Rapid Eye Movement
What links a vibrator with the sexually charged dance troupe of the late seventies Hot Gossip? The answer is the short-lived art rock punk band Rapid Eye Movement formed by guitarist John Ellis in 1979 after he left The Vibrators.
John Ellis I’d been interested in electronic music for a long time and the punk thing was quite constricted; there were certain things you couldn’t do or weren’t supposed to do. So when I left The Vibrators I was free to do whatever I wanted to musically.
I was doing some little demos at home using a Bentley rhythm ace (I was a big fan of a band called Kingdom Come which was Arthur Browns Band and Arthur was the first person I believed to use a drum machine in rock music) and had a synthesiser as well. One of the really, really early small synths that I got through my art school connections. So I was kind of dabbling with the idea of bringing sort of punky sensibility into my songs, but with a kind of bit of electronics. I’d wanted to work with Danny Kleinman again as we had started Bazooka Joe together and he had some interesting ideas.Daniel had a great song called Gonna Marry Annette, which was about a doll that you fell in love with and I had one called The Two Brunos and another called Chicken Men Of America. I’d read an article about the fact that the hormones that were being pumped into meat for burgers in America were giving lots of men breasts. That was the kind of jokey material. We also did Flying Duck Theory and some others I can’t remember.
Then this gig In 1979 with Jean Jacques Burnel for his Euroman Cometh tour turned up and I thought, well, look, that can give us something. So I asked him if we could be one of the supports along with Blood Donor and he very kindly said yes. So it gave us something to focus on and work towards, and we got it together very quickly. Punk77 Interview, October 2024
Also in the band was John Mackie, the drummer out of pub rockers The Stukas, Alan Gruner (Security Risk/Cash Pussies and later Alternative TV) on bass and Richard Atree on keyboards.
The band’s live sets were also augmented by three dancers – Dominique Wood, Katie and Perri Lister. They were from the controversial hypersexual dance group Hot Gossip which featured predominantly black male and white female dancers and were a popular edition to the hugely successful Kenny Everett show.
Quite how the band got the dancers isn’t known, especially as the girls had fairly recently featured on the hit single and video by fellow dancer Sarah Brightman with the disco track I Lost My Heart To A Starship Trooper!
John Ellis I was also interested in the fact that some bands I was seeing were putting on really interesting visual performances as well like the Tubes. That’s why we decided to bring in the dancers on board as well, just to make it visually interesting though I don’t recall how we ended up with the girls from Hot Gossip.
During the song Babies In Jars there is a big long guitar solo. So while I’m playing that solo I’m actually chasing one of the dancers around the stage who’s dressed in a giant baby romper suit and baby mask. So it’s quite like the Tubes who were bringing in a lot of kind of stagecraft into their music as well. Punk77 Interview, October 2024
People’s recollections of their live events seem to recall only the Hot Gossip dancers! The band (or rather John Ellis post the bands split) released just one single in 1979 called Babies In Jars. The song itself was recorded live at Hemel Hempstead at the same time as JJ Burnel’s Crabs was recorded.
John Ellis Well, that only happened because I asked (maybe even paid) the guy who was recording JJ , I think it might have even been Alan Winstanley, to record our set. So somewhere, I think it might be my mum’s loft, are the multi-tracks of that entire performance.
The single was on Rat Race Records and was basically the live recording. Then I did the vinyl Microgroove EP version [under the name John Fury Ellis] but wanted to make it slightly different so I added EBow guitar and Steve Hillage (Gong) did the remix. Then a couple of months ago, because I got all this orchestral software in my computer, I thought I’m gonna just see what happens if I try and use this software and add some strings and brass and stuff into it. So that’s just on SoundCloud. Punk77 Interview, October 2024
The B-side PhotoStadt was recorded in Alaska Studios owned and run by another of John‘s old bandmates Pat Collier who was the bassist in The Vibrators. To keep the list of people going it was produced by Dave Fudger who was a journalist for the NME and member of the Snivelling Shits.
John Ellis That’s me just doing my electronica. So at that time, I was listening to people like Larry Fast and Wendy Carlos who were pioneers and early adopters of pure electronic music. So that was really my nod to those people. Punk77 Interview, October 2024
The band only lasted the duration of the tour.
John Ellis The band died at the end of what was a weird tour really. First one of the band had a fling with one of the dancers and it didn’t turn out very well. Secondly, we didn’t have any gigs or a record lined up, and I thought this isn’t going to go anywhere because of this stuff. The final straw was the last gig with JJ was pretty horrendous. So after that gig, I just got out as quickly as I could and wasn’t interested in pursuing anything really for a little while until the Peter Gabriel and Peter Hamill things came along. Punk77 Interview, October 2024
John would go on to play guitar with Peter Gabriel and Peter Hamill and then join The Stranglers first with and then post Hugh.
Perri Lister had her own set of adventures. She sang backing vocals in Steve Strange’s Visage, was in her own band Boomerang and appeared in Duran Duran videos – she’s topless in their The Chauffeur video if that’s your thing. Not least she was the girlfriend of Billy Idol in a whirlwind of sex and drugs and more for some nine years as his star took off in America.
John is a talented multi-instrumentalist whose recordings span from Electronica to folk. He’s also an novice author. Check out his website and Soundcloud
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