Diatribe – Criminal Damage Records – 1984

Seventeen And Dying / The Wrong Thing

Stop Dancing / Ha Fucking Ha

Strange bunch this lot, emerging from somewhere between Reading and Bristol I think, did not gig much, never seen anything in print about them apart from a rave review in Zig Zag magazine which prompted me to buy this record from the old Small Wonder record shop in Walthamstow, by this time the property was called Ugly Child Records and was under new management. One incident did happen to add to the non legend that is Diatribe, one of the members brought a gun into the NME offices and fired a shot, luckily it just shot blanks, but no one saw the funny side and after being thrown out the offices Criminal Damage Records dropped them, I think this is only material that the band released. 

Two great tracks in ‘Seventeen And Dying’ and ‘Stop Dancing’, the more traditional sounding. The other two tracks are voiced over mainly drums and very minimal instrumentation. It all works fine though…

9 comments
  1. gerard
    gerard
    February 13, 2008 at 11:07 pm

    when i was at sounds, someone gave me a tape of this lot doing a fantastic song called ‘student rap’ which greatly appealed to my basest feelings – don’t suppose you’ve got this have you?

  2. rhos
    rhos
    February 13, 2008 at 11:34 pm

    Thanks for that post – I’d completely forgotten about Diatribe. Saw them a number of times in the early ’80s, great gigs, really confrontational – or so it seemed at 18! Only other release I know of was a track on the ZigZag/Situation 2 comp. “Gunfire & Pianos”. If you want a band history and some more music (incl. ‘Student Rap’) then http://www.myspace.com/tkodiatribe seems to be the place.

  3. gerard
    gerard
    February 14, 2008 at 12:41 am

    …and there it is! Many thanks rhos – I love this song still 🙂

  4. Paul
    Paul
    November 2, 2008 at 8:28 pm

    Thanx alot for putting on Diatribe. I have been after it for over 20 years. never got to see them but the music seemed to be different at the time from anyone else. My original copy got stolen.

  5. Oggy
    Oggy
    December 11, 2008 at 3:33 pm

    Great band – I remember the Peel session and Student Rap in particular. In fact, I memorised the lyrics as a party piece. Though it’s probably why I never got invited to many.

  6. starky
    starky
    April 3, 2010 at 8:55 pm

    i used to play “student rap” every day through the strathclyde university union PA system. “so now you’ve enrolled with the cream of th cream” etc etc

  7. Mike
    Mike
    December 5, 2012 at 3:18 pm

    Don’t remember ever hearing these, any vids up on youtube or anything?! What style are they. Any one know whether criminal damage records have anything to do with criminal damage clothing? Would be interesting if they did.

  8. Paul
    Paul
    May 20, 2014 at 12:48 pm

    I saw them live in the Target pub in Reading, must have been approx 1984-85. I thought they were great – different from other music I was into (mostly heavy rock/prog rock) but good enough to buy the single at the time, which I’ve played many times since. Don’t have it anymore, only mp3 digitised copy, which just playing a moment ago prompted me to search for any info, hence finding this. A tad rough at the edges, but the humour and angst in the lyrics make it as good today as 30 years ago!

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