So it was a year ago today that I threw myself back into Sputnik fandom after taking a bit of a back seat for a few years. Yes it was a year ago today that Martin launched the Sci-Fi Superstars with the amazing gig at London’s Purple Turtle.

I sat down to write a bit of a ramble about the events of the last year for the site and my Facebook page. However it turned into a reflection on my life as a Sputnik fan since 1986. It’s been on Facebook since this morning and I now present it here. Well done if you manage to read through to the end.

SPUTNIK & I

“Switch that fucking shit off”

Or words to that effect.

Seems strange, unbelievable now for sure but that’s what I said to my mate when he kept playing Love Missile F1-11 over and over again. Back in the day, early 1986. So long ago now it seems like another lifetime. I was 15 and just starting to get into music and loving A-ha, The Pet Shop Boys, Dead Or Alive and Billy Idol.

I hated Sigue Sigue Sputnik. I hated that they were on every front cover, TV and radio show I watched or listened to. Hated the twat with fishnet tights on his head and the prat wearing the pink pineapple wig like he was going to some demented alternate version of Ascot. And why were there two other members of the band constantly sneering and trying to be some wannabe rip off Billy Idol clone?

Nope I hated Sigue Sigue Sputnik. I ripped out every picture my beloved Smash Hits ever printed of them. Record Mirror too. These guys were fucking everywhere.

March 1986. Seems like a dream now. Maybe I’m just a dreamer.

Then the band did the one thing everyone thought they wouldn’t. They had another hit single. 21st Century Boy. Ok it didn’t set the charts alight like the previous single did but it did earn them a Top Of The Pops appearance. I saw that, sat in my darkened room with my tiny little black and white portable TV. They were the first band on and they almost got switched off. Almost. But hang on……shit I’m kinda liking this, much poppier sounding than the first one. That’s what I thought at the time anyway. I rang the previously mentioned friend afterwards to tell him. He took the piss. “It sounds exactly the same as the first one, you can’t like one without the other surely?”

Yeah surely not hey?

So off I went into town and picked up every SSS record I could my grubby little mitts on. I came home with the both 7”s, the 12” of 21st Century Boy, the purple sleeve 12” of Love Missile and the soundtrack 12” with the posters.

I played the 21st Century Boy records first. My Dad came in and said something about having brought home some really weird shit. Guess they weren’t so bad after all then. Then I played the soundtrack 12”. And that’s when my real love for Sigue Sigue Sputnik was born. I adored movie soundtracks and dialogue even then and that mixture of soundtrack, electro, punk and sci-fi imagery finally drove home with me. These were the best band ever.

Suddenly my Ah-a posters looked old, I wanted Sputnik on my wall. Ah-a came down. I went round my mates who lived next door and rampaged through all his recent music mags. By the end of the day I had two walls covered with Sputnik and Hack Attack was driving my folks mad.

I’d come to the party and little late. Well probably after most people had left it to be honest. I knew even then that being a fan of this band was something really special. With no internet and hardly any like minded people around it was quite a lonely existence.

Flaunt It was released. I flew up town that day I tell ya. About 10 of my mates crammed into my little room to hear it that afternoon. Not bad for a sleepy Norfolk village and a band no-one liked. Deep down I was disappointed with it. I wanted to hear eight Love Missiles. We all know now why the album sounded like it but at the time I think I was the one who liked it the least out of the 10 of us. Not that I’d ever admit to it.

Still I persevered with it. Sex Bomb Boogie got played the most. I felt somehow vindicated when the Sci-Fi Sex Stars ep was released. This is what the album should have sounded like. I wanted to shout it from the school roof but only one of my friends gave a shit by then. To everyone else Sputnik were already has-beens.

I had a ticket for the Royal Albert Hall show. I have no memory of how I got it. Think it was from a mate’s mate’s brother’s flatmate or something. I dunno. I had no idea how I was gonna get to London on a Thursday night or how I was gonna find my way round even if I did get there. Then my Mother found out I had the ticket. To cut a long story short I didn’t go. Didn’t even get to keep the ticket. Yes folks I was one of the many with a ticket that never turned up.

My one friend who still shared my love of Sputnik moved away in early ’87. I pressed on with being a fan, joined the club and got all the letters but it was getting hard to support a band that, on the face of it, was doing nothing. I left school and got a job and really got into heavy metal and beer. When I got Twisted Sister’s album that year I asked about Sputnik in the record shop and was told they were long gone. Why wouldn’t I believe the guy? Didn’t stop me playing my Sigue Sigue records to myself, being pissed off when Westworld had a couple of hits that sounded like Sputnik cast offs or being the proud person in the record shop yelling “me” when the guy behind the counter yelled out “who wanted this Sigue Sigue Sputnik CD?” Yes CD’s had arrived. Don’t think they could believe someone wanted one.

So by Autumn 1988 I was well into Billy Idol, Alice Cooper and Twisted Sister and getting pissed every weekend. Sputnik were still on my wall and I was getting Melody Maker every week.

Melody Maker announced the imminent return of Sigue Sigue Sputnik. I cried. Real big fucking tears, unashamedly. New single, album and tour dates. I’ve still got the clipping, like many of you have I’m sure.

Fucking hell the day Success was released. I got out off work early, rocketed around to the record shop. “Gimme it on every format you have”. Well that was easy as only the 7” and 12” came out week one. I’d have to wait for the remix 12”, CD single and picture disc. Still waiting for the picture disc!!!

Got home, played it, hated it. HATED IT!!!!! It was well publicised that Sputnik had worked with Stock, Aitken and Waterman on this song but I believed that even they couldn’t fuck around with the Sputnik sound too much. Wrong!!! Sputnik had sold out!!! Well that’s what I thought until I flipped that single over. Frankenstein Cha Cha Cha. Man that got played and played. This was proper Sputnik. More please and I was rewarded when the CD single arrived later with The Last Temptation Of Sputnik as a bonus track. By then I’d kinda warmed to the single mix of Success but I couldn’t stand the acid mixes of Success and that stands to this day.

After all that hype the single got to no.33 and I heard it on the radio once. Great. Worse was to come as we all know. Each single sold a little less than the previous. How Dancerama wasn’t a hit I will never know. Why Albinoni Vs Star Wars was picked as a single I will also never know. None of these singles had the Sputnik sound about them. Dress For Excess came and went, spending just one week on the album chart here and the proposed double album version was abandoned altogether. I loved it, especially Jayne Mansfield of course. Several low key shows and then a short tour helped try to promote these releases. Most of the shows were sold out shell shockers. Pity the attendees never actually brought the records.

By the time Rio Rocks came out my local shop had told the EMI person who delivered the new releases that they had a customer who brought Sputty records week one. The Samba 12” came a week after the rest of the versions and mine had a little post it note attached to front. The EMI rep had thanked me for supporting the band and gave me an early heads up that they were about to be dropped.

Well at least I knew before reading it in the press. By this time I’d met SputnikFred (having been introduced by the friend who’d fucked off back in early’87, he moved to another town and fell in with another Sputnik fanatic, poor soul). So me and Fred lamented the future of Sputnik. Still all was not dead as the band quickly announced plans to release an album of demos.

The First Generation was released sometime in 1990, don’t remember exactly when. My favourite record shop in town couldn’t get it, Great start. The other shop in town did. I like to say that by age 20 I was over rushing home at a million miles an hour to play it. I could say that but it would be a fucking lie. I must have played the thing through over and over again for weeks and weeks. Checking the press constantly for news of Sputnik’s next move.

And that move was? Well the announcement that Martin would no longer be recording with Sputnik and was working on a solo album. By this time Tony was with Sisters and Chris with BAD II so Sputnik were effectively dead anyway so it wasn’t so bad.

It took about a year to be released and then another few weeks to actually get a copy. None of the shops in town could get it. I ordered it direct in the end. It turned up one Saturday morning much to the delight of my girlfriend who was over for the weekend and made me switch it off after one song. Can you believe I married this girl??? World War Four was a real slow burner for me, while it now holds a special place in my heart it’s never been as Sputnik sounding as it could have been and funnily enough Nuclear Powered Sex Machine remains my favourite track to this day.

Martin’s promises of tours and further releases came to nothing. Probably not helped by a total lack of support by the record company.

Sputnik were dead. I promised myself that if ever there was a chance to see Sputnik live I’d grab it with both hands. Yeah fat chance of that. I moved on.

I got quite into Britpop in the mid 90’s. I didn’t give a shit who was better out of Blur or Oasis. Pulp were my boys (and girl). I was so into them, they were the band that finally made me pack my Sputnik stuff up. I let them go. I did a pretty mean impression of Meat Loaf doing an impression of Jarvis Cocker back then. Probably still could but would choose not too these days.

Sputnik The Next Generation kinda passed me by. I believe SputnikFred did tell me about it but I wasn’t that interested. Although I love the album now at the time musically it really was Pulp or nothing.

1998. Pulp’s mainstream bubble had burst. I got married and became a father. Good days indeed and sitting in our family home one night the phone rings and it’s (once again) SputnikFred wanting to know if I had access to the internet which at the time I didn’t. He tells me to check out Sputnikworld.com and that our beloved Sputnik were back.

Well I guess we all felt the same when we read that site. It all came flooding back. The Ultimate 12” collection was quickly ordered, my old Sputnik collection was dusted off and brought back to life. ’98 became ’99 with promises of a new album and live dates. We waited and waited and nothing came other than progress reports on the recording of the album. Closest thing to a Sputnik gig I got was dancing round my front room with Jnr to Sputnik at maximum volume which was a nightly occurrence I assure you.

We all survived the millennium bug as the naughties began. Very early in 2000 came the news I thought would never come. Sputnik playing 4 gigs. London, Whitby, London and Sheffield. My old promise to myself surfaced and I quickly made plans to be at the first London show with SputnikFred. Electrofest 2000. Yeah the wife put as stop to that, the reason is lost in time now although she suggested a weekend away the following weekend to Whitby so I could see the band there and have a nice family weekend.

That’s how April 29th 2000 became the day I’d been waiting for since seeing 21st Century Boy on that black and white TV all those years before. It was amazing, standing right in front of Tony James for the whole show. Old material mixed with new perfectly. And they went down a storm.

By the end of July I had seen Sputnik 3 times, Whitby, Sheffield and London. There was a massive Sputnik online community at that time, yet no-one was posting gig reviews and photos. I had written reviews of my three gigs for myself and decided to share them with everyone. This led to the eventual launch of The Sputnik Surgery website the day before the release of Piratespace and the Covent Garden gig. Dr Sputnik was born.

The following 4 and a half years were amazing, travelling the length and breadth of Britain following Sputnik and meeting the most fantastic people. Sputnik fans are the best in the world. I had people putting me up for the night, taking me for meals, giving me records and videos. All because of my big and simple website I put together with no skills at all. I’m not name checking people here, chances are if you’re reading this our paths have crossed at some point.

So come the end of 2004 Martin had left the band to continue on his own, Tony and Neal played a 7 or 8 date tour of the UK but then fell very silent. By then I had seen Sputnik 35 times. Not being too impressed with the line-ups Martin was playing with from 2005 onwards my interest did start to wane. With nothing to review and not wanting my site to just repeat information from elsewhere I felt The Sputnik Surgery had become irrelevant and eventually took the decision to take it offline. I was still there on the forums lurking in the background but to all intents and purposes Doc had hung up his hat.

During the latter months of 2008 Martin started releasing CD’s of demo tracks from sessions for Prophet Of Freak. Some of these tracks were pretty good and made me wonder what would be on the album if stuff this good was being rejected. OK some of it wasn’t as good but all new material was well received. Finally, on Easter Saturday 2009 Prophet Of Freak was made available as a download. Burnt it to CD and played it loud and was blown away by it. To me the album catches the Sputnik sound perfectly although I know others disagree. Martin announced a London gig to promote the album and I knew the time was right for seeing them again. Ok it wasn’t under the Sputnik name but that night in London was awesome. I caught up with loads of people I’d not seen in 5 years. It was like no time had passed at all. The band rocked and before the last note was played I knew the website had to come back.

That night was one year ago today.

Still big and simple. That describes me and the site. I’m not into flashy looking sites that have nothing to say. You can visit me, read the bits that interest you then leave. I relaunched with my review of The Purple Turtle show and then spent the rest of the year slowly re-adding all my old gig reviews and pictures as well as some of the other old content.

Shortly after this gig Martin formed Sigue Sigue Sputnik Electronic, a Suicide/Soft Cell version of the band that has been playing venues in the UK, Europe and South Africa. I’ve been to 5 Sputnik Electronic gigs so far with more on the way as well as the (hopefully) imminent release of Flaunt It and Dress For Excess Electronic albums.

So it’s been a year since Doc’s rebirth. I’m so pleased that as we enter the second decade of the 21st Century there is still life in and an audience for the Sputnik sound. I’m still hooking up with my old gigging buddies at these shows as well as meeting fabulous new people too. Everyone is as amazing as ever, it’s humbling to have such good friends. I love you all.

And the counter on the site keeps clocking up hits and I’m grateful for each and every visit. Do sign the guestbook if you haven’t already done so. I love knowing who you guys are. Visits from all over the world. Not bad for a site built from the first 4 chapters of The Idiots Guide To Building A Webpage and operated from a box room in sleepy Norfolk.

So going into the second half of 2010 and beyond I’d like to see

• New Sputnik Electronic material as well as more renditions of classic tracks.
• Another album from the Sci-Fi Superstars.
• GIGS!!!!!! Including one in Norfolk please.
• Tony and Neal to tread the boards. I’ve not forgotten these guys. I miss them loads and hope they at least play together as Sputnik just one last time.

As I said, maybe I am just a dreamer.

The old school mate I mentioned at the start of this ramble now works with me and still takes the piss because I didn’t like Love Missile back in the day.

“Switch that fucking shit off”

Never.

ANYONE FOR SAXILBY?

Fancy heading to Lincolnshire in August? We’re looking to stage a Sputnik Electronic show in Saxilby, Lincoln, UK sometime in August. We have a venue ready to book and I’m currently trying to get some idea of how many people would like to come. As far as I know the gig will not have an admission fee. Please e mail me if you’d be up for this and we’ll see what we can get sorted. Do it soon though we need to know. Thank you.

MORE MP3'S

I have two new mp3’s available to download for free. Both are covers of Sputnik tracks.

First up, from several years back now, the only completed track from an aborted attempt to put together a Sputnik fans with bands covers album. This lot hailed from Derby if I remember correctly. They were called The Stance and they out-Sputniked Sputnik with this superb cover of Everybody Loves U. To download click HERE.

The other track is brand new and hot off the press. Just sent over from those Cyber Glamsters The DiscoKingz is their cover of Sigue Sigue Sputnik’s Pussywhipper. Now just in case you’re scratching your head it’s one of three tracks that Sputnik released following Martin’s departure. I believe Pussywhipper was only available on an album released in conjunction with the I Remember The 80’s website. So anyway here is DiscoKingz brand new 2010 version of the track. I really like this and hope to hear more from them in the future. Hell I’ve still got Cyberspace Lova on my ipod. To download click HERE. "PUSSYWHIPPER 2010" a DiscoKingz production, programed/produced by Paul Fitzgerald & Stephen Buxey, Lead vox - Paul, backing Vox Cheryl Burton. Additional backing vox - Steve.

Until next time take care guys,

Doc

SUNDAY 9TH MAY 2010