Day 34: British Punk

The Adverts
Crossing the Sea with the Adverts

One of the lesser-known, great British punk groups of the late 70s, the Adverts are generally remembered, if at all, for the songs "One Chord Wonder" and "Gary Gilmore's Eyes" or for the fact that they were one of the first acts to feature a female punk rock star, bassist Gaye Advert. Indeed these are excellent reasons to keep the Adverts in mind. On top of the fact that it cleverly plays with the "one hit wonder" adage and a knowingly references punk rock's harmonic simplicity, "One Chord Wonder," assaults the listener with pounding percussion, blistering guitar work and snarling vocals that perfectly match lyrics such as "The Wonders don't care (We don't give a damn!)." "Gary Gilmore's Eyes" has an even more memorable hook; the short line "Looking through Gary Gilmore's eyes" is repeated over and over again until it plants itself firmly in your brain. The Adverts also deserve to be considered gender innovators in the context of a hyper-masculine genre that, in its early going at least, was almost the exclusive domain of anti-social men.

To leave the Adverts legacy at that, however, would be unjust, because they also left a magnum opus of British punk rock in the form of their debut album Crossing the Sea with the Adverts. Hard-edged but still melodic, the Adverts were raw but accessible; a shade less pop-oriented than the Jam, the Undertones, and the Buzzcocks, they were also aesthetically similar to the Damned, whose guitarist, Brian James, was an early fan. Crossing the Sea with the Adverts is one of those tightly packed punk records that clocks in at about 35 minutes or less and doesn't waste a minute. In addition to the aforementioned "One Chord Wonder" and "Gary Gilmore's Eyes," Crossing the Sea includes such anthemic numbers as "Bored Teenagers" and "No Time To Be 21." The lyrics to the latter track exemplify the class consciousness and conflict implicit in British punk, which helped distinguish it from the punk coming out of New York, Boston and L.A. at the same time. "No chances, no plans...we'll be your untouchables, we'll be your outcasts," lead singer T. V. Smith yells. Maybe England in the late 70s really wasn't a good setting in which to come of age, but it sure had a hell of a soundtrack.