The Only Ones: A.G.A.P

The Rock Walk is my weekly ritual, in which I carry on the dying tradition of record shopping. The highlight of this week's purchases (which also includes the UK version of the Clash S/T and the 25th Anniversary London Calling, both of which I've long resisted) is the re-issue on the Only Ones first album.


These Londoners (Peter Perrett on vocals/guitar, John Perrett on guitar, Alan Meir on bass and Mike Kelllie on drums) defied the punk orthodoxy, already calcifying by 1978, by not hiding their chops, their songcraft or even their age. These vets used punk as a opening but, like so many musicians of that era, they had no intention of living by its strictures. Their first single, the brilliant power-pop masterpiece, "Another Girl, Another Planet", has led many to label The Only Ones one-hit-wonders. This is stupid. One, "Another Girl, Another Planet" was hardly a chart hit upon its first (U.K.-only) release and two, they have a bucketful of other sterling classics for you to enjoy.







MRML Readers: Please don't forget to add your Only Ones memories, reactions and reviews in the comments section.)



Many readers here will be already be deeply familiar with this song already (even if only through the many covers) but if this perfect classic is all you know about the greatness of the Only Ones then you owe it to yourself to go out and but the real albums, available at Amazon or your local music dealer.


A very grizzled version of the Only Ones returned (as of 2007) having survived heroin and mass indifference. There's new work coming and on-going tour.

Only Ones: T.I.T.W.

The Only One's fourth single, 1979's Trouble in the World, is taken from their final album, Baby's Got a Gun. As the splendid picture sleeve may imply Peter Perrett's now channeling Jim Morrison AND Lou Reed (AND hanging out with Johnny Thunders - Perrett played with his fellow addict, on Thunders' solo album, So Alone. Here's the two of them stumbling through the "I'm Not Your Stepping Stone.")



While "Trouble in the World" contains all those Only Ones trademarks; the gritty vocals, the supple rhythms and those the sneaky guitar solos, it never seems to outshine the better LP tracks, like "The Happy Pilgrim" or "Oh Lucinda". Looking at their measly handful of singles, it almost seems as if their record company sabotaged them after the failure of "Another Girl, Another Planet".


The Only Ones - Trouble in this Life


"Your Chosen Life" is a non-album track and is a little listless.

The Only Ones: L.O.T.

The Only Ones actually debuted in 1977 with Lovers of Today, a single on their D.I.Y. label, Vengeance Records.The A-side, "Lovers of Today" is a little more of the times, with it's faux-kinky picture sleeve and the brazen polymorphous perversity of the lyrics. The intermingling of unrestrained lust and opiates certainly manifests Peter Perrett's Lou Reed fixation, but Perrett had moved past imitation and into a melodic space all of his own. The B-side, "Peter and the Pets", is actually an old song by Perrett's Reedy early seventies band, England's Glory.The song's are flush with power, melodically and instrumentally, and should remind you that you need to go out and buy an album to support these survivors,






MRML Readers: Is Peter Perrett a Lou Reed knock-off or did the student surpass the master?)

Only Ones: Fools

The artwork for the Only Ones' (see here) fifth and final single, 1980's Fools, is so very charming. Check out the fifties table cloth backdrop, the awkward brackets ("featuring Peter and Pauline"), the sad duet shot plus the retro-sixties black and white back cover. The artwork and the fact that both tracks here are album tracks may be further proof of record label sabotage.


For all those problems, the songs remain strong. The duet with Pauline Murray (formerly of Penetration) is a high n' lonesome song which, although written by seventies country also-ran Johnny Duncan, sounds like what Leonard Cohen might have written, had he decamped to Nashville instead of New York. The B-side is a slightly more ska-flecked take on Perrett's usual gruff bleakness and at 1:46 it brings the singles's total length to 4:06. Brevity is beautiful.