Remember the Ruts

John Robb rightly remembers Ruts' frontman, Malcolm Owen, as well as one THE great UK bands, in a new article over at the Quietus.

Can it really be three decades since Ruts frontman Malcolm Owen died?

In 1980, just weeks after Ian Curtis’s suicide, another key frontman was dead. And while Curtis has become iconic, Owen and his band - who were already influential at the time of his death - have somehow have been nimbly airbrushed from the annuls of history.

The Ruts, who burst onto the punk-rock battlefield in 1979, were the perfect synthesis of punk and reggae, moving it on from The Clash into a tougher yet powerfully melodic place. Their musicianship was spot on and imaginative, and Owen was briefly given the mantle of spokesman for the punk-rock generation. Continued here.

Eccentric Sleevenotes interviews Ruts' drummer Dave Ruffy in a career spanning style.

Dave Ruffy’s ‘CV’ reads like a ‘who’s who’ of left field pop over the past 30 years. It includes the Ruts, Prefab Sprout, Aztec Camera, Waterboys, Sinead O’Connor and Kirsty MacColl. Primarily a drummer, Dave’s credits also include song writing, production and Midi drum programming.

Dave Ruffy is a teller of vivid stories; recreating dialogue in the present tense, mimicking voices and inflections, and frequently ending the reported conversation with a question to give extra resonance. He admits to digressing a lot, “just to give you extra background”. The background begins with a head spinning journey back to a time when record retailers thrived and vinyl junkies weren’t constantly answering the two inseparable questions, ‘can you still get records/record players?’ Continued here.

And don't forget, my very own interview with Dave Ruffy & bassist Segs Jennings regarding the Ruts DC uber dub masterpiece collaboration with Mad Professor, Rhythm Collision. Read it over at Perfect Sound Forever.