Years ago while traveling in Europe I met an Australian woman named Harriet. In our first conversation we had already connected about music (both of us happened to be wearing the PiL T-shirt that everyone "in the know" seemed to have). It turned out that back at home she worked at a record store (crush starting to develop). Then, in the course of conversing she asked me if there were any Australian bands that I liked. Not knowing of many Australian bands I responded that I fucking hated Men At Work (who were big at the time) but that I loved the Saints. To my surprise she said that she had been a roommate of Chris Bailey's, the lead singer of the Saints. From that moment on (and this was over thirty years ago) the Saints ceased being the Saints to me. From then on, they were Harriet's ex-roommate's band. Every time I thought of the Saints or listened to them, I thought of Harriet. Yesterday, when I heard that Chris Bailey had died this past Saturday my first thought was that I hoped Harriet was doing okay. That's how crushes are, I guess. I knew a woman for three days over thirty years ago and never spoke to her again, yet I worried.
As mentioned above, Bailey was the lead singer of the Saints, an early Australian punk band. He had a unique voice, kind of unforced and nasally, and snotty. It kind of conveyed a no-fucks-given attitude without destroying his vocal chords. That made for a voice that lasted decades without changing much. I like almost all of the Saints music, including the slightly lighter stuff. The Saints did sound different over the years, going from punk rock to more of a semi-wall of sound (strings horns), the constant being Bailey's voice. Tonight I'm really digging on "Know Your Product", the video above. I've long thought that loud rock 'n' roll, with crunchy guitar and whatnot, combined with a raucous horn section is the best of all possibilities. Not to sell the Saints short at all but "Know Your Product" is about as close to sounding like Rocket From the Crypt without being Rocket From the Crypt as is possible. And Rocket was all about crunchy guitar, raucous horns and whatnot.
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