VALIUM GIRLS

Bee Vamp: Valium Girls / Lucky Grills / With Barry in Bengal 

Monster in Orbit Records (1981) 

'Well tell me, do you ever get headaches?'

One in three of all post punk bands came from Liverpool. Probably. You may not know this, but the city apparently has a rich musical heritage. Bee Vamp won't be getting a statue, a coach tour or a commemorative tin of shortbread biscuits any time soon, but they did leave behind two nice singles, the first of which is the quietly extraordinary Valium Girls.  

Intoxication is a standard subject for popular music in all its forms, particularly the getting high and the coming down. Fewer songs tackle domestic addiction, however, the epidemic of ordinary people in the thrall of prescription or over the counter remedies which now, apparently, affects nearly a million people in the UK alone. This song both parodies and celebrates the public’s obsession with pain killers, sounding like an art rock version of a pharmaceutical ad. The lyrics convey a grim kitchen sink vignette in a few well-chosen words: a young woman, ‘protected by her National Health prescription’ spends her days drifting aimlessly and thoughtlessly from room to room in her flat, numb, blank, drinking endless cups of Nescafe. We’ve all been there.

Like a lot of post punk music, this track features saxophone, but here it is played well rather than merely enthusiastically, much more Eric Dolphy than Eric Morecambe. The sax interpolations are played on the very edge of atonal, squeaky and squawky without quite becoming annoying. The guitars are bitty and intermittent, like somebody absently scratching their arm until it’s raw. There is a clever false ending that never fails to provide mild surprise. The bass and drums are good, too, never quite playing what you expect. It’s an excellent track all round, really, go and listen to it.

      

The b sides are much less interesting, but have verve, edging into Pigbag territory, all happy horns, busy bongos and twangy tremolo arms. Bee Vamp were apparently great improvisers, and these tracks perhaps reflect what their live shows may have been like: energetic, chaotic, sweaty.   

As a final note, thinking about pain killers, isn't pain a vital message in bodily terms? I mean, isn’t it actually exceptionally important? Shouldn’t it be cured rather than killed or, rather, temporarily dulled? I don’t blame the addicts, but I do wish they could get more help with it. If this blog has any wisdom to impart (it really doesn’t), it's this: if it hurts, get it looked at it.