There is an argument to be made that of the first wave of Punk bands and their debut albums (in some cases their only album) that this is the best of them. I’m not claiming that it is, I’m just saying that that argument could be made. When you think of “Never Mind The Bollocks…”, “The Clash”, “Damned Damned Damned”, “In The City”, “Another Music In A Different Kitchen”, “The Scream”, “Crossing The Red Sea…”, “Generation X” well, “Germ Free Adolescents” is right up there with all of them.

In the summer of 1976, being excited by the new Punk scene that was happening in London after seeing the Sex Pistols in Hastings, Poly Styrene, or as she was known then MarionJoan Elliott-Said, placed an ad in the Melody Maker looking for

“YOUNG PUNX WHO WANT TO STICK IT TOGETHER”. 

Marion/Poly had already released a single of her own earlier that year, a trite pop/reggae thing called “Silly Billy” on GTO Records which thankfully disappeared without a trace but will these days set you back around £100 for a 7”. She had seen what was going on with the Pistols and other early Punk bands in London and wanted to get involved.

Her advert brought to her guitarist Jak Airport (a close friend of the then Glam band Japan), bass player Paul Dean, drummer BP Hurding (who I met many years later when he was working as a drum tech for 10,000 Maniacs, a lovely fella) and initially 15 year old Sax player Susan Whitby aka Lora Logic. This line-up played their first gig after 6 rehearsals in manager Falcon Stuart’s living room, part of which (the gig not the rehearsals) can be heard on the compilation album “Live At The Roxy WC2 (Jan - Apr 77)”, a rather ramshackle careen through “Oh Bondage! Up Yours!”. Publicity around that album led to a “residency” at the The Man in the Moon pub on the Kings Road in Chelsea, record company interest and ultimately them signing to Virgin Records for whom, on 30th September 1977, they released their debut single, “Oh Bondage! Up Yours!”, just 6 months after playing their first gig.

A demure young girls voice intones “Some people think little girls should be seen and not heard, But I think…” and then Poly Styrene lets rip with “Oh bondage, up yours!…One-two-three-four!” followed by a rattling drum fill and the rest of the band crashing in, joined after 4 bars by Lora Logic’s piercing if rudimentary saxophone and Poly proclaiming 

“Bind me, tie me, chain me to the wall, I wanna be a slave to you all

Oh bondage, up yours!, Oh bondage, no more…”

It’s not on this album but we bloody loved it and it deserves mention. Poly was just 20 at the time, shrieking a strident feminist anthem at us while at the same time pointing out the dangers of consumerism (a running theme in her songs). Spice Girls…Girl Power…PAH! they’d have wilted like spinach in Poly Styrene’s presence…though I suspect she might have had a grudging admiration for them.

As Lora Logic was only 15, still at school and the band was really just a hobby for her she left and was replaced by fan and male model (!) Rudi Thompson. He saw the band live regularly and when he heard Lora was leaving managed to say hello to Poly at a gig, told her he played sax and he was in. It’s Rudi that plays on this album and the Sax was an unusual (it was only really X-Ray Spex, Wolverhampton’s Neon Hearts and later The Ruts who used it in the Punk world) but integral part of the X-Ray Spex sound, a kind of Punk/Metal topped of with piercing saxophone.

Poly had a knack for pointing out and ridiculing the absurdities and dangers of the plastic, chemically enhanced, consumerist world we lived in, all while the band thundered along behind her. We’re surrounded by images of perfection that we can never hope to attain but this piece of plastic tat or chemically enhanced stuff can move you closer to that image of perfection, if you just buy it… and then someone might like you. Just listen to opening song "Art-I-Ficial" or the single "Identity", it's all in there.

“Identity is the crisis, can't you see ?…When you look in the mirror, do you see yourself ? Do you see yourself on the tv screen ? Do you see yourself in the magazine ? When you see yourself, does it make you scream ?”

The song titles tell a story of their own “I’m A Cliche”, “Genetic Engineering”, “I Live Off You”, the terminally groovy (just listen to that riff and tell me it’s not) “Iama Poseur”. The whole album builds toward its final track (and #23 chart hit), the towering plastic sci-fi nightmare that is “The Day The World Turned Day-Glo”. All Poly’s worst fears about the chemical/plastic world we live in come tumbling out in one terrifying fever dream of what we could (have ?) become. Their TOTP performance was incredible, this charging sax driven Punk/Metal assault on Thursday evening suburban living rooms with Poly grinning like a loon and dressed more like your Nan with a tea-cosy on her head than any Punk Rocker (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKaxfc03Fqk)

“The X-rays were penetrating through the latex breeze, Synthetic fibre, see-through leaves fell from the rayon trees…”

We saw X-Ray Spex at Birmingham Odeon in December 1978 on the tour to support this album. They didn’t have a lot of material, the 12 tracks on this album plus a couple of B-sides (“I Am A Cliché” and “Age”) so their set wasn’t much longer than about 40 minutes. They went off for a time as people down the front were spitting at them (a disgusting side product of the Punk thing) but came back on, finished the set, went off and came back for an encore at which point Poly told us we haven’t got any more songs, so they just started the set again !

X-Ray Spex were a breath of air at the time and I still play this album regularly. Nothing I have written here has convinced me that this isn’t the best of of those debut albums…

Iama Poseur - https://youtu.be/JOS-8MlVl4I?si=laIW5WC0BuLQGtwt

As we reach the end of the W’s and before we proceed with the final X’s, Y’s and Zee’s (there’s a song in there somewhere), we pause for another alphabetical anomaly and new addition to the collection.

Who remembers the Streetband ? They had a “turntable hit” in 1979 with a partly comic ditty called “Toast” all about said breakfast item. You all remember Paul Young though dontcha ? 80’s over-coiffed singer of “Love of The Common People”, “Wherever I Lay My Hat” and what is most certainly the worst cover version of “Love Will Tear Us Apart” it is possible to imagine (it’s that bad legal proceedings and possibly jail time should have resulted). Streetband, as some of you may know or have worked out, were fronted by Mr Young but between their demise and his chart conquering solo career he and some former members of Streetband made quite a name for themselves as Q-Tips.

Young along with bass player Mick Pearl and guitarist John Gifford corralled together what became an 8 piece Soul Revue band including a 4-piece horn section. John Gifford was in time replaced on guitar by Garth Watt-Roy (Blockhead Norman’s brother) and they embarked on an endless series of gigs and TV appearances on shows like “Rock Goes To College” and “The Old Grey Whistle Test” which is where they made their name, as a live band. I saw Q-Tips a couple of times in 1980 and they were a fantastic live band stirring up a serious Soul mix, mostly covers of the great Southern Soul Stax and Atlantic stompers.

By the time they made this, their only studio album, the cover versions were outnumbered by songs they’d written themselves 4 to 6. Also for some reason only 7 of them are pictured on the cover (Mr Watt-Roy is missing). Q-Tips were never gonna change the world, think of them as an English Blues Brothers without the humour, but sometimes all that’s required is good time dance music and they certainly knew about that.

SYSLJFM (The Letter Song) - https://youtu.be/XuokPD_7oWE?si=PKrRFKTfe5y2jSwR

Another of the records I first heard because my parents had it. Roy Wood’s 1973 solo album had seen its birth in recording sessions as far back as 1969 and was finished by 1971. Its release was delayed until 1973 due to his other gigs with The Move, ELO and Wizzard. Wood liked to collect musical instruments and started recording “Boulders” as a way of getting some of the more unusual instruments on to a record. It includes contributions on cittern (a Renaissance instrument similar to a Lute), bouzouki (a stringed, Lute like instrument from Greece) and water bowl (that’s a bowl of water to you and me). Apart from John Kurlander playing harmonium on one song, all the instruments on “Boulders” were played by Roy Wood (although I’m sure I recall a family rumour that Uncle Bill had contributed somewhere, uncredited, which was probably why my parents had a copy). 

It runs through a lot of different styles and sounds, some work some don’t. One that does is opener “Songs Of Praise” a gospel-ish rocker that would have made a great single but only achieved B-side status as backup to “Dear Elaine” (which did make #18 in the charts so...) a ballad we encounter later in the record.

There’s a weird pair of country/rock ’n’ roll tunes in the rollicking “When Gran'ma Plays The Banjo” (guess which instrument he’s highlighting there), which is a song a little like that scene from “Deliverance” but with a little more humour about it. The first part of the final “Rock Medley”, that being “Rockin' Shoes”, also has a very country feel about it.

“Miss Clark And The Computer” left me emotionally scarred as a kid, I ain’t kidding. It’s the story of a computer that has fallen in love with its operator but is in need of some technical jiggery-pokery as it is failing. The technician arrives to fix things and when the computer delivers the lyric “Screwdriver so sharp, Now I’m…scared Miss Clark” it still makes me well-up to this day ! When NASA’s Opportunity Rover sent that last message from Mars a few years ago (“My battery is low and it’s getting dark”) all I could think of was this poor computer and Miss Clark.

Roy Wood is one of this little islands greats. A superb musician and songwriter who deserves to be held in much higher regard than it seems he is.

Miss Clark And The Computer - https://youtu.be/4bBYwk5Zy10?si=870BjgNnNASgEPMR