..and talking of bands that were-famous-in-the-eighties-and-are-now-making-a-comeback, Mr. Greene Gartside aka Scritti Politti is back on the modern music scene with a couple of new tracks and a compilation album of past recordings just to show us how good and massively underrated Scritti were back then.Gartside (né Paul Julian Strohmeyer, pic. left) started the band in the late 70s as a kind of radical left-wing collective (their name probably inspired by Antonio Gramsci's Scritti Politici) and in 1978 released their first single "Skunk Skank Bologna" (named after the notoriously left-wing Italian city where student protest etc were talking place) on their own "St Pancras" label. Skunk was much favoured by John Peel on his late night radio show and the band soon got a deal with Rough Trade.
After initial success on the independent scene (playing alongside bands like Gang of Four, Joy Division, etc.) Gartside suffered from panic attacks and the like and had to withdraw from the music scene, only to return in '81 with the more mellow sounds of "The Sweetest Girl" and the "Songs to Remember" album the following year.
An even more radical change in sound and style came with the more US-funky-cum-synth-based sounds of Wood Beez, Absolute and The Word Girl in the mid eighties, all going Top 20, and the album Cupid & Psyche wich reached number 5 in 1985. Success at last for good-lookin' Gartside and assorted pals.
1988's Provision fared less well, although "Oh Patti (Don't Feel Sorry For Loverboy)" from said album remains one of their best known songs. Mixed fortunes followed with a minor hit in "She's a Woman" in 1991 before fading into oblivion as 80's has-beens, although Gartside has continued to write and record since then.
The new compilation - aptly named Absolute - features the cracking new song "A Day Late And A Dollar Short" as well as one other new song 'A Place We Both Belong’ and a collection of past hits and misses. Check out
the rather good unofficial SP website bibbly-o-thek for more details and a short history of the early days here.
Absolute will be available from the usual places from Feb 28th.
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