How crazy is it to suggest that the truest punk album available is neither the debut from the Sex Pistols or the Clash but the work of a zine editor from that time who decided to put his guitar pick where his pen was an make his own band? Emerging from a bureaucratic existence to become transformed by the punk phenomenon enough to create one of its first zines, Mark Perry made Sniffin’ Glue into a mainstay of the scene. Not satisfied to stop there, Alternative TV became his next creative outlet. Though obviously using punk as a starting point, the band extensively drew on its roots with dub, heavy metal, psychedelic and art-rock (the last three being heresy with purists). The end result was one of the strongest debut records ever heard: The Image Has Cracked, a punk milestone that says more about the scene than a pile of documentaries.
Always the iconoclast, Perry decided to take ATV into unimaginable territory that surely confused anyone enlightened enough to follow the band. After a hazardous tour with a Gong off-shot and one of the most left-field follow-up albums ever heard, the ATV brand drifted in and out of Mark’s projects and interests but never off the radar map totally. Perry recharged ATV in the early ‘90’s so that us lucky mortals had another chance to experience them.
Now with a first-ever swing into America to be followed up by a more extensive tour later this year and a new album waiting to be recorded, the world is ready for a punk reunion that puts the Pistols to shame. I spoke to my spiritual zine ancestor about the ATV story and its future on the heels of this historic first stateside tour.
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