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Vice Blog

LONDON - RECORDING THE TELEVISION PERSONALITIES

Today was a lot of fun. I'm just off the train from recording a song by one of the best groups there ever was:

Television Personalities

. Before today I'd never met Dan Treacy, the only constant member of the band.

Guy's been in a bit of trouble in the past

, but no point in going into that here.

Dan's actually a sweet guy, king of the one-liners ("I don't know of the middle 8. Is it somewhere off the north circular? I don't go there."), nailed his guitar and vocals in one take, changed about 90 percent of the words at the very last minute, went to sleep for a bit, then rolled back in to do a stylophone solo. There were daytime super-strength lagers, Doritos, electric sitars, lush psychedelic Ebow freakouts, Radiohead, and Titus Andronicus shout-outs on record. That's pretty much everything, and it was amazing to witness.

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It's as far away from how it was intended that it doesn't matter at all. I'll finish it and let you hear it soon. In the meantime here's my favourite song by them, "Silly Girl." It's taken from the classic

And Don't the Kids Just Love It

, which came out on Rough Trade in 1980.

Television Personalities - "Silly Girl"

RODAIDH MCDONALD