Leyton Buzzards - "Saturday Night (Beneath The Plastic Palm Trees)" - (Chrysalis)

Leyton Buzzards – “Saturday Night (Beneath The Plastic Palm Trees)” c/w “Through With You” (Chrysalis)
Price:  $1.75
Leyton Buzzards put out one of my top 20 favorite UK singles with their first release, “19 And Mad”-on the venerable SMALL WONDER records. This record only came out one year later, but the time did not do the band any favors. Do sophomore slumps exist when a band only does singles? The song “Saturday Night…” is mediocre white British punks playing reggae. It’s worse than The Ruts, but it also has a Zeppelin-esque guitar solo.
However… The flip side is great! “Through With You” is less raw than anything on Small Wonder, but the song is a rager. The spit-fast vocals are delivered in a style that would make Mark E Smith jealous. Even with the campy guitar bridge, the song still feels punk. “Now I can do anything I wanna do!” repeated ad nauseum carrying over the chorus-pedal driven guitars feels much more like a dollar bin ripper than the Flock of Seagulls-haircut boys probably intended for it to be.

If you don’t have the cash to toss into the ring for some of the UK heavier hitters from this era (Carpettes, Cravats, etc) then this is a perfect single for you. An actual Dollar Bin Ripper! I gotta say, the cover is really really bad.

-RD