It’s funny the things you find when you look through your old stuff. This was lurking among my singles. It was the cover that caught my eye. The song – not so much.

I found it near the end because they’re sorted into alphabetical order, but it would never be near the front of any self-respecting collection.

On the other hand, it’s got that nice sleeve.

Like so many of the early punk groups they were already a fully formed band that rebranded when they saw the bandwagon coming.

Until then Dave Robertson (vocals), Ronnie Mackinnon (guitar), Gordon Scott (bass) and Gordon Dair (drums) were an underachieving prog-inclined pub group with the terrible name Angel Easy.

In a bid for new popularity they sped up their songs, ditched the progginess, and changed their name (to The Valves), with Robertson changing his to Dee Robot.

A support slot with the Tom Robinson Band earned them a deal with Zoom Records and they recorded three singles before breaking up in 1979.

This is the first, released in September 1977. Robot Love (ostensibly the A-side) is terrible; then again the B-side is called For Adolfs Only. 

I see I also have the follow-up single, Ain’t No Surf In Portobello, in my collection. Released just three months later, it found them trying to sound like The Beach Boys.

For some reason (unpopular demand?) their third single took another 18 months to arrive. You’d imagine they might have improve by then and moved on from shouty punk rock.

You’d be wrong.