Musical Musings between Alan Dearling with Scottish musician, Lenny Helsing
Lenny Helsing and I share quite a lot of history. Or, even, histories! So, when he contacted me very recently while working on material for his band, The Thanes’ new album, I was more than happy to receive the advance ‘EP’ and give it a spin or two in my studio at Robinwood Mill in the Calderdale Valley in Yorkshire. Here’s what Lenny told me:
“Sound wise I would say it’s about the best we’ve done and is part of our newest material that, when we get it finished, will also result in a brand new, all original compositions LP. But this time around we’ve gone with two originals and two covers of mid-sixties favourites of ours.”
Alan: The blurb for the EP on the ‘Rogue’ records site does a pretty good summing up of The Thanes’ back-story: “The Thanes originate from Edinburgh, Scotland and have been playing as a group now for some 36 years. In that time they have made 23 singles and released eight albums.
The Thanes’ world is fuelled by ‘60s beat and R&B, garage, punk and psychedelic pop-rock plus a wide range of other sounds including progressive and hard rock, folk and jazz.
For their new EP on Rogue Records they decided on including two new original recordings, ‘For What Reward?’ and ‘Heed The Warning’ which they have been honing in their rehearsal room and on various live dates they’ve been playing since coming out of Covid-induced lockdowns. They also recorded a cover of ‘You’ll Never Do It Baby’, a song best known by the Pretty Things, as well as a version of the great, ‘It’s Dark’, by the Australian sixties group the Twilights.”
Alan: As I listened to the tracks on the EP, I had a number of thoughts flitting through my head. It’s a lovely pressing to start with. And offers in ‘For what reward?’, catchy rolling organ, a mix of grungy guitar riffs, gruffly sung words: ‘Join the Rat Race – but for what reward? GONG ROUND THE BEND.’
The Pretty Things’ song offers more swirling organ breaks, frenetic drumming, psyched-out guitars and drawling vocals. ‘You tell me that you love me – but it’s just not true’. The Twilights’ ‘It’s Dark’ has an almost Eastern influence, scorched guitars, oddly, a kind-of ballad, but with whirling Wurlitzer sounds.
And, the final EP track, ‘Heed the Warning’ is Acid-Pop, a little reminiscent of the Great Society with recessed vocals, clanging cymbals and yet more energetic fuzzed guitar. Overall, a kind of selection box of joyous, jangling garage pop from a different time-zone, circa the late ‘60s.
Alan: So, Lenny, we last did an interview/article together for ‘Gonzo’ magazine in 2016. More water as well as pandemics under the proverbial bridge since then. To recap just a tiny bit from that earlier ‘conversation’ – we first met in Longniddry in 1978. I’d been running youth clubs in London and had been heavily involved in the punk and reggae scene, especially around Acton and Ealing. You were pretty much the one and only punk on the scene in the fairly sleepy East Lothian village. You’d already been in some school and local community covers bands, Highway, Mr Bojangles. Then came your punk phase as singer with the locally infamous Edinburgh-outfit, The Belsen Horrors.
Lenny: Alas, the debut live appearance of the Belsen Horrors had to be postponed, due to the temporary incarceration of the group’s singer. (I got 3 months detention for ermm, breaking into shops and the school we were at and stealing things, what can I say, it wasn’t big, nor clever, learnt my lesson…most of the folks there said, see ye in 6 months! But I said, aye riiiiiiiiight!).
We are left to right in photo: Mark Patrizio – bass (later to The Exploited), Lenny Helsing – vocals, Keith Wilson – drums (later in The Visitors) and Steve Fraser – guitar (later depped for John Mackie in Scars, and joined up with Mike Scott in post-Another Pretty Face, pre-Waterboys groups).
Alan: I really got to know you and some of your mates through your involvement in a much more psychedelic musical outfit, The Green Telescope. I don’t want to go over the exact same ground as my early interview with you, but give me a brief potted history of your early ’80s musical journey…and here’s one of my pics of you in that early, Lenny Helsing, psychedelic-mode!
Lenny: Bruce (McConville) Lyall and I formed The Great Green Telescopic View Of The World after leaving the group I joined that he was in with his pal Kenny Davidson. That band was called Snake Whippit and the Parrot Farts who didn’t seem to be doing much of anything, other than the occasional jam out session. This was the tail-end of 1980. So, as you know, after a few all night, stoned-out jam sessions our mutual friend from the Longniddry days, Steve Monaghan, joined us to play guitar. But after a few months Bruce and I began forging ahead on our own, although we remained good friends with Steve. Around this time Colin Blakey came into our orbit. He played bass and also flute and we soon began taking further, more bolder steps with the music.
We were obsessed with sixties psychedelia and seemed to want to be the early Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett, Love, the Byrds, the Pretty Things, Tomorrow, Jefferson Airplane and the Incredible String Band all rolled into one. Then more obscure U.S. groups like the 13th Floor Elevators, the Seeds, the United States Of America and the Blues Magoos came into our lives, followed swiftly by a million other garage punk groups from compilation LPs like ‘Pebbles’ and ‘Chocolate Soup For Diabetics’, as well as groups like the Outsiders and Q65 from the Dutch scene… it was endless. After Colin left we asked our new pal Alan McLean to join us on bass as he was just as obsessed with the kind of sounds we were into, and he was already much deeper into groups like the Sonics, Paul Revere & the Raiders, Chocolate Watchband and many more
Alan: You’ve always probably dreamed of being a full-time muso, I’d guess…
Lenny: Oh yeah since the days of marvelling at Alice Cooper, Slade, the Sweet, Roxy Music, Cockney Rebel etc when they appeared on television and in pop magazines when I was about 9 or 10 years old. But I still hate that term muso, I prefer music-maker!
Alan: Apologies about ‘muso’! So, over more than five decades you’ve been the singer, guitarist, bass-player and drummer in a succession of bands…what are the most amazing memories both live and in recording?
Lenny: Oh man, that’s a tough one as there have been so many incredible memories to cram into my brain down the years. However, here’s a few that really stand out. The Green Telescope closing the night at our ‘Wipe Out’ gig in Edinburgh in the early summer of 1984 was such a momentous occasion for all who were there, and just the absolute headiness of it all – the lights and the people and the crazy sounds happening throughout the evening. The Thanes getting to open for The Sonics at the New York ‘Cavestomp’ event in Brooklyn, NYC, in 2007, was yet another memorable highlight, especially as the group at that point still had a few original members, including lead screamer and organist Gerry Roslie.
And, similarly, a decade or so earlier when we got to open for the mighty ? & the Mysterians in London at the ‘Wild Weekend’. Rudy (? himself) even dedicating a song to us and saying, “…this one’s for the Thanes who tore it up tonight”. And at our soundcheck their guitarist Bobby Balderamma liked the sound of my Vox Tonebender fuzz-box so much that he asked if he could borrow it for the show. What an honour! And in 2004 who could’ve believed that Sky Saxon – iconic frontman of L.A. ’66 punk deities The Seeds – would make it over to the U.K. and even up to Scotland with an updated version of the group.
The Aberdeen group for which I was playing in at the time, the Downroads, were scheduled to open for them there but noise complaints etc put the dampeners on that one and we didn’t end up playing. But I did meet Mr Saxon a few hours earlier and had a nice relaxing time with him, and a long chat about what a magical time it must’ve been for the Seeds in their 1966-68 heyday. And Sky signed this Seeds’ poster for me.
On the next night they played in Glasgow and – as befits a group who were heavily influenced by all things Seeds since our days as the Green Telescope – it was the Thanes who opened for them. The first and only time we played King Tut’s Wah-Wah Hut venue. Playing drums for one of my favourite groups ever, the Television Personalities, on a promotional tour across the U.S. east coast in the summer of 1993, and again the following spring in Japan also count highly in the very best things I’ve done in my musical life. That was a total dream come true for me. The NYC part of it was organised as part of the New York New Music Seminar, and at the city’s Wetlands venue, Kurt Cobain was nonchalantly sitting on the edge of the stage watching us play. Another cool highlight was the first time that the Wildebeests (I play drums in the group) played with Mudhoney (we’ve done it now a few times over the years) at Glasgow Q.M.U. venue, with just our tiny wee PA hooked up through their much bigger sound rig, and the younger kids who were there perplexed but delighted by this mad, raw garage beat punk sound coming out of a local-ish band that they’d never heard before, ha ha.
The Poets: George, Fraser and Lenny, BBC Radio Scotland studios, Glasgow, Oct 2011
And how could I not mention the couple of years between 2010-2012 when the Thanes joined forces with former members of Glasgow’s mid-sixties beat legends, The Poets, namely the late great George Gallacher (vocals) and Fraser Watson (guitar) to once again play as The Poets. We only did a few gigs including Glasgow, London’s prestigious ‘Le Beat Bespoke’ weekend and ‘Festival Beat’ in Salsomaggiore, Italy – both of these took place in spring/summer 2012, plus we did a live radio session for Vic Galloway on BBC Radio Scotland in October 2011. We’ve long been fans of The Poets so it was another monumental happening for me. I’ve interviewed both George and Fraser as a writer/chronicler of such things for various fanzines down the years, but playing Poets’ songs in the same room with them for hours at a time and drawing ever closer to them as friends is hard to beat and was a real joy. Needless to say it was such a sad day when George died suddenly in August 2012 and that particular dream had to end!
And to close this particular thread, I have to say that one of the most momentous occasions of my whole life was getting the chance to be lead singer for a couple of hours straight with Amsterdam’s sixties heroes the Outsiders. The group’s original singer Wally Tax had sadly died a couple of years before – and although friends had met and befriended him, I never did. But the group’s other original members Ronnie Splinter (guitar) who I became great friends with until his passing in 2013, plus Appie Rammers (bass) and Buzz (drums) were still playing on this day in June 2008 when me and Dave Andriese picked them up for an afternoon rehearsal, ahead of that evening’s show at Dave’s ‘Primitive’ festival event in Rotterdam where, amid a plethora of other vocalists from the world’s sixties loving, modern garage and beat scene groups, I took the stage to sing and blow some harmonica with them on four songs: 1966 single sides ‘You Mistreat Me’ and ‘Felt Like I Wanted To Cry’, 1967 ‘Outsiders’ LP cut ‘I Would Love You’ (which we also recorded with the Thanes for an Italian compilation LP) and the wild and crazy ‘Daddy Died On Saturday’ from the group’s 1968 conceptual ‘CQ’ LP. I also clambered on stage that night with one of my favourite singers of all time, Jeff Conolly from Boston’s Lyres group where we shared vocals on one of the Outsiders’ greatest singles, ‘Lying All The Time’.
Alan: I’m a good friend of Aja Waalwijk, brother of Ben from the Outsiders. Very recently Ben died and Aja helped organise an Outsiders’ tribute album in memory of Wally Tax and Ben, who played organ on eight tracks …Anyway, hey Lenny, back to your musical tour!
Lenny on stage with the Outsiders (drummer Buzz) Rotterdam ‘Primitive Festival’ 2008
Alan: You have continued to play more in Europe than in England…is that out of choice?
Lenny: Not really, but sometimes it was just easier to get gigs that didn’t leave us out of pocket – and playing one or two gigs over a weekend in Spain, Italy or Germany can sometimes be more rewarding than slogging it out in London or wherever and not getting much more than expenses – not that we always made money from playing gigs overseas. However, we’ve also gone through various upheavals and personnel changes over the years but have now settled in the last almost ten years now with the current line-up of Angus McPake, organ, guitar Gordon Brady, drums and backing vocals, but played bass when he first joined us, Colin Morris, bass and backing vocals and myself on lead vocals and guitar.
Alan: What about your favourite recordings?
Lenny: In the world of the phonograph I have literally thousands of favourite recordings, but on 45 rpm, today, let’s go with ‘Rosalyn’ by the Pretty Things, ‘Candy And A Currant Bun’ by the Pink Floyd, ‘From Above’ by Q65, ‘Johnny Won’t Get To Heaven’ by the Killjoys, ‘I Love Her Still’ and ‘Some Things I Can’t Forget’ by The Poets, ‘Adult/ery’ and ‘Horrorshow’ by Scars, ‘Teenage Treats’ by the Wasps, ‘Tomorrow’ by the Strawberry Alarm Clock, ‘Zerox’ by Adam & the Ants, ‘The One I Want’ by Green Day and ‘Painting By Numbers’ by the Gifted Children … and on 33 rpm we’ll go with ‘Buddy Holly’ by Buddy Holly and the Crickets (even though it’s only BH mentioned on the sleeve and label), ‘Parachute’ by the Pretty Things, ‘Revolution’ by Q65, ‘Easter Everywhere’ by the 13th Floor Elevators, ‘And Everybody Else Smiled Back’ by Bears In Trees, ‘Damned, Damned, Damned’ by the Damned, ‘And Don’t The Kids Just Love It’ by Television Personalities, ‘Just Ear-rings’ by the Golden Earring, ‘We All Together’ by We All Together, ‘Memories Have Faces’ by the Loons and ‘Wee Tam & The Big Huge’ by the Incredible String Band… and, of course, there are so many more…
Alan: We haven’t managed to meet up since I travelled up to see you in Stonehaven before Covid struck…fill in some gaps…and here’s my last pic of you…looking very professorial!
Lenny: Well, like I said, not long before the pandemic happened we were just getting back into the swing of gigging and rehearsing and writing and doing some recording and then, as it was for so many, things went a bit deathly quiet for a while, and we didn’t go down the path of rehearsals by zoom or acapella or any of the electronic or internet-based platforms. But then after coming out of the various Covid-induced lockdowns, we’ve been getting back into it with a passion, playing down in England a lot more. We also released a special German ‘live’ LP, ‘Roh Und Lebendig >Nicht< In Koln’ for the record label Soundflat’s ‘Last Minute Ballroom Bash’ birthday weekend, which we were initially supposed to play at in December 2021. But the event got postponed due to increased Covid instances in Germany and was then successfully re-scheduled to the last weekend September-into-October 2022.
We’ve also been busier than ever at home with recent gigs happening in Newcastle, London, Bristol, Liverpool, Leicester, Rochester, plus the usual bunch of gigs in Glasgow and Edinburgh – where we also opened for Jowe Head’s recently re-constituted Swell Maps (C21) and also the Television Personalities (alas without original mainstay Dan Treacy who, sadly, has been in care since 2011). That’s as well as gigs in Gateshead, Stockton-On-Tees and even Shipley.
Alan: And what of your future musical plans?
Lenny: As stated earlier The Thanes have been working on a new album of all original compositions which is a first for us as we’ve always done a few covers on each of our albums. So we are really excited to get that finished, but because we don’t all live near each other anymore there’s the logistics of all of that, plus some of us play in a number of other groups, as well as keeping busy with various day jobs etc.
So, as I say, it’s not been all that easy to maintain a recording schedule. However, I’d say we have around three-quarters of the initial work completed, plus various different ideas and songs that should see us have all the groundwork prepared so that sometime in the early part of 2025 we should have the album recorded and readied for release. We don’t have a confirmed label who will put it out yet. We also have a few other recordings almost completed that we can use for various single releases. And our current French label EP, which you’ve talked about earlier, ‘Les Thanes’ has sold out its first pressing and we are awaiting the new edition of that very soon. Other plans are to go back out on a few more dates around England and Scotland. Then, after the album comes out, we’ll see if we can get another overseas trip organised.
Alan: You have always had an exploratory approach to music and musicians. I guess that hasn’t changed. For example just recently you wrote to me: “Going back down to Glasgow tomorrow on my own to see Aussie drone folk-psych wonder, Trappist Afterland … Have you heard him/them?
TA also does stuff under his own name of Adam Geoffrey Cole… not everyone’s cuppa tea but I’ve a feeling you’ll dig.”
Who or what else would you suggest that we, the great music public, should be seeking out? Is it more styles of music, or, specific types of musician who you most enjoy?
Lenny: As a dedicated music fan I’ve never limited myself to only liking one style; even though I’ve become more synonymous across the decades with the whole sixties garage, beat and psychedelic realm. So currently I’m digging stuff like ukulele dirtboy punk band, Bears In Trees, from Croydon, garage-psychsters, the Loons from San Diego and the Sences from Thessaloniki in Greece. Then there’s London LGBTQ+ champions, the Oozes – think a raging modern-day Slits-meets-Raincoats, but on their own terms. Also in their own world are oddities like Glasgow originals, Bin Juice, also the Phar-i-sees who we’ve invited onto gigs with us over the past few years and London veteran beat/R&B/psych motivators, the Beatpack.
I also love stuff as varied in style as Cavetown and Noah Ffince, weird folk protaganists such as the afore-mentioned Trappist Afterland from Australia and those much-maligned (even by yours truly in the past without ever having heard them) Californian pop-punksters, Green Day – I don’t care what anyone says I’ve seen them live now a couple of times in the last few years and they’re great fun, and really inclusive, as well tons of their songs being much more memorable than a lot of what went down by the old guard …
Alan: As ever, good to catch up with…onwards, sideways, maybe even upwards…Luv ‘n Respect.
Lenny: Yeah, well who knows eh. It’s always good to catch up, and hear what’s going down with you and your various goings on too. Here’s hoping we can get down your way to play before long too, that’d be exciting, cheers and lotsa love back!
Here are two links from Lenny:
The Thanes — Please Don’t Cry (Helsing)
1988 recording for Italian ‘Lost Trails’ magazine free 7”
The Thanes — Gone Away Girl (Lyall)
This is the film of us recording the song at Chamber Studio, Edinburgh in 1991. One of the tracks on our 1992 12” EP, ‘Learning Greek Mythology With The Thanes’ on Satyr Records, Greece
Debut LP ‘The Thanes Of Cawdor’ 1987
A more recent shot of the Thanes: L-R Angus, Lenny, Colin, Gordon (Photo by Danny Carr)
Everyone loves Lenny! A huge talent and a sweet man.
Comment by Mairi Ross on 4 August, 2024 at 11:03 pm