Athletico Spizz 80 - Do A Runner

1980 was the Moscow Olympics. In honour of this, Spizzenergi changed their name to Athletico Spizz 80.

I saw them at The Marquee at a lunchtime gig that was being filmed to promote this LP, I suppose. I would have been about 14. They were great. I still have one of the badges thrown out to the crowd.

In a funny sort of way, Jim Solar, the band's guitarist, taught me how to play a barre chord on guitar. I copied his fingering off a little instamatic photograph my sister had taken of him.

This was the band's major label make-it-big album, on A&M. It didn't really happen for them. Why the world didn't want a load of jerky, angular, stoppy-starty tunes set in Spizz's own imaginary future-world, I will never fathom.

Fast forward to 1989 or thereabouts and I'm walking into a rehearsal room in Hackney, in the middle of the afternoon, with my mate Paul to have a band practice, and there's a bloke putting up a big poster on the wall outside with a broom and a bucket of paste. It was for a Spizz comeback gig.

"Ooh Spizz!" I say.
"Yes, that's me," says the bloke. I say something like "Big fan" or whatever and go into the building. I look around and Spizz climbs into a little spaceship and flies away.

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