The Drug Addix
Originally called the Tooting Fruities the band mutated into the more punky sounding, if not commercially suicidal, the Drug Addix. They released one single before slimming down the name to become The Addix and released one further single before splitting up. They were also on the same bill as The Vicious White Kids at the historic Electric Ballroom gig.
Described in Zigzag #93 April 1979 as “a four piece raunch & roll band” the band were in essence hi octane rhythm and blues. Also not to be confused with the Suffolk Adicts who had changed their name to avoid confusion.
George Lloyd (alias Art Noveau) Because of the ‘record everything’ strategy I spoke of I had four tunes recorded at Wally Brill’s Clifton Road Studios in Croydon on a cassette tape. I played them to Ted and he said “yeah, lets release it”. There was no real deal I can remember and I’m sure the returns didn’t even pay for the one pressing…but someone came up with that great cover and it’ll be a great conversation piece to show the grandchildren. I think Rick holds the publishing rights to most and Kirsty’s estate possibly the one’s I co-wrote with her.
According to Record Collector in 1994, “The Drug Addix recorded a four track demo which Chiswick promptly released as a single. It whipped up a mini controversy because, in Kirsty’s words, it was “quite rude”. One song, Gay Boys In Bondage, became a talking point for obvious reasons. It was meant to be a parody of the Lou Reed School of Seediness, a piece of camp corn that lent itself to stage dramatics.” The band’s mix of Sweet Jane type riffs and slide-guitar-propelled R&B fell between two audiences.”
Kirsty McColl: All I did on the record was backing vocals. You can barely hear me… We weren’t actually a punk band, but at the time punk was king and we called ourselves that just to get some gigs. Everyone expected an outrageous, Sex Pistols type of band but we weren’t. We were all slide guitar and R&B. I was just the token boiler on backup vocals… Of course that annoyed me but you’ve got to start somewhere. If you can’t really sing and you can’t play anything, you can’t argue about it.
George Lloyd: Kirsty was full of false modesty. Obviously fishing for compliments. She did feature quite heavily on lead vocals…I have old demo tapes of songs I co wrote with her that solely featured her distinctive Croydon whine…I know this ‘cos I have the same type of ‘singing’ voice and was able to harmonise with her quite well.
She was Rick’s lover when in the band, which, traditionally, is the kiss of death for any beat group. When their teenage, mile a minute, volatile, powder fuelled liaison started to lose its thrill they split and she left. I got the blame for it of course…the guitarist or the drummer (or both) always do….but she did seem to want to move towards dance routines and that kind of thing…well she was only a girl after all.
Didn’t see much of her after her ‘rise’ to fame and fortune…but she kept in touch with Rick and mutual chum Brian Neville (‘Pigbag’ sax player, legendary Frooties percussionist and various nefarious… but never hilarious crimes against music)….someone at work told me of her awful ending on the day she died. I was impressed at the massive hard won respect she had from the music industry at large and very sad to hear the news.
Influences….Everything we’d ever heard. I’d say the sentiment of the song lyric writing was close to Frank Zappa. Just an attempt at filthy humour and cynical irony sung over fast 4/4 chord bashes.
Other titles apart from the EP I can remember at this time were:
Marital Bliss
Shoot the Cat
Grill My Sausage
Sweet Little Richard
Motor On
Let’s Go Live In A Squat
Big Fat Lady
Get Up N Shake
Fool in Love
No Such Thing As A Bad Boy
Brown Eyed Handsome Man
Thanks to Alan at kirstymaccoll.com for letting me use some of his information and pictures. Update December 2007
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