We're stumbling over dynamos, alternators and corroding carburettors, there's a pneumatic drill in the corner, a grinder standing beside it.

"Graham of SPK loved this place when he came here" remarks John, as he and Ian, the available half of Portion Control, make their way through the debris and dust and upward towards their flat above this car spare repair shop in Kennington's High Road.

With such auspicious surroundings you may expect a background more in line with the panel pounding of Test Dept, truth be told this bunch originally wanted to make a record 'banging pots and pans in the kitchen' back in '78, but when refused by the engineer they decided to find a more conventional route to success:

JOHN: "We started off playing guitars and that and then I bought an A.R.P. axe synthesiser which is a really old fashioned one. I bought it ages ago, I took it to practice and I'd left me guitar at home so we put it on the table and we was all looking at it, trying to get it to work. We set up these patches like surf on the beach and all that, and just from there we started to get interested in it. Then we bought something else and tried something else and with that we did our first l.p. We used about the cheapest equipment which we regretted, it's good for writing on but we didn't realise you weren't meant to record l.p's on em so we went ahead with it and bunged out the l.p."

This album 'I Staggered Mentally' released on In Phaze followed their debut 12" 'Surface And Be Seen', both records were recorded on this sub-standard equipment but still showed promise and a definite course the self named 'Hard, Rhythmic, Electronics' was to take. A mini album 'Hit The Pulse' led to inclusion on Third Mind's classic compilation 'Rising From The Red Sand' and Dave Henderson's project 'The Elephant Table Album', both monuments of last year's music, and both loosely connected with Illuminated, the label that consecrated a one year, 2 singles, 1 l.p. contract with them by releasing 'Raise The Pulse' before Christmas.

JOHN: " Because we're on Illuminated we've got pretty good control over everything we do, up to now anyway, and we'd like to keep that control. But whatever you do you don't get 100% say in things you do, bands pretend they have that power but if the record company don't like it they say 'tough shit' and don't put it out. Ultimately it's up to us what we want to do, the record company suggests things but it's still our decision."

So now for the obvious, the questions that evolution and a different language couldn't change, what's in a name?

JOHN: "Well it arrived from catering really, like sugar sachets and butter packs, they are strict controls of an amount which in a way reflects the way we work."

Both present parties work in the catering trade, a talent displayed by lamb, peas and mash on arrival, but they have positive views on this 'work ethic':

JOHN: "We've already set ourselves a time limit, you know we're not going to stay at work forever, it doesn't make any difference, we've got a career which we could both go back to, we don't dislike it that much. But you go and do 10 hours at work when you could be doing 10 hours of what you like doing. It's not a lot to ask to live off what you live for is it really? Well I suppose it is a lot to ask but that's tough shit it's what we want to do."

Say you're in a group and some woman rings you up who does promotion for Kraftwerk and the Birthday Party. She offers to get you gigs in Munich, Belgium and Holland just because she's heard one of your tracks at a club in Berlin and liked it. This is what happened to Portion Control, and now, having played these countries, and in England supporting 'Chris & Cosey', 'SPK' and '23 Skidoo' at Nebworth it seems they may have created an interesting act:

JOHN: "Sometimes we cook pancakes and hand them out to people at the front of the crowd, we use back projection things like that and Dean goes really mad which is good to watch."

PANCAKES? Shrove Tuesdau revisited, I'm on the floor acting my impression of a choking duck.

IAN: "Yeah, they're quite nice actually, we're taking a calor gas on tour this time, we stand there for most of the set, I cut the lemon slices, John puts the sugar on and we hand them out on paper plates while Dean runs around going a bit mad."

JOHN: "But we've never done that in England, it's only been on the continent because out there everyone's more enthusiastic and we have proper hotels and venues laid on."

IAN: "We get a fair clammer for pancakes, we can't believe what's happening. That's the only angle we can inject because it's all we know. I know it sounds a bit daft in this context but actually live, as part of the set it's alright. I mean, say you saw a Virgin Prune walking through Kennington High Road, everyone in this road would laugh at him if he had a dress and hobnail boots on, but in the context of the show it's perfect."

JOHN: "I love gimmicks, a friend at work saw Fad Gadget supporting Gary Numan. Fad Gadget had put his hand down his pants and pulled out his pubic hairs and flicked them at the front of the crowd. I love things like that, those silly little gimmicky things they do, it upsets everyone which is good. It's the same with SPK, like when we supported them at Brunel Uni, they used a metal grinder to shoot sparks into the crowd, & the crowd loved it, they were all moving forward to get hit by these sparks."

IAN: "They pealed the paint off the ceiling with their flame thrower, they turned it on and it went 'wooosh' (get the idea?), it was all bubbling and peeling."

JOHN: "I remember Graham was swinging a chain, he was swinging this really heavy chain right out over the heads of the crowd and I was thinking, how's he going to slow down the swinging without dropping down and hitting someone on the head? But he whipped it back, he's like pretty practiced. But the crowd they loved it so much, they were all ducking and screaming, it was a bit bad for us because we had to warm em up (without a flame thrower!), but we knew it'd be like that."

Back to the script, how about the line up and their rise to stardom?

JOHN: "It's always been us, everybody thinks it's been different line-ups, but it's always been the same 3 people (with Pat helping) and we've learnt and progressed along at the same pace and we're all totally confident about each other. But even now, even at this stage we're getting people who are saying 'Oh yeah, I'll do this for you, I'll do that for you' and they're showing an interest in us; which makes you feel a bit bitter because you wonder if they're trying to jump on now that we're getting to a certain level. You get letters from people who want to be backing singers or bloody press attaches."

We're laughing again as we start to talk about Top Of The Pops and megastardom in general, it's not as much a joke as you may think, Portion Control have some strong commercial tracks which given the right push will eventually scale the charts. But is it what they want?

JOHN: "If you're gonna make a record that you want to sell a lot of copies then you make one that sounds like Yazoo and you take it out to Italy or somewhere like that, because they love it and you'd sell thousands, you'd make money and I think we could probably be quite capable of doing that, but for some reason we don't do it. Because if we write a sequence and it sounds a bit corny it makes you cringe, you know what I mean, but if you're in for a fast buck yeah. But we're not really worried about money which is good because it stops you from doing things like that."

Finally their second single on Illuminated, 'Rough Justice' from the 'rouger mix' sounds mega, 'Hard, Rhythmic, Electronics' at their best, a pounding dance disc aided by the horn section of 'Dexys' and partly produced by Blancmange's Neil Arthur, why the outside help?

JOHN: "Because we do everything ourselves, it's like we don't really know what an outside influence will make. We tried using horns which is the first time we've called on anyone to help us musically and we're quite happy about that y'know, and because Illuminated are doing it for us we'd like to see the result of the connection with Neil Arthur, if he can add something, if he does know, because we're not terribly sure when breaks should be and how to strip things down, then we'd like to consider his ideas. We know in our heads how we'd like to hear it but it'll be good to hear someone's outside opinion you know."

Well whether Neil Arthur's help does come in useful or not, you could decide for yourself by buying the single, I'm not twisting your arm, or even persuade. I know this band are already massive, time will draw the crowds to prove it! Anyone for a pancake?

© Abstract fanzine #3

Digital assistance and credit: Simon Dell <simon@stroppy.demon.co.uk>