“We may be done with the past but the past isn’t done with us ” (Dec2001- written next to a picture of the American flag on a toilet wall, JFK airport).

The truth is, no-one has so far attempted to offer an overview of the work of the Universal Panzies, whose fame began in earnest, let’s admit it, via Head Heritage. Perhaps this overview/homage will serve as a reminder of the arch-panzie’s work, who has recently become ill. This should serve as a Cosmic Jokers-styled ad. Their releases are prog-pagan pieces of Orcadian proportions. Here’s the background, interspersed with Christophe Fk’s own quotes.

Geordie music
The Animals. Bryan Ferry. Sting. Lindisfarne. Jimmy Nail. Punishment Of Luxury. Penetration. The Angelic Upstarts. China Drum. Venom. Brian Johnson. John Miles. The Tygers Of Pang Tan. Dave Stewart. Lauren Laverne. Dire Straits. Olive. The Lighthouse Family. Katharine Tickell. Crawling Chaos.

Wallsend (Segedunum)
The main fort on the Eastern end of the Roman wall. Nothing much changed in 2000 years. Time passed slowly. “Heavy metal ruled for years. Punk burped in & was replaced by club land. The Northern music scene lacked any shamanic folk-glam-analogue fuck-you vibe. Hence the Panzies 1997. It’s an ongoing art installation rather than a band with a plan. We’re evolving or devolving depending on our surroundings.”

The Universal Panzies
The Universal Panzies are Christophe Fk and Fried. Christophe Fk started playing music in 1980. As well as solo performance he jammed and mixed in various ensembles with Maxine, Gary & Anth from Crawling Chaos, & with Howard from The Band Of Holy Joy. Fried & Mandy started playing in 1994. He worked in Theatre as a technician, musician and occasional performer. C Fk met Fried through his work at the Buddle Arts Centre. Fried was drummer on his projects — Farrellized, The Invisible Cowboy(s) in 95–96. In 1996 Fried & Mandy played with him in a glam-stooge-punk-drag-ensemble named Krave. C Fk quit Krave and they joined him when he established the Universal Panzies in November 1997. Universal Pansies is the name of a spring flower. The farmers shop underneath the Panzies rehearsal room used to sell them. Uni-Ver-Sal Panzie — a pansy flower and a cosmic panzer tank. The pansy flower is a symbol of fidelity. Pansy is also a sexual reference. They dressed glam faggy for this part of the world so the name covered quite a few points of reference. “We’re fun-da-mentalists. A reaction to death, dreams, drugs and druids. Carl Jung meets the Stooges.”
They took an unforeseen break towards the start of 2002. Mandy isn’t a Panzie anymore, but Fried still is. Fried & the Arch-Panzie are planning gigs for 2003 and are sorting out a new rehearsal space. There are another 2 Panzies LP to release when the finances improve. C Fk’s done about a dozen solo shows the last 18 months. At the moment they’re temporarily disabled rather than split. The common musical influences of Fried & C Fk are: The Stooges, Harmonia, Amon Duul#1, NEU! Can, Patti Smith, The Cosmic Jokers, the Sex Pistols & Trout. His connection with Julian Cope stems from a misspent Acid youth & a propensity for writing letters. Julian has the same birthday as his father. “I was a big Teardrops fan and it led on from there. He’s the most remarkable person I’ve ever met.”

Two polar opposites
“All the Panzies gigs and recording sessions from 1997 until 2001 were performed or recorded on Pagan days, full moons etc. Pagan wandering and seasons had a direct affect on the way we played. I wanted a mix of undemocratic direction coupled with improvised anarchy. It took years to find people capable of mixing two polar opposites. Most drummers and musicians would quit playing if the track was longer than 6 or 7 minutes. Myself, Fried and Mandy, could and would keep playing forever.” 

The Panzies sessions and gigs were always set out in two ways: “We’d record as a 3 piece over a 3 day period live to 4x or 8x tape, and often to live 2x DAT tape. This meant we couldn’t mix the music much as it was all recorded live. I think only about 10% of the CDs and EPs we’ve released contain multitrack recordings. We’d also have open sessions when we’d invite both musicians & non musicians to record & jam with us. Everything would go through a live desk straight to cassette or 2x DAT. There’s be one take of the jams so everybody got to live out their freeform obsessions.The day before we recorded the Trancendental Floss session we’d done a gig with 18 people on stage. The atmosphere was as important as the sessions. People hanging out and being creative for non-commercial reasons”

Prophiteering
C Fk’s ambitions are: Play a gig in China. Write a movie script. Marry the girl of his dreams. Live long enough to laugh at Thatcher’s grave. Share a sauna with Akira Fubuki. Finish his book. See Bush Snr & Bush Jnr tried as profiteers. Make three good Lps and one good life. 

Transcendental Floss
My favourite track in this well-known record is Cunnyan Crags. Its beginning is beautiful and moving, the guitar gently flowing whilst Neu Snee’s flute gives it a bucolic yet melancholy air. And then the whole trip builds up until you feel the shivers up your spine, and the drums give it a rougher edge for a while, then fade away and then return with enough mysticism to make you want to take the album out with you into the countryside. And C Fk does NOT utter a word about hills or stones until minute 7. Ash Ra Temple’s early zeitgeist reappeared.

Thunderkraft
The Halloween EP begins with an intense Necropolis-like suite, an electric saw comes and goes while RELENTLESS drums / cymbals are the best I have heard since Mother Sky. Sadly, it only lasts for a little over 10 minutes. This track is called Thunderkraft and was recorded during a huge thunderstorm, ‘the pace controlled by the lightning through the windows’. It may be among the most-inspiring discs released by the Panzies so far. Elegant Lou Reed-type guitar fades in and soon gives way to thunderous drums until the whole thing accelerates and gets savage. The intro to AD3 is another elegant piece. These three tracks are accompanied by two very eerie solo pieces, one a guitar song and the other a dreamy electronic thing called ‘scared of me’. 

LAMF
The track that was selected for LAMF is Kosmische Pranke, now renamed Neolithic Goddess, introduced by the same ghostly church bells that open the album, as if the sound of Christianity was pleading for mercy in its last pangs of agony before a barbarian onslaught. It starts like the smelly hordes are standing ready for battle and banging their drums in anticipation of the fight and it eventually becomes a regular drum-led ride into an abyss.
When the track takes off, we know this is a Journey to The Centre of your Mind. Relentless, Kosmische Pranke / Neolithic Goddess is a classic in cosmic terms. None of the guitar paraphernalia of the other LAMF tracks is here, but once the archpanzied guitar-saw takes over, it sends huge caustic vibrations up your ears. And Boy Fried keeps banging the drums like it’s all he’s ever done before.

UP
PVC 1 / UP begins in krautrock fashion. Huge Ash Ra Tempel drums make a gentle mood while we are slowly projected into what sounds like a wide space. An electric flute, similar to the one that leads the 1974 kraut album A Meditational Mass by Yatha Sidra, and a synthesizer treats our minds as if they were elastic, while Christophe Fk declares – ‘when love is all there is’. Here’s a band that successfully recovered the zeitgeist. This superb groove goes on for about 14 minutes until it begins to get even more cosmic thanks to an excellent twin combination of drum/guitar freakouts. The same atmospheric mood continues in the next tracks, interspersed by the band’s poems, mainly dealing with Thatcher Snatcher, Anne Widdicombe, Portillo and other born-again Christians and military men.