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Music history comes alive. Forgotten favourites & undiscovered gems from the rock, soul & reggae archive and a few of the stories behind them. Your host is Simon Tesler, former publisher and editor of 1980s music, media and pop culture magazine BLITZ.
Hello, 2026! This is Simon Tesler with more great sounds from the Music Archive. The theme of this week's show is ANIMALS. Cats and horses, a white rabbit, some snakes and even a monkey or two. We'll hear from Kate Bush, Tom Jones, Squeeze, Patti Smith and many more, but first some dogs... with Screaming Blue Messiahs and then Adam & The Ants.
Now, Adam & The Ants you know, I'm sure. But do you know Screaming Blue Messiahs? They were a three piece outfit in the mid to late 80s playing what can only be described as "rockabilly from hell". That was Tracking The Dog from the first of their three albums, Good & Gone. A great band live too. Frontman and vocalist Bill Carter was quite something to watch -- he'd play guitar with his fingers and no pick, and would give the instrument such a beating that he'd break a string every couple of numbers, leaving the guitar spattered with blood. Amazing.
I can offer no explanation for the lyrics of Tracking The Dog, or indeed for Adam & The Ants' Dog Eat Dog. That was their breakthrough single in 1980, the opening track from the Kings Of The Wild Frontier album. We all know what the phrase Dog Eat Dog means but it's hard to tie that up with any of the other lyrics in the song. What we can say, though, is that the title might refer in some way to the brutal bust-up Adam had just experienced at the hands of former Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren.
Just after the recording of his Dirk Wears White Sox album the previous year, Adam asked McLaren to become his manager. A deal was agreed but almost immediately afterwards, McLaren persuaded the three members of Adam & The Ants to dump their leader and start a new band with 13-year-old Annabella Lwin as their singer. That was Bow Wow Wow. Dog Eat Dog indeed. However, Adam had the last laugh, assembling a new band from scratch in a matter of months, and writing and recording a spectacularly impressive album that made him one of the most commercially successful stars of the early 1980s, totally eclipsing his former friends and colleagues in Bow Wow Wow.
Time for some cats now. First up, Tom Jones and then rockabilly revivalists The Stray Cats.
That was Tom Jones' title song from the 1965 screwball comedy What's New Pussycat? The song was composed by the unmatched writing team of Burt Bacharach and Hal David. And then Stray Cat Strut from Stray Cats, three American guys in their 20s who first found success in the UK in the 80s with a retro sound that paid homage to the likes of Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent. Indeed in 1987, Stray Cats leader Brian Setzer made a cameo appearance playing his idol Cochran in the movie La Bamba, about another classic rocker Ritchie Valens.
More cats now -- in a few minutes, the Presidents Of The United States of America with the splendid Kitty from their debut album. But first, Squeeze -- no not Cool For Cats -- which would just be too obvious, guys -- but their very first UK single from 1977, Cat On A Wall.
Love that song. Now for three classic American acts, and a horse, a rabbit and some snakes. First up, the folk rock trio America, with the song that made them famous in 1972, from their self-titled debut album. There's a common misconception that the singer is Neil Young. It's not of course, but guitarist and vocalist Dewey Bunnell. After that Jefferson Airplane with the wonderful White Rabbit, written and sung by Grace Slick. And finally Frank Zappa with Baby Snakes from the Sheik Yerbouti album. First though, A Horse With No Name.
Another mixed bag of animal crackers now, with a lobster and two monkeys. First up, the debut single by three guys and two girls from Athens, Georgia, The B-52s. It's Rock Lobster of course. Has there ever been another song with the word lobster in the title? As well as namechecking a jelly fish, a dogfish, a narwhal and a piranha. Another bizarre fact about Rock Lobster is that, in the unlikeliest of coincidences, it's the song that inspired John Lennon to start making music again in the late 1970s after his effective retirement in 1974. He told Rolling Stone in 1980, "I was in a dance club one night in Bermuda. Upstairs they were playing disco and downstairs I suddenly heard Rock Lobster by The B-52s for the first time." He told them it reminded him of the music his wife Yoko Ono made. "I said to meself, 'It's time to get out the old axe and wake the wife up!". The result was the album Double Fantasy, released in November 1980, shortly before his sad death. After the B-52s, two monkeys from Pixies and Peter Gabriel but first Rock Lobster.
After Rock Lobster, that was This Monkey's Gone To Heaven from the second album by Pixies, Doolittle. The band was formed by singer and songwriter Black Francis and guitarist Joey Santiago in 1986. They put an ad in the paper saying they were looking for a bassplayer who liked both the folk act Peter Paul & Mary and alt-rockers Husker Du. Only one person answered the ad, Kim Deal, who had never played bass before, but she got the gig anyway, and the band selected the name Pixies entirely at random out of the dictionary. One of those oddball origin stories that make rock and roll such a wonderful world. And after that, of course, Shock The Monkey by Peter Gabriel.
To close the show, three amazing and powerful female musicians. First up, the incomparable Kate Bush with the wonderful title track from her 1986 album The Hounds Of Love. After that, arguably the most influential female recording artist of the past 50 years Patti Smith with an abbreviated version of the track Land, from her debut album Horses, which segues from her poem Horses to a version of the soul classic Land Of A Thousand Dances.
And finally another extraordinary musician but from the 21st century, Florence Welch of Florence & The Machine. I'm kind of cheating here, because Dog Days Are Over is not really a song about dogs at all, but hey that's artistic license guys. It's actually inspired by a giant artwork by Ugo Rondinone that was installed on the side of London's Hayward Gallery near Waterloo Bridge that Florence Welch cycled past every day in 2007.
That's all for this week. I'm Simon Tesler. Thanks for joining me for another deep dive into the music archive. I hope you'll join me again next Wednesday for another great selection of forgotten favourites and undiscovered gems. See you then!