Can I Crash Here / Civilization
The Flys from Coventry had within their ranks Hazel O Conner’s brother Neil, formed in 1975, as Midnight Circus, then became Flys in 1977 as the punk thing fired up massively out of London suburbs and onto the rest of the country. Shared practice space with The Coventry Automatics, who supported the Clash, then a little later became Specials (never THE Specials!). The Flys started the recording career with Zama Records, then signed to EMI after the company ligged onto a Buzzcocks tour and saw The Flys supporting. EMI released the same Zama single in larger quantities, and put a stop to Zama’s pressing rights. These tracks were also placed on an EMI Harvest compilation with Wire and another band. I have the LP but have forgotten the name, so I can not find it to tell you the name – oh well, never mind. ‘Can I Crash Here’ is a sublime track. The Flys supported The Ruts and plenty more decent bands, and after half a dozen brilliant power-pop / mod / punk (choose your own genre) 7″ singles and the fine LP ‘Waikiki Beach Refugees’, they failed to reach the sky and disbanded in 1980, after the release of second LP ‘Flys Own’, just when the Mod revival was chucking out similar bands to The Flys by the van load!
betab
March 5, 2008 at 3:45 pmmore happy memories and Name Dropping the following year – on lurid green vinyl if memory serves me right. Second album Flys own was a really good leftfield pop record where they just seem to have found their own voice.
NXP
March 7, 2008 at 8:59 amFirst off all many thanx for your blog. I love it.
Second; The LP with Flys & Wire on is called “The Rare Stuff?” and here is complete tracklisting for it;
1. River Deep Mountain High – The Saints
2. Dot Dash – Wire
3. Him Or Me – The Banned
4. EC4 – The Flys
5. Only Arsenic – Rich Kids
6. Love & A Molotov Coctail – The Flys
7. You Dirty Rat – The Banned
8. One Way Street – The Saints
9. Lipstick On Your Collar – The Saints
10. Demolition Girl – The Saints
11. Options R – Wire
12. Can I Crash Here ? – The Flys
13. Civilization – The Flys
14. CPGJ’s – The Banned
15. Little Girl – The Banned
16. Cyrinda – The Shirts
Penguin • Post Author •
March 7, 2008 at 9:58 amGreat stuff, now the name has been mentioned I have got it in my hands, may put it up sometime…
BrightRedBand
November 2, 2008 at 11:20 amone of the all-time classic records and the inspiration for local Cov fanzine “Love and Molotov Cocktails” (1981-1986).