Bad Influence - the legend of Zodiac Mindwarp & The Love Reaction

Heavy Metal. Heavy. Metal. In its truest form the last bastion of deliberately Neanderthal male chauvinism, painted in
hairy-fisted broad brush strokes of the most unappealing shades: pasty white flesh, sweat stained blue denim and the
bleached fish- belly grey of Motorhead t-shirts scoured once too often by a cupful of Mum's Acdo. As a musical genre it's
been critically consigned to the status of leper for decades now and only allowed out of it's cave when it accepts the
healing hand of Rap (Aerosmith & Run DMC: Walk This Way) or submits to the post-ironic treatment of 'superstar DJ's'
(Angus Young riffs spliced in with phat beats). But now in 1999, when music - even the Govt. approved rebellion
soundtrack of alleged 'rock' acts like Limp Bizkit - is as redundant as a Welsh coalminer, the only alternative for those who
still cling to the ridiculous notion of the Power of Rock is to look back. Nostalgia is easy and lazy but we do need to
recognise a time when we were less encumbered by notions of 'coolness', when all that mattered was whether or not
something Ruled.

Well when I was a lad Metal Ruled. Pure, unadulterated Kerrang-approved Metal.

I grew up in the Leeds, Wakefield, Bradford triangle and the soundtrack to my adolescence was the sound of the factories
and the back street garages, the schoolyard fights and the revved engines of Ford Cortinas. Heavy Fucking Metal. AC/DC,
Saxon, Iron Maiden, Motorhead. With all their cartoonish notions of machismo, caveman-like grasp of female sexuality and
dubious appropriations of Nazi 'style' it was a trigger for a fantastical Quantum Leap out of our dull existence's and the
crushing knowledge that our destinies lied in shit office jobs and Kwik Fit boilersuits. We needed our larger than life
heroes like we needed oxygen and we asked nothing more from them except that they give every scrap of their souls in
offering to the insane deity that is the Rock God.

Someone else who grew up in Leeds & Bradford was Mark Manning AKA: Zodiac Mindwarp. The Rock Star as concept,
taken to its illogical extreme and played to maximum effect (and for maximum laughs) by a man who was, underneath all the
artfully placed greasestains and tattoos, totally and utterly serious about what he was doing. With his cohorts Cobalt
Stargazer, Trash D.Bastard, Kid Chaos and Slam Thunderhide he played out the fantasy of space pirates live & loud from
the Planet Freakout, come to save our pimply white asses from shit pop stars in sweaters while they run rampage in the
Girls changing rooms. Few saw past the facade, hence the storm of hype that met Zodiac Mindwarp & The Love Reaction
when they played their first gigs in 1986. All the usual twats - The Face, NME, Sounds, Melody Maker - fell over
themselves to reveal the genius of Zod to the world. A raw, unashamed celebration of cock rock it came as a blast of greasy
air amidst the cappuccino fumes. And as with all critical bandwagons it soon crashed & burned and by the time the first
album was released the band had been passed over in favour of the more traditional The Cult, Guns N Roses and the
emerging 'Acid Rave' scene.

Before the band there was just Mark Manning, bumming around London, fresh from an art course and pissing about with
comic strips for Record Mirror and Flexi Pop. Some of his characters included 'Zap Dog', a psycho teddy bear and a pig in
black y-fronts that Manning himself described as a "cute sadist". He lived in a succession of stylishly soiled basements
and flats full of tortured Action Man dolls, shreds of artwork, song lyrics and wine-soaked mattresses. Just another no-
hope drifter adding to the human detritus on the streets of the capital. He'd given up on Metal himself, sported a mohican
and listened to punk, occasionally hanging out with Youth from Killing Joke. Only the cleansing thunder of AC/DC could
bring him back to his senses and realise his musical heritage.

"I come from an industrial northern town, and the soundtrack to me growing up was heavy metal. It's in my blood. I
can't just abandon it overnight and become fashionable. I like the dance kinda stuff but I can't actually rip my soul
open to a backing tape of blips & bloops. I can dig it but I can't express myself using it as a palette. It has to be guitars
cranked to 11 and bleeding fingers and sparks flying from the broken amplifiers" - Zod

Disillusioned by the self-indulgent nihilism that punk came to represent he went back to the warm bosom of the Metal
Mutha and set about creating his own band. He knew people in the bizness and called in the favours. The first results were
a cassette tape loaded with an 8 minute rough-as-a-bears-arse version of what eventually came to be the first single - 'Wild
Child'. Zod had 4 copies on tape and left one at Trevor Horn's studio expecting an instant record deal and instant stardom.
It didn't happen. He passed another copy to a Kerrang writer, lost a third and passed the last copy to Dave Balfe - who
eventually ended up as the band's manager. Balfe was impressed by the potential - a mad T-Rex abortion of a tune dragged
along by the Rock Cliche/Marvel comics cut-up lyrics - and decided to take a chance.

A full band was quickly scraped together, chief amongst them Cobalt Stargazer, who had previously toured with The Cars
and worked with Wham! and soon became Zod's right hand man and the only one to stick with him to the bitter end. The
official Love Reaction 'look' of torn leather, oily denim, chrome studs, beast fur, Iron Crosses, biker boots, 5 O' Clock
shadows and rat tails hairdo's took the average Motorhead fan's wardrobe and smeared across the pages of 'style'
mags.The hype storm built like a super cell, finally blowing itself out with an epic Dunkirk-style performance at the 1987
Reading Rock Festival. Pints full of beer, piss and fuck knows what else were tossed at the stage as Zod & the boys ripped
through their set, energising the crowd that had been bored to death by the mascara & frills metal faggots that had
preceded them. The sound was abysmal, Cobalt's riffs were lost in banshee howls of feedback and Zod forgot half the
lyrics but they somehow managed to define the very essence of the Rock Apotheosis that may never be matched.

"I'm just waiting for the backlash. It'd be great if we could get away with it like The Beatles - no backlash. I just gotta
wait for Yoko Spungen to turn up" - Zod

1988 saw the release of 'Sleazegrinder', a compilation of the videos for the bands first 4 singles. It started and peaked early
with the Ade Edmonson-directed 'Prime Mover' where Zod & the band crash through the wall of a girls convent in a tank
and, using space voodoo turn the sleeping virgins into rock groupie vixens from Hell. The Mother Superior and her cronies
intervene only to face Zod's laser beam eyes as he blows their heads off Scanners-style! Even today I still laugh with glee
and pound my fists on my thighs when I see this. It is total genius masquerading as idiocy. The other videos weren't quite
so effective though ' Back Seat Education' is worth a mention as Zod 'wins' a Yakuza boss' daughter in a rigger poker game
(2 Ace of Spades - count 'em!) and proceeds to molest her in a speeding Chevy while chased by mad Japs! Fantastic! All
the videos are intercut with fake interviews with Jesus Christ, TV evangelists and outraged viewers. Sadly no longer
available it was also the last blast of Zod for over 2 years. 2 years when rock went even further downhill. By the they
resurfaced 'Grunge' was looming on the horizon and a new climate of earnestness and 'sincerity' had settled over the land.
Young men who wanted to rock also wanted to look like tramps and moan while they did it. It was, perhaps, not the ideal
time to release an album called 'Hoodlum Thunder'.

Reasons for the delay were varied - half the original band fucked off for starters, Phonogram dropped them like a hot turd
even though they 'owed' the label close to a million quid and no-one else would touch them. They finally signed to
Musidisc ("They're like the South America of the record industry." - Zod) and received sod all promotion in the process.
The album quietly slid out onto the shelves alongside Def Leppard, Guns N Roses and all the rest where it never stood a
chance, which is a damn shame because it is their consistently best album and the point where Zod's imagination and
scope of ideas achieved critical mass. The 'Rape Anthems' of he first album were now replaced by riff-rattled hymns to
everything from the Gulf War to Jimmy Swaggart's 'fall from grace' to Schizophrenia. The band were tighter, Zod's lyrics
were more outrageous and profound than ever before and the sly use of samples featuring characters like William
Burroughs and Robert Oppenheimer all added extra flavour to the already heavy brew.

Zod did the obligatory round of interviews, facing down the 'What Are You Like?' questions with his own brand of
sardonic humour. "I do get perceived as singing shag anthems but they never really are. If you're into really shallow,
transient sexual imagery, you'll get that. Most people don't want to see beneath the surface, which is fair enough. I'm quite
happy to be perceived as an insane rapist". He declared that from January onwards the band were going to get on a tour
bus and not get off "until we die". What followed was a descent into soul-corroding madness that makes Apocalypse Now
look like Blue Peter. A seemingly endless trawl through the shitholes of Europe and Scandinavia destroyed brain cells and
major organs ("My liver's approximately the size of a sofa bed") as the band marched on. Like Roman legionnaires
outnumbered by the savage hordes they went on until the bitter end - because the battle was all they knew. Bruised and
ruined the band retreated back to England, regrouped (around the core of Zod and his trusty batman Cobalt) and released
'My Life Story' - a mini album that served to expose Zod's steadily developing obsession with all forms of 'extreme'
behaviour and, on the title track, an ability to write truly classic and poignant rock anthems that, in a fairer universe, would
be recognised alongside the established standards like 'Stairway to Heaven'.

They continued to tour the toilet venues, turning out for the faithful few ("The same old disgusting, crusty urchins" - Zod)
unveiling new songs for a mooted new album.

It was like the ravens in the tower - if Zodiac Mindwarp stopped touring then the country itself would crumble and fall into
the sea. We needed them. Surely they would never leave us.

By 1994 the writing, sadly, was on the wall. The band went to Spain to record what was to be the last album. Under the
relentless sun they trawled the gutters of Madrid; blistered lips, Sangria and psychosis. The roar of the bullfight crowds
and the blood from the Matador's sword was etched into every groove of this album, a mad howl at the world, a desperate
egotistical ejaculation of skewed notions and psychomanic aesthetics that climaxes with 'One More Knife' - a turbocharged
rock opera retelling of 'Wuthering Heights' by a Heathcliff who's spent too many nights trawling the streets of Bradford's
red light district. Released on an obscure German label it simply fell through the cracks as 'Britpop' stomped in to bore us to
death. The tour van came to a halt - out of gas, out of time and out of luck.Too few people cared and 10 years of standing
like Canute against the waves of mediocrity and shit dance music had finally taken it's toll. Zod went into a self-imposed
exile claiming 'nervous breakdown' and the rest of the band went back to their day jobs.

But that's not the end of the whole story. In more recent times Zod has re-surfaced, having reverted to his original Mark
Manning persona. In partnership with long-time friend (and former KLF/K Foundation member) Bill Drummond he's formed
Curfew Press and published 'Bible Of Dreams' - a limited edition, hand-made album of colour plates 'inspired' by his years of
touring. With an accompanying commentary by Drummond what you get for your £500 is a powerful and poignant insight
into the imagination of a man who has teetered on the brink of ruin and stepped back to share what he saw with us.
Random cuttings from magazines, comics and porn mags are placed in eerily potent juxtaposition with anything from
Swedish bingo cards to packaging for trash products. William Burroughs would have been impressed to see such an
effective use of the 'cut up' technique he championed - Tom & Jerry, Elvis, sweet wrappers, playing cards, women fucking
dogs, Dumbo, swastikas, Clockwork Orange, cum shots and shredded currency - all swim together in a sea of possible
meanings that ring strangely true. As Zod himself put it, "These things float to the surface and you have to deal with them
or go insane. I did both".

Manning & Drummond also collaborated on the insane anti-novel 'Bad Wisdom' (that the Guardian described as a "sick,
racy fantasy") unbelievably published by Penguin in 1997. The attempt to factually document their bizarre mission to plant
a statue of Elvis at the North Pole (to 'save the world', allegedly) is sustained by Drummond while Manning quickly
degenerates into a self-indulgent fantasy variation of the journey incorporating all his favourite obsessions - Nazis,
Vikings, Madonna, Vodka, Rock n Roll, Rape and Armageddon. Often unpleasant (to say the least) it is best described as a
unhealthy collision between Naked Lunch and Lester Bangs 'Psychotic Reactions & Carburettor Dung'. Naturally it was
doomed to skid quickly from the Waterstones 'Cult Fiction' table into the remainder bins. We weren't ready for it.

More recently Manning & Drummond have appeared in the Idler magazine with 'Bill & Zed's Problem Page' ('We've fucked
up our lives, now it's your turn') and Manning has even done a spot of modelling! There's talk of a sequel to 'Bad Wisdom'.
There's websites dedicated to the legacy of the band. There's a lot of hoping that one day they may reform but I think its
safe to say that everyone involved has moved on. The world wasn't ready for them in their day and, even at the end of a
century where everything has been tried, trashed and then re-appraised through the shades of irony , it's not ready for
them now. We are still not ready to give ourselves totally and utterly to the mindfuck revelation that lies at the heart of the
one True Rock. Here's to Zod for even daring to try.

For those who doubt Zod's wit & wisdom, here is a brief selection of his lyrics. If these don't make you want to go and hunt
down all his albums immediately then you are truly beyond hope.

"Hey Baby, check it out, I got the juice to make you shout,

Well you talk too much, button your lip, just take a trip behind my zip"

- High Priest of Love

"Sex Fuhrer Baby, I'm a Love Dictator,

Blitzkrieg Romance I'm a Cool Dominator"

- Prime Mover

"Well I'm Christ in shades, I'm a napalm god, you're lipstick flickers round my lightning rod, You fever-pitch bitch you love
to tease, I'm your hot dog daddy, Up on your knees"

- Prime Mover

"I ain't got time for chocolates and flowers, I said I need a woman now not in 24 hours, A drunker skirt with a bad
reputation, a see-you-later baby with no complications, I'll rock you baby 'til your clothes catch fire, I'll tell you that I love
you but you know that I'm a liar, Oh Baby it ain't no sin, say your prayers let Daddy stick it in"

- Bad Girl City

"Helen of Troy in a wet t-shirt, A Pagan Demolition in a micro skirt, the mystery girl, the Babylon Whore, Delilah with a
chainsaw bustin' down the door" - Trash Madonna

"You ain't no Princess, I ain't no frog, when it rains Angel you smell just like a dog, I wanna push you in the dirt and fuck
you where it hurts, I smell liquor on your breath and fire in your hair, you dirty little Slutfreak"

- Slutfreak

"She's old as crime, young as time, smells like jelly & nursery rhymes"

- Prostitute

"Elvis went to Heaven baby, died for all our sins, the son of God in his killer flares, sunglasses & sequins"

- Elvis Died For You

"God created woman and the Devil made her bad, Girls they can confuse but only women drive you mad"

- Trash Madonna

"Stormin' Norman, Sgt. Rock, Watch out kids new Nazi's on the block,

Your New World Order's the same old shit, your ugly Sister's slipper still don't fit, Great Satan Sam surfs the cathode rays,
Fascist Fonz, Unhappy Days,

Whitney sings her song so sweetly, when Baghdad screams, you can't hear the babies"

- Hoodlum Thunder

"I'm the Mark of Cain with my tears of black rain, Well I skipped dessert, I betrayed the Jew, I hide in the mirror and I'm
pointing at you"

- Meanstreak

Sure beats "We all live in a yellow fucking submarine" doesn't it?

With 'dance' music splintering off into ever more farcial little factions ("Disco Hop" - it's beyond parody, it really is) there
seems to be no signs of the long-predicted 'death' of rock music. Young folks who just want to release the aggression and
frustration that come with living in the most peaceful and prosperous times in human history need their Dionysian gods to
worship at the altar of. If men with guitars is so dated then so is men nailed to crosses and men riding winged horses. It's
myth and fantasy, archetypes and the collective unconscious. And for a while there was a bold, flawed and honest
Yorkshireman who dared to explore the gulf between our dreams and our grubby little realities. Respect is due.

"If you look hard enough and your soul is pure enough, you won't see ugliness in the world, you'll see beauty" - Mark
Manning/Z/Zodiac Mindwarp

Rik Rawling

25/11/99