sound of the suburbs

I'm not quite sure when it was announced,the end of February? All I know is that I must have had my head firmly wedged in a bucket of sand of maybe even cement to have let news as important as the reformation of the original line up of the Only Ones be missed by myself. I guess this is going to be very much of case of don't hold your breath and don't blink as no one not even London's finest bookmaker's are willing to offer odds on the given length of this return of the four original members of one of the finest bands to have come to light in those turbulent years of '76/'77. Peter Perrett, vocalist and songwriter, by his own admission is in a bad way physically after spending the best part of the last thirty years as a junkie, his good friend Johnny Thunders is reputed to have once advised him to clean his act up! Having said this reports from the rehearsal studios are so good that apparently he no longer needs a fix of oxygen between numbers, and there is even talk of them entering the studios to lay down some new material.
It would appear that this move was sparked off by an offer to play All Tomorrows Parties (April, 27), this has now been followed by a short UK tour, 6 dates starting June, 1 and a festival appearance at the beginning of September, as I have already said it remains to be seen if they manage to fulfill these obligations and I am under no illusion regarding the possibility of seeing them here in the south of France - Nil. Still I wish them luck and must admit to being just a little envious of those of you that are going to catch them.
To celebrate I'm putting up the four tracks that made up their very first session for Peel originally aired in September 1977. I know that some of these songs have already been posted here but those links have long been lost in cyber space.

1. 'Lovers Of Today' which was their first single, released on their own label and the song that started a label bidding war for the band. Perrett has since regretted their choice claiming they should have signed to another, nameless label, because he had done drugs with the label boss!
2. 'Oh No' not their most memorable song and somewhat out of character for the band it being an out and out rocker and lacking the bands trade mark atmosphere and dynamics, though it does feature a nice bit of very free guitar playing by John Perry at the end and it really sounds like he was enjoying himself. As Far as I know this song was not featured on any of their official CBS releases, maybe under a different name? Though a version does exist on the outtakes compilation 'Remains'.
3. 'Telescopic Love' a lovely slice of English psychedelic pop that was later to figure as the b side of the 'Another Girl Another Planet' 7" single with the title changed to 'Special View'.
4. 'Inbetweens' that would later feature on the bands second album 'Even Serpents Shine'.

This session along with the three others that the band recorded for Peel have been compiled with two BBC In Concert recordings under the title of 'Darkness And Light' for a double CD release by Hux. Their three official CBS albums are available on another 2 cd set which includes their debut single and b sides for a very reasonable £11.