Heart of a Punk Soul of a Rasta

"The Past is a foreign country: they do things differently there."
LP HARTLEY

In a place that is now long lost to us. In a distant time of bleached out colours when the name of our ancient & noble Queen was pronounced BOWDASEEA and not BOODICKER, there was something called DISCLINE.

This was a time before the interweb thingy, before myspace, before last FM and before the download. It was a time before the mobile phone, before the fully itemised telephone bill, before you were required to "always ask the permission of the person who pays the telephone bill before ringing" and long before you used your phone to vote for some musical nondescript. It was a lovely time when Crisps came in see through packets so you could see all the green bits and burnt bits and eyes and so could confidently buy a packet (sight as seen) according to your personal taste. Mmm green bits. It was a time when Crisps (that I'm told are still made from Potatoes) were 5p a packet and not 85p. Life was simple and so was I.

But how in those dark distant times could you get to hear some new music. Well BT came up with a wheeze and called it DISCLINE. Can you remember it? It was a money making venture by that "Dirty, disgusting, filthy, lice-ridden bird" Busby. The idea was simple, get folk call up a number on their TELEPHONE to listen to the latest MUSICAL releases. BT would sweep up all the call charges and the artist get some KA$H too. I'm guessing the ARTIST got some KA$H too, but did they? Perhaps not, maybe that's why it was such a short lived escapade.

I must admit I did ring DISCLINE once, but I can't for the life of me think who it was I listened to. I think it was MADNESS but I'm only guessing. Perhaps the ad worked on me coz I've always been open to auto suggestion. Have you? Oh yes! The sound that you got down your PARTY LINE and through the ear piece of your GREEN ring dial analogue standard issue BT TELEPHONE was of course absolutely SHIT. And the idea of listening to MUSIC in this way wasn't going to catch on. Not when you could go up town to Sundown Records or Woolworths and ask to listen to whatever you fancied in full stereo.

What remains though are these WONDERFUL ads - there were a few different ones - mainly in shoved in "SOUNDS" & "Record Mirror" around '82. Here we have a punkette with a "YES" and a "Joe Loss" badge. Mmm very droll. And on the MADNESS one there's a stark WARNING. Only in ENGLAND could music be cancelled due to a TEST MATCH CRICKET being broadcast - on THE PHONE! Was DISCLINE the precursor of downloading music to your mobile - yes, unfortunately, it probably was!

I've attempted to replicate the DISCLINE sound.....enjoy.