1979 was the year I
got into buying and studying fanzines. That had a lot to do with Maximum
Speed, the main mod publication, which that year was particularly
high-profile and prolific. I recall a time when I should have been studying for
my Mock O Levels but was sat reading Issue No. 9 of Maximum Speed
instead. My copy is long-gone but one thing that stayed with me from that
fanzine was a piece about a new group whose reference points were the Velvets
and Television. For all sorts of reasons, I got to the stage where I figured
I’d imagined it.
But no, I finally got round to researching this, thanks to the British Library, and sure enough there is mention (in what was the final issue) of The Afenders, supporting The Chords at Eric’s in Liverpool, who were “young, smart” and “surprisingly good.” The visiting Maximum Speed editors added: “It’s pretty obvious that their influences come from the Velvet Underground and they use guitar lines that could have been lifted off Television’s great Marquee Moon LP.” So, there you go. There’s hope for me yet.
