The Leyton Buzzards: Saturday Night Beneath the Plastic Palm Trees.

Four John Peel sessions and an appearance on Top of the Pops suggests they were quite big. But like a lot of punk/new wave bands at the time they seemed big to me because I was living in that world. I liked the Leyton Buzzards and owned a couple of singles – which I wish I still had. A pub-rock band that morphed into punk/new wave. The big hit – Saturday Night Beneath the Plastic Palm Trees – was a particular favourite of mine at the time – 1979.

Saturday night was very much to my taste, being punk/reggae. I liked reggae then and I like reggae now, and a number of punk/new wave bands were recording punk/reggae tracks at the time – favourites of mine include by The Members, The Ruts, The Clash – but there were many others.

Listen to British Justice on Jellied Eels to Record Decks. Sounds vaguely like one of my all-time favourites – Offshore Banking Business by The Members. Both are politically charged and just as relevant now as they were then.

Leyton Buzzards at the LSE

Yes! The band played at LSE – Saturday 1st March 1980 – as headliners on a Rock Against Racism gig. I lived in Leytonstone at the time, so it was on the Central Line to Holborn for the LSE. Those were the days. We could probably do with something like RAR now…

The Buzzards disbanded in 1980 – I am not sure exactly when, but quite possibly not long after this gig. They morphed into Modern Romance, which was not really my taste at all, but electro-disco became big in the 1980’s.