Alternative TV

The familiar pattern repeated itself when a weary bank employee developed a passion for punk rock, composed several articles on the subject, photocopied copies of a fanzine, hawked them at concerts, and thereby generated a sensation that ignited an emerging style. Sniffin' Glue's debut edition spotlighted the Ramones alongside Blue Öyster Cult, while its Punk Reviews section covered the Flamin' Groovies and the Stranglers; the opening note also teased forthcoming delights from the Nazz, Roogalator, the Raspberries, and the Count Bishops. Punk remained scarce at the time.

The publication expanded alongside the movement it promoted and dominated the British fanzine scene for twelve months. Mark Perry, however, grew weary of writing and yearned instead to perform and attract coverage himself. His previous group, the New Beatles, had achieved little, so his subsequent project, Alternative TV, faced equally modest expectations.

Formed in March 1977 with Perry handling vocals, former Generation X drummer John Towe, bassist Mickey Smith, and ex-Nobodies guitarist Alex Fergusson, the band rehearsed at Throbbing Gristle's Hackney facility, where both "Love Lies Limp" and "Alternative to NATO" originated and were taped. ATV played their inaugural show on May 6, 1977, in Nottingham.

The original configuration dissolved swiftly. Tyrone Thomas of the New Beatles supplanted Smith, and on June 5 ATV supported Wayne County's Electric Chairs in Brighton. After six further performances Towe departed, yet not before the group issued its debut release, "Love Lies Limp," as gratis flexidisc accompanying Sniffin' Glue's final August 1977 edition.

Chris Bennett stepped in for Towe, and the revised lineup sustained live work while readying a first album. Rehearsal footage appears in The Punk Rock Movie, the cinéma vérité chronicle of punk's opening ferocious summer. Additional visibility arrived in December with the "How Much Longer" single on Perry's Deptford Fun City imprint under Miles Copeland's Illegal banner. The Image Has Cracked, ATV's combined live-and-studio debut LP, surfaced the next spring.

"Action Time Vision" and "Life After Life" followed as singles, joined by the archival Towe-period track "Life," yet Perry steered the band toward the Throbbing Gristle aesthetic that increasingly absorbed him (the official bootleg Live at the Rat '77 was captured by Genesis P-Orridge). By Vibing Up the Senile Man (Part One), ATV's second album, and its companion single "The Force Is Blind," Perry alone remained from the founding lineup; Dennis Burns was the sole survivor from any subsequent roster. Even Sounds deemed the record unlistenable.

Undeterred, Perry toured the new material, though closure loomed. In March 1979, onstage in Chelmsford, ATV disbanded. Scars on Sunday preserves excerpts from that final concert on side one, while side two presents the Good Missionaries, the group that continued directly from ATV's endpoint, albeit freed from its historically charged moniker.

Further activity nevertheless ensued. The initial ATV reunion, featuring Fergusson once more, took place in 1981; another sustained Perry through the latter half of the decade. In 1999 he marked the appearance of his twentieth album, again under the revived Alternative TV name.