A Tribute to Steven Wells, Music Journalist, punk poet and political activist.
By Paul Sillett.
Anyone who the great Chuck D liked has to be a good thing. So it was/is with Steven Wells, Swells to many.
The blogs are full of family, friends and fans leading tributes to someone who has been taken far too early. And no wonder, its still hard to believe we’ve lost him. ‘WHAT THE FUCK?’as Swells might say.
Talking to one former house mate from Bradford, he said that Swells started to find his niche on encountering The Mekons, punk pooh poohers of all that needed pooh pooing back then.
(Never been in a riot! Oh yesssss!)
Hey! Alliteration! No one did alliteration like Swells, no one has bettered him in that dept since.
I first met him at a Redskins gig and was bowled over by his searching intensity and pricking of pretentious pomposity, he enjoyed a bloody good ‘dance’ too. This skinhead in green combats resembled a wartime Japanese soldier, who was this man?!
Boy did he love his music and was always up for anything that you recommended a listen to, but if he didn’t like it……many an eardrum was perforated if he didn’t like what you offered up. He never sat on the fence about anything and we loved him for it.
No one who was there will ever forget the great nights that Swells, Atilla the Stockbroker, Joolz, to name but a few, spent ranting, kicking over the statues of old fart poetry with their guerilla, rat a tat tat style delivery. Swells turned many onto Wilfred Owen as well as Black Flag. He was some autodidact. His toxic spleen was reserved only for those like the Rolling Stones, turning rebellion into money. He could be scathing on once heroes of his, something which emphasised his integrity, whatever you thought of his polemics.
But bands like Cornershop and Manic Street Preachers benefitted from his ‘blown away’ reviews.
On moving to London Swells made a name for himself as Susan Williams reviewing gigs by the likes of the Three Johns and the Redskins, brilliantly, passionately, but always with a new angle that got it BANG on. More mischieviously, we used to marvel at the sometimes, how do i put this, imagined gigs at equally imaginative venues that appeared under ‘Susan’s’ moniker and which got printed. Even funnier when angry ‘fans’ wrote in
to argue the toss about Swells gig ‘review’………the old devil.
Daphne and Celeste, yes 3 words that made many sick, but Swells rightly championed them to many’s amazement. ‘But they’re young, exciting, fucking funny, isn’t that what you want?’, i can hear him shouting at bemused bods now.
Swells was of course hard as nails politically, as a thoughtful socialist and great advocate for the Anti Nazi League, he proudly wore the ANL arrowed logo tattooed on his left forearm. The legacy of the Leeds 1981 Rock Against Racism Carnival, starring the Specials among others, never left him and he was a stalwart for the ANL on its relaunch.
I wont forget how handy he was, together with a clutch of Labour councillors, when a group of nazi thugs tried to force their way into a Redskins gig, …..his pen was mightier than the sword, but a metaphorical sword or two came in handy that night.
Nick Small and he brought it all home with their path breaking Gob TV, as many have said on the blogs many music videos owe something to Swells and Small’s content over style via Skunk Anansie and the rest and what style!
He often wrote extremly movingly in what could seem stream of consciousness rant, but he was artful with it. His work SCREAMED! ala Little Richard, extravangantly from the page cos it was lovingly crafted. His last articles dealing with the bastard that got him are as ever, blunt, touching
and…….how could it be otherwise, funny.
He would want us to KEEP ROCKING HARD, it won’t be the same without him, but he was Militant Entertainment personified, this tough but tender bullshit detector.
Goodbye, old lion
Paul Sillett
Archive of Steven’s Guardian articles >> http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/stevenwells
We’ll post up some of Steven’s writings for LMHR and the ANL when we’ve found ‘em.
