Penetration – THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN

Jilted John, Monochrome Set, Penetration, Raincoats

SHAKEDOWN, 1979 (April, part two)

Having already seen that April 1979 was an excellent month chart-wise for quality new wave/post punk 45s, it’s time to find out if it was a month when some equally brilliant singles found their way into the shops but didn’t persuade enough folk to part with their cash to threaten Top of the Pops. Starting off with someone who featured back in January.

mp3: Jilted John – The Birthday Kiss

A reminder that the eponymous debut single had gone Top 5 in August 1978, but its follow-up, True Love, had sunk without trace. The accompanying album, True Love Stories hadn’t sold well. The record label had one last go at resurrecting JJ’s career. It’s one that I previously considered for the ‘Some Songs Make Great Short Stories’ series…..but decided against it as it’s not very good (and that’s me being kind). But I do like the line ‘Anyway, me Gran didn’t like you, she said you were dead common‘ which seems a fine way to console yourself when you’ve been dumped.

mp3: The Monochrome Set – Eine Symphonie Des Grauens

It was the band’s second single and takes it name from the 1922 German silent film, Nosferatu – Eine Symphonie des Grauens which translates as Nosferatu – A Symphony of Horror, a film which some consider to have provided a template for the horror film genre. Despite all this, the single is a jaunty number, one that I didn’t discover until 1982/83 when it was included on Pillows and Prayers, a Cherry Red compilation budget album that was priced at 99p. I’d like to think the single would have been purchased in 1979 if I’d been aware of it.

mp3: Penetration – Danger Signs

Penetration were one of those band who generated a lot of very positive media that failed to translate into any meaningful commercial success. Actually, that’s not strictly accurate. There were five singles released between 1977 and 1979, none of which troubled the charts, but the two studio albums Moving Targets (1978) and Come Into The Open (1979) went Top 40, with the debut actually reaching #22. Danger Signs was the first new material since the success of that album, and hopes were high, particularly at their label, Virgin Records. Sadly, and undeservedly, they were unfulfilled.

mp3: The Raincoats – Fairytale In A Supermarket

An all-female band who were inspired by The Slits, and indeed by the time this, their debut single was issued by Rough Trade, Palmolive, who had drummed with The Slits was now part of The Raincoats. It would be fair to say that they divided opinion. John Lydon loved them and talked them up at every opportunity. In later years, Kurt Cobain would reveal himself to be a huge fan, as would Kim Gordon. The music was far from commercial, and most rock journalists across all four UK music weeklies at the time, were very dismissive. Me? I didn’t get it in any shape or form back in 1979, but I’ve grown to respect and indeed enjoy what they were doing.

JC

Penetration

IT REALLY WAS A CRACKING DEBUT SINGLE (52)

I really didn’t mean for there to be a near four-months gap in this series, and so I’m returning with one which goes back to basics in that it’s a debut single which the band never topped at any time in the future.

Don’t Dictate was released in November 1977. It was the work of Penetration, a band from Ferryhill, a small coal-mining town in the north-east of England, taking their name from an Iggy Pop song. The line-up which recorded and released the debut single, on Virgin Records, consisted of Pauline Murray (vocals), Robert Blamire (bass), Gary Smallman (drums) and Gary Chaplin (guitar).

mp3: Penetration – Don’t Dictate

The single, and indeed its b-side, was credited to Chaplin/Murray, but just a few months later he left, to be replaced by Neale Lloyd and then Fred Purser was added as a second guitarist, seemingly at the insistence of the record company who wanted to flesh out the sound.

The line-up alterations fuelled a change in the group’s dynamics, and moved them away from what was a punk sound to one which was far rockier and harder in edge. Indeed, the all music review of Moving Targets, the debut album released in late 1978, states:-

In another lifetime, they could have given the likes of Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple a run for their money, at least in terms of demonstrating dexterity

The debut album did actually sell fairly well, reaching #22 in the charts, but the reviews of the live shows were increasingly highlighting the fact that many of the songs contained guitar solos, played by Purser with a high degree of skill and ability, to the extent that they bordered on metal and not punk. It was, admittedly, a fine line – I knew punk fans in Glasgow who loved Motorhead but who would scream blue murder if you played the classic rock stuff, so I guess it was down to just how fast a band played.

Anyways, Penetration’s popularity diminished very quickly and they broke-up soon after a second album, Coming Up For Air, was released in September 1979. Pauline Murray would later join up with The Invisible Girls, a group initially formed to provide a musical soundtrack to the poetry of John Cooper Clarke, recording a fabulous self-titled album in 1980.

Fun fact time. John Maher of Buzzcocks was the drummer on the Pauline Murray and The Invisible Girls album. When Penetration reformed in 2015, Maher could be found pounding the drums at the gigs and indeed in the studio as the band released a third album, Resolution, after a gap of 36 years.

Here’s the b-side of the debut 45, clocking in at just over 100 seconds in length:-

mp3: Penetration – Money Talks

Rather fabulous……..that’s if you want to my view on it.