The Secret History of Scritti Politti

-- Smash Hits, June 5-18, 1985

A German cowboy, a thug with a "brilliant tattoo", an editor of Saudis Arabian water atlases, an orchestra-conducting park keeper, a "wild" free-form ballet dancer: these are just some of Scritti Politti's immediate ancestors. No wonder the groups a bit weird, says Peter Martin...

GREEN STROHMEYER-GARTSIDE, to give him his full name, has a strange bunch of ancestors. His dad, like his father before him, was a bit of a lad. Grandfather Strohmeyer was German and spent most of his time on ships, sailing between his homeland and America, where he was a cowboy, and occasionally stopping off in Cardiff "to procreate with his Welsh wife".

In time he promised to give up this hardy lift after one last trip. Unfortunately it proved to be his last trip, final. "The ship was carrying oil and not far out of Cardiff docks it blew up -- and it was mighty tragic."

Undaunted, Green's dad followed in Grandpa's slipstream and took to the life of a merchant seaman. "He had this brilliant tattoo on his arm saying 'Man's Downfall' under a picture of a naked woman coming out of the sea. He didn't pay much attention to it though -- a definite case of a girl in every port".

Eventually he got married to Green's mum (who 'd just got straight out of Clark's Secretarial School in Cardiff) and settled down. Kind of. "He was a young thug, basically. He went on to get a job as a travelling salesman, which he took to because it meant he could again have his girl in every port. Anyway all this led to the eventual decline and dissolution of my family and they were divorced."

His mother then got a job as a lawyer's secretary and eventually fell in love with the lawyer -- who was 20 years her senior -- and married. Green was 12. Or rather "a boy with one of the top five christian names since the war" was 12. So why the change to Green? "I just said sod this for a game of soldiers and changed it to Green -- I was on a train at the time and the land was glowing green. The name's just become totally meaningless now."

Unlike Fred and David's parents, Green's were "viciously opposed to any involvement with music. I couldn't bring any of my mates into the house with long hair. Any mention of music drove them mad. There came a stage when I wanted my hair like Rod Stewart and my mother threatened me -- and I just ran away."

And off he went to find his fortune. But it was no life of womanising for Green; instead he went to art school, became a punk and formed a group. The rest, more or less, is history.

"i much prefer Scritti as a proper group. Like today I was feeling really, really ill -- I mean I am really ill, readers, believe me, Green is a sick man -- and I come along and I feel just so much better for being with David and Fred. I do get worried for them though, being away from home for so long, getting homesick. I just hope we can see it through, together.

"If people buy our records, then the sky's the limit -- we'll feel vindicated in what we've done and be able to continue as we are. We sorely need a vote of public confidence. I mean we get enough adulation from other musicians -- Duran voting for our singles in the polls, and even David Bowie ringing up to say he liked our stuff. Now all we need is the press and the public to follow suit and that's it!

"We've just got to go on and be disparaging about our contemporaries. I mean, in terms of style or music or whatever -- it's all dull, total crap. The shops are full of garbage and nobody gives a monkeys. Last year it was alright wearing your John Galliano waistcoats and hair, but now there's just no point. Scritti Politti has beaten the retreat to rest on the laurels of our music. Anyone with long hair in 1985 is a mega-prat.

"What I say is -- cut your hair, retreat to your denims and seethe and plot and rot and get ready to erupt." And who can say fairer than that?

FRED MAHER's mum was a lawyer in the City Hall, Cleveland, Ohio which was a "very weird thing for a woman to be at the time". Now she's an 'occupational therapist', working primarily with old people. His father was, and still is, a writer. He's had one published novel, The Distant Music of Summer, which Fred hasn't read and, much to his shame, has difficulty in even remembering the title. "He's totally infatuated with writing. I mean he even edited a water atlas of Saudis Arabia. That's bizarre!" Like David, he still stays with his parents when he's in New York, in the "bohemian" 71st Street.

Fred took up the drums when he was 11. "I did want to learn saxophone but those lessons were on Saturday morning and I was pretty much into the cartoons on the TV so I chose drums -- that class was on a Friday."

At 13 he got involved with New York's hive of 'avant-garde' musicians. "I went to my first rehearsal and just based out some Led Zeppelin songs." But his first proper group were Material, a weird and influential bunch of "free-form" musicians. He dropped out of school when he was 16 and toured the States with them in a school bus. And it was with Material that he first came to Green's attention, being a bit of an ultra-hip cult thing back in London. and vice versa. "In Material we used to buy all sorts of strange stuff and I got this 7" EP by Scritti Politti in a polythene bag containing two pieces of paper with words scrawled all over it. I liked the name."

But it wasn't until three years later that he actually got to play with Green. That was on the ill-fated "Small Talk" single, produced by Chic-person Nile Rodgers and never to see the light of day. (It was the last thing Scritti did for independent company Rough Trade and a legal wrangle ensued.)

"I'll never forget the first time I saw Green. It was in the studio in New York and he came up to me and said 'hello, I'm Green, I'm terrible'. He'd been out the night before with Marc Almond and he looked a bit the worse for wear."

Since then he's helped out, like David, on all the Scritti singles ("Wood Beez", "Absolute", "Hypnotize" and "The Word Girl" and the new LP, "Cupid And Psyche '85"). He now lives in London flat (with David) and doesn't appear even a mite homesick.

DAVID GAMSON's mother, Annabelle, is the "foremost Isadora Duncan revivalist in America". Isadora was a legendary 'free-form' ballet dancer and Annabelle regularly packs out New York's prestigious Carnegie Hall with stylised performances. Apparently she's a bit of a "wild woman". At the age of 16 she was a chorus girl on Broadway, then she toured with the American Ballet Theatre. And she danced her way through the American depression in an assortment of 'Cotton Club'-style niteries. And then came the passion for Isadora Duncan.

His father's claim to fame was as assistant conductor to Leonard Bernstein with New York's Philharmonic Orchestra. Before that he had an opera company in Italy, where David spent his infant years. When the company went bankrupt, the family returned to America, and David's father worked in an ad agency doing jingles, became a conductor and now works for the government -- in the parks department.

When they moved back from Italy, the family were given a home by David's grandmother who had come over from Poland and built up a small business. David, when he's not in London being in Scritti Politti, still lives in that house with his parents. It was here, in the suburbs of New York's Manhattan, that the new Scritti Politti were nurtured. Green stayed there while he formulated the new Scritti in 1983.

David first met Green through a connection with the record company Rough Trade. David was working as an assistant engineer in a studio and he used free recording time to do a demo cover version of The Archies' "Sugar Sugar". This was eventually released by Rough Trade, around the same time as Scritti's "The 'Sweetest Girl'" single. So when David came over to London on holiday he was introduced to 'labelmate' Green. They got on like the proverbial house on fire and the pair of them came back to New York to do "Small Talk".

David reckons his parents are dead set against his pursuing a career in "pop" -- being a bit highbrow and all -- hoping that someday he'll see the error of his ways and devote his talent to ""serious music". Some chance.