Tuesday 15 April 2014

Alternative TV - "The Radio Sessions" (1977-81)

How great were ATV?......the answer can be found in the form of their peel session from 1978.
Ignore the last track from Bangkok radio (uh?)...which sort of wipes out any progress Mark P made up to 81, a boring return to normal rock and roll.
Tracks 5-11 are what prog rock should have evolved into if they sacked off the public school boys.The outer limits of "Good" is what this is.
Remember......the "punks" wanted to hurt mark for making this music......he did this for YOU!

Tracks 1-4 is from Peel Session, December 1977, tracks 5-8 from Peel Session, July 1978, tracks 9-11 from Street Level Radio 1981 and track 12 is from Bangkok Radio?????? 1986.

Track Listing:

1- Love Lies Limp
2 - Action Time Vision
3- Still Life
4 - Life after life
5 - The Good Missionary
6 - Release the natives
7 - going round in circles
8 - Nasty little lonely
9 - Cold rain
10- There goes my date with Doug.
11 - Communicate
12 - Straighten up

DOWNLOAD the atv radio sessions HERE!

4 comments:

Lee said...

And the band is still going - and I'm one of the guitarists! We're playing the Lexington this Sunday (May 27th). When I'm ready to rehearse "Still Life" I always go to this recording rather than the one on "The Image Has Cracked" - its much more "together" - for me this is the definitive "Still Life".

Jonny Zchivago said...

I agree, of course.In fact the first eight tracks on here are the definitive versions. The second ATV peel session was always a musical landmark for me.
Have a good gig,wish i could be there.Not seen ATV since 2000-ish.Are there any gigs scheduled for SW France?

Jonathan said...

I pretty much ignored ATV from 1981 (I hated Strange Kicks) up until to their unexpected reappearance with Opposing Forces in 2015. After that Mark (and whoever) been pretty good. But was there anything worth hearing in all the inbetween years? I'm currently listening to Revolution (2001) on youtube and, well, it's not bad, but I can't say I'd want to listen to it again.

Jonathan said...

Having now listened to most everything inbetween, it seems the answer to my question is: "no" (apart from the odd track here and there). In particular, "My Life as a Child Star" is appalling. Jeez.