Bass player with The Adverts, Gaye Black is the first female punk star. In an interview with Jeffrey Munday about 10 years ago, Gaye recounts her punkgirl musical development:
“I started with the Beatles when I was very young, and the Stones, Who, Kinks etc, then Black Sabbath and Led Zepplin, then when I got to about 13 I got into Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart and stuff like David Peel and the Lower East Side, then got a bit varied – a bit of Bowie, Cockney Rebel, Bob Marley, Herbie Hancock, Alice Cooper, Velvet Underground, then discovered New York Dolls, Iggy, MC5, and onto punk. There was a lot more, but that’s a very condensed version of my musical journey up to the age of 19.”
In the interview, Gaye Black goes on to talk about Top of The Pops. She shared our desperate teen hope for something better.
“TOTP was more faked up than you would realise from watching the shows; it was interesting to see how it worked after watching it for so many years in the hope that there’d be at least one decent band on each week.”
The Adverts on Top of The Pops 1977