SWEET TV TIMES - 1982

This kinky wee publication called "Sweet TV Times" was given out at gigs when The Junkies were entertaining the masses.

Needless to say, it has a fair smattering of Junkies related items in amongst a large dollop of SM fetish kinda material.

Bypassing the rubber and whips for now though, I've plucked out this item above - The Junkies Family Tree - covering the time of their inception in mid 1978 up to the time of the mag, summer 1982.

The very first line-up of the band consisted of - Alison Burns, Al Hendrickx, Vince Piggot and Mike Kane - after that it branches off into 7 different variants.

It's easy to follow the sequence of changes, during which saw Vince and Alison leave - then return again. Drummers in particular didn't appear to have a very long shelf life it seems, and by the time we get to line-up #7 even Alan McGlone was getting in on the act!

Just give it a click to enlarge.

Thanks again to Jock.

THE JUNKIES ROYAL LETTER - 1982

In 1982, Jock Ferguson cheekily sent a cassette of The Junkies to Buckingham Palace suggesting that the band would be available to perform for any forthcoming Royal Gala's planned, should Her Majesty have been looking for a decent trash-glam combo to play for free.
Master Of The Household, Vice-Admiral Sir Peter Ashmore replied on the Queen's behalf with the above letter.
Sadly it was no can do as regards The Junkies bringing their gear down to the palace, but at least their music was given the royal seal of approval when the cassette was returned stating that it was "enjoyable"!
Peter Ashmore was the chap in charge of palace security when that intruder got into the Queen's bedroom, some of you may remember.
This item was published in a fanzine called "Sweet TV Times" - (with the emphasis on TV - if you know what I mean) - and was given out at Junkies gigs.
Click onto it if you need to read the larger version.
Thanks again to the Major.

THE JUNKIES IN COLOUR - EARLY 80'S

It's The Junkies again - only this time in glorious technicolour!

We've had a bit of a confab behind the scenes as to where the band may have been entertaining the masses on this occasion, and think we found a clue - the rock posters on the wall !
Based on this evidence, we've all agreed to half guess that it may be the Centre Bar - the wee alcove area beside the stairs.

If anyone begs to differ - fire away!

The downside to the photo is that Maggie died quite a while ago.

A guess as to when the photo was taken, well one of the posters in the background is for UFO, and they played the Caird Hall in 1980, so it could possibly be from around that time.

Thanks again to Drew Ramsay

THE JUNKIES AT THE TAYSIDE BAR - 1981

Did ya get a good wee buzz scrolling through that lot?

This impressive cascade of images catches The Junkies in full flow at one of their gigs down at the Tayside Bar, probably around the 1981 period.

It's amazing how fresh the pictures look 3 decades on. You'd think they were just taken 3 weeks ago!

For some reason, the Tayside Bar looks quite cavernous in black & white, but as a lot of you will recall, there was hardly any room to move at the area allocated for bands.

Top-notch pics though!

This is a good opportunity to accompany the photos with another track of theirs.

I put up a downtempo tune last year, so this time out I thought I'd go for a song which is more the kind of thing they were known for - an upbeat, sleazy, rock "n" drawl number called "Pretty Boys".

Big THANX to Drew Ramsay

 

THE JUNKIES FLYER

This is typical of the kind of image you'd see splattered up around town on the multitude of boarded up windows, which was a common sight in Dundee in the early 80's.

The Junkies flyer - designed by Jock Ferguson.

Thanks to DD

THE JUNKIES - DEMO TAPE - EARLY 80's

This old cassette by The Junkies dates back to the early 80's and has 3 demo tracks on it. The Junkies played a kind of raunchy, American influenced 70's rock & roll, with a touch of punky trash glam thrown in!
It doesn't have the band details on the cover but I'm guessing Vince, Al, Steve, Alison & Maggie were in the line-up for these recordings.
The 3 tracks are - "Subway Love" - "Pretty Boys" & "Why Don't You Listen To My Heart", and it's the last track I have here for you to tune into. It's a wee bit more downtempo than the other tracks but a song that I'm sure Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers wish they had written!
The quality of the recording does suffer from old age, what with tape hiss and magnetic phasing encroaching on at the start, but you soon get caught up in the melody and you don't notice the poor sound quality after a short while.
See what you reckon, jury..!!
Thanks to MK.

4 DUNDEE GIG REVIEWS - 1982

Before Simple Minds played their December Caird Hall show, a few months earlier some members of the band, along with Lenny Love, were in town to catch a gig down at the Tayside Bar. The act we were all there to see was Hey! Elastica, the trash-pop new wave outfit from Edinburgh.
You can read all about this gig, and 3 others that took place around the same time (mid '82) in the above review page out of Cranked Up.
Starting at the top it's...
Junkies at The Windmill.
Junkies at Dundee University.
Hey! Elastica at Tayside Bar.
Little Wolves at Tayside Bar.
I attended the 2 Tayside Bar offerings, although it seems most of the fun was to be had at the Junkies gigs.!!
All the write-ups were the work of our very own secret agent on location, Jock Ferguson.
To read it, you'll need to click onto the image to enlarge it.