Fades in Slowly

Day 11 – A song from your favorite band

No question about the band, choosing a song was significantly more tricky, however. A lot of people overlook this song, but it is magnificent.

Kicker Conspiracy

Smith has predicted how the world will turn out.

BrettCelinski

Wings

I f’n love this snotty song!

NIRAK47

Dead Beat Descendent

One of the great out there alternative assaults on the senses. Mark E Smith at his brutish antisocial best. This stuff is dangerous to the general social hierachy. Listen to experience, rock terrorism.

beetlebumjus

Bury

Can somebody please explain how Mark sounds exactly like he does on this as he does on Grotesque? Astounding how consistently amazing and alike this band is in all of their work.

Aniland

Big New Prinz

This may be the coolest tv appearance by a band ever.

menyc

The middle of August, 1979 and I’d just turned 6. That’s me in the picture above, apparently. JP was on good form, although I was still a bit young to fully appreciate his genius. This was a shame really, as I was about to miss the one and only session by The Police. Not only did Sting and chums have a single in the top ten at the time, they also finally realised their dream of getting a Peel session, not that JP himself was terribly impressed by their effort. Other highlights of the mid August show included Dolly Mixtures first and only session. Full as possible details of the show have been lovingly cobbled together by my friends over at the Peel wiki, and you can download the little gem here.

Elsewhere, another band who, like the Police, had ‘pestered’ JP greatly to get on the show – U2 – were making their first big radio interview. Michael Jackson released his first breakthrough album Off the Wall, and on the telly we were treated to the very scary – I was 6 – Sapphire and Steel, among other things. Am I the only one who’d completely forgotten about Outer Spacers?

Here’s what magazines looked like back then.

If you want to look through the entire mid-August 1979 edition of Smash Hits, you can do so by clicking here (courtesy of the remarkable Like Punk Never Happened).

Blindness

I love the contrast. Robert plant et al poncing about on stage with hand claps and then this thundering genius of a racket performed by 3 guys who look like bouncers from a dingy pub with the barmaid on keyboards and the old alco hanging off the bar who fights with crisp packets on lead vocals..its fucking brilliant.

nerp23

Totally Wired

The Fall were to England what Sonic Youth were to America in the 80′s. They both picked up where the Velvet Underground left off after White Light/White Heat.

LomaxMcGee3