www.jonsavage.com/compilations

Producing compilations is a nightmare of rights, record companies and people who ask too much money/ don’t get back to you, but the lack of big names worked in our favour here. It enabled me to put on several obscurities and at least one track that had never been issued before.
Founded in 1971 and based in Germany, Trikont is a great reissue label, with material going back to the 1920′s and 1930′s: check website http://www.trikont.com

Sleeve Notes

This is a personal selection from the incredible profusion of rock music made between 1976 and 1979: the many thousands of first wave punk records. It contains a few precursors and a couple of pointers to the future, but in the main what you will hear is loud, fast and hard – no time to reflect, just to get it down, the teenage news.

There are some obvious omissions – blame record companies and licensing complexities – so it has been decided to make a virtue out of necessity and concentrate mostly on the lesser known, on the more obscure, on those who deserve and could use the exposure. Then there are the exclusions on aesthetic grounds: no need to say who they are.

The whole point is that the record should play well. I’m very satisfied that it does, and am very pleased to present twenty-six tracks, some familiar, some obscure, but all of which have a great deal of meaning for me and which still thrill, twenty seven or so years later. I wrote “England’s Dreaming” because I loved the music, and this compilation is a testament to that passion.

BEFORE DURING AND AFTER PUNK

1: Iggy & the Stooges, Search & Destroy (1973)

Iggy Pop (vocals), James Williamson (guitars), Ron Asheton (bass), Scott Asheton (drums).

As the opening salvo from one of the greatest rock albums ever, this should need no introduction. On release, the Stooges’ “Raw Powe” made little impact – ‘too dumb’ was the critical response – but found its target audience among a wide and disparate group of teenage malcontents. Three years later, ‘Search & Destroy’ still sounded fabulous, and had found its place as a major, if not the major inspiration for punk rock. Sparked by the Yardbirds’ Heart Full of Soul, ‘Search & Destroy’s transmutation of the Vietnam war into teen violence is presented here in the 1997 remix – described by Iggy Pop himself as ‘very violent’.

[from “Raw Power” LP, CD reissue Sony 1997]

2. The Electric Eels: Accident

Dave E. McManus (vocals), John Morton (guitar, vocals), Brian McMahon (guitar, vocals) Nick Knox (drums).

During their brief mid-seventies heyday, Cleveland’s notorious Electric Eels played only a few dates (most of which ended in violence) and released no records. However the 1979 45 issue of ‘Agitated’ created a cult that has grown over the last twenty five years with successive reissues of their crudely recorded but fabulous planned chaos. Recorded in their third session, Accident – the lyric seen from the point of view of a roadkill statistic – is both musically relentless and viciously funny – a good introduction to the Electric Eels’ black humour noise world.
(recorded 1975; CD issue “The Eyeball of Hell”, Scat Records, 2001)

3. Patti Smith: My Generation

Patti Smith (vocals), Richard Sohl (piano), Lenny Kaye (lead guitar), Ivan Kral (guitar), John Cale (bass), Jay Dee Daugherty (drums).

Recorded live at the Agora, Cleveland, at the end of January 1976 – a fertile period for the Patti Smith Group, also documented on the bootleg “Teenage Perversity And Ships In The Night” – ‘My Generation’ is perfectly poised between 60s punk rage and the new era. As Smith states at the song’s close, “We created it, let’s take it over”. Issued on the b-side of the first PSG single, ‘Gloria’, it acted as a clarion call for the disaffected teenagers invoked by Smith’s chant, earlier in the same song, ‘I’m so young, so goddamn young’.
(Released 1976, CD reissue as extra track on “Horses”, BMG/Arista 1996)

4. The Ramones: Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment

Joey Ramone (vocals), Johnny Ramone (guitar) Dee Dee Ramone (bass), Tommy Ramone (drums).

The second song on their second album, ‘Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment’ catches the Ramones at their speediest and their most concise. With a sarcastic nod to the hippie era – the faded dreams of which had not sustained them as adolescents entering the world in the early 1970’s – the Ramones issued the first of many hymns to mental illness and hospital life. Within the period when more American teens were being institutionalised than ever before, their sharp black humour had an undertow of harsh reality.
(Released 1977 on “Ramones Leave Home” lp; CD reissue Rhino expanded edition, 2001)

5. The Saints: This Perfect Day

Chris Bailey (vocals), Ed Kuepper (guitar), Kym Bradshaw (bass), Ivor Hay (drums).

The Saints’ third single, ‘This Perfect Day’, made the UK Top 40 in high summer 1977, occasioning a famously static performance from the long-haired Australians on the nation-wide TV chart show ‘Top of The Pops’ — after which the record promptly went down. A multiple negative blast of adolescent nihilism, with a hint of the Rolling Stones’ ‘Paint It Black’, ‘This Perfect Day’ is a fitting testament both to one of punk’s hardest rocking groups and the period when such an uncompromising record could make the charts.
(Released on 45 1977; CD reissue on “All Times Through Paradise: The Complete Recordings from 1976 – 1978”, EMI 4 xCD 2004)

6. Penetration: Never Never

Pauline Murray (vocals), Gary Chaplin (guitars), Robert Blamire (bass), Gary Smallman (drums).

From Country Durham in the north east of Britain, Penetration were one of many groups inspired by seeing the Sex Pistols play live in the first half of 1976. From their first demo session in spring 1977, ‘Never Never’ features the clear voice of Pauline Murray, the sweet James Williamson-style guitar of Gary Chaplin, and lyrics that express the freedom of punk in their purest form. Penetration went on to make two albums for Virgin records but these first breathless recordings show them at their best.
(Recorded 1977, released 1979 on “Penetration” lp; CD reissue Burning Airlines Records, 1993).

7. Devo: Gut Feeling – Sloppy

Mark Mothersbaugh (vocals), Bob Mothersbaugh (guitar), Bob Casale (guitar), Jerry Casale (bass), Alan Myers (drums).

In the autumn of 1977, a huge buzz grew around Devo, thanks to the patronage of Iggy Pop and David Bowie and a particularly ferocious live tape that circulated in punk London – taken from a recording of two nights at San Francisco’s famed Mabuhay Gardens in early August 1977. These two tracks, later recorded for their first album, “Are We Not Men?” came at the set’s end and were the highlight of the show. As Sleepers’ guitarist Michael Belper – who witnessed these shows – later attested, seeing Devo was ‘like acid, but in a good sense’.
(previously unreleased)

8: Buzzcocks: Orgasm Addict

Peter Shelley (vocals, guitar) Steve Diggle (guitar, vocals), Garth (bass), John Maher (drums).

Although co-written with Howard Devoto, Orgasm Addict was the Buzzcocks first single without their former lead singer – for United Artists in late summer 1977. A more auspicious debut could not have been imagined. From its state-of-the-art montage sleeve by Linder Sterling to its outraged brevity, Orgasm Addict is a hysterical squeal from beginning to end – an ode to polymorphous lust, and one of the funniest songs ever written about sex (and thus one of the most authentic). It was not a hit, thanks to its title, but it remains one of the finest documents of British punk’s high-register humorous attack. (Released on 45 1977, reissued on “Singles Going Steady” lp 1979; CD reissue on EMI).

9. Wire: Mr Suit

Colin Newman (vocals, guitar), Bruce Gilbert (guitar), Graham Lewis (bass, vocals), Robert Gotobed (drums).

A perfect example of the smart-dumb dynamic of the time, Mr Suit finds this bunch of art school rockers in rare social comment mode, thus fulfilling the four Tenets of Rock: ‘Raucousness, Rudeness, Banality and Aimless Protest’. With its numbed interjections, frequent swearing, and sentiments that you can still readily identify with, Mr Suit offered a necessary levity in the otherwise austere landscapes of Wire’s first album, Pink Flag. All together now: I’m tired of fucking phonies, that’s right I’m tired of YOU! No, no, no, no, no, no, Mr Suit’.
(Released on “Pink Flag” 1977; CD reissue on EMI)

10. The Residents: Beyond the Valley of A Day In The Life

The Residents (tape collage and treatments).

First issued on 45 during 1977 in a limited edition of 500, ‘Beyond The Valley…’ answers the age-old musical question, what happens after the final crashing chord at the end of Sgt Pepper?, with a brilliant aural collage made entirely of existing Beatles recordings. In the context of the time, this was deeply iconoclastic (as the Beatles were one of the previous generation’s idols to be overthrown) but today, ‘Beyond the Valley…’ seems both like a fan’s perverse love and an uncanny precursor of the sampling/ mash-up culture to come.
(Released on 45 1977; CD reissue on “The Residents Present the Third Reich’n'Roll”, Indigo Records).

11. The Germs: Forming

Bobby Pyn (vocals), Pat Smear (guitar), Lorna Doom (bass), Donna Rhia (drums).

The first song to be released out of Los Angeles’ tiny punk subculture, Forming is a call to arms of such monotonous, determined surliness that it can clear a room. For those who stay, however, there are many delights: future Nirvana guitarist Pat Smear’s abrasive guitar, Bobby Pyn’s surprisingly poetic will-to-power lyric, and his brilliant auto-critique at the song’s end: ‘whoever buys this song is a fucking jerk – the drums are too fast, the bass is too fast, the chords are all wrong, they’re making the ending too long, aaah I quit!’
(Released on 45 1977; CD reissue on “Germs (MIA): The Complete Anthology”, Rhino/Slash, 1993).

12. The Dils: I Hate The Rich

Chip Kinman (guitar, vocals), Tony Kinman (bass, vocals), Endre Alquover (drums).

Intended as the opening salvo in a class war, the Dils’ ‘I Hate The Rich’ is notable not only for its confused rhetoric – clarified in person by the group’s adoption of the hammer and sickle as stage wear – but for its impressive encapsulation of teenage fury. Three verse/choruses and a hot solo, all within 1’40”. Like most of the first wave of West Coast punk rock groups, the Dils never made an album, which considering the quality of the Kinman brothers’ later work with Rank and File, was a significant lost opportunity.
(Released on 45 1977, CD reissue on “Class War”, Bacchus Archives 2000)

13. The Avengers: Car Crash

Penelope Houston (vocals), Greg Ingraham (guitars), Jimmy Wilsey (bass), Danny O’Brian (drums).

Another debut explosion, this time from San Francisco’s most-likely-to for a few seasons: a group of art students fronted by a charismatic and talented female singer. ‘Car Crash’ is a perfect example of the Avengers’ muscular physicality and, with its casual brutalities and accelerating tempos shows one reason why the group was chosen to support the Sex Pistols on their final date at San Francisco’s Winterland in January 1978. The group later made an excellent EP with the Sex Pistols’ Steve Jones, but like most West Coast punk rock groups, fizzled in the face of industry and public indifference.
(Released on 45 1977; CD reissue on ???????).

14. The Diodes: Time Damage

Paul Robinson (vocals), John Catto (guitars), Ian Mackay (bass), John Hamilton (drums, vocals, piano).

Leading lights of a lively Toronto scene that also included Teenage Head and the Viletones, the Diodes released their first album on CBS/Sony in October 1977. With its conceptual lyrics, ‘Time Damage’ is an excellent example of their high-low approach – performance art informing suburban themes, hard rock flash supplementing power pop hooks. In 1978 The Diodes released a classic single, ‘Tired of Waking Up Tired’, and then, like so many other groups from that period, faded from view.
(Released on “The Diodes” lp 1977; CD reissue on “Tired of Waking Up Tired: The Best of The Diodes”, Sony Canada 1998).

15. The Weirdos: Neutron Bomb

John Denney (vocals), Dix Denney (guitar), Cliff Roman (guitar), David Trout (bass), Nicky Beat (drums).

The first Los Angeles punk band to form, the Weirdos aimed to suck up all the detritus of Hollywood and throw it back in your face. While performing this self-imposed task, they succeeded in writing a whole sequence of great songs that matched Sex Pistols’ wallop with New York Dolls ludicrousness. ‘We’ve Got The Neutron Bomb’ is the A-side of their second single, and represents a perfectly reasonable attack on US foreign policy and arms-mania that should have presaged a dynamite album. But as ever on the West Coast, the support was not there. Like many others dealing with unfinished business from that period, the Weirdos still perform.
(Released on 45 1978; CD reissue on “Weird World 1977-1981”, Frontier Records, 1991).

16. The Zeros: Wild Weekend

Javier Escovedo (guitar, vocals), Robert Lopez (rhythm guitar, vocals) Hector Penalosa (bass, vocals), Baba Chenelle (drums).

Unlike many of the first wave West Coast punk groups, the Zeros – from Chula Vista, San Diego – were actual, as opposed to conceptual teenagers, and their first two singles plugged directly into the mating and social rituals of the new generation. From their second 45, ‘Wild Weekend’ takes the theme of the Easybeats’ 1966 classic ‘Friday on My Mind’ and speeds it up for an accelerated age: “Street lights are on, the time is right”. Guitarist and writer Robert Lopez still performs as the Mexican Elvis, El Vez.
(Released on 45 1978; CD reissue on “Don’t Push Me Around”, BMP Records 1991).

17. Eno & Snatch: R.A.F.

Eno (keyboards, synthesiser), Judy Nylon and Patti Palladin (voices), Phil Collins (drums) Percy Jones (bass), Paul Rudolph (rhythm guitar).

Released as the B-side of Eno’s Talking Heads-inspired ‘King’s Lead Hat, R.A.F. is a unique event in Eno’s prodigious catalogue. Matching radio broadcasts with sinuous punk-funk in the mix that would be refined with David Byrne on “My Life In The Bush of Ghosts”, Eno then adds the maverick and compelling voices of Judy Nylon and Patti Palladin (better known as Snatch) bickering on an aeroplane hijacked by unnamed terrorists. Will they leave the plane alive? Will they look good in the photos? Does anybody care about you?
(Released on 45 1978; CD reissue on “Brian Eno, Vocal” 3xCD box, Virgin Records, 1993).

18. The Normal: TVOD

Daniel Miller (synthesiser, vocals)

Inspired in equal parts by Neu! and the Ramones, Daniel Miller recorded his first and only single in early 1978, cresting the wave of home grown punk/synthesiser productions by Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire. The nominal B-side to the J.G. Ballard derived ‘Warm Leatherette’, ‘TVOD’ – like many artefacts of the punk era – presents the nightmare future that has actually occurred. Apart from a rare one-sided 1979 live album, The Normal made no further records: instead, Daniel Miller concentrated on running the highly successful independent Mute records, which has kept the flame of electronica alive.
(Released on 45 1978; CD reissue on Mute/ Grey Area)

19. Cabaret Voltaire: The Set Up

Chris Watson (electronics, tapes), Stephen Mallinder (bass, lead vocals), Richard H.Kirk (guitar, wind instruments)

Forming during the mid 70’s in Sheffield, Cabaret Voltaire (named after the first Dada performance space) aimed to make nothing less than total electronica. Even when instruments like the human voice and the guitar were used, they were pushed through so many treatments and modulations that they sounded metallic, alien, harsh – reflecting their hyper-industrial environment. Benefiting from the space opened by Punk, they released their first EP in spring 1978: ‘The Set Up’ defines their cool, severe, science-fiction motorik that would, in later years, develop into full-blown dance epics.
(Released on “Extended Play” EP 1978; CD reissue on “Cabaret Voltaire: The Original Sound of Sheffield ‘78/82: The Best of”, Mute/ The Grey Area 2002)

20. The Urinals: I’m A Bug

Kjehl Johansen (guitars, vocal), John Jones (bass, lead vocals), Kevin Barrett (drums).

Formed by three UCLA students, the Urinals made three rare and highly prized independent 45s for their own Happy Squid Records. All of them are classics, but “I’m A Bug captures their ramshackle lo-fi power and lyrical humour at its best: being a bug has its compensations, after all. After 1980′s tormented ‘Sex’ 45, the Urinals adapted to the times by assuming a new name: 100 Flowers.
(Released on “Another EP” 1979; CD reissue on “negative capability… check it out”, Amphetamine Reptile Records, 1996).

21. Bizarros: Young Girls At Market

Nick Nicholis (vocals), Gerald Parkins (lead guitar), Donald Parkins (guitar, bass), Terry Walker (keyboards, bass), Rick Garberson (drums).

Hoisted up by the 1978 Akron Ohio mini-wave initiated by Devo-fever, the Bizarros patented a perfect mix of Lou Reed drawl with Jonathan Richman, ‘Roadrunner’-style dynamics. The opening cut from their one full 1979 album, ‘Young Girls At Market’ remains a definitive low-life portrait of rust belt America and is still a fantastic, hyper-propulsive driving soundtrack.
(Released on “Bizarros” lp, Mercury US 1979: not currently available on CD)

22. Metal Urbain: Hysterie Connective

Clode Panik (vocals), Eric Debris (synthesiser and rhythm machine), Pat Luger (guitar), Herman Schwartz (guitar)

Outsiders within their native Paris, Metal Urbain nevertheless became the best known French punk group, making and releasing records in the UK. ‘Hysterie Connective’ is their third 45, for Andrew Lauder’s Radar records, and showcases their innovative and still compelling fusion of synthesisers and buzz-saw guitar attack. The lyrics, as ever, are extremely sarcastic. In common with many of those on this compilation, Metal Urbain stopped operating in the late 70s but have since reformed twice.
(Released on 45 1978; CD reissue on “Chef d’Oeuvre”, Seventeen Records, France, 2003).

23. X-Ray Spex: Identity

Poly Styrene (vocals), Jak Airport (guitar), Paul Dean (bass) Rudi Thompson (sax), B.P. Hurding (drums).

X-Ray Spex formed out of the heart of punk London, and their music reflected the movement’s eventual fate. Released in July 1978, Identity is one of the most frightening records ever to make the UK Top 30. As with many other punk products, its message of media/ celebrity personality disintegration was prophetic. Unfortunately, however, it was not just critique, but autobiography. After two more singles, Poly Styrene quit X-Ray Spex in cloudy circumstances and entered upon an intermittent and prolonged solo career.
(Released on 45 1978; CD reissue on “Germ-Free Adolescents”, Virgin Records CD)

24. Siouxsie & The Banshees: Nicotine Stains

Siouxsie Sioux (vocals) John McKay (guitar) Steve Severin (bass) Kenny Morris (drums).

Favourites on the live circuit after their formation from within London’s punk elite, Siouxsie & The Banshees were late to record, as their uncompromising image and music disturbed the more conventional record companies. They thus arrived in the market place fully formed. Their first single, ‘Hong Kong Garden’, made the UK top ten, and their debut album “The Scream” was THE record of autumn 1978. Rockier than most of the tracks – which veered towards a mutant psychedelia – ‘Nicotine Stains’ is a great encapsulation of Siouxsie’s (self-) disgust, and the group’s customary angular poise.
(Released on ‘The Scream’ lp 1978; CD reissue on Polygram).

25. Public Image Limited: Radio 4

John Lydon (vocals), Keith Levene (guitars and synthesisers), Jah Wobble (bass)

Public Image Limited made a big impact with their first single and album in autumn 1978. Having the former lead singer of the Sex Pistols had much to do with it, but the group’s sound perfectly matched the anti/post-punk concept. Their second record, “Metal Box”, is regarded as their finest moment, and this concluding instrumental illustrates Keith Levene’s melodic gift, and Jah Wobble’s earth-moving bass. As evocative and as British as anything by composer Vaughan Williams, ‘Radio 4’ (named after the BBC’s classical music station) now sounds like a bittersweet elegy to a turbulent era.
(Released on “Metal Box” 3x 45 12” 1979; CD reissue on Virgin Records).

Posted on September 23, 2008 at 4:50 pm