Screaming Lord Sutch's ghost won't stand down
It was in 1999 that Londoner David Sutch, only 58, bid goodbye to us, one and all. Depression's smothersome bleakness exacted horrible penalty. Among distressing matters, he'd never gotten over the passing of his mum, with whom he'd been quite close.
Details of his mortal coil exit are insignificant to deserved celebration of his singularity.
By his own admission, the self-dubbed 'Lord' was not a gifted singer. But enthusiasm splashed front rows. His knack for shocking presentation was ever manifest, and his place in the pantheon assured.
Over decades, his ghoulish songs have assumed revered status, having been covered by bands like the Sharks, Gruesomes, White Stripes, and a score of hyper-amped Psychobilly mutations.
Sutch was in the rank of early 1960s British rockers like Marty Wilde, Tommy Steele, Cliff Richard, and Wee Willie Harris. But it would be gross understatement to observe he merely differed from marquee fellows.
While impeccably combed sensations purred of matters fluffy, Sutch set about the horrid business of resurrecting England's infamous Jack the Ripper, and intoning craftily of a vampire's retiring to silk-lined repose.
Notable of that era was the string of Joe Meek-produced, horror-drenched 45s Sutch unleashed upon shops. ("When I went up these rickety stairs, I couldn't believe this was where all these number one records had come from," Sutch would later recall to a BBC interviewer, of his initial encounter with the storied producer.)
Titles "Jack the Ripper," "Monster in Black Tights," "Dracula's Daughter," "Til the Following Night," and "She's in Love with a Monster Man" bespoke dark and fetid phenomena - with a wicked wink.
Spirited covers of "Don't You Just Know It," "Honey Hush," "Great Balls of Fire," and "Good Golly Miss Molly" further ensured his welcome in sideburned surroundings.
(Later Lordy tunes included "All Black and Hairy," "Murder in the Graveyard," "Monster Rock," "Loonabilly," "Disco Crusher," and "Rockabilly Madman.")
Sutch had nicked his character moniker from Cleveland-born Screamin' Jay Hawkins. He injected into namby-pamby, Pop-crooner days, Rock'n'Roll that made much of its scandalous, wildside mien, with both the snarl of a ghoulish maldoer and the maniacal laugh of a rabidity-ravaged hyena.
Nattily suited, innocuous Liverpudlian moptops may have been "yeah-yeah-yeahing" to swooning schoolgirls on Ed Sullivan's program, but Sutch was of far sterner metal. He sometimes slathered on a greasepaint fright mask and wrapped himself in the folds of a black creeper cloak, wielding oversized menacing dagger.
Other nights, he donned a leopard-skin caveman fur and hefted a cartoonishly awkward axe. Whichever costume he chose, he always scared audiences into fears unforgettable.
Sutch prowled stage fronts in swirling cloak and horrific creature coloration, cavorting as the notorious axeman of Olde London's gaslit, cobbled roads. His Rock'n'Roll horrorshow costumery and theatrics scandalized sedate Britishers, sent chills down the spines of toe-tapping fans, and recalled the fabled Parisian Grand Guignol.
But they also proved influential.
According to his Wikipedia page: "During the 1960s, Sutch was known for his horror-themed stage show, dressing as Jack the Ripper, pre-dating the Shock-Rock antics of Alice Cooper. Accompanied by his band the Savages, he started by coming out of a black coffin...Other props included knives and daggers, skulls, and 'bodies.'"
(Blurry auctorial recollections: I read, years ago, of Sutch's once appearing on a late-1960s festival bill. Then-unknowns the Alice Cooper band was among others appearing. It's hardly unthinkable that Vince Furnier and his fellows drew much inspiration from monstrous minstrel Sutch. In fact, a later interview portrayed Cooper pulling legs from a spider and expressing his wish that the insect were competitor the Screaming One.)One tour was dubbed Sutch and the Roman Empire. In related performances, the singer and mates were garbed in suitably-historic armor.
A Dangerous Minds profile read: "Sutch appeared to have done most of Pop's rebellious things (long hair, the wildest songs, act, etc) but never received the credit for any of it."
His assumptive Lordship would eventually jettison "Screaming" from his title. Membership in his revolving cast of bandmates proved propitious for future professional fortunes. Among later-famed players who toiled at the monster-man's elbow over years were Jimmy Page, Charlie Watts, Jeff Beck, Noel Redding, Keith Moon, and Nicky Hopkins.
A 1972 festival concert featured Sutch, backed by musicians including Moon, Redding, and Ritchie Blackmore. Legend holds that recording the live Hands of the Ripper was done surreptitously, and it wasn't until participating players saw the LP that bore their names on racks, that they even knew of the vinyl's actuality.
A common critical brickbat was "worst record ever." Not that the stalking menace likely gave a toss. (Similarly doubtful is that any 'heavy friends' involved listed the record on their resumes.)
Sutch remained on the road through subsequent decades, spreading his iconic message of Rock'n'Roll's grisly glories to beery punters 'round the countryside. Festival crowds through the nineties also beheld his show-bizzy abominableness.
The top-hatted, leopard-print-coated rouser was in later performances likely to drape a toilet seat/lid about his neck, whilst pumping arms frantically and fixing front-row loonies with a googly-eyed, broadly grinning countenance.
Whether what transpired next was convivial romping or chilling maliciousness was anyone's guess. (A mixture of the pair often sprouted.)
Donning a piggy mask, fireman's red helmet, yellow construction hard hat, torching fires on stage boards, flapping bolts of fabric, or madly ringing town-crier handbells were amongst Sutch's antics.
("He's a right nutter," a fan might have laughed. "And he's all aces in my book!")
All the while, frantic Rock'n'Roll guitars zoomed piercingly, and thunderous rhythms shook halls. For all the macabre eyewash, Sutch was as solidly of relentlessly pounding musical uproar as any jukebox JD.
During this same period, he inflicted his oddness on English politics as the founder and chieftain of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party. (Which may well have inspired Monty Python jesting.)
The bearer of helter-skelter, willy-nilly ill tidings became something of a curious fixture in electoral spectacles. His gaudy getups and theatrically demented joviality made for gladsome spectacle in otherwise drab doings.
He and other OMRLP party candidates for Parliment always lost, though a couple of small-pond council aspirants did take home victories. Too, his proposed notion of enfranchising younger voters did eventually gain purchase.
Monster Raving in the Long Black Coffin, a 2011 Western Star Records tribute, gave the Sharks, Jack Rabbit Slim, Wild Bob Burgos, Frenzy and more an opportunity to rock out homage to the dreaded cult star in whose wake generations of bop monstrosities had risen. (The same year, the Sharks had themselves issued their own tribute EP: Songs from the Sarcophagus, also a Western Star disc.)
Raise a mug, then, to Screaming Lord Sutch - a flamboyant and histrionic, bigger-than-big, three-chord vulgarian whose ebony carryings-on are today beloved and emulated by Psychobillies both above and beneath sod. His true-believer-from-the-darkside ravings will surely resound into perpetuity.
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