“I
t wasn’t about fashion, being part of a musical trend or money. It was soul. Thee Hypnotics may not have bought us houses in the sun... but we made REAL music. I still meet fans on my travels today who have been inspired by us... We were genuine.” – Jim Jones.
Witnessing Thee Hypnotics at the tail end of the 1980s was a revelation. Echoing the spirit of the Detroit Rock Revolution of The MC5 and The Stooges, they were completely mesmerising to both see and hear: oozing androgynous sexuality (not unlike Mick Jagger in Performance or the pre-booze Jim Morrison), theirs was a sound and style that was both singular and appealing, completely bereft of the dull attitude of 1989. This wasn’t another bedsitter indie band or aging punk act. It was a youthful alternative.
What ended as the ultimate rock ’n’ roll tragedy – a journey full of near misses, derailments and death – began with childhood friends discovering music together. Jim Jones and Ray Hanson are both part-Irish Londoners whose parents escaped the city sprawl in the ’70s to raise their families in the Home Counties. Growing up in the village of Prestwood, near Great Missenden in Buckinghamshire, the two lads met at the local Catholic church. As the rougher country boys were only interested in fighting and football, Jim and Ray began
to ingratiate themselves with older teenagers due to their shared love of music. “I used to like The Sweet, Slade and T Rex and then got really in the Stones in my early teens,” explains Ray, who to this day resembles a dandy Ronnie Wood or kohl-eyed Johnny Thunders. All preened hair, trinkets and bourbon. “Older punks from the area,” he continues, “were best friends with our mate’s big sisters and they introduced us to Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker, The Stooges and the Dolls.” Jones interjects, “There were one particular couple, Ali and Carlton, who were like surrogate parents. They taught us of the romance of Johnny Thunders being a loser, and how cool this guy was. We admired ‘the outsider’.”
The Road To Playing
By their mid-teens Jim and Ray had learnt guitar and were messing around in the school music room. “I started singing first and Jim was the guitarist,” Ray remembers. “I sung ‘Hippy Hippy Shake’ out of tune with Jim and our friend Bruce playing guitar, Graham Flynn on bass and Dave Davis on drums.” (Many years later after the split of Thee Hypnotics, Jim Jones would play in Black Moses with Graham Flynn.) Ray was already perfecting the blues, noting down how Hendrix did things and practising hard. And, although at odds with their surroundings, the eager teens threw
themselves into music heart and soul. The earliest Jones and Hanson acts were called The Lady Killers and The Swamps. “We later had a band called The Kroon,” says Jim, “which was just Ray and I both on guitars. T Rex, The Cramps and that glam kind of stuff drove us on. There was a little scene in Aylesbury in about ’85 that we started getting involved with and [we] played at The Uptown Coffee Bar where older punks and psychobillys hung around.” Ray laughs, “Contemporary music was our enemy. We were nothing to do with that shit at all... Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet... Arggghhh!” The newly launched Channel 4 alternative music show The Tube did however broadcast the world the lads dreamt of. “We were excited all week hearing that Iggy Pop was going to be on,” smiles Ray. “Seeing him with his silver hair doing ‘Sweet 16’ was amazing.” “And,” adds Jim, “The Lords Of The New Church, The Cramps and Tom Waits being on was great too. This was far too cool for TV.” Having mastered their craft enough to play, a bigger and better band was then formed.
The Trash Cadillacs
“The Trash Cadillacs played a lot at The Students’ Union Bar at High Wycombe,” explains Ray. High Wycombe was a far larger town on the way to London. More industrial, multi-cultural and druggy, it was a stepping stone from the country to the smoke. “That was the very beginning
Teenage Mark Thompson (second left), Jim Jones and Ray Hanson as The Cramps fixated Trash
Cadillacs in the mid-80s. 64
Photo: Mark Thompson
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