This modest site has been created in response to requests for information about VICTIM, a first generation punk band, originally from Belfast and later based in Manchester, England. A 22-track CD of the band's material was released on Overground Records in March, 2003.
overgroundrecords.co.uk
It comprises the band's three singles and 15 previously unreleased tracks, including the unreleased fourth single, recorded just before drummer Mike Joyce left to join The Smiths, being replaced with Frantic Elevators drummer Kev Williams.THE VICTIM STORY VICTIM was formed in 1977 by Bowie fans Wes Graham and his cousin Colin Campbell - both of whom were regulars at the Viking and Trident clubs in Bangor, Northern Ireland.
They started out as a trio, the original line up being Wes (bass, vocals), Colin Campbell (guitar, vocals) and Jeff Beattie (drums). Nothing more than Jam clones to begin with (right down to the black suits, white shirts and black ties) this early line-up was filmed in early 1978 performing 'In the City' live at their second ever gig at The Pound for a UTV punk documentary called 'It Makes You Want to Spit'.
Their performance that evening was really quite atrocious, the band being completely out of tune. However, they progressed quickly, started writing their own material and then became a four-piece when Ken Matthews (younger brother of Rudi's Ronnie) was drafted in on rhythm guitar.
The band had improved dramatically and was soon picked up by Terri Hooley who released Victim's debut single 'Strange Thing by Night' on his Good Vibrations label. It was recorded at Wizard studios for the princely sum of £90. It proved an excellent single and a lot of people were pleasantly surprised at the time at how good it was.
In early 1978, prompted by the lack of venues to play, Wes and Colin made a trip to a local Belfast city centre pub because they heard it had a stage! Victim secured a gig and the legendary Harp Bar was born as a punk venue. On April 21, 1978, Victim (supported by The Androids) played the first ever punk gig at the Harp, thus establishing a nerve centre for the Belfast punk scene.
Soon after this both Victim and The Androids split up. Wes and Jeff then teamed up with ex-Androids Joe Zero (guitar/vocals) and Aza (guitar) to form a new band called Emergency. They wrote a lot of new songs and rehearsed in premises at Lombard Street in Belfast city centre, alongside many other punk bands including Rudi and Stiff Little Fingers.
Emergency then played a few gigs around Belfast culminating in a final gig in Manchester (at the Factory) supporting The Fall, members of which Joe Zero already knew from 1977. The band returned from England with new confidence, however Aza proved 'incompatible' with the band's musical ambitions and left to pursue other things.
In October 1978, Wes, Jeff and Joe (now Moody not Zero) decided to reclaim the name Victim and recruited a local keyboardist, Davy Johnson, for some gigs. This line-up played several gigs in Belfast, including a support slot with The Monochrome Set at The Harp, a blistering set supporting Penetration at Queen's University and, on November 23, 1978, a filmed performance at The Harp with Protex and Rhesus Negative. One song 'Trademark World' was used in the punk film Shellshock Rock.
Around spring 1979 Downpatrick guitarist Hugh O'Boyle joined the band after the keyboard player left. The new four piece began gigging in Belfast, enjoying a string of high-powered gigs at their old stomping ground the Harp Bar. On July 7, 1979, Victim played a packed gig at the bar before setting off for England in August. They could see no recording opportunities in N. Ireland and had been offered a modest record deal with Manchester-based TJM Records. They never played in the province again.
Soon after settling in Manchester, Victim began rehearsals at the local communal rooms owned by TJM Records and within days had all their equipment stolen. The following week they played their first gig on English turf at the legendary Deeply Vale Festival, using equipment borrowed from TJM stablemates V2. Victim received rave reviews at the festival and more than held their own alongside bands such as The Ruts and The Fall.
Victim then recorded and released their second single 'Why are Fire Engines Red' in 1979 which got numerous good reviews and a lot of radio play. TJM had wanted to release a four-track EP instead but the band refused. The tracks on the unreleased EP were 'I Need You', 'Junior Criminals', 'Based on Bluff' and 'Trademark World' which had been recorded earlier in Belfast as a demo tape and the band felt the quality of the recordings was not good enough for record release.
After the release of 'Fire Engines' the band was invited to join a punk package tour which was also to feature The Damned, Slaughter and the Dogs and the Misfits from the USA. However, following legal wranglings and arguments, Slaughter pulled out of the tour and the Misfits only played two gigs before returning to America.
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The Damned and Victim did set off on an extensive tour of England, Scotland and Wales in November/December 1979 which comprised many prestigious venues including Manchester and Glasgow Apollos and the London Rainbow.
Victim encored at many of the gigs and The Damned, not to be upstaged, were regularly seen in the wings pelting Victim with eggs or putting classical music through their monitors. The tour was quite a wild experience for Victim - the Damned members, a few years older, subjected the Belfast lads to all sorts of 'torture' on the tour coach, including superglueing their faces to the windows and setting their hair ablaze with lighter fuel if they dared to doze off.
Just before the tour Victim recorded three tracks at Cargo Studios in Rochdale, with Rat Scabies producing. Joy Division were in the studio around the same time recording an album. A deal had been struck for Scabies to produce as part of the tour package and resulted in Victim's third single, The Teen Age, being released in 1980 on Illuminated Records, not TJM as wrongly stated in many catalogues. The B-side contained two songs, 'Junior Criminals' and a lively version of Bowie's 'Hang on to Yourself'.
1980 proved to be a bad year for Victim. Jeff moved back to Belfast and Hugh teamed up to form a new band with members of V2. This led the songwriting duo of Wes and Joe on a quest for new members. They tried out numerous candidates and in March 1981 recorded a potential double A side single (with a local drummer) called 'Lady Lioness' and 'The Last Laugh'. Sadly they failed to get it released.
A short time later Joe and Wes recruited a young drummer of Irish descent from Manchester punk band The Hoax. Victim were once more a lively three-piece with Wes on bass/vocals, Joe on guitar/vocals and 18-year-old Mike Joyce (later to join The Smiths) on drums.
The line-up reheased intensely, demo-ing a lot of new material. At one session the band recorded an eight-minute punkadelic version of Bolan's '20th Century Boy', no copy of which remains.
In May 1982 Victim embarked on a short tour of England. Bizarrely the tour began with Victim playing with Belfast band Rudi in Liverpool. The tour also took in a gig at the AdLib Club in London (May 21st) which Joe considers to have been Victim's best ever gig musically. The tour ended in Manchester at the Portland Bars.
In November 1982 the band went into a studio to record a double-A side single, scheduled for release on Illuminated Records. However, problems arose and the tracks, 'Cause or Consequence' and 'The Bluff Brigade', were never released. Wes and Joe reckon 'Cause or Consequence' was the last great punk song. Soon after this recording session Mike Joyce told Wes and Joe he was leaving Victim to join a new band, namely The Smiths, who went on to become a major success story of the eighties.
Disillusioned with things, Wes and Joe took a break from the music business – Wes, a qualified journalist returned to local newspapers, while Joe undertook a series of academic studies on subjects including music and the history of art. By the mid 1980s both were eager to make music again and decided to rehearse some new songs Joe had written.
They had to decide whether to keep the Victim name or not so, after toying with the name Victim A.D., they called their new project Beethoven's Kiss. They brought in Kev Williams who had been drummer with The Frantic Elevators before Mick Hucknall split the band to form Simply Red. They soon recorded four tracks for a promotional four-track cassette EP which attracted considerable interest and almost clinched a deal with Chrysalis Records. Next they recorded a planned single 'The Strangest Stars', which sadly was not released. They recruited Toni Isaac on keyboards - she was the girl leaning on the lamppost on the cover of Jilted John's single of the same name! Next the band recorded 'The Wonder of You' (not the Elvis song) and 'Don't Break It' in 1988 at Square One Studios in Bury, where Black were mixing 'It's a Wonderful Life' the same week. The songs were released soon after on the band's own Akashic Records.
The idea was to showcase the new melodic acoustic songs the band were developing, combined with the raunchiness of old Victim songs - the A side was a new song while 'Don't Break It' was an old song Joe had written in Belfast some years earlier. The single gained glowing reviews in the local press and a fair amount of airplay. Some months later the band recorded five new songs which they felt confident would attract record company interest. However, it was not to be and, in 1990, Wes and Joe shelved the Beethoven's Kiss project.
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