The Adverts

Originally from Devon in the West Country Tim (TV Smith) was drawn to music to set his words to.

Tim Smith I started writing poetry when I was young and found I was fitting tunes to some of the words in my head, so I got hold of a guitar and started trying to find a way to play what I was imagining. Once I’d found I could fit words and music together to make a song I never really went back to just poetry.” OPG Interview Feb 2007

He formed a band called Sleaze influenced by Bowie and Roxy Music and went as far as a self released album. He also met Gaye Advert and taught her how to play the bass.

Tim Smith It was pretty glam sounding, pretty dreadful actually, but at least all the songs were self-written, which was pretty rare in those days for a local band, and we got ourselves some gigs in clubs around the area and recorded and pressed up 50 copies of an album which we sold to friends. But it was obvious nothing was going to happen in Devon. Punk77 Interview, 20.2.2001

By the end of 1975 the band had kicked him out, him and Gaye had headed for London and Punk was on the horizon.

Gaye Advert I had always been more interested in the bass than other instruments, and decided to learn how to play as a diversion from the boredom of living in North Devon. Going to gigs was a rare event in those days. Punk77 Interview, 20.2.2001

Tim Smith We were into all the usual pre-punk stuff: Iggy, Velvets, New York Dolls, anything with a bit of danger. Also, I liked some of the English glam/pop bands at the time: Bowie, Sparks, Roxy, Cockney Rebel. Gaye was into Zappa. Around then we also started hearing reggae for the first time, Lee Perry, Bob Marley. There’s no mystery to the names. T because I’m Tim, V because it goes so well with the T. I think the Stranglers first started calling Gaye “Advert” when they put her name on the guest list for their gigs and didn’t know what to call her, and it stuck. Punk77 Interview, 20.2.2001

Tim and Gaye quickly moved on

Tim Smith I’d already forgotten about Sleaze, had written a bunch of new songs and was teaching them to Gaye …. Then the Ramones album came out, which was mind-blowing – no one had heard anything like that before.The first sense you got that a British band could do something with a real sense of danger and excitement to it was when the first reports of the Sex Pistols started appearing which was early in 1976.” What impressed me was that not only did they have great tunes, a great attitude and a great image, but also that they were obviously normal people just like me and weren’t pretending to be superstars. It’s a very empowering feeling to stand in the audience watching a band you really like and thinking, ‘I could do that…'” OPG Interview, Feb 2007

Originally to be called One Chord Wonders, Tim and Gaye instead settled on The Adverts. Luck was in for them by virtue of the fact their first gigs were at The Roxy Club London and one of their songs Bored Teenagers featured on the Live At The Roxy Club that made the album charts in June 1977.

TV Smith What we wanted was our own music. There was something exciting in the air. Suddenly it seemed possible that ordinary people – us! – could form a band and do it ourselves. We wouldn’t have to go to music school or learn the notes or have rich parents to buy us the equipment; all we needed was ideas.

But actually there was one other thing we needed: a place to gather and develop those ideas in front of an audience of like-minded people, And with the great synchronicity that comes when things are heading in the right direction, for those of us living in London in those heady times, a place appeared that was to fulfil that need: The Roxy.

Certainly it’s hard to see what would have become of The Adverts, if we hadn’t had the chance to try out our stuff in the liberal and liberating atmosphere of the club. Would we have had the opportunity of being recorded live and ending up on a chart album that turned the conventional music industry on its head because it was so strange, so amateurish…but so thrilling? For the Adverts, and for the countless other bands who trod the boards at the Roxy, the answer is a resounding ‘no!’

Every movement needs its focal point and for us the Roxy Club was that place. Let’s not forget that at the start of 1977 there was no punk rock scene: for all we knew, in a few months all our quirky little bands would break up and be forgotten. Since then the punk ethic has spread through all areas of art, culture and society, and it turns out that we didn’t just change music – we changed the world. Without the Roxy it’s quite possible that wouldn’t have happened. The Roxy London WC2, Paul Marko

So just 3 months after forming they would be on a well promoted tour with The Damned and their first single under their belts and have a manager in the form of publisher Andrew Dempsey.

The Adverts at The Roxy Club – Photos by Eddie Duggan

Not least a part of the success of the band, tho they might not like it, was Gaye Advert’s obvious sexy punk attraction and the fact that she was the bass player gave the band an obvious commercial angle which Stiff and music papers exploited.

TV Smith Stiff decided on the cover and only showed it to us when it was finished and already being printed. It was an iconic cover, but put Gaye into the spotlight in a way she didn’t want, and unfortunately helped give the band the image of being only about the ‘sex symbol girl bassist,’ which was something that was hard to recover from. OPG Interview, Feb 2007

Like Soo Catwoman or Jordan and others Gaye had a fantastic look with heavily kohled eyes and to die for bone structure. The fact that Gaye was often snapped along with other punk musos didn’t help. What wouldn’t have helped either was her one-off appearance over a six page spread nude in soft porn magazine Fiesta as ‘Mella makes it all happen’ in 1977 and less controversially centrefold in Record Mirror weekly music paper.

At the same time, some absolute corking tunes allied to sharp lyrics made the band a force to be reckoned with as they hit the charts in August 77 with Gary Gilmore Eyes and signed to major label Anchor all at breakneck speed. It was punk but it was more thought-provoking. They featured on both Top Of The Pops and The Old Grey Whistle Test and did the obligatory John Peel sessions.

TV Smith We felt stupid and out of place miming in a television studio. Old Grey Whistle Test was OK because we could play live. The TV people had no idea what we were about: for example, that doll was hanging from my wrist on a chain. The BBC wouldn’t let me go on with it because they said the chain was an “offensive weapon.” They had to take it away and cover the chain with tape. Punk77 Interview, 20.2.2001

However there was more behind the rosy picture than meets the eye. Constant criticism of Gaye’s playing became spiteful and at times directed at the fact that she was female and the constant images of her in the media created rifts in the band causing at least Laurie to leave. Burchill and Parsons were really vindictive towards the band portraying them as Gaye’s Adverts and really giving them a bad slagging. For a pair who supposedly liked Gaye, their criticism helped break the band up and Gaye hang up her bass. But for the time being she stepped literally out of the limelight and any stage lighting kept her basically in darkness.

Gaye Advert Yes. I did resent it, and so did the drummer. The media would concentrate on (to me) irrelevant things like clothes, or be extra critical of my playing in the same way that some men are prejudiced against women drivers.

On the Slits and joining them… I didn’t follow their stuff much, but they were maybe the original riot girrls. Ari took me to meet them once, so they could ask me to join them. I didn’t feel like a female though, I’d always hung out with boys. Punk77 Interview, 20.2.2001

TV Smith The music press started out hating us. Our first ever review said we were dreadful. Later they started to understand. But Burchill and Parsons seemed to have some chip on their shoulder. At the time the fanzines were pretty prevalent, and they would generally support the bands on the scene. Burchill and Parsons thought they could walk in and with their sharpened critical minds expose the whole thing as just the same as what had been happening before. Maybe they thought this was “punk journalism” – actually they were just being nasty. Punk77 Interview, 20.2.2001

Bad luck followed with the demise of Anchor and they ended up on RCA. Laurie Driver departed to be replaced by Rod Latter of The Rings and a keyboardist added. An RCA PR bulletin for Television’s Over dated 4.11.1978 promised a bright future and change of direction.

At the time of signing to RCA a few weeks ago they were in an extremely strong position, as they have been touring non stop through the year and have thousands of loyal supporters just waiting for the next piece of vinyl…there is no doubt about this, this will be another hit for The Adverts, but more than just a single success ‘Television’s Over’ will mark a new phase of their career and see their appeal spreading to a wider audience.

Sadly Television’s Over which would have acted as a bridge to the new Adverts wasn’t a hit. It was followed by My Place and then Cast Of Thousands both uncommercial. Long gaps between records and unable to make that difficult second album and leap from punk to the great beyond, they found themselves side-lined with a rapidly uninterested record company. Their look and sound went softer (the makeup and soft focus cover were reluctantly acceded to by the band at RCA’s insistence) and more professional because they had obviously developed but they were now out of step with their audience.

More personnel changes with Gaye hanging up the bass meant the Adverts finally gave up on 27 October 1979.

TV Smith In the end it was my decision to break up the Adverts…it was still a devastating feeling, to stop doing what I’d put so much heart and soul into, but I knew that trying to carry on with it would be even worse. The only thing that got me over it was that I’d seen the end coming for at least six months, and had already started formulating plans for my next band, The Explorers, and it was only a matter of weeks before I was in the rehearsal room with them…once we’d recorded “Tomahawk Cruise” I knew I was able to put the Adverts behind me and get on with my life. OPG Interview, Feb 2007

Gaye never joined another band and Tim has carried on both solo and playing Adverts songs.

A classic punk band who made at least three classic singles and a heap of good punk toons.

But look , we didn’t know that punk rock meant having to make the same record over and over again. We wanted do more, try new things, break out of the formula, respond to what was happening in the group and around it. We thought that’s what punk was. We could hardly hear ourselves recording cast Of Thousands over the sound of the critics sharpening their knives, but it still felt the right direction to go in. T.V Smith, Anagram Sleeve notes

“The wonders don’t care..and they don’t give a damn.”

“All you’ve got to do is learn a few chords, try and put a rhythm together, and if you’ve got something in your head then put it out. Who cares whether you can fucking play all the notes. I don’t care. No one cares.” Tim Smith, New Wave News, 1977.

Originally the band rehearsed without a drummer and you can tell on the first single as they go slightly in and out of time. Secondly, the bass seems almost the lead instrument playing fills and runs while the guitar is scratchy with virtually no distortion on it. At times they sound ramshackle but by No Time To Be 21 they are tight. Then suddenly it’s all change for Televisions Over and Back From The Dead – The guitar is heavier the bass is bassier and they sound quality. However for The Adverts they are stuck; mod and ska is coming on one side, then synth pop and the heavier faster punk on the other leaving them out in the cold.

---

One Chord Wonders / Quickstep
(Stiff Records May 1977)

Classic punk toon and classic cover charting the fears of a band on stage. The song gallops along not quite in sync but it works. B-side IS overlong. The band weren’t happy at Stiff putting Gaye on the front

---

Gary Gilmores Eyes / Bored Teenagers
(Anchor Records  September 1977)

We’re just bored teenagers.
Looking for love,
Or should I say emotional rages?
Bored teenagers.
Seeing ourselves as strangers.

It’s a scorcher and a seminal punk classic- there’s no doubt about it. The macabre tale of American murderer Gary Gilmore coupled with the excellent Bored Teenagers first aired on the EMI live Roxy album and showed that if Gaye couldn’t play she sure chose some difficult bass fills! The single was an unlikely top twenty hit but gave the band problems.

TV Smith In popularity terms that was the high point. The only trouble was, it then froze: that was what people wanted from us…and a band that should have developed into something extraordinary was hampered by public expectation. England’s Dreaming, Jon Savage

---

Safety In Numbers/ We Who Wait
(Anchor Records October 1977)

What will you do with the New Wave
Do you think it can change things?
It’s just Safety in Numbers.

A month after Gary Gilmore’s Eyes this catchy number was released but bombed. God knows why because it’s an excellent tune. Punk was already over a year old and it was a fairly accurate look at what it had become. Ironically this new style punk band succumbed to more traditional rock’n’roll problems: the rhythm section hated each other. Gaye had a speed problem and Laurie had a small heroin problem and a problem with gaye!

---

No Time To Be 21 /New Day Dawning
(Bright Records February 1978)

We’ll be your untouchables
We’ll be your outcasts
We don’t care
What you project on us
It’s no time to be 21.

For me one of my favourite Adverts songs. Taut & concise. The drums kick the song off straight into a bitter tirade against a classic punk backdrop. The record made #37 in the charts and another appearance on television. This really was their last hit.

---

Television’s Over / Back From The Dead
RCA Records November 1978

And then suddenly that was it. From crossing the Red Sea to all at sea on the major label RCA. In 1978 there was no Sex Pistols or Damned. Punk had moved on. The Stranglers released Black & White, The Clash  – Give ‘Em Enough Rope and Siouxsie – The Scream. 8 months had elapsed since their last single. In the previous 8 months they had released 4 singles and an album and had two hits. 

That said this single is a corker. Heavier and a more complete sounding band with keyboards, fuller sound and improved playing. Honours go to the B-side written with Doctor Of Madness Richard Strange; a rumbustious punk driven thang.  The single (and album) was produced by Tom Newman who had produced Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells and did a great job with The Adverts. It presold an impressive 20,000 but failed to capitalise on this.

From here on it was playing to an audience that didn’t care anymore and so The Adverts played out their time with two more singles My Place and the single and album Cast of Thousands that no one shouted about and that’s how it ended.

Crossing The Red Sea With The Adverts
(Bright Records March 1978)

Punk77 says: In my humble opinion, Red Sea is a flawed album. Its arty front cover, dim back cover, lack of lyrics and repros of old tunes ( 4 of them) make it a bit suspect. The title comes from the journalist Jane Suck and when I questioned Tim he said the songs had to be re-recorded for the theme of the album. What’s the theme or am I a bit thick? Is the album leading the punks to a promised land? Is it the band coming in at One Chord Wonders and reaching a land where they are a fully fledged band? Too complicated for my liking and not all the songs work. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a bad album but does it really deserve all the plaudits it gets? 

TV Smith I totally disagree that the album was a disappointment. I still love “Red Sea.” As for putting all the singles on it – it didn’t even have “Gary Gilmore” on it, for which we were heavily criticised for at the time, but we wanted to cram in as much other stuff as we could, and got about all we could on before the sound quality would have degraded. (Aaah, vinyl!). And it HAD to have the other singles on because they were part of the message of the whole album, so we re-recorded them. Punk77 interview, February 2001

It’s only my view above so here’s another one to redress the balance. Lifted from Amazon

* The Best Punk Album Ever …… Probably, 27 August, 2001
Reviewer: Mark Armstrong from Somerset

I bought this album on vinyl in 1978 at the age of 15 and still hold a great affection for it. It was always going to be an impossible album to follow up for TV Smith and The Adverts; there is such tension in the songs where the bass, drums and guitars struggle to hold it together.

I’ve never heard an album quite like it since. Many punk bands were accomplished musicians who jumped on the musical bandwagon of punk, whilst a very few like The Adverts were there from the start and with the songwriting talents of TV Smith created this one album of teenage angst and social comment (the follow up album was a commercial and critical flop).

By the time the early punk acts like the Adverts, X Ray Spex and The Banshees either got a record deal or recorded enough for an LP they were able to comment on the development of Punk as a ‘movement’ – listen to Safety in Numbers. One of the greatest British punk albums and therefore part of an important part of British culture. Also another great production by John Leckie.

---

Cast Of Thousands
RCA Records November 1978

TV Smith says this about the album from the Anagram CD ‘Adverts – Punk singles Collection’ 

TV Smith After these recordings we lost a drummer, got another one (John Towe-ex ATV, Gen X and Chelsea. Paul Punk77), lost him, got another one ( Rod Latter ex Rings & Maniacs. Paul Punk77) who we later lost, got a keyboard player, got a new record deal (RCA records- Anchor went bust. Punk77), blew the budget for the album in a week and spent the next year scraping around to find spare days in the cheapest studios in town.

…Early on we recorded Television’s Over for a single, altered in epic fashion by the time it turned up on our bete noir second album… Statistics show that this post-Red Sea single sold less than one copy. Cunningly our next plan to storm the charts was to release My Place, which started with the line, “Some God must have spewed me up..” and had a kind of acoustic swish to shake off our last few remaining fans…

The last gasp was the title track of the second album, Cast Of Thousands, edited down and released as a single, complete with the same hideous cover as the LP, which we were conned into posing  for…The B-side of the single (and last track on the album) had one foot hanging over the outer edge of what most people would call “punk” and was titled I Will Walk You Home. For most of our fans that particular walk – from One Chord Wonders to Cast Of Thousands was the one they weren’t prepared to make. 

It’s safe to say the album didn’t fare well either in critical or audience response. Now many years later away from the times, revisiting it finds it, though a patchy affair in places, loaded with some gems that arguably rival their earlier more punk stuff and show a progression of depth and musicality. Gaye’s bass has a fabulous fluid deep tone to rival Jah Wobble’s and Howard has discovered distortion pedals. Here’s the blurb from one of the re-releases.

Originally released to a fan base and music press that were unprepared for the band to move on from the punk fury of Crossing The Red Sea, The Adverts Cast Of Thousands has since been recognized as a lost classic of the time period. TV Smith’s cutting observational lyrics and sharp musical instincts saw his song writing grow and move in unexpected directions.

The primal thumping was replaced by dynamic and driving drumming, acoustic guitars and probing solos emerged, and Tim Cross joined to add keyboards and fill out the overall sound. The one constant was the pounding throb of Gaye Advert’s bass. Encouraged to experiment by surprise producer Tom Newman (Mike Oldfield Tubular Bells ) the band found themselves stretching creatively, both in song writing and recording techniques. They might agonize over the sound of recording a match being lit in the middle of one song, while doing a single take of a vocal via a microphone hung in the bathroom for another. Giant choirs were built meticulously over multiple tracks, while the sound of a rat running through the reverb room would be captured forever.

The results wrapped some of TV’s best songs in strange and inventive sounds to compliment his anti-pop smarts and rock and roll heart. They did not know it at the time, but the band was falling apart. Tensions would soon rise to the level that replacement players were called in to finish their final tour. Punk fans left them in droves. Critics skewered the singles from the album. Their record label had moved on to the next big thing. Feeling that they had reached a creative peak made the tumble even harder to swallow.

Time has been very kind though, and fans discovering punk after the first wave have been able to hear Cast for what it is – a brilliant and biting collection of rock and roll. Still full of stomp and swagger even when stripped down on My Place or via the anthemic surge of Television’s Over, with TV’s hook factory on full display on the anti-love song Love Songs, and the band closing the album with the creeping ballad I Will Walk You Home; The Adverts had grown from a great punk rock band to a great rock band.