I didn't own a VCR in 1981, my first piece of kit lay 4 years in the future. Fortunately though, I knew a man who did. My mate had a rented Betamax machine. It was the size of a fridge, weighed a ton and took 40 minutes to rewind a tape, but after the pub it was all back to his place to watch his clunkily edited TOTP compilations, full to bursting with performances by the likes of Altered Images, Echo & the Bunnymen, The Jam and Teardrop Explodes. There was the occasional gem from the Old Grey Whistle Test too. We already knew Scars from the angular post-punk of the previous year's single 'They Came and Took Her', but nothing prepared us for the magnificent dark pop of 'All About You'. It became an instant Saturday night post-pub Betamax favourite. Watching the performance again in 2015 the band scream 1981 from the very core of their being, but listen to that song. Crank it up.
