I first saw Pulp about a year ago when they livened up a depressing night at the Royal Hotel with their youthful energy and sense of fun. Still, I thought they might be one of those bands you see once and then never again, as they sink into the realms of the millions who never carry on in the face of apathy. Pulp did carry on, even though at the time they didn’t send me details about the group so I could write about them then. Pulp are still injecting colour and light into mundane, grey lives, as you’ll realise if you read my review of their gig at the Hallamshire in Issue 21. Pulp are a pop group, so perhaps it’s wrong for me to write about them, except I still like pop music when it’s pure and honest, and anyway, ever since I started printing I’ve spent days on end listening to Radio 1, which tends to warp the brain a bit, and I find myself liking a lot of music which I find quite immoral.

Pulp are four persons, ages 15-18, who go to City School where they have to listen to teachers lecturing on the virtues of work over playing in bands. Perhaps they’ll take the band a bit more seriously after their session is broadcast on Radio 1. They gave John Peel a tape at his Sheffield Polytechnic roadshow date, and spent the next two weeks glued to the radio every night between ten and twelve in case he mentioned them. Two weeks later he did. And as if that wasn’t enough he then phoned them up to arrange a session, which was being recorded on 7th November in London.Pop Talk is also celebrating potentially the event of the decade [OK, maybe a bit over the top] with a competition with a Pulp T-shirt, badge poster, sticker and copy of the record as a prize.

«We used to practice round me Grandma’s using the coal scuttle for drums», says gangling lead singer/guitarist/songwriter Jarvis Cocker explaining the group’s humble origins. «The first song we learned to play were House Of The Rising Sun. Then we wrote one called Shakespeare Rock.»Goodies go to the first person to tell us which comment or comments have been said about Pulp in The Star

Armed with their own songs they stunned the world first at Rotherham Arts Centre in July 1980, then progressed to other local venues and the highlight of their stage career so far, supporting Echo & The Bunnymen at the Limit. They recorded some songs at Ken Patton’s Handsworth home studio with a view to releasing a single but decided they couldn’t afford to follow it through. In any case, they say the recording was ‘a bit smoothie’.

1. Power pop with bottle.
2. A cross between comedy and music.
3. Sheffield’s brainiest band.
4. A cross between Abba and The Fall.

The thing which immediately sets Pulp apart from other bands if you go and see them live (a recommended experience) is their sense of EVENT. «Lots of groups just go and stand there and don’t do anything» bemoaned Jarvis in explaining why they do things like wearing cardboard cones over their heads and having girls come on stage and drape toilet rolls round them. Incidentally, one of the girls was quite upset about falling off the stage when they played at the Hallamshire, and even more upset when the incident was reported in NMX, but has now come to terms with fame and acclaim and is quite proud of it. «It’s something to look at… makes it a bit more interesting. One thing that sparked it off—I read in that Grey Matter magazine about Prior To Intercourse, that performance art thing… it were all supposed to be meaningful. We’re taking the piss out of things being artistic and meaningful, because it weren’t».In another room, there’s a young man called Russell Senior lying on the floor looking at the ceiling. «Are you ill?» I ask. «No, just resting.» These are two members of a pop group called Pulp. Pulp take me to a room in which everything—walls, tables, sofa—is completely brown, except for a huge plastic bag full of empty Heinz Beans cans. They tell me that it’s not an artistic gesture or a performance prop, it’s just that the person who lives there likes beans. They furrow their brows and cross their gangly legs and wait for the questions. Pulp were kicked out into the world in 1980. Jarvis was young, fresh faced and just out of school. «I was so soft then, I used to write about love and all that stuff. Now I’m a cynical old get.»

Musically, Pulp churn out catchy, short songs with a definite bizarre touch. Their sound is ramshackle, twanging and clanging guitar, tinny synth, pounding drums. The songs fall into three categories—«Nice love songs, well they’re not really nice… alright they are I suppose, I have to admit it, other ones with stories like waking up and finding you haven’t got the same face you went to bed with and nobody else notices, very existentialist and another about being trapped on a South Sea Island by this woman with voodoo powers… then there’s the social comment ones (much laughter). We haven’t got much social comment.» Which isn’t to say they don’t feel strongly about certain issues, just they can’t see the point in singing about them unless they can think of my anything original to say on the subjects.LAST year Pulp had a single called Little Girl out on Fire Records. A theatrical trouserless romp around the scenery of love, it didn’t get played on the radio and some people said nasty things about its sauciness.
«I always thought it was a bit banal,» says Russell. «It’s a lot less dirty than most of the other records in the charts and yet John Peel wouldn’t play it: I can’t understand what the fuss is about myself. My mum likes it.» One of the songs on the B-side, The Will To Power caused even more eyebrows to raise with its remarks about getting back the Spirit of 1933.

Influeunces? Devo, Bunnymen and punk, though to educated ears they have more in common with the best music of the late sixties era, none of which they’ve been exposed to. Last words from the group: «I want to be a pop star but not like Phil Oakey». Can’t say I blame them.So Pulp, are you really Nazi stormtroopers? «Well, they had good uniforms.» «No, of course we’re not. The song was written in 1983 when we were living in a real SDP kind of environment, where no one had any opinions on anything. I wanted people to take sides, to get off the fence.» «I’d been reading about Germany at that time and the class conflict. I liked that atmosphere but obviously not from the point of view of being a Nazi. A lot of Left Wing statements are too wishy washy, too nice. I like the sharpness of the Moseleyite addresses. They were on the wrong side but they were better organised.»