Heart of a Punk Soul of a Rasta

If anyone ever asks me to describe PUNK (which they never do) I show them this ad poster from 1977. It has it all. The picture has sex, nudity, energy, movement, insanity and violent chemistry. The caption makes it clear "we're shit so what" and "nobody loves us we don't care". I take it because this is a STIFF Ad Barney Bubbles probably had a hand in it, but I don't know for sure, either way it hits the target right in the bull's bleeding eye.

T.V. Smith & The Valentines

While my Fanzine associate was at home crying about the Libya War and the drabness of the latest Radiohead album I thought I'd have a night out with the TV and go and hear some proper music. I stumped up at the O2 Academy to find a Cast of Thousands queuing outside Academy 1 to see Ce Lo Green (who?) I pushed my way through these intellectual dwarfs only to be accosted by the bouncer at the door of Academy 3. "You alright mate?" he said. "I believe I am but perhaps I'm not the best judge" I replied. "Have you come to see TV Smith?" "Yes" I replied "I'm not with these daft f**kin c**ts". He found it funny anyway, and went off to tell his O2 mates, checking my ticket was no longer required I was in.

Into Academy 3 then, a gaff with nowhere to smoke, no dark area to sit in (if you know what I mean), no drinks that are affordable, "no drinks to be taken into the toilets", "no throwing objects at the band" in Birmingham, what? In fact no no no no no! What you do get at A3 are luminous urinals and atomisers spraying perfume over you every thirty minutes or so. This is Britain in the age of the idiot, read on or not I couldn't care less. All I have to say is this place ain't bleedin conducive.

Congregating inside the Academy were the usual smattering of short wearing Mohican touting Eighties pantomime punks. I find it hard love them coz they're just not of my time. I have to though - very begrudgingly. Without them PUNK would be dead. What d'you mean it is. Have you been talking to Howard Devoto again? OK so the PUNK the Eighties wallahs have preserved is only anachronistic slither, a moment preserved in aspic and forever stalled in the Oi Oi of 1981 but if the alternative is Soylent Green I mean Ce Le Green it's "Hi Fi Spitfires" every time - bring em on.

A Mackem three piece "Hi-Fi Spitfires" were fast and furious in firing off a whole arsenal worth of bar chords and expelling volley after volley of whoooah whooooahhhh back ups in the tried and tested "We're a garage band" aah aahhhh way. Twenty five minutes came and went in blink and a blur somewhere between "Give 'Em Enough Rope" and "Inflammable Material" More over priced ale was drunk, the atomisers squirted out some more, no one got spat on, no one got hit with any flying objects - the job was a good un.

Time then for citizen TV Smith and the all Italian Valentines to hit us straight between the eyes whilst regaling us with a few home truths. With "No Time to be 21" to start and "Cast of Thousands" to finish in between we got what was billed "The Best of The Adverts": "One Chord Wonders" "Bombsite Boy" "New Church" "New Boys" "Gary Gilmore's Eyes" "I Surrender" "Televisions Over" "Back from the Dead" "Great British Mistake" (see clip) "Bored Teenagers" "On the Roof" "Safety in Numbers" and "Male Assault" - which was for me were Smith was at his best, twisting and contorting and convulsing whilst the Campari quaffing Valentines kept things as tight as the proverbial ducks arse. 33 years after the fact TV Smith's songs and assertions are just as relevant. We're still being dragged through the shit, pushed around by the same old faces, force fed by the idiot box and settling for very very little. We're all being defiled comrades! The only difference between us and the drones going to see Ce Lo "irrelevant" Green is we're getting shafted while we're awake and they're getting it while they sleep.

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So far in 2011 we've had new material from WIRE, Gof4 and Poly Styrene - The Old F**ckers are back and telling it how it is - TV Smith has a new album about to burst forth soon too. GO HERE.


Done & done JB