Strange Man, Changed Man by Bram Tchaikovsky

Strange Man, Changed Man, the 1979 debut from Bram Tchaikovsky on Radar Records, is what happened when the Motors' guitarist went off to scratch his own itch. Peter Bramall, a Lincolnshire lad under that grand stage name, quit the Motors after their Reading Rock Festival set in August 1978 and put together a band in his own name with Micky Broadbent on bass and keyboards and Keith Boyce on drums.

The record is chiming, hard-charging power pop, all jangle and hustle, and "Girl of My Dreams" cracked the American top 40. The critics split down the middle. Robert Christgau, writing in the Village Voice, heard nothing but a pileup of old-wave and new-wave clichés, while Trouser Press's Jim Green later traced the sound to the Byrds, Springsteen and, naturally, the Motors, and reckoned the album had aged remarkably well beyond its three strong singles.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.