Lee Perry’s song Dreadlocks In Moonlight was originally intended for Bob Marley & The Wailers – until a chance meeting at his studio in Jamaica.

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I bloody loved The Cramps the moment I heard them. They had all the energy, lo-fi spirit and antisocial appeal of punk – channelled into rockabilly.

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Here’s a heavenly marriage of the glorious harmonies of The Congos and the madcap production genius of Lee Perry.

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The Controllers enjoyed a brief moment in the first wave of LA punk bands, including this love song for an amputee.

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Stiv Bators, the Dead Boys singer, was probably the nearest thing American punk had to Johnny Rotten.

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Hot Chocolate’s only No.1 sums up my joyful feelings this morning after the league title returned to North London for the first time in 22 years.

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15-16-17 were, as the name suggests, three teenage girls from Jamaica who made their name singing lovers rock in late-1970s London.

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If you’d asked me what I thought about Demis Roussos, this would not spring to mind. I would not have answered with a king of disco. 

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In 1977 I was listening to a solid diet of one-chord wonders, varied only with a weekly dose of Top of the Pops to find out what the rest of the country was listening to while I pogoed.

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In the late Seventies, after The Saints lit the fuse of Australian punk with their classic single (I’m) Stranded, they were followed to the UK by Radio Birdman.

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