Another well, well, well played bootleg tape of mine. I Saw Sputnik at Abbey Road Studios in Dec 85, and they totally blew my mind, coming on like nothing I’d heard before, a 21st Century space age New York Dolls, it would be a good few months before they released any product, so all I had to listen to was this here recording of a gig in Manchester a couple of months before Abbey Road. Once the product was out there and the hype began , they were everywhere, people had a love hate relationship with the band you either loved ‘em or hated ‘em. Audiences reacted violently, band responded violently and found themselves all over the tabloid press; SICKY SICKY SPUTNIK one headline screamed. Sigue Sigue Sputnik were not yer average Rock’n’Roll band, but one, who largely due to ex Gen X bassist and leading Sputnik figure Tony James saw where the future was at; with their use of samples, repetitive techno beats and visuals it was very similar to the vision of Mick Jones’s Big Audio Dynamite, who in Sputniks early days was their sound mixer. Not the first nor the last time they worked together, but hey we weren’t here to talk about London SS or Carbon/Silicon. Anyway, enough of the bollocks, here’s the music!
4 comments:
Great post Nuzz.
I saw one of their first gigs around the middle of ‘85 at Raymond’s Review Bar (!).
Your right, there was a ‘WTF is this’ sort of feeling when you first saw them. Def a 21st century Dolls vibe. Quite something to behold, initially. Though despite the ‘Shock value’ I thought they started to become passé and a bit too contrived quite quickly.
pipeline
I hated everything they stood for at the time but have come to find them rather invigorating & amusing, a UK cojnterpart of avant-trash PoMo Jap groups. An old mate saw 'em in Liverpool 18/3/86, very rowdy, Martin D in black contact-lenses facing the scorny Scousers down, "Fuck off...I've had a sex-change...I KNOW I'm a cock-sucker" etc. Lots of scraps breaking out, one bloke spent the gig standing directly in front of stage just flicking 'V' signs. A good night but my mate's ears were still poorly following night with me at the tangerine Dream gig (heh heh)
Worth noting also that Neil X is a very compitent guitarist who’s played with Johnny Thunders, London Cowboy’s and Stiv Bators among others, and recently toured with Marc Almond.
His version of JT’s Hurt Me is excellent an well worth a listen.
pipeline
Looked great sounded great for 5 minutes only seemed to have that one riff which if you play get off the phone by JT & The Heartbreakers you'll see they nicked it off the start of that track, mind you didnt Tony James help re-mix L.A.M.F around this time? anyway i saw 'em i liked 'em they were fun not as shite as the press made 'em out to be, saw at Reading University which was a riot literally, just a couple of days later the NME had 'em on it's cover saying they were miming to backing tracks which was only partly true...cheers for the tape NUZZ.
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