sound of the suburbs

One of the first generation of punk bands the Adverts were regulars at London's Roxy club through 1976 despite not being issue of the London Pistols/Clash axis. As was very common at the time band members had silly pun heavy stage names, Singer/band leader was TV Smith, Bassist and punk pin-up was Gaye Advert, Guitarist was Howard Pickup and their drummer was Laurie Driver. The stupidity luckily enough stopped with their names and they were one of the first punk bands to get a single in the shops their anthemic 'One Chord Wonders', almost a punk manifesto, which graced Stiff records release schedule. By August 1977 they were both racing up the UK single charts and courting controversy with their pop gem 'Gary Gillmore's Eyes' a morbid tale of an executed murderer donating his eyes to science and the person who received them, this was pretty heady stuff for '77. In commercial terms this was to be the bands pinnacle, as their debut album 'Crossing The Red Sea' was to suffer from the disappearance of their record company. Despite being signed to RCA, they were finding it difficult to record that second album and to shake off their 1234 punk image, so combining this with lack of record company interest and the fact that Gaye was often on the receiving end of vindictive press the Adverts ceased to be in late 1979 after releasing their second album 'Cast of Thousands'. Miss Advert totally disillusioned was to hang up her bass and return to school, if my information is correct she is living in East London with TV Smith and has been a social worker for many years.

They recorded four Peel sessions one in 1977 two in 1978 and one just before splitting in 1979. Both of today' songs are taken from this final session the belated theme song 'The Adverts' with its unpunk piano and the slow menacing stalker like 'I Will Walk You Home'. Both of these tracks are to found on a double CD 'Anthology' which houses 26 studio tracks and a live set recorded at the Roxy.