The Nips - Only The End Of The Beginning (Soho Official Bootleg) Source: NME Date: July 26, 1980 Author: Paul Morley Copywrite: © NME 1980 ...Meanwhile The Nips' mastermind Shane has mouthed through 406 of his mythically alloted 900 seconds, and will yet be back to claim the rest. Like Spizz, Shane has the audacity - rather than dignified creativity - of the apparent loser and oddball. If we know Shane for his ears and the Chiswick beauty 'Gabrielle', then this tatty 'bootleg' pads out his small impact with galvanising incontinence. Songs with the fastidious irritability of Costello, the ravishing anger of Parker, a whirl of sensitised Costello-beat and skittish Richman fanta-billy, an agony of teenage depression, a pool of phlegm: a rousing memorial to the ultimate sneer, Shane fulfilling his mission almost accidentally by producing one of the great party records of pop. Cuddly Spizz, pissed-off Shane: extreme fans and their fantasies. Look what they get away with, look what they've done! 'Runner' and 'Beginning' are two punk rock records rooted in the madness and sensationalism of '77 but not the sentimentality or the monotony. Transient treats. Paul Morley