I came across a great blog called Little Hits last night. Each week or so they post up a favourite track from often long forgotten records, the majority being from the punk and post punk era. As the site’s owners are based in the US it’s quite amazing how many obscure British punk and indie records they managed to get their hands on! You can listen to all the tracks they write about on the site, and if like me you are of a certain age, listened to Peel nightly in the late 1970s and early 80s, and bought lots of obscure 7 inch singles, this will be a great trip down memory lane.

One of the featured tracks on the site is by the wonderful Desperate Bicycles. I can still remember hearing the band on John Peel’s Radio 1 show. Their first session consisted of four tracks, one a version of their début single Smokescreen which lasted all of 50 seconds (the single version was padded out to a progtastic 2 minutes). The band managed to press up 1500 copies of the single, with money from the first 500 records being used to press up and distribute the next 1000. Fortunately I’m a proud owner of said single, bought back in the day from the New Record Inn in Sunderland.

One of my favourite singles by the band was their sophomore effort The Medium Was Tedium. The playing on the record makes many of their punk contemporaries sound like ELP, even the mighty Fall sound competent in comparison. But the brilliance of song was its hook, which extolled “It was easy, it was cheap, go and do it”. And it was. And we did. This was the DIY punk ethic in action. The sleeve detailed the cost to record, press and distribute Smokescreen was a massive £153, (probably a few grand in today’s money). It’s amazing to think that 30 years later the total cost to make, distribute and market your own DIY release can be virtually zero! Sadly Desperate Bicycles founder Danny Wigley has resisted the reissue of any of the bands music, but if you fancy taking a trip down memory lane, or want to hear what all the fuss was about back in 1977, you can hear much of the bands recorded output here.