Another of the one-flop wonders of punk, Chelsea are more notable as being the group who became the much more successful Generation X.

And, in Gene October, they boasted a singer whose self-righteous bellowing over thrashing guitars and clattering drums would later form the template for a new generation of “punk” bands like Idles.

Assembled in late 1976 by the owners of a clothing shop in the Kings Road called Acme Attractions, their singer was Gene October, backed by guitarist Billy Broad – soon to reinvent himself as Billy Idol – and two former members of the legendary pre-punk group London S.S. in bassist Tony James and drummer John Towe.

After three gigs, beginning with an appearance at Throbbing Gristle’s notorious Prostitution show at the ICA show (where Chelsea were billed as L.S.D.) and ending with a support slot for The Stranglers, all three musicians left and October recruited a new batch – something he would do repeatedly over the course of Chelsea’s long career.

At the time of release in June 1977 on the Step Forward label (owned by Miles Copeland), Right To Work was perceived as some sort of socialist anthem, protesting at the 25% youth unemployment of the time, though it has since been reinterpreted as an anti-trade union song protesting about the closed shop (and October’s failed attempts to get an Equity card).

Whatever the answer, Chelsea were one of the first regular bands to play the Roxy, October having played a key part in persuading the management of the club – then a gay nightspot he frequented called Shagerama’s – to jump on to the punk bandwagon that was just gathering speed.

I remember walking down to Portobello Road one Saturday and passing a gay bookshop called something like Zipper which had a kind of black curtain discreetly hiding the volumes within, but one or two were visible – and the one that caught my eye featured the unmistakeable figure of Mr October in a leather cap and not much else.

Hence the “amusing” YouTube comment someone has posted describing this as “Possibly the best anti-trade union song ever written by a rent boy.”

The second line-up of Chelsea consisted of guitarist Marty Stacey, bassist Bob Jessie and drummer Carey Fortune but the first two were quickly replaced by Henry Daze (aka Badowski) and James Stevenson, and stayed together long enough with October and Fortune to record this song.

It went on to be featured in Derek Jarman’s arthouse punk film Jubilee, in which October also appeared as an actor, but by the time of their second single, High Rise Living, they had yet another new bass player, Simon Cade Williams (aka Simon Vitesse), with three more newcomers (Dave Martin, Geoff Myles and Steve J. Jones) joining in time for the third single, Urban Kids.

Their prospects were hindered by the debut album taking three years to arrive, by which the public’s appetite for ramalama punk anthems had dwindled and most of their contemporaries had expanded their sound. And by when the owner of their label, Miles Copeland, was preoccupied with the success of his brother’s band The Police.

Yet they kept plugging away and their most recent album, their 12th, came out as recently as 2021 and featured appearances by all the musicians who played on this.