IT'S THE
SCRITTI POLITICAL BROADCAST

-- Smash Hits, June 10-23, 1982

Johnny Black gets a taste of modern soul music. Photo: Mike Laye.

Surely the picture of robust, understated elegance, relaxing outside a classy central London pub couldn't be Green Gartside, the semi-legendary, semi-deceased anti-hero and intellectual heart of Scritti Politti? Surely a man with the magnificent moniker, Green, wouldn't be seen dad in a bright red, single-breasted, loose-fitting suit.

I was halfway into the snug bar, looking for an ashen faced, wasted wreck of a boy when some impulse made me look again at the athletic figure sipping his half-pint, leafing idly through a thick political tome. It couldn't be, but the resemblance was uncanny. It had to be...I took the plunge.

It didn't take long to establish that this was the genuine article. I'd heard about Green's passion for polysyllables and they soon started to flow.

"No visual or literary culture can match the innate political strength of the pop single. It's a revolutionary text...a violent sensual sexual thing...a most glorious popular madness...Literature can't touch it!" He doesn't half go on when he gets started. His expansive vocabulary makes it difficult for him to use one little word where five big ones will do.

Even more remarkable than his grasp of English is the fact that in the space of a few short months, the music of Scritti Politti has changed from what he now calls "noisemaker stuff, painfully sincere angst" into sweetly soulful pop with immense potential for gouging huge holes in the charts. So why did things suddenly start to go right?

Green assembled Scritti Politti during art-school days in Leeds but, by mid-'78 they were in London, living out the punk ethic in the tradition of The Clash and Public Image, producing pamphlets on D.I.Y. record making and over-indulging in the Bad Life. "We were a sick group for some time. Physically and mentally unhealthy. I used to read and write a lot, which was the only thing I did apart from being debauched and drinking too much.

"We'd have about 18 people round our place in Camden, all supposedly involved with the group, but it gradually became clear that I wrote, sang and arranged everything, while Matthew organised it."

Matthew Kay is as handy with a big word as Green is, but sometimes seems a little in awe of his long-time friend. "Well, he's at least three inches taller than me," he points out, adding, "I'm the business side." Since the early days, he has done the arithmetic, made the phone calls and generally got things done -- a function much appreciated by Green.

"To succeed you need somebody fighting for your interests full-time. Not a management agency, just someone you can work closely with." It was becoming increasingly obvious that Scritti was as much an idea in Green's head as it was a real group. They played live, made records and did interviews but without Green there would have been nothing.

The fast life and the low-life finally caught up with him in late 1979. Although he hadn't seen his parents in five years, they read of his state of health in the music press and asked him to attempt recovery back home in Wales.

In the relative tranquility of Wales he was sustained by family, political writings (Scritti Politti is Italian for "political writing") and an infusion of black music; soul, reggae and dub. Returning to London bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in 1981, Green set about restructuring Scritti and the music. Most of the old group, members and hangers-on had drifted off but Matthew was still organising and, although Green was working mostly with a drum computer, he decided to retain their impressively dreadlocked drummer Tom. "It was stupid, I suppose, but to maintain the impression that there was a real group, we've also been including Matthew in our pictures."

In fact, Matthew shows occasional signs of being a frustrated musician who would enjoy being creatively involved in the group. "I once tried to learn Spanish guitar," he recalls, "but I used metal strings instead of nylon. The neck buckled and it was agony on my fingers."

"It's hard to believe," Green quickly interjects, "but he's actually a worse musician than he is a tennis player."

This might explain why Matthew was not asked to contribute his talents to "The 'Sweetest Girl'", their first post-collapse single for Rough Trade, which started the shift away from pop politics towards a more subtle soulfulness.

"I always loved pop," Green says, "and knew I would eventually make white pop records, with a political sting in the tail. Much better than making a lot of twanging noises."

About this time, too, came the change in clothes styles but, "I see no contradiction in what I wear. I was more dressy uppy when I was a hard-core lefty punk. My appearance is always changing."

Nevertheless, it's also a convenient change in terms of presentation of the group to the public. Green now looks like the star the media have long been proclaiming him to be, and he's becoming the undisputed focus of attention within the changing group structure.

After "The 'Sweetest Girl'", Green set to work on an album, "Songs To Remember", during which producer Adam Kidron introduced him to "these brilliant, ex-borstal North London guys," Joe Cang (bass) and Mike MacEvoy (keyboards) who, together with backing vocalists Lorenza, Mae and Jackie, are the group which Green hopes to weld into shape for the purpose of playing live dates and eventually establishing a permanent new Scritti line-up.

"We just did a John Peel session," says Green with obvious enthusiasm, "and everything worked just beautifully. We really enjoyed playing together and we might put some of that stuff out."

Tom's position remains vague. "Well, he can always stand beside the drum computer and write his postcards home. We've no intention of firing him."

The current single, "Faithless", carries the new direction several stages further, with Green's white-soul approach becoming ever smoother, a casually slick arrangement and some delicious vocal work from the girls. The success Scritti deserves must seem tantalisingly near, but even that raises doubts in Green's ever-active mind.

"I have this terrible fear of failing, but I'm also afraid of succeeding. I used to cling to politics as a scientific guarantee that my principles were right, a guarantee of knowledge," he says rather confusingly.

The other thing that worries him is spiders, although that's not as bad as it once was.

"I'd go to bed and worry that spiders might come through the cracks between the floorboards, so I had to get up, lift the carpet and put sticky tape over the boards. Then I worried in case they came in under the door."

Although the album has been completed for some time, Green and Matthew agreed not to release it until the time seemed right.

"We're incredibly pleased with it and didn't want it to be overlooked. The success we're having with 'Faithless' means we'll probably release it very soon."

According to Green, "Faithless" is about "how living without faith brings you both happiness and sadness. I've never had any religion, except maybe politics, although I am interested in having some means of achieving social order and progress."

With "Faithless" beginning to take off in Britain, it's also encouraging to know that "The 'Sweetest Girl'" was in the New York Times top ten singles of 1981. "We must stand a good chance in America because I've got this sweet voice and we have the kind of nice-sounding songs they like."

Although he's obviously keen to crack the charts, Green doesn't see other groups as his competitors.

"I leave the record company to deal with the mechanics of selling records. As far as kindred spirits, I'd say people like ABC, Heaven 17 and Haircut One Hundred have some affinity with us, but I think we now have a number of strengths which are quite different from anything anybody else has to offer."

Robert Palmer and Grace Jones are both keen to record Green songs, and he's also thinking of re-working some of Scritti's earlier material.

"Some of those songs sounded wrong because we didn't have the technology to do it right." He's already considering the future beyond Scritti though. "I doubt if I'll be performing music forever. Maybe I'll return to political writing, or take up Law. That could be interesting, but I think I'll stick around here as long as it remains enjoyable."

On present form that could be forever.