Part Time Punks

"Part Time Punks"
Single by Television Personalities
Released	1980
Genre	Post Punk Indie rock
Length	2:37
Label	Rough Trade
Songwriter(s)	Dan Tracey
Television Personalities singles chronology
"14th Floor" (1978) "Part Time Punks" (1980) "I Know Where Syd Barrett Lives" (1981)

"Part Time Punks" is a song by the English post-punk group Television Personalities. Written in 1978 by band leader and vocalist Dan Treacy, it was released as a single in 1980 on Rough Trade Records. The record features Treacy, fellow teenager and school friend Ed Ball, and drummer Mark Sheppard.

"Part Time Punks" was first released as part of their 1978 four-song EP "Where's Bill Grundy Now?". Treacy self-financed the EP, in part with a loan from his parents. He had intended to release the song as a single immediately after but was unable to afford to press the 7-inch singles. When a copy of the track was picked up by the BBC DJ John Peel, Treacy was offered a number of record deals before eventually signing with Rough Trade. Their 1980 release of the single brought the Television Personalities to prominence within the then emerging independent music scene, selling an estimated 27,000 copies in its first year.

The lyrics are a humour-infused satire of the late-comer, fashion-oriented, “plastic” punks who emerged c 1979 after the English punk rock movement emerged from the underground and went mainstream, especially after Bill Grundy's infamous live TV interview with the Sex Pistols on the 'Today' programme in 1976, during which the band swore and after which the TV host was fired from the ITV network.

Recording and distribution

Treacy formed the Television Personalities after hearing the Sex Pistols and Jonathan Richman. Unconventional by nature, he has said that at the time, he was not that much interested in music and that the band rarely rehearsed. He avoided preparing set lists for live performances, preferring to keep the band "on their toes". Head remembers "us rehearsing once in late 1983. We did another one five years later, and that was about it." The band struggled to decide on a name; early suggestions included the names of well known but old fashioned television hosts such as Nicholas Parsons, Russell Harty, Bruce Forsyth and Hughie Green. Eventually they decided on the more generic "Television Personalities".

While still a teenager, and with financial assistance from his parents, paid out of pocket for the 1978 recording of the Television Personalities debut EP "Where's Bill Grundy Now?". He intended to release "Part Time Punks" as a single, but having after the recording and mastering, realised during the test pressing that he would be unable to afford to generate enough copies of the single qualify for a release. The initial pressings left him with just two copies, one of which he sent to the influential BBC radio DJ John Peel, who played it repeatedly. On the strength of the song, he offered the band a Peel Session, which they recorded at BBC Radio 1 on 20 August 1980, but wanting to display their newer songs, omitted "Part Time Punks". Peel, who was very orientated towards singles throughout his career, was disappointed when he heard that the song had been omitted but, noting the band's youth, remarked in good humour: "Oh, it's such a shame that children have to grow up".

As a result of this exposure, Tracey was contacted by a number of independent record labels offering to press and distribute the track. During this period he and Ball formed the Whaam! label, and released a number of further self-financed singles. This project was renamed "Dreamworld", after a cease and desist letter from legal representatives of George Michael, who paid an undisclosed sum to get the duo to choose a title different to Wham!. Treacy eventually signed with Geoff Travis' Rough Trade Records, who released the single in 1980. It became instantly popular, with the first 14,000 copies selling in 6 months and a further 13,000 pressed six months later. The song brought the band to attention abroad and led to tours and record sales in America, Germany and Holland.

Lyrics and style

The recorded version of the song is performed in Television Personalities' characteristic low-fi and deliberately shambolic style. Tracey sings in vernacular language with a pronounced London accent and a story-telling intonation. Adding to the deliberately amateurish tone, both Treacy and Ball seem to struggle to keep their vocal harmonies in tune.

The lyrics take a critical and ironic look at aspects of the evolution of punk rock from its underground beginnings in the mid-1970s into a more commercialised, fashionable and mainstream style. According to the music journalist Rob Young, the song reflects the "transference of the earnest imperatives behind punk rock into a pastiche", and satires "the cartoon-mohican punk rockers that had taken over the King's Road as helpless fashion victims ignorant of the founding spirit of punk rock." Author and journalist Lina Lecaro described the song as about poseurs and late adopters "who pound the pit or rock the look only on the weekend". Treacy re-explored the theme in 1995's -far darker- "I Was a Mod Before You Was a Mod".

Although the song mentions several contemporary people, bands and record labels, including John Peel, Siouxsie and the Banshees and Rough Trade Records, it wasn't intended to criticise them directly, more to, in the words of critic Ian Birch, highlight "the kind of unthinking acceptance that people can adopt towards figureheads." Asked in a 1980 interview with Sounds magazine if he was once a part-time punk, Treacy said: "Oh Christ yeah, I'm the worst of the lot. Up to about six months ago I was just like everybody else. If there was a review in Sounds saying this is a good album I'd go and but it...The other night I was looking over the road, not with me telescope, and there was actually someone pogoing in their bedroom. That's when I realised everybody takes it too seriously."

Influence and reception

The song has been widely influential, with elements of its style adopted by bands such as Belle and Sebastian and Arctic Monkeys. Part Time Punks appears on the 1995 Television Personalities early singles and B-sides compilation "Yes Darling, But Is It Art". The 1999 'Best of' album "Part Time Punks: The Very Best Of Television Personalities" was titled after the song.

The music critic Kelefa Sanneh said of the song, "Dan Treacy led what sounded like a bedroom sing-along, poking fun of young people practising their punk moves at home. The verses were rather judgmental, but by the time he got to the chorus, Treacy sounded more like a small boy watching a delightful parade."

Sources

• Cavanagh, David. The Creation Records Story: My Magpie Eyes Are Hungry for the Prize. London: Virgin Books, 2000. ISBN 0-7535-0645-9
• Robb, John. Punk Rock: An Oral History. London: Ebury Press, 2006. ISBN 0-09-190511-7
• Weisbard, Eric. Spin Alternative Record Guide. New York: Vintage Books, 1996. ISBN 978-0-6797-5574-6
• Young, Rob. Rough Trade: Labels Unlimited. London: Black Dog Publishing, 2006. ISBN 978-1-9047-7247-7