...And The Native Hipsters

This London-based duo comprised William Wilding and Blatt. Prior to 1980 they had worked under names such as The Wildings, then later as The Patterns with Robert Cubitt and Tom Fawcett. In that guise, they released the challenging but largely incoherent ‘The B’Shop Is In The Fridge’. They next emerged as (And The) Native Hipsters, again with Cubitt and Fawcett. It was as the latter that Wilding and Blatt achieved national recognition with their 1980 release ‘There Goes Concorde Again’. Blatt’s repetitive, childlike enthusiasm at the sighting of the famed ‘silverbird’ captured the attention of UK Radio 1 disc jockey John Peel, resulting in the single peaking at number 5 in the UK independent charts. Wilding turned down an offer from producer Tony Visconti to re-record the single for national consumption, preferring total artistic control. Their next release in 1982, a four-track EP, 'Tenderly Hurt Me', won them respect from the music press who had previously condemned them as quirky oddballs. The Hipsters’ inventive and bizarre mixture of surreal poetry, diverse musical styles, original and sampled sounds, plus a vast array of musical instruments of whatever came to hand, managed to establish a cult following. Variously assisted by friends such as Lester Square (guitar, from The Monochrome Set), Annie Whitehead (trombone), Chris Cornetto (cornet), Liduina Van Der Sman (saxophone) and Simon Davison (piano), Wilding and Blatt have over the years recorded countless sessions, live and in the studio, which were later compiled to form 'Blatt On The Landscape'. During the early 90s Wilding performed on the London cabaret circuit as the iconoclastic Woody Bop Muddy, an act that comprised his passing savage judgement on whatever and whoever’s records he acquired, by way of smashing them with a hammer. [SOURCE: ALLMUSIC]