The Sick Things

The Sick Things never actually released a single but did feature with 2 tracks on the Raw compilation album Raw Deal. There’s been some debate over the years whether the Sick Things actually were a band or were hastily put together to take advantage of an ad from Raw records to record unsigned bands. The truth is that they were a band, albeit probably one of the shortest lived, and like many bands of the time they formed quickly and availed themselves of the opportunities thrown up by the new musical landscape; managing a gig and by sheer luck being recorded before realising their limitations, imploding and sending it members elsewhere which include the Moors Murderers, pre-Pretenders, almost made it bands and for some success and others a more lurid end.

Richard Durrant (Sick Things Guitarist):  Myself and Malcolm Hart were from Feltham and were at school together. We were both into Bowie and rock music in general, but then we both discovered punk together and saw the Pistols and The Clash amongst many others. Malcolm was the first to get into the scene and was one of the first Roxy Club goers.

I was playing lead guitar in various bands, but Malcolm wasn’t into playing all that much at that time, although we had played together at school. I was only 16 when I was in a covers band doing gigs in West London. Then me and Malcolm decided we were going to form a punk band with Malcolm on Bass. Malcolm met Charlie and was kind of seeing her and we all began rehearsing in the old fire station in Feltham, which had become a community centre sort of place. She had some lyrics and I wrote some music for them We only had about 6 songs and 4 appeared on the EP. Punk77 2020

Richard Durrant (Sick Things Guitarist): It all happened very quickly.. we rehearsed about six times and she’s written these lyrics about sleeping with bats, she was into the shock element of it all. Malcolm and I were more into the New York Punk scene The Heartbreakers (Johnny Thunders, not Tom Petty’s}, Television, Ramones etc, so we had a few different elements to our sound. The songs were pretty fast. I don’t know how we played Street Kids so fast to be honest, but that energy was brilliant. We put an ad in a local paper to find a drummer and a guy turned up from Weybridge, which is nearby but he was unreliable and not the best.

We also got a manager, but I can’t remember her name. I think she saw the Raw ads demo thing. Punk77 2020

According to Lee Wood it was Charlie who phoned up and charmed Lee Wood.

Lee Wood (Raw Records owner): After The Killjoys record was released in July 1977, demo tapes started to arrive. I put an advert in the classifieds of Music Maker (in those days the main paper for musicians), and the telephone never stopped ringing. One of the phone calls came from a girl who called herself “Charlie”. She worked for a record pressing plant in the West London area. In a call that probably lasted 45 minutes her personality was so sparkling that I agreed to record her band without ever seeing or hearing them. They were called The Sick Things!

After my phone chat with Charlie they came up to Cambridge on the Sunday (29.9.77) and recorded the tracks at Spaceward. They were due to come up again – probably to take photos, etc but went off and did a gig. Punk77 2010

Richard Durrant recalls

We recorded those 4 tracks in about 2 hours. Malcolm, me Charlie and Andrew. We were a bit shocking…we were a bit rock n roll and over the top and Lee was like this Cambridge hippy. I can’t really say what we did but there was a fair amount of shenanigans going on and lets leave it at that. Punk77 2020

Fast frenetic songs coupled with some extreme lyrics. Two excellent tracks on the Raw Deal compilation – Bondage Boy and Street Kids. Delightful lyrics including bondage, sadomasochism,  shagging whores, VD, anal sex and sleeping with the dead! These two tracks plus two others (Antisocial Disease & Sleeping With The Dead) were to be released in 1979 as Raw 28 as an ep but never were.

The other songs appeared later. First on Lee Wood’s Chaos records (below L), with terrible sleeve, and later Damaged Goods (below R). Somewhere in Spacewars archives hopefully exists two of the above songs reworked but heavier and with Richard Durrant’s vocals but more about that later. That’s not the Sick Things on the cover by the way, but it is Charlie on the Right. There are no photos of the band.

So gig wise just the one gig that wasn’t advertised anywhere. They were due to do a tour of unsigned bands as part of the Upstairs at The Rainbow punk night but neither took off.

Richard Durrant (Sick Things Guitarist): The Vortex became the next big punk place in Wardour street. It was a really good club and decent size stage and that was where we did our one gig.

We went up and did the demo and we had the gig booked at the Vortex supporting Sham 69. It was packed out. Our drummer hadn’t turned up, so Jimmy Pursey played drums at the soundcheck. He was from Walton, just down the road from us. We had a good laugh and for the gig his drummer played with us. We probably only played for about 10-15 minutes with the speed we played and the length of the songs. Punk77 2020

Placing it in the Vortex gigography is hard as it doesn’t match any recorded dates or line up. The closest I can find is 4th September Sham 69/Wire/Solid Waste/Bazooka Joe but Richard thinks this isn’t the one.

A second demo session was arranged and even a third planned

Lee Wood (Raw Records owner): My memory recalls that for some reason they actually came up and did a second recording session. I think it was the same songs. I cannot recall but one of the sessions I felt was inferior. I think a third session was planned but the band was falling apart and it never happened. I thought they were great. Punk77 2010

The band indeed was falling apart.

Reflecting for the Punk 77 interview Richard reflects on the band and that whole punk ethos of making it happen.

Richard Durrant (Sick Things Guitarist): With the benefit of hindsight, we were young and naïve and didn’t know any better. We were pretty raw, the real Raw Deal, we were pushed along, oh come and do a demo. Come and do a gig and it fell apart as quick as it came together.

A lot of people saw different things in the whole punk movement, music, fashion, style, politics or whatever but for me the “anything is possible” attitude was the main thing. Before then, that didn’t seem to be the case. Rock stars were a million miles away. The belief we can do that.. lets find a way. Punk77 2020

For the Sick Things the story ends there but not for the band members.

Charlie also goes to work for Lee Wood for a while as Raw relocate from Cambridge to London.

Lee Wood (Raw Records owner): For a few months Raw Records moved office to in Kensington Park Road, in Notting Hill in London. Charlie from The Sick Things was my secretary. Why I decided to move things to London I’m not sure. Just another whim! Punk77 2020

Back though in March 1977 Swedish Punk band Pain had visited London and Charlie had got to know them.

Hocky (The Pain) In March 77 we were in the Pain and visited London to play and so had met Charlie and her friend Polly on Kings Road, I think it was, and told them that we stayed in a hotel in Bayswater. So they showed up at the hotel and more or less moved into one room with the others who lived there during the week.

In March 1980 after receiving an invitation from one of the guys Charlie goes to Sweden for a holiday and meets up with the guys above and Chatterbox is formed releasing a single ‘Forgotten Heroes’ penned by Charlie herself. The band in that incarnation is short lived.

Hocky (The Pain) A few years later sends a letter and Charlie comes over to Sweden to visit and stay in one half years or so. When she’s going to be thrown out by the authorities, she marries Pelle Almgren and stays in the Chatterbox, we had with Charlie on synth and little singing but we got tired of her pretty soon.

After this the trail goes cold on what Charlie did next but the story ends well as Charlie is now a successful and famous make up artist in demand.

For Richard and Malcolm next stop would be hooking up with Steve Strange and Chrissie Hynde in arguably the most infamous punk band the Moors Murderers and the never ending revolving door of its members. Malcolm was already in the band from knowing Strange on the club scene and Richard joined shortly after working on songs before after a handful of rehearsals both decided that though the band and songs were really good that this career move may be bad for the their physical well being ie being beaten up being in such a controversially named band.

Hooking up with Chrissie Hynde again they help work up some of here songs and again after a few rehearsals move on to form Lonesome No More reuniting the last line up of the Sick Things with a new girl singer.

We also headlined many London shows in our own right, including the Marquee and did some joint headline gigs with the Psychedelic Furs.

I left the band in 1981 as I needed a change and the vibe had changed, but they later went on to release a single before disbanding.

I joined Only After Dark and enjoyed my time with them immensely, They became one of the top unsigned bands in London over the next few years.  Punk77 2020

And because you can’t make it up…Years later Koulla Kakoulli would become infamous as a dominatrix and bodybuilder and was found dead in 2018 in her flat with a lethal combination of cocaine, diazepam, mephadrone and ketamine in her body.

“A bodybuilding grandmother who was a well-known dominatrix was found dead in her “dungeon” in Brighton with a cocktail of class A drugs in her system, an inquest was told.

Koulla Kakoulli, 56, known as Mistress Dometria, ran a private torture chamber for clients in the city. She also starred in hardcore fetish films and regularly competed in international bodybuilding tournaments.

She was found on the floor of her bedroom in the flat known as the Brighton Dungeon or Erotic Boudoir.” 

Times 23.11.2018

And as a fitting end to this piece the Coroner Veronica Hamilton-Deeley described the dominatrix as an extraordinary woman and recorded an open verdict. She said:

 “She was extremely professional in her work. Of the many people I’ve met, Koulla was one of the most amazing. Leading her life as she wanted to. Extraordinarily well organised with a huge number of people who loved her.”

Times 23.11.2018

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September 2010 | Updated April 2020

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