40 YEARS AFTER . . .

In 1980 there was clearly defined and identified the peculiar and distinct individuality of Music from Portsmouth. Forty years later, South Specific is Music from Portsmouth, where it wants to be; it's not what you thought it was, that was then, this is it now. There's still air, salt and sand; but water is everywhere in Portsmouth, the island city, proud as punch, mate. It's time we compared how it was then to what is is now. So much has changed, where are the local bands today? What do they sing about? What are their ambitions? This is the ambition and destiny of South Specific 2020. Pompey bands now, discretely expressed alongside bands from two score years ago.

The old man at the bar finally spoke, after staring at his glass, for what seemed like far too long for such an activity. Taking a sip of his beer, he looked up and whispered “Art Daffodil, what sort of name is that?”, “I didn’t like the name Arthur, so I changed it” was my reply. The man returned to staring at his glass and I wondered what it was like to be 22 years old in 1980. I couldn’t remember. I do remember the record ‘South Specific’, I remember thinking the band Toxicomane should be on Top Of The Pops (a weekly BBC 1 TV programme featuring all the chart hits of the day, running from 1964 to 2006). They never were, but that memory has always stayed with me. 40 years later and I have read the album is being redone, it seems like a new set of bands will get a chance to etch themselves into the memory of at least one person and probably more. If I could be 22 years old again, I know what I would be doing.

Toxicomania is ‘an addiction to a drug’, I didn’t know that in 1980.