tvsmith.de

Original release 1978 on Bright Records BRL 201 UK
Album:
A-side
One Chord Wonders
Bored Teenagers
New Church
On The Roof
New Boys
Bombsite Boy
B-side
No Time To Be 21
Safety In Numbers
Drowning Men
On Wheels
Great British Mistake

Also a promo release on red vinyl with the same catalogue number.

Cassette release Bright BRC201 has a different running order (to even out the times I guess).
Side 1
One Chord Wonders
Bored Teenagers
New Church
Drowning Men
On Wheels
Great British Mistake
Side 2
No Time To Be 21
Safety In Numbers
On The Roof
New Boys
Bombsite Boy


Re-issue 1981 Butt/Bright Also 002(BRL201)
Gary Gilmore's Eyes added after Great British Mistake. Sleeve stickered with "Includes Hit Single Gary Gilmore's Eyes" and same listed on sleeve and Side B label.

Re-Issue 1990 Link Records Clink 1. Stickered sleeve "Limited Edition Coloured Vinyl". Gary Gilmore's Eyes listed on sleeve and labels but not included. I have 2 different colours - Green vinyl & Clear vinyl. It's possible that the clear one is a slightly later release as this one has a disclaimer on the sleeve about G.G.E. not being on.

Italian unofficial release. Black vinyl, no record company or release number. Centre labels have a picture of TV on the A-side and Gaye on the B-side. Again G.G.E. listed on sleeve but not included.
This isn't a definitive listing, just the ones that I have for example, there is another red vinyl version (the Butt or Link release?).

The Adverts: Crossing The Red Sea With The Adverts (Anchor)*****

Jane Suck, Sounds, 11 February 1978

One Chord Wonders: no blunders

SOMETIMES I don't know why I bother... Racing around the record companies for a hot new release, opening the pages of a rival paper to discover I've been scooped and — oh-hhh dear — reading that the platter I was going to give five stars to is a piece of garbage. Reviewing Rikki And The Last Days' album has made me dubious of the whole — ah, function. The Editor of SOUNDS will look at this and sigh, "Oh gawd, yet more confessions of Saint Suck!" but at the end of the day I have to read this, I have to listen to people telling me what an appalling lack of taste I'm suffering from in liking Rikki, The Adverts, and whoever the next commercial-not-infra-dig New Wave band turns out to be... don't dictate/don't dictate/don't dictate/dictate to me. Of course, I can dictate to you — that's the perk of my job, and I like my job and — goddammit for a Number Six coupon — I LIKE THE ADVERTS!

Joined their audience and became friends with TV Smith and young holocaust, Gaye, when the band was but two months old. (Mouths into beer). I remember when this lot couldn't even afford a loaf of bread! But Tim Smith, prophet, sage, the-new-Bob Dylan-says-his-manager, had a vision. It wasn't the second coming or even coffee prices falling, only of a punk band creating good-time music (i.e. hit singles and TV shows), sending its live audiences home happy (clutching their colour pictures of Ms Advert), yet at the same time fulfilling his songwriter's need to get 'the message across, maaan'.

TV Smith is the fly on the wall of this Brave New World... er, Wave: 'What are you gonna do/with your New Wave?... you were always there anyway...'. Analyse his songs, and I wouldn't insult his modus operandi by ordering you to, and you'll see that what appears to be bouncy, simplistic music is, in fact, only the icing on a sour, often acid, cake: it's all 'bombsite dwellings', 'drowning men', wheelchair cases, and waiting, waiting for — yew-www!

I'm glad that the Adverts are successful. It's a gas to see them doing TOTP and entering the charts with 'No Time To Be 21' (I expect cult-intellectual band, Buzzcocks, to do the same). I've seen the fan-mail and the hordes of loyal fans who are going to buy this album regardless. If the home-made badges and T shirt brigade read this review, it will be because there is a dirty great picture of their heroes beside it — yeah, I know/what I kno-oo-w ... that there is room for music outside of all the media ritzerama and closet-audience prejudice. My, my — didn't The Single make a triumphant re-emergence in '77! Crossing The Red Sea is full of 'em: 'One Chord Wonders', 'Bored Teenagers', Safety In Numbers' (though no 'Gary Gilmore's Legs', which would have been desecration), only the new numbers like 'Hell On Wheels' hint at any kind of (go-odd, cliché city time) new direction and sophistication in songwriting and execution. Even if The Adverts die at 21 years of age, TV Smith will remain active and a little Caesar in the music scene for years to come. I've got tealeaves at the bottom of my diet Pils, ain't I?!

Just one thing, gang, the cover is so weird it's — duh, psychedelic, and quite frankly — hideous. Intentional, eh, eh? Always one step behind and can I have a kiss now, Gaye —

© Jane Suck, 1978

From the above review:

"Even if The Adverts die at 21 years of age, TV Smith will remain active and a little Caesar in the music scene for years to come. I've got tealeaves at the bottom of my diet Pils, ain't I?!"

How psychic was she?!

Not too sure about this review:

The Adverts: Crossing The Red Sea With The Adverts

Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 25 February 1978

ONCE UPON a time, the fastest way of revealing yourself as an Old Fart Who Didn't Understand The New Wave was to allege – in even the mildest and most non-derisive terms – that occasionally the musicianship left something to be desired.

It is now – by my reckoning, at least – late February of 1978, and most of the New Wave bands who're still around have obtained a sufficient command of their instruments to do justice to their material, The Clash and the late lamented Pistols got to be very good very fast. The Damned and The Stranglers and The Jam played good right from the beginning. The likes of XTC and Magazine cheated by having been good musicians before the New Wave even got started.

The Adverts are in the curious position of having one of the best lead singers currently functioning, and a repertoire of some highly interesting songs (good words, good chewns, nifty chord changes) while still being total musical featherweights despite having gigged solidly for well over a year.

I don't know how they do it. They even open the album with 'One Chord Wonders', a reprise of their first single for Stiff, which deals rather sardonically with this problem. The fact that the intervening period between the Stiff session and this one hasn't improved their rather ramshackle playing by one iota could be interpreted as some kind of amusingly ironic gesture, or simply as an indication of loyalty to old ideas of determined amateurism.

Laurie Driver (drums) thumps away enthusiastically, the very lovely Gaye Advert (bass) thumps away somewhat less so, with the result that she drags the beat ever so slightly all the way through, a state of affairs not particularly improved by guitarist Howard Pickup's rather Mickey Mouse sound. The end result is more Garage Band Purist than anything else, especially when you take the sophistication of the material into account.

As stated above, T.V. Smith writes and sings very well indeed, 'One Chord Wonders' is a song of more than a little wit, and 'Gary Gilmore's Eyes' (regrettably not included here, though its B-side 'Bored Teenagers' puts in an appearance) was truly excellent.

'No Time To Be 21', the current single, 'The Great British Mistake', 'Drowning Men', 'On Wheels', 'New Boys'; all fine songs with an odd tint of fluorescent psychedelia infiltrating the monochrome.

If The Adverts could learn to play these songs in any manner other than the most totally obvious bang-their-way-through-the-chords manner – or as least bang their way through the chords with one quarter of the zap and flair of The Ramones or the Pistols – they'd be one of the most exciting bands around. Can you imagine these songs played with the kind of raunch that Steve Jones and Paul Cook could bring to them? Gaye's certainly no worse a bass player than Sid Vicious.

Unless the Adverts can be ramshackle and unmusical in as exciting a manner at The Velvet Underground, they'll be in the unusual position of having a repertoire to which they are simply not competent to do full musical justice.

Weird one. Be glad it ain't your problem (unless you're T.V., Gaye, Howard or Laurie, in which case – hi!!!)

© Charles Shaar Murray, 1978

There are a few different re-issues by Fire Records as a double vinyl LP in a gatefold sleeve all with the same format and track listings:
LP1 Album:
Side 1
One Chord Wonders
Bored Teenagers
New Church
On The Roof
Newboys
Gary Gilmore's Eyes
Bombsite Boy
Side 2
No Time To Be 21
Safety In Numbers
New Day Dawning
Drowning Men
On Wheels
Great British Mistake
LP 2
Side 1 Singles:
One Chord Wonders
Quickstep
Gary Gilmore's Eyes
Bored Teenagers
Safety In Numbers
We Who Wait
Side 2 Live
On Wheels
Newboys
New Church
Gary Gilmore's Eyes
Drowning Men
No Time To Be 21

Fire Records FF143 released 12.09.11 black vinyl UK.
Fire Records FIRELP143 released 2014 black vinyl UK.
Fire Records FIRELP143 released 16.04.16 - Record Store Day release on red vinyl (although using the earlier 2014 sleeve). US only release?
Fire Records FR143 02.09.22 black vinyl UK. 2022 repress limited to 2,000 copies on black vinyl double LP another Record Store Day release?

apgrundy wrote: ↑23. Jan 2022, 17:34 This isn't a definitive listing, just the ones that I have for example, there is another red vinyl version (the Butt or Link release?).

"Translucent" red vinyl release Butt Records 1981 Butt/Bright Also 002(BRL201)
Gary Gilmore's Eyes added after Great British Mistake.

There's also a white label test pressing of one of the Fire Records releases - FIRELP 143.
No gatefold sleeve, came in 2 card board Fire Record company sleeves with Artist, Title, Cat. No. and Disc 1/Disc 2 added in marker pen.