Charge – Unsere Stimme Records – 1980

Alone At Midnight / Little Mr Minor Carassment / No One Wants To Know My Name / Crawlin Rebels / Lets Go / One Day Soon / Provisionally Dogs / So What! / Even on A Sunday Night

All The Heroes / The Cold Begins To Bite / Such Delicate Things / Rather B Crazy / Revolution / Smile At The Morning / The Finsbury Park Massacre / No One Rules!

One of Luggy’s records on a lend specifically for uploading purposes. One track off the first side is missing (the last one ‘It Isn’t Funny Anymore) because of a deep scratch at the start. Tried to clean it all out but to no avail. Still you still have 17 slices of great Wasted Youth / Cuddly Toys tinged punk rock music to listen too so can’t be all bad. Text stolen by force from Nuzz Prowlin Wolf site. Picture of Stu P against the wall by Val Puppy.

In the year of 1979, from the squats of North London came Charge. Their 1980 self financed debut 7″ was released on their own You Can All Fuck Off record label, financed by nicking the lead from abandoned council house roofs. In 1981 a german pressed debut live LP recorded in June 1980 entitled ‘Caged And Staged’ was released.  By 1982 they had become a bit of a force to be reckoned with having released a further 3 great singles; Kings Cross, Destroy The Youth and Fashion and having supported the likes of Theatre Of Hate, The Exploited, Killing Joke and Discharge. In October 1982 they released a 12 track studio album entitled ‘Perfection’ the band felt that it was dull and lifeless when compared with their singles. Harsh self criticism, it’s not as full on, but still it’s a fucking great listen with some right dark lyrics. An overlooked slice of ‘post punk’ and ’proto goth’. After touring with The Damned, conflict within the band resulted in singer/guitarist and driving force, the wonderfully named Stu P Didiot leaving the group.

Sadly Stu P died from cancer in 2003.

9 comments
  1. luggy
    luggy
    September 23, 2008 at 10:24 am

    Site dedicated to Stu here:

    http://www.stu-p-didiot.com/

    Hopefully, Katherine will read this post & provide some more info as she first met Stu on this tour.

  2. Stewart
    Stewart
    September 23, 2008 at 5:59 pm

    Did I mention they used to play a lot with the Managing Directors?
    Both fucking ace bands 🙂

  3. Thomp
    Thomp
    September 23, 2008 at 11:57 pm

    Thank you soooo much for uploading this!!!! Now how about their brilliant singles? Loved this band so much….’Destroy the youth, control the hoards, teach em right from wrong.’ Compulsion came so close, but not close enough.

  4. Nuzz
    Nuzz
    September 24, 2008 at 8:37 am

    Nice one guys, Compulsion, one of my fave bands of the 90’s, their album Comforter is well worth checking out

  5. Michael Mitchell
    Michael Mitchell
    September 30, 2008 at 10:54 pm

    Remember seeing them playing on the back of a lorry on the RAR march to Victoria Park (which The Clash played at) 1978

  6. Stewart
    Stewart
    February 4, 2009 at 11:48 pm

    PS I have the Kings Cross single if you want to upload it…

  7. vomitting green haired punk
    vomitting green haired punk
    April 19, 2017 at 7:43 pm

    This was one of my favourite LP’s from the 80’s uk punk scene. Can’t really explain why. I have tried so hard to like “Perfection” but…. I don’t. I have this on vinyl, however its warped and generally trashed now, but I have found out that it is available on CD from a German label/distro called “Trikont” Its going for a bargain price of €6 plus €5 p&p. If you google ” trikont charge caged and staged” you should get there. Or they can be contacted at TRIKONT Postversand Musik CD comes with lyric booklet. German and English. Go for it. The CD has arrived today so I’m off to get some cider and then listen to it loud.

  8. Keith Clewley
    Keith Clewley
    February 24, 2021 at 6:02 pm

    Great band, one of my all time faves, Caged and Staged = not a bad track anywhere, fab second album even though it was in a different vein.

  9. Owen Rossiter
    Owen Rossiter
    August 3, 2021 at 1:39 pm

    Fresh out of s.wales i went to london to audition playing drums with CHARGE.
    2 days later we opened for Tom Robinson at the Marque 2 4 6 8 Motorway was high in the charts. We did a lot of shows together that year.i had a great time working with Stu,Dave and Ian .we lived in a squat in Finsbury Park.
    One of the last shows i played with Charge was opening act for something and the pirates .Ian the singer fired his starting pistol at a girl on the backstairs in the venue.
    Um we both got arrested and got off with a warning.Not long after that i moved on.
    GREAT MEMORIES OF WORKING WITH CHARGE.
    STU WAS A GREAT GUY AND ALL THE BAND TOO.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *