The Only Ones

If someone were to ask me to name my favorite period in rock music, I would probably say the late 70s. (Sadly no one ever asks me these kinds of questions, but I still hold out hope that someday someone will). I think this is for two reasons. First, the early 80s was when I fell in love with music, sneaking into my big brother’s bedroom to sample his impeccable collection of Ramones, Iggy, and Clash albums. Some of my favorite albums from this discovery period – Elvis Costello’s This Year’s Model, Blondie’s Parallel Lines, The Buzzcocks’ Another Music in a Different Kitchen – were released a few years earlier, in 1978. Second, I think there was a tremendous energy and freshness to the rock music of that period. Punk had broken through the bloat of stadium rock and the beat of disco in the mid 70s, and the bands that followed incorporated the attack of punk with a pop sensibility. So when I saw a new issue of Mojo Classic called “New Wave Special: 1978 (30th Anniversary)" at Barnes & Noble, I had to pick it up. More than just a good read, it turned me on to a band I had never heard of before – the Only Ones.

The Only Ones meet of all of my requirements for a great undiscovered band from the past – they have a sound that is completely of its period coupled with songs that hold up well today, a dramatic personal story of drug use and squandered opportunities, a start-to-finish classic album and poppy hit song (“Another Girl, Another Planet”), and the courtesy to break up after only three years without leaving a trail of terrible recordings in their wake. Hailing from London, the Only Ones were together from 1977 to 1981, and only recently reformed in 2007 after cell phone company Vodaphone used “Another Girl, Another Planet” in a U.K. commercial.

The members of the Only Ones had diverse musical backgrounds, and definitely didn’t fit the typical profile of the band that saw the Ramones at the Roundhouse and decided to pick up guitars. Soulful-looking lead singer and songwriter Peter Perrett was a Lou Reed/Bob Dylan fan, guitarist John Perry had been traveling with the scene around psychedelic band the Pink Fairies, bass player Alan Mair had been in a Glaswegian group dubbed the “Scottish Beatles”, and drummer Mike Kellie was coming off stints with, of all people, Spooky Tooth and Frampton’s Camel. Unlike some of their “Class of 78” peers, the Only Ones can really play.

Their self-title debut album ranges from romantic ballad “The Whole of the Law” to brooding drug parable “The Beast” to the greatest Buzzcocks song the Buzzcocks never wrote “Language Problem” (featuring the lyric “I love my mother but I don’t want to have sex with her”). All of it is anchored by the nasal vocals of Perrett, whose voice falls somewhere between the sarcastic whine of Pete Shelley and the elegant croon of Richard Butler. Perrett is one of those singers whose voice is so distinctive that you feel as though the individual is singing directly to you, in Perrett’s case conveying both indifference and intelligence on the subjects of modern life and drugs. Kellie is a tornado on the drums, and Perry’s guitar reminds me of Television in the way it lays a busy scrawl on top of everything. (As I said to my husband Gregg, it’s as though the guitarist hadn’t learned yet that in this genre he’s not supposed to solo).

Sadly drugs were not just a lyrical concern for Peter Perrett, and both he and Perry had developed serious heroin habits in 1977. While Perrett’s heroin chic may have added to the decadent allure of the band, his story ultimately makes a strong cautionary tale. With serious musical success in his grasp, he and some of his bandmates fucked it all away on drugs, getting kicked off opening dates for the Who in 1980 and breaking up shortly thereafter. Perrett contracted hepatitis during a period that saw him transform from a promising musician with a drug problem to a fixated junkie and decades-long recluse. Twenty-eight years later, Perrett remains an addict, with footage from recent shows revealing a skeletal and prematurely aged shell of a man who was among the most promising talents of the class of ’78.