Punk Aid: 'Ere's Your Xmas (2003)

This little three song'er will have to kick off my dis-contiguous series of Christmas posts. This wildly-tacky looking 2003 single is a benefit featuring TV Smith (The Adverts), Captain Sensible (The Damned), Charlie Harper (UK Subs) and Martin Newell (the Cleaners from Venus) which slags the pop charts in a pop chart-friendly kinda way. The song bears the Captain's theatrical absurdity ("Say Captain, Say Wot") and is pretty fun, as his re-make of the old Damned obscurity "There Ain't No Sanity Clause".





The big ticket item under this dead tree, however, is TV Smith's "Christmas, Bloody, Christmas" a broadside aimed squarely at the big man in the red suit's symbolic fat ass. While it attacks all that is ridiculous about the season, it's not terribly mean spirited, it just demands more of the season while being a virulent ear-worm (ask my eldest child and his none-too-pleased mother if you don't believe me!)





For more video of this TV Smith/UK Subs show from yesterday, go visit the ever-excellent Aural Sculptures.

 (Thanks to atvmpdiscography for the images)

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A few copies available here.

TV Smith's home Page

The Damned's home page

 UK Subs Homepage

We Who Wait: The Adverts & TV Smith (Full Stream!)

An amazing BBC hour-long documentary on The Adverts and TV Smith, marred only by sprinting through the 90's/00's at the expense of so much great music (how could they leave out the TV/Die Toten Hosen alliance all togther?)

The Adverts: Demos, 1977-1979

Steve 23rh, who scanned the cover of this Adverts (more HERE) demos collection over at The Bootleg Zone puts is succinctly when he describes it thusly, "Collection of three batches of demos from 78, 79 and 77 respectively, with an interview with TV and Gaye as a bonus - no source data for any of them. Sound is OK, though the 77 and acoustic demos are pretty thin sound. Split into chunks (read: sessions), rather than individual songs. Accept it, however, for the rarity value."  What that means is that this is a historical wonder for fans who already own the albums and want to pry into their creation.

Hey Advert-tarians, give us a word or two on 
these unearthed demos in the COMMENTS section!


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The Adverts: Top Rank, Sheffield, 1979

The Adverts (more HERE) fell apart in 1979. While I've always had a fondness for their album from that year, Cast of Thousands, it's reputation was quite bad up until this century. This '79 live show, which features just TV on inaudible guitar (Howard Pickup had just left and short-lived guitarist Paul Martinez hadn't yet joined), has circualted for some time (a version was posted over on the original Noise Addiction) and shows what a more keyboard dominated Adverts would have sounded like.





Tracklist
01. The Adverts
02. Back From The Dead
03. Male Assault
04. Fate Of Criminals
05. I Looked At The Sun
06. Television's Over
07. I Surrender
08. Bombsite Boy
09. New Church
10. Love Songs
11. Gary Gilmore's Eyes
12. No Time To Be 21
13. My Place
14. Cast Of Thousands
15. I Will Walk You Home
16. One Chord Wonders
17. The Adverts

Hey Advert-tarians, give us a word or two on 
this version of the band in the COMMENTS section!


Support the band!

Anagram Records

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TV's Homepage

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The Adverts: Outtakes & Rehearsals, 1977-1978

The Adverts (more HERE), as befits as band who's critical stature has grown so much over the years, have been heavily bootlegged. If you readers out there can continue to fill up the COMMENTS section, I will continue to fill up your hard drive with unavailable Adverts stuff. My goal in so doing is, of course to try to convince you to  buy the available albums ( I personalty own Crossing The Red Sea, The Wonders Don't Care and Anthology and I'm going to buy Cast of Thousands again soon) and to check out the amazing solo works of Mr. TV Smith.





Tracklist
A1         One Chord Wonders        
A2         Newboys        
A3         Quick Step        
A4         We Who Wait        
A5         Bored Teenagers        
A6         Great British Mistake        
A7         Bombsite Boy        
B1         I Surrender        
B2         Love Songs        
B3         Fate Of Criminals        
B4         Male Assault        
B5         The Adverts        
B6         My Place        
B7         Television's Over 

Back sleeve states:
"Side 1 - first five tracks are the 'Basement Tape' - a very rare tape from '77 recorded in their rehearsal room when The Adverts were still developing their unique sound, this tape was shopped around to many labels in '77 to get them a record deal while tracks 6 and 7 are rough mixes from the 'Crossing The Read Sea'.
Side 2 is made up entirely from 'Cast Of Thousands' out takes which sounded more raw and punk than when the LP came out" 
 

Hey Advert-tarians, give us a word or two on 
these rarities in the COMMENTS section!


Support the band!

Anagram Records

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TV's Homepage

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The Adverts: Live at The Marquee, 1978

Here's a good -sounding bootleg that captures The Adverts (more HERE) in all their one-chord-wonderfulness. As the set list below indicates, this 1978 bootleg comes from an intriguing juncture in their history - right between the punkier Crossing the Red Sea and the artier Cast of Thousands. Enjoy!





The Adverts
Live at the Marquee
July 27th 1978

1. FATE OF CRIMINALS
2. GARY GILMORE'S EYES
3. DROWNING MEN
4. BOMBSITE BOYS
5. TELEVISION'S OVER
6. MALE ASSAULT
7. NEW CHURCH
8. WE WHO WAIT
9. NEW BOYS
10. ON WHEELS
11. I SURRENDER
12. BACK FROM THE DEAD
13. LOVE SONGS
14. SAFETY IN NUMBERS
15. BORED TEENAGERS
16. NO TIME TO BE 21
17. ONE CHORD WONDERS
18. THE GREAT BRITISH MISTAKE

Hey Advert-tarians, give us a word or two on 
this '78 live set in the COMMENTS section!


Support the band!

Anagram Records

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TV's Homepage

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The Adverts: Live at The Electric Circus, 1977

Here's TV Smith and The Adverts (more HERE) kicking ass back in the Summer of Hate. The sound quality of this audience recording is limited by time and technology but still shows this band just spitting fire! Plus the smashing cover art was clearly created by a big fan of Ms. Advert! I've got lots of Adverts bootlegs in the Blog Ideas folder but I need to hear from YOU before I'll let loose the deluge.





The Adverts
Electric Circus, Manchester UK
26 June 1977

00 intro
01 Gary Gilmore's Eyes
02 New Boys
03 One Chord Wonders
04 On The Roof
05 New Day Dawning
06 Quickstep
07 Safety In Numbers
08 Great British Mistake
09 New Church (beginning cut due to tape flip)
10 Bombsite Boy
11 Bored Teenagers

Hey Advert-tarians, give us a word or two on 
this '77 live set in the COMMENTS section!


Support the band!

Anagram Records

Amazon

iTunes

TV's Homepage

TV's MySpace

The Adverts: The Wonders Don't Care (Complete Radio Sessions)

In his sharp, if occasionally plodding, biography of Joe Strummer, Redemption Song, Chris Salecwicz reduces The Adverts to "a punk group who had a couple of hits". Such bloody nonsense (he slams the Ruts as, "reasonably successful Clash copyists"), taints an otherwise well-written and meticulously researched piece of work. The Adverts and their leader, TV Smith, cannot be so glibly dismissed.

The Adverts' two late seventies albums, the sorta accessible one and the kinda difficult one, would be towering achievements enough. But over the course of his career, as band leader and as a solo artist, Smith has proven himself Strummer's finest peer. I mean if the Strummerian ideal is the fiery visionary spitting truth at power whilst rocking furiously then TV Smith has been what Strummer should've been in his later years.

 

Author, critic (and mega-fan) Dave Thompson argues that "Nobody would make music like The Adverts and nobody ever has. In terms of lyric, delivery, commitment and courage, they were, and they remain, the finest British group of the late 1970s". As proof, here's an out-of-print collection of their BBC recordings, which spans their brief existence.

1.One Chord Wonders 2.Bored Teenagers 3.Gary Gilmore´s Eyes 4.Newboys 5.Quickstep 6.We Who Wait 7.New Church 8.Safety In Numbers 9.Great British Mistake 10.Fate Of Criminals 11.Television´s Over 12.Love Songs 13.Back From The Dead 14.I Surrender 15.The Adverts 16.I Looked At The Sun 17.Cast Of Thousands 17.I Will Walk You Home

Tracks 1-5: Peel Session, first broadcast 29.4.77
Tracks 6-9: Peel Session, first broadcast 30.8.77
Tracks 10-14: Peel Session, first broadcast 11.9.78
Tracks 15-18: Peel Session, first broadcast 12.11.79

Hey Advert-tarians, give us a word or two on 
these BBC sessions in the COMMENTS section!


Support the band!

Anagram Records

Amazon

iTunes

TV's Homepage

TV's MySpace

The Valkyrians (ft. TV Smith) Gary Gilmore's Eyes

Finnish ska/rocksteady band The Valkyrians have recorded an album of covers with the review-proof title of 'PUNKROCKSTEADY' that features a re-arrangement of The Adverts "Gary Gilmore's Eyes" featuring ex-Advert TV Smith on vocals.






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