Article from Thrasher Magazine
by Mike Glitter

Terrorism can be advanced through art only if it threatens action. Britishers Gaye Bykers On Acid are practitioners of aesthetic terrorism, striking at the hearts and minds of clench-fisted bastions of musical and social conservatism.

"We want to see how far we can push things," reveals boyishly good-looking vocalist Mary Golightly. "There's a sick morality that comes from people who are possibly more twisted and corrupt than we ever are, and that's what we're pushing against," says the blonde vocalist. Though their name connotes Road Warrior cycle gangs, the Gaye Bykers are far from a group of leather clad, gay bar toughs. Instead, they are charming, witty and intelligent. "Gaye is an old English word meaning happy. Our name is a fun name, but we do want to stir things up a bit," says Mary, who is neither female or gay. Bikers? Three of them used to ride, but all have since had their licenses revoked for various offenses.

Borrowing from Monty Python, Dr. Who, Star Trek, Motorhead, The Evil Dead, American hardcore, indulgences in drugs and drink and other sorts of foolishness, Golightly and the Bykers bring to mind Sex Pistols' campaigns of sheer outrageousness. Whether or not they are crass opportunists seeking to make a name for themselves through cultural terrorism (e.g. a name that "proper" British society would consider entirely distasteful), the fact remains that the outfit is staring to make quite a stir among Anglophiles worldwide.

"From the beginning we've been doing things on our terms," boasts Golightly. "We realized that if we wanted to say what was on our minds to a large audience, we would have to be on a bigger label that would be willing to work with us. Industry sucks, but you can't totally avoid it."

The Bykers, formed in 1985 with Mary, dreadlocked guitarist Tony, bassist Reynolds and drummer Dr. "Robber" Jeckyll (sic) (discovered on a Welsh mountainside farming mushrooms), came to prominence with the release of the debut 12" Ep Everythang's Groovy (In Tape), which also included the tracks "T.V. Cabbage" and "Space Rape," a witty protest against the U.S. Star Wars project with many references to Star Trek. Due in part to their outrageous moniker, as well as the success of Everythang's Groovy on dance and independent charts, the band followed up with a second Ep entitled Nosedive Karma (In Tape). They have now branched out into the world of video and film with the recently released Drill You Own Hole, a 45-minute video commentary on the music industry itself. The Bykers have become successful enough to set up their own production company, ominously known as The Purple Fluid Exchange, which currently employs forty people to work on various aspects of the Gaye Bykers' live gigs and future video productions.

"We're living in a video generation," explains Golightly of the band's utilization of the visual medium. "We're living in the age of MTV...MTV get off the air," quips Golightly. "If you put something exciting in front of kids, they're going to get interested in it. Unfortunately, with the existing medium, most of the stuff that they do put on is utter shit. It's very banal."

Incorporating ideas and influences as diverse as Walt Disney's Tron, Mad Max / Road Warrior, Ken Kesey's Electric Kool Aid Acid Test and Monty Python, Drill Your Own Hole roughly follows the plot of Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas as the Bykers, emerging from a washing machine in a wasteland, find themselves inside a video game. "We've part of the video game and Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas is the final goal," Golightly. "We're caught up in the industry, the crass end of the industry with people sitting around tables as they're watching you and eating their dinner. It's a parody along the same lines as Sid Vicious singing "My Way" in The Great Rock'n'Roll Swindle. We're attacking the British music industry in the film. When we signed to Virgin we felt we would have to play a lot of the industry's games, which is why we set the film inside a video game much like Tron.

At 23, Golightly considers himself successful, having risen to the top of Britain's art-school-brat musical clique. All products of a middle class upbringing, Golightly and crew firmly root themselves in both British and American punk traditions while refusing to entrench themselves in any set style. "Before we started this band, we were fans of a lot of anarcho-punk stuff, such as Conflict, Hawkwind and the Dead Kennedys," reveals Golightly. "The problem with a lot of punk bands is that they they're preaching at the converted, and you've got to be able to reach beyond that and get other people involved with punk's school of though."

Far from the typical thrashers and snarlers, the Bykers elaborate on punk's anarchistic, defiant attitude by blending a variety of styles in a post-Motorhead dance beat growl. "I think punk has been marketed and watered down to a point where it's safe. There are still a lot of bands around who are fairly fresh and original. I just saw Scream when they were over in London, and I thought they were great. I also like the Butthole Surfers, Big Black and noisier stuff. I don't see punk so much as an effective force for change as a product of a time and place, and I don't really think that exists anymore. Punk in ‘77 or ‘78 was all-embracing with punks in every school and on the streets. Here in America, the punk movement seems to be very underground. English people will say that punk's dead, anyway, since in a 3,000 person venue you used to have gigs with bands like the Clash or the Jam that would totally pack out the place. Now bands like that are playing venues of maximum 300 capacity."

Tagged as frontrunners in the "Grebo" school of British rock, the Gaye Bykers are often lumped in with the likes of Zodiac Mindwarp and Pop Will Eat Itself because their sheer outrageousness and musical eclecticism. "I hate the fact that the British press sets a pigeonhole for you to neatly jump into," chagrins Golightly, "but if I have to give a definition, a Grebo is an obnoxious, dirty little kid...someone who doesn't care about anything. And we certainly care about a lot of things."

Unhappy with the UK music press, Golightly feels that British music journalism has quite literally failed in presenting any real issues of public interest. The press, he feels, has instead opted for a "sound of the moment" aesthetic. "The press in England is really wimping out on issues and is only satisfying the demands of their publishers. They don't pick up on the seriousness of what we're doing. If there wasn't any seriousness, we probably wouldn't be doing it since we're all basically lazy individuals. The British press creates movements and tags and carries them around for about six months, which is lazy journalism on their behalf. Papers like the New Musical Express, which were always pretty radical, are now being told from above that they should only address certain issues and cover certain topics and this ultimately makes them come off as being stupid on a very unfunny level. The art director at NME got sacked for suggesting they run the Frankenchrist poster in their piece about the Dead Kennedys and their problems with freedom of speech. That tells you just how free the English press really is. They ran a series on Jimmy Swaggart and his new Evangelists because someone high up in the British press in a group called the "Responsible Society," who are pretty much like the PMRC, wanted it. They are actually involved with the company that publishes the NME and because of them, the press is wimping out. Another thing about the NME and all those papers is that they won't print the word "fuck," which is the most widely just term in British speech. It's a morality that doesn't make sense."

You know the stereo isn't safe, but watch out for the telly as Drill Your Own Hole becomes domestically available later this year. These artistic stormtroopers will happily burn psychedelic rubber in their all-out media blitz across America stages, speakers and VCRs in their media-feedback attack on conservative culture as we know it.

Press