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He's Dead Jim was a Scottish punk / pop / rock band of the early 1980s. They achieved local notoriety and proudly described themselves as 'Aberdeen's fifth best garage band.'

Early days
In the spring of 1981 several students and layabouts came together as He's Dead Jim, assuming names as befit their mighty ambitions: Neil Smith (guitar) -Colt Coldheart, Martin Hately (guitar) -Zelda Fenderbender, Allan Bell (bass)-Troy Tempest, Neil Christie (vocals)- Johnny Stud, and Murray Alexander (drums)- Flash Zip. (Other fleeting appearances were made by Eddie Chevrolet, Dr. Axe and Derbert Sherbet.) Displaying versatility and incompetence in equal measure, Alexander and Bell also handled odd vocal chores, and all involved attempted to play each others' instruments on occasion - in a grand cacophony of uselessness. Coldheart and Fenderbender had survived a variety of local bands, including Zelda's Wart-Covered Slug and MGM, and Coldheart/Smith's stint as lead guitarist in Moscow and then Saracen, a heavy metal combo that also featured Dave McLeod (son of 1970s daytime TV host, Donnie B) and Dave Williamson, who later advanced to the execrable NWOBHM outfit, Diamond Head. As Saracen began to take themselves more and more seriously (despite the risible lyrical conceits of 'Cry of the Wolfen' and 'Amazon Woman (You're Big Enough For Two)'), Smith claimed he had been sacked from the band for playing Clash songs in rehearsal. As a parting shot, the riff for the signature song "Saracen" was appropriated for an early HDJ composition, '20000 Megaton Bomb', featuring a rap style nursery rhyme breakdown in the middle of the HM onslaught: the original authors were not amused at this heresy. A historical note here: Bell, Smith and Hately had been friends from infancy and first attempted to form a band in their very early teens -Day of Doom (aping songs by Bad Company, Johnny Winter and others). No good had come of this juvenile abomination.

He's Dead Jim were prolific in the songwriting stakes and committed their first batch of material to tape in Johnny Stud's dad's garage in June, 1981, Bad Noize for Tuff Trendies. Future live staples include 'He's Dead Jim','We Want Groupies', 'Rachel' and 'Headache'. Amongst the covers were 'Wild Thing' and 'In the Midnight Hour'. Three months of intensive rehearsing later, to raise the combined skill level to mediocre (without any measurable success among the local schoolgirls), HDJ debuted live at a teen dance at Melville Carden Church Hall, supported by "Raymond's Roadshow Mobile Disco". The trouser-dampening experience of awaiting the start of their first live gig was unkindly amplified when Raymond played a 12 minute Stars-on-45 megamix while the band eyeballed a curious and mildly hostile teenage audience from the stage. The success of their debut was further tempered by a mid-song stage invasion by an heroically drunken friend (and the non-appearance of Fenderbender for the second set, as he'd decided to stay in the pub). In gloriously cliched fashion, the van broke down after the gig in a torrential downpour.

Continuing their frenzied output of songs, HDJ assembled an entirely new set and recorded it in December, '81 in the rehearsal garage, preserving the collection under the title Lionise The Masses, Massage The Lions, which featured the first appearance of 'Terry Burns', 'Fab Gears', 'Terminal Cancer', 'True Story' and 'Prisoner In the Atom' plus their inaugural cover of 'Jeepster'. The following month, HDJ appeared on local university TV, performing 'True Story' and 'Terminal Cancer'. Sadly, footage of this landmark performance seems lost (footage of 'Haywire' from a January 1983 television Battle of the Bands has subsequently been recovered from the vaults.)

Memorable performances included a show at Crombie Halls in Aberdeen in March, 1982 featuring their notorious "rainbow stage" line-up: each band-member outfitted in a different colour, including lilac, pink and luminescent orange. Also a mobile gig on the back of a lorry in Aberdeen's annual Torcher Parade, May, 1982, complete with unseasonable hailstorm raising fears of electrocution, the drummer's cymbals falling off the lorry in mid-thrash, and, no least, the band being pelted with filed-down pennies by local infant yobs who (perversely) appeared to be enjoying the performance. At roughly that same time, neighbours of Johnny Stud's parents sought and obtained a court injunction putting an end to the band's rehearsals in their beloved garage, forcing the Jims to relocate indoors. This led to the (fairly quiet) recording of Inferior Bedroom in July, 1982-notable for versions of 'Colour Climax', 'She's Got It' and 'Terminal Cancer' plus their stirring cover of Trio's 'Da Da Da'.

Phase two
Once the fuss over the band's decibel levels had abated it was clear that some of the original members' enthusiasm had receded: Hately departing in 1982 and Alexander more gradually fading away before splitting officially after a farewell gig at The Cobweb in March, 1983 (supported by Gentleman Jim and The Fabulous Body Brothers). Meanwhile (during one of Alexander's temporary absences) Andy Milne (of the Dave Hawk Trio and others) had guested on drums for the marathon garage set of the Better Than Sex cassette (January 1983). That session included the debuts of 'His Own Number', 'OiL', 'The Hour Steals On' and 'Haywire', plus covers of 'I Love You Love Me Love' and 'Should I Stay Or Should I Go'.

After these changes in personnel the band considered calling it a day, but instead, after a bit, a new set was written and recorded in rehearsal as Toys Attack The System (July 1983), featuring future live staples 'Tomorrow Is Yesterday', 'Stolen Heaven', and 'Land Where Dolls Go', plus a cover of 'You Can't Hurry Love'. After another brief hiatus, HDJ returned to playing live as a four piece, with Christie now on guitar and Bell sharing lead vocals. This line-up's second Aberdeen University Union show was a Christmas party supporting APB - with a one-off return by Alexander on vocals for 'Wild Thing'. Gigs followed at Forfar, Edinburgh, Inverness and a summer gig at hip indie venue Rocky's, both preserved for posterity on the World Of Violence tape.

Phase three
On the brink of extremely minor success, including vague interest in the local press and radio, Christie decamped for London and a new life. He briefly teamed up there with Hately in The Waltons ('The Garden Fence of Sound') and The Treens, and featured thereafter in Mr. Dog, Mucal Plug, The Golden Section and latterly Emperor Penguin. His place in HDJ took some filling, but the band duly acquired the services of talented Invernessian Screaming Blue Murdo MacLeod (of Henry Hall and His Splendid Boys) on guitar. With Bell taking on all lead vocals the band reprised its Christmas show at the A.U. (1984), before a series of gigs at The Venue (February-May 1985, recorded as Helldrivers). The March show was co-headlined with The Snakes of Shake from Glasgow, and they topped another bill with Young Doctors and Primary Colours from Buckie.

During this period, the band had added Eck Clark on keyboards and Rosie Savin on backing vocals, then Mark Taylor took over on bass, with Bell undertaking lead vocals only. But the 'final' He's Dead Jim gig took place in May, 1985 (fuelled of course with abundant new material). That summer Smith left the band, and MacLeod and Milne relocated to Edinburgh to form The Cateran and subsequently The Joyriders and Jetmarine. Bell briefly made a few further recordings under the HDJ banner before indulging in short-lived musical identities such as The Girlie Boys, and The Sky Falls In. With Mike Ewing and Colin Izat (formerly of Buddy Unzipped), he formed One Mean Gringo in late 1986, who appeared with The Proclaimers and Slide, and played the Aberdeen Alternative Festival in October, 1987.

Reformation
He's Dead Jim triumphantly reformed in 2005 to play Andy Milne's birthday, at Bannerman's in Edinburgh -albeit with a line-up that had never actually played together before: Allan Bell (lead vocals and bass), Neil Christie(guitar and vocals), Neil Smith (guitar), Murdo MacLeod (guitar) and Andy Milne (drums). Future performances are not likely but remain a sinister possibility.

Releases
In 2006, two tracks by He's Dead Jim, from the original 'Bad Noize' tape, were featured on the compilation album Messthetics 105: DIY 77-81 Scotland Part 1.

'MESSTHETICS' FIRST SCOTTISH INSTALLMENT FOCUSES ON A BRIEF, INTENSE SCENE OF ARDENTLY INDEPENDENT BANDS WHO GOT STARTED RUBBING SHOULDERS WITH 1977 PUNK THEN PAID NO ATTENTION AT ALL TO LONDON AFTER THAT. (LONDON RETURNED THE FAVOR.) THE SOUND WAS BASED ON GUITARS OF ALL SORTS, INGENIOUSLY SKEWED MELODIES AND UNASHAMED LOCAL ACCENTS. NATURALLY, IT ALL FELL APART AS SOON AS "THE SOUND OF YOUNG SCOTLAND" BECAME A MARKETABLE COMMODITY, BUT THEY LEFT BEHIND A RICH CACHE OF LOST 'ALTERNATIVE' HITS.'

The List magazine described the album as 'surprisingly worthwhile' and wrote, 'Echoes of Mark E. Smith are everywhere, stemming mainly from Aberdeen's He's Dead Jim'

Scotland on Sunday made it 'Record of the Week' and said, 'From Edinburgh proto-art rockers Metropak to Stirling's awkward stylings of the Vertical Smiles and Aberdeen's post-punk He's Dead Jim, this is a fascinating sweep of Scottish bands operating on the periphery of the critical radar.

In 2007, a compilation of the band's early recordings was released on Hyped2Death Records, entitled 'Colour Climax/Monochrome World'.

The label described it thus: 'Colour Climax / Monochrome World' is the should-have-been greatest hits (part 1) of Aberdeen's He's Dead Jim - from 1981-82 (and one track from '83). Across their career, HDJ released eight full-length cassettes - each of them bursting with hummable tunes - but they never darkened the door of a proper studio. If they had, they'd be all over Bored Teenagers or This is Mod, but they weren't mods at all, so maybe that's just as well! HDJ pay homage to all the usual school-band pop-culture deities from Fireball XL5 to Star Trek [obviously] to The Prisoner. Pure [trash] punk, a healthy dose of Mark E. Smith, and maybe some Billy Childish, as well, mix it up with peeved-teen quips like "...got no dry ice / to hide the fact that we're quite nice... / We want groupies (give us a break!)" ...Etc. And somewhere in here we should point out that two of them went on to form The Cateran.

Colour Climax/Monochrome World includes over an hour of music, and comes with a 12-page pdf booklet filled with color stuff that's not in the regular issue.

Members
Allan Bell - bass, vocals (1981-1985) Neil Christie - guitar, vocals (1981-1984) Murray Alexander - drums, vocals (1981-1983) Martin Hately - guitar (1981-1982) Neil Smith - lead guitar (1981-1984) Andy Milne - drums (1982-1984) Murdo McLeod - guitar (1984-1985) Rosie Savin - vocals (1984-1985) Eck Clark - keyboards (1984-1985) Mark Taylor - bass (1984-1985)

Discography
Bad Noise (1981) Lionise The Masses, Massage the Lions (1982) New Gods For The Smug (1983) Inferior Bedroom (1983) Toys Attack The System (1983) World Of Violence (1983) A Great Way To Die (1983) Hell Drivers (1984) Messthetics 105: DIY 77-81 Scotland Part 1 (2006) Colour Climax / Monochrome World (2007)