Alternative TV (ATV)
The success of the 70's London punk fanzine Sniffin' Glue
was almost entirely due to the irreverent, pugnacious sincerity of
its founder Mark Perry. That Perry should form a band seemed a
natural progression. Ironically, his band turned out to be far
less interesting than his mimeographed fanzine.
Co-founder/guitarist Alex Fergusson split early on and was
temporarily replaced by The Police's road manager Kim Turner.
By The Image Has Cracked (1978), Perry's urge to
experiment was taking increasingly abstract turns. Daringly
attempting to add the space-rock influences of Can and the
satirical art rock damage of Frank Zappa to the (faster and
louder) punk zeitgeist, he fell from grace with a resounding thud.
The music meandered, the lyrics sounded painfully overwritten and
narcissistic, and Perry's tuneless 'singing' didn't help at
all.
From 1979 - 1980 Mark Perry led an equally mediocre band called
The Good Missionaries, who had the good sense and manners to call
it a career after one record.
In 1981, Perry, Burns and Fergusson reunited as ATV (adding a
drummer and a keyboard player) for Strange Kicks. In
1987, a new line-up of ATV appeared with Peep Show - a
return to the bile and the old semi-anarchic self-indulgence that
characterised much of ATV's non-Fergusson work (with Perry adding
horns and keyboards).
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