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Source: Japan 24-Bit Remaster

Wayne County & the Electric Chairs were part of the first wave of punk bands from the 1970s. The band is headed by Georgia male-born transsexual, Wayne County, who later changed her name to Jayne County.

On this date in 1978, Wayne County and The Electric Chairs released their third album, Storm The Gates Of Heaven. It contained the singles, "Trying To Get On The Radio". The New York City punk band was fronted by Georgian born transsexual, Wayne County, and began life as simply The Electric Chairs. When the lead singer's notoriety became even bigger than the band, Wayne's name was prominently out front in the band's name. Supposedly, an operation in 1980 made him "Jayne" County, but he/she has claimed that the equipment was not altered.

Interview:
An interview with drummer from the Electric Chairs JJ Johnson aka John (JJ) Johnson that's an embarrassing 4 years old now. I like interviews with drummers as so often they are a forgotten band voice yet more often than not they offer a unique viewpoint (and I don't mean looking at the band from behind!).

Here JJ gives his views on Wayne County, The Electric Chairs and the early days of Punk rock in general.

" What was Wayne's aim with the Chairs? To be honest a transvestite singer singing about toilet love was not going to take you to the top ! did he straight away tune into Punk? What did he/you make of the Punk scene"?

" Wayne County and guitarist Greg Van Cook arrived in London from the New York scene around the same time as fellow American bands like Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers, Television, Talking Heads, Cherry Vanilla, among others, and teamed up with British bass player Val Haller and then later myself with the aim of forming a Punk rock n' roll band, initially, I think, as a continuation of gigs and shows Wayne & Greg had been doing in New York. The band regarded Wayne as a unique, energetic, fun, live performer so, as regards getting to the 'top' we had no illusions about that, as we were more concerned with playing wild gigs and tight musical arrangements. Besides we were too busy dodging missiles and gob ! (Laughs). I think Wayne specifically came over to England to catch the Punk/New Wave scene as did a lot of American bands at that time. I got the impression that Wayne felt totally at home with the energy, craziness, and the then original dress sense of young Punks, especially as Wayne had a reputation for wearing a few interesting creations of his/her own ! (Laughs) With regard to myself as a British musician it was a breath of fresh air. Punk was experimental, innovative, challenging, humorous, sometimes dangerous, sometimes revolutionary, brilliant and fun. Musically Punk took things back to basics and opened doors in many ways, like the rise of small independent record labels, and created platforms for numerous bands, Punk changed attitudes and musical language".


"Did you view yourselves for want of better words a novelty punk band "?
"I think the original idea was to be a trashy Punk rock n' roll band, centred around Waynes unique performances with a deliberate sense of humour, and things developed on from there. There was humour in the music too, and occasionally the general humour got misread, leading to a few wild scenes and some moral indignation. From what I remember from the vast majority of gigs (especially through 77 ) and based on the wild responses of the audiences at that time, a good "Chairs gig" had the potential to transcend that 'novelty' band tag Bollocks".

"Did Wayne's Sexuality affect the band and its later efforts to produce serious music"?
"Well obviously due to Wayne being Wayne, and the band being themselves, there were numerous bizarre reactions both inside and outside of the music business. These created their own events and hurdles, possibly taking Wayne and the Chairs a longer period of time to secure a permanent record contract, unlike many bands at that time. I think the bands main focus throughout was in extensive touring and doing good live shows. With regard to 'serious music' , it just seemed to be a natural progression, a need to move on, trying new ideas, just Wayne and the band being ourselves. Besides, the adrenal, gobbing, pogoing rush of 76-77 Punk only lasted about a year, and musical attitudes had gone through a lot of changes through 78-79".


"How did the London audience relate to the band ? Gobbing ? violence ? Did you notice a difference outside of London "?
"We did some brilliant gigs at London venues like The Roxy Club, The Marquee, The Roundhouse, The Electric Ballroom, The Music Machine (now The Camden Palace), Dingwalls, Hope & Anchor, The Nashville etc. The majority of London audiences were pretty wild and amazing including their dress sense; they wanted change, you could feel it in the air, I felt part of it. On the subject of gobbing, we had our fair share of it. I knew the gob was hitting its target because after a few gigs the cymbals and metal fittings on my drum-kit had turned green (Laughs). Punks seemed to be holding competitions amongst themselves for gobbing accuracy. Unfortunately the down side of this was when some punk gobbed into bass player Val Hallers mouth leading to him developing Hepatitis, putting him and the band out of action for several weeks. As regards violence, at a fair number of gigs there was a small male faction of the audience that would attack the band and get steamed up, possibly about Waynes stance / performance, or to try and fuck the band up. Generally from what I saw at the majority of gigs it was just mad, high energy, pogoing, gesturing, fun, but sometimes it often went beyond that. There were differences with audiences outside of London, although its hard to generalise. The North had its own scenes and bands, North and South often competing against each other. Manchester had venues like The Electric Circus and later the Russell Club, Liverpool had the amazing Erics Club and its brilliant audiences, Birmingham had Barbarellas Club, so like the majority of provincial towns we played , apart from a couple of gigs the reactions were pretty wild, but most of the gigs were wild, in different ways ".


"How did other bands relate to the Chairs? What did you think of other punk bands and who did you rate "?
" Some bands were hostile but it was generally a pretty friendly but competitive scene, especially in 1977 other bands were too busy posing and were fairly hard to communicate with, maybe because Wayne & The Electric Chairs didn't fit into the usual band format, or because of some of the bizzare reactions to the band when we played live. But we usually met a few good bands / people and had laughs, so I don't know whether other bands related to us or not, we were too preoccupied with gigging / touring at the time. What bands did I like ? Well, apart from the obvious ones like the Pistols, I liked The Damned, for their sense of humour, A.T.V., X-Ray Spex, The Adverts, The Banshees, The Buzzcocks, and Magazine among others. One of the American bands I liked was Pere Ubu, especially for their early single ' Final Solution '.


"Strangest moment / worst moment / funniest thing written about the Chairs?"
( Laughs ) "There were many strange moments, (pause) but on second thoughts, they were All strange moments, (Laughs). Out of the many live gig and record reviews, some were good, amusing, or slag offs, one of them would be a live review in punk fanzine 'Look North' of Wayne and The Chairs playing Reading Festival in August 77, it was pretty accurate and hilarious, especially as the gig descended into a mad mudbomb exchange between the band and the audience, leaving the stage about a foot deep in mud and my drumkit and band equipment looking like mud sculptures ".



" How did you see Punk changing as 77 turned into 78-79 " ?
" After the initial amphetamine, pogoing, rush of late 76 through 77 things seemed to be hanging in limbo, with a feeling of where does it go from here ? I think the media ,some of which were initially resistant to Punk in the early days, decided that Power Pop would be the next new youth movement, but despite massive hyping of Power Pop bands, it faded very quickly. Through 78 other bands and scenes came through like The Gang Of Four, The Mekons, The Delta Five from Leeds, or Joy Division and Magazine from Manchester among others, which I liked. So things were pretty diverse and changing all the time way into 79, when Two Tone came through with bands like the Specials, and The Beat ".


" Were you involved in the filming of Jubilee and what did you think of the film"?
"Wayne had a co-starring role in Jubilee playing the part of Lounge Lizard, and Wayne and The Electric Chairs performed the song ' Paranoia Paradise ' in the movie, in a scene where Lounge Lizard is watching him / herself and the band on a T.V. set and singing along to the song, so it was a very brief appearance by the band. When I saw the film I didn't get the historical flashback bits, it was pretty disjointed and fairly camp but there were some good and humorous scenes. Adam from the Ants, who had a starring role was really good. I think my favourite scene was Jordan dancing round the bonfire, and then later performing ' Rule Britannia ' , but having now seen the film a few times over the years it sort of makes more sense."


"What did Wayne make of English Punk"?
"Well, from what I saw, I got the impression that Wayne was well into the energy and craziness of Punk, but I can't answer that, you will have to speak to Wayne or rather now Jayne.


"I'm doing a piece on the Roxy Club London which you played on an American night they had. What can you remember about the place, the audience, atmosphere and bands" ?
"We played The Roxy Club several times, I cant remember the particular gig your referring to as some gigs and events are a blur. What I do remember is downstairs where the bands played there was a low stage. If you were on stage, to the right was a tiny DJ booth with Don Letts spinning discs between bands. He was also filming bands on a small super 8 camera, and filmed us on one gig for his Punk Rock Movie.
To the left of the stage was the entrance to the upstairs foyer. The room was pretty dark, the audiences were usually wild, especially the front row of pogoing, gobbing punks, with others hanging around the outer walls. Upstairs was a large circular foyer and bar where people hung out, but the main thing I remember are the bands most of which were raw, fast, new, humorous, original, driven, compelling, the atmosphere and anticipation was usually electric ", especially from early, and through most of 77."


What was your favourite Chairs song and why ?
Possibly the early track on Illegal records, ' It Ain't How Much You Got That Counts It's What You Learn To Do With What You've Got ', which the title was understandably shortened to ' What You Got ', I like the breaks, dynamics, and humour of the track and despite the sexual innuendo of the song, the title was relevant to the band as we often operated with basic musical equipment and resources, and also because the song usually got a great response from audiences. Another track would be ' Waiting For The Marines ', for its atmosphere and at the time it's groundbreaking man / machine type approach to the rhythmics, dynamics, and production, and the lyrics, which was about soldiers in the jungle waiting to go into battle.


" How did the Chairs end ?"
" Probably as chaotically as it began, maybe due to intensive touring pressures, communication started to break down. Also I think, musically, we were pulling in different directions around the time of making the third album, 'Things Your Mother Never Told You '. After a tour and recording a John Peel show around the end of 79, Wayne and guitarist Elliot Michaels flew back to New York and formed another band. Val Haller, Henri Padovani, and myself decided to continue as The Electric Chairs, with a musical direction that was a sort of progression of certain musical aspects of the third album. So we went into the studio and recorded the single, 'So Many Way ' / 'J'attends Les Marines ', and that was released around November 79 and was well received although it had a more electronic feel in it's rhythmics, vocals, and atmosphere. Shortly afterwards things went pear shaped with the record company and management which made it impossible to function as a band, and then after a while we reformed as the ' Mystere Five', a band with a deliberate anonymous image and collaborated with non musician Mark Gloder ( Frenchie ) a punk who was just forming indie record label Flicknife Records at the time. We then recorded the single, 'No Message' / 'Shake Some Action' which was the first release on Flicknife and sort of launched the label. After a couple of months we recorded the second single, 'Never Say Thank You' /'Heart Rules The Head'. Both singles got great reactions, but by then we were all involved in other things; Henri Padovani had already formed his own band 'The Flying Padovanis', Val Haller formed the band ‘Paint’ and later joined ' Lords Of The New Church ' on keyboards for a tour, and I was recording and performing with ' The Flying Lizards ' and then later with' The Skids '. So we sort of dispersed in different directions ".


"Looking back what do you think of Punk now, and what were the Chairs place in it ?"
"Punk seemed to come through like a wave of excitement and originality, driven by the bands and the expanding grass roots audiences who wanted change. It seemed genuine, especially in late 76 and through 77, it did change attitudes and musical language, I think it was important. At the time I didn't think it would last longer than a year ( or was meant to ), so I wasn't really looking beyond that, and then Punk went through a lot of changes and things developed on from there. As regards to The Chairs place in Punk, I couldn't say, but as the majority of the bands gigs were at Punk venues with Punk audiences I think I'll leave that to the gigs, records and audiences at the time and beyond to decide on that one."

" Nevertheless, VIVA PUNK " !

01. Storm The Gates Of Heaven 6:13
02. Cry Of Angels 3:01
03. Speed Demon 4:44
04. Mr. Normal 5:58
05. Man Enough To Be A Women 3:53
06. Trying To Get On The Radio 4:36
07. I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night 4:18
08. Tomorrow Is Another Day 6:07
+ Bonus Track