Sunday 30 January 2011

Did You Spill My Pint?

If London had a CBGBs it wasn't The Roxy or The Marquee Club, it was Islington's Hope & Anchor (of course it had to be a pub, right), and this seminal compilation substantiates that.

It's all here to be heard: the juxtapositions reveal all.

The old guard, represented by Steve Gibbons, The Pirates, and dear old Wilko; and those who retained an older style, such as The Pleasers, Dire Straits, and to a certain extent Sean Tyla's Tyla Gang - who never sounded more like an English version of Tom Petty and The Hertbreakers - are heard alongside the new young gunslingers and upstarts: X-Ray Spex (Poly Styrene being the only woman on the album!), The Saints, Suburban Studs, The Only Ones, 999 and XTC, a band who were already years ahead; already sounding post-post-punk.

And there's Steel Pulse, the then great ambassadors of the new wave of British reggae.
To have seen them at that time in a London pub must have been something else.

There wasn't much to the Hope & Anchor back in the nineteen-seventies.
No real stage as such, just a raised area in an airless, heaving, chamber-like bar.
But the historicity of the place is immense.
And this compilation is its ossuary.

Various Artists - Hope & Anchor Front Row Festival (1978)

Wilko Johnson Band - Dr. Feelgood
The Stranglers - Straighten Out
Tyla Gang - Styrofoam
The Pirates - Don't Munchen It
Steve Gibbons Band - Speed Kills
XTC - I'm Bugged
Suburban Studs - I Hate School
Wilko Johnson Band - Billy
XTC - Science Friction
Dire Straits - Eastbound Train
Burlesque - Bizz Fizz
X-Ray Spex - Let's Submerge
999 - Crazy
The Saints - Demolition Girl
The Only Ones - Creatures of Doom
The Pirates - Gibson Martin Fender
Steel pulse - Sound Check
Roogalator - Zero Hour
Philip Rambow - Underground Romance
The Pleasers - Rock and Roll Radio
Tyla Gang - On the Streets
Steve Gibbons Band - Johnny Cool
Wilko Johnson Band - Twenty Years Behind

Cd rip to mp3s
Return to the Front Row here

5 comments:

roy rocket said...

Agreeable spam accepted

Anonymous said...

i saw all those bands at the time.Personal favorite:Wilko who was tremendous on stage...

Thanks for the memories!

roy rocket said...

Ooh, you lucky, lucky...

Saw many of them too, but not always in such an intimate setting.
I'd loved to have seen Steel Pulse at this time; time I got to see them they were already playing on the second stage at Glastonbury.
Still fantastic though.

Thanks for your comment, roy

Anonymous said...

Hi Roy,

Just an update for your blogroll. Never Get Out Of The Boat REDUX is over here these days.

http://ngootbredux.blogspot.com/

Thanks for all your kind support.
Willard

roy rocket said...

Hey, W.
I'd love to include you in my blogroll but the thing is what with the size of your site; your widgets, advertising and whatnot I crash everytime I attempt to view.
I bounce off other sites to get to your most recent posts; but even then I suffer intermittent freeze.

Yeah, I've probably got a shit setup.
But there you are.

Best wishes, roy