Week by week we're listing 5 tracks which were big music news in the charts, on your radio or even in your record collection 40 years ago, this week in 1980:
1. The Beat - Too Nice To Talk To In a fairly stagnant chart (with John Lennon outselling everything by several miles) this is the highest new entry this week down at no.31, and opening this week's Top of the Pops.
2. Specials - Do Nothing. Another new entry at no.34 and also on Top of the Pops this week.
3. The Clash - The Magnificent Seven. Their triple album Sandinista is a new entry this week at no.19 (Super Trouper manages to hold back John Lennon, dec.)
4. In Camera - Co-Ordinates. Quirky indie track of the week, recorded for Peel session broadcast 16/12. Signed to 4AD.
5. Gary Numan - Photograph. Numan was back in the charts, and on TOTP, this week with the single This Wreckage, lifted from the Telekon album. This is the previously unreleased B side.
Week by week we're listing 5 tracks which were big music news in the charts, on your radio or even in your record collection 40 years ago, this week in 1980:
1. ABBA - On and On and On. ABBA did the double this week with Super Trouper the single and Super Trouper the album both at no.1 in the UK. Here's a banger from side one of the album which was also released as a single in some countries (but not in the UK).
2. AC/DC - Rock and Roll Ain't Noise Pollution. This single, taken from the Back in Black album, was the highest new entry in the Top 40 this week. Eventually got to no.15.
3. Darry Hall & John Oates - Kiss On My List. Another new entry this week and the first UK Top 40 hit for the American duo.
4. Siouxsie & The Banshees - Israel. Released as a 'stand-alone' single on 26th November, this was their attempt at a "Christmas" song. Sadly it only made no.41 in the UK, although unsurprisingly on heavy rotation on John Peel's show.
5. Blondie - Live It Up. Random track choice from Blondie's new Autoamerican album, highest new entry at no.3 in the UK this week.
Another Peel mixtape this time from May 1979 when a lot of interesting new stuff was coming out. I've stretched it to a C90 this time and waived the one track per artist rule (Tubeway Army, Undertones) and there ar no sessions. As always, I'm limited to what is documented on the Peel Wiki and what's available on Spotty-fy. Anyway, enjoy! SIDE ONE
The Undertones - Jimmy Jimmy
XTC - Life Begins at the Hop
David Bowie - Boys Keep Swinging
Minny Pops - Footsteps
L.K. Johnson - It Noh Funny
The Tourists - Blind Among the Flowers
Tubeway Army - Replicas
Tubeway Army - It Must Have Been Years
Elvis Costello - Accidents Will Happen
The Human League - The Dignity of Labour pt. 3
Lene Lovich - Say When
The Specials - Gangsters
Fischer-Z - Acrobats
SIDE TWO
Stiff Little Fingers - Gotta Gettaway
The Pop Group - Blood Money
The Undertones - I Gotta Getta
Gang of Four - At Home He's a Tourist
Skids - Masquerade
The Damned - Love Song
Magazine - Feed the Enemy
Iggy Pop - Don't Look Down
Devo - The Day My Baby Gave Me a Big Surprise
Steel Pulse - Babylon Makes the Rules
Shoes For Industry - Can't Help It/Falling in Love Again
The Adverts - My Place
Dalek I - Freedom Fighters
Capital Letters - Run Run Run
Further reading:
Smash Hits, May 3 1979 (Billy Idol cover) incl. Bitz: 'Idol Chat', Granny Pursey, Bowie in punch-up, Return of The Damned; Interviews: J-J Burnel; Lyrics: I'm an Upstart, Singles - reviewed by L. Lovich: Jimmy Jimmy, Say When, Boys Keep Swinging, Does Your Mother Know; Albums: Second Hand Daylight, Manifesto, Music for Aiports; Gigz; Back page: Squeeze.
Smash Hits, May 17 1979 (David Bowie cover) incl. Lyrics: Say When, Boys Keep Swinging (incl. A pictorial history of David Bowie), Roxanne, Jimmy Jimmy, Love Song Bitz: The Police, Mike Oldfield, Angelic Upstarts; Features: Sex Pistols Past Present and Future (D. Hepworth), Singles: Accidents Will Happen, The Cost of Living EP, Sunday Girl; Albums: Black Rose, Life In A Day, Live at the Witch Trails (Fall); Gigz; Back page: the Police.
Smash Hits, May 31 1979 (Debbie Harry cover) incl. Lyrics: Number One in Heaven, Life Begins at the Hop, Shine a Little Love, Capital Radio/I Fought the Law, Sheena is a Punk Rocker, Features: Undertones - Parka Power; bitz: Blondie, Mods, Gary Numan/Tubeway Army, Sparks, Damned, Ian Dury; Centrespread. Bowie; Singles: Getta Gettaway, Masquerade EP, Life Begins at the Hop, Are 'Friends' Electric?, Wake Up + 3; Albums: Voulez-Vous, Mission Accomplished But the Beat Goes On, Lodger; Gigz; Back page: Lene Lovich.
Here's my first playlist / mixtape of tracks from John Peel shows, from January 1980. Rules are that tracks (singles, album tracks sessions etc.) were played for the first time around the stated period, and try to keep it to max. 60 mins (30 mins each side), and one track per artist (unless there are more worthy of playing, eg. in the case of a session..). Playlist available on Spotify.
SIDE ONE
Simple Minds - Premonition (session)
The Cure - Play For Today (new album, Seventeen Seconds)
Pretenders - Tattooed Love Boys (new album Pretenders)
Magazine - A Song From Under the Floorboards (session)
Silicon Teens - Judy In Disguise (single)
John Foxx - He's a Liquid (album Metamatic)
The Selecter - James Bond (B side)
The Durutti Column - Requiem for a Father (new album The Return of..)
SIDE TWO
Siouxsie & Banshees - Drop Dead/Celebration (B side)
The Flying Lizards - TV (single)
Martha & the Muffins - Echo Beach
Madness - In the Rain (B side)
OMITD - Red Frame/White Light (single)
Bauhaus - Dark Entries (single)
The Vapors - Turning Japanese (single)
Simple Minds - Room (session)
Further reading:
Smash Hits January 10 1980 (Pretenders cover), incl. Lyrics Tears of a Clown, Too Much Too Young, My Girl, What Do I Get?, John I'm Only Dancing; Bitz: Inmates, Two-Tone, clash, Sex Pistols, Skahe, John Foxx, The Cure, XTC; features: Pretenders, Madness, Mike Oldfield, Selecter, Centrefold. Pink Floyd. Singles. My Girl Albunms: none! Back page poster. Clash
Smash Hits 24 January 1980 (Sparks cover): lyrics: Angels (L. Lovich), Someone's Looking At You, Three Minute Hero, Sweet Suburbia, 7teen. Bitz: Paul Weller, Hugh Cornwell, Elvis Costello, Madness, SLF, Regents, PIL, Squeeze, Tom Robinson, features. Sparks, Beat, Centrespread. Pretenders; Gigz.
Thank you to Vibracobra23 for uploading this (on my request!) It's the complete OMD session recorded exactly 30 years ago in January 1983 as a preview of some Dazzle Ships tracks - namely Genetic Engineering*, Of All The Things We've Made, ABC Auto Industry - which were officially released a few weeks later. The sesh was topped with what I reckon was a cracking version of Bunker Soldiers, sadly ignored on the official Peel sessions CD release.
Anyway here it is at last in all its glory, complete with Peel banter twixt the tracks which gives it a nice authentic feel.
*note: the band were apparently more content with this particular mix of Genetic Engineering than the finished official release.
Well, after I blogged about the new John Peel sessions compilation album Movement last week, blow me down if it isn't John Peel Day this very day. A world celebration of the great man and his life, work and music tastes. Much activity on twitter and so forth and a lot of good stuff coming out of it. While sites like Keeping It Peel are doing just that, it is rather sad that the BBC haven't updated their John Peel "online tribute" since September 2007 and are quite happy to confirm it too.
While searching for stuff on youtube I was pleased to see that Peely even went on This is Your Life (in 1996) and it was nice to see him in a totally spontaneous and joyful mode, as opposed to his intentionally stiff and sarcastic TOTP presenter-persona, which is really the only way we used to 'see' him. His radio-style was also, deliberately dry and sarcastic, but we loved that.
Here's the first part of said 'Life' episode with Michael Aspel popping up at the end of a TOTP show, and Peely being whisked away to the studio and a video message from none other than Mr. David Bowie. Nice one.
Now then, how many of you remember staying up "late" (after 10 p.m. was "late") to listen to the John Peel radio show of a weekday night, late 70s/early 80s? Well, for the uninitiated John Peel's nightly show was the place for the real alternative post-punk music that was going around at the time - you'r hear stuff here that you would not hear anywhere else, not even on Kid Jensen. Most of the stuff was so obscure that it basically remained such although the late, great Mr. Peel was famous of course for championing (he even championed the verb "to champion") many an obscure band who then went on to become quite successful, eg. Siouxsie & the Banshees, Generation X, XTC, The Undertones, The Jam, Joy Division and the like.
Each night Peely also featured usually two different "sessions", ie. bands who had gone in to the BBC studios to record three or four tracks especially for the show. These were often religiously taped and duly bootlegged, although many have already seen the light of day since as official releases (OMITD, Ultravox, Gary Numan, New Order to name but a few).
Anyway here comes possibly the first official 'Best of Peel sessions' release: Movement brings together many of those bands and more from the all-important 1977-1979 period. There's quite wide range of styles, not just the new-wavers but also ska from the likes of Madness, The Specials and Selecter and reggae from UB40, Aswad and Steel Pulse - all styles which were covered by Peel.
Of note to LiM is the inclusion of Being Boiled by The Human League, recorded for their only session in 1978 which has never had an official release, only bootlegs. So here's hoping it's been properly dusted down for the occasion. It's a unique version in that it's kind of half way between the original Fast version and the radically re-vamped Holiday '80/Travelogue version. Well, Blind Youth geeks will know what I mean anyway.
