The Pits
One Hell Of A Kiss (Hurt, 1980)
No info. Hell, no label! For years, this one was prompting much head-scratching amongst those whose wallet-busting cash offers had been turned down by the count-them-on-one-hand collectors who actually had a copy. No-one knew where their copy had come from, and no-one had a clue about the band - the little gold sticker on the label-space (there's not even a blank label... how mysterious is that?) gave nothing away.
I'd heard rumour of this little nugget for a couple of years before I actually got hold of one and instantly realised that the no-nothing got-it-won't-sell-it pluggers had all the while been missing a simple trick: what's on the other side? "Terminal Tokyo"... wait there, that rings a bell... wasn't that a track on one of those old 'Seeds' comps Cherry Red did years ago, by a band called Garage Class? Indeed so. It's the same record. Dig out the old Garage Class single and, lo-and-behold, "One Hell Of A Kiss" is on the B-side. It's not even a different pressing. The only difference is that the Garage Class single has a p/s and doesn't feature the little sticker identifying the band as The Pits.
So anyway, it turns out that the band was originally called The Pits and knocked up a batch of singles to wow gen.pub. with, but only really got as far as doing the odd bit of promo-mailing and selling copies down the youth club. All part of their masterplan, see, which was revolving around the fabulous sure-to-be wealth-making artistic statement that was their "Up The Ass" cassette release. At some point, however, the band decided to ditch their Pits guise and, whacking a modern-looking pic sleeve on the remaining copies (which, face it, were just about all of them), stuck it out 'again' under the name of Garage Class. Still flopped miserably, but somehow managed to find its way onto the Cherry Red comp, a quirk of fate no-one seems to be able to explain.
Why hadn't anyone who actually owned the record made the Pits / Garage Class connection before? Beats me. Fucking obvious if the thing's sitting there in front of you and you have half a right to call yourself a punk con-o'sewer. Still, never mind.
It wasn't long before the Garage Class name gave way to The Happy Refugees and our heroes made a new single (like, a new single - not the same one with a different sleeve again), even managing a whole album this time. When that came to an end, the band members assumed that their punk rock pasts had been long-forgotten... until 20+ years later when I'm on the phone asking about "Up The Ass" (got a copy in the end: it's highly entertaining in a post-Velvets pre-homework-then-early-bed-cos-it's-a-schoolnight kinda way. Good stuff which should someday see vinyl.).
(Note: not the same Pits wot made a single on Zilch, for those who are perusing Volume.)
