Description

TV Smith was founder member, singer and songwriter for the Adverts, who formed in late 1976, and became one of the leading bands in the first wave of British punk rock. In early 1977, they performed regularly at the newly-opened Roxy Club in London, and gained cult success with the Stiff Records single "One Chord Wonders." Their next release, "Gary Gilmore's Eyes" became a hit record, leading to many radio and TV appearances and extensive media interest. A further single, 'No Time To Be 21,' also entered the charts, and the band spent the rest of the year playing live, including major tours with The Damned and Iggy Pop.

The album that followed in early 1978, "Crossing the Red Sea with the Adverts," is still considered a genuine classic of the era and is often cited as one of the twenty best punk albums ever released. The Adverts released one further album, 'Cast Of Thousands,' before they split in 1979. Slammed by the critics at the time, the album was re-released recently to universal acclaim, and described by Mojo magazine as 'the long lost punk album that rivals The Clash's 'London Calling'.'

Immediately after the break up of The Adverts, TV formed TV Smith's Explorers, who achieved a U.K. hit in 1980 with the single 'Tomahawk Cruise' and released one album, 'Last Words Of The Great Explorer' a year later. Lack of commercial success led to the band being dropped by their record label and their subsequent split.

TV re-entered the live arena in 1986 with Cheap, before performing his first gigs as a solo artist in the early '90's. He has gone on to release a succession of great albums, and has also been involved in a number of collaborations with other bands, most notably with German superstars Die Toten Hosen, who performed as TV's backing band on the album 'Useless.' His latest album, titled 'Land Of The Overdose' has been d escribed by Invicta magazine as 'the album of his career,' and Fireworks magazine as 'simply stunning,' 'Land Of The Overdose' was voted 10th best album of the year in Vive Le Rock. Fiercely independent and determinedly embodying the original spirit of punk rock, TV continues to tour the world, bringing his epic solo show to ever-increasing audiences. Remarkably, he plays his concerts without a setlist and every performance contains a different selection of songs chosen on the night. He plays more than 100 gigs a year and has performed in 32 countries, including most of Europe, as well as the USA, Japan, Australia, South America, Russia - and even Heligoland. Not content with playing live, TV has also has written about his on-the-road experiences in five books of highly popular Tour Diaries, described by 'Sandman' and 'American Gods' author Neil Gaiman as, 'hilarious, honest and incredibly true.'

In 2017 TV's first ever book of lyrics was published by Foruli Codex. Exquisitely designed by Cure designer Andy Vella, and entitled 'The Alternative Top 50,' the book comprises fifty of TV's best lyrics. It is available as a conventional paperback, as well as an exclusive collectors' hardback edition which includes a 10' vinyl single recorded with Henry Rollins. A full-length BBC 4 documentary on TV Smith titled 'We Who Wait: TV Smith & The Adverts' is still available for viewing on You Tube etc.

TV's very special guest tonight is Richard Strange, the Cabaret Futura./Doctors Of Madness ( 'The missing link between David Bowie and The Sex Pistols...' -The Guardian) guy, a towering figure in a Post Velvets/Pre Punk/Post Punk world of poetically imbued and powerfully realized art rock. Writer, musician, composer, nightclub host, curator, actor and all round adventurer, performing with TV Smith and solo, with a wealth of old Doctorrs material to source, not to mention the Best Of Year Poll winning 2019 Doctors comeback album 'Dark Times', which is an absolute triumph of artful, emotive rock noir and a suitably jaundiced thermometer reading on today's troubled world.

Cosmic Ninja - Brizzle band doing doing fat/phat metallic rawk via nicely psychedelicized dreamo pop with rap-rocky elements too and a surging positivity amidst a little punk rock rancour ...loving the nigh on happy hardcore keys. Oh and... 'They like to shout about politics, equality and all things queer!' Cool. Great presence in the shape of singer Tamsin upfront too.

Description

The Bell is a historic free house and music pub on the edge of Bath city centre: it is owned by 518 of its customers, fans and workers under IPS CoOperative rules. We finally bought the pub on July 2nd 2013. We have live music three times a week ranging from jazz to blues to folk to other things- check out the free band listings and What's On page, open mic nights on thursday, plus vinyl DJ nights at the weekend - always free!

We stock seven real ales plus two guest ales. We are in the Guardian and Observer guides to summer pubs as well as the Lonely Planet, Rough Guide, the Good Beer Guide and Le Guide du Routard. For your amusement we have table football, bar billiards (Mon - Weds), Pool, chess, backgammon, free wi-fi, a real fire and even a launderette! Every Sunday afternoon we have The Pizza Bike preparing and serving freshly made, wood-fired pizza in the garden from 12.30pm-7pm

103 Walcot Street,

Bath,

Somerset,

England,

BA1 5BW.

07722184103

thebellthebellinnbath.co.uk