Here’s a fascinating time-capsule of a documentary about an admittedly niche-interest band who achieved their most valuable cultural currency during the politically-charged 1980s, and who achieved a subsequent second act that achieves considerable emotional heft. It also functions as an insight into a vanished world, not all that long ago, in which ranting poets, skinhead pubs, Letraset fanzines and – yes – the Deutsche Demokratische Republik actually existed.
Hailing from Harlow in Essex, a postwar new town designed to alleviate London housing shortages – hence the band’s name – the Newtown Neurotics apparently became a big deal in the town in punk’s second wave, though in truth they never really broke through to national recognition, tending to play second or third on the bill to bigger names. No one at any point suggests it might be because lead singer and songwriter Steve Drewett sported very Roger Daltrey-ish big hair, at a time when such stylings were a punk anathema, or that their band name was a tad ungainly compared to their peers; Drewett getting a no 1 crop and the band dropping the “Newtown” bit were good moves, though possibly a little too late to make a drastic difference.
The way the very serious Drewett tells it, the band came into its own during the 1980s after Margaret Thatcher won power: armed with a set of politically confrontational lyrics and a commitment to socialism, they toured with the likes of Attila the Stockbroker, Porky the Poet (now known as Phill Jupitus) and Billy Bragg, and vocally supported the 1984 miners’ strike. They even ended up playing a series of concerts in East Germany alongside Bragg in the late 80s, before the Berlin wall came down. (Though Bragg readily admits to disillusion with an actual communist state, he might have offered a tiny bit more self-reflection as to why he and the Neurotics passed the East German censors’ lyrics test – not a badge of honour, you’d have thought.)
The band’s first incarnation ended with the illness of founder member Colin Dredd, shutting up shop despite the arrival of a temporary replacement. Interestingly, though, the band benefitted from the boomer/Gen X nostalgia-festival circuit in the noughties, leading to resurgence of interest in the band – in Harlow at least – and reformation of a kind, as Drewett got together with two new musicians, a generation down, playing to bigger audiences than the band had in their original heyday. Dredd, sadly, died in 2015 just as the drummer from the band’s 80s incarnation, Simon Lomond (an entertainingly enthusiastic presence in the film), rejoined to complete the circle. Drewett’s anti-Tory lyrics are very much of the moment; you sense after all these years the band’s time may have actually come.
• Kick Out! The Newtown Neurotics Story is released on 5 September at 100 Club, London then tours.
• This article was amended on 7 September 2023 to remove the assertion that Simon Lomond was the band’s “original” drummer; in fact he was the second.
