New Hearts
The New Hearts were formed in June 1977 out of the ashes of a new wave Essex band called Splitz Kids. David Cairns (guitar) and John Harty Bass from the band then teamed up with 17 year old vocalist Ian Paine and Drummer Matt MacIntyre, ex of The Gorillas, to form the New Hearts. (January 1978 Jamie Compton replaced Matt)
The weekly music paper Record Mirror summed them up thus.
…a watered down new wave band appearing around June 1977. After only 10 days rehearsal they played their first gig in Dunstable and were signed by CBS in August 1977… CBS sum up the New Hearts as “a vibrant collection of astute teenagers whose perception is pretty overwhelming for ones so young”. Song lyrics include tirades on the media, laments on the ordinary people of the the world and other stuff to stir the soul.
Record Mirror in April 1978
Straight from the start, there was confrontation with the new wave both in attitude and dress and the band, to their credit. weren’t afraid to be themselves and have a go.
Check these quotes from a Sounds interview December 1977.
Boredom. Punk makes ’em think of being bored and dull and being on the dole. New Hearts aren’t into that. We got our own things to say…A celebration. Its fun to be young. Pop music should reflect that.”
But after me and John saw the Pistols and Clash at Coventry …we thought it was terrific. We went away writing high energy songs of our own, but they were always basically pop songs.
When we first started …It was all safety pins and chokers. We didn’t fit in at all…The whole basis of the movement started out with Anarchy In The UK and the main idea was be yourself! Be an individual…we started wearing brightly coloured clothes as a conscious effort to say ‘Look’…we can be just a outrageous as you but in our own way’ We got outlawed by the new wave elite because of it.
Sounds, December 1977
F For Fake
You’ve closed the doors
On your new round scene
Musical whores
Of the new wave elite
Don’t try and tell me
That you’re a kid from the street
When you get your clothes
From a punk boutique
Though fired by the spirit of The Clash and the Sex Pistols their songs had a high energy quotient with a pop base, often reflecting on a punk scene that preached individuality but shunned the New Hearts because they didn’t conform to the punk ramalama sound or dress code and this grievance fired the boys up. But they got lucky. They signed to the major CBS label early in their career and released their first single Teenage Anthem in late 1977 when so many bands hadn’t left the blocks yet.
I believe there will be New Hearts hits that will live as long as Beatles hits or Stones hits or Who hits.”
Dave Cairns Sounds December 1977
Arrogant statements like the above from Cairns probably didn’t endear them very much and it must have been galling that when they did release songs that instead of those bands being namechecked as peers it was Mud, the Rubettes & The Monkees.
Around January 1978 they were looking to release an album of about 17 tracks including such songs as F for Fake, Here Come The Ordinaries, City Life, Angry Young Men and Love’s Just A Word. It never happened. Just one more single and they were dropped by their label with much bitterness on the part of the band.
Just Another Teenage Anthem/Blood On The Knife CBS 1977 – Statement of intent from the boys but it wasn’t a good single. Poor production by Kenny Laguna, ex Shandell, shaved off any rough edges the single may have had and the end result was a little bland.
Oh no just another teenage anthem
If you wanna hear something new
Then you’ll have to make your own cliches
Cos they’re the only thing left for you
Slaughtered by the music papers, it only reinforced the band’s siege mentality. Jane Suck, who viewed is as a slagging of punk, put it down in Sounds and Tony Parsons in the NME wrote:
“Trying to sound like the Rubettes, trying to sound like the Jam, sounds like pop when it’s really just crap.”
Plain Jane/My Young Teacher CBS (1978) – Sadly not much better. Again poor production left it sounding weak. And that was it for the band as CBS dropped them. Review below from Record Mirror by Midge Ure & Steve New of the Rich Kids
If you can check out The John Peel session of 14.10.77 with tracks below.
Revolution-What Revolution?
Love’s Just A Word
Here Come The Ordinaries
Just Another Teenage Anthem
Did they make it? No! Why weren’t they bigger? Who knows? It’s the way things go sometimes. Everything was right for them…punk becoming new wave becoming power pop and they had a major label. In the end, they were bitter about punk, bitter about the scene and finally justifiably bitter when CBS dropped them. After that Ian and David channelled it all into their new band Secret Affair and hit the charts. But that’s another story for another site.
TalkPunk
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