Sleaze - Sleaze (Sing Sing Records 2012, recorded 1975)

Some of 1975’s best US/UK rockist records off the top of my head: Late Night Movies, All Night Brainstorms, 30 Seconds Over Tokyo/Heart Of Darkness, Landed(FRG), Go Girl Crazy, Siren, Horses, Indiscreet, Dressed to Kill, Toys in the Attic, Little Johnny Jewel, Young Americans? Heaps more no doubt. Does it matter if only 50 were pressed? If not then we may have to include the (somewhat) recent vinyl only reissue of TV Smith’s first band Sleaze from 1975. The Adverts Crossing the Red Sea With is one of the best class of 1977 lps that seems to get better with age, and this is what TV Smith was up to before he and Gaye up and left for the big smoke (Gaye does not play bass here but took the photos). Just the sort of art school rock that we like and in fact it was formed while Smith was at art school. What struck me about the Sleaze lp is its affinity with the first Doctors of Madness lp, which is a good thing though the sound is not so similar. Similar in that hybrid of prog, glam and Velvets with a bit of snarl and longish, prog length tracks. Of the tracks fer instance, “Dum de Dum” is like a molasses version of Mirrors “Inside of Here” – Velvets thump and probably originating nearly the same time that Mirrors were playing their track at the Viking Saloon. Just shows that whereas Mirrors were actually at La Cave for the Velvets (and recording it for posterity), TV Smith (not unlike Perrett’s England’s Glory), were inhaling the Velvets fumes second hand via Bowie and Lou solo. Another track, the opener “Show Biz Kid” sounds like it has a riff that Michael Belfer from the Sleepers would have hatched. All in all another excellent job from Sing Sing and worth tracking down if you missed it, as is the TV Smith BBC doco below.