Auntie Pus
Auntie Pus, real name Julian Isaacs, was an aspiring Syd Barrett-influenced singer/songwriter, who, who already had the nickname of Auntie in his home locale of Wimbledon before the advent of the long hot summer of ’76 and the strengthening gusts in the sirocco of change that was about to rip through the dust bowl of the UK music industry.
Auntie worked solo: long praised for his quirky, obscure esoteric lyrics, his contemporaries found his idiosyncratic concepts of timing and tuning too untenable for collaboration.
Pus got added to Auntie around February 1977, when Auntie was filling out his entry form for that Years Melody Maker Folk/Rock competition along with a workmate: “We didn’t really know much about Punk, just that most of the artistes’ stage names were either offensive, disgusting or both. I’d read the famous Caroline Coon article about the ’76 punk festival in the South Of France, and knew that my old chum Chris Millar was now Rat Scabies of The Damned, and me and my mate just started chucking names into the air to couple with Auntie. After rejecting things like ‘shit’, piss’, ‘spunk’, etc., we finally settled on Pus. “The entry form for the competition was duly completed, and the London heats were successfully fought and lost, with the support of Auntie’s manager, a larger than life antiques and American car dealer from Brighton who had recently turned musical entrepreneur.
Fast forward to July 1977, when David Scott was promoting weekly punk gigs at the Hastings Pier Ballroom. After the coincidence of David Scott being about to put The Damned on for the second time and Auntie’s links with Rat Scabies emerged, Auntie was placed on the bill between the yet to be Nazi band Skrewdriver and The Damned themselves. Not sure what he should wear on stage for his punk premiere, Auntie did a little research in fanzines and decided that his old junior public school uniform and cap were not inappropriate, in conjunction with the big quiff and long sideburns of the rockabilly rebel that he also sported.
The Hastings gig led to both a favourable review in the Record Mirror and an introduction to Nick Leigh, then The Damned agent Derek Block, who also booked the acts for the Vortex. It also inspired the front page headline “Public School Punk Rocks” in Auntie’s local rag, the Wimbledon News. Auntie went on to support Adam & The Ants and Siouxsie & The Banshees at The Vortex on Halloween night that year (solo), & Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers there three weeks later (with Rat Scabies on drums and Jim Payne on bass)
After that, Auntie’s aspiring parallel careers in shoplifting and drug misuse took priority until approximately a year later when, with the financial backing of David Scott, and the musical backing of Rat Scabies plus Robin Bibi (school friend and musical collaborator of Auntie’s to thus day) on lead guitar and Jim Payne on bass, Auntie entered the renowned Pathway Studios in North London to record two of his most popular and enduring compositions: “Halfway to Venezuela” and Marmalade Freak, as a double A-side single.
The two tracks were produced by Dick Taylor, lead guitarist of the Pretty Things, producer of the first Hawkwind album, and a former neighbour of Aunties in Wimbledon Village. Unfortunately, theft and drugs once more took precedence over rock’n’roll, and the masters gathered dust until summer 1980 when Auntie was being looked after by The Ruts’s manager, Andy Dayman, who successfully negotiated a national distribution deal with Spartan. The record duly emerged blinking in the new wave headlights, and was awarded single of the week in Sounds.
Late ’78-late’80 saw Aunty survive, against most known odds, four Damned tours, 3 Ruts tours, and some of a Splodgenessabounds tour (some because he was unceremoniously escorted off the agenda by the PA Co) as compare, support act and general wind up merchant.
Captain Sensible remembers…Raving mad! We’d park up outside a music shop. I’d go in to get some guitar strings and afterwards we’d be sitting there in the van with the engine running saying “Where’s Puss”. Suddenly you’d turn round and see some worker from Woolworths holding the shop door open and Puss would come out holding a whole load of stuff, electric kettles, toasters, this and that.
He’d bung ’em into the van saying “Drive off quick I’ve nicked ’em”. We’d be saying “Well how the hell did you get away with that. They held the door open for ya”. He’d say “Look if you come out with so much stuff. They don’t believe your nicking it”. He was actually a brilliant thief. He used to go up and down the queue of people outside the gig, selling toasters and stuff. It was absolutely brilliant. Free Radical Sounds
Punk77: The bit that Julian misses out is he ended up in Pentonville Prison for a short period in July 1979. Ironically going in as The Stranglers’ Hugh Cornwall was coming out after his five-week stretch for drug possession.
Julian was also great friends with Arturo from The Lurkers/999 and appears in his book Fat Bloke Thin Book
I’d met Auntie Pus at Elliott School when we were 16. He’d been expelled from King’s Public School, which is on Wimbledon Common, for hitting someone over the head with a Tizer bottle in a card game. [we] hit it off straight away at Elliott, bunking off together and going to gigs by BB KIng, Muddy Waters and loads of other old blues guys.
Halfway to Venezuela / Marmalade Freak (Septic Records) and Auntie Pus and The Ruts Blue Suede Shoes live 1979
By 1981 Auntie Puss had matured – or decomposed, according to your viewpoint, into Auntie & The Men From Uncle, featuring Robin Bibi and Dick Taylor on twin lead guitars, and Arturo and Esso from The Lurkers on bass, drums and kebab consumption. Halfway to Venezuela was re-recorded with some new verses and released on a private limited edition CD by Auntie in 1999, accompanied by Robin Bibi, with Segs from The Ruts on Bass and The Flying Dutchman, Hans Ferrao, on drums. the CD also included a dance remix by Ashley Wales of Spring Heel Jack, and a re-issue of the original 1978 recording
Above article courtesy of Julian Isaacs aka Auntie Pus November 2006
