Shame it’s hasn’t happened. That’s Futura in light blue polo on stage with them in the video, confirmed here! Mad and ultimately sad story.
What a sad and interesting story about Shoot The Pump. Thanks @GrimsbyRiviera and @TheBadger
Nice!
Reminds me a bit of Super Hans’ line about Allen Ginsberg in this clip from Peep Show
Was just listening to this - must be the most accessible Rip Rig & Panic track. Play this and people are bound to ask who the vocalist is…
We haven’t had any Human League yet. Plenty of big hitters to avoid, so maybe this early b-side instead. Heard John Peel play it when it first came out (Jan 80, apparently), thought it sounded amazing.
Would have been just before their involvement with Martin Rushent. I heard that it was intended as a homage to Tom Baker’s Dr Who character who had just been killed off / ‘regenerated’. Great image on the reverse of the sleeve, too ![]()
A couple more to add:
An Adrian Sherwood production from 1982, it has a real Grace Jones vibe to it. She was a NY-based performance artist, I think. The only copy that I’ve ever seen is the one I own, so I’m guessing that it isn’t very common.
An early Thompson Twins dub mix that (to the best of my knowledge) only came out on a freebie cassette issued by music mag New Musical Express. I wish it was available in another format as it’s a big improvement on the original imho.
Edit: here’s the original for anyone who isn’t familiar with it…
@Supersquishee You really should try to get a warm-up slot! There are some great suggestions on this thread
I know this is not 80s, but your posting of Rip, Rig & Panic made me all nostalgic for Neneh.
Anyhow, this is a bit of an overlooked gem.
Yes, that’s a great track ![]()
Talking of Neneh Cherry and ‘alternative 80s’, remember the original 1987 blueprint for Buffalo Stance?!
The story i heard was that when they got dropped by Stock Aitken Waterman, McVey nicked the master tapes then reproduced the track with a few embellishments and a revised vocal, and gave the keyboard player a credit in place of SAW - which seems fair enough!
that Judy Nylon track is fantastic!
The whole album is worth checking out. That’s probably my favourite track, but there’s only a couple of others from the album on YT ![]()
Not heard that before!
And adding to the chain of influence … the “Of all the boys, in the bar, the buffalos are the best by far” line was borrowed from the start this mix of Princess - After The Love Has Gone
Jamie Morgan and Cameron McVey where models for an agency called Buffalo. I think Jamie was a photographer too.
The story as i understand it is:
Morgan + McVey were faces around town - Jamie had a career as a photographer and also did a bit of modeling, I’m less clear about Cameron. Anyway, in a classic example of bandwagon-jumping by SAW they signed the duo to be a cool-looking boyband referencing the then-current ‘Buffalo’ fashionista style. The band cut a single track (“Looking Good Diving”) which was released as a single and promptly bombed - leading to them being unceremoniously dropped by SAW. The only redeeming feature of the single was the b-side - this was a stripped-down version of the a-side which, during some studio downtime, had been reworked by some friends of Cameron’s girlfriend Neneh Cherry. Those friends were Nellee Hooper, Daddy G and Mushroom. They gave a hip-hop twist to the instrumental and Neneh did an unrehearsed freestyle rap over the top. They got CBS to stick it on the flip of “Looking Good Diving”. It should have been titled ’ “Looking Good Diving” - Morgan McVey with The Wild Bunch’, but due to a transcription error it ended up being titled “Looking Good Diving With The Wild Bunch”.
After SAW dropped them, Cameron reworked the instrumental, got Neneh to work up her freestyle rap and that formed the basis for her breakthrough with Contempo. SAW had given themselves a writing credit to Looking Good Diving, but their input was considered to have contributed to the track’s failure, so Buffalo Stance was only credited to Morgan/McVey/Cherry plus the keyboard player who created the main riff.
Never noticed that! She was an SAW protégé too, of course. I think it might even go back to Buffalo Gals, though I’m still a bit vague about the whole ‘Buffalo’ style thing.
Buffalo style seemed a very London-centric fashionista phenomenon, but I was living in Dorset and hated what I saw as the cool self-importance of the London fashion scene epitomized in my eyes by The Face (my hatred possibly being motivated to some degree by jealousy or insecurity on my own part).
I’m not sure of a connection between “Buffalo Gals” and the Buffalo boys. A lot of Malcolm McLaren’s music seemd to conveniently correspond with Vivienne Westwood’s current clothes collections, like the pirate and apache look for Bow Wow Wow, but it was always a slightly flouncy, cartoon-y style.
The Buffalo boys thing was more po-faced. Vintage Levis and original US flying jackets over buttoned-up denim jackets over white shirts, and there was probably another essential layer under those. Absolutely sweltering in a club but I guess they didn’t dance much.
As for SAW. Behind the stream of shiny pop hits they had a second line of actually pretty-good pastiches of what Jam & Lewis where doing with the likes of the SOS Band, especially with the dubs and remixes. Not really things to post here in the “alternative” 80s, however … Bow Wow Wow in full Worlds End pirate regalia:
It’s only just occured to me that the Buffalo Gals look was based on Appalachian mountain hillbillies which wasn’t terrain where you’d encounter herds of buffalo.
This is probably old hat to you, but iirc Adam & The Ants were on the cusp of getting signed to CBS and Adam asked McLaren to manage them on their way to stardom. Within about 2 weeks McLaren had unceremoniously sacked Adam from his own band, replaced him with Annabella, and took the new/old band straight to Virgin leaving Adam with nothing more than his name…
Was intending to add some Bow Wow Wow to this thread - but you beat me to it ![]()
This gets my vote (b to ‘Go Wild…’):

