TV Smith @ Adelphi preview...

Old punks don't die. They just get angrier. Or they do if they happen to be TV Smith, former front man of The Adverts, who had a massive hit with Gary Gilmore's Eyes at the height of the punk era.

TV Smith plays the Adelphi on Thursday night. And, according to the singer-songwriter, sparks will fly.

"It's just me on stage, alone, but people won't miss a band, it's high energy, non-stop, full on 100 per cent energy," he says, with all the venom and the spirit of 1976 flying out of him. "Nobody does what I do, nobody else could do what I do, alone with a guitar."

TV, recently returned from a mini-tour of Germany, refuses to mellow out.
"Why should I?" he spits. "I've got no intention of mellowing out. Look at things out there, there's too much going on, too many troubling things and war going on out there. The gap between the rich and the poor is getting wider. The chance to get mellow would be nice but it's not going to happen."

TV makes John Lydon seem like a cuddly little teddy bear and creates the impression that he's ripped out his own heart and carved 4 Real on it.

After success with The Adverts, which included the classic album Crossing The Red Sea With The Adverts, TV Smith went solo, releasing acoustic album March of the Giants in the early 90s. This was the move that gave him the reputation of a politico acoustic troubadour. Since then, he's taken his brand of 'anti-folk' on tour across the world.

TV's played the Adelphi before and loves Paul Jackson's club.
"Jacko's a top bloke, really supportive of new talent, which is what's needed," says TV, who's releasing new album Misinformation Overload early next year. "The Adelphi's a good little venue. My whole thing is still based around playing live and I play at least 100 gigs every year. No two gigs are the same. I get up there, play Adverts songs, play my own songs, I decide what to play there and then. If I could play for three hours I would and very often do."

TV is also angry about the state of music today and hopes, in his small way, to put things right.
"People are bored with bland, commercial, faceless music. The music industry is trying to take control back by manufacturing everything but people catch on. Music is about real feelings, about your mentality and the way you think about the world, not about getting yourself on X-Factor. It's time we stopped the bull."

TV adds that his fan base is an ever-evolving group of people.
"I'm crossing generations these days. The old fans still come, they still believe but I'm always getting new people coming to see me. They bring their parents with them too. People really get what I'm trying to do because they know I'm genuine.”

Babyshambles - Down in Albion

Let's get this over with. Patrick Walden can't play a guitar solo to save his life; Kate Moss should never be allowed to sing under any circumstances; Mick Jones is an appalling producer.

So what of Doherty's solo-ish outing? It's a bloody shambolic racket, that's what it is. It's a depressing experience devoid of melody. It's an attempt to exorcise demons and prove his own worth, and it fails miserably on both counts. Yet it's also better than any of us expected.

Classic tunes? Well, it depends on how you define such nonsense. But Fuck Forever is a babbling piece of brilliance. Likewise, Albion demonstrates that Doherty has a sweet song beneath his smack-grey exterior. And I've been whistling Le Belle et la Bete ever since I heard it (indeed, without Moss's warblings, it would've reached out to a wider audience).

So, Pete, get a producer, a new guitarist capable of assisting in the tunesmithery, put down the crack pipe and you've got yourself a career.