Peter And The Test Tube Babies | Run Like Hell | (No Future) 1982

“Run Like Hell” / “Up Yer Bum” (No Future OI 15) July 1982

Peter And The Test Tube Babies | Run Like Hell | (No Future) 1982 | It’d take scores of Diana Dors to deal with the perturbing problems plaguing the life of Test-Tubes boss Pedros, a man (and I use the term approximately) with more skeletons in the closet than the Royal College Of Surgeons.

Consider, the space of four fab recordings he’s been battered silly by Teds, banned from every pub in the Western hemisphere, tragically duped by a rampant transvestite, and now, well, let Pete tell you himself.

‘I was down the local disco getting off with this girl’, the spotty herbert reveals in the spoken intro. ‘Things were going really good, going really well/We were alone in a corner, kissing, and then I heard/This bloke come up behind me and say/0I, YOU! — THAT’S MY BIRD . . .

Peter And The Test Tube Babies | Run Like Hell | ( No Future) 1982

And then Peacehaven’s wildest explode into a spirited, nay, epical punk riff and the song bowls along as desperate and fast-moving as a tight-rope walker with diarrhoea, as Pete unfolds his yobbo sob story and his own Italian Army approved ‘if in doubt, let it’ philosophy.

As Dury remarked, a sense of humour is required amongst the bacon rind, and the Test-Tubes are unique for the nonce because of their realisation of same, and their ability to marry the giggles with powerful modern punk.

Their street-level soap operas are such bonzer beano bonanzas that only lack of airplay prevents them from becoming a household name — like Domestos.

If the Gonads had been any good, they would have sounded like this. (Sounds, 10/07/82)Token punk reviews coming up. Like most No-Future-label records, which all have letters “Oi” before the serial numbers, Peter and his TTBs’ new one goes blah! blah! blah! blah! (with the emphasis on the exclamation marks), and very quickly, and to no particular effect. Still the Babies carry it all with some amount of humour, which is something, I guess. Worth a smirk. But worth a quid? (NME, 17/07/82) 

Ah, this bunch sound like an unhealthy lot – drinking man’s punk, basic honest bash and thrash complete with bar room humour. I’m reliably informed that this crowd are what is known as Herberts, an interesting social phenomena invented by Gaz Bushell, and here they tell the tragic story of every day life down the disco. I actually quite liked it. (Noise! magazine, July 1982)