Major Accident

Major Accident emerged among the earliest standard-bearers of Britain's "Clockwork Punk" movement, a circle whose visual style and subject matter reflected the sleek nihilism portrayed in A Clockwork Orange. Bassist Con Larkin, aged 16, and his 14-year-old brother, vocalist Paul Larkin, assembled the band in 1977 inside Darlington, a town in North Eastern England. At first billed simply as Accident, the Larkin brothers took cues from the Clash and the Sex Pistols; guitarist Dave Hammond and drummer Col Stephenson completed the lineup for initial appearances at a neighborhood youth center. Not until the early 1980s did the group commit its first demo material to tape, capturing the otherwise unreleased single "Warboots" and "Self-Appointed Hero." Portions of those recordings later surfaced without authorization as The Clockwork Demos. Persistent live activity eventually built a domestic audience, allowing Major Accident to sign with Step Forward Records and issue the debut album Massacred Melodies in 1982. Drummer Stu Lee had joined by then, and the band logged extensive road time throughout the U.K. and Europe inside a converted furniture truck. A second studio album, A Clockwork Legion, arrived in 1984, followed later the same year by the concert document Tortured Tunes (Live -- The Official Bootleg). The ensemble adopted the name Accident once more for its first American release, the 1985 LP Crazy on Toxic Shock. A U.S. tour supporting fellow Clockwork Punk fixtures the Adicts yielded shrinking crowds and disappointing receipts, prompting the group to disband at the close of 1985. Reunion came in 1996 when Con Larkin, Paul Larkin, and Dave Hammond recruited guitarist Andy Wears and drummer Andy Lazenby (aka Laze). The refreshed lineup delivered The Ultimate High that year, and a split LP with Foreign Legion, Cry of the Legion, followed in 2001. Recording activity stayed sparse afterward, though the band maintained occasional touring routes in the U.K. and Europe. Westworld Recordings supplied an expanded reissue in 2018 of the 1994 compilation Pneumatic Pneurosis, which gathered Major Accident's early singles.