1983: Want

Every afternoon after lunch, we were free until 5.30. It was meant to be a time when you went of and did activities and in fact I think those few hours were actually called Activities. There was no activities for me except chain-smoking with my mates in the downstairs common room, where there was pool and a Pacman machine and a telly.

I didn't watch much TV over the two years I was a boarder. Only TOTP, The Tube and The Young Ones were regular favourites, though I do remember catching things like Miss World and Threads, you know, important TV landmarks. But the telly blared away in the corner all afternoon, so it was possible to catch bits of things like Blockbusters and Razzamatazz.

The latter often caught my attention. I remember being mesmerized by Kate Bush doing There Goes A Tenner, and until only a couple of weeks ago wondered if the leaping man I'd seen in front of Vince Clarke singing a song I couldn't identify for 29 years was an early incarnation of Erasure or perhaps an unrealeased single by The Assembly. Turns out it was someone called Robert Marlow, who, to my surprise, recorded all sorts of records with Clarke as a kind of post-Assembly prototype Erasure and was friends with Depeche Mode. It all makes sense now.

These small slices of perfect electropop are treasures that have remained buried for way too long. The Face Of Dorian Gray is a hit that never was, and as for No Heart, it's a total gem. I'm so thrilled to find them at last I'm going to post them all. And look, I even found that Razzamatazz performance of the song I now know to be I Just Want To Dance. I had to convert the YouTube clips to MP3s as they don't seem to be on itunes or CD. But surely it's only a matter time before these forgotten classics see the light of day again.

The campaign starts here.