Heart of a Punk Soul of a Rasta

Weapon of Peace are back! They are playing Robin Hood 2 Bilson on 25th June GO HERE FOR TICKETS.

OK so I guess that Weapon of Peace is not a band that is massively known throughout this Kingdom of ours. Hailing from the Wolverhampton-ish area they were signed up by Safari Records and knocked out two albums in the early eighties. Operating at the same time as near neighbours Capital Letters and Steel Pulse and touring with UB 40 the sound of their eponymous first album was naturally, like its subject matter, a solid amalgam of what was going on at the time. The album was produced in a "lite" reggae style by Bob Lamb (the Brummie producer of Duran Duran & UB 40). Playing now is "West Park" a song about Wolverhampton's central Victorian Park. West Park was and still is a gem, but it wasn't all good, as my Mom used to say as I set out for the park "Piss in the bushes if you have to but don't go near the Men's toilets, there's always a queer sort of fella hanging round outside there". She may have been right but was there really a Witch living in the derelict house at the end of Bingley Street? Anyway does anyone remember the Wolverhampton Fiesta that was held at West Park in the 70's ? - those were the days!

The Weapon of Peace second album "Rainbow Rhythm" saw the band move to a less reggae more chart focused soulful funky dance oriented sound (which seemed to be the order of the day at the time) more in the vein of Third World who'd had a top ten hits with the likes of "Dancing on the Floor (Hooked on Love)" and "Now that We've Found Love". Even though tracks like "Government Issue" on the second LP showed that Weapon of Peace had still got a bit of bite left, the message and vital intensity of the debut had been washed out somewhat. The band disappeared off the musical radar during 1983.

I got to see Weapon of Peace play live a few times back in the day, in the first instance purely because the brother of the drummer Clive Brown was in my class at school, and I went just to see if this band called Weapon of Peace were any cop, they were. Later I saw them on a much larger stage backing up UB40. Thirty years have passed, all in the blinking of an eye, and now on the 25th June I guess I'll be going along to Robin Hood 2 to see if Weapon of Peace are still any cop - you know what, I've got a feeling they will be. GO HERE TO LEARN MORE