Cowboys International®

Cowboys International® was a short lived, super tight, kaleidoscopically fantastic project from that liminal period in British music when punk, post-punk, new wave and new pop were all swirling around in some sort of fertile, hazily defined stew. Unconcerned with where one genre ended and another began, songwriter Ken Lockie, unsung genius if there ever was one, got together a group of players that included Keith Levene (PiL) and Terry Chimes (The Clash) to record 1979's The Original Sin. The album was named a Melody Maker top 20 album that year, but it didn't make the lasting, meteor-sized impact it should have, and after it's initial release was out of print for more than 20 years.

Thanks to some cosmic benevolence, a few years ago Lockie released an expanded reissue of album titled Revisited, ensuring that you can get your grubby hands on it today. Terry fucking Chimes man, he really seals the deal here - the drumming is amazing. And the production (even on CD) makes the ears warm like a whiff of poppers.

Cowboys International - Aftermath (Radio Mix)
Cowboys International - Future Noise
Cowboys International - Many Times (Revised)
Cowboys International - Wish
Cowboys International - Here Comes A Saturday

The rest of the album is as good if not better than the tracks above - you can and should buy it at CD Baby.

Bonerus:

Shortly after the release of this album the Cowboys dissolved and Lockie, after a brief and unproductive stint playing keyboard for PiL, moved to New York, where he apparently got swept up in the downtown dance scene as Dominatrix.

Dominatrix - The Dominatrix Sleeps Tonight (1984)