Still sounds so fresh and a bit otherworldly and grown-up. I’d heard Stop That Girl (early 80s single) and read about Club Left, the club Vic had set up with Bernie Rhodes in tribute to a sort of late 50s/early 60s b&w beatnik Soho and I kept seeing these pictures of Vic and he looked amazing, like something out of 60s French films (and of course he named himself after Jean-Luc), none of which I’d seen yet, but I would look at the stills that you’d very occasionally see in mags or newspapers. Visuals were so important, because they were all you had to go on. And sometimes it would take months or years before you added things together or made these connections, all of which made them even more important. I bought a Subway Sect compilation at this second hand record shop in Notting Hill in the mid-80s, I still remember reading the sleeve notes on the bus home and it mentioned the band playing at a Yves San Laurent party in Paris. All added to the mystique.
And then I put it on and it’s all these incredible early singles, rushes of energy and noise. And the lyrics are incredible. “What you want is buried in the present tense, blind alleyways allay the jewels”.
They were such a big influence on all the Scottish bands, but also in Liverpool (Ambition was a favourite at Eric’s, Cope always cited Godard as an influence lyrics-wise and wanted the Teardrops to cover Make Me Sad), and then later in the early 80s with New Pop (George Michael apparently was a massive fan).
Anyway, volume up, air guitar at chest height and enjoy.
