Alternative TV / The Good Missionaries – Scars On Sunday CD

Alternative TV / The Good Missionaries – Scars On Sunday CD

Beyond this, the music here illustrates precisely how Mark led Alternative TV into wide open terrain sometimes far removed from rock music in its more generally accepted forms. As both proof of where music could be taken once unshackled from all notions of predictability and, indeed, just how far it could go into those realms usually reserved for the avant-garde, this was about as non-conformist as music could get this side of Mark’s beloved Throbbing Gristle at the time.

Originally recorded live at the Greenwich Theatre and The Lyceum and featuring lineups including Dennis Burns (bass), Dave George (percussion, guitar), Anno Graver (vocals), Henry Badowski (drums, sax), Gillian Hanna (vocals), Steve Jameson (bass) and Sam Dodson (guitar), besides Perry himself (vocals, guitar, sax, violin, keyboards), these sets aimed for the jugular as they confounded, enticed and ultimately gave the audiences far more than they’d anticipated.

Between the music of this period, the earlier more direct attacks and the subsequent sidesteps into clever songwriting or more electronically-driven pieces, Alternative TV have always embraced the idea of going to wherever they intuitively feel like in the given moment. Since this early period, the group has gone through lengthy periods of hibernation and surges of activity that together might not have served them so well in a careerist sense, but at least maintained their roles as artists possessed of integrity. A rare virtue in music.