Saints & Sinners

The Band

Johnny & The Self Abusers. The band's debut and only single released on the Chiswick label in 1977, by the time it was released they had split and were already recording as Simple Minds (named after a David Bowie lyric in the song 'Jean Genie'), John Milarky also quit soon afterwards and formed the band Cuban Heels.

Jim Kerr at the time a budding singer and lyricist and his friend from the age of 8 Charlie Burchill teamed up with the band's founder John Milarky, they brought with them several of their school friends, Brian McGee on drums and Tony Donald on Bass and Alan MacNeil on guitar.

Name Changes & Gigs

With punk verve they immediately changed their names (as most punk band members seemed to in the day). Milarky becoming 'Johnnie Plague', Kerr as 'Pripton Weird', MacNeil choosing 'Syd Syphilis' and Burchill as 'Charlie Argue'.

Their first gig was in a pub in Glasgow on Easter Monday 1977, a couple of weeks later they were supporting Generation X in Edinburgh.

Simple Minds...

Simple Minds went on to more synth based material and a bit of experimenting before they developed their 'stadium rock' gods sound which brought the world 'Don't You Forget About Me', 'Belfast Child' etc. Here they are with their first single from their 1979 album Life In A Day from the Old Grey Whistle Test from that year, to me they sound more than a little Roxy Music at this point in their careers.

...And Cuban Heels

Cuban Heels on the other hand adopted a slightly different approach

This is one of their songs, a cover from the old Petula Clarke number originally written by Tony Hatch and being a hit for Petula all the way back in 1964

The band were: