Otway* & Barrett* – DK 50/80

It’s been 41 years since I heard the song “DK 50/80” on WORJ-FM’s Import Hour one evening in 1980. Upon hearing the track I was rooted to the spot. It truly sounded like nothing I’d ever heard in my then scant 17 years. The sound of that song has reverberated [to put it mildly] in my cranium ever since. And yet, I’ve never owned a copy of it. Why? Maybe the fact that I’ve never seen a copy has much to do with this! But after half a lifetime of, let’s not beat around the bush here, obsession with it, I think the time has past to buy a copy. Last night I cracked and found it in iTunes store for $0.99! [but I still want a hard copy on 7" - it's how I normally fly]

The single opened with backwards tapes of female backing vocals that truly set the stage for anything to happen next. Wild Willy Barrett’s screaming fuzztone guitar then kicked in over a frantic, four-on-the-floor beat. Then the song reached hysteric levels of strangeness [and charm] once Otway began tersely singing. This is because every word he uttered throughout the song had been doubled with delay so that the lyrics effectively repeated twice, with each word – with the exception of the final word in each couplet that was drawn out!

There’s no bass, only synthesizers playing garage rock riffs over what I can only typify as amphetamine synth-punk sounding completely apart from the 1980 music scene that surrounded it. It doesn’t sound like anything that belongs anywhere at any time. Net result? Pure adrenalin rush and nothing but thrills, baby, thrills!

“Very [very] quickly [quickly] we are [we are] getting [getting]
Very [very] nearly [nearly] nineteen [nineteen] eighty [eighty]
foooooour!
Every [every] body [body] getting [getting] worried [worried]
Someone’s [someone’s] gonna [gonna] start a [start a] ‘nother [‘nother]
waaaaaaar!”

With Otway more successful in concert than on the charts, Polydor pulled a genius move in promoting this single so that the only way to gain entry to Otway’s summer 1980 tour was to buy the single. Entry was reserved solely for those with single in hand! A genius move… and one that got the single to #45 in the UK charts; Otway’s highest showing [at that time]. Except that with Otway and his band not generating income to tour, corners had to be cut somewhere; hence The “Tent Tour” that saw Otway and band camping across the UK that summer!

This single excites me because the first time you hear it, it makes no sense what so ever. It’s so left field and off the wall that it makes almost everything else sound staid by comparison. I find that I have a real penchant for material that makes a break with linear coherence. This song is doubly stimulating because while the music is rigid, fast, and methodical, the words are deliberately obscured and shadowy. Thus the single stimulates both the left and right hemispheres of my brain equally in a way that few records can… and fewer even attempt!

Mine is stamped in red and signed by both on pic sleeve from the Sheffield gig I went to. It also has the x on the label. Great gig!

I've just noticed the label area has an X scratched into it. Presumably to stop multiple people using the same copy of the record to get into the gig. It was a long time ago and I'm now thinking the deal was; Free entry if you bring along your DK50/80 seven.
Hence the sleeve stamping and label marking.

Around the time this came out the band were on the "Tent Tour". To get into the gigs you had to bring a copy of this single with you! This was then stamped "DK 50 , 80 TENt TOUR" and you were allowed to come in and BUY a ticket! Mine is stamped in red.