Swell Maps – THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN

Adam & The Ants, Adverts, Cabaret Voltaire, Cramps, Devo, Simple Minds, Swell Maps, Talking Heads, Toyah, Wire

SHAKEDOWN, 1979 (June, part two)

The chart hit single in June had some quality, but not much in the way of quantity. What about the 45s that didn’t make it as far as the Top 75?

mp3: Adam and The Ants – Zerox

Prior to becoming a pop icon in the early 80s, Adam Ant had been part of the punk scene in London. He had a role in Derek Jarman‘s 1978 film Jubilee, while Adam and the Ants were filmed performing the Plastic Surgery (the song, that is….not the procedure!!). This led to a deal for a one-off single with Decca Records, but Young Parisians failed to gain traction. London-based Do It Records signed the band, and Zerox was the first offering. It did well enough in the Independent Chart, but didn’t sell enough copies to trouble the Official Chart, at least not in June 1979. It was re-released in January 1981 on the back of the initial burst of Ant-mania and made it to #45.

mp3: The Adverts – My Place

The Adverts had been one of the first of the punk bands to enjoy chart success, with Gary Gilmore’s Eyes hitting #118 in September 1977. By the following year, they were on RCA Records and began making music that had more of a pop feel to them. Critically, they were still being championed in some music papers, but none of the three singles nor the one album they made while at RCA made the charts – and, of course, they weren’t eligible for the indie charts.

mp3: Cabaret Voltaire – Nag Nag Nag

Having turned down an offer from Factory Records, the Sheffield-based Cabaret Voltaire signed with Rough Trade, with their debut EP being released in late 1978. The first actual 45 was released in June 1979, and has since been acknowledged as one of the most pioneering 45s of the era, but back then it was largely dismissed as being too arty and weird.

mp3: The Cramps – Human Fly

London-based Illegal Records, founded by Miles Copeland III, issued Gravest Hits, a 12″ EP bringing together tracks that had featured on the first two singles released by The Cramps back in 1978. The other songs on the EP were The Way I Walk, Domino, Surfin’Bird, and Lonesome Town. It would take a further 11 years before The Cramps ever made it into the UK singles chart, by which time Miles Copeland III was enjoying the riches from the success of his next label, I.R.S. Records, home to early R.E.M. among others (including, for a short time, The Cramps).

mp3: Devo – The Day My Baby Gave Me A Surprise

The men from Akron, Ohio continued their run of failure. Come Back Jonee had flopped back in January, and while the album Duty Now For The Future did chart at #49, its lead-off single did nothing

mp3: Simple Minds – Chelsea Girl

There were really high hopes among the band for the follow-up to Life In A Day which had sneaked into the lower echelons of the chart. Such hopes were dashed…..the harpsichord-like sound produced by Mick MacNeil on keyboards failed to capture the attention of the radio pluggers, and the 45 disappeared without a trace.

mp3: Swell Maps – Real Shocks

The second single from Swell Maps issued by Rough Trade in 1979. I didn’t know about this back when I was 16 years of age. If I had, I’d most likely have bought it and driven my parents crazy.

mp3: Talking Heads – Take Me To The River

Talking Heads were, pardon the pun, much talked about in 1979. The previous year, they had enjoyed a hit album with More Songs About Buildings and Food, and there was near universal acclaim for their live shows. Fellow New Yorkers Blondie were flying high, and it really only seemed a matter of time before The Heads were equally popular. As we know, they did eventually become a household name, but in June 1979 the record label was reduced to releasing a single from the previous album as their way of trying to get a cash-in on a prestigious gig that month in London. The cover of the Al Green number was issued as a 2 x 7″ release (for the price of a standard 7″) along with art work in the shape of a Talking Heads family tree as designed and drawn by Pete Frame. It didn’t chart.

mp3: Wire – A Question Of Degree

The story of how Outdoor Miner had been a minor hit, but should have been a major hit, was told a few months back. Harvest Records, keen to atone for the errors made with the previous single, threw their weight behind another track lifted from the 1978 album Chairs Missing, but nobody was interested…which is a shame, as It’s a belter of a single

mp3: Toyah – Victims Of The Riddle

This piece started with a member of the punk scene who appeared in Jubilee, and now finds itself ending the same way. Toyah Wilcox‘s first foray into the performing arts was as an actor, but with a number of her early parts involving singing, it led to her wanting to have a parallel career in music. She ended up fronting a five-piece band – all the other musicians were male – with everyone content that it take its name from the lead singer, given how unusual it was. London-based Safari Records signed the band, and Victims of The Riddle was the debut. The band would remain with Safari over the next six years, going on to enjoy more than a fair degree of chart success.

JC

Magazine, Only Ones, Swell Maps

SHAKEDOWN, 1979 (February, part two)

This is the part of the series where I consult one of my reference books and find some 45s which didn’t sell in great numbers in February 1979. Only a small number this time around.

mp3: Magazine – Rhythm of Cruelty (single version)

Magazine‘s first new piece of music in 1979 was their fourth single on Virgin Records. It was released just a few weeks ahead of their sophomore album, Secondhand Daylight. The single didn’t dent the charts, and the album would only come in at a rather modest #38.

mp3: The Only Ones – You’ve Got To Pay

I wasn’t aware of this back in 1979. Indeed, if wasn’t for the sheer magnificence of Another Girl, Another Planet, then I probably wouldn’t have given a passing thought to The Only Ones all these years later. The band was on CBS Records, and while AGAP hadn’t charted in 1978, there was so much written about it and the band that hopes were probably high among the execs that the follow-up material would do the business. As with Magazine, this was the lead-off single from a second studio album. As with Magazine, the single flopped. As with Magazine, the subsequent album, Even Serpents Shine, experienced disappointing sales, reaching just #42, but at least this was a higher placing than the previous year’s debut.

mp3: Swell Maps – Dresden Style

Again, I have to own up that, at the age of 15, I wasn’t all that aware of Swell Maps. I possibly had at some point heard this, their second single (but their first on Rough Trade) when it was released in February 1979, but at the time I would very much have dismissed it as tuneless rubbish. Nowadays, without ever getting to ever fully fall for the ‘charms’ of the band, I’ll admit to quite enjoying this one, which I picked up via someone else’s blog quite a few years ago.

I’ll mention in passing that there were a couple of other flop singles released in February 1979 that would later in the year be re-released and enter the charts. I’ll come to them as and when later in the series.