PART 1: England’s Ultimate Cult Deathrock Band

For a long time, Part 1 seemed like perhaps the ultimate cult deathrock and punk band. From Milton Keynes, about 50 miles northwest of London, the band were part of the darker side of the early 80s UK anarcho-punk phenomenon that included Amebix, Rudimentary Peni, The Mob, Lack of Knowledge, Null and Void, The Dead, and others. Flangey and atmospheric postpunk guitars; echoing vocals that reminded of Rudimentary Peni; song titles like “The Corpse,” “The Tomb,” “Incest,” “Ghost,” and “Black Mass”; and creepy black and white artwork – it was easy to imagine the band as a coterie of fog-enshrouded ghouls banging out their particularly morbid take on punk in a dark tomb on England’s moors. Like Amebix, who – it is hard to believe now – languished in relative obscurity until the internet revived interest through viral file- and video-sharing, so lately Part 1 are on the verge of being given their proper due. Although Part 1’s records are still out of print, the band’s original members have started to practice together again.

Read the rest of this feature after the jump!

Most Americans’ first encounter with Part 1 came from the Pusmort Records’ 1985 “Cleanse the Bacteria” compilation. Among bands like Poison Idea, 7 Seconds, Septic Death, Siege, Corrosion of Conformity, and Mob 47, Part 1’s track, “Black Mass,” (see video below) stands out: The tempo is slower and the grim atmosphere is laid on thick and heavy. A bonus 7” EP treated listeners to another Part 1 track, “Possessed.” Pushead was so impressed with the band he released a short LP by them, Pictures of Pain, on the Pusmort label within the year. The band was mostly a mystery, a question mark of morbid curiosity amid the fast-and-furious thrashy hardcore of the era.

In England, however, fans in the anarcho-punk scene affiliated with the Crass Records bands were more likely to have heard and even seen the band. To date, the most information about the band has come by way of Ian Glasper’s The Day the Country Died, a collection of interviews surveying the UK anarcho-punk phenomenon that features a small chapter devoted to Part 1. But why would a book about political punk feature a section on what clearly seems to be a deathrock band?

In fact, an early Part 1 recording, “Marching Orders,” shows the band’s early roots in political punk: The tune’s riffs seem lifted almost directly from the Sex Pistols’ “Belsen Was a Gas” but without the guitar flanger characteristic of later Part 1 recordings. According to Glasper’s book, Penny Rimbaud contacted Part 1 after hearing “Marching Orders” to see about releasing it on one of Crass’s “Bullshit Detector” compilations of underground punk bands. As Part 1’s musical direction took a turn for the gloomier, the band asked Crass to pull the song from the record, feeling “Marching Orders” was no longer representative of their sound. Crass agreed and so Part 1’s reaching an audience through the powerful megaphone of Crass Records never occurred.

In the meantime, Part 1 played live shows with bands that will be familiar to fans of the anarcho-punk and positive punk scenes – shows with bands like Blood and Roses, Rudimentary Peni, The Mob, The Apostles, Lack of Knowledge, The Sinyx, and others. Rounding out the darker and more funereal side of the British punk scene of the early 1980s along with bands like Screaming Dead and The Dead, Part 1 founder Mark Ferelli dyed his hair black, grew something akin to a devilock, wore long black overcoats, and drew a lot of the Lovecraft-inspired artwork that appears on the early Part 1 demo tape, “In the Shadow of the Cross.” Ferrelli’s friend Nick Blinko, singer of Rudimentary Peni, also contributed artwork to the band, ultimately. In fact, the relationship with Rudimentary Peni is an important one in several different ways: Rudimentary Peni funded the recording and release of the first (and to date, only) Part 1 EP, “Funeral Parade.” This was released under the aegis of “Paraworm Records,” Mark Ferrelli’s name for Part 1’s label. Ferrelli and Blinko were friends and shared a mutual love for HP Lovecraft; Blinko even inserted a character based on Ferelli into his novel, Primal Screamer – the character “Simeon.”

Part 1 mostly played shows at the Wapping Autonomy Centre and at Centro Iberico, two anarchist venues funded largely through Crass’s record sales. Although these centers had political purposes, and although Part 1 were largely sympathetic to the ideals of England’s DIY anarcho-punk movement, the band sounded nothing like their faster compatriots and did not dwell as much on the political in their lyrics (although songs like “Hymn” are notable exceptions). Early on the lineup of Jake Baker on vocals, Bob Leith on drums, Mark Ferelli on guitar, and Chris Pascoe on bass had cemented.

Members of the band have noted the influence of bands like Bauhaus, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and UK Decay – specifically, a Bauhaus/UK Decay show in Luton where UK Decay guitarist Steve Spon’s heavy usage of a flange pedal helped influence Ferrelli’s guitar playing. (Siouxsie and the Banshees’ oft-overlooked second LP, 1979’s Join Hands, with guitarist John McKay, has also been cited.) In an interview I did with Part 1 singer Jake Baker late last year, I asked what Part 1’s Google-resistant band name meant. “[T]he name represented a new beginning which we found ourselves at after the garage bands had burnt out and kind of stamped the direction in which the music was now moving,” Baker said. “I think it may have been Mark (Ferelli) & Chris (Pascoe, bassist) who came up with the name.”

In 1985, horror artist, Thrasher columnist, and Septic Death singer Brian “Pushead” Schroeder signed them up for the Pictures of Pain LP on his own Pusmort Records. 1985 was also the band’s final year. The Pictures of Pain cover art by Deborah Valentine is iconic in the annals of horror punk and deathrock, even though, contrary to what is often reported, Rudimentary Peni’s Nick Blinko did not draw it. In sum, Part 1’s combined visual art portfolio has included contributions from Pushead, Nick Blinko, and the band’s own Ferelli — a list of unusually talented artists. Original vocalist Jake Baker left the band in 1983, and by 1985’s final show opening for The Subhumans at the 100 Club, the band had been playing with Ferelli as singer for two years. Part 1 existed from 1980 until 1985, about 5 years, if you don’t count their recent practicing together again.

Due to the same sort of internet interest that inspired Amebix to get back together and record, so Part 1 decided to meet and practice again in 2010. A deal for releasing all of Part 1’s back catalog – which is still all out of print – was supposedly reached with anarcho-punk label BBP Records and Tapes, but that fell through. A reunion show was planned with fellow gloomy punks The Mob, who have also recently reunited, but this also fell through. As of this writing, the band’s material is only available through mp3 file sharing sites, or from finding the vinyl on eBay, where prices regularly go into the hundreds of dollars. Recent dark punk bands like Alaric and Cross-Stitched Eyes have cited a debt to Part 1. Their profile is sure to grow over time as fans spread the word.

There is a semiofficial Facebook page for the band at https://www.facebook.com/picturesofpain

PART 1 VIDEOS:

1) Part 1 – “The Corpse”:

2) Part 1 – “Black Mass”:

3) Part 1 – “The Tomb” (alternate version):

4) Part 1 – “Hymn”

5) Part 1 – Funeral Parade EP side A:

6) Part 1 – Funeral Parade EP side B:

7) Part 1 – “Possessed”: