The Fire Engines were a part of the young, vibrant Scottish scene, and in 1980 released their debut single, Get Up and Use Me. A treble lo-fi treat of jangly guitars with a post-punk tribal beat.

If not as manic, The Fire Engines are definitely a reference point for the contemporary indie pop group Franz Ferdinand; and in 2004 The Fire Engines reformed and recorded a limited edition single with the band.

Franz Ferdinand recorded a version of Get Up & Use Me, while The Fire Engines recorded Franz Ferdinand’s Jacqueline.

The Fire Engines were Davy Henderson (vocals & guitar), Russell Burn (drums),  Graham Main (bass) & Murray Slade (guitar).

For more information visit The Fire Engines MySpace page.

Fortunately, we’ve chosen to include the rarely seen promo video for The Fire Engines version.

Here’s a rare live recording of Blondie performing an earlier single, Rip Her To Shreds, in Los Angeles from the same year.

Here is one of the most powerful performances both Annie Nightingale and I ever saw on The Old Grey Whsitle.  Public Image Limited, PiL at their very very best performing Careering & Poptones in 1980.

Johnny Rotten was still known as John Lydon and his wonderful lyrics and vocal delivery are accompanied by the throbbing bass of Jah Wobble and the screeching synthesizer stabs and flanged guitar chaos of the brilliant Keith Levene.

Without Levene and Wobble John Lydon and Pil were nowhere near the force of the first two albums.

PiL performed Careering and Poptones on The Old Grey Whistle Test in 1980 to promote their second album, Metal Box.

Here is a rare clip of The Cure before Robert Smith began backcombing his hair and raiding his mother’s make-up box.

Here’s The Cure performing a song called At Night which went on to be reworked and eventually released as A Forest in 1980.

I believe this is a live gig recorded by French TV.

As a part of the new Channel 4, there was a ‘youth’ programme on Monday nights called Whatever You Want introduced by a very young Keith Allen.  The programme was pretty awful, if my memory serves me well, but at the end of each show they would show two live bands recorded the previous week at The Brixton Ace Theatre.

One particular week was Killing Joke and this, the lively first tv performance by The Cocteau Twins.

Hazel is a manic thrash, compared to their serene tracks, and was originally released on their debut album, Garlands.

In 1980 Adam Ant, looking to turn cult success into commercial adoration, thought it would be a good idea to get ex-Sex Pistols and New York Dolls manager, Malcolm McLaren to manage Adam & The Ants. Unfortunately, one of the first things he did was to sack Adam!

McLaren took the rest of the band off to form Bow Wow Wow, leaving Adam to strike up a writing partnership with Marco Pironi.

Bow Wow Wow was formed in 1980 with former Ants guitarist Matthew Ashman, bassist Andy Gorman and drummer David Barbarossa. A fourteen year old unknown singer named Annabella LWin stole all the headlines as McLaren tried his best to use stories of the sexy-looking underage singer to grab press attention.

C30 C60 C90 Go! was their debut single. It quite clearly steals the tribal beat from Adam & The Ants’ Kings Of The Wild Frontier.

McLaren came up with the pirate costumes to go with the whole D-I-Y piracy idea of the song.

From someone who thought the original Adam & The Ants were cool, see Plastic Surgery, the former Ants look more like performing idiots rather than pirates in this rarely seen promotional video.

The Psychedelic Furs are probably best remembered for ‘Pretty In Pink’, and only then because of a more glossy remixed re-release in 1986 as the main title track of a John Hughes blockbuster teen film of the same name.

But there was a lot more to the Psychedelic Furs, and Sister Europe is one of my favourite tracks. It is much more dark and moody, (but not as dark as the promo video!) and taken from their self-titled debut album from 1980.

Easy to forget but in 1980 the word psychedelic was not a cool label to be attached to, a word that conjoured up long-haired hippies rather than Syd Barrett and acid.

Richard Butler appears on Juliana Hatfield’s forthcoming album released later this month.

Maia looks so young! But what a voice.

Lone Justice – Ways To Be Wicked

For a short period of time the politically motivated Marxist-Leninist group Gang Of Four produced some great music while signed to EMI, the largest capitalist record company in the world.  Unfortunately, their first album, Entertainment was by far there best and for me, they never quite lived up to expectations after that.

Here is a great live UK TV performance of Gang Of Four on The Old Grey Whistle Test performing one of their best tracks, To Hell With Poverty.  I still love the sound of Andy Gill’s guitar.  Unfortunately the clip cuts short but I can’t find a better version.  I also remember a great live performance of We Live As We Dream, Alone on The Tube.  Has anybody got a clip of this they can post?

The song was always a live favourite and was included on the 1980 live Hanx! album.