Saturday, 3 March 2012

Bands I wish I'd been in #1 - Alternative TV (1976-1977)

How much Longer? Action Time Vision?

Do I need any more reasons? Oh, ok then.

Alternative TV were formed by Mark Perry, the founding editor of Sniffin' Glue punk fanzine, with Perry and Alex Fergusson.Early rehearsals took place at Throbbing Gristle's Industrial Records studio with Genesis P-Orridge on drums.

The band's debut on record was "Love Lies Limp", a free flexi disc issued with the final edition of Perry's Sniffin' Glue fanzine. On this single Perry and Fergusson were accompanied by John Towe (ex Generation X) and Tyrone Thomas. Towe left to join the Rage and was replaced by Chris Bennett. This line-up was the most straight-forwardly "punk" version of ATV and the version I wanted to be in, although they combined short fast songs with extended pieces such as "Alternatives To NATO", in which Perry read an anarchist political text and envisaged the possibility of a Soviet invasion of Britain. Shortly afterwards they released the "How Much Longer" / "You Bastard" 7" in December 1977. The A-side was a pointed critique of punk style: "How much longer will people wear/Nazi armbands and dye their hair?"

At the end of 1977, Perry sacked his chief collaborator and co-writer Fergusson (and I suspect he'd have axed me then too!). The latter went on to form the short-lived Cash Pussies and, a few years later, Psychic TV along with Genesis P-Orridge. He was replaced in ATV by Dennis Burns.

A dub influenced single, "Life after Life," was released as well as a debut album, The Image Has Cracked. The band's second album, Vibing Up the Senile Man, saw the band take a more explicitly experimental direction however, which alienated the music press and me. Around the same time, a live LP, split with commune-dwelling hippy band Here and Now was released (a document of their tour together), marking the band's movement further away from the ever more very predictable punk/new wave scene. Alternative TV soon evolved into the avant-garde project, The Good Missionaries (taking the name from a track on the 'Vibing' album), releasing one album, "Fire From Heaven" in 1979.

I on the other hand carried on to get two O-levels before joining The Specials (in my mind...)

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