Another Coke. Alternative TV. 1978. Deptford Fun City Records.

 The B-side of the signature Alternative TV single Action Time Vision is a live blues called Another Coke. Sniffing Glue fanzine creator Mark Perry executes with spleen and vigor an inspired stream of consciousness screed about the disgust of living in a commodified world filled with corruption. Very little escapes his attention, but the song’s focus is specifically on commodifying the details of one’s life for sale. According to Perry, the process begins at a very young age, when you’re taught to convert your desires into flattery and seduction and, ultimately, the act of sex itself. We’re conditioned then, by our corrupt world, to reduce the experience into a relatable meaning—preferably rich in “depth”—that some of us will then convert into purchasable literature, with the intention of selling it on the open market like so much “health food restaurant apple juice.” What really counts about Another Coke is the live performance tension created by the group and Perry, and which captures the aggressive textures of an urban street encounter with a coked up stranger whose gifts for rhythmic, obsessive discourse draw you in to a spontaneous critique of the class driven dynamic behind the retail hustle. Another Coke is the record of a time and a place whose attitudes about art and commerce prophesied the essence of our current age of social media vitriol and self-promotion, and greeted this brave new world with typical British punk humor and scorn. Relatable depth may vary.

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