Right on the heels of news of the passing of Mark Hollis of Talk Talk came a report that Steve Jameson, erstwhile bass player for the post-punk trio World Domination Enterprises had passed away. Apart from both late gentlemen being British and musically active in 80s, their similarities pretty much end there.
W.D.E weren’t an especially prolific band, nor were they around for very long (from 1984 to 1989, if I’m not mistaken). One could suggest that they were a “one-hit wonder,” although characterizing their signature single as a “hit” is a strenuous argument to wage. I first heard it in 1989 and it practically left me with a cranial contusion. That single was “Asbestos Lead Asbestos.”
Distilled from the same aesthetic that informed many of my favorite bands, “Asbestos Lead Asbestos” amplifies the abjectly ugly to unwieldy degrees in a lurching, sluggish wobble that seems in perpetual peril of falling completely apart at any given moment. Simultaneously, the song somehow manages to hold together and actually be, well ... catchy … despite seemingly all endeavors to the contrary.
The lyrics paint a bitterly grim image of squalor, suffering and corporate oppression in a decaying, post-industrial British cityscape, presumably informed by the same mid-80’s malaise that inspired much of the era’s more caustic music. Scoring those couplets about degradation, duplicity and hopelessness comes an avalanche of din, played by a trio of frowning “musicians” seemingly drunk with cynicism. Jameson’s ponderous bass underpins vocalist/guitarist Keith Dobson, who doesn’t “play” his instrument so much as coax staccato shards of dissonance from it. If you put this song on at the volume it deserves at your next cocktail soiree, you should expect acrimony and pugilism.
Musically kindred spirits to bands like Killing Joke, Gang of Four, SWANS, The Birthday Party, Missing Foundation and Cop Shoot Cop, World Domination Enterprises may not have made as large an impression as those peers, but they did leave us with –- to my mind -– one absolutely perfect statement. “Asbestos Lead Asbestos” was later re-imagined by industrial combo Meat Beat Manifesto. While way more accessible and even, dare I suggest, danceable in MBM’s hands, the corrosive core of the song still packs a punch.
If possible, please enjoy the definite article, and pour one out for Steve Jameson.
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