Celebrating the 60th Birthday of our local Punk Poet !!

T. V. Smith. … Timothy “T. V.” Smith  is an English singer-songwriter, who was part of punk band The Adverts in the late 1970′s. Since then he has fronted other bands, as well as pursuing a solo career.

As The Newtown Neurotics, the band began their career playing punk heavily indebted stylistically to The Clash and The Ramones. They released a series of singles from 1979 – later collected on the album 45 Revolutions per Minute – and debut album Beggars Can Be Choosers in 1983. Over the course of the 1980s, the band dropped the “Newtown” from its name and became simply The Neurotics; along with the name change came a stylistic broadening, including slower tempos and horn arrangements. They released several albums on noted UK postpunk label Jungle Records including Repercussions in 1986 and Is Your Washroom Breeding Bolsheviks in 1988.

Lead singer and guitarist Steve Drewett took openly socialist stances in his lyrics throughout the course of the band’s career and currently displays an anarcho-syndicalist sticker on his guitar. From 1986 the Neurotics became one of the first Western bands to play behind the Iron Curtain, with successive tours of East Germany alongside artists like Billy Bragg and Attila the Stockbroker.

When bassist Colin Dredd contracted pleurisy, he left the band; Mac (Travis Cut /The Pharaohs /The Skabilly Rebels) was brought in to play bass for some farewell shows (at which the band’s entire catalogue was played), and the band called it quits in October 1988.