RUN 229? To my shame, I wouldn't have been any the wiser either until very recently when a discerning friend of mine provided me with this compilation of one of the UK'S great lost bands from that all-important Post-Punk era when the 70s collided with the starkness of the early 1980s.
Cannily subtitled “the complete history of the band's recordings”, 'Mod-Eration' (currently only available as a CD-R from www.run229.com) is exactly that: all 15 songs recorded professionally by the band during their brief, but creatively rich existence from approximately 1979 – 82. The sound quality is sometimes lower than you'd hope for, but bearing in mind Run 229 only ever released one official single ('Soho') and that some of these songs have been mastered from cassettes and other less than pristine sources, that they are here at all is little short of miraculous.
So who the devil were Run 229? Well, as the collection's title, Pop art touches and scooter graphics suggest, anyone growing up with the Mod resurgence of 1979 will already be well acquainted with them. They hailed from Shotton, a town on the border of Cheshire and North Wales (which means we can't quite claim them as a Liverpool band) and adhered to a hard-gigging attitude which ensured they were regulars on Merseyside and North Wales, not to mention crucial London hang-outs like The 101 in Clapham and Canning Town's Bridge House. Along the way, virtually all the other nascent Mod outfits around (barring Secret Affair) would go on to share a stage with them.
The band's instigator was drummer Ray Bibby, a long-time Who fanatic keen to put together an outfit capable of similar incendiary power. Some of 229's songs suggested his wish was granted in spades, as sharp, aggressive tunes like 'Say That It's Hard', the strident state of the nation address 'In This Day & Age' and the dramatic, chorus-heavy anthem 'We Can Dance Forever' are surely good enough to have followed The Jam up the charts in a fairer world.
Despite the amphetamine energy of these songs and Bibby's Moon-esque drum clatter, to label Run 229 as merely a 'Mod' band is to do them a grave disservice, not least because the group's personnel hailed from a variety of backgrounds. Charismatic singer Mark Allen and guitarist/ songwriter John Tallon Jones had both done time in a Hippy outfit called Hybrid, scarily youthful bassist Nick Carr was already well-versed in the Dub'n'spliffs lifestyle of the hard line Reggae head and guitarist Steve Eaton Jones openly flaunted a Flying V copy: hardly the guitar of choice for the Rickenbacker-obsessed Mod brigade.
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These diverse backgrounds nonetheless blended beautifully to create a body of work which passes the test of time with flying colours. Although 229 never wrote obvious love songs per se, tunes like 'Emily' come with an undertow of lovelorn resignation, while eerie, edgy tracks like 'Realise' and the snotty, Joe Jackson-isms of 'Growing Up' showcase a band with a firm grasp of dynamic Power Pop. Elsewhere, Carr's Reggae leanings stick their head over the parapet on the spacier likes of 'Don't Say You'll Go' and 'Shell Shock' and – perhaps most intriguingly – Tallon Jones' violin adds rich, 'Baba O'Riley”-ish textures to the punchy 'Soho' (their lone 45) and the storming energy unleashed by 'Listen To The Radio.'
Despite a few near misses like slots on Granada TV's influential 'What's On' and a brief spell on Pye Records' subsidiary label Baal, Run 229 never quite fulfilled their potential. There's nothing unusual in that old story, yet the potent contents of 'Mod-Eration' suggest quality was very much their watchword and that they could just as easily have enjoyed the fruits of a bright future had the run of the green been theirs. Regardless of the 'what if”s, though, 'Mod-Eration' is a splendid archival release from a band who are ripe for re-discovery.
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