I’ve gotta say this blog thing hasn’t really taken hold of my imagination yet… oh well, here goes another missive…

Just read “The One and Only” Peter Perrett from the Only Ones biography.  To quote the Libertines “What a waster!”, Pete Carl and the boys had nothing on this lowlife.  I still love the music, maybe even more now that I know “Out There In The Night” was about his cat.  Really though, you don’t often hear the connection made between music and drug money laundering so clearly.  When you’re importing multi kilo shipments of cocaine from Bolivia and containers of hash from Turkey in the mid 70’s the money has to be spent somehow.  Apparently it funded the nascent career of a band that only half-heartedly participated in the boring side of the music business.  Since they weren’t starving they could afford to take their time waiting for a recording contract but when it did finally arrive their heroin habits were already full blown.  Thus a promising band was stumbling on it’s last legs by the time they finished their sophomore effort “Even Serpents Shine”.  They made one more album “Baby’s Got A Gun”, and their label released a posthumous collection called “Remains” and by 1982 it was all over.  For the creators of one of the all time classic songs “Another Girl, Another Planet” it was nothing short of failure.  Luckily the dearth of catalog means there are no weak points, it is all great stuff, first time listeners should start at the beginning though, the later stuff gets pretty bleak.  

It’s a good read for anyone with an interest in punk.  It’s not a happy book, but like “The End” the book chronicling Nico’s last few tours there is a clear perspective on a fascinating subject.  This is the band that distilled the Keith Richards, Johnny Thunders ethos better than any other, taking that boozy glam blues sound into the post punk era.  If you haven’t heard the band check them out, if you have you need to read the book.

Till next time…