The Stark Truth - Autumn 2004
Hello, this is Ron Stark reporting from semi-retirement in Albert Village, South Derbyshire. As most of you will be aware, I’ve known The Freed Unit for a number of years now. In fact my acquaintance with the Bros Kerry stretches back to the days of Supereight, when I contributed a ‘backwards guitar solo’ to one of their songs. My appearance at the Track Station recording studio in Burton On Trent even made it to the illustrious pages of the Coalville Times – the first time I’d been in the news for legitimate reasons (my previous celebrity being due to ‘forgetting to pay’ for a tin of John West salmon I acquired from the ‘Wasp Convenience’ stores, but we won’t go into that).
So then, Jonathan and Matt formed The Freed Unit, along with Gary ‘G-Christ’ Gilchrist in the summer of 1996. Whilst still appearing live under the Supereight moniker, they went into the studio to record their first album ‘Field reports From Out-There’ which was released on Sorted Records in October of that year. What astonishes me is how they managed to create such insidiously memorable, whistle-in-the-shower tunes with bizarre instruments such as Stylophone, sheet metal and toys from cereal boxes! (Mind you, there’s some nifty guitar work on there, too…)
‘Field Reports’ was launched with a gig at Leicester’s City Gallery (supporting Kevin Hewick)…some kind of ‘happening’ I believe they call it. In any case there were some odd folk there…Kept disappearing to the toilet for long periods. Maybe they’d had too much of the wine on offer.
Before you could say ‘Yr Sister Is A Junkie’ The Freeds were appearing in NME and Melody Maker (RIP), (with no mention of my Starkestra), and then playing at all-dayers at The Garage (standing in for Quickspace who didn’t want to give up their regular Sunday lie-in!)
After their first 7” ‘Getting Used To Not Fitting In’ became Single of the Month in Record Collector, The Freed Unit released the epic LP ‘Things Are Looking Up…’ on Enraptured. Stage mascot, Jeremy was cloned for the sleeve that was photographed at Jodrell Bank radio telescope. The last I heard of the five extra sailor-suited chaps, they’d started a knitting circle in the Knutsford area.
Unfortunately my travel sickness prevented me from ever joining them on the road, but from what I’ve heard they had a fine old time driving in cramped transit vans between Glasgow, Manchester, Brighton and deepest Suffolk, and stopping off at service stations such as ‘Klackett Layne’. I know they particularly enjoyed touring with Pop-Off Tuesday and Bablicon, although Marta Tennae refused to eat the Vampire muffin that Jonathan bought for him. (He didn’t have a sweet tooth for sweet teeth).
Those lovely Freed fellows also have their own little label called ‘Out-There’ through which they release mail-order only and Ltd edition records, for example the Record Collector top ten single of 1999 ‘The Masonic Youth EP’ and its square-shaped follow-up ‘The Six-Sided EP’. There has also been the instrumental ‘Day-Glo’ album and the wonderful ‘Gigglegoo’. (My personal favourite song, ‘Catch The Next Train Home’ reminds me of the bums-rush I got from V.E Betts at a tea dance in 1943).
Their latest album ‘Straitjacket’ has been in the bag for some time now, but as yet no release date has been set. From what I’ve heard of it, the song ‘Lodge Hill’ is as fine a song as any I’ve ever heard by them, and ‘British School Gardens’ is a very bizarre piece, apparently about a group of youths setting up home in a Melton Mowbray squat and making a right old mess of the place.
Still, there’s more to follow. Even as I write, the chaps are ‘Throwing Ashes At The Moon’, and I see there are some movies on the website, now. Maybe they’ll blow dust off my ‘Ron At Rollright’ movie and put that up for you to see…
Until then, adieu,
Ron A Stark (Dire-ist (sic)), 2004
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