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Here’s a second-wave punk band I don’t remember hearing before, probably because my tastes had evolved by the time they formed in 1981.

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Who would have thought a pasty-faced weirdo and his Manchester mates could create something as funky as Sly Stone’s original? Yet that’s exactly what Magazine manage to do.

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I’m a little late on this but I wanted to post a song by The Chills after the sad death of their main man Martin Phillipps at the age of only 61.

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I first stumbled across this Bradford band by accident when they supported punk also-rans Chelsea at the Marquee one night in 1981 – billed as “Sudden Death Cult.”

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The Ramones had a late-career peak in 1985 when they released their first protest song, the anti-Reagan anthem Bonzo Goes To Bitburg.

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DAF’s minimalist electro and ironic lyrics are a far cry from the sweet synthpop coming out of the UK, and didn’t get past the radio censors in 1981.

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No, this is not my guilty pleasure. In fact Black Lace’s novelty hit Agadoo has been voted the worst pop song of all time by a panel of critics.

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Do You Believe In The Westworld is an epic with its thunderous tribal drums, the mighty clang of that guitar riff, the slightly sinister sax and the dubwise echo that matches the cinematic sweep of Kirk Brandon’s mini-Western in words, carried by his stentorian vocals.

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Simultaneously smooth, smouldering AND funky, this tune helped give soul singer Gwen McCrae a second lease of life on the Northern Soul circuit in the UK.

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