Part of an irregular series of bite-sized posts about 7″ singles I own – shameless nostalgia from the days of vinyl. (Search ‘Backtracking’ to collect the set!)
THE CORTINAS – Fascist Dictator / Television Families” (Step Forward, 1977)
Cover image by Jill Furmanovsky.
On the day Berlusconi won a vote of confidence for this toe-rag government, this seems like the right choice for today’s backtrack since it targets Il Cavaliere’s twin stock-in-trades of fascism and lame TV ‘entertainment’.
The Bristol-based band were a short-lived phenomenon who with the benefit of hindsight, frankly, not very good. The single is very much of its time and hasn’t dated well.
It was their debut single and I bought at a time when I was grabbing any half way decent punk tune I heard on John Peel.
They got to record a session for Peelie and almost made a front cover of Sniffin’ Glue, so they had their fifteen minutes of fame. However, their one and only album bombed and then they were no more.
On the cover shot the five guys are adopting appropriately sullen poses and look more like Mods than Punks.
