; Line Records)
  • l'll Keep It With Mine (Maxi; 1995) *

Phil Odgers & Paul Simmonds

  • Baby Fishlips (1999; Twah!)
  • Folk at the Fortress (2002) *

Swaggerband

  • The Day After (2004; Irregular Records)
  • Elvis Lives Here (2006; Irregular Records)

Web links