It's too late for all that. If this revolution ever takes off - and, boy, do we need it - it'll probably be fought on the TV or with floppy discs at ten paces. No-one has even dared to place any combo within this cage, but Portion Control have already picked the lock and are heading off on their own, pulsating, escape route.

A trip to Holland a couple of weeks or so back underlined the latest rules. This London-based trio aren't heavy enough to fit into the world according to Skidoo and there's not enough cow bells or Smurf voices for the funky crews. Portion Control fall somewhere in the middle.

But even that simple equation has its limitations. In the live arena, with schizophrenic glee, PC are quite removed from their vinyl interpretations.

"Live gigs are great because you get instant reaction. It's all a little bit rougher. People don't really expect us to behave the way we do."

There's no quiffs here. No moody, death factory, gas chamber graphics. Portion Control don't reverse into prolonged sessions of horrendous noise. They use the beat...But most of all they abuse the beat.

With Ian and John shrouded in shadow atop keyboards, mixers and electronic drums, the contrast - which makes PC all that much more important - comes with the frantic gesticulations and gruff bravado of front man Dean.

Throwing himself across the stage, into the front rows in true Iggy, more lately Fad Gadget-style, Dean threatens, berates, lectures and enlarges himself to the stature of an unpredictable spokesman, hurling torrents of provoking prose at the audience. This boy has charisma.

By the time you read this, the Portions will be headlong into a tour supporting Blancmange. It's difficult to envisage just what people will think of it.

"It's our first chance to do more than three dates in a row in this country, our first chance to play in front of reasonably sized audiences. We're not nervous, we're just determined to enjoy it, whatever happens."

That they'll enjoy themselves is a certainty and the possibility of opening a few eyes - and ears - is on the cards too. But quite a few people are already well aware of the gritty excesses of Portion Control through their record releases. After a brace of bits and pieces through In Phaze, they were collared by Illuminated last year and through three singles have managed to impress punters and promoters alike.

The most recent of these recordings comes in the shape of 'Go-Talk', a madhouse of strings, electronics, chants and rants splattered onto disc.

"We wanted to do something that was more hard hitting. Our last record, 'Rough Justice', had ended up a little bit flat because we produced it. Even a mix by Bert Bevans (famed (?) Power Plant mix-man) couldn't change things.

"With that one and our first single for Illuminated, 'Raise The Pulse', we didn't really feel we were working with the right people in the studio but, since then, things have changed a lot.

"We've begun to use techniques of sampling sounds, we've got an engineer who seems to understand what we're trying to do and we enlisted the help of Youth in the producer's chair.

"We knew that Youth's ideas would be similar to ours and it worked really well. He may not be known for it but he's into electronic music and, what's more, he reads 2000 AD and plays computer games."

Hah, the continuing march of technology. These Controllers even claim to be inventing their own computer game. But of prime importance, once the Blancmange bash is over, will be the recording of an LP. Sketches have already been penned, I'm told.

The difference between the live, out front aggression of Portion Control and their technically precise recordings may confuse, but who's counting? The secret is the enthusiasm. Anyone - even the least computer-minded bozo, like myself - can discern that there's a lot more to PC than at first becomes obvious.

Their wirey frames can't hide the fact that they're energetic and effervescent tryers and their refusal to be dragged down into a world totally dominated by synthetic schmaltz - or alternatively one that dismisses the electronic phenomenon out of hand - is praiseworthy.

"A lot of the things we do might involve technical processes which may seem laborious but we don't lack any conviction and there's a certain amount of spontaneity involved when writing sequences. Our progress, realistically, has come through updating our equipment and learning about it as we go along. Too many people just buy a Drumatix and a four-track and sit in their bedroom, never getting any further than that...Luckily, we've had a lot of breaks."

While the Human League gallop up the charts making a tacky collage of Kraftwerk and the Banshees, Portion Control will be flinging themselves into unsuspecting PA systems up and down the country. And just when you thought punk was finally dead too. Funny old world, isn't it?

© SOUNDS 1984

Digital assistance and credit: Simon Dell <simon@stroppy.demon.co.uk>