The Adverts defined the ethos of punk with their tongues in their cheeks in the title of their debut single One Chord Wonders.

As punk gathered momentum in London throughout 1977, one of the bands I went to see most frequently was The Adverts.

They had catchy, poppy songs, an erudite and articulate frontman in Tim “TV” Smith and, not unnoticed by a teenage me, an attractive female bass guitarist in Gaye Advert.

Dressed in black leather, with black eyeliner, she was the prototype goth before goths had been invented.
Gaye Advert was also a novelty as one of the few girls/women in bands back then, so I was keen to feature her in my newly started punk fanzine, Cliché. Which led to her giving me her phone number.

It remains a source of deep shame, embarrassment and regret that I managed to lose it by the time I had got home to my hovel in scarily ungentrified Clapton.

So I had to make do with admiring her from afar at their gigs, though you were never very far from the stage at the tiny, heaving Roxy, where The Adverts seemed to play all the time at the start of that year.

Their first single celebrated everything that punk stood for, both in its semi-ironic title – One Chord Wonders – and its anthemic refrain: “We don’t give a damn!”

Produced by Larry Wallace of The Pink Fairies, it came out on Stiff Records in April 1977 and was followed by the oft-neglected but, even with hindsight, exceptional album Crossing The Red Sea With The Adverts.

Soon after that it was all over. The Adverts followed the perfect punk trajectory of releasing half a dozen singles and a couple of albums before breaking up in 1979.

And I never did to interview Gaye Advert.