Reupload - The Martian Schoolgirls - Life In The 1980s/ Lonely Nights

 

Snappy dystopian punk-pop chugger from ex-101er Dan Kelleher

Label: Red Planet

Year of Release: 1979

If you were an avid John Peel listener in the eighties, chances are you'll have heard him begin his first show of 1980 with this self-released dose of DIY punk. "Life In The 1980s" forecast a bleak, bored, dystopian near-future, with lots of lyrical references to "depression zones" and starvation. 

While there's little doubt that the group were being slightly tongue-in-cheek, it was nonetheless not much of a New Year tonic - the late seventies had been a chaotic period for many in the UK, and there were those who thought worse was to come (and, depending on where they lived, they might not have been far wrong). "Life In The 1980s" was snappy and scrappy enough to punch the very worst possible scenarios across in its retro-futuristic lyrical style - you can almost imagine the ghost of Joe Meek giving an enthusiastic gold star to the group's sci-fi poetry.

The Martian Schoolgirls were a short-lived band formed by Dan Kelleher, who was originally bassist and backing vocalist alongside Joe Strummer in The 101'ers. When Joe sniffed a swift change in the zeitgeist and left to form The Clash, the band disintegrated and Kelleher initially moved on to The Derelicts, then finally this lot. While they were given some care and attention by Peel, and eventually picked up by Albion Records for one single in 1981 ("Motion") the group never quite rose above a fringe cult status. 

Rabbit Mackay - Hard Time Woman/ Candy

Peel favoured gritty, rough and bluesy 45

Despite his brief appearance on the international underground scene in 1968, Rabbit Mackay is something of an engima. John Peel was moved enough by his LP "Bug Dust" to write in International Times that "in these days of very clinical recordings it is good to hear something that radiates happiness like this", and he was keen enough on this single to play it on his Top Gear show.

Across the Atlantic in Ventura County where he lived, Mackay's dirty, scruffy, bluesy folk rock tunes were impressing a number of heads at local venues, colleges and coffee houses and to a more limited extent, across the choosier, hippy friendly venues of the USA. His activity appeared to give Uni Records the incentive to issue a second LP, the perhaps unintentionally appropriately titled "Passing Through" in 1969.

Then? Nothing. Not a sausage. Another track of his appeared on a charity compilation entitled "La Conchita... Remember" in 2005, which would suggest he had continued performing throughout the intervening years - or perhaps had made an unlikely comeback - but sadly he died on 10th August 2017 without making any additional marks on record store racks.

The Martian Schoolgirls - Life In The 1980s/ Lonely Nights

Snappy dystopian punk-pop chugger from ex-101er Dan Kelleher

Label: Red Planet

Year of Release: 1979

If you were an avid John Peel listener in the eighties, chances are you'll have heard him begin his first show of 1980 with this self-released dose of DIY punk. "Life In The 1980s" forecast a bleak, bored, dystopian near-future, with lots of lyrical references to "depression zones" and starvation. 

While there's little doubt that the group were being slightly tongue-in-cheek, it was nonetheless not much of a New Year tonic - the late seventies had been a chaotic period for many in the UK, and there were those who thought worse was to come (and, depending on where they lived, they might not have been far wrong). "Life In The 1980s" was snappy and scrappy enough to punch the very worst possible scenarios across in its retro-futuristic lyrical style - you can almost imagine the ghost of Joe Meek giving an enthusiastic gold star to the group's sci-fi poetry.

The Martian Schoolgirls were a short-lived band formed by Dan Kelleher, who was originally bassist and backing vocalist alongside Joe Strummer in The 101'ers. When Joe sniffed a swift change in the zeitgeist and left to form The Clash, the band disintegrated and Kelleher initially moved on to The Derelicts, then finally this lot. While they were given some care and attention by Peel, and eventually picked up by Albion Records for one single in 1981 ("Motion") the group never quite rose above a fringe cult status.