Was the world ever ready for Thomas Leer? Listening back to Thomas’s The Scale Of Ten one can hear all the potential there. It’s this theme of tweaking a recipe. Here it was to make his once abrasive, experimental blue-eyed soul into a chromed-out beast, outfitted in Fairlight CMI clothing, permeating with giant-sized hooks. In 1985, this once industrial and noise darling, commanded the attention of Trevor Horn and tried to make the unlikely leap into Pop stardom.

On The Scale Of Ten we get the pure, unadulterated stuff: Thomas as torch singer for the hardest, darkest times where a little abrasive roughness around the edges works much better to take the scum off. Don’t you know, not everything is a laughing matter.

London, 1979. From the rubble and ashes of punk a new youth cult was emerging. Divinely inspired by David Bowie, Roxy Music and Kraftwerk, a new tribe the press started labelling New Romantics, or Futurists, discarded punk’s old hat claims towards authenticity and protest, in pursuit of glamour, make up, dressing up and dancing. Their home was The Blitz Club, a tiny wine bar at the edge of Covent Garden and what went on there between 1979 and 1980 would genuinely change the world. The other name for this cult? Blitz Kids.

Without necessarily knowing it, The Blitz was birthing the next wave of British pop stars. A young Boy George ran the cloakroom, its host and doorman was a young Steve Strange, soon to be the frontman of Visage, Spandau Ballet played their first gig there and on a given night you might find yourself dancing next to a member of Ultravox. Fashion designers in Regency ballgowns mingled with secretaries in rubber, post boys dressed as Biggles danced next to art school kids dressed as Pierrot. David Bowie assembled his extras for the ‘Ashes To Ashes’ video from the Blitz kids. Mick Jagger was refused entry. Too square.

And the club had a mighty soundtrack, assembled painstakingly by its resident DJ Rusty Egan. Rusty’s sets brought together heroes like Brian Eno, Iggy Pop, and Lou Reed cool European electronic pioneers like Kraftwerk, Telex and Yello, the electronic side of disco Cerrone, Hot Chocolate, Amanda Lear and cutting edge film soundtracks from the likes of Vangelis, Giorgio Moroder and Barry De Vorzon. Rusty also span the nascent sounds of Britian’s next new wave Japan, Landscape, the Human League, Visage, Ultravox, Fad Gadget…

Compiled exhaustively from his DJ sets, ‘Rusty Egan Presents The Blitz’ brings together the sounds of a night at the club circa 1980 on either 66 track 4CD or 36 track 4LP sets. Beautifully presented with contemporary photography from Sheila Rock, Peter Ashworth and Terry Smith, the booklets also contain sleeve notes from Alexis Petridis and Rusty Egan himself.

"Rusty Egan - Blitzed!" is out Friday, 28th June 2024 on Demon Records and available for pre-order now.