New Wave nuddy (slight unsightly return)

 

This punk-as-hunk shot of Jimmy Pursey - only aimed at the 18 percent of the Sounds readership that was female, honest! - reminded me that one of the papers (for once NME I think) ran with a Playgirl style nude pin-up of Jean-Jacques Burnel.

Yes it was the New Musical Express - here it is in disappointingly low quality.

Actually the two front figures of the Stranglers were often unclothed

Even as late as 1986, J-J B was still whipping his kit off in hopes of shifting a few records.

Is he taking the piss out of Morrissey here?

He's also not buff by modern standards, which is odd given his whole Mishima-fan cult-of-the-body, martial-arts practitioner.... perhaps in that world, being lean is what counts, not the six pack and muscle mass

These nuddies remind me of Top Of the Pops appearances - Ian McCulloch baring his nipples in hopes of getting "The Cutter" to jump up the chart (it worked), Morrissey likewise pulling open his shirt to reveal 'Marry Me' daubed on his chest with lipstick (that's "William, It Was Really Nothing", I think)

T.V. Eye versus TV In My Eye

 

"T.V. Eye" is not about television, of course. 

T.V. has a particular private slang meaning in Stoogesworld and to be honest, I would advise you not to look it up, it might subtly impair your enjoyment of the song as it has ever-so-slightly with me, which is a shame as it is a Top 10 all time rock song for me. 

Somehow I've only just got around to hearing Los Microwaves, despite Barney Hoskyns going on about them in the NME back in the day. 

They are None New Wavier that's for sure.

"TV In My Eye" is yet another example of the very low status of television in the cultural hierarchy back then, compared to nowadays.

 From punkers to highbrow literati, all agreed that it was nonstop garbage, rotting your brain. 

cheeky monkeys, Rezillos, going on Top of the Pops and taking the mickey out of it! 

Gil Scott Heron obviously...

What else? 

(Talking Heads being clever semi-invert the idea and in "Found A Job" have the characters making their own television)

"Damn that television, what a bad picture"

"Don't get upset, it's not a major disaster"

"There's nothing on tonight, " he said, "I don't know what's the matter"

"Nothing's ever on, " she said, "so I don't know why you bother"

We've heard this little scene, we've heard it many times

People fighting over little things and wasting precious time

They might be better off, I think, the way it seems to me

Making up their own shows, which might be better than TV

Judy's in the bedroom, inventing situations

Bob is on the street today, scouting up locations

They've enlisted all their family

They've enlisted all their friends

It helped save their relationship

And made it work again

Their show gets real high ratings, they think they have a hit

There might even be a spin-off, but they're not sure 'bout that

If they ever watch TV again, it'd be too soon for them

Bob never yells about the picture now, he's having too much fun

Judy's in the bedroom, inventing situations

Bob is on the street today, scouting up locations

They've enlisted all their family

They've enlisted all their friends

It helped save their relationship

And made it work again

So think about this little scene, apply it to your life

If your work isn't what you love, then something isn't right

Just think of Bob and Judy, they're happy as can be

Inventing situations, putting them on TV

(No quite the total inversion of rock convention as with "Don't Worry About the Government" but different than railing against the braindeath)

Most rock songs, the attitude to television is on the level of Network and Being There, or Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 and his short stories like "The Pedestrian", or Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves To Death i.e. typical highbrow "admass" critique of the brainwashing machine in the living room

Ironic, in a way, given that your highbrow literati like J.B. Priestley would have lumped rock'n'roll and youth culture in with TV, supermarkets, advertising, etc as part of admass. 

Now, are there any pro-TV songs? 

I have never really inspected closely the lyrics to ZZ Top's "TV Dinners"

None New Wavier (Gruppovoodoo)

I remember when I was first looking at music papers seeing the name Gruppo Sportivo and being faintly intrigued, in the same way that Brand X adverts were faintly intriguing. Couldn't get a fix on what either band would sound like. 

I don't remember ever hearing Gruppo Sportivo  then although they got quite a bit of exposure in the UK. And they were pretty big on the Continent, or parts thereof.

A Dutch group - basically a Dutch bloke, as there's this one central, recurring figure, Hans Vandenburg - who take Anglophilia to an extreme. They basically seem to want to be The Members. 

Although I think they started before The Members. 

Actually what they are really like is a Netherlands version of Deaf School. I believe Bette Bright sang with Gruppo later on.

Well this is None New Wavier to the power of I don't know what - Gruppo Sportivo covering Wall of Voodoo

Like Fabulous Poodles, like Jona Lewie, like Costello and Joe Jackson and Graham Parker, they represent that side of New Wave where it is a time when funny-looking blokes have a chance at being pop stars. People who in most other eras would not get a look-in for not being a looker -  too ordinary-bloke unmemorable,  or actively mis-shapen.

 

No funny-looking or even ordinary-looking women of course - in New Wave, it's still expected that you are pretty. At least when it comes to fronting a band. (So not so "New" after all). 

You can be quirky and wacky and easy-on-the-eye like Lene Lovich but the beauty double standard still applies.

Gruppo have good looking backing singers, who jig about a bit like the girls in Squeeze's "Cool For Cats", to offset the bald gnome-like central geezer. 

Eeuw the mohair makes it look he has horribly hairy shoulders.

Design wise you can't get much more None New Wavier than this cover below

Still going

Joey's Knees (None New Wavier part 173)

How did Joey Ramone come up with this strange stage stance - left knee flexed and thrust forward, right leg straightened and tensed? It looks kind of athletic - like the starting position of a sprinter or hurdler - and creates this effect of him almost poised to vault into the audience.  But it's also like a freeze-framed stride. His incredibly long legs and praying mantis physique accentuate the startling effect of this stance.  He also angles the microphone stand dramatically so that it spears towards the audience. Or perhaps it's for support, like those sticks that hikers carry.... 

Somewhere I saw a TV studio clip or promo that shot the Ramones from the side, so Joey's stance looked really aberrant - you could see what the right foot was doing, at times it was tensed at tiptoe. This below is not the video in question  - the camera is shooting the band's front - but it has the best footage I could find of the stage stance, especially around 34 seconds when Joey leans in for the chorus, and again at 2.15.

There is a good view of the leg stride-splay in this Top of the Pop clip at 2 mins, and passim. 

Oh and this one has some good knee-splay shots - seen switched angles from 44 seconds - and nicely accentuated by the holes in his jeans at the knee

I should imagine long term the strain on the left knee and the tendons and muscles in the right leg might have led to problems.

Then again he doesn't seem to have kept it up for the whole of the set - sometimes he'll jump up for more perpendicular stances. 

Johnny Ramone is notable also for extremely widely splayed legs and a low-slung guitar posture. 

Combo of splay and squat 

Here Johnny has semi-adopted the left knee forward thrust and tensed right leg of Joey - whereas Joey is in a more perpendicular mode, really using his gangly height, with a stance that somehow seems to combine correct posture and slouch

My one sighting of Joey Ramone in the flesh is from when he was quite decrepit, in the late '90s. He used to live near a well-regarded cheese shop in the East Village. I remember being in there one time and he shuffled in, looking a bit disoriented, still dressed in pyjamas. I think he was looking to get a bagel (they had other stuff apart from cheese - the bagels were good and incredibly cheap).  Or did I see him on the sidewalk immediately outside, while I was queuing inside? At any rate, he definitely looked worse for wear and a little dazed and confused.

Strangely, not five minutes later, striding purposefully down the street past the cheese shop, wearing some kind of rock'n'roll-flavored cowboy hat, came another CBGB-era legend: Marty Rev.

The Ramones - an odd one for me. If I hear them on the radio, which would be a vanishingly rare occurrence these days, I'll always turn it right up. But I can't imagine ever listening to a whole Ramones album. Their music has a combo of basic undeniable excitement and shallow inanity. Historical importance versus purpose-served-so-why-would-you-listen-now?

I seem to remember liking End of the Century. And "Don't Come Close".  Those seemed to have a bit more feeling behind them.

This is the Top of the Pops performance I can remember from the time - first time I ever did hear the Ramones.

There's a bit of the leg-stance going on here but because it's shot from the front, you can't see the back leg and it looks like he's crossing his legs like a 4 year old who really really needs to do a wee. 

One of the songs on End of Century where the team-up with Spector really works 

Daniel Clowes video! From the '90s! With knee-stance displayed from multiple angles

I don't know why but on this turf I just find The Descendents more affecting

Not so much this song but Milo Goes To College era

One of the great anti-suburbia songs, all the more amusing for being so generic and pro forma in its complainage

Elvis's Ankles (none New Wavier part 172)

 

What on earth is Elvis Costello doing with - and to - his ankles in this video? 

Throughout, but there's a particularly alarming sequence of bends from 2.41 seconds through to the end of the promo. 

I wonder if in later life Costello suffered from having done these ankle bends, in the same way that ballerinas who do pointe work -  dancing not so much on the tips of their toes as the ends of their toes, putting incredible pressure on the nail - can be left with permanent damage.... 

No information about that I can glean but I did find something about how EC developed this party trick:

He does it a bit in this video, but not as often and not quite as twinge inducing in the viewer 

Also in this one 

The ankle bends, but the whole repertoire of Costello moves,  is a prime example of New Wave's performative rhetoric - announcing that Verily We are In a New Era of Rock. C.f.  Devo's herky-jerks,  Fay Fife's hand-jive in the Rezillos and body posture, Pauline of Penetration, et al. 

Yet it also seems to hark back vaguely to rock'n'roll and the Fifties - the kind of foot work done by Elvis Presley. With EC's bug-eyed speccy image,  there's also the ghost of Buddy Holly.  

In this video, the Performative Rhetoric is mostly done with the face. 

The My Aim Is True album artwork points to ankle stress but is not enough to pain the viewer

"Can't stand up properly? Well, it's hardly surprising, given how you are treating your feet" - lots of alarming looking fool's splay in this video 

 

The extreme bends in "Pump It  Up" reminded me of this classic wince-maker of an album art image from around the same time 

none New Wavier

 

In the tradition of the Mr Jones song about worker drones commuting, having heart attacks, wasting away in an office cubicle etc ("Echo Beach", "Cardiac Arrest", "Solitary Confinement", "The British Way of Life", etc)

Despite a Top of the Pops appearance and the support of Radio 1 deejays who liked that sort of thing, "The Worker" was not quite a hit, loitering just outside the Top 50

But Fischer-Z enjoyed more success in Europe, apparently selling a couple of million albums over a long career

And they're still going, all ready to celebrate in 2026 the 50th anniversary of the band's formation 

Still plugging away into the Wide Brim Hat era 

Clever, perhaps even clever-clever -  but are they Clever Dick?

New Wavey As Anything (Slight Surprising Return)

 

The almost obligatory ironic New Wave cover of a Sixties classic 

He looks like a more feral-demonic version of that hirsute fellow who fronted Supergrass

Would you believe despite once being such an obsessive Birthday Party fan - and indeed later on  doing an encyclopedia / comprehensive albums guide entry  on B.Party / Cave + Bad Seeds + offshoots - I have never yet listened to The Boys Next Door? 

I just took Cave at his word that it was best not listened to... 

"We made the unpardonable error of playing to the thinkers rather than the drinkers" - Nick Cave on the disgusting skinny-tie start of The Birthday Party as The Boys Next Door

You can just begin to hear something special in Rowland S's shrill scrapy guitar and Cave is starting to get a little hammy in his anguished tones 

But there's still that choppy, Vapors-ish element, the damped rhythm guitar chug...

This one is more like a foretaste of Nick Cave who loves "entertainment music, what some call 'corn'" - the epic ballads of Gene Pitney / Glen Campbell / Tim Rose 

Like he could skipped the Shaman stage (B. Party) and just gone straight to Showman. 

Transition from arty New Wave to something more primal and hacked and Ubu-Beefheart-addled is detectable in the shift across the record artwork

I wonder if this hand scrawlage was influenced by The Fall's record sleeves 

via Andrew Parker, a vintage interview with Boy Next Door Rowland S. Howard, wearing a classic New Wave tie

"We're much more based on ideas than other bands"

New Wave / Old Wave juxtaposition (2 of ??) (Penetration versus Penetration)

 Resuming an early, barely-started series

from 1976 the year of punk

Pauline Murray's dancing here in this Electric Circus clip, is a kind of bodily rhetoric - "these be new times"

You have to feel sorry for performers in those days, the amount of liquids flying at the stage

Pauline has a good piercing strident / stringent voice (a contender inclusion in the category That Voice) but overall Penetration seem Pedestrian 

She was better served with the Invisible Girls 

That album cover could not be more New Wave - the grid

"Invisible Girls" almost calls forth the concept of this song by AC Marias, which seems to be in the same approx lineage

Angela Conway achieves her own unexpected collision of New Wave and Old Wave with a cover of a Canned Heat song

Penetration presumably got the band name from the Iggy and the Stooges song. 

Or perhaps they were just trying to come up with a slightly more clinical take on the Sex Pistols idea.

Well lookee here - a decidedly Old Wave zine from Manchester called Penetration

Surely Suicide does not refer to the band Suicide? 

"Cozmic Vibes"

I'm guessing this issue #14 is circa 1977 when Mahogany Rush played the Free Trade Hall in Manchester

However an earlier issue, #10, is already protopunky - indicating where the title likely originates too

The zine seems to have oscillated between Old and New, or comprehended both simultaneously for a while

Perhaps the Hawkwind / Motorhead nexus was the bridge

Magazine's creator Paul Welsh writes on  the Amazon page for the compendium of Penetration zine:

I began writing in the early 70's and produced my own 'arts' magazine entitled 'Purple Smoke'.

When that folded I created a rock magazine entitled 'Penetration' featuring many bands of the day, Motorhead, Hawkwind, AC/DC, Sex Pistols to name just a few.

I was the only person taking photos of the legendary Sex Pistols gig at the Manchester Lesser Free Trade Hall which have since sold worldwide featuring in Books, magazines, TV and Movie documentaries.

... All that and more has been documented in my book 'May Contain Flashing Images-Manchester, Music and Me!' 

I wonder if Penetration the zine ever covered Penetration the band.....