Discharge – Clay Records – 1980

Realities Of War / They Declare It

But After The Gig / Society’s Victim

Debut 7″ single from Stoke On Trent based Discharge. This record and the follow up 7″ single ‘Fight Back’ were the dogs bollocks at the time.

Owing more to Motorhead than The Clash musically, and with short concise lyrics shouted once, then guitar solo played with maximum distortion, then same short concise lyrics shouted out again, end of…No mucking about. 

By the time the 12″ ‘WHY?’ appeared in 1981, on the same record label, most enthusiasts of this sound were walking around with Discharge on their person somewhere, normally on the chest but sometimes on the back. 

Here’s a little introduction from DISCHARGE.CO.UK cos it is 02.15 and my eyes are closing rapidly, and I don’t fancy writing my own text, just fancy some zzzzzzzzzz.

Discharge was formed in Stoke-on-Trent in 1977 by two brothers, Terry (Tez) Roberts (vocals) and Tony (Bones) Roberts (guitar) Roy (Rainy) Wainright and a drummer called Acko (Tony Axon).  The name itself was chosen due to it being obnoxious.  Tanya Rich was their manager at this time, organizing their gigs.

The line-up didn’t record anything and only played local gigs in the Stoke-on-Trent area.  In 1979, Hacko left and Tez became the drummer, with Cal (Kelvin Morris) taking over on vocals.  The band was influenced at the start by The Sex Pistols, The Damned and The Clash.

When Cal joined, all previous songs were scrapped and they began to work on new material, the lyrics of which were written by Cal himself.  Nothing really happened until a certain Mike Stone moved to Stoke from London.   He had a record shop and a label and when Tanya pestered Mike into listening to the band and he went to see Discharge play their first gig with the new line-up at Northwood Parish Hall, he told them they had no musical ability but got off on the intensity of the performance.  He offered them a chance to sign up to his label, Clay Records.

The first single, ‘Realities of War’ was released circa March 1980 and as Mike Stone did not have a distributor, he sold copies to shops of of the boot of his car.  The single got into the top 10 of the Indie Chart in Sounds (a UK weekly music newspaper).   This was followed by ‘Fight Back’, which again hit the Indie Charts.

Discharge then performed their first gigs out of the home town of Stoke, at Leicester, Preston and Glasgow.  Their next record, ‘Decontrol’ was again released in 1980, followed by the first 12″ EP in 1981, entitled ‘Why’.  This record was the first to not have Tez on the Drums, as he had left the band prior to the recording.

A tour followed, called the ‘Apocalypse Now’ tour, it featured new recruit Bambi, who was in turn replaced later by Garry Maloney (ex-The Varukers). This line-up recorded the next single ‘Never Again’ which was released at the end of 1981.  The single done well in the Indie Chart, as well a reaching number 64 in the UK national chart.

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