Listen: Close (To The Edit) / Art Of Noise ArtNoiseClose.mp3

As if overnight, suddenly there were a few Art Of Noise singles being released seemingly simultaneous in the UK and US. I did a specialty radio show at the time with Roger McCall on WCMF, and we would dig through all the latest releases every few days preparing for our Tuesday night slot. I will never forgot our jaws dropping in unison when we gave this it’s first spin on the unused production studio’s turntable. It sounded like nothing at all in the solar system – the exact similar awe we experienced upon initial listens to Malcolm McLaron’s ‘Buffalo Gals’ or Scritti Politti’s ‘Wood Beez’.

We opened our very next show with ‘Close To The Edit’.

Listen: Beat Box / Art Of Noise ArtNoiseBeatBox.mp3

As I said, as if overnight, another Art Of Noise 7″ arrived. ‘Beat Box’ just as innovative and exciting as the previous release. Now we were playing two of their tracks each program – and this went on for weeks. Even as other records were being broadcast, Roger and I would flail around the studio blasting these on the second unused turntable until moments before needing to use the bloody thing to cue up the next record. We had a few close calls, then figured out playing Television’s ‘Marquee Moon’ or The Special AKA’s ‘Ghost Town’, both quite lengthy, would allow us more time to carry on to Art Of Noise.

Listen: Moments In Love / Trevor Horn, Paul Morley with Art Of Noise ArtNoiseMoments.mp3

Eventually, but not too long after, ‘Moments In Love’ graced a 7″, culled from the soundtrack to PUMPING IRON II – THE WOMEN. Not having seen the movie, I can’t understand from it’s title how the hell this track fit in – but it must have. Almost ambient, it was addictive. Sampled years later into a UK hit, ‘Moments In Love’ by JT & The Big Family, I’m pleased it earned some cash for the writers of this superb song.

Art Of Noise continued on for several years with Chrysalis. They never matched those initials few singles, well I don’t think so that is.

Listen: Anything That’s Rock ‘n’ Roll / Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers TomPettyAnything.mp3

This band got off to a slow start. Maybe it was simply his motorcycle jacket on their album cover, but Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers were thrown into the punk category by US radio programmers. Those radio gate keepers were a very intimidated, non-musical and paranoid bunch. Their heyday was nearing an end.

Proving their ineptitude, to them, Talking Heads, Blondie, Elvis Costello & The Attractions, The Ramones, Television, The Sex Pistols, The Patti Smith Group and Eddie & The Hot Rods all sounded the same: they were punk bands the American public didn’t want to hear. Wrong and wrong.

Sharing bills with both The Ramones and Blondie were probably temporary bad moves, because on to the unplayable scrapheap they went. Funny enough, fans of those bands were the first to appreciate them. Right up to the present day, it’s hard finding many folks, regardless of musical tastes, to hate on Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers.

Howard Thompson was the guy who turned me on to them. He’d convinced Island in the UK to release their debut album. The single, ‘Anything That’s Rock ‘n’ Roll’, charted soon after over there, and he sent me a copy. I preferred it then, and now, to that first album’s eventual hit, ‘American Girl’ – and it unfortunately seems lost in the band’s history, never getting any mentions ever again.