Lyme Regis, UK · punk · anarcho-punk

Cult Maniax

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West Country punk that kept mutating between anarcho, psychobilly, and straight-up rock — Devon eccentrics who never fit the uniform.

Cult Maniax formed in 1978 in Great Torrington, Devon, taking their name from the idea of the band as the Cult and their following as the Maniax. Their first show was played at the school attended by founding members Rico Sergeant, Foxy Steer and Mildew Mules, and word of mouth built a following from there before they released a run of singles and EPs on small independent labels through the early 1980s.

Their debut release, the Black Horse EP, made local newspaper headlines in 1982 over its title track, a swipe at the landlord of a Torrington pub who had taken against the town's punks. Around 200 copies sold before a court case forced the band to hand over the master and destroy remaining stock, and surviving originals now change hands for around £50.

The follow-up, Blitz, came out on the band's own Elephant Rock label and sold over 20,000 copies before it too was pulled, this time over the B-side's references to oral sex. Their sole album, Cold Love, was mixed in 1983 without the band's involvement, while the 1984 EP Full of Spunk fared better, reaching number 11 on the UK Indie Chart.

The band split in 1986 having, by their own account, run out of ideas, briefly reconvening the following year as the Vibe Tribe. They reformed again in 1996 to play the first Punx Picnic in Plymouth and have continued playing occasional gigs since, releasing a further studio album, The Curse of the Cult Maniax, in 2015.

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