P.V.S. / Small Mercies / Coasters / Up In Arms / The American Cousin / Evidence / Rome burning / (Afraid Of Being) Bled By Leeches

Pain Topics / Reversal 2 / These Men Of Old England / Wrist Job (Once Green And Pleasant Land) / Lycanthrothene / Motet / Throat Violence / False Alarm (Malicious) 

Uploaded tonight the debut LP by the Lemon Kittens, this LP is as mad as a bag of frogs.

Featuring on most of the instruments and some of the vocals, the delectable Danielle Dax, who later constructed a successful solo career kicking off with the excellent ‘Pop Eyes’ LP in 1982. This LP was originally released featuring rather gruesome artwork on the sleeve. The artwork was redesigned in time for the second pressing of the record.

Karl Blake went on to form Shock Headed Peters, a band also well worth checking out if you get the urge.

Text below ripped from allmusic.com. Because you’re worth it… 

With no “proper” musical skills upon their formation in Reading, England, the Lemon Kittens epitomized the “anything goes” spirit of late-’70s post-punk in the U.K. Karl Blake, who cut his teeth in numerous outfits prior to the Lemon Kittens, started the band with Gary Thatcher and a revolving cast of others (which at one point included future Alternative TV leader Mark Perry), but at the time of the release of their first EP in 1979, the seven-song ‘Spoonfed + Writhing’ 7″, the group’s lineup featured Blake, Thatcher, N. Mercer, Mylmus, and Danielle Dax.

The group was whittled down to a duo of Blake and Dax by February of 1980; the other three members had fled, making for the group’s 16th different lineup change since initialization in April 1978. Blake and Dax then decided to operate primarily as a duo, with help coming from whoever whenever they needed the assistance to perform.

Later in 1980, Blake and Dax released the debut album entitled ‘We Buy a Hammer for Daddy’ on the United Dairies label (their label mates included fellow oddballs and noise-mongers Whitehouse and Nurse With Wound), an album that featured the duo swapping a wide variety of instruments.

The Cake Beast EP came out in February of 1981; Dax left after its release to begin a successful solo career (which Blake took part in sporadically throughout the rest of the decade and into the 1990’s).

In late 1982, the Illuminated LP ‘Those That Bite the Hand That Feeds Them Must Sooner or Later Meet…the Big Dentist’ (best referred to as ‘The Big Dentist’) became the group’s second full-length.

Blake rounded up a new group of cronies, laid the Lemon Kittens to rest, and began the Shock Headed Peters.

Reading through the veritable frenzy of spectacular speculations in the media that the 2009 London G20 summit will lead to anarchy in the UK (or at least in the City), I was amused to notice that the second Stop the City took place on 29 March 1984 – twenty five years ago.

However, apart from a thoughtful article found in SchNews (who have been going for 15 years) the media’s collective memories don’t seem to stretch as far back as 1983/4. Parts of the Schnews article connect back even further to the radical alternatives advocated by Undercurrents magazine in the seventies.

In the near future we can expect to see scenes reminiscent of post-war Britain, when people turned to allotments during the times of rations and scarcity. Allotments already made a comeback over a decade ago as people resisted the hegemony of the supermarkets, but the revival may have only just begun. Economies of scale should follow with an increasing need for more localised farming and co-operatively run food growing. Out of necessity, many people who’d never before imagined it possible may well find themselves involved in food production.

The article even has a Spanish anarchist quote by Durruti … the same quotation which, coincidently, can  also be found on the re-released Let the Tribe Increase due out on 6 April.

Whatever happens in London over the next few days, however spectacular, the real problem will remain :how can “self-sufficiency, conservation and the co-operative pooling of resources”  become the foundation for a sustainable future? The “new world we carry here, in our hearts”.

AL Puppy

SchNEWS SPECULATES WILDLY ABOUT LIFE AFTER CAPITALISM

This week’s G20 mobilisation in the City Of London – by calling up the ghosts of Reclaim The Streets and Stop The City, as well as incorporating elements of more recent movements such as Climate Change and anti-war campaigns – is shaping up to be one of the most important mobilisations in central London during the past decade.

The very fact that the ad-hoc G20 Summit is ‘needed’ next week in London is confirmation that we were right all along and now it’s starting to kick off! Yep, the system was as unsustainable as it always looked, and the globalised capitalism which made us rich as it made others poor is finally reaching its end game. Poverty hasn’t been made history but is instead coming home to us. A response – albeit harsh – to those affected by the credit crunch is ‘welcome to the majority world’. 90% of the world’s population don’t go through consumer goods as if they fell out of a corn flakes packet, so why should we in Britain?

This crash looks like producing the kind of economic cutbacks environmentalists have been screaming out for for years. UK car production is down 60% in the past year – difficult for those who lost jobs and have families to feed – but maybe it heralds a less consumerist society. The global aviation industry is being severely hit by a large drop in demand and will lose up to $8 billion this year. Building developments are being dropped left, right and centre.

CRISIS WHAT CRISIS

“We are not in the least afraid of ruins. We are going to inherit the earth, there is not the slightest doubt about that. The bourgeoisie might blast and ruin its own world before it leaves the stage of history. We carry a new world, here, in our hearts. That world is growing this minute”. – Bienventura Durruti – 1936

With the cracks gaping wide in Capitalism’s shiny facade everything’s up for grabs as sections of society not used to scraping by on benefits or minimum wage will start to see just how vulnerable they really are. The test to will be whether people who grew up in the Thatcher Blair years will stand by the dog-eat-dog me-first attitudes which have become ‘common-sense’ – which during a crisis could play into the hands of the far right. Or if they will turn to the growing set of solutions which has been developed over the past 40 years and which SchNEWS has been banging on about for the past 15: ecological and social sustainability and a equitable system. How? Using ideas gleaned from Anarchism, Ecology and anything else that has challenged the aura of inevitability that previously surrounded capitalism.

There are many political activists in Britain and elsewhere who have both been preparing for a collapse and even cheering it on. But now the signs are here, do even the most hardened chaoto-nihilists really want to be reduced to fighting over the last tin of baked beans in the radioactive ruins of Sainsburys? Even stockbrokers may find themselves turning to previously marginal ideas, long the hobby-horse of apocalypse-fetishists and 60s beardy-weirdies, such as self sufficiency and non-capitalist modes of organisation.

The recession is already biting in certain key areas. The cost of basic living has shot up in the past 12 months: power has gone up 22%, food 11%, and transport fares 8%. Power, food and transport rank alongside housing, education, water, and health as essentials in any functioning society. If the capitalist state can no longer provide these affordably (or at least the illusion of them), then communities must take things into their own hands.

Take just those three – power, food and transport. The key to wresting these from the clutches of multinational capital is self-sufficiency, conservation and the co-operative pooling of resources.

It’s obvious that houses shouldn’t be so reliant on external power – and held to ransom by energy cartels. Not only should they be more energy efficient but also be able to generate their own power, renewably. Energy generation at all levels has to also come from renewable sources – it’s a no brainer. Currently with our government refusing to properly invest in renewables, energy companies like Shell are cutting back on their already meagre sustainable energy budgets.

Food is even more essential than power, and the average Brit is more of a hostage to a small number of international corporations than ever before. In the near future we can expect to see scenes reminiscent of post-war Britain, when people turned to allotments during the times of rations and scarcity. Allotments already made a comeback over a decade ago as people resisted the hegemony of the supermarkets, but the revival may have only just begun. Economies of scale should follow with an increasing need for more localised farming and co-operatively run food growing. Out of necessity, many people who’d never before imagined it possible may well find themselves involved in food production. Councils have so far refused to meet this growing demand with years-long waiting lists for a bit of yer own land, so now is the time for residents to take unused land into their own hands for a spot of guerilla gardening. With the high costs of organic food out of the reach for those forced to rely on the chemically saturated fare of budget supermarkets, allotments are the best option for the production of wholesome food.

Transport is not so life-or-death, but is still a basic necessity. However until anti-gravity devices and water powered engines are invented, we are reliant on oil. But again, economic forces are about to severely limit this oil consumption – and that includes the transportation of workers, food and other commodities. Once more, this points to localisation: more locally grown food – to lower food miles, and less commuting to work. If far fewer people are able to run a car, development of public transport infrastructure will be key and bike use will go up – great news for the smog-choked cities of Britain and everywhere else. Anyhow, countries much poorer than Britain manage to maintain public transport systems better than ours – which is no surprise given that it’s always been a policy of UK PLC to pander to the road lobby.

At this point it is more important than ever that people have these discussions and are informed of these potential solutions. A set of new/old ideas are about to have their day. Maybe people might think that they’d need to be dragged kicking and screaming into wearing tofu sandals in a vegan tree village, but actually they may find that the values of mutual aid and cooperation have always run through society. They may even come to relish the sense of community which could emerge from all this, and not want to go back to the atomised society they’ve left behind.

Madness / Loving Reggae / Contiquros / Serious / Father And Mother

Music Is A Part Of Life / Ital Queen / God Bless The Day / Judgement A Come / Zion Land

Uploaded tonight is one of the most understated and beautiful debut albums ever released in the reggae vocal harmony style. The Maytones were largely ignored in the mid 1970′s by UK music press and record labels due to the lack of dreadlocks and red,gold and green tams on the heads of the two vocalists, Vernon Buckley and Gladestone Grant.

The Congos, Mighty Diamonds, Black Uhuru, Burning Spear and Culture all got (deserved) props from the music press and record labels like Virgin and Island, but because of the non Rasta image of The Maytones, those same record labels who believed that a militant Rasta image was important to sell to the UK public, lost out on releasing this absolutely stunning collection of reggae classics. 

The recording session for the tracks that appeared on this album was engineered by Alvin GG Ranglin at the infamous Channel One studio way way down along dangerous Maxfield Avenue in western Kingston. The Maytones composed lyrics on subjects that were not too heavy on the Rastafarian dogma,  personal day to day living for sufferers, making the best of a bad lot, and a heap of very classy songs on relationship issues were the order of the day for this vocal duo. The fragile way the vocals are put across on this album (and other Maytones releases) make the compositions incredibly tender and sad sounding, but overall the listener feels an overwealming feeling of hope.

The sleeve artwork from this album has images that were certainly not everyday fare for mid 1970′s reggae sleeve artwork. Mushroom clouds, gravestones and soldier images were to become among the favoured images of the punk bands that appeared much later on in the decade. I honestly can not think of many (or any) other reggae sleeves that are similar in artwork to this release from 1976.

Dedicated to Stewart and his twin brother Andy whose birthday is today. Happy and safe birthday to them both from all at Kill Your Pet Puppy online.

Cini camera shots of the twins filmed at the Huntingdon Street squat, Kings Cross in 1979 or 1980 when there were both wee lads of seventeen years old, or thereabouts.

The whole of the cini film feature on Huntingdon Street squat can be viewed HERE

Have A Nice Day / Mother Love / 1980 Bore / I Know There Is Love / Beg Your Pardon / Birth Control / Reality Whitewash

Greatest Working Class Rip Off / Buy Now / You Can Be Who / Deadhead / Bumhooler / Major General Despair / Feathers

A cassette I originally uploaded onto this site with a host of other Crass goodies (more rehearsal tapes, a Peel session and some interviews concerning the Reagan – Thatcher tape)  during November 2007 with the permission of two of the members, Penny Rimbaud and Pete Wright.

I have bought this particular November 2007 post forward to this current date in 2009 because the performance on both sides of this cassette is well worth listening to, and I noticed no comments were left on the original posting. The lack of comments is common to a fair amount of older posts that were being uploaded when KYPP was just finding it’s feet in blogland during the first three or four months of going online…I will endeavour to continue to bring some of these posts forward to the present day to gain a ‘new audience’ and further interest.

This cassette was recorded at Southern Studios during April 1981, and the listener gets to hear Crass performing in a very low key and relaxed fashion with Iggs almost whispering the vocals (no doubt sitting spawled out on the floor) whilst the rest of the members attempt re-starts after false starts and generally try out new guitar lines and drum patterns.

A great listen to those who are interested in Crass. This is indeed a very rare tape of material that hopefully folk interested in Crass will find immensely appealing.

The text below, written about the finished version of Christ The Album LP box set is ripped from wikki, and the review is from a 1982 issue of Punk Lives magazine written by KYPP’s Al.

‘Christ – The Album’ is Crass’ fourth album, released in 1982. It was released as a boxed set double vinyl LP package, including one disk of new studio material and another, entitled ‘Well Forked.. but not dead’, featuring a live recording of their June 1981 gig at the 100 Club in London along with other studio tracks, demos and tape fragments.

The album also included a book, ‘A Series Of Shock Slogans and Mindless Token Tantrums’ (which featured Penny Rimbaud’s essay ‘The Last of the Hippies’, telling the story of the suspicious death of his friend Wally Hope) and a large size poster painted by Gee Vaucher.

The album took over a year to record, produce and mix, during which time the Falklands War had taken place. This caused Crass to fundamentally question their approach to making records, for as a group whose very reason for existing was to comment upon political issues, they felt they had been overtaken and made to appear redundant by real world events.

Subsequent releases, including the singles ‘How does it Feel to Be the Mother of A Thousand Dead’ and ‘Sheep Farming in the Falklands’ and the album ‘Yes Sir, I Will’ saw the band strip their sound ‘back to basics’ and were issued as ‘tactical responses’ to political situations.

Bigger version HERE

Another session from around the same time may be heard HERE

Also remember that any donations are still welcome for the up keep of Dial House, a worthy investment for the future of this beautiful cultural centre.

Cheques can by made out to: Penny Rimbaud, Dial House, Ongar Park Hall, North Weald, Epping, Essex CM16 6AE.

Stiff Little Fingers – Alternative Ulster / Delta 5 – Mind Your Own Business / The Slits – Man Next Door / Essential Logic – Aerosol Burns / TV Personalities – Part Time Punks / Swell Maps – Read About Seymour / The Pop Group – We Are All Prostitutes

Spizz Energi – Soldier Soldier / Kleenex – Ain’t You / Cabaret Voltaire – Nag Nag Nag / The Raincoats – In Love / Young Marble Giants – Final Day / Scritti Politti – Skank Bloc Bologna / Robert Wyatt – At Last I Am Free

Inspired by a comment on the Toxic Grafity thread, Nic mentioned a BBC 4 programme all about the history of THE FOUNDATION of U.K. independant music which is the Rough Trade Shop, Record label and Distribution service.

If you have not heard of Rough Trade then there is no reason why you would be browsing this site right now!

Through the 30 plus years in business the Rough Trade organisation has touched countless thousands of hearts through the interesting and ecleptic selection of records that were sold over the counter at the west London, and much later, the San Fransisco store. The records that were released on the Rough Trade record label from 1978, and the 1000′s of units (whether records, fanzines or books) shifted that were released from other DIY sources via the distribution centre in Blenheim Crescent, W11, later to be moved into Kings Cross at Collier Street, N1 also helped to spread the thriving U.K independant music scene across the world.

The Cartel was set up with around a dozen key stores in different catchment areas such as York, Nottingham, Bristol, Norwich, Edinburgh etc. Rough Trade tried to organise everything in a pure and organic fair trade kind of way (a long time before those words became popular in the 21st century). 

The Distribution moved to Manor House, N4 and it all went Pete Tong. The record and distibution company quickly folded, although the shops were safe.

Then during (or slightly after) the Rough Trade 25 year anniversary jollie down the beautiful Victoria & Albert Museum (which I was invited and attended) Geoff Travis and Jeanette Lee decided to revamp the famous old record label after buying the name ‘Rough Trade’ back, and got far more success than they ever got in the 1970′s, 80′s or 90′s. Good on both of them…

The Rough Trade shop opened a new store in Neil Street, W1in the 1990′s (which is no longer there) and nowadays a Rough Trade superstore at Brick Lane, E1 is open and doing (I hope) a roaring trade.

Personally I was a Small Wonder customer until it turned into Ugly Child Records towards 1984, then I swapped allegeance and started going to Rough Trade up west London a lot more often than I had previously. In those days I could quite happily spend the whole Saturday afternoon in that store just looking at the wall in awe. This I did on countless occasions! Of course I tried to purchase as many records, tapes and fanzines as possible to make the travel fair more worth while! A small percentage of my booty from Rough Trade (and Small Wonder) is uploaded on this site already, as you can probably guess!

The LP uploaded tonight is a U.S. released compilation on the Rough Trade label with some quite obvious tracks on both sides of this record (some of which are already on this site in 7″ single form). But just because they are ‘obvious’ tracks does not mean they are fillers! There is not a duff track on this LP, so sit back and re-enjoy some real classic ‘A sides’ of post punk singles from the late 1970′s from the original and, in my opinion, best record label ever to have graced this country of ours*

* Except All The Madmen Records – which was distributed by (can you guess?) Rough Trade Distribution.

Hoping on some interesting comments to be attached to this thread, with KYPP browser’s memories of the Kensington Park Road or Talbot Road shops. Nigel, Jude and Pete always helpful behind the counters of these shops.

Dave Fergusson self appointed ‘King Of Punk’ peddling tapes outside the door of Rough Trade shop with his dog ‘Giro’.

Geoff Travis and Richard Scott on the label and distribution side and of course the 1000′s of employee’s that would be working in the warehouses and then going off to perform later that night for the bands they belonged to. Microdisney and the Folk Devils being just two examples that spring to mind right this minute, that had members that also held down day jobs at Rough Trade Distribution.

Get scribbling folks – you as well Mr Tony Drayton! Your good self and your Ripped And Torn fanzine were namechecked early on in the BBC 4 programme.

Please let the KYPP browser know how you got the fanzine into the shop and whether they were good people to be dealing with and any other relevant or interesting details.

202 Kensington Park Road, London W11

Wall of 202 Kensington Park Road, the wall of 130 Talbot Road was also similar.

130 Talbot Road, London W11

In 1978 the world was a very different place. Punk was in ashes, Elvis was not long dead and John Lennon was yet to be assassinated. Music came in analogue form, unsullied by a digital age which was still a hazy blur on the thought horizon. It was in this year that the Rough Trade record label began.

The label grew, quite literally, out of the record shop Geoff Travis had opened in West London in February 1976. The shop was trailblazing, farsighted, welcoming, radical – even revolutionary – and it was brimming over with wonderful things: seven-inch picture sleeves whose market was about to exponentially explode, reggae LPs, punk fanzines, badges. By 1978, it had a distribution system and was taking and selling records from bands benefiting from an emerging DIY culture. It was logical, then, that they should start a record label.

‘Paris Maquis’ ( RT001 ) by French punk rock band Metal Urbaine has the distinction of being the first Rough Trade release and was swiftly followed that year by an eclectic further eleven singles, many of which stand today as classics of their genre. Reggae – reflecting the label’s location in the heart of the west Indian community – punk and a healthy slice of electronic music were presented. Cabaret Voltaire, Augustus Pablo, Swell Maps, Electric Eels and Subway Sect were amongst the first artists.

By the end of 1979, a number of bands now commonly associated with Rough Trade had started to release records on the label, including Scritti Politti and The Raincoats. Such was the label’s recognized importance that a television programme the South Bank Show was devoted to it. When its first album, Stiff Little Fingers’ ‘Inflammable Material’, was released later in the year, it became the first independent record in history to sell over 100,000 copies and charted at number 14.

With the turn of the decade and the emergence of post punk, Rough Trade had grown far too large for its legendary but relatively tiny premises. The growth of the label and the success of its distribution arm, which by then distributed product by many hundreds of independent record labels, meant that larger premises needed to be found and in December 1980, the label and distribution moved to Blenheim Crescent.

The move coincided with what is often regarded as a golden period for the label. Innovative, emboldened by its success and as ever drawn inexorably towards the maverick, Rough Trade released over the next few years some of the finest independent music ever committed to vinyl. New acts to the roster included The Fall, Pere Ubu, Young Marble Giants, This Heat, Robert Wyatt, Television Personalities, Aztec Camera and James Blood Ulmer. Classic LP releases include The Fall’s ‘Grotesque’, This Heat’s ‘Deceit’, Pere Ubu’s ‘The Modern Dance’, Young Marble Giants’ ‘Colossal Youth’, Scritti Politti’s ‘Songs To Remember’ and James Blood Ulmer’s ‘Are You Glad To Be In America?’, all totems of that era from 1980 to 1983.

The signing of The Smiths in 1983 drew Rough Trade into new territory. A stifled independent music scene was gradually giving way to what would go on to be recognized as ‘indie’ and The Smiths, although not entirely foursquare with the genre, found themselves at the forefront of the emerging scene. The intensity with which the media embraced them, and the ensuing parallel success of their records meant that the label had to learn how to promote a band in a way it had never had to do before.

The outcome was an unprecedented run of sixteen chart singles beginning with ‘This Charming Man’ in 1984 and culminating in ‘Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me’ in 1987. All four studio albums reached the top two.

By 1984, Rough Trade was successful and on the move again, this time to larger premises in Kings Cross. In spite of its growth it had shed none of its principles and those characteristics that defined the company early on – egalitarianism, inclusivity, leftfield vision – were evident at the time of the Miners struggle against Margaret Thatcher’s government. Rough Trade released ‘Strike’ by The Enemy Within and distributed records to help support miners’ families. They also donated records to the children of the miners.

In 1987, Jeannette Lee joined Rough Trade and would go on to co-develop the Rough Trade record label as we know it today. A former member of Public Image Ltd and former employee of the legendary punk clothing outlet Acme Attractions, Jeannette would initially be influential in steering some of the bigger successes of late 80-s Rough Trade, including The Sundays whose album ‘Reading, Writing & Arithmetic’ was a top five hit in 1990. Jeannette’s arrival coincided with a new influx of guitar bands that looked set to reinvigorate the label, bands like Galaxie 500 and Mazzy Star.

But it was not to be, and, after an ill-fated move to Manor House, in early 1991, following a series of unfortunate business decisions and credit issues affecting distribution, Rough Trade International, the parent company, went into Administration. All of the assets, including the record company and the rights to the Rough Trade name itself, were sold off in an attempt to cover Distribution’s debts. The Rough Trade story, at least for the moment, was over.

It would be the best part of a decade before Geoff Travis and Jeannette Lee could reacquire the rights to the Rough Trade name and begin again as a record company with the help of trading partner Sanctuary. Once again the old Rough Trade ethos came to the fore – an openness of mind, a willingness to be moved and an unswerving belief in the vision of the artists. They were back in west London, too, which has always seemed the spiritual homeland of Rough Trade.

In Spring 2001, Geoff and Jeannette DJ’d at the V&A for the 25th anniversary party of the Rough Trade shop and the good faith elicited convinced them that they were absolutely right to re-launch the label. They had already released a trickle of albums and singles but it was an unsolicited tape from New York they had received a few months earlier that would spectacularly give them they ammunition they needed.

The Strokes first release ‘The Modern Age’ – the title almost says it all – galvanized both the revitalized Rough Trade and the British music industry, which was sorely in need of a lift post Brit-Pop. Geoff’s and Jeannette’s peripatetic foray to a New Jersey bar in search of the band they would bring back and promote before attending to the small detail of signing them to a contract paid off. Subsequent releases by The Strokes through 2001/2 and beyond would give their label its biggest commercial success since The Smiths.

Releases during the early- to mid- part of the 2000s by important artists like The Libertines, Eddi Reader, British Sea Power, Low, Emiliana Torrini, Arcade Fire, Belle & Sebastian, Sufjan Stevens and Antony & The Johnsons reflected the refreshing eclecticism of the co-founders, but by 2005 the label had hit a vintage vein of credible and commercial form. Antony & The Johnsons were the unexpected yet deserved winners of the Mercury Prize for the outstanding ‘I Am A Bird Now’ and Arcade Fire’s ‘Funeral’ album had become a worldwide hit, eliciting breathless praise from the likes of David Bowie and David Byrne.

By 2006, some old friends had returned, too. Scritti Politti’s ‘White Bread, Black Beer’ suggested they’d never been away and made it all the way to the Mercury shortlist, whilst Jarvis Cocker, whom Rough Trade had managed for nearly fifteen years, released his first post-Pulp album, ‘Jarvis’.

Over the last few years the record industry has not escaped the economic downturn and one result of that has been the severing of ways between Rough Trade and Sanctuary in July 2007 when the label entered an equal partnership with the Beggars Group. A perhaps more appropriate fit, the Beggars deal ensured ‘stability, dynamism and expertise to grow on a worldwide basis’. Rough Trade now has a stronger US presence, one that will continue to grow and serve rising artists like Basia Bulat who can benefit from local as well as transatlantic guidance.

With British Sea Power taking ‘Do You Like Rock Music?’ into the Top Ten and onto the Mercury Prize shortlist in 2008 and with groups like The Hold Steady, ‘the band that set out to do nothing’ finding themselves rising global stars, for the moment Rough Trade heads in the right direction. Important new releases for 2009 by Antony & The Johnsons and The Veils underline the fact that the future is promising. ‘It’s flattering that people are interested in the past,’ Geoff Travis has said, ‘but… the most important thing is what happens now, what happens next.’

Watch this space.

Neil Taylor

Living On Dreams / Latex Love

Last Rockers

Debut 7″ single by Bristol’s Vice Squad which sold bucketloads in the early 1980′s, one copy was sold to me, and it remains the only Vice Squad record that I have ever owned.

The sleeve depicts the obligatory for the era ‘punks in post armagedden landscape’ artwork, adding a mushroom cloud picture to the rear of sleeve, just in case anyone missed the subtlety in the lyrics of ‘Last Rockers’. 

Great Stuff…

Text ripped from ungraciously from Wikki Pee Dear.

Vice Squad is a punk band formed in 1978 in Bristol, England. The band formed from two other local punk bands, The Contingent and TV Brakes. Songwriter and vocalist Beki Bondage (born Rebecca Louise Bond) has been with the band since the original line-up. She is often cited as being the first punk pin-up featured on the front cover of a number of influential music papers and magazines such as Melody Maker, Sounds, NME, Punk Lives and Smash Hits.

Vice Squad formed with an initial line-up of Beki Bondage (vocals), Dave Bateman (guitar), Mark Hambly (bass), and Shane Baldwin (drums), and played their first gig at Bristol University’s Anson Rooms on 12 April 1979. Bateman and Baldwin had previously been members of the TV Brakes. The first release by the band was the track “Nothing”, which was included on the 1979 compilation “Avon Calling”. Members of the band were involved in setting up the Riot City label with Simon Edwards, the label becoming one of the major punk labels of the era. The band took some time to make further impact, only playing six gigs in 1980, but the debut single “Last Rockers” released in December 1980, was well-received, selling over 20,000 copies and spending almost forty weeks in the UK Indie Chart, reaching number 7. The follow-up, “Resurrection”, reached number 4, and the band undertook a tour supporting UK Subs. The singles received airplay and support from BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel, and they would go on to record two sessions for his show, in 1981 and 1982.

In 1981 the band signed with major label EMI (their Zonophone subsidiary), prompting criticism from many within the DIY punk scene. Their debut album, “No Cause For Concern”, was released in late 1981, reaching number 32 in the UK Album Chart. A second album followed in 1982, and the band embarked on a tour of the United States and Canada. On returning from the US, Bondage announced that she was leaving the band. She went on to front Ligotage and later Beki and the Bombshells, and without her, Vice Squad were dropped by EMI.

Fine second LP (with extra 12″) released by Eyeless In Gaza. I traced a review and an interview from around the time this record was released on the excellent Eyeless In Gaza website eyelessingaza.com. Plenty more interviews and reviews from the beginning of the duo’s career up to the present day if you care to browse it.

The Eyes Of Beautiful Losers / Still Air

Out From The Day To Day / True Colour / Keynote Inertia

Sixth Sense / Point You / Voice From The Tracks / Scale Amiss / The Decoration / Continual

Soul On Thin Ice / Rose Petal Knot / Skeletal Framework / See Red / Half Light / Every Which Way

New Musical Express, September 19 1981 reviewed by Mick Duffy

With animated gestures of disdain Eyeless In Gaza can answer detractors who dismissed their debut LP, ‘Photographs As Memories’, as a precious exercise in the art of self-indulgence. ‘Caught In Flux’, the band’s second offering of the year, is a measure of progress, and though there’s still room for growth some mark of maturity has undoubtedly been forged.

‘Caught In Flux’ a package which includes an additional ‘free’ 12” Eyeless sampler, ‘The Eyes Of Beautiful Losers’ is a piercing, poison jab into the blood-stream of rock music’s lazy limbs. Radical but clear, Eyeless set the examples for others to follow by eradicating standard rock structures and starting out from now tangents. Accessible experimentalists whose work roughly moulds fresh shapes of things to come, they don’t seek to advance or change rock. They seek to destroy it completely.

Their alternative is to present frail labyrinth of subtle sound, a strange menagerie of modern mood music that holds melody, has poise and a lot of style. All of which is enhanced by Martyn Bates’ distinctive vocals which are as versatile as they are uniquely employed. Whether crooning along to some reflective ballad or spitting out some punchy polemic, Bates’ alluring voice is an awesome focus of attention.

But ‘Caught In Flux’ is most specifically an introspective LP, a thoughtful compilation of new songs and sound patterns, skilfully patched together and performed, It’s a meditative music for active minds, an exciting vision of a brave new whirl. Eyeless … but not blind!

Eyeless In Gaza – Sixteenth of September – interview by Phil Clarke

The idea of this interview is for it to be a ’second stage’ article assuming that people have already heard of, and heard, Eyeless in Gaza. This avoids dragging through details of ”how did you get together”, etc which a person who knows of E in G will probably be fully aware of, and allows a more in depth look at the philosophy of the group. Incidentally, I use the term ’interview’ very loosely, it became much more of a three way discussion between us at times.

Me: How do your audiences react to you? Does it vary from region to region, say in the midlands and London?

Martyn: Its a difficult one that…

Pete: I could approach it in two ways and say that around London there’s a bigger population, and gigs are more widely publicised, so we may get more people who’re into the music coming to see us. But that doesn’t mean to say that you get a bad or good reception purely on the audience, people usually accept what we are trying to do, and we usually get a fairly good reception. They don’t go bananas, but they don’t throw glasses at the stage.

Martyn: They don’t know what to make of us really. We were only thrown out once from some Futurist hovel. People expect a four or five piece group; then we turn up and they can hardly see the instruments, just a guitar and a snare drum, and when we start up they expect something more trendy but they don’t get it so they don’t know whether to clap or not.

Me: Do you think that you’ve reached where you wanted to get in the musical hierarchy? You’ve already got a lot further than most local groups have managed, stayed together and done LPs, and I wondered what your ’ambitions’ were?

Martyn: We’d like to get involved in creative projects that work on more than one level, such as film soundtracks and doing music for dance companies, things that have more of a permanence about them. Not that I think that what we do is totally transient, but I’m very interested in interpreting what someone else has done. That’s why I think a film soundtrack would be great, to have someone else do that with our music.

Pete: They’re using our music for something and carrying on, which is what it should be for, not to just buy it because its trendy, which is awful.

Martyn: What do you mean by ’Musical hierarchy’?

Me: Well, starting off with very small groups and working up to very big ones, Hammersmith Odeon types … .

Martyn: In terms of fame and large scale acceptance? I think it would be very difficult for us to ever get that far because …

Pete: We don’t pander to commercial taste …

Martyn: … and we’re too erratic as well, we like to do lots of different things, keep changing all the time. I think its hard for people to get a fix on us, to know how to relate to us because one minute we’re doing things like sound paintings and the next we’re doing an out and out pop thing. Hopefully there is a continuity there, its just that its coming from us. Its not a problem, something that we’re going to worry our heads about because it wouldn’t be natural. Just to make the music as it happens is the only way it can be a true expression.

Pete: Rather than falling into some accepted guidelines, just tailoring it, that sounds awful to me, like some ’Consumer music’.

Martyn: Its great for selling records, but how would you feel yourself if you did that? I know how we’d feel.

Me: I was thinking about the groups involved in the Futurist thing, they’re gambling everything (on mass acceptance or bust).

Pete: They set a market for themselves and if they deviate from it they’re bloodyshot because they stylise themselves to a fine point, although they say they haven’t they damn well have. They know who their audiences are, and the kids who go to see them just like that sort of stuff. They’re stuck in one style, and if they ever get pissed off with it, its too bad, its their own fault.

Me: Do you align yourselves to any musical movement? I read something about the ’Perspectives and Distortion’ LP and a thing called ’New Puritans’ (to describe some of the groups on Cherry Red) came up.

Martyn: That’s just a publicity thing really. To a degree its true, in a way we are purists or we’d get four or five other people in and make a big pop sound in the way that a lot of people would like it…

Pete: …To popularise it…

Martyn: …but we’re only ’Puritans’ in the way that we’re defiantly sticking to this two piece idea.

Pete: And in the way we go about things. Its also the Cherry Red information magazines title, but at the moment I don’t think that it encompasses x band, y band and z band, its just a name that someone’s put to it that seems to fit. If loads of people suddenly came out of the woodwork and say” yes I agree with what you’re saying” then the papers will stick a label on it, but at the moment its just a few people who’ve been put under this umbrella term, it just makes it easier for people to communicate an idea, although I’m against labels, to put people in a ’bag’. I think its more the way you actually go about things, the things that you believe in.

Me: What do you think of the music scene in general these days?

Both: It getting worse … departmentalised …

Me: There’s a lot of revivalism & regressiveness about these days…

Pete: This revival thing is really bad, they’re trying to revive Psychedelia and the beat revival. At the moment they’re being pushed by ’The Face’ and NME … y’know, ”this is the hip thing kids, this is what you’ve got to listen to”, its sick.

Martyn: The thing is, it puts everyone in little slots and seems to remove the ’instant’ thing from it, i.e. to be in that little slot, that cult, you’ve got to dress in the right things, say the right things, be the right sort of people, it just seems really restrictive.

Pete: Its almost fascist, it doesn’t give anybody any scope…

Martyn: I don’t doubt that a lot of people think its all bollocks, but the way the papers convey it is awful.

Me: (around the subject of influences) Would you agree with what Andy Partridge of XTC said, that most musical influences are absorbed early in your life and that its much harder for anything that comes after this to make an impact on you?

Both: Yeah, that’s pretty true, same as anything else really.

Pete: If you try to absorb things as they happen that’s just blatant rip off, ain’t it? If you sound like x record after you’ve been playing for years and years and you just rip it off blatantly, then you’re cashing in aren’t you? Its good to have influences because its something that fires you to do something. Otherwise if you’re isolated, never having heard any music, and suddenly come out of the blue, its like a naive statement.

Martyn: The best way to do it is for it not to be a conscious thing, you absorb it into your own character and it comes out as music that’s a composite of your own influence and your character, i.e. its something a little fresh.

Me: You. probably won’t be able to answer this in one word. What directions are you following musically? I noticed that on ’Caught in Flux’ that you’d done some much slower tracks, and I like the idea of mixing relatively commercial tracks and some more experimental material together.

Martyn: Well its really odd, because the way we normally do the songs is just do them, mix them, and there it is an Album, a finished artefact. That’s the way we worked for the first two records, but we’re not doing it now. What we’re doing is recording material to a rough mixing stage and then when it comes nearer the deadline for an LP we’ll assemble it and mix it to a way that’s contemporary with our thoughts at the time … so I can’t really answer that, because, we’re always doing different kinds of stuff. About two weeks ago we really wanted to do abstract stuff, tinkley bonk stuff if you like, but then we came up with a bunch of really pop stuff. Sometimes it just throws us, we think ”what the hells going on?” but in a way its nice that its that way. We can do both and enjoy them and still feel that its 100% us, and 100% honest. So,any direction is hard to pin down. I’ve got thoughts of what I want the third LP to be like, it’ll be part instrumental. arid part low key songs, a more reflective thing. That’s how I feel at the moment, but in three months I might feel that I want to do something extrovert, something loud and noisy, I dunno, it’d be a shame to pin it down now.

Me: This hinges onto my next question; do you think that, given the right circumstances you could have Top Ten potential?

Martyn: I think: some of our songs are catchy enough to sell to a lot of people. Its going to have to be on our own terms if they do, nobody’s going to compromise us, we’ve already had this …

Pete: Very recently…

Martyn: And its highlighted it to us. I think … it could happen, but its going to have to be free circumstances. Its a strange question because we cant be objective about it, obviously we’d love it but there’s a thing in me that says … the way we do things a large across the board range of people wont ever be able to get into it, and yet there’s a part of me that thinks …

Pete: Why can’t they? …

Martyn: Yes, some of this stuff like I played you last night, the ’up’ stuff, its a question that perplexes me.

Me: It could be a valuable asset, the fact that you do such diverse stuff…

Martyn: I think its more likely to hinder us actually.

Me: It could hinder your progress if you got to, that stage, yes, but then again doing more commercial stuff you could get people onto the less commercial stuff via that.

Pete: True, that’s another route, but who’s to say which one most people are going to choose.

Martyn: We’re throwing out all this stuff to see what happens.

Me: Talking about Top Ten, I’m assuming that most people have a very straight taste in music.

Pete: A more commercially acceptable sound …

Martyn: When you’re talking about music like that, you’ve got to remember that to most people music isn’t what it is to us three, its just something pleasant, you whistle a tune, or listen to the radio while you’re doing the washing up, its not that deep, its not as important as it is to us three.

Me: Is the cover and other photos on ’Caught in Flux’ establishing a tradition for using certain types of image associated with Eyeless in Gaza?

Martyn: Yes, I suppose so, its meant to convey a ’feel’.

Me: I like the way that its nicely oblique …

Martyn: How do you mean?

Me: Its not just pictures of you going(pose) against a wall. You get a certain feel with your LP and single covers which is a bit formularised, I was wondering what you thought about the visual side of it.

Martyn: What you said about being formularised; we have been striving for continuity, because we feel its important for the visual representation to convey a warmth, a human feeling. I think we’ve managed to do it so far, but I see the danger as you say of formularising it. The main reason we did it was this ’anti’thing, all these groups are all about their heads exploding off, and people dying …

Pete: (Laughs)

Martyn: So they have a dramatic cover, something really over the top. By putting those pictures of Pete’s mum on as a low key familiar scene I thought it’d be against all those traditions. We always wanted to dictate the style.

Pete: Its important that nobody else gets a finger into the pie, and push us into doing something because they think: its best for your career. We don’t want that to happen.

Martyn: We’ve had people trying it, its inevitable really.

Pete: On all levels, independent or majors, it happens.

Martyn: You’ve got to be strong and tell them to fuck off.

Me: What purpose do you think gigs should have? Should they be purely music or music plus diversions, e.g. slides and films, or is that mostly to do with the music itself and what its got to say?

Martyn: Its all to do with the group & how they want to convey themselves.

Pete: If people want to use slides & film shows & dancers then that’s up to them, but I don’t think it fits in with us.

Me: Do you think it’d detract from your music?

Martyn: Well there’s no way we could go out and do it as Eyeless in Gaza, because its just not what we are about. We’re really stripped down. I think its important to come across so bare bones. It’s the ’Anti’ thing again.

Pete: There’s nothing starting it up.

Me: Do you think that people who don’t know you personally could get a distorted view of how you both are in day to day life because of the impassioned way that you put across your ideas in your songs?

Martyn: Is that important? I think that’s the beauty of it as well, its like when a guy sits down and writes a book or a poem, it means different things to different people. That’s one of the reasons I’m doing it personally, you never get to hear about the feedback, but somebody can sit at home and get all these feelings that mirror themselves from what you’ve done, I think that’s fantastic.

Me: But what I’m going on to say is that people could think that you’re always very intense and serious about everything.

Pete: Well we are very serious about what we do …

(At this point the tape knackers up, but I’d have had to cut it short anyway as we’ve ran out of room, but four sides is quite long anyway).

Boozy Creed

Drivers Blues

Powerful debut 7″ single by Young Parisians Stinky Toys released on Polydor, a record label I seem to recall had rejected Sex Pistols as a going concern…

Brigandage many years later, reminded me of this band.

Text from Wikkie and the photo below is from the performance at the 100 Club Punk Festival in September 1976. 

Stinky Toys were a punk band from France which started in 1976 and featured Elli Medeiros (vocals), Denis Quilliard, alias Jacno, (aka Jan Colrth) (rhythm guitar), Bruno Carone (lead guitar), Albin Dériat (bass guitar), and Hervé Zénouda (drums).

One of the first French new wave bands, in 1976 the band took part in the 100 Club Punk Festival in London. Sharing the bill over two nights were Sex Pistols, The Clash, Banshees and Subway Sect on the first night, The Damned, Vibrators and Buzzcocks on the second. 

A single was released in a picture cover on Polydor Records in 1977, “Boozy Creed”, with “Driver Blues” on the B-side.

The single met with mixed reviews, causing Polydor to abandon the release of the band’s eponymous debut album outside France. 

The album was described by Allmusic as “a largely flat, bland collection of recycled Stones and New York Dolls riffs with low-quality vocals”, while Trouser Press were also not impressed with what they described as “uninspired sub-Rolling Stones rock’n'boogie with terrible vocals by Elli Medeiros”.

The band split up in 1979, with Elli Medeiros and Jacno then forming the duo, Elli et Jacno.

I.R.T.

Stanley

Very old and scratchy debut 7″ by these ex pat Americans based in London released on L.A.s Bomp Records. Recorded (supposedly with the guitar expertise of Captain Sensible from The Damned) in one of the girl’s apartments somewhere in Maida Vale, these tracks are extra strength lo-fi. So be warned! 

Text ripped from punk77 site.

Snatch were originally if the News of The World was to be believed going to be called Cho-Cha before the sexually ambiguous name of Snatch was settled on.

Snatch was Patti Palladin and Judy Nylon, a pair of US expatriates:

“I met Judy on the phone. I was having a transatlantic conversation on the phone with a friend in London. I was in NY at the time, and Judy was in his studio. When I came to London in about ’74 we became good friends. We were trying our best to get something going, we were both creative chicks… We both had ideas of sorts”. 

“For two foreign chicks living in London, what is there really to do? So that’s why Rock & Roll! It was the obvious thing to do out of boredom. We thought about forming a band together. We worked on basic lyrics and melodies and things. But it was hard trying to find people who understood where we were coming from. At that time all the punks were suddenly beginning to appear. Everyone was into saying, “I’m a punk. I’m cool, I’m aggressive, we’re going to change it” and all this shit”.

Jon Savage Interview. Search & Destroy #8.

They certainly had a refreshingly blasé attitude  to the rock’n'roll business. Sporadic gigs and sporadic singles when they felt the need.  

They recorded a number of demos at Patti’s flat in 1976 two of which ‘IRT’ and ‘Stanley’ were released as a single six months later in February 1977. Another single ‘All I Want’ narrowly missed  the upper reaches of the charts in March 1978. A final single ‘Shopping For Clothes’ surfaced in April 1980. In between Patti featured on Chris Spedding’s ‘Hurt’ (1977) and The Electric Chairs ‘Things your Mother Never Told You’. (1979)

Both Judy and Patti were strong willed and committed individuals who never exploited their sexuality or the music industry they found themselves in unlike most of their punk contemporaries of the time. It was all on their terms.

Snatch was never a permanent set up. In fact it was really a collaboration between Patti, Judy and whoever else. Eventually they went their separate ways. Both are still recording and in the arts to this day.

In Love / Fridays / Tonight? / Times We Used To Spend / Flying Over Russia / Tutti Lo Sanno / All Dressed Up / Honey

Holiday Song / He Got The Girl / Day Night Dreams / Promises / Silent Red / Dishonesty / 20,000 Leagues / Marine Girls

Uploaded today is the brilliantly twee debut LP by The Marine Girls released in 1981 on Dan Treacy’s Whaam Records. An absolutely wonderful bit of kit, and one of the late Kurt Cobain’s favorite releases to boot.

Text below from allmusic.com and the Balls Park College (Hertford) photo and flyer from the collection of ex TVP, McTells, Cee Cee Beaumont and Sportique member Mark Flunder.

Before Tracey Thorn established herself with Everything but the Girl, she produced mellow, spare indie pop with the all-female act the Marine Girls. Inspired by the Raincoats and the Young Marble Giants, Thorn formed the Marine Girls with her schoolmate Gina and Jane Fox in Hatfield, Hertfordshire, England, in 1980. At first, Thorn played guitar with Gina on vocals and Fox on bass. Since they knew no drummers, the group decided to focus on a minimalist approach to music. After Gina kept missing rehearsals, she was replaced by Jane Fox’s younger sister, Alice Fox, on vocals; Thorn would eventually sing as well. The trio recorded a tape called ‘A Day by the Sea’ and sold it to their acquaintances. The Marine Girls eventually released two albums in the U.K, 1981′s ‘Beach Party ‘ and 1983′s ‘Lazy Ways’. The LP ‘Lazy Ways’ was produced by one of the band’s influences, Stuart Moxham of the Young Marble Giants. While attending Hull University, Thorn began writing songs for herself; she was only able to gig with the Marine Girls during holidays. The Marine Girls broke up after Thorn and Alice Fox had an argument following a concert in Glasgow, Scotland in 1983. Thorn then recorded her solo album ‘A Distant Shore’ before joining Ben Watt in Everything but the Girl.

The debut album ‘Beach Party’ by the Marine Girls is one of the most willfully amateurish releases of its era, which is not necessarily a bad thing. When it was first released on Daniel Treacy’s Whaam! label in 1981, it undoubtedly sounded impossibly shoddy and nearly inept, filled with deliberately out-of-tune vocals, extremely minimal guitar and bass, and almost no percussion. However, its place as one of the pillars of the twee pop scene, along with the Young Marble Giants’ ‘Colossal Youth’, is now incontestable, and what once might have seemed haphazard instead sounds refreshingly artless and slyly provocative. Tracey Thorn, whose vocals would gain much more technical polish during her years in her next band Everything But The Girl, sings with a sort of offhand grace, while Alice Fox’ more tuneless yelp sounds like a precursor to Kathleen Hanna or Sleater-Kinney. The songs are monochromatic, though a few, particularly the opening ‘In Love’ manage to marry memorable tunes to the group’s deliberate minimalism. This is not an album for anyone who requires a lot of studio polish, but ‘Beach Party’ is far from the grating tunelessness that some early reviewers had labeled it.