The Adicts were musically influenced by Malcolm McLaren but their image was pure Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange.
Not for them the ripped jeans and leather jackets festooned with badges of their contemporaries – they dressed as “droogs” in white boots, black boots and black bowler hats, with their singer ‘Monkey’ adding make-up to look like The Joker.
The Ipswich band began life, appropriately enough, as The Afterbirth. Which may be the best ever name for a punk band, though they never got around to playing any shows.
They changed their name to Pinz before finding out that was already taken and changed it again to The Addicts, which was also taken – so they dropped a D to become The Adicts.
Their debut release was this four-track EP called Lunch With The Adicts, released in September 1979 on the Dining Out label, featuring the tracks Easy Way Out, This Week, Straight Jacket and Organised Confusion.
It sold 10,000 copies and earned a royalty cheque of £23 for singer Keith ‘Monkey’ Warren, guitarists Pete Davison and Mel ‘Spider’ Ellis, Tim Hocking on bass and drummer Kid Davison.
More importantly, it earned them a Peel Session that September, where they played four new tracks, Get Addicted, Distortion, Sensitive and Numbers, followed by debut album Songs Of Praise.
After a second album, Sound Of Music, spawned a minor hit in Bad Boy (No.75 in 1983) and their signature song Viva La Revolucion! (below), they were signed by major label Sire Records, who changed their name to ADX.
They were dropped after two singles, Tokyo and a dramatic synth-heavy cover of Marlene Dietrich’s Falling In Love Again propelled by a Moroderesque electronic backbeat.
Remarkably they are still performing live, with a 10-album back catalogue – nearly all of them on different labels – including the cleverly, if inaccurately, titled 2012 offering All The Young Droogs.