Substantially more than a whimper and less cliched than a hackneyed bang - sending out 2010 with The Chester Records Picks Of The Week



musings upon the music of Wavves and The Mummies here

Happy New Year everybody....



I'm dreaming of a snotty-nosed Christmas- A homemade punk comp Part One



In the post directly below this one is Part Two of this 2 CD length compilation of mostly obscure punk rock tunes from all over the globe circa 1976-1984. It was intially conceived as a Christmas gift for certain friends of an emotionally and geographically close nature. These notes, quite lengthy as is my normal modus operandi, were part of the original package, and while I am only moderately pleased with them at the moment, I have resisted the urge to change them in any way other than to correct misspellings or factual errors. I'll mention also that this will very likely be the only time I post downloadable links on this blog. While both parts of this comp are offered in the spirit of holiday cheer, frankly the main reason they are offered is a selfish one: I wanted to include the compilation's notes on Absinthe For Breakfast. Adding the picture sleeves was an added bonus, and most of them were nabbed from either here or here. A large amount of the vinyl rips also come from those sites, and I highly recommend both as extensive resourses on the vast subject of punk rock. Included in Part 2 is a Word Document of the entire text for those who might find it useful. Last, I hope you enjoy the music. I love each of these songs, not equally of course, but collectively these comps have given me much joy since I ordered them back in December 2007. So spike the egg nog, spike the hair, spike the bracelet, spike the volleyball and enjoy.

To download you'll need extraction software to extract the files from the zipped folder. I use 7zip which is open source and easy as pie.

Here's part one

So the whole thing kicks off with Dow Jones and the Industrials’ "Can’t Stand the Midwest". They were from West Lafeyette, Indiana, which isn’t the first place I think of when somebody (anybody) says the word Midwest, but I’d certainly eventually conjure it in my mind’s eye before anyplace in Ohio, which is technically in the Midwest but just seems more Northeastern to me. How ‘bout you? Anyway, this song is from the band’s self-titled 7” from 1980, and it’s a sweetly agitated example of hating where you came from, or more specifically, where you’re at.

Track 2 belongs to The Features, from New York via Pittsburg. What "Floozy of the Neighborhood" lacks in sensitivity, it completely makes up for in instrumental crispness and over the top vocal panache. The singer should get some sort of award (preferably at a banquet) for admirable ludicrousness. The two minute running time is just about the perfect duration; picking on the poor girl for any longer would be unnecessarily mean-spirited, I think. From a 1979 7”.

Shock is next with "This Generation’s on Vacation". Hyperactive yet melodic, with formidable chops battling against a sweetly rudimentary structure, this makes my personal top 20 Los Angeles punk singles list, easy. 1978 was the year of origin.

Long Beach, CA was home to one of the finest blasts of left-field punk scree ever committed to tape, that being The Absentees’ "Tryin’ to Mess with Me". Blatantly ripping off a Damned song, positively drenched in distortion and reverb, and with a truly oddball moment of guitar isolation ping-ponging between the speakers, it’s a transcendent two minutes. From the once ridiculously rare 1981 7”; at one point, only five copies were known to exist.

The Nervous Eaters were from Boston, and "Just Head" is probably their finest moment. A pinnacle in sexual incorrectness, the sentiment expressed is a bit like ’65 Rolling Stones on Viagra after watching six hours of smut-film loops. The music is thug-punk par excellence. It was recorded in 1976, but for some reason not released on 7’’ until three years later.

A leap over the Atlantic brings us to The Wasps, from Walthamstow England. "Teenage Treats" is the A-side of the bands debut 7”, released in 1977. A paean to raging hormones delivered via a slick synthesis of early punk energy and power-pop bravado (dig those chiming guitars); this would likely get eight thumbs up from Cheap Trick.

Now, jump ahead three years to Sunderland England and behold the spastic mayhem that is Disorder’s "Air Raid". I can just imagine the snot flying around the studio when this was recorded. With an accent thick as a Tolstoy novel, a drummer in the throes of Keith Moon Syndrome, and string instruments flailing and scaling as if in actual accompaniment/reaction to some plane blitz, this would be perfect end credits music to a hypothetical film of GRAVITY'S RAINBOW. Except Pynchon would probably insist that it be covered by a band made up of nothing but ukuleles, banjos, and kazoos. What a mensch!

Hopping back to 1977, Islington England’s Puncture delivers unto the world a manifesto of knuckleheaded tomfoolery. "Mucky Pup" shows that certain behaviors (nose picking, people sniffing, sexually obsessing over TV news anchors) have no borders, I guess. The humor aspect of this is quite English, me thinks. Sort of like a cross between Neil Innes and a particularly bonkers episode of THE YOUNG ONES. Innit? This song also features what sounds like an electric squeegee solo, and a damn fine one at that. From the band’s only 7”, the first release on Small Wonder records, later to release the Cure’s debut.

Anorexia, from Herfordshire England, brings us a public service announcement. You see, there’s a "Rapist in the Park". This track, from a 1980 7”, is a perfect illustration of what I like to call rec-center punk; a solid distillation of authentic youthful expression that combines an endearingly tentative simplicity with a pragmatic ingenuity (I’ve convinced myself that the band’s use of sax was due to one of the members being in a high school band). While punk is essentially identified as a youth movement, so much of its art was actually created by people who were technically adults. This is a fine exception to the norm.

Elton Motello’s "Jet Boy Jet Girl" could possibly be used as an illustration of the norm, but it’s ultimately too tweaked to serve as any kind of paradigm. The “band” was the brainchild of Alan Ward, who while producing records in Belgium, came up with this dirty-minded and obnoxiously infectious slab of hooliganism. It was actually a minor UK hit in 1978. I’m just going to assume that there was a cleaned-up version of this for radio airplay.

Goteborg Sound (aka GBG Sound) was (are?) from Goteborg Sweden. "Pappas Pojkar" is like a textbook in so many ways, but here are three: flexibility, brevity, and interaction. What are they singing about? Search me. Whatever the subject, it made one of them need to clear his throat and spit. From the band’s 2nd 7”, from 1979. Curiously, their 1st 45 only had one song (the other side being blank) called "Bjorn Borg" (for all you non-sports nerds out there, he was a tennis player that essentially served as the prototype for Luke Wilson’s character in THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS)

It’s interesting how songs can sometimes inspire images. Friction’s "Pistola" bring to my mind a small club circa 1980, a few dozen people in the audience, smoke in the air, and a general atmosphere of low expectations. There are instruments and microphones on a modest stage, and two people carry out a wooden box, roughly 4’ X 21/2’ X 3’, and place it in front of the main mic stand. A few audience members notice, but nobody wants to fully commit themselves to an adjective like inquisitive. Slowly, human forms begin to appear on the stage, plugging in and sitting down and making the necessary gestures involved in getting down to business. The audience gradually turns its attention to the platform in front of them and prepares to be disappointed. Then the drummer kicks in. His extended, primal introductory blast is an assault on the room’s collective consciousness and a blunt harbinger that something vital is about to happen. Just as the guitars erupt and the song begins its tortured tour of density and blissful repetition, the wooden box just explodes into splinters and this shirtless, leather pant clad form lurches upright toward the microphone like some unholy cross between The Cramp’s Lux Interior and a cranked-out Harry Houdini. Then, he starts whooping/shouting, and suitably, it’s about a gun. For all I know, these cats wore golf knickers and played with their backs to the audience, but somehow, I doubt it. They were a part of Japan’s rather amazing late 70s underground art-punk scene, and this song was the B-side to their 2nd 7”. From 1980.

Sweden’s Vicious Visions are essentially a refinement on that reliable old compendium that is the Stooges songbook. Updated for then contempo relevance (that would be 1983), "I Beat You" sounds like it could have been recorded last week by a bunch of anxious and pessimistic underachievers who flunk shop-class because they’re too preoccupied with reading Céline. From the bands outstanding, and ridiculously scarce, sole 7”.

I realize that a song about a ten year old whose father sells him into prostitution probably isn’t anybody’s idea of fun-time holiday listening, but my reason for including "Daddy is My Pusher" by Holland’s The Tits wasn’t to be a mega-bringdown. My attraction to the song is almost completely tied to its unusual keyboard driven sound, which is reminiscent of a less adept/more inept Stranglers, and how this approach ultimately integrates with the lyrics to significantly accent their blunt discomfort, giving it an almost B-movie feel. A standard guitar/bass/drums framework just wouldn’t be the same. Released in 1978, the first 7” on the legendary Plurex label.

Denmark’s The Sods bring us a sweet little rant against the stultifying qualities of the TV set. "Television Sect", from a 1979 7”, is brief, hammers its point home with a proto-hardcore drumbeat (though slower, obviously), and is prescient of the type of socially conscious punk song that was a dime a dozen just ten years later. But at this early point, the rot of genericism had yet to set in. Plus, it kind of makes me wonder what TV was like in late ‘70’s Denmark.

"Plastic" by The Mollestors is a great take-no-prisoners type of song. It’s either going to drive you nuts of make you really happy. You can probably guess how it makes me feel. Possessing a tightly coiled electric string jangle which more punk bands should’ve utilized (the infatuation with distortion is in retrospect rather indicative of short-sightedness, I think), and a ranting lyricist who is possibly improvising in front of the mic (the whole song actually feels/listens like it could’ve been made up ten minutes before recording), it’s a fine exhibition of temporary, ramshackle greatness. This is another one from Holland’s Plurex label; from a 1978 7”.

One of the prevalent misconceptions about early punk rock is that most of its bands could barely play. Sweden’s Rune Strutz prove otherwise with "Flod", which begins with a rather attractive guitar progression, then moves into some solid mid-tempo riffing and a swinging groove of a bridge. The low fidelity production provides a nice friction with the band’s admirable rockist abilities, and it’s obvious these guys had more on their minds than just being another group of three-chord ponies. From a 1978 7”

To expand on the above, one of the best elements of early punk is hearing how various bands that did indeed possess limited technical ability attempted to avoid generics. In the case of Denmark’s Lost Kids, you decide to write a song about getting all hopped-up on soda, and then you spotlight the guitarist, who belts out these brief little bursts of loopy, borderline psychedelic string shrapnel, and in the process come up with a stone winner. "Cola Freaks" comes from a 1979 7”.

Now, in the case of Sweden’s Etiquette Mona, generic is an impossible descriptor. I don’t think it’s hyperbolic to say that "Amsterdam", from a 1979 7”, is a masterpiece of power-pop/pop-punk. It’s dripping with that jumpy “let’s go have a picnic at the beach” feel, it wastes no time getting to the meat of the matter, and it has one of the sweetest and snakiest guitar breaks segueing into a grin inducing solo I’ve yet to stumble upon. Who knows exactly what the singer is saying about the city, but in this case, lyrical comprehension just seems superfluous. I will only add that the band has achieved an unlikelihood: they manage to make Amsterdam sound wholesome.

The old saw that the French can’t play rock n’ roll is simply a falsehood. I could have selected a track from roughly a dozen punk bands from that nation for inclusion here, but settled on "Salted City" by 84 Flesh because it’s currently my favorite French punk song. That situation might change next week. If that’s the case, it’s going to be one formidable tune that does the dethroning, because this baby smokes. It rages out of the starting gate with assurance and manages to pass the two minute mark without a stumble; in fact, the best part of the song is yet to come. At just short of 2:20, directly after some strategically placed handclaps, explodes this heaving mass of howling electricity, and from that point the matter is settled. Here’s one for the ages. It was released on 7” (the B-side!) in 1980.

Germany’s KFC (stands for Kriminalitats-Forederungs-Club, which roughly translates as Criminality Encouragement Club) bring us "Sex Moerder", a galloping slab of aural antagonism that’s laced with gratuitous feedback squalls and an apparent fascination with the more unpleasant side of life; it’s essentially a readymade for the credits sequence to one of Rob Zombie’s future films, if only somebody would get off their ass and play it for him. This was spat out to an uncaring world on 7” in 1979 (and was another B-side).

Filth completes a double Dutch hat trick, since all three of this compilation’s songs from that country were released on the Plurex label. "Don’t Hide Your Hate" (an A-side this time) is from 1978, and is one of those cases where a whole lot of no-big-dealness adds up in the end to something memorable. They shamble along with the assurance of at least a few dozen practices, they provide some potential presidential candidate with an audacious campaign slogan, and they get out of dodge in a minute thirty seconds. The next time you hear the openers on a four band bill close their set with a Clash cover, give an internal tsk-tsk that they didn’t do this one instead.

Stockton California’s The Authorities bring us raging back to the continental USA, and boy do they have shit on their collective mind. As if inspired by the opening lyric of the previous song, these cats have feelings about the police they’d like to get of their chests. "I Hate Cops", from a 1982 7”, is about as close as anything on this comp gets to overt hardcore influence, but it still has one foot firmly planted in the fertile garden of rudimentary punk bashing. The levels of melodics and repetition are in fine balance, the guitar is suitably buzzsawing, and whoever’s doing the shouting actually sounds like he’s suffered a few knocks on the noggin from various nightsticks. What’s up with the cops? Why don’t they leave the kids alone?

Ice 9 cribbed their name from Vonnegut, came from Portland Oregon, and are responsible for a top tier entry in the adrenalin drenched go-for-broke because nobody gives a good goddamn what we’re doing anyway sweepstakes. "Out Out Out" is from a 1979 7”, and it almost seems over before it starts. With songwriting that’s absolutely agitated, and an instrumental passage that’s like the musical equivalent of a throbbing tumor in the left side of Joe Dallesandro’s brain, this song is flawless punk. Play this between bands in a crowded club and watch all the hipsters’ heads snap in a big group “whazzat?” You can smile to yourself contentedly that you’re now (at least) one up on ‘em.

Some songs speak to certain segments of the population (if they’re lucky enough to hear them), while others reach across these assorted groups and say something profound to the masses. This is the case with The Shirkers’ "Drunk and Disorderly". We can all relate, right? These one-shot monsters were part of the early DC scene, and while the Capitol City later came to be identified almost exclusively with straight-edge and strident leftist politics that actually walked the talk, I also think it’s safe to say that the young baldheads hanging around the Dischord House got more than a few kicks from spinning this record in the dawn of the DC hardcore scene. It may be a primer in how to live sauced and obnoxious (and ultimately paying the consequences), but its musical purity could bring a smile to the face of even the most righteous abstainer. Like many substantial under the radar punk bands, these guys played one gig and released one 7” in 1978. If only Jimmy Carter had heard it, the world could be a quite different place.

When the subject of great US punk scenes comes up, New Orleans doesn’t really start rolling off tongues. But they actually had some great bands in the early days. One of my favorites would be The Wayward Youth, and their goof-punk classic "El Mundo (Is a Weirdo)" is a prime example of the general non-serious nature that a lot of ‘70s punk wore like a big, shiny button (or a badge, depending on what side of the Atlantic you reside on). If these zany characters wore buttons, they’d possibly say Ramones, Dickies, or Rezillos (more about them later), and if you rifled through their wallets you might find cards that decreed membership in the Classy Freddie Blassie Fan Club. Some punks were all about being pissed-off, but others were far more interested in being smart-alecks that bathed in the low-brow with all the subtlety of an exploding cigar handed to you by some joker in a plaid suit. This was waxed for the ages on a 1979 7”.

Los Angeles was home to Dangerhouse records, in my estimation the single best US punk label of the original wave. While most of the above songs were serious obscurities that are just crying out for someone to do a Nuggets style box set to increase the sub-microscopic punk scene’s cultural worth, many of the Dangerhouse bands were actually influential at the time they existed. One in particular became rather huge. X is easily the most well known punk band from this locale, heard by hoards of people who don’t own a single punk record (anybody who has watched MAJOR LEAGUE, a film that stars Charlie Sheen and the dulcet tones of Bob Uecker, has been witness to X covering The Troggs’ "Wild Thing", so this is a hoard that includes my Mom, maybe yours, too). If you think this is reason to slag ‘em, think again. "We’re Desperate", from the B-side of their 1st 7”, should be ample evidence that no slagging need commence. A rather hefty volume could be penned regarding why this song is so euphoric and timeless, but I’ll boil it down to a sweet little equation. Velocity + Elasticity x (Angst) = YES. And that solution has nothing to do with a certain English prog band.

The Plugz were probably the first Latino punk band. And their 1st 7” from 1978, on Dangerhouse, is about as perfect as punk gets. "Mindless Contentment" is from that record, and it’s a delirious blast of the kind of frenzied fun that serves as a benchmark of why this punk stuff was ever a big deal. The song has that certain sloppy precision, raspy, passionate singing, and gradually building cathartic oomph that could make you forget the heat, the pollution, the pointless arguments, the maddening friction of daily life, and just where the hell are you going to get the rent this month? Well, if you have a CD copy of this bands’ ELECTRIFY ME album, you could sell it for big bucks. Some joker is currently doing just that on Amazon, asking $99.95. Chew on that for a while.

In sharp contrast to the willful lack of seriousness that was such an intrinsic part of the punk rock framework in its growth years, here’s The Dils, who are like nineteen different kinds of serious all wrapped up in an ominous looking package that’s going to explode all over your party and cover everything in confetti that when scrutinized reveals Marxist slogans. "Class War" is from the bands’ 1st 7”, the wonderfully titled 198 SECONDS OF THE DILS, which was released in 1977 on Dangerhouse. It’s still a mind-blower to me what quick studies these guys were, for this song is basically the modus operandi of The Ramones kicked up a few crucial notches and rode to the brink of repeato-delirium. Music can’t get much denser than this without losing its driving, kinetic quality, i.e. the feel that makes you (or me, anyway) want to pogo like a lunatic. This one still sounds positively up-to-date thirty years after it was recorded.

Many people seem to think that the one dud on the Dangerhouse label was Black Randy & the Metro Squad. Wrong. It’s certainly true that Randy wasn’t interested in any set-in-stone punk dogma (you might be surprised how quick these tablets get chiseled) and was far more concerned with a piss-off as many people as possible pranksterism. This James Brown cover, from the bands’ I SLEPT IN AN ARCADE 7” (1979) is a case in point. Instead of homage, it’s rather a piss-take on the athletic musicality that was such a strong component of Brown’s ‘70s bands. Here’s a lowly bunch of LA punks daring to work out on "Give It up or Turn It Loose". Instead of getting in over their heads, they end up sounding like zonked-out John Cale circa ’77 getting accidentally booked into a TV appearance on SOUL TRAIN. Give me some of that coke, Don Cornelius, those platform shoes are cray-zee!

Speaking of Cale, it was only a matter
of time before we came to a song that grappled with the sound of John’s old group, The Velvet Underground. "Surfin’ with the Shah" by San Diego’s The Urinals, just drips with VU influence. Probably the best way to be impacted by this mother of all bands is to focus on what they achieved instrumentally. If you get too caught up in vocals and lyrics, you risk ending up sounding like a Lou Reed impersonator. Exploring the seemingly infinite sonic possibilities the Velvets handed down to subsequent generations is a much more productive endeavor since it relies less on topicality and personality (I mean, you’ll never be as cool as Lou, so why bother aping the man’s moves) and more on a musical sensibility that’s as fertile as the modal scales Miles Davis pioneered in the late ‘50s or the crucial adjustments Chuck Berry made to R & B during the same period. The Urinals seem particularly smitten with the early, smudgy and strange extendedness that VU would often conjure, and their track shines with an achy loner quality that’s just lovely. From the band’s 1st 7” (1979), right from the outset The Urinals personified a sort of Southern California wing of the type of Brit art-punk proffered by Wire, Swell Maps and their ilk. And much like the Velvets, the band’s influence extended far beyond their record sales.

Portland Oregon’s The Wipers were one of the most forward thinking bands in North American punk rock. "Same Old Thing", from the 10/29/79 compilation LP (finally, a song from a format that’s not seven inches long. I don’t think any further evidence is necessary that punk was best represented by short singles), proves this point rather nicely. Greg Sage, who essentially was the band, seemed to have reached a level of maturity in his lyrical focus and a concurrent depth in his guitar playing and songwriting that stood head and shoulders above so many of his (often younger, this is a salient point to add) peers. This song just sprays off a sweet stench of existential hoo-hah that I’m positive would’ve had a smoking-jacket clad Sartre emphatically nodding in agreement whist sitting in his bunker. An emphatically nodding Sartre; now THAT’S an image worthy of a t-shirt.

Black Market Baby are one of a small but formidable group of bands from DC that clung tight to the ethos of pure punk ramalama even after the formula of short fast and loud (AKA the hardcore equation) was tested by a legion of young bald scientists. This has always made BMB something of an underappreciated entity. What’s important to note is that the band were quite the inspiration to the District’s stubble-domed contingent, and it has always seemed this group helped to infuse so much of the region’s HC with a knowledge of rock dynamics that ultimately elevated it above the limitations of rote formalism (Of course, The Stooges and Dictators figure into this also, but neither of them ever played a $3 dollar gig at the old 9:30 Club). But you just need to hear the song to understand. If some boho attempted to use some post-mod hipster alchemy to turn a Manny and Olga’s jumbo slice into the perfect A-side of a debut single (released in ’82), I’d probably come out sounding a little like "Potential Suicide". Don’t look now, but Merlin’s doing the pogo on the merch table.

Probably one of the most hilariously and energetically over-the-top punk songs to ever be unleashed on an oblivious public is Detention’s "Dead Rock ‘N’ Rollers". It really sticks the push-pin into the balloon of hot-air that is the cult of dying young and stupidly (John Vernon agrees). It combines a gust of punk-prank-snark with the sorta no-nonsense time-clock punching bluntness that is unique to East Coast proletarians. You know something’s wrong when all your heroes are dead and what’s more, they weren’t smart enough to either get murdered or die of old age. This one sounds as good on the 50th listen as it does on the 1st. If you don’t agree, I’ll still salute you for the effort. Comrade. The A-side of a 1983 7”; from New Jersey (where The Boss lives).

If you ever encounter the term “fake-punk” (and it’s true you probably won’t) that isn’t somehow tied to the idea that Helen Keller’s "Surfin’ with Steve and Edi Amin" is the micro-genre’s absolute tip-top, well do me a favor and tell the guy (it will most certainly be a guy) that he’s full-of-shit. I promise he won’t get mad. He’ll just shrug and say “different strokes”, or something similar. Maybe he’ll even buy you a beer for being such an astute and exacting cultural obscurantist. But alas, I digress. This baby was cranked out and released on 7” in 1978 by a bunch of musicians employed in writing commercial jingles (which makes it rather post-cool that the song was eventually used in an Isuzu ad). The fact that they don’t have any ties to a particular opposing rock aesthetic means that they can just lay the throttle down, and it comes off sounding like a hypothetical MAD MAGAZINE flexi-disc given away with the issue where Alfred E. Neumann gets dolled-up like Joey Ramone. It’s just Dada-punk genius personified. Operatic sopranos are wailing, what could be Theremins are signaling like Clara Rockmore showed up to jam after doing 15 shots of espresso and eating a fried-egg sandwich (hard yolk, extra-mayonnaise), and an electric drill gets put through its paces. I mean, like, holy shit.

If the previous song is the pinnacle of straight-Joes on sabbatical, then "Job" by San Francisco’s The Nubs is about as authentic as it gets. By 1980, when this was released on 7”, just about any possibility for punk as a commercially viable vessel had been utterly destroyed, and you can hear that fact oozing from this song like toxins from a ‘50s B-movie lagoon. In its jokey cum serious rejection of Normal Life, it basically exists as a line in the sand where standards of societal achievement and monetary success are clearly on the other side. This is frankly the perfect theme music for the instructional film HOW TO SMOKE-UP A BUNCH OF CHEMICALS AND BE A WELFARE CHEAT. What, you didn’t see that one? Awwwwww mannnnnn, it’s a classic.

What We Do Is Seasonal - A homemade punk comp part two

Here's part two

The (inevitable) second disc begins with what is probably my favorite punk rock song. I refuse to say best for a bunch of reasons, but mainly that it would mean the genre peaked in 1976. "Stranded" by Brisbane Australia’s The Saints chugs and riffs with sludgy, heaving tension/release acrobatics and at its core is a youthful, snotty defiance that paved the way for so much that followed. Seriously, this is one of the cornerstones of the punk pantheon (For the record, the others, none included here, would be "New Rose" by The Damned, "We’ve Got the Neutron Bomb" by The Weirdos, and any song from the 1st Ramones LP that hasn’t been bludgeoned into intensive care by classic rock radio. The floor is "Cyclotron" by Electric Eels. Ceiling: "Love Comes in Spurts" by Richard Hell and the Voidoids. Mantelpiece: "1 2 X U" by Wire. For the sake of brevity [HA HA HA HA!!] I’ll stop). Probably the best signifier that these guys were on a trail not marked Accidental Greatness comes at about the 2:20 mark, where the band gives the song a deft collective increase of instrumental intensity that’s comparable (to my ears) to the adrenalin rush you’d receive after getting an ass slap from God’s left hand (he’s a southpaw, you know). If they’d kept their heads down and continued plowing through this kind if sweet junk (instead of branching out into more pop-oriented territory) they’d be looked upon with the same kind of reverence as The Ramones. But they didn’t, and they’re not. Such is life, and history, and all that jazz.

Staying Down Under, we move on to the Psycho Surgeons, who waxed "Horizontal Action" via 7” in 1978. A non-subtle ode to the male libido, featuring production values that Phil Spector would probably deem unacceptable, it’s the kind of sloppy, grokky, headed no place in a hurry stunner that is the raison d être of bootleg compilation albums. The band’s lack of professionalism is really what makes this such a joy. Any cover version that displayed more polish or complexity would be in crucial error, I think. They may act like a bunch of cads, but something tells me it’s just acting.

Tactics were from Canberra, Australia and "Standing by the Window", from a 1979 7”, is a fine example of agitated abrasion. By the date this was recorded, much of what was then known as punk or new wave was sanding down its edges to a smooth finish that many observers took as a betrayal or an insult (or both). Knotty, wiry music like this was often in direct reaction to the general increase in accessibility taking place around the globe during this period, coming across to varying degrees (depending on who you are, natch) as a provocation to this shift/drift. This is all fine and dandy, but if you don’t have an integral substance underneath the attitude, you’re not going to stand the test of time that’s seen the likes of Norwegian Black Metal rear its’ pagan skull. It seems to me that Tactics are high on substance (double meaning intended). Bottled up in liquid form, this track could serve as the antidote to a skinny tie allergy or any of its subsequent maladies.

"More Suicides Please" by Sydney Australia’s The Thought Criminals is so swanky in its low-fi aura that it’s like an actual slap in the face to the very concept of recording on more than four-track equipment, the soundtrack to a fireside telling of the possibly (but oh how I hope it isn’t) apocryphal tale of The Kingsmen recording "Louie Louie" in a barn with one microphone hanging from a ceiling beam. Which is to say that the sound conjured in this song is most definitely deliberate. One result is that the track achieves a striking approachability, a kind of buzzy/muzzy/cheeky warmth that I normally associate with extended listening to the fruitier/paislier end of ‘60s psyche/pop (think John Fred & His Playboy Band’s "Judy in Disguise (With Glasses)"), which is quite an odd (yet agreeable) place to end up. The lyrics are obviously encouraging an increase in self-inflicted negation, but not in an apocalyptic Jim Jones Death Cult manner. This is a more-or-less light-hearted take on the subject of suicide, which is surely tasteless, but is also undeniably catchy and quaint in its shambling aura. This was released on 7” in 1979.

There exists no greater contrast on this compilation than the one between this song and the last. Even at low volume, Perth Australia’s The Victims’ "Television Addict" sounds loud. It shares a sensibility regarding heaviness with many early ’70s blues-based hard-rock bands, the type of groups that often alienated listeners/critics with their lack of subtlety and restraint. This is a punk single that AC/DC fans can appreciate on their terms. The singer’s declamatory style reminds me of Pete Shelley on the early, vital Buzzcocks singles, the band is in total in control of the song’s dynamic range, and the lyrics leap and bound over the triteness so many punk songs succumb to. This was engraved in 7” plastic in 1978, and I’m betting that whoever heard its riotous racket either embraced it like a lover long-lost, or rejected it as ample evidence that the kids had finally went off their collective rocker. No no no no. The kids are alright.

Swell Maps take us on a trip into one of the UK art-punk’s scene’s sweet spots, which is to say that "Read about Seymour" is about as close to anthem status as anything in the canon of edgy experimentalism. Sounding held together with scotch tape, thumb tacks, and rubber-bands, the Maps proffer the sort of time friendly oppositionist blat that rings out with the same gusto as a Dadaist poem swirling off the lips of Kurt Schwitters. Gulp down some coffee (black), slither into a turtleneck sweater (black), and light up a clove cigarette (lungs: black) in tribute to these sounds cut to 7” in Birmingham, England in year zero for this kind of liberating musical anarchism, 1977.

"Life" by Alternative TV is a personal favorite, not only for the brainy heft of its overall sound, but also due the self-awareness that’s on offer in its lyrics. Life’s so bad it’s wonderful in the cold/Life’s so bad it’s wonderful it’s growing old!!! There sits the sweet/sour friction inherent in so much of the creative impulse. Fluffy ducks and sail boating weekends aren’t going to do much to inspire great art, at least not anything I’d want to contend with. Extended boredom, waiting in the dole queue, missing meals, industrial despair, and the angst of an uncertain future: now these are some of the things great art is made of. Mark Perry and ATV know what’s up, specifically that while one of punk-rock’s main tenets is rebellion (as well as a clarion-call of independence) against certain conditions and situations, it’s also just impossible without those very factors. This may not seem like a big deal, but I find it rather refreshing that amongst all the shouters of No Future there was someone, in 1978, who really grasped the parameters of the landscape. From the band’s 4th 7”

Another often neglected tenet of punk is having some knowledge of your antecedents. The Milkshakes, one of the numerous groups led by musician/writer/painter/publisher Wild Billy Childish (from Kent, England), are utterly immersed in the kind of raw, hard murk that has always been the basis of any unhyphenated punk action of the post-’77 era. Any group that Childish gets involved with is a bit of a history lesson, yet they always avoid even the slightest whiff of nostalgia. No, what it all about is showing how Link Wray is more essential to the punk whatsis than an army of bands like The Exploited. But relax, the wisdom of Wild Billy is never overbearing. I mean, how overbearing could a righteous cover of Link’s "Run Chicken Run" actually be? From SHOWCASE, a 1984 LP.

The Killjoys featured Kevin Rowland, who later went on to Dexy’s Midnight Runners. "Johnny Won’t Go to Heaven" is from a 1977 7”, and is one of the most raging songs of the original UK wave. From England’s Midlands, they only put out that one single (plus a couple comp tracks) on Raw Records (still the best kept secret in UK punk pre ’80), but it’s a stone cinch that many groups with multiple albums to their credit would just die to have one song that swaggered with the intensity and bravado of being basic that The ‘joys briefly mastered. Some might denigrate them for lacking ingenuity and for not coming up with more lyrics, but I think that’s missing the point. To these ears, rock solid simplicity never sounded so inspiring. Come on, Eileen.

Another glorious example of early Brit punk at its most elemental and fleeting could be "Get Your Woofing Dog Off Me" by Leeds’ The Jerks. But on further inspection it’s rather shrewd. First, they take the primary punk impulse to sound pissed-off and bend it in a direction that’s more in accord with the punchy, vigorous jubilance that you’d find in some ‘60s teen gal’s plastic snap-case of dance craze 45s. Second, just when they arrive at the point of the song where even the most dubious people at the party are starting to nod along with the joie de vivre, they pull a bait-and-switch and swing into a Stooges song. These are the kind of small scale, non-obvious moves that sometimes go unnoticed. But once you hear it a few times, I think you’ll be singing along: WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF!!! From a 1977 7”.

"When the Tanks Roll over Poland Again" by The Automatics was a rather large UK hit in 1978, so it’s a bit perplexing why the song isn’t more revered today. It’s really a top-notch example of pop-punk in its early incarnation, before the boundaries of the genre became codified to the point of almost universal worthlessness. The singer’s accent is so thick that I still haven’t grasped all the lyrics, but even without a full handle as to exactly what he’s on about, it’s still quite prickly that this tune predicts Martial Law in Poland by roughly three years. I wonder if Lech Walesa heard it. This was released by Island Records on 7”.

Edinburgh Scotland’s The Rezillos were quite a popular band in their day, which isn’t surprising since they were a group that really personified the punk=fun ideal, being a bit like Pop-Art cousins to the likes of early B-52s. "Glad All Over" provides a nice example of what they were shooting for: instead of being yet another band mining territory blazed by the likes of the MC5, they transform a nifty chestnut by The Dave Clark Five into an infectious, speed-freak party anthem. This can be found on 1978’s CAN'T STAND THE REZILLOS LP, the band’s only studio album.

To be blunt, the Brit Oi! Scene isn’t one of my favorite areas of the punk-rock geography. Largely populated by people so preoccupied with being genuine that it ended up, to me, like some sort of reverse-pretentiousness, and coupled with a wrongheaded musical sensibility that actually encouraged a clone-like facelessness as a virtue, I feel it was predominantly an overly self-conscious misstep. But hey, they’d surely call me an art-fag, so let me extend an olive branch from a distance that insures it won’t get swatted out my hand. Early on, Oi! spat out some fine singles, like this one from London’s Menace, their debut from 1977. "Screwed Up" is one of the template songs for this whole movement, and luckily it’s handled by characters who know how to turn up the sonic heat. Anthemic, eschewing finesse, and wearing its hard-life fixation like a snug leather-jacket covered in metal studs, it may not be the most intellectually stimulating moment in British punk, but it still sounds quite happening.

The Angelic Upstarts put out far too many records, but their 2nd 7” wasn’t one of them. "I’m an Upstart", from 1978, shows how many of these working-class, pre-National Front skinhead bands were actually on to something before they stomped-out all the traces of Sir Charles Berry from their sound. Yeah, the Berry here is quite bastardized, run through ‘60s freak-beat and garage, Detroit proto-punk and UK pub-rock, and plenty of the amped-up heat of the class of ’77, but that’s not at all a bad thing. It’s not enough to make me start a riot at a football match, but I’m a peaceful fellow, what these guys would probably call a fookin’ ‘ippie. Yeah, me and Elvis Costello.

This one some of you have heard before, some not. "Borstal Breakout" by Hersham England’s Sham 69 is, for some Brit-punk aficionados, simply the grail. Thundering like a herd of hooligans wearing seven-league Dr. Martens while trashing a fish-and-chip shop, this is about as great as this particular strain of UK punk gets. The band’s name has subsequently been dragged through so much low-quality mud (and influenced so many lackluster records) that the goodwill generated by their early stuff was seriously strained. But that’s okay. Sandwiched in between all these other songs, this goes down like a belt of strong hooch after seven or eight beers, and would doubtlessly be a grand addition to a soundtrack for a night of serious drinking. From the band’s 2nd 7”, released by Polydor in 1978.

But enough of Oi!, let’s go to Ireland. Stiff Little Fingers are often the first band people mention regarding the subject of Irish punk, but I think the best single to come out of that domain was "Teenage Kicks" by The Undertones (The late British DJ John Peel went even further, ranking it as his favorite record of all-time). It’s a doozy, melding thick guitar splooge and well-developed rhythmic dexterity to the kind of songwriting sensibility that might make Lenny Kaye crack a smile, while Feargal Sharkey’s vocals quiver and quaver atop the whole thing with a conviction that makes it seem like he’s actually about to make out with the cutest chick in Northern Ireland. Pretty life-affirming stuff, I think. Releasing this as the A-side of your debut single in 1978 is the first step in a recipe for diminishing returns, but these guys didn’t do too badly. Minus the singer, they later morphed into That Petrol Emotion.

The Valves, from Edinburgh Scotland, got in on the tacky Nazi-shtick pretty quickly, and got out just as fast, for their subsequent work displays none of those dubious ideological shenanigans. "For Adolphs Only", the B-side to the debut 1977 7”, doesn’t reek quite as badly of the foul-taste and stupid clothing choices that many of their peers succumbed to, and ends up being a pretty hot slab of growling motion by some guys who should’ve paid closer attention in history class. There I go, acting like a hippie again.

Canadian punk has a substantial history that’s been well documented, but a band that tends to slip through the cracks a bit is Ottawa’s The Bureaucrats. They have a complicated sound, melodic and layered with killer dual guitars and perfectly rendered textural shifts that add up to a whole lot of value. I can understand why some songs (real contenders) never catch on with the wider public, but can’t be anything but perplexed that "Feel the Pain" didn’t spread like the clap at a rouge swingers’ convention into wide mass appeal. It’s true that by 1980, the year this came out on 7”, there was a major shift away from guitars towards synths and keyboards, but MAN this song is the proverbial cat’s PJ’s. It shoulda been huge.

As a group, Calgary’s The Hot
Nasties are about as handsome as a pimple on the right ass-cheek of Stiv Bators, but if that’s what’s necessary to come up with a song as tweaked and gorgeous as "Invasion of the Tribbles", then I say viva the non-handsome men. This monster has the gauze of low-fi in spades, and it takes a Ramonesy rock knowledge as a basis and then stretches it out with a loony, loopy non-profundity that’s got high-school loner written all-over it. If I moved into a house and while rummaging through some stray junk left behind in the garage, found a small box that held a cassette tape marked DEMO that had a song this strange and great on it, I’d feel like the luckiest guy in town. And I’d never sell it on E-Bay. From a 1980 7”.

We touch back down in the US in the state of (mind that is) Kansas, with The Embarrassment, from Wichita, and "Sex Drive", the A-side of their 1980 debut 7”. This one has been a favorite of mine for over ten years now, partly for its hard-edged pop sensibilities, and also for the bookish, cutting irony in its lyrics. Scott’s Trans Am has the windows down/But he’s in a jam when the girl’s around………stops at the curb and he opens the hood/He’s on the main drag and he thinks that’s good……..(and then the chorus)……I’m going on a.......SEX DRIVE!!!! All the while, the band’s riffing and hitting like champions. Some crabs might carp that no song that approaches the five minute mark should be classified as punk, but I say they don’t understand heartland America. The Embos (as they were called by their small, yet dedicated fan-base) carved out quite the impressive legacy, including a two-CD retrospective of their discography and Bill Goffrier going on to help form college-rock mainstays Big Dipper.

"Living Downtown" by Albany New York’s A. D.'s has its roots firmly planted in the street-rock of New York Dolls, Richard Hell, and Johnny Thunders, but it’s speedier, more driving, and is far less likely to paint a mental picture of someone in the band wearing a leopard-print scarf. This was the A-side of a one-shot single that these days go for around $30. Maybe if they’d worn some of those scarves, they could’ve managed to release more than one record. From 1979.

Like the Saints, San Francisco’s Crime was active and recording in 1976. "Hot Wire My Heart" is the A-side of their classic 1st single, and it shows how wide-open the whole concept of individual sound was in those turbulent early days of the punk impulse. These guys were known to get decked-out in cop suits while playing (flash forward a few years, and this would be a serious fashion no-no), and they actually played a show at Alcatraz prison (can’t say I wish I’d been in attendance for that one). Not everything they recorded was as aggressively ruling as this song, but they did belch out enough top quality junk-as-gold to be considered far more than a footnote. The punk scene’s later large infatuation with speed leaves Crime’s sound as a sadly underutilized influence, but that’s alright. Sonic Youth covered this song on their SISTER LP, so if you’re thinking you’ve heard this before, maybe that’s it. Or you could’ve been at The Blue Moon Café in Shephardstown WV a few months back, where the DJ was gracious enough to spin this for my full appreciation.

By 1980 Los Angeles had more punk bands than you could swing a multi-colored and stickered skateboard at. Not all of them were worth listening to. Agent Orange was worth it, however, and "Bloodstains" is quite possibly the band’s best straight-up punk moment. This band had a substantial interest in instrumental surf music that pre-dated Quentin Tarantino by more than a few years, but here they just let it all hang out while maintaining a judicious use of speed, a loose handle on precision, and throwing down a (some would say metallic) riff-chug AND sing-along-no-shout-along lyrics for the ages. The topic of hedonistic over-stimulation and the resulting psychosis never sounded like such a worthy life goal. There are a couple different versions of this song; this one is from the RODNEY ON THE ROQ VOLUME ONE compilation LP. Dig that cool Brooke Shields opening.

Regarding punk bands, they make them different in Texas. Or at least they used to. A lot of (even great) punk groups can’t help but give off the vibe that they were being just as non-conformist as they could afford to, and not a whit more. And that’s cool, but in Texas, the bands often seem death-wish defiant. It’s no accident that the two greatest anti-cop songs (yup, better than Black Flag’s "Police Story") come from this state. Here’s the first: AK47’s "The Badge Means You Suck". Instead of dead-end sloganeering, this song’s lyric gush has the kind of almost folkist pointed quality that could inspire the late great Phil Ochs to sleep well in his grave. It’s combined with a non-flash bordering on bluesy pummeling that I’m thinking could get a hard taskmaster like Dylan to doff his cap (I’ll only add that back around ’84 Dylan played on Letterman backed-up by the Plugz, and they covered "Don’t Start Me to Talkin’" by Sonny Boy Williamson, so it’s no stretch to consider old Bob being down for punk-blues synthesis). This was released on 7” in 1980. They were from Houston, and this song is like a dare to some of that city’s non-finest to try and get ugly with their billy-clubs in a dark alley somewhere.

Led by a pushing 300 Lbs. homosexual transvestite communist lead singer named Gary Floyd (he of Butthole Surfers fame), Austin’s The Dicks were the kind of band that, were they a fictive creation, would strain the concept of suspension-of-disbelief. They definitely make me scratch my head and wonder just how they all (or at least Gary) didn’t end up dead or at least crippled. Because The Dicks "Hate the Police" was the A-side of their debut single, released in 1980 with a not-a-bit subtle Hammer and Sickle on the cover forming the letter D in the band’s name. Because in interviews, Floyd would describe the group as a Commie Faggot band. Because while onstage, Floyd would sometimes splatter the crowd with chocolate frosting flung from his panties (DUCK!). And because the band also laid down some of the best protest-punk of the era. This song was later covered by Mudhoney in an even bigger, louder version that I must confess to hearing first and being slightly partial to (there goes my hipster cred), but there’s no doubt that this is as incendiary and in your face as punk gets.

It’s rather cool that one of the songs that really kick-started the whole obsessive interest in pre-hardcore punk singles that nobody bought when they were first released comes from a state not known as a punk rock paradise. That would be Florida. The Eat’s "Communist Radio" 7” was released in 1979, and at the time I doubt that anybody outside of the southern part of their home state even heard the thing. These days it’s been known to fetch +$500 dollars from rabid collectors who really should know better. But at least the song is actually a great one, a low-fi blast of historically rich sonic flailing that sprints to the finish line with nary a flaw in sight. This sits at the smack dab center of punk rock’s obscure underbelly and is almost peerless in its uncut beauty. It’s nice that modern technology can allow us to hear it without breaking the bank.

Probably one of my missteps in putting this comp together is only including one band from Ohio, specifically Cleveland. Unlike some of the locales visited here, it really was a major scene in punk’s growth era. But oh well, maybe next time. Clevo’s Pagans will just have to suffice, and "Street Where Nobody Lives", from their 2nd 7” (1978) is pure punk nectar. Rumbling like a bunch of dissatisfied miscreants who are all drunk on $2 bottles of wine with each of them holding a tattered, rolled-up copy of CREEM magazine in their back pocket, this is perfect soundtrack music to some grainy 8mm footage of a burning Cuyahoga river. The A-side of this band’s 1st record was called "Dead End America", so you know what kind of tree they’re barking up. Strikingly formidable.

BACK FROM SAMOA by LA’s Angry Samoans was probably my most listened to LP of 1988 (the only contenders were HALLOWED GROUN by Violent Femmes and IIT TAKES A NATION OF MILLIONS TO HOLD US BACK by Public Enemy). The undisputed sultans of snot, the Samoans’ could elevate the rudiments of wise-guy punk into a fine broth like nobody before or since. "Posh Boy’s Cock" is an undisguised attack on DJ Rodney Bingenheimer that eventually turned up on the outtakes and live collection RETURN TO SAMOA, which documents the band’s sound before they moved into their garage-psyche period.

So it’s only fitting to include a song from one of the classic Posh Boy records releases, specifically the debut self-titled 7” by LA’s Red Cross, from 1980. "Annette’s Got the Hits" is a brief and pretty perfect summation of the young McDonald brother’s fascination with sun-baked trash culture, and the sweet thing is that it hold’s none of the bad decisions and fashion catastrophes later versions of the band were plagued with (I saw them open for Sonic Youth in the early ‘90s at the University of Maryland’s Cole Field House, and it was a painful thing to witness). This is just bold bratty riffing and pounding from some kids who were still a good four/five years away from being able to (legally) drink. Yowch!

Flash forward to 1984 and you can see that some folks were getting rather board with the recently imposed restriction of what punk was supposed to be. LA’s Painted Willie is a good example of this. "Ragged Army", from their 1st 7”, moves all over the place , and while so doing provides a template (one of many) for much of the worthwhile underground action that was set to explode in that decade’s second half, what was soon to be called indie-rock. I love it’s scattershot explorations of non-generic terrain, the vocalist’s movement from post Darby Crash throat motion to giddy high-school gulp-emoting, and the cowbell………Mark Farner’s unavailable for comment.

Too bad more people didn’t hear "Let’s Get Let’s Get Tammy Wynette" by San Francisco’s The Maggots back when it was released on 7” in 1979, because it’s one of the greatest one-shot punk singles of all time. Ratty keyboard driven muck doesn’t get any better than this. The chick singer sounds like her nostrils are full of concrete, the guitarist appears to have been playing for about a week, and the rhythmic motion is like a fever-dream from the bed of Mo Tucker. Plus, from a lyrical standpoint, it’s one of the better examples of prankish glee I’ve ever heard.

But The Maids, also from San Fran, can give The Maggots a run for their money in the one-shot singles competition. "Back to Bataan", from their 1979 7” is just cathartic in its blasted aura. From the special punch of its drum intro to its off-center shouting and the curiously homoerotic lyrics to its egghead on speed guitar solo and the song’s wailing conclusion, this is like manna dropped from my personal musical heaven.

And thing’s come to a hopefully satisfying conclusion with The Gizmos and "The Midwest Can Be Alright". From Bloomington Indiana, friends with Dow Jones and the Industrials, their song from the 1981 RED SNERTS compilation LP is basically a response to this compilation’s opening track. It’s a nice, shambling run through pop-rock territory of a distinctly American flavor, and if I owned an Ipod and had nothing to do, I’m thinking this would sound great in my ears as I canvassed Downtown Winchester on an overcast autumn afternoon, taking in the buildings and the people and the whole rather non-exciting atmosphere, and for a few moments I could reach a level of acceptance. But never contentment.