Although it seemed obvious to my interviewee in 1977, to most of us, even then, combining medieval instrumentation and music with punk rock, fully enraged and unwashed, would have seemed an unlikely fit, at best. But then most of us are not Attila The Stockbroker.
I really did love French and Politics, I just loved Punk more
Like most of our generation I was given a recorder aged six. Unlike most of our generation I didn't immediately make a noise like a castrated steam engine, I was fascinated by it and learned to play it properly. (I am now founder and - so far - sole member of the Recorder Liberation Front, which demands that any child under 12 who gets hold of a recorder has to sign a legally binding document pledging to do as I did, and if they just want to make a racket are given a ukulele, which is the veritable instrument of Satan). In my teens I heard the great early music advocate David Munrow's Pied Piper programme on the radio, found about the crumhorn, cornamuse (basically a bagpipe without the sac) sausage bassoon and a host of other wonderful medieval instruments and was hooked. By that time I was also into T.Rex and the Velvet Underground - so when punk happened the three chord punk rock sound was completely logical for me and many of the simple progressions fitted early music structures too.
In 1977 one of my ambitions was to form a band combining early music and punk. I finally achieved it with my band Barnstormer 1649 in 2018 with my album Restoration Tragedy about the activities of Levellers, Diggers and Ranters after the English Revolution of 1649.
Politics, in which our hero did a degree, along with French, has been a life long passion.
So my choice of subjects was logical, but I did very little academic work. I went to Kent Uni in 1975, immediately got on the Ents Committee, and then punk happened and I started playing in a band myself, so I actually studied organising and playing gigs and running Kent Area Rock against Racism. We put on some wonderful gigs at the very beginning of punk and it stood me in good stead for my future career as a DIY performer running my own operation when I started as Attila two years after I left uni. I did get a 2:2 though, because I really did love French and politics, I just loved punk more!
1880 was the year Attilla was born. And, because I know you are asking, the name comes from a short sojourn as a stockbroker's clerk, during which he was told by a colleague that he had the eating habits of Attila the Hun.
He was always a champion of the left. Even having his precious electric mandolin smashed over his head by fascist thugs was taken in his stride.
I was seriously targeted by the far Right in the 80s, because I believed that if you were an anti fascist poet the place to perform was where fascists were trying to recruit people, not just places where everyone agrees with you.
The mandolin did not survive the fight.
We gave the poor thing a Viking funeral down the River Stort in Harlow, where I was living at the time.
SO how do you describe yourself?
I have always written poems, always written songs: for me a song is a poem with music behind it, a poem is words on their own, but my basic approach has always been that of a musician and lyricist, because everything I write is with a view to performance, to being spoken or sung out loud. In my very soul I am a performance poet!
I think it is admirable that you have remained angry for all these years - do you find that comes easily? And isn't it more tiring now you are as old as I am?
Since everything that we, and the generation above us, worked so hard to create is now being destroyed before our eyes, it is hardly surprising that I am even MORE angry than I was 40 years ago. But I now have a lot of intensely personal material too: all human life is here. I need to go to bed more often, thats all.
Now then. This brings us to your stint at this year's Fringe. With the PBH Free Fringe, of course.
It is the true, real, original Fringe in all its DIY glory and as a DIY performer I am proud to support PBH! It works financially too, if you have a following, believe you me, it works! It is the very essence of the punk ethic. Thank you, Peter Buckley Hill, Luke Meredith and Co. You saved the Edinburgh Fringe.
But FOURTEEN DIFFERENT shows in FOURTEEN days??????
Ive always been very prolific as a poet and songwriter and have been doing this for 44 years, so have a lot of stuff which Im really proud of and which is (often sadly) still relevant, but never gets performed anymore because Im constantly writing. The idea of turning my life's work into a Festival show just came to me one day. I reckon I have at least 25 hours of material all told, so 14 hours is basically a Greatest Hits set, a chronicle of the last four decades in poem and song. Im really looking forward to selecting the material and writing the set list which in readable black felt tip will be several yards long and will be draped over the stage!
And on top of that 14 hours at Bannerman's there are my two Early Music Shows at St. Cecilia's Hall - so its 15 hours in 14 days, which really IS showing off. I am honoured to have been invited back to St. Cecilia's for the third time - its a beautiful setting for a mainly self-taught early music punk to strut his stuff, with a wonderful collection of ancient instruments which anyone who comes to my show there should take time to visit.
Is it advisable to try to see all 14 shows? For context? Will you be doing bulk buy discounts?
I can guarantee a huge range of material from the intensely angry to ridiculously silly and heartrendingly personal, chronicling many of the historical events and situations which have shaped our lives since I started as Attila in 1980 in poem and in song, on a ridiculously diverse range of subjects, with the occasional nob gag. They won't be in chronological order, but there will be very short explanations where needed. Since there are no tickets and people pay what they want, I can't do bulk buy discounts but there will be a special award for anyone who comes to all 14 shows.
