"Part Time Punks" is a song recorded in 1978 by the English mod revival and post-punk group Television Personalities. It was written by the band's leader and vocalist Dan Treacy and performed by Treacy and fellow teenager and school friends Ed Ball (guitar) and Mark Sheppard (drums). The lyrics satirise the late-comer, fashion-oriented, so-called "plastic" punks who appeared after the English punk rock movement became mainstream.
"Part Time Punks" was initially released as part of the 1978 four-song EP "Where's Bill Grundy Now?". Treacy financed the EP's recording through a loan from his parents. He had intended to release the song as a single, but due to a miscalculation of costs, and was only able to press two test copies. After the track was picked up by the BBC DJ John Peel, Treacy was offered a number of record deals before signing with Rough Trade, who released the song as a single in 1980.
The song brought TVPs to prominence within the then-emerging independent music scene. The record sleeve contained both do-it-yourself instructions and a breakdown of the single's recording and distribution costs. "Part Time Punks" sold an estimated 27,000 copies in its first year. However, Treacy came to regard the track as a millstone and somewhat of a novelty song.
Background
The Television Personalities' vocalist and songwriter Dan Treacy was born and raised in Beaufort Market on the King's Road in central London.[1] Their apartment was located opposite Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren's "Sex" boutique (later kown as "The World's End"), which specialised in clothes that are often viewed as establishing the aesthetic of the punk movement.[2] He was thus aware as a young teenager of punk rock from its first beginnings. He said of living across from the Sex boutique: "my mum used to do their dry cleaning...you see all the stats up here. I must see Steve Jones five times a week. Gene October. They all go in there, Charlie Watts, Diana Dors".[3] Through her contacts at Sesx Treacy's mother was able to get him a job working at Led Zeppelin's label Swan Song, where he acted as a gopher, which he said mainly involved "running errands carrying cocaine up and down the Fulham Palace Road".[4]
Treacy formed the band after hearing the Sex Pistols.[4] Unconventional by nature, he has admitted that he was not very interested in music at the time and that the band rarely rehearsed.[5]
The band struggled to decide on a name; early suggestions included the names of well-known but by then old-fashioned UK TV hosts such as Nicholas Parsons, Russell Harty, Bruce Forsyth and Hughie Green. They eventually decided on the related but generic "Television Personalities".[4]
Recording and distribution
The track was written by the band's leader and vocalist Dan Treacy.[6]
Dan Treacy performing with the Television Personalities in Japan, April 1994.
Treacy borrowed £18 from his parents to record off-peak at a small studio in Hammersmith, London. The first tracks recorded were "14th Floor" and "Oxford Street". Both songs were well received, while "14th Floor" was chosen for airplay by The Clash's singer Joe Strummer during guest appearances on John Peel's influential BBC Radio 1 evening show.[4]
The band decided to record a four-track EP, eventually title Where's Bill Grundy Now? and consisting of "Part Time Punks", the title track, "Happy Families" and "Posing at the Roundhouse".[7]
Treacy wanted to release Part Time Punks as a single. However, he misjudged production costs, and after the recording and mastering were complete, he was unable to press any vinyl copies and was left with only two acetates.[8][9] He sent a copy to John Peel, who played the track four times over the following 12 months and offered the band a Peel Session.[9][10] Peel was dissapointed when he heard that the song had been left out of the session in favour of newer material, he remarked on air: "Oh, it's such a shame that children have to grow up".[11]
As a result of this exposure, Treacy was contacted by Geoff Travis, founder of Rough Trade Records, who agreed to release the single in 1980.[12] The record reached the UK Independent Chart, selling 14,000 copies in the first six months, leading to a further pressing of 13,000 copies. The song brought the band international attention and led to tours of America, Germany and Holland.[9]
He and Ball formed their own Independent record label "Whaam! Records", and released several other self-financed singles.[13] However, the project had to be renamed "Dreamworld" after they received a cease and desist letter from legal representatives of George Michael of the pop group Wham!, who paid an undisclosed sum to get the duo to stop using the name.[14]
The song is recorded in Television Personalities' characteristic low-fi and deliberately shambolic style. Treacy's lyrics incorporate vernacular language and are sung with a pronounced London accent and a storytelling intonation. Adding to the amateurish tone, both Treacy and Ball appear to struggle with keeping their vocal harmonies in tune.[15]
The lyrics take a critical and satirical look at the evolution of punk rock from its underground beginnings in the mid-1970s to the more commercialised, mainstream late–1970s style.[16] According to the music critic Rob Young, the song reflects the "transference of the earnest imperatives behind punk rock into a pastiche" and satires "the cartoon-mohican punk rockers that had taken over the King's Road as helpless fashion victims ignorant of the founding spirit of punk rock."[17] Writing for LA Weekly in 2006, the critic Lina Lecaro described the song as criticising poseurs and late adopters "who rock the look only on the weekend".[18] Treacy re-explored the theme in the -far darker- title track of the 1995 album "I Was a Mod Before You Was a Mod".[14]
Part Time Punks mentions several contemporary bands, music industry people and record labels, including Siouxsie and the Banshees, John Peel and Rough Trade. However, Treacy has said that the song wasn't intended to criticise them directly. More so, in the words of critic Ian Birch, the song highlights "the kind of unthinking acceptance that people can adopt towards figureheads."[19] Asked in a 1980 interview with Sounds magazine if he was once a part-time punk, Treacy said: "Oh Christ yeah, I'm the worst of the lot. If there was a review in Sounds saying this is a good album I'd go and but it...The other night I was looking over the road, not with me telescope, and there was actually someone pogoing in their bedroom. That's when I realised everybody takes it too seriously."[3]
Release and aftermath
Treacy said in a 2010 interview that Part Time Punks and their following debut album "...And Don't the Kids Just Love It" were the band's most commercially successful releases. He said that at the time "I was absolutely minted, big record, big album. The money came too young. "Part Time Punks" done getting on 100,000, not that I see anything for it these days. I may do eventually."[20]
Reception and influence
Part Time Punks has become a cult hit[20] and has been widely influential. According to the writer Simon Reynolds is song acts as a self-referentialmeta critique addressing the nature of the punk movement itself.[21]
The writer Kelefa Sanneh said that with Part Time Punks, "Dan Treacy led what sounded like a bedroom sing-along, poking fun at young people practising their punk moves at home. The verses were rather judgmental, but by the time he got to the chorus, Treacy sounded more like a small boy watching a delightful parade."[22]
Elements of its style were adopted by UK indie bands such as Belle and Sebastian and Arctic Monkeys. It appeared on the 1995 TVP early singles and B-sides compilation "Yes Darling, But Is It Art",[23] while the 1999 'Best of' album "Part Time Punks: The Very Best Of Television Personalities" was titled after the song.[24]
Berton, Benjamin (2022). Dreamworld: The fabulous life of Daniel Treacy and his band Television Personalities. Mainz: Black Dog Publishing. ISBN978-3-9557-5621-5.
Birch, Ian (10 February 1979). "Rough Trade Records: The Humane Sell". Melody Maker.
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