TV Smith's Cheap: Peel Session, 1988

In the late eighties, despite mass indifference, TV Smith (more here), formerly of The Adverts (more HERE), fought on with a bracing electric band he dubbed, Cheap (more HERE). Today, we get to hear the band's lone Peel Session, a ferocious four-song statement of intent.

Don't miss the full stream of the one-hour BBC doc on TV Smith (and the Adverts, The Explorers and Cheap!) available as a full stream HERE!






John Peel Session 5th Jan 1988

Tracks:

1. Third Term
2. Silicon Valley Holiday
3. Luxury In Exile
4. Buried By The Machine

T.V. Smith (Vocals)
Mik Helsin (Guitar)
Andy Bennie (Bass)
Fuzz Deniz (Drums)


MRML Readers give us your take on Cheap TV and tell us if you want to hear more!



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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?)

TV Smith's Cheap: Third Term 7" (1989)

(Image courtesy of Record Collectors of the World Unite)

In the late eighties, despite mass indifference, TV Smith (more here), formerly of The Adverts (more HERE), fought on with a bracing electric band he dubbed, Cheap, which featured Mik Helsin on guitar, Andy Bennie on bass and Fuzz Deniz on drums. TV says, “Summer, 1986. Time to form a new band. After The Adverts and the Explorers had both broken up in disarray I´d thought I wouldn´t fall for it again, but hmmm, there was that familiar itch. This time though, it would be JUST FOR FUN. A bunch of mates traveling around the country in a couple of estate cars, all the equipment piled in the back; mobile, compact, above all CHEAP.” TV's razor-sharp writing remains full of treasonous sing-alongs like the anti-Thatcherite anthem, "Third Term", which burns like a fuel factory fire.





The other side of this 1989 single, their sole album, R.I.P. Everything Must Go, only came out after they broke-up, may even best the A-side. "Buried by the Machine" is a song that you can imagine being in a room full of sweaty punters roaring along to, only partly realizing how that ringing melody brings you face-to-interface with your own dehumanization.



MRML Readers give us your take on TV's Cheap-ness and tell us if you want to hear more!



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TV Smith: War Fever (1983)

Following the break-up of his Explorers (more HERE), TV Smith (more HERE), formerly of The Adverts (more HERE), began his first foray into solo work. Smith's solo debut, the album Channel 5, immediately sunk below the radar but you'll have to buy the CD re-issue to read the whole laugh-about-it-now-but-at-the-time-it-was-terrible story. Here, as small sampler is a vinyl rip of the lead-off single, "War Fever", which shows Smith (backed by Tim Renwick and Tim Cross) excoriating those who would lead us to slaughter with undiminished fire and a cracking tune.





TV Smith ‎– War Fever
Expulsion Ltd. – OUT 2
Tracklist
A     War Fever        
B     Lies    

MRML readers, give us your take on Smith's first solo outing and tell us if you want to hear more TV!



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TV Smith's Explorers: Tomahawk Cruise (1980)

Clive Product: Do you see yourself following in that "folk" tradition of early Dylan or Billy Bragg?”

TV Smith: “I suppose. That tradition and spirit of using songs to protest has been around a lot longer than Dylan or Bragg though - I think we're all following a tradition that's been around in music forever.”

Following the Adverts (more HERE) dissolution in 1979, TV Smith (more HERE), remained unbowed. He continue the slower, more electronic feel of the Advert's second album, Cast of Thousands but his burning anger remained undiminished. Some songs from this more experimental era, such as "Tomahawk Cruise", positively explode with righteous indignation.





"Tomahawk Cruise" still oozes all the piss, vinegar and bile of punk just with less speed and distortion. I mean, how many many songs are written from the perspective of a long-range, all-weather, subsonic cruise missile (even back in the eighties when such nuclear angst was ubiquitous)? The song's lyrics, like most of TV's narratives, force you lean in to catch each word and savour their devastation:

Tomahawk Cruise

I woke up this morning, felt completely at ease
Put on my clothes and had something to eat
No desire to act, no desire to move
Unless I get a reason from you

My name is Tomahawk Cruise

We wear our problems, we wear our fate
But we have to eat what we put on the plate
Some people wallow in hate, some wallow in fear
Neither two are recommended around here

If you so wish I could get nasty
Create all kinds of disasters
I know things run away with you
But at the cusp, you have to choose
Between living and Tomahawk Cruise

Now in my heart something starts
Down in my heart something starts…

I get your message, I understand
Break down the barriers as fast as you can
I dream unnatural power, unnatural grace
Bricks and wreckage all over the place

I change my clothes for a uniform
Throw caution to the wind and walk into the storm
At the cusp, you choose
Between living and Tomahawk Cruise

I look at myself - what is this body?
A few limbs, stock responses
A heart turned to steel
I just love the attention
I’m in the news!

You choose,
Between living and Tomahawk Cruise

TV Smith

This is no paint-by-numbers protest song musically either, listen how Colin Stoner's bass carries the song, while Mel Wesson's keyboards add a mechanical menace. It's a gross injustice that the failure of the Explorer's would send Smith to The Wilderness for years to come. Fortunately, between Ojit Records expanded re-issue earlier in the decade and Easy Action Records' new even-more expanded (2 CD's!) version, we may may now finally see the wrong of TV's banishment righted.





MRML Readers give us your take on TV's Explorers and tell us if you want to hear more!


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