Last week's reports on the Penetration split, in other papers, turned out to be
so much woolly mis-informed idealism, blaming the whole mess on the band's 
disillusionment with the evil "biz" and completely ignoring the internal divisions 
that prevented the band from tackling the undeniable outside pressures on a common
front.
  Singer Pauline Murray and bass player Robert Blamire are to continue as a 
writing and recording unit, possibly with drummer Gary Smallman. I spoke to them 
in a restaurant near Virgin's Notting Hill headquarters while guitarists Neale
Floyd and Fred Purser, who have barely spoken to each other for months, made their
way down from Newcastle on separate trains.
  The trio looked pale and exhausted, but eager to talk about their tentative 
plans, anxious to understand the mistakes of the past three years and conduct the
next two a whole lot more carefully.
  "It all came to a head the night before this tour began, when we met in London
to get ready for two rehearsal dates at West Runton," said Pauline. "It'd started
before that, when we were recording 'Coming Up For Air'; the two guitarists just
weren't getting on at all."
  In fact the second album sessions were the scene of a debilitating lack of 
communication between Floyd and Purser, who refused to discuss each other's songs
or guitar parts. As guitar interplay and experimentation had formed one of the 
main strengths of the band's debut album, "Moving Targets", the damage was
considerable - and the remaining trio were full of praise for producer Steve 
Lillywhite, who "kept the band together" in the studio.
  

  Penetration's deep dissatisfaction with "Coming Up For Air" was fuelled by the
fact that they had only just a week to prepare for it after returning from their 
first American tour, one of the Copeland brothers' low-rent excursions. Still
exhausted from a string of clapboard bar dates, they had a sketchy five songs 
prepared. 
  Smallman is particularly unimpressed by their stateside experiences: "You should
have seen some of the places we played - the Fourth Street Saloon, Bethleham, near
Northampton. Just so small, there was nothing there at all, it was completely 
dead. The gig was like a barber's shop inside; I just thought to myself, 'What am 
I doing here, what am I trying to prove?'"
  This feeling of unreflecting struggle towards an unknown end ran through our 
whole conversation. What happened to the band's initial attitude of non-compromise
and dogged idealism? Pauline explains: "When we first started out, we used to be 
really involved in the business side, everything that happened would go through us 
first. Then you realise things are slipping through, maybe only little things. 
Like the back of the album sleeve, that's typical."
  "Pauline's husband, Peter, brought a copy of the sleeve up," continues Smallman.
"I knew there'd be illustrations of the band on the back, but they were 
disgusting. I was on the phone to Virgin for ages, and in the end the answer was,
'We just can't do anything about it, the guy's on holiday and we've printed 
30,000.'"


  The band admit that the geographical distance of their base from London
exacerbated such problems, but wasn't that the point of having a London-based 
management? John Arnison, an employee of Quarry Productions - whose main business
is taking care of Status Quo - is to remain the band's manager for the remaining 
two years of their five-year contract.
  Shouldn't he be handling the hassles? The band indicate that, even on that 
front, there have been problems of communication. 
  So why hadn't Penetration gritted their collective teeth in the face of the 
enemy? "We just weren't united, and hadn't been for a long time."
  The aloofness of Neale Floyd and his impatience with what he sees as their 
"nice" image formed an insurmountable barrier: "He's the hardest member of the 
band to get to know; he let the press go to his head."
  According to Blamire, "He was getting annoyed that he was being mistaken for a
nice guy when he wanted to be a bad guy."
  Floyd's personality, and his musical rift with the more studious playing of
Purser, are still, according to Pauline, a major barrier to the completion of the 
14 remaining tour dates.
  As for the future, Floyd unsurprisingly wants to work on his own. Purser may go
to university (as he was just about to do when he joined Penetration) and the
Murray/Blamire axis want - possibly with Smallman's help - to conduct their 
working lives in a significantly different fashion.
  Much as the Revillos outlined in a recent pronouncement, Pauline wants to avoid 
the spiritual, creative and financial exhaustion of constant touring. Manager 
Arnison, whose conception of a rock'n'roll career-pattern is probably modelled on
the Quo's endless boogie-trekking, is "going to have to see things differently,"
according to Pauline.
  "I'm going to take some time off after this tour, have a rest," she says. "Then
I'm going to get a keyboard and start to write on that, come up with whole songs 
and not be restricted to always working with backing tracks. I don't want to be
put to the front all the time. I want to work on the music, try different sounds,
different instruments. What's the rush, what's the desperation?"
- STEVE TAYLOR.