The Adverts: Singles Compilation (Get Back L.P.) When I was 18 I thought the Adverts were a bunch of posers. Now that I am much older and not so wiser I know that I was right but who cares? That was sort of the whole point of the punk thing. Just look at their pictures on the cover of this new reissue. Those buttons and that skinny tie! You can tell that a week (or an hour) before they heard the Sex Pistols, they were probably doing Deep Purple covers. They do not even bother to cut their hair very short for the photo session, so as to keep an ace in the hole for when this punk thing blows over in a month or so. Despite my doubts (and theirs) these guys were one of the best of the original punks. Tom Zarrilli and David Lindsay used to play “Gary Gilmore’s Eyes” on the King of Scholock show on WRFG! You do not get much more Quincy punk than that. Yet at the same time Karen Cook named her “real” punk rock show on WRAS, “Safety in Numbers”, after the B-side of the Adverts third 7”. All eight songs from side one (plus “Television’s Over” from side two) are perfect punk gems. These nine tunes are the band’s first four and one-half singles. I cannot think of many groups this side of Can capable of such consistency. The fact that the Adverts accomplished this over the course of a few months, does take away a bit from the Can comparison, but mentioning Can is another great punk tradition almost as hallowed as badly tied vintage neckties. One chord wonders indeed.