St. Patrik's Day

Here's a rare thing: a tribute album dedicated to a single artist that's actually very good; consistently very good, in fact.

There's something extremely conducive in Patrik Fitzgerald's songs that make them ideal cover fodder.
No matter what the genre - although there is a natural tendency towards punk and post punk - the diversity and range across this two disc package creates interest, surprise and a little bit of nostalgic pleasure.

Bands, artists, poets, from all over the place get in on the act: some old, some new - there's a lot from Norway [!]; PF must be big in Norway - but all in all, homage indeed for one of the original urban folkies.

Most gratifying this.
Enjoy!

Various Artists - All Sewn Up - A Tribute to Patrik Fitzgerald (2009)

Punch - Motorpsycho (feat Jello Biafra)
Laughter Far Away - Terry Lee Hale
Live Out My Stars - Max Lorentiz
Ragged Generation - Milk Kan
Safety Pin Stuck in My Heart - Isreael Vis
Banging & Shouting - Betong Hysteria
Trendy - Seven
Little Fishes - Jim Jasmine
How the Fuck? - All Trouble
Animal Mentality - Sister Rain
Tonight - Lez Marwick
Work, Rest, Play, Reggae - Benjamin Zephaniah
Backstreet Boys - Attila the Stockbroker
One Little Soldier - Pog
Island of Lost Souls - Reilly Express
Set We Free - Bladed
When I Get Famous - The Legend!
One By One - Dog & Sky
Shadow of a Man - Jackie Leven & Michael Cosgrove
Unaware - BC
All the Years of Trying - Geoff Berner
Bingo Crowd - The School
As Ugly As You - Try Love & the Taxis of Evil
Personal Loss - Kevin Hewick
Optimism/Reject - Hook Line & Sinker
No Fun Football - Liliedugg
Paranoid Ward/All My Friends Are Dead Now - The 3rd & the Mortal (feat Attila the Stockbroker)
Improve Myself - Thomas Robsahm (feat Vera & Jara)
All Sewn Up - Monolithic
Cruelest Crime - Max Lorentz
Same Coin, Different Madness - Motor Incubator

CD rip
Down Pat here

London Dreaming

'S'funny, I dreamt of this album the other night.

I can't remember the finer detail - can you ever? - but I remember placing the needle on the first of the Eater tracks and rather than hearing the powerfully energetic sounds of teenage angst, what I heard I can only describe as being the most wonderful and beautiful poetry I have ever experienced.

I awoke bolt upright, knowing I'd heard something truly miraculous.
I desperately tried to recall.
I couldn't.
So I went back to sleep, accompanied by a feeling that something special had been lost.

I'd blown my Coleridge moment.
My dream lost.
As Burroughs described: gone, like smoke beneath a door, when the film is run backwards.

Despite my loss and disappointment, my dream did remind me of the excitement inspired by the first time I played this seminal punk collection.
As a young teenager, hearing Slaughter & The Dogs, Eater, the mighty Wire and The Buzzcocks truly blew my mind, turning me on to sounds and ideas that would go on to play an important part in the shaping of my life.
It was also the first time I was exposed to X-Ray Spex and the provocative lyrics of Poly Styrene, an artist who I still believe was one of the greatest lyricists of her and my generation.

There is an extended and quite different version of this album out there, but I thought I'd up this, the original, as this is how I, and no doubt many others remember it.
Cleverly, it not only captures the sounds of the bands who were creating the scene, but crystallizes the scene itself.
Listen out for the throw away question: 'Is Sid Vicious in tonight?'

So sit back and enjoy; sit back and reminisce; and remember those times when music meant something; when music had balls; when music had a voice and spoke for those who were often ignored; when music could - and did - change the world.

Various Artists - The Roxy London WC2 (Jan-Apr 77)

Runaway - Slaughter & The Dogs
Boston Babies - Slaughter & The Dogs
Freedom - The Unwanted
Lowdown - Wire
1 2 X U - Wire
Bored Teenagers - The Adverts
Hard Loving Man - Johnny Moped
Don't Need It - Eater
15 - Eater
Oh Bondage Up Yours - X Ray Spex
Breakdown - The Buzzcocks
Love Battery - The Buzzcocks

CD rip to mp3s
Return here

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

Prêt à Punk

Groovy old punk sampler from seminal French record label Skydog Records.

It's all in here to be heard; The Clash, The New York Dolls and of course: Iggy.
But there's also a smattering of blues; capturing the true gestation of punk and the live scene of the late nineteen-seventies.

Skydog were really all about the Stooges; although they did have many other interesting artists visit their stable, but essentially Iggy was where they were at.
And Iggy, at the time, was very punk indeed.

When Iggy was punk.
Remember that?
Included here is a fascinating version of the Stooges' 'Open Up and Bleed', with Iggy-styled preamble; I'm not sure if this version was released anywhere else; but I know the album that was to be titled with the same name was never released - although there's bound to be out there somewhere something those who are pragmatic and motivated enough to do such things have put together.
Bound to be.

It's funny how Sean Tyla always managed to get in on the act (he appears on this compilation both with his own band and with Ducks Deluxe), being regularly grouped, or lumped in with punk and new wave bands - The Tyla Gang were included on the classic compilation Hope & Anchor Front Row Festival (1977), along with XTC, Steel Pulse, Dr. Feelgood and, er, Dire Straits [!].

It's not that I'm down on Sean Tyla; far from it; he was truly a great songwriter and performer (I still think The Tyla Gang's Moonproof (1978) is one of the best albums of its genre from the period).
I just never got the association.
He even looked wrong: long hair and bearded, flare-wearing, obvious stoner; yet there he was, doing his rock n roll thing alongside The Stranglers and 999.

I know Peel liked them - it was his show that introduced me to the band - so maybe that made The Tyla Gang cool.

All in all, this sampler, as all samplers are, is very evocative; crystallizing the time perfectly.

Bon Appétit!


Various Artists - La Creme De Skydog (1978)

Flamin' Groovies - Jumpin' Jack Flash
Ducks Deluxe - Here Comes the Night
Tyla Gang - It's Only Rock n Roll
Titus Williams - Talkin' About You
Fantomes - I Wanna Be Your Dog
Fantomes - High School
1984 - Dirt
1984 - Flesh Kaput
Iggy and The Stooges - Open Up and Bleed

Excellent 320 vinyl rip, from a not that well pressed record.
Voila

Mutt n Jeff

If Nothing Short of Total War is one of the best compilations out there, Texas Trip is definitely one of the most out there.

Put together, recorded and produced by The Butthole Surfers in their prime, this selection showcases their own material as well as that of a few of their sonically eccentric mates.

Despite the Surfers at the controls, Daniel Johnston's 'Don't Play Cards With Satan' is one of his more accessible pieces, and he actually comes across as being one of the more saner and coherent of the artists captured here; not sure what that says about the others...

Johnston's other solo effort is a return to form: demanding, expanding and ultimately rewarding.

He also pops up on the better of the Surfers' contributions, 'All Day', his angst harmonising so sweetly with Gibby's aggressive Gibbytronix.

So, stick the cans on, and as they say over there in Texas: "Play Loud".

Various - Texas Trip (1987)

Steve Fitch - In the Neighbourhood
Daniel Johnston - Don't Play Cards With Satan
Stickmen With Rayguns - Gravecity
Butthole Surfers - All Day
Stickmen With Rayguns - Kill the Innocent
Daniel Johnston - Grievances
Butthole Surfers - Flame Grape

Decent cassette rip @320kbs
Ear here

Tinnitus

While ripping this earlier, I quickly concluded that Blast First's Nothing Short of Total War is definitely one of the best and most well put together compilation/samplers out there.

Just check out the roll call:
All caught at their finest - and what can one say about the recording of The Butthole Surfers' 'Jimi'...

But hey, nuff; let the album speak for itself:

Various - Nothing Short of Total War (1989)
Decent vinyl rip @320kbs

The spoken word samples I have mainly included as preambles: seemed appropriate.
Enjoy.

Hear here

Praising the Dead

There can't be many albums known purely by their catalogue number, but to mark the ocassion of their one hundredth release, Jello Biafra's Alternative Tentacles Records decided to announce that fact to the world, so this compilation of Dead Kennedys' tracks by a stunning array of various artists became simply titled Virus 100.

But no mere sampler or greatest hits this, no, this varied and eclectic collection of interpretations of Dead Kennedys' songs is all homage; an extremely worthy celebration and fitting tribute to a greatly influential band; and collectively, the band's have really done 'em proud.

Interestingly, it's the tracks that move furthest away from the original genre that are the real stand out numbers: Faith No More's cajun take on 'Let's Lynch the Landlord'; No Means No's a capella rendition of 'Forward to Death'; Napalm Death's nasty, nasty version of 'Nazi Punks'; Kramer's downbeat take on 'Insight'; and Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy's transformation of 'California Uber Alles' into a classic piece of agit-prop hip hop.

But truthfully, there's not a weak track on here.
I mean, how could there be?
They're all Dead Kennedys' tracks.
Nuff said.

Various Artists - Virus 100 (1992)

Police Truck - Didjits
Too Drunk to Fuck - Evan Jones & His H-Bombs
Halloween - Alice Donut
Let's Lynch the Landlord - Faith No More
Nazi Punks Fuck Off - Napalm Death
Forward to Death - No Means No
Chemical Warfare - Steel Pole Bath Tub
Saturday Night Holocaust - Neurosis
Moon Over Marin - Les Thugs
Ill in the Head - Victims Family
California Uber Alles - Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy
Winnebago Warrior - Mojo Nixon & the Toadliquors
Drug Me - Sepultura
Insight - Kramer
Let's Lynch the Landlord - L7
Holiday in Cambodia - Sister Double Happiness

Excellent vinyl rip @320kbs
Celebrate a dynasty here

Token Music

In my formative years as an avid music enthusiast my access to the rock world was via the weekly publication Sounds.
I began with Melody Maker, but it was aimed at those who were interested in what strings Richie Blackmore favoured; I tried NME but couldn't understand when reading a review of a Stranglers' gig why the author was deconstructing the life and works of Søren Aabye Kierkegaard.
Sounds was just right.

And long before the days of cover mounts, these weeklies that adopted the portentous style of broadsheet newspapers, would entice their readers into getting their hands on free music by publishing collectible tokens on a weekly basis for a month or so.
Save 'em up, send 'em off, and hey, about two months later you get your free record through the post.

Which is how I came to be in possession of this.
And I still love it.

Released in 1978, the Sounds Album Vol 3: Can't Start Dancin' was a collaboration with Stiff Records, one of the more exciting of the new wave of independent record labels that were rapidly springing up on the back of punk ideology and enthusiasm.

Fourteen tracks, performed by seven Stiff artists; beginning with their big home grown star, Ian Dury, who gives away his first single release with the Blockheads: 'Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll ', and that excellent anthem to hedonism was juxtaposed with the equally wonderful 'Razzle in my Pocket', the single's original flipside, and my favourite all time Dury track.

Back in 1985, I shouted myself hoarse at Glastonbury during one of Ian Dury's frequent reunions with the Blockheads, demanding they perform 'Razzle in my Pocket'.
They didn't.
I wonder if that was the reason why lots of people threw mud at them...

But if you've never heard the track; a witty monologue, with the narrator telling the story of how he went 'out on the nick' in 'Romford', and what happened to him when he 'put his thieving hand on something rude', well, find out the rest for yourself.
I'm not gonna spoil it for you.

Mickey Jupp is next to belt out a couple of songs, showing how punk allowed for a lot of fringe and peripheral musicians to gain some appropriate attention.
Produced by Nick Lowe, Mickey Jupp, as a member of the ambiguous pub rock genre, suddenly became interesting after being in the music business since the early sixties.
And his songs included here reveal just how professional and tight many of the pub circuit musicians were at this time, as they're both really fine numbers.

The real highlight of the collection can be heard next, courtesy of a pre-'Stop the Cavalry' Jona Lewie, with his wonderful song 'Denny Laine's Valet'.
I have listened to this song on and off for the last thirty years, and I still haven't got a clue as to what the fuck he is going on about, but it really is true genius.

Wreckless Eric's contributions are a couple of typifying numbers that capture the excitement of his early songs. Destined to be massive by Stiff, he shyed away from the manner in which they marketed and promoted him; and became one of the most peripheral of all cult singer songwriters, seemingly enjoying his less than commercial relationship with the music industry.

The track 'Semaphore Signals' that appears on this collection was produced by Ian Dury, and a fine job he made of it; it really is one of Eric's stand out tunes from this part of his career.

Talking of expectancy and the desire for big things, Rachel Sweet was also heavily promoted by Stiff as being the next Patti Smith or something.
Listening to her sickly voice now, it's amazing that she even made the Stiff roster, let alone being singled out for success.

(I guess like Branson's Virgin camped just down the road from Stiff, what everybody really wanted was number ones. Branson got lucky with 'God Save the Queen', Stiff made it with Dury's 'Rhythm Stick', but they kept on promoting more 'commercal' artists, this I believe was responsible for a lot of ex-Stiff artists recalling unhappy times with the label.)

Sweet was a kind of indie Britney figure.
Peaches she wasn't.
Where is she now, I wonder?

Lena Lovich on the other hand had a pretty successful career.
Starting as a funk singer in the early seventies, the English, Serbian, America-born artist was soon convinced by Stiff to adopt a punky look.
It paid off, and she achieved a commercial hit with the upbeat song 'Lucky Number'.

I gained a free ticket one time to see her perform at the Lyceum in Hammersmith.
I left after two numbers and chanced my luck at getting into the Odeon down the street where Blue Oyster Cult were playing.
I failed.
Would I have left the Lena Lovich gig if the ticket wasn’t free?
Probably, yeah.

Her second track here really sounds like it should have been included on the Broken Glass soundtrack; as Lovich performs a magnificent impersonation of Hazel O'Connor.

The Rumour, a support band for many solo artists of this time, were normally associated with singer Graham - 'Hey Lord don't ask me Questions' - Parker.
It does sound like Parker sings lead on the first of their tracks here, but I'm unable to verify this.

The Rumour are yet another example of a band that were really known from the pub circuit - it must be said, the pub music scene was thriving at that time, and venues such as The Hope and Anchor in Islington, The Red Cow in Hammersmith and The Falcon in Camden Town were the best places to see cutting edge, wild and often innovative performances in London in the mid to late seventies.

The Rumour's second track on this collection, 'Loving You is Far Too Easy', reminds me of this time probably more than any other track on the album; as it was a sound so indicative of those times; even more so than more successful bands such as The Damned or The Dickies.


7 Stiff Artists - The Sounds Album Vol 3: Can't Start Dancin' (1978)

Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll - Ian Dury & the Blockheads
Razzle in my Pocket - Ian Dury & the Blockheads
Making Friends - Mickey Jupp
You Made a Fool Out of Me - Mickey Jupp
Denny Laine's Valet - Jona Lewie
I'll Get By in Pittsburgh - Jona Lewie
Semaphore Signals - Wreckless Eric
I Wish it Would Rain - Wreckless Eric
I'll Watch the News - Rachel Sweet
Cuckoo Clock - Rachel Sweet
Monkey Talk - Lene Lovich
Momentary Breakdown - Lene Lovich
All Fall Down - The Rumour
Loving You is Far Too Easy - The Rumour

Get a copy of this never commercially released Stiff sampler as a vinyl rip @256kbs here

If anyone has got a clue as to what the hell 'Denny Laine's Valet' is all about, I'd love an inkling...