Bang, Bang, Bang

Crashing onto the seventies music scene, The Bang Bang tore up the rock rule book and helped change music forever...

In the mid-70’s a cultural shift was brewing in Britain, the wheels were in motion for the explosion of a sub-culture that would change the fabric of society forever - that sub-culture was punk.
The list of influential figures and bands that were instrumental in the formative years of this new culture, may not have always included The Bang Bang, but this band were a total embodiment of the freakish, contradictory and narcissistic nature of punk rock.
Some of the band’s un-released session material has come to light, causing a resurgence of interest in the group.
They caused a stir on the London ‘pub-rock’ scene in 1974/75 for their aggressive sound and stage persona, controversially fronted by conjoined twins Tom and Barry Howe.
The Howe’s story’s one of depression, pain + the endless search for escape, it is a story drawing heavy comparisons to many of the myths + archetypes of rock n roll.
From an early age speculation and rumour filled the twins’ life. Shortly after their birth in 1956 their mother died and as the story goes, it was the sight of her infant sons that killed her. Like many stories told about the Howe twins, this one is not true. It is true, however, that after their mother’s death in childbirth, their father took his unusual family to a remote corner of the country to keep them from the public eye. It is also true that when the twins reached the age of 18 in 1974, their father sold them to musical impresario & former Vaudeville child star, Zak Bedderwick.
Following their removal from the family home, the Howe brothers were taken to Bedderwick’s country house Humbleden Hall, where, under the patient tutelage of musician, Paul Day (formerly of the ill-fated Chris Dervish band, The Noize), + the firm hand of band manager, Nick Sidney, they began to rehearse their act. While the good-natured Tom quickly picked up chords on the guitar, Barry, the ad hoc lead singer was less biddable. Nick Sidney discovered that a smack in the face would usually keep the more difficult twin in line. Barry often sported a black eye.
While @ Humbleden, the Howe brothers’ musical progress and daily lives were filmed by an American documentary-maker, Eddie Pasqua (a loyal student of DA Pennebaker and close friend of CBGB’s Hilly Crystal), who captured them & their band, The Bang Bang, rehearsing what was to become their signature tune, ‘Two-Way Romeo’.
Word of the secret rehearsals at Humbleden soon reached the outside world and brought journalist and former girlfriend of a rock casualty, Laura Ashworth, eager to write about the exploitation of the ‘disabled’ Howe brothers.
Pretty Laura was rudely informed that her theme didn’t interest the twins but it was immediately obvious that she, Laura, did. Very soon, she became a fixture in the studio, her tape recorder as ubiquitous as Eddie’s camera. Under ordinary circumstances, Barry, the odd-man-out, might have carried his bitterness away to brood alone. Tragically, attached as he was to his brother, Barry had no choice but to become intimately involved when Tom + Laura fell in love.
Their romantic rivalry sparked the brothers’ creativity and they soon had a repertoire of songs to perform as well as Zak Bedderwick’s blessing to cut a record. In time-honoured fashion, the boys began to increase their drug and alcohol intake.

Barry shaved his hair into a modified Mohawk (later a style of the punk scene). They scrawled cryptic lyrics and drew elaborate obscenities on the walls of their bedroom. Before long, they were ready for their London pub debut.
In the cramped back room of the King’s Head, the audience jeered as the brothers took the stage. To all appearances, The Bang Bang’s cute front-men couldn’t keep their hands off one another and this was the wrong place for that kind of show. The doubters were silenced when Tom struck up the chords + Barry spat out the first words of their opening number.
The ripple of excitement that accompanied a glimpse of the thick ribbon of flesh connecting Tom to Barry + Barry to Tom confirmed Bedderwick’s intuition- the Howes would be huge.
They not only looked good, they not only sounded different but they were ‘seriously fucking freaky’.
Fame, as ever, came with a price and the ghostly vestige of a third, malign twin began to rear its ugly head... The twins quickly descended into a world of envy and betrayal.
A final gig ended in mayhem. As the twins’ hostility escalated, they disappeared back to their family home and soon thereafter, came to a grisly end when Tom finally took the matter of separating himself from Barry into his own hands.
The recordings that have come to light highlight The Bang Bang as a unique and influential act whose aggressive take on the rock n roll template would provide the foundation for the music of acts like the Sex Pistols and The Damned.
They should be regarded in the history of punk in the same category as the Stooges, MC5, The New York Dolls and The Dictators as pioneers of a culture that changed everything.