New Vic

Here's a pleasant surprise we found while clearing out the inbox, a new song from Vic Godard. Going to need a quick history here, we think...

Vic Godard was a nascent punk singer who, at Malcolm McLaren's suggestion, formed a band to play at the 100 Club Punk Festival in 1976, the watershed for the nascent scene (the Sex Pistols, Clash and a debuting improvisational Siouxsie and the Banshees were on that same bill, the Buzzcocks and Damned heading the second day). They supported the Clash on the White Riot tour and took Bernie Rhodes on as manager, who promptly fired the lot and re-mixed without Godard's knowledge their sole single, the properly great invention of post-punk before punk had taken hold that is Ambition:



Godard reformed Subway Sect in 1980 and released a rockabilly and northern soul influenced album, What's The Matter Boy? (Shirley Lee of Spearmint wrote the sleevenotes for the twenty years on reissue, which instantly puts it on our radar) but after several other attempts and a spell as a Tin Pan Alley crooner retired and became a postman. In 1993, at the behest of Rough Trade's Geoff Travis, he returned with an album produced by fan Edwyn Collins released on the briefly resuscitated Postcard label, and has recorded on and off ever since. He's just played the 1-2-3-4 festival in Shoreditch and releases a new album, We Come As Aliens, on October 11th.

Before then comes the Blackpool EP, only available via PayPal for £5 plus p&p from GNU inc Records (thegnu@hotmail.co.uk) Recorded with literate lowlife Londoners the Bitter Springs, it contains four tracks written with Irvine Welsh for a failed musical. The lead title track is proper uke-led end of the pier vaudeville:

Vic Godard - Blackpool