Press, Press, Press, Press, Press.

NME 5th May 1998

RICKY SPONTANE

SPONTANE TIME (Old Eagle)

You mean you've never heard of Ricky Spontane!? God, like, how uncool! This is the debut from a throbbingly hot (if hideously ramshackle) Manc (sic) combo who crudely hammer rockabilly, skiffle, Jarvo-esque English lyrical whimsy and a post-Elvis / pre-Beatles early-'60s Britpop Mk 1 sensibility to the chugga- thumpa buzzsaw skippety-hop of primitive punk pop.

There are 16 tracks here and a couple of them, inevitably, are weak and feeble things that should have been left out on the hillside to die. But others - like 'I've Been Looking', 'Stop Paddling', 'The Dull Towns Of England' (imagine The Smiths if Morrissey had been brutally killed in a car accident on his way to audition) - are instant classics that you, your friends and your family will cherish forever and ever. More accurately, the Spontane recall the unmitigated genius of early-'80s rock gods The Nightingales (back before 'indie' became a euphemism for 'shite'). We are - in a nutshell - talking 'sinisterly whimsical' Oxfam shop pop. The stench of fresh sweat and mothballs. Can't be bad.

Ricky Spontane know instinctively why the trademark 'rickets' dance made popular by Freddie Garrity, out of 'wacky' early-'60s novelty pop combo Freddie & The Dreamers, is at least as important a British pop signifier as the lyrics to 'Eleanor Rigby' or the classic Sid Vish 'muscle' photo currently being used to advertise a posh person's frock shop. ALL HAIL RICKY SPONTANE!

7 / 10

Steven Wells

MELODY MAKER 7th November 1998

SINGLE OF THE WEEK

RICKY SPONTANE / BAXENDALE

'HIT THE TOWN' / 'BATTERY ACID' (Full Strength)

REVIEWED BY THE BOO RADLEYS

Hosted by Carl Loben

CL : Split single on seven-inch vinyl - huzzah! - has Ricky Spontane coming over like a lo-fi Magazine, and Baxendale swooning through a Pulp-esque number with a side-helping of Jacques Brel and (gulp!) The Shirehorses. Refreshingly great.

Martin Carr : "Most of these records we've been playing have got a real stylised production, and the Ricky Spontane one is just 'Shout the same words again and again'"

Sice : "It's f***ing fun, that's what it is"

Martin : "I saw 'em both down at the Bull & Gate recently - I live just down the road from it. They play together quite a lot. Baxendale are quite like the Pet Shop Boys, and I love 'em"

Sice : "Or Giorgio Moroder. Bedsit Giorgio Moroder, it is."

Martin : "It hasn't been A&Red or marketed, it's not glossy at all. It's what a pop single should be all about. You don't have to have a dead tuneful chorus - just shout the title 10 times and you've got it. F*** it, Single Of The Week. There's nothing in here as good."

NME 7th November 1998

RICKY SPONTANE / BAXENDALE

'HIT THE TOWN' / 'BATTERY ACID' (Full Strength)

Ricky Spontane are the Liverpudlian garage punk behemoths it's OK to snog during your first date. Following the path of groovy excess paved by their album 'Spontane Time', 'Hit The Town' is a ramshackle desultory ram raid on the best song Mark E. Smith never got round to writing in 1982 - y'know, guitars by Hendrix and a bank clerk, glitterstomp drumming and a tart-as-Marmite vocal performance from a man called Richard who realises that the best pop choruses simply involve repeating the title over and over again. Such a perfectly formed chunk of slagpile wisdom, in fact, that we really ought to pass over Baxendale on the flipside for fear of spoiling the genius aftertaste.

Keith Cameron

NME 8th July 2000

Various Artists - "Liverpool " (Plastic Cowboy Recordings)

A naff-postcard-pastiching cover containing a seven-incher featuring four Liverpool bands which is only reviewed so we can write a witty, concise and informative monograph on the origins of the amusing 'Scouse' accent. Come with us to the dark heart of the dank slums of Liverpool in 1875! See that fat and flyblown old whore stroking an opium-doped and off-white miniature poodle? She's the 'madam' of the Temple Of Rational Mirth! What is it? It's a helium den! Giant galvanising rods straight out of a Frankenstein movie spark and crackle angrily. A filthy pig's bladder fills with helium. You pay the cheap slap-plastered, poodle-stroking pipe-smoker a shiny penny and take a long, deep hit and - Bob's yer uncle! You're talking Scouse! Saying, "Dem Cheermans bombed our fochkin' chipeeee, la!" and suchlike. And this is true because my good mate Margi Clarke went down the Liverpool Central Library and looked it up. So there. As for the music - Clinic's 'Sketch' is amusingly minimalist, mildly pretentious and utterly fucking useless. That's literally useless. Like there is nothing you can do with or to this music except stroke your chin gingerly and murmur , "It's a bit clever this isn't it?" Big hit with the red-Biro sucking eggheads of the NME office posse, this. The Beales' 'Love Over Gold' sounds like The Fall's 'Rowche Rumble' on no drugs whatsoever - not even caffeine or fags. Which means of course that it is absolutely brilliant because there is nothing wrong with being unimaginative and unoriginal and derivative just so long as the cadavers that you are digging up and skullfucking 'till they squeak are those of unmitigated geniuses. Like Mark E Smith. Who called me a lickspittle recently. The wanker. Kling Klang's wittily titled 'Untitiled@33rpm' is just a plain old waste-of-plastic-gets-boring-after-ten-seconds art-wank in-joke - but is none the worse for that. While Ricky Spontane's 'Get Friendly' is a Smiths meets Fall downtown soundclash refereed by Herman's Hermits and featuring an amusing and not at all like really, really fucking irritating Bis-style primitive synth approximation of the an out of kilter two-step drum riff. So Ricky Spontane win.

Steven Wells