street cred

Tim Curry as Stevie Streeter

This version, more than the original, = The Smiths

Something oddly compelling about second-division, or outright poor punk / new wave



Seems a million years ago, don't it?

Also listening to the UK second-division punk, or the second-wave of it a few years on, you do often really feel that thing Carducci wrote about: the way that ideological sympathy / solidarity on the part of the audience supplies what is absent in the group's performance, responding to their intention rather than what is actually achieved

So nothing

Me and my brothers Tim and Jez found about 15 copies of the empty sleeve of this album in Oxford Street, brought them home and stared at them in fascination. But only just heard the music for the first time now!

Chelsea! Now there's a group that'll never be reappraised

I'm not sure if I ever even heard them at the time

Nor Peter and the Test Tube Babies

There's a great piece, very funny, about the Lurkers by Paul Morley,would you believe....


Weird to finally - after seeing their image countless times back in the day, their logo on the back of leather jackets worn by Berko  punx -  to finally hear The Adicts for very the first time




And they're still treading the boards!

Elvis Costello said The Anti Nowhere League had the best name, and the best slogan -- "We're the Anti Nowhere League - and you're not!"



The after birth of punk seemed to hang on much much longer than the afterbirth of psychedelia....




The second-wave blethered on well into the mid-Eighties




But going back to the second-div of the first wave - I remembered this as being half-alright but by jiminy it's a puny pummel




This one i remember loving at the time - the single "Teenage Warning", never heard the full album - and was annoyed they spoiled their Big Chance by playing it live and sloppy on TOTP




Another mystery: the boringness of major label Stiff Little Fingers cf their ferocious start




Still, when it was good -- Ruts, X Ray Spex, Rezillos, Undertones, even (whisper it) Sham 69 (in moments) - it was great.

Truth is I liked all this stuff in tandem with the postpunk for quite a while.

And then there's anarcho-punk, my younger brothers's passion.... later for that though

It didn't take Squeeze long to stop pretending to be New Wave

The middle bit of "Cool", quite tasty, is them pretending to be The Blockheads too.

But very soon they are basically Ace, blue-eyed Brit rock ' n ' soul



This is a sort of answer record to "Cool for Cats", or maybe just a rip-off.



Talking of Brit blue-eyed soul 'n' rock

Here's how a famous chart-topping exponent made his first foray into the TOTP studios

Tonto say he don't mind

Genuine oddity, at once ahead of its time and behind of its time. Do like what the rhythm section is doing.

"Originally released as a single in 1976, the BBC banned it due to the drug and homosexual references. However, thanks to Kenny Everett, the song received a lot of airplay on his TV & radio shows, and was re-released in 1979."

Rupert Hine has had an extensive and unusual career as musician and producer.

Which I have not investigated, I confess, although I have bought two used but suspiciously mint looking Quantum Jump albums in the last couple of years. Very strange things they were trying to do, Quantum Jump -- the missing link between 10cc and Steely Dan, perhaps, although equally at times like the missing link between Level 42 and Lizzy Mercier Descloux.









A Hine solo album



Another one



Later he was in a group with Julian Clary, and produced The Joan Collins Fan Club.

Actually Thinkman was a virtual group, all done by Hine, but with actors - including Clary - hired to play the parts of the group members for promo video and TV appearances



Clary played Leo Hurll, the keyboardist.

Musically seems to be coming from the same sort of place as Freur and Max Q