Watching the video of "Clunk Click" on the London Nobody Sings blog, made me get nostalgic & dig out this old Paul Dawkins & Tony Robinson (no not that one) A.K.A LAUREL & HARDY session... I liked them, because their brand of "sarf" London Dancehall, "Pop-Up Toasting" was incredibly catchy, their insistence on wearing bowler hats that always seemed seem to be in conflict with their hair, & their on stage vibra-slap competition.I suppose they will always be considered a one (minor) hit wonder with “Clunk click” & as a result were never taken seriously. I preferred their later single “Lots of Lovin’ & She Gone” .. I saw them support PIGBAG around the time of this session.
- Government Training Scheme
- In By A Certain Time
- Lots Of Lovin' & She Gone
- Video Traffickin'
Intoxicating? From the cocksure moment they strode across the ICA stage (“You’d better come out of the bar…” wasn’t really required, the body language said it all) to the crash, crash thud intro of “Debra” I was on board. How could I not be? Vocals that was a manic hybrid of Dave Jackson’s (THE ROOM) crooning & PAUL HAIG’s emotive drawl. JOSEF K guitar, tremble “to eleven” played at 100mph. Burping wandering bass, that filled the high ceiling of the ICA, intertwined with drums that sounded like a bag of spanners being kicked around a playground. I remember having a conversation with an American chap (who admittedly was only there for SPK) who thought they were “making it up as they go along” … My reply was “You have just witnessed the future of music”…. Sadly the future of music left us just five great 7” singles & didn’t usurp FRANKIE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD from the charts (apart from the world that I inhabit). I read somewhere that they gave themselves a “sell-by date” when they felt that the length of the existence would be considered more than decent, & that they would split up on that date. I believe it was towards the end of 1986 & they kept to it. If I knew that at the time, I suspect that I would have loved them EVEN more….. 
I was listening to Allan Kingdom (
I have concerns about 
Kevin made the point that they could be viewed as quite intimidating live, but I can’t say I ever felt intimidate. If you can remember that feeling you get when you lean backwards on a chair, nearly toppling over but managing to stop yourself just in time… In my world, that was MO-DETTES live. I liked that they sounded like they were fighting with their instruments & HAD to win. Kevin does make a good point regarding the name. I do remember standing next to smart dressed kids & you could see on their face “Well they’re not the female version of THE QUADS or THE STA-PRESSED, but what the heck?”
I had heard of (but not really heard) the 
I really started to listen when they started to move to the more scratch funk of ACR. Live they were quite different from ACR. I remember that the 23 SKIDOO events by early 1981 had turned into a visual overload, with multiple slideshows enveloping he band, which no doubt (if it had existed in 1981), would have resulted in rampant photosensitive epileptic break dancing. The funk was far more trebly in the guitar & repetitive than that of ACR & would drop into bouts of reverb laden farts in a wind tunnel experimentation. This PEEL session sees that period of 23 SKIDOO. Early next year they brought out the “Seven Songs” LP which I openly admit played to death. Post “Seven Songs” when everything seemed to be going POP at the time. 23 SKIDOO went the other way & started to work with loop taped ‘wall of noise’, incorporating rhythms provided by the Drummers of Burundi & the Balinese Gamelan Ensemble. I remember liking the fact that they went off at a tangent from their previous incarnation but I do remember many I knew who loved the scratch funk 23 SKIDOO didn’t “go a bundle” on the new world music experimental 23 SKIDOO. Some years later I witnessed them play a bad tempered (the audience, not the band) set at the Bloomsbury Theatre. I think people were expecting sparkling funk. They got something very dark indeed. It still makes me snigger thinking of it now, I remember from that Bloomsbury Theatre gig in early 1983, a chap on the other side of the hall, shouting out… “But.. But the king is not wearing any clothes! He is naked as the day as he was born!” … Punters, eh? Such fickle buggers.
First 
Next up where THE TEN MILLION QUENTINS, the Grand-Mothers of TWEE. It is hard to believe that such a tiny sound can come from so many people on stage. Much of the set consisted of them looking at each other with the internationally accepted semaphore for “I can’t hear a bloody thing I’m doing!” which in many ways is odd because at their loudest I’m sure I couldhear people fart from the back of the room.
Lastly THE SHOP ASSISTANTS blasted through their indie pop set, "With NO slow ones!" in a hail of feedback, care of the low ceiling... My it was fun. I don't think they could have physically played their rendition of SUZI QUATRO's "What a way to die!" any faster. The finale, was them being joined by THE JUNIES big JON HUNTER on trumpet. It should have been a future direction. THE SHOP ASSISTANTS with a horn section.. I would have bought it!!
