Hi folks, my name's Dick and I sing for Citizen Fish, do the interviews mostly, write the lyrics and letters... Over here is Jasper who is two days older and plays Bass. Together with Trotsky we got this thing together in September 1989. He's not here now as he lives in his van with which he drives us about to the 94-on-average gigs we've been doing since then per year in various countries, most of which still feature on most maps! Back then - oh yeah, he drums as well! - Larry played Guitar but Phil took over a year later, by which time we had our first of four LPs, a list of which can be had from us at Bluurg Records(see address at end) as well as details of several Tapes/EPs/T-shirts by us and heaps of other musical groups. We sound like Madness, The Clash, The Subhumans, Culture Shock... apparently! This is debatable, although the fact that we were all involved in either or both of the last two bands probably lends a touch of accuracy!

We all sign on and off to tour and back on again, which gets a bit tricky except me who manages to survive on a mix of royalties and the mail order thing I do with Bluurg. Trotsky does a bargain deal on bags of mushroom compost when it's in season!

We think it's the best one yet! It's got Alex from Bender adding lots of spinal tingle with his trumpet and it keeps one's ears wake, er, like, the tracks don't get repetitious. 12 of them dealing with such subjects as imminent fast-forward technological dehumanisation as we approach the apocalypse mind-set of the next thousand years, the plight of refugees, the shittiness of most jobs, supermarket stress, the underclass and various socio-political observations, as usual!

Actually it was a US Tour and apart from having to replace the van engine after two gigs, which entailed the band squeezing into a car for four gigs while Pete and Richard, the astounding roadies got that sorted out, and the cops closing down two gigs due to underage drinking on the streets (crazy drink laws, no wonder the place is full of serial killers!), it was bloody brilliant! From basements to big halls from California to Nevada, Arizona to Colorado and Texas (a bit) back to California again for 15 All Ages $5 entry gigs! Lots of people at most of them, no crowd trouble, Larger crowds than over here, possibly cos over there the Techno/Rave/Nightclub scene hasn't diminished the number going to a diminished number of live venues, such as has happened here. On a more positive note the amount of violence at gigs has dropped to near zero compared to ten years back. Also the attitudes have lightened up alot as people start giving a shit about sexism, racism and other people being different. Outdoors, the Criminal Justice Act has reduced festivals to being one or two day Council-controlled events rather than the free situations they used to be. Where a festival would start and end based of then arrival and departure of the people who made it happen. A whole bunch of other time-distorted perceptions no doubt exist if I dug deep enough, but I prefer to look forward. Things can always get better!

I was lent The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran, which consists of a lot of philosophical stuff on subjects like children, joy, clothes, reason marriage, etc. Some of it is too god-orientated but alot of it is well whacky; on the subject of comfort: ...verily the lust for comfort, murders the passion of the soul, and then walks grinning at the funeral... on talking: ...you talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts... personally I think it's a load of bollox, but it makes you think! Record ? The Blue Meanies - Kiss Your Ass Goodbye which is totally excellent, like the Cardiacs and Op Ivy and NoMeansNo mixed up chopped up and pierced in all the best places!

We hope to get to either Australia or Japan or both in the next 6 months, I'm working on it. Also to get another load of songs written for another LP and do gigs in between where ever they can fit.

I stood in one once, about 15.687745300988 feet across and suddenly I felt my whole body go numb and a voice from... Yeah, right! Actually I think the "aliens" are on the verge of going public in a big way and we should welcome them with punk rock music and "Mr Jolly Lives Next Door", rather than letting all this satellite TV give them the idea of what we're like ("we landed all our spacecraft at once across what they call Europe, but they were all watching television, so we came home").

When Romania ousted its leader Chowcheskoo - phonetic stuff, this! - the western world saw his street cameras as an ultimate sign of Orwellien dictatorship, and now 8 years later, we're all potential Crimewatch stars! Stella Rimington is the friendly face of the CIA or is it MI5 and what's the difference? The police can computer-file your DNA and arrest anyone on suspicion of anything...the atmosphere is heavy with mutual suspicion, and these cameras are extremely damaging psychologically. The feeling of being watched in public places leads everyone to a constant state of paranoia and we will all end up behaving as if a war was on; staying in and keeping quiet. This further divides us and alienates people from each other and the State, which is how a State functions when its media are no longer toeing the party line. Its a sign of the State's loss of credibility that it has to retain control through blatantly oppressive means, as opposed to subtler "Democratic" forms of Government. This shift in relation between leaders and led leads to greater instability and eventually chaos. It won't lead to a totalitarian thought-police-style situation, cos we're all prepared against that by history and the love of freedom, and... DISCONTINUED REFER TO CODEFILE 556V-7 (Ed-Top Secret, file under Subversives in MI5 Registry!!!)

Ever since the days of the Subhumans, fish have played a predominant part in your bands and label is this because you really love fish or some political thesis on a human-fish relationship?

Fish! ...I used to shout a lot, I mean I used to shout fish alot, well OK both! I mean it was a silly thing, Ju from Organised Chaos used to yell Bananas! at everyone... This naturally led to writing Us Fish Must Swim Together (Subhumans) and generally thinking alot about our piscine friends. Fish seemed as good a label to catalogue prefix as anything else, and the band name Citizen Fish is like the pinnacle of fish reference! (it says here)....fact is, fish are pretty good examples of how to exist, swimming around solo or in cohesive groups in seas without imposed borders and without dropping bombs on each other! They come in a huge variety of shapes and colours and as we're all descended from fish in the first place and the human body is over 90% water, I reckon its pretty accurate/sensible stuff! Of course, if fish were called Obganicofers, and not fish then I'd never have started yelling the word in the first place - too much of a mouthful ...

I'm typing this out cos I broke my finger (on my write hand (sic)) by hitting a wall in a fit of regressive angst when drunk as fuck on New Years Eve. Ignoring the cause of such internal grief, its is interesting to note that I've since been told that hitting walls is a male thing and that women cry instead. I think walls (and cars, come to that) should be made of rubber. And I shouldn't get that drunk. Apart from that, have a nice year, buy all our records and stop eating meat cos its bad for you and the animal concerned. And a big hello to the person next to you. Cheers!

For more information on Citizen Fish or for a list of their records etc... send an SAE to:

BLUURG RECORDS

2 VICTORIA TERRACE

MELKSHAM

WILTS

SN12 6NA

U.K.