The debut album by the new band formed by the former singer with Liverpool legends Pele…ladies and gentlemen here is your first encounter with someone you’ll meet again and again throughout this collection, Mr Ian Prowse.

“The Scouse Springsteen”, the writer of John Peel’s 2nd favourite song, call him what you will but Prowsey is one of the UK’s very best, yet very under-appreciated songwriters and one of the most exciting live performers we’ve had the pleasure of seeing across the 17 years (!!!) since we first encountered him opening for The Wonder Stuff in Wolverhampton.

Prowsey’s previous band Pele (we’ll get to them later) had split after releasing 2 studio and 1 live album between 1992-94. After 7 years he re-apppeared with a new band Amsterdam and an album “Attitunes” initially released on CD only through a small independent. The reason I have it in here is because Prowsey’s star rose enough in the ensuing 20 years that in 2021 we were treated to a beautiful Red vinyl re-issue to celebrate its anniversary.

This album houses songs that are still mainstays of any Prowse/Amsterdam gig you will attend this year, the strident “Taking On The World”, Tony Blair’s favourite “You’re a Phoney” and the devastatingly beautiful “Feels Like Growing Up” co-written with his guitar-hero wingman Johnny “B” Barlow.

In economical Prowsey style things start off with “And It Hurts”, a song much of which he recycled into “Somethings Changed” on his 2019 solo album “Here I Lie”, a good tune shouldn’t be wasted. The next 3 songs we’ll meet again soon. "Lifestyle" is sung by band member Genevieve Mort and finally “Nostalgia” will be around again soon. 

Side 2 rattles along happily starting out with “We Don’t Like You” (a distant cousin of The Stranglers “Nice And Sleazy”) including a guest appearance by Arthur Scargill; Genevieve returns on vocals for the short interlude of “Helsby Hill”; “Diablo And The Dame” would be interesting to hear live again and everything winds up with the previously mentioned “Feels Like Growing Up” and “Raver”, a rambunctious celebration of the Ibizan lifestyle !

After a few years away “Attitunes” was a great return, it pointed to brighter days ahead.

Feels Like Growing Up - https://youtu.be/12do1-TPrQ4

As a kid first getting into music that I liked, rather than stuff I heard from my folks, Glam Rock was the first thing that caught my ear. Slade, T.Rex, Sweet…they were the bands that this 10/11 year old latched on to. Glam was simply the pop music of the time, hairy blokes with guitars and a knack with a chorus who’d all been paying their dues on the club circuit since the mid 60’s in most cases.

And slightly off to one side, not quite Glam, but definitely hairy blokes with guitars, and a snake, was Alice Cooper. We just thought it was the singers name, not quite realising at that time Alice Cooper was a band. The song that stuck out to all us schoolkids was, of course, “School’s Out” but there were others that hit the charts, “Hello Hooray” and “Elected” which some years later I discovered were from an album called “Billion Dollar Babies”.

It would have been the early 80’s when I heard the entire album and it’s been a favourite ever since. The aforementioned singles are both on side 1 with the title track and the closing, unsettling “Unfinished Sweet” wherein at a dental visit our hero is told “your teeth are OK but your gums gotta go” ! Side 2 opens with AC’s great anthem “Mo More Mr Nice Guy” and some more of the schlock-horror on which their stage show was based, the eerie “Sick Things” and the jaunty sing-a-long “I Love The Dead”.

It was Glam but not as we knew it. It has proved influential, we’d argue that without the huge “influence” of Alice Cooper and Slade then Kiss would never have had a career. And we didn’t even get to the sleeve, in the days when artwork mattered…

No More Mr Nice Guy - https://youtu.be/_yo1S50Aqoo

In the early 2000’s me, my wife Deb and our great friend Dawse found ourselves in the Moseley Arms in Birmingham thinking “this can’t be where TV Smith is playing”. The pub was full of “old” guys in their 40’s with beer bellies seemingly all dressed in distressed brown leather jackets. “Where are the Punk Rockers” we were thinking. Then it dawned on us, these WERE the Punk Rockers !

That night TV Smith, one man and his acoustic guitar, tore through a set of his songs running from his current album and stretching back to songs from this album, one of the great underrated albums, and songwriters, of the first wave of Punk. In the upstairs room of a pub in the backstreets of Brum a guy who should be lauded as a songwriter gave one of the most energetic performances I’ve ever seen.

You can feel Howard Pickup’s guitar slashing at you, bassist Gaye Advert’s parts may have been simple but hearing them played live by someone else (TV Smith & The Bored Teenagers at the 100 Club some 30 years later) proves they were integral to driving these songs along…and then there are TV’s lyrics. We’d argue this album has more quotable opening lines than many others, “Life’s short don’t make a mess of it”, “But I don't believe you have to be an idiot to get somewhere these days“, “We're talking into corners finding ways to fill the vacuum”, “The great British mistake was looking for a way out, Was getting complacent”…they just keep coming. There are 3 hit singles on here too.

TV Smith is still toting his acoustic around Europe playing with as much energy and conviction as a teenager. We were lucky enough to get to know him and when we still lived in Birmingham he would stay with us after gigs to save on hotel bills. He and The Adverts deserve to be hailed along with the best that the first wave of Punk delivered.

The Great British Mistake - https://youtu.be/klQH7k-5dEw