Athletico Spizz ’80

"A bit like Magazine with jokes"

Spizz Energy was formed January 1979 by vocalist/guitarist Spizz and changed its name every year –hence Athletico Spizz 80.

The review seems to sum up the contradictions for bands and audiences of the early post-punk landscape: stay “punk” and become conservative or try something different?

As for Spizz becoming a punk hero, it seems he still is. He’s still gigging under the Spizzenergi name and pleasing the old punks at events like the Rebellion festival.

ATHLETICO SPIZZ '80

Gatsbys, Liverpool

MELODY MAKER, August 9, 1980

ATHLETICO Spizz 80 may not be the future of rock 'n' roll but at least they don't sound like either a synthesizer or Elvis Costello.

Spizz has a reputation as an outsider and an eccentric, though it's hard to pin down the reason. If we go back three years, when Spizz (Oil) made his appearance, we remember a courageous cross between Mark Perry (who was somebody then) and Splodge (who was nobody); someone with no charisma, but just the ability to stick his neck out. Spizz moved from joke to cult figure to punk hero, and now is ready to move even further.

But for the time being, all the old incarnations are still there and if you look at the audience you realise it's Spizz as punk hero who's wanted tonight. It's easier to feel at home among a Spizz audience than among the beautiful young people who come to see the "Top Of The Pops" stars (visual perfection except for the chewing gum).

Opening tunes provoke reservations, however, echoing the new (comparative) sophistication of the album, and Spizz shouts almost tunefully above the jazz rock keyboards while he leers at the audience, a bit like Magazine with jokes.

Fortunately you can't hear many of the words, which were definitely too silly to print on the album sleeve, although occasional phrases about time-machines make themselves heard. Profundity is not their strongest point. Yet these innocent preoccupations are preferable to the empty rhetoric of others who wave the punk torch (most of whom haven't been around as long). And musically the band still show those qualities like vitality and momentum, once so common in the days when energy and pogoing went together in every journalist's notebook.

Is it enough? Watching the group, you spend most of the time waiting for something to happen. Then you realise that your feet are moving. Is that all they can offer? Spizz might be a breath of fresh air, but at the moment it's one that's blowing nowhere in particular.

Listen to Spizz

Where’s Captain Kirk? is probably the best known Spizz song. According to the Spizzenergi website, it was the first single to top the UK Indie Chart and decades later was included in Mojo magazine’s list of the 50 best punk rock singles of all time.