Carter USM - You Fat Bastard: An Anthology

Say goodnight, Jim Bob!

Jamie Wednesday might have been the archetypal jangle indie-pop band, with their yearning Vote For Love and their almost authentic cover of White Horses. But when they disintegrated in 1987, leaving Jim “Jim Bob” Morrison and Les “Fruitbat” Carter to regroup as a duo for a charity gig at the Astoria, the result was an engaging racket of kitchen-sink drama and defiantly inner-city politics, barbed with sharply witty asides. Crowd-surfing on a wave of samples, thrashing guitars and sequenced drums and bass, their lyrics had not only the righteously indignant tone to back up the anthemic power pop of their music, but also the wry pithiness to underpin it. They were the musical equivalent of Kenneth Williams successfully wielding a sledgehammer – Carry On Sarf London. In their songs everyone was infamous for 15 minutes, “Narnia” rhymed with “former Yugoslavia” and it was always Twenty Four Minutes From Tulse Hill. Described as a punk counterpart to the Pet Shop Boys (their delicious cover of Rent appears here), Carter effortlessly walked the tightrope between thought-provoking lines on child abuse or ethnic cleansing and outrageous popular cultural appropriations. This double-disc, including the previously internet-only Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Everything, is a perfect retrospective.

EMI | 5064085

Reviewed by Ian Abrahams
<< Back to Issue 344