1 Tribe Of The City
2 I Don't Really Want To Get Involved
3 Youth Club Dance
4 Ask Mr. Waverley
5 Have It With You
6 Broken Not Twisted
7 Heartache
8 Radio Rape
9 Justice
10 Further Education
11 I Trust Valerie Singleton
12 First I Look At The Purse
Bristol's premier 'Punks' ,The Cortinas, were one of those few '77 punk bands that looked like kids from the street. No expensive biker jackets,swastika t-shirts and spiky haircuts for these hicks from the provinces.They also played no-frills rock'n'roll rather than the hyped up version of Rock and Bad heavy metal that was the output of the higher echelons of the genre.They even had a singer who sported a proud Quiff, how anti-fashion was that?
The record companies were running out of 'punk bands' to sign up and destroy, so, inevitably the turn of the Cortinas would come.
CBS released an LP based on the Demos they recorded to get a record deal, which was a sterile over-produced version of what had made them a viable acquisition for the label who had turned the Clash into an Adult Orientated Rock act.
Included here are both the Demo versions, and the Official versions for a contrast and compare lesson in why record companies Suck!
Its like giving your mum (or Dad) your dirty jeans to wash and receiving them back washed and ironed with a sharp crease running down the front and back of the trouser legs.
"Please Don't Hit Me" (Valarie singleton) is raw,rough and ready Pub influenced Punk Rock;whereas, "True Romances" is polished New Wave pop,expertly recorded in an acoustically dead studio.....which I have grown to actually like over the preceding 40 years.
Both versions have their plus points in 2017, but for the time, it is astonishing how unbelievably stupid record executives/producers were in 1977/8 and beyond.Punk Rock was universally misunderstood by almost everyone in the business, and these two LP's stand as a testament to that.
I suppose it's like myself producing a Hip-Hop album.....hang on...no i think i'd do a good job on that one actually....and i'd love to produce someone like that ginger bloke with the small acoustic....er...Ed Sheeran, thats it; and I wish I could have produced The Cortinas in 1978 too.
The cover is another issue. Looking through the 'New Wave' section in Revolver, Leicester, in 1978, I was looking for this album and couldn't see it.Asked the assistant and he flicked through twice and found it. It just so invisible, like when Man United played in a Grey kit and lost 3-1 against Southampton.The manager complained that they couldn't see each other. After changing the kit at half-time they still lost.......if CBS changed the cover at half-time I reckon the sales would have shadowed the fortunes of Manchester United that fateful day, and sunk without trace.
Yep big business and art don't go together, just like Footballers and brains......and the colour Grey.
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