The Adverts

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The Adverts
General information
Genre (s) Punk rock
founding 1976
resolution 1979
Last occupation
TV Smith
Gaye Advert (Gaye Balsden)
Rick Martinez
(from September 1979) as a session musician
Tim Cross (from February 1979)
guitar
 Paul Martinez
(from September 1979) as a session musician
Drums
 John Towe
(February - April 1978, from September 1979)
former members
Drums
 Laurie Driver (Laurie Muscat)
(until February 1978)
Drums
 Rod Latter
(April 1978 to August 1979)
guitar
 Howard Pickup (Howard Boak)
(until Aug. 1979)

The Adverts (Engl. "Advertisements" ) was 1977-1979 a successful band of the first punk movement in London.

Band history

The beginnings

Gaye Balsden and Tim Smith had met at art school in Devon , moved to London in 1976 and joined the punk scene there. They loved Iggy Pop , The Velvet Underground , the New York Dolls, and the Sex Pistols . Tim, who from then on called himself T. V. Smith , after the short form for television , wrote the lyrics. Gaye practiced bass, took the band name as a surname a little later and called himself Gaye Advert . The two found guitarist Howard Pickup and drummer Laurie Driver through an advertisement in Melody Maker and founded The Adverts with them at the end of 1976.

On January 15, 1977, they were discovered at one of their first concerts as opening act for Generation X in London's Roxy Club by Brian James of The Damned . He passed them on to Stiff Records , which in April 1977 brought the first single of the Adverts One Chord Wonders onto the market. One Chord Wonders was spontaneously named "Single of the Week" in the music magazine Melody Maker . Afterward, John Peel invited the band to his radio show, which aired on April 28, 1977.

Great success from 1977 to 1978

In May, the band toured England with The Damned and in August, Gary Gilmore's Eyes was released on Anchor Records. The background of the song was the story of Gary Gilmore . The man was a death row murderer in Utah who bequeathed his retina to science and through whose eyes someone else was supposed to look after his death. The song quickly rose to number 18 on the UK charts. On August 23, the second session of the adverts was broadcast on John Peel. From August to September the band appeared three times on British television; in the shows Top of the Pops and "Rock On". At the end of the year they played as the opening act for Iggy Pop. Another single Safety was released in Numbers in December .

In the meantime, the band has received high praise from English music magazines and has been a welcome guest at many club scene organizers, as they guaranteed a sold out house. Gaye Advert became the pin-up girl of many punk-loving boys. The Sun described her as "one of the cheekiest singers pop music has ever produced," though she only occasionally opened her mouth to inaudible background chants. The Daily Express compared her “fragile beauty” with Marianne Faithfull : “Gaye is beautiful, with black hair and Castilian white skin she is the dark-haired counterpart to Marianne. She has black fingernails painted ready to fight, and the black make-up that surrounds her eyes makes Gaye look like some kind of grumpy panda. "

The fourth single No Time to Be 21 and the debut album Crossing the Red Sea with The Adverts , both released in the spring of 1978, also reached the top 40 of the British charts before Laurie Driver left the band due to musical differences. He was briefly replaced by John Towe, who had previously drummed for Chelsea , Generation X , Alternative TV and The Rage ; from April 1978 Rod Latter sat on the drums.

The band followed several invitations from British television. They appeared in front of the camera on Top of the Pops and was featured as the first punk band in The Old Gray Whistle Test . On August 21, 1978, the third John Peel session was recorded with the adverts. Then the band went to Germany, where they starred in Wolfgang Büld's TV film Brennende Langeweile and gave three concerts in North Rhine-Westphalia.

The end of 1979

The Adverts signed a contract with RCA Records , strengthened themselves with keyboardist Tim Cross and released another album, Cast of Thousands . Shortly after the album was released, Rod Latter and Howard Pickup left the band and it became difficult to promote the album, which was musically completely different from the style of the previous album. After manager Michael Dempsey died of an electric shock, the band broke up. Another John Peel session was recorded with her on October 16, and the Adverts gave their farewell concert on October 27, 1979 at Slough College.

Addendum

The sound carriers of the adverts were no longer available on the market for a long time. In 2003, however, an anthology of the adverts was released as a double CD on the Import label.

Gary Gilmore's Eyes was re-recorded in 1991 by Die Toten Hosen for the album Learning English Lesson One together with TV Smith. Further titles from the adverts can be found on the album Useless . TV Smith then founded other bands and is now active as a solo artist. In his productions he often worked with Tim Cross and occasionally appeared on stage with him. Tim Cross died of lung cancer on July 9, 2012.

Gaye Advert didn’t play in any band after the adverts dissolved, lives to this day in London and works as a social worker for the elderly. In addition, she designs fashion jewelry and collages made of glass, shells and bones under the stage name Gaye Black .

Howard Pickup (aka Howard Boak) died of a brain tumor on July 12, 1997 at the age of 45.

Discography

Chart positions
Explanation of the data
Albums
Crossing the Red Sea with the Adverts
  UK 38 03/11/1978 (1 week)
Singles
Gary Gilmore's Eyes
  UK 18th 08/27/1977 (7 weeks)
No Time to Be 21
  UK 34 02/04/1978 (4 weeks)
Gary Gilmore's Eyes (1983)
  UK 91 07/16/1983 (2 weeks)

Albums

Singles

  • 1977: One Chord Wonders / Quickstep
  • 1977: Gary Gilmore's Eyes / Bored Teenagers
  • 1977: Safety in Numbers / We Who Wait
  • 1978: No Time to Be 21 / New Day Dawning
  • 1978: Television's Over / Back from the Dead
  • 1979: My Place / New Church (live)
  • 1979: Cast of Thousands / I Will Walk You Home

Later publications (selection)

  • 1990: Live at the Roxy Club (Live at Roxy April 1977, additionally live appearance of the Adverts in Barbarellas, Birmingham 10/11 June 1977.)
  • 1992: Live and Loud - Split with the Ruts ( Split-LP with The Ruts / The Adverts live at Nottingham Rock City , summer 1977)
  • 1997: The Wonders Don't Care (John Peel Sessions: April 25, 1977, August 23, 1977, August 21, 1978, October 16, 1979)
  • 1997: The Punk Singles Collection
  • 1998: The Best of the Adverts
  • 2003: The Adverts Anthology (double CD)

literature

Movie

swell

  1. ↑ a b c d Timeline in the booklet for the album TV Smith's Explorers: The Last Words of the Great Explorer.
  2. ↑ a b Memories of The Adverts. h & f Arts, May 2010, archived from the original on June 25, 2013 ; accessed on December 22, 2015 .
  3. ^ Dave Thompson : I'm Your Ticket out of Here , The Armchair Guide to TV Smith. Page 12.
  4. ↑ Musicians Wanted classifieds section (“NASTY LEAD GUITARIST needed by W.6 punks Ring Tim”) In: Sounds magazine, September 11, 1976, page 41.
  5. ^ Dave Thompson: I'm Your Ticket out of Here , The Armchair Guide to TV Smith. Page 17.
  6. ^ Dave Thompson: I'm Your Ticket out of Here , The Armchair Guide to TV Smith. Page 32.
  7. ↑ “ Gaye is beautiful, she is dark as Marianne was fair, with black hair and Castillian white skin. She wears black nail varnish to match, and the black make-up encircling her eyes gives Gaye a sort of morose panda look. Quoted by Dave Thompson: London's Burning: True Adventures on the Frontlines of Punk, 1976-1977 . Chicago Review Press, Chicago Illinois 2009, ISBN 978-1-55652-769-2 . Page 167.
  8. ^ Dave Thompson: I'm Your Ticket out of Here , The Armchair Guide to TV Smith. Page 43.
  9. ^ Friends of the House - TV Smith. From nothing to a hit single in six months. Die Toten Hosen, December 2010, archived from the original on November 3, 2009 ; Retrieved October 20, 2013 .
  10. ↑ Gaye Black at londonart.co.uk
  11. ^ Dave Thompson: TV Smith - Your Ticket Out Of Here, The Complete Collectors Guide. 2009, ISBN 978-1-4495-5815-4 . Page 131.
  12. ↑ Charts UK

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