Published on
October 2, 2014
Category
Features
111. TELEVISION PERSONALITIES
’14th Floor’
(no label, 1978)
They were actually called Teen ’78 for this self-released 45, which is too perfect a name for a group like this – Dan Treacy and his friends, singing out in the most colloquial, everyday of voices, which guitar, drums and bass potter alongside, chomping quietly at the bit. Listening back to ’14th Floor’, it can be hard, at first, to think that this is the same group, more-or-less, that made the austere, melancholic Painted Word album in the mid 1980s. But some of the greatest stories of the punk/post-punk/DIY are of groups starting out with small ambitions, and growing to take in the broader view over time – and, anyway, there’s something in the Londoner sadness of ’14th Floor’ that hints that, one day, Treacy would write his masterpiece. ’14th Floor’ is the first pass in one of modern pop’s most compelling and heartbreaking stories.
112. TESCO BOMBERS
‘Hernando’s Hideaway (The Pajama Game)’
(Y, 1982)
DIY goes tango! On Dick O’Dell’s Y label, this is here at least in part due to the characters involved – Amos re-appears here, as does his co-conspirator Sara, but they’re joined by quite the mostly crew – studio owner Chris Gray is here, as is Richard Dudanski (Basement 5, PIL, The Raincoats), Lance of Milk From Cheltenham and The Hostiapaths (who also featured Amos and Bing Selfish), and comedian Keith Allen, whose faux gay reggae single, under the name Dread Boots Sex, is a complete classic. ‘Hernando’s Hideaway (The Pajama Game)’ is fantastically awkward, one of the best singles of its era, endlessly addictive. Also check out the warp factor playfulness of the b-side, ‘Break The Ice At Parties’.
113. THIN YOGHURTS
‘Girl On The Bus’
(Lowther Street Runner, 1980)
The opening of ‘Girl On The Bus’ still catches me looking, as it’s the closest anyone else has come to the bittersweet pop of Mike Newell’s Cleaners From Venus. One of the purest pop blasts from the DIY age, the Thin Yoghurts, aka Smoz, Kenney, Duck and Davy, have got it entirely right here, and I can but echo the words of the great folks at Die Or DIY?: “the sublime ordinariness of the poetry contained within these grooves! Naive charm materialised in a seven inch plastic disc, with a superb “first thought, best thought” designed in one minute stream of consciousness picture sleeve, printed on the cheapest paper imaginable.” You got it, man. There was a follow-up cassette, Valium Luguvalium, and Lowther Street Runner reappeared, it seems, in 1983 with a single by Them Philistines – any clues about this single would be greatly appreciated.
114. THURSDAYS
‘Perfection’
(Fast Product, 1979)
A great slug from the Earcom 2: Contradiction compilation, which also featured Basczax and Joy Division. It’s best to ignore their other contribution, a lamentable cover of Otis Redding’s ‘(Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay’, but ‘Perfection’ does what many Scottish post-punk/DIY groups of the time did, and rather well: crunching, dislocated guitar, threshing away like they’d locked the Swell Maps in the basement, and a strangely hectoring/urgent vocal delivery that comes across like Paul Haig on too many uppers. In other words, it has some of the artiness of Josef K, but far more overtly punk energy. It’s a world away from Paul Reekie’s ‘Lovers’ – he’s a member of Thursdays, along with Michael Barclay, who also did time in Boots For Dancing (alongside Jo Callis of The Human League).
115. THE TILLER BOYS
‘Big Noise From The Jungle’
(New Hormones, 1980)
Another one of Pete Shelley’s side projects, here he teams up with Francis Cookson (one of the Groovy Records cabal) Eric Random for a thrumbling, grunting drone/raunch monster – heavy in all the right ways, this one starts at 200kph and doesn’t let go. Again, you can hear Shelley’s grounding in Krautrock here, but instead of DIY Kosmische, here he’s grabbing hold of the endless metronomic of NEU! and riding it out with twisting, wired guitars, winding together like tagliatelle on a fork. It would have been great to have seen them live – their first gig has gone down in semi-legend as a support slot for Joy Division at the Factory Club on 9 June 1978, the very gig for with the FAC 1 poster was designed.
116. TRONICS
“TV On In Bed”
(Alien, 1981)
‘Shark Fucks’ might be the classic single, but Love Backed By Force is a sublime album, and’“TV On In Bed’ is here for personal reasons, as much as any – the first time I heard of Tronics was when I heard Television Personalities cover this perfect pop song on their Don’t Worry Baby, It’s Only A Movie album. All mythology aside – Sic Alps recently released a Tronics covers EP, and Ziro Baby’s songs feel custom designed for reinterpretation, the better to build the mythos – Tronics wrote and then performed, incredibly simply, some of the best songs of their era. They’ve done well by reissue culture, with Love Backed By Force available again via What’s Your Rupture?, and two recent collections, What’s The Hubub Bub and Say What Is This? out via M’Ladys, a perfect label fit if ever there was one.
117. STEVE TREATMENT
‘Taste Your Own Medicine’
(Rather, 1978)
Those Swell Maps, they got around. Steve Treatment was another Maps family member, crossing paths with Nikki Sudden and the boys thanks to their shared love of Marc Bolan. You can certainly hear the boys’ collective Bolan kick on this EP, which grabs hold of the eternal ‘complex simplicity’ of the greatest T Rex singles – Bolan was rock’n’roll’s La Monte Young, I’m telling you, even more so than the Velvets – and churns it through several layers of dislocating reverb and double-tracking. There’s a compilation of his singles and unreleased asides on Hyped 2 Death. Fun facts: Treatment and Sudden got The Damned their gig on Bolan’s TV show; Treatment also hooked up with Derek Jarman, helping him cast for Jubilee.
118. TRIXIE’S BIG RED MOTORBIKE
‘Invisible Boyfriend’
(Chew, 1982)
The duo of Mark and Melanie Litten, Trixie’s Big Red Motorbike hit the same targets as Marine Girls, Grab Grab The Haddock, and maybe even The Petticoats – pre-‘indie pop’ that often gets mis-cast as ‘twee’ by people who can’t grasp that sometimes the softest sounds hit the hardest. For it takes great bravery and individualism to make a music this seemingly fragile, even more so to send it out into the world from the Isle Of Wight via DIY 45s. Trixie’s Big Red Motorbike have charm to burn – it’s no wonder their website lists gushing fan-boy responses from Alan McGee, Dan Treacy, John Peel and Jim Reid of Jesus & Mary Chain. There’s a fantastic compilation of their singles and extra guff, All Day Long In Bliss, available via their Bandcamp. It’s worth looking out for those Sarah Goes Shopping singles too, Mark Litten’s group with Sarah Brown of Peel favourites Twa Toots.
119. TWELVE CUBIC FEET
‘Hello Howard’
(Namedrop, 1982)
From the same label that brought you Philip Johnson’s Doof, Twelve Cubic Feet were an early group for Dave Evans, who I believe would end up part of the Creation Records cult, joining Biff Bang Pow! and Jesus & Mary Chain for a time. Twelve Cubic Feet released one 10”, Straight Out Of The Fridge, and seemed to effortlessly capture the gentle jangle that underpinned plenty of DIY endeavour, from the softness of Marine Girls to the more attenuated crackle of Television Personalities. They shared membership with Doof – via one Paul Platypus – and certainly an aesthetic bent with the formative Creation gang. Records like this point toward C86, however beleaguered that term/non-genre may be these days.
120. UP MURPHY STREET
‘Follow The Bouncing Ball’
(Up Murphy Street, 1986)
Breaking my ‘nothing after 1985’ for this one, but please forgive me – Up Murphy Street’s sole, self-titled album is such a welcome continuation of early Murphy / Robert Storey form that it may as well be preserved in aspic, dated c 1982. Except that there’s something even more gentle about songs like ‘Follow The Bouncing Ball’ which points toward other surrealist solo janglers like Pip Proud or the eminence grise of the field, Mr Syd Barrett. Spending time with Up Murphy Street is a rare pleasure indeed.
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