By the end of the year the quartet had recorded four tracks that, in their own words, combined "the ennui of Richard Hell with the aural assault of Motörhead." These recordings led to a deal with London independent Infernal Records in the spring of 2000.

One of these tracks was featured on the Infernal compilation Any Colour As Long As It's Black. The remaining tracks were released as the band's debut single Terminal Boredom at the end of the summer, almost a year to the day since its inception in a claustrophobic rehearsal studio.

Up until then Johnny Zhivago had appeared sporadically at venues in and around the capital, festering in the unsanitary ventilators of the music business. At the end of 2000 they headed out on the road, to begin to infect like-minded malcontents. During its brief life, the band played all over the British Isles and continental Europe with the likes of AntiProduct, The Wildhearts, Backyard Babies, The Icarus Line, Danko Jones, Nashville Pussy, and Groop Dogdrill.

Their debut album Some Of The People, All Of The Time was recorded around this hectic live schedule, and was released to critical acclaim in the autumn of 2001. London's Total Rock voted it album of the week when it came out. In the wake of the events of September that year, their jaundiced, paranoid world view suddenly seemed far more in tune with the zeitgeist than the jolly "Cool Britannia" jive that had held sway over mainstream pop conciousness since the mid-nineties.


'...skulks, struts and smoulders... ...garage grooves with a sense of melodrama...'

Kerrang!

'...a journey into every light and shady corner of the musical mind...'

Rock Sound

In addition to their own releases, the band appeared on a number of compilation records. Notably, they released a split single with touring buddies B Movie Heroes in support of South Shields independent record emporium Changes One, to which they contributed a mocking parody of Mötley Crüe's hair metal monstrocity 'Girls, Girls, Girls'.

The summer of 2002 found them playing at festivals across Europe. However, the light that burns twice as bright burns half as long - Johnny Zhivago went the way of all mortals in the autumn of that year...