Bad Manners

Led by enormous, bald-headed, high octane front man Buster Bloodvessel, Bad Manners became an institution of the ska punk scene in the early 1980s and infiltrated the charts with a string of boisterous, bouncy pop hits. Formed in 1976 by a gang of North London school friends, they latched on to the 2 Tone scene that linked punk's DIY adrenaline rush with the ska and reggae music Jamaican immigrants had brought to Britain. With Bloodvessel gurning, poking his tongue out and leaping around the stage, the band was thrust onto television shows such as Tiswas and Top of the Pops and became a fun, cartoonish face of the skinhead scene. Early singles Lip Up Fatty and Ne-Ne Na-Na Na-Na Nu-Nu became great anthems for the band, and they went on to score Top 10 hits with Special Brew, Can Can, Walking In Sunshine and My Girl Lollipop, while album Gosh...It's Bad Manners (1981) made the Top 20. Still performing to a loyal following across the world, Bloodvessel opened a hotel in Margate, Kent in the 1990s but now lives on a canal boat in Hayes, Middlesex.