Formed by Edwin Pouncey in the Spring of 1977 “because there was a talent night at the Royal College Of Art”, their first gig ended (like so many of their other gigs) in a fight, to disguise their lack of material. Someone there offered them a gig for money so a set of 10 songs was quickly cobbled together.

More gigs followed. Ricky Slaughter left to join The Motors, Robert Gotobed went to Wire and the line-up stabilised to include the nucleus of Edwin Pouncey, Steve Spear and Marion Fudger.

A hippie guy and his stripper girlfriend who ran a record shop in the basement of Kensington Market decided to start a label and approached the Art Attacks. They released the 7,500 selling “I Am A Dalek” b/w “Neutron Bomb” single, but the relationship terminated when the stripper appeared on stage semi-naked and decided to whip an unamused Edwin.

Their next foray into the studio was to record the classic “Arabs In ‘Arrads” for the first ever punk rock compilation album, “Streets” on Beggars Banquet.

Suffering from stage fright, Edwin would only appear on-stage when inebriated. Each performance was unpredictable. Aside from the frequent fights, there was one occasion when Edwin climbed inside the kick drum and refused to perform, and once when he invited a tramp to ramble meaninglessly into the microphone, rather than sing himself.

Tours with The Lurkers, Generation X, The Motors and Rock Against Racism followed, as did two live tracks “Animal Bondage” and “Frankenstein’s Heartbeat” on the “Live At The Vortex” album. The pressures of finishing their degrees terminated the band and the posthumous “Punk Rock Stars” b/w “Rat City” single was released.

On 16th January 1979 the Art Attacks released their second and sadly posthumous single ‘First and Last’ on Fresh Records.

The A side was “Punk Rock Stars” and featured the drumming of Robert Gotobed from Wire. The B side was “Rat City“.

The A side was recorded in 1978 before they split in March of that year, while the B side was recorded in 1977.

The artwork was designed by Edwin Pouncey aka Savage Pencil, lead singer of the band.

After they split Edwin Pouncey, Marion Fudger and Steve Spear would form The Tagmemics who released one single ‘Chimneys’ on the Index label in 1980.

Unquestionably a punk rock classic, the single is now highly collectable, has featured on many official and unofficial punk rock compilations and has been long overdue an official reissue so in 2022, in conjunction with the band, Overground Records have released a limited reissue of 500 copies on silver vinyl which losely reproduces the original sleeve and label artwork.

Label: Overground Records