The Other Talking Heads

Television Personalities are, through their various lineups and sounds, the vehicle of dedicated pop fan Dan Treacy. They’ve got an album due soon on Domino, but their true relevance is behind them (and whose isn't?). TVP started in the late 70’s, when the punk explosion suddenly encouraged legions of bedroom enthusiasts to not worry about technical talent. “Part-Time Punks” was the single that enchanted John Peel, and helped to hasten their lasting popularity in the UK. It stands as a classic scenester-diss song: “They pay five pence on the buses, and they never use toothpaste, but they got two-fifty to go and see the Clash tonight!”

From 1981, their first LP …And the Kids Just Love It remains a mod-pop benchmark. Recorded in three days, the LP is a scrappy but endearing gem. “I Know Where Syd Barrett Lives” is too twee for its own good, but songs like “This Angry Silence” and “A Picture of Dorian Gray” demonstate a compelling mix of introspection with youthful vim and vigor. It’s hard to believe that it’s still unavailable domestically. If Secretly Canadian can throw down the cash to reissue all the Nikki Sudden solo records, why not the more listenable TVPs?

After the stopgap demos/re-recordings of They Could Have Been Bigger Than The Beatles and the dayglo acid pop of Mummy Your [sic] Not Watching Me, Rough Trade passed on The Painted Word, which, in the estimation of Creation Records’ Alan McGee, ranks with Sister Lovers and “any one of Nick Drake’s LPs.” An unexpectedly dark, unmelodic album, The Painted Word showcases a more complicated, diffuse mentality. Songs range from sounding like the Velvets (the sweetly devastating opener “Stop and Smell the Roses”), Jonathan Richman (the stark but earnest “Someone To Share My Life With”), to straight-up post-punk ("You'll Have To Scream Louder"). I have to think that the presence of Swell Map Jowe Head helped muddy the waters, at least musically. The bleak slice-of-British-life lyrics, which Treacy indulged in as early as "Diary of a Young Man" from the 1st LP, occupy the entire canvas this time around. Billy Bragg, or a clinically-depressed Ray Davies, would be proud: there isn’t anything that could safely be called twee here. The former wide-eyed depiction of Sixties starpower has shaded into the harsh 80's reality of dependency and depression. Case in point: “The Girl Who Had Everything” which also, curiously, features a rather Richard Butler-esque vocal from Treacy. TVP has hovered close to this tone ever since, with Treacy behaving increasingly erratically between disappearing acts.