Fatigue<\/a><\/p>\nMy favorite Blitz\u00a07\u2033 single is uploaded tonight and as I like all the records that this\u00a0band released that means a fair bit. This Blitz release though was the first release on Future Records, a \u2018progressive\u2019 sister label to the better known No Future Records and was the last release from the classic Blitz line up that produced the \u2018All Out Attack\u2019, \u2018Never Surrender\u2019 and \u2018Warriors\u2019 7\u2033 singles. Carl, vocalist and Tim the drummer were in the next version of Blitz and kept the band name for the \u2018Telecommunication\u2019 7\u2033 single and all the following releases, the \u2018Solar\u2019 7\u2033 single and the \u2018Second Empire Justice\u2019 LP. Nidge and Mackie guitarist and bassist went onto form Rose Of Victory and continue to record for No Future Records.<\/p>\n
Blitz appeared on The Tube, a popular primetime friday night alternative music showcase\u00a0programme with this release, and it was played on the radio one shows a fair bit\u00a0after the eight o clock watershed by Kid Jenkins and John Peel.\u00a0Sold bucketloads as far as I can remember. A great and glorious bowing out for this line up of the band.<\/p>\n
The next single \u2018Telecomunication\u2019 was in a more Joy Divisionish vein and I remember some fallout with that release including a very upset Skinhead writing into Sounds weekly music paper to complain that he had a Blitz tattoo inked into his face around the time of \u2018Warriors\u2019 and that the last single (\u2018Telecommunication\u2019) had made him feel ashamed to go outside with his bonehead mates! Poor sap, hope he got over that one\u2026<\/p>\n
This record was played by me a fair bit\u00a0all\u00a0those years ago in 1983 and over twenty five years later it still sounds great. I have not played it for at least that long! Nice to dig it out tonight, and get chummy with it again.<\/p>\n
Text below from Ian Glaspers book \u2018Burning Britain\u2019 and\u00a0lifted from the nofuture.co.uk site<\/p>\n
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Like Riot City, No Future was a very prolific label for a very short time, riding the exciting crest of punk\u2019s second wave with gleeful abandonment, and crashing to oblivion almost as quickly as it ascended. But for the short time they were in existence, their bands and releases dominated the Independent Charts, and have remained hugely influential to this very day. \u201cIt was around about 1980, I think, when I left school and went to work for the Ministry Of Defence in Malvern,\u201d begins label co-founder, Chris Berry. \u201cI was in a big open plan office, and I got friendly with this guy, Richard Jones, who, along with Iain McNay of Cherry Red in London, had his own promotions company. He used to put on gigs at the Malvern Winter Gardens, and even used to sell records he would buy from Rough Trade in London on a stall there, and I ended up going along, working on the stall, and enjoying all these bands. Richard taught me a lot about music, and if it hadn\u2019t been for him, I would probably still be listening to Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd\u2026 I was quite happy with all that until I was introduced to punk rock.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne day we were chatting, and we decided to start our own label, and we put an advert in Sounds asking for \u2018punk and skinhead bands\u2019. At the time that was what excited us, and we thought there was a market for it\u2026 Riot City had just started up, and Cherry Red had just had great success with the Dead Kennedys.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe name, as cheesy as this may sound, came from the Pistols\u2019 song. It always used to amaze me when people said the Pistols couldn\u2019t play \u2013 they were fantastic musicians, that guitar sound was amazing\u2026 although they were more rock \u2018n\u2019 roll than anything really.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnyway, after that ad, we were swamped with demo tapes! Not only that, but I\u2019d been stupid enough to put my home phone number on the ad, and I still lived at home with my parents, so I\u2019d get in from work, and my mother would have my tea ready\u2026 but it would go cold \u2018cos the phone was always ringing! My parents were very accepting really, \u2018cos I had some really weird and wonderful people ringing up all the time.<\/p>\n
The best demo they received was from a New Mills band, Blitz, whose superb four-track \u2018All Out Attack\u2019 debut EP was the label\u2019s first release, and was an incredible, unexpected overnight success story.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Blitz demo had so much aggression and power, and the sheer sound and presentation of it was far beyond anything else we\u2019d been sent,\u201d remembers Chris. \u201cIt was ready to go as it was, in fact, \u2018cos they\u2019d actually bothered to go into a good studio and do a decent recording. Blitz always were a little different from the other bands we worked with \u2013 they had their heads screwed on and knew what they were doing and where they wanted to go. Unfortunately in the end, they started to believe their own hype a bit too much.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe did one thousand copies to start with, \u2018cos that\u2019s all we thought we\u2019d sell. So we didn\u2019t even bother getting any labels pressed, we just used white labels and stamped them. I took them off to London to Rough Trade, and they bought the lot, and said, \u2018We think you better press some more \u2013 and quick!\u2019 So we did another two thousand, and they sold all those too, so then we did another five thousand\u2026 it all just took off. Garry Bushell picked up on them, and it went from there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Suddenly able to fund further releases far easier than expected, No Future began snapping up punk talent from all around the country, quickly garnering a strong roster that between them turned out many a much-loved punk classic. The Partisans, a young band from Bridgend in South Wales, were next with their rabid \u2018Police Story\u2019 single, closely followed by Brighton\u2019s tongue-in-cheek Test Tube Babies, and their eminently lovable \u2018Banned From The Pubs\u2019 EP.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe never looked too far ahead \u2013 just the next release, the next gig,\u201d reckons Chris. \u201cWe were too busy trying to look after all these bands we were signing, a lot of whom portrayed this ferocious image, but in person, were quite the opposite \u2013 a lot of them were actually very immature. Some of them were literally kids. I remember The Partisans were asked to do quite a big gig in Bristol, with Vice Squad I think, and I had a phone call from one of their parents, and was told that they weren\u2019t allowed to go unless there was a chaperone, haha! Their parents just wanted their best interests, obviously, but because of their ages, they were a contractual nightmare.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe weren\u2019t really into contracts though, to be honest. We had help on the legal side of things from Cherry Red, who ended up doing our publishing for us, but it wasn\u2019t really fair to have young kids signing twenty-three page contracts or whatever. So we had very basic, simple agreements. I wanted to model the label on Mute Records, who released Depeche Mode; they were just starting to get quite big, but they carried on for years without any official contracts being signed. We didn\u2019t really achieve that goal though, and often ended up getting people to sign stuff that we didn\u2019t even fully understand ourselves!<\/p>\n
\u201cThings went badly wrong with the Test Tube Babies in the end though, but that had a lot to do with their manager, Nick McGerr. Looking back he was far more professional than we were, but he took away any fun we might have had working with the band. He would think nothing of driving up to Malvern from Somerset to have a rant! I remember we did a No Future gig at the Lyceum, and Peter slagged me off from the stage for about twenty minutes, which was\u2026 well, different! But musically they were brilliant.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of the label\u2019s earliest releases was the \u2018A Country Fit For Heroes\u2019 12\u2033, a low-priced sampler that compiled, much like Crass Record\u2019s \u2018Bullshit Detector\u2019 series did, the best tracks from some of the many demos the label had been sent.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was Richard\u2019s idea really, I have to give him credit for that. There were a lot of bands who had one great song on their demo, but who weren\u2019t worthy of a proper deal. We just decided to do a 12\u2033 to give some of them some exposure. We did it all on the cheap really \u2013 we nicked the front cover photo from a book without crediting the source\u2026 and we were really naughty and didn\u2019t send out any free copies to the bands! We wanted to keep the cover price as low as possible, so it was all done on the cheap, but it did incredibly well for what it is. Bushell really championed that one.\u201d<\/p>\n
Several of the bands that appeared on the 12\u2033 went on to sign with the label for further releases \u2013 The Samples, from Worcester, who Chris actually managed; Attak and The Violators, who were both from the same area as Blitz; Crux from Nuneaton, who went on to do a split 12\u2033 with Crash; and the excellent Blitzkrieg, who opened the sampler in fine, electrifying style with \u2018The Future Must Be Ours\u2019 and then released one further single for the label.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe used to get on quite well with most of our bands, especially before they got too big; they would treat us quite respectfully \u2018cos we were putting out their records! I used to like working with Blitz, especially Carl, and I can remember crashing over on his bedroom floor, and talking into the middle of the night and his mum ended up shouting at us! I would have these bands come stay with me, too, and I was still living at home. My mum and dad were always very tolerant of all these mohicans turning up at all hours on our doorstep.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not all the bands were quite so easy to work with however. \u201cI gotta tell you about The Blood!\u201d laughs Chris, further confirming all the rumours that the band were essentially an unmanageable force of nature. \u201cBushell put them in touch with us, and we did this brilliant single with them. They came up to the office for a meeting, and they all seemed to be about six-foot tall! I first met with them in London at this really dodgy pub, where the landlord had this huge dog and a shotgun behind the bar\u2026 and when it was turning-out time, he just used to let the dog out from behind the bar!<\/p>\n
\u201cAnyway, they turned up at Adelaide House with at least sixteen cans of lager each, to sign these contracts, and within the first hour, they filled the whole building with cigarette smoke, and drank the bloody lot. I was completely phased by the time they left. One single with them was quite enough, haha!\u201d<\/p>\n
After a very prosperous few years, when it seemed that everything pumped out by the label would be snapped up greedily by the record-buying public (Blitz\u2019s \u2018Voice Of A Generation\u2019 album even spending a month in the Top Thirty of the National Charts), No Future\u2019s fortunes took a dive in 1984, when Chris hit some serious cash flow problems.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I went a bit loopy really,\u201d he confesses. \u201cThe music scene was changing, the initial excitement for punk music was waning, sales were dropping\u2026 and effectively we were spending more money than we had coming in. Had I known then what I do now, we should have had someone to do some financial forecasting \u2013 but all we had was a local accountant that just prepared our books. I didn\u2019t have anyone telling me, \u2018No, you can\u2019t spend that much in the studio\u2019, so I just went and spent it! \u2018Cos I was personally convinced that things were going to carry on as well as they had been forever. Soon we owed money to the pressing plants and everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of the things that Chris did to try and stop the rot, perhaps suspecting the label had painted itself into a corner, was start up Future Records, an offshoot where he could release more experimental material.<\/p>\n
\u201cI set up Future mainly to release Blitz, when they went all weird. Carl had gotten involved with Tim Harris, who had previously produced the band, and they did a single, \u2018Telecommunication\u2019, which actually sold very well \u2013 it got a lot of air play on Peel and Jensen, but then things went a bit too arty. And \u2018cos they were my biggest band, they wanted to use bigger and better studios, so all of a sudden instead of paying the usual rate of \u00a310 or \u00a315 an hour, we were paying \u00a335 an hour or whatever.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe lost credibility in the eyes of most punks about then, and we definitely lost the support of Bushell. I\u2019d probably had enough too \u2013 I was getting tired of it all, and we released a few distinctly dodgy records towards the end that really should have never came out.<\/p>\n
\u201cI went on to do Future for quite a long time after, working with a band called And Also The Trees, who were very successful in Europe and did a lot of touring out there. They were kinda like The Cure, and I worked with them for three or four years, but wasn\u2019t earning any money when I desperately needed to. In the end, I decided that I couldn\u2019t work with them any more. I had my own flat by then and couldn\u2019t afford to pay the rent \u2013 it was a bit of a sad day really, but I went and got a real job. I felt it was time to move on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chris now runs a retail business in the Cotswolds with his partner, but still regards his time as a punk rock magnate with philosophical fondness, and has even been contemplating a return to the fray of music management since being interviewed for this book.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike I said, we were caught up in the whole thing, and just enjoying the scene, and we were attracting a certain type of band\u2026 we didn\u2019t really know what we were doing at the time, we were just putting records out. It was definitely all about the buzz for me; finding a band, getting them in the studio, cutting the single, releasing it, and watching it climb the Indie charts\u2026 the whole enthusiasm of it all. At the time, we were only nineteen or twenty or whatever, and we just did what we did. I\u2019m very flattered, and more than a little gobsmacked to be honest, to think that what we did is still regarded as so important.\u201d<\/p>\n
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This post is dedicated to Monti, ex <\/strong>Sons Of Bad Breath and member of the infamous Hackney Hell Crew,\u00a0now residing in Bristol\u00a0whose birthday it is today. <\/strong><\/p>\nHappy birthday to you, have a nice day with your muckers and Fred the hound. Monti (from around 1985) is pictured on the right with Ollie and Martin, two other members of the Hackney Hell Crew that are happily still with us\u2026Sadly\u00a0Simo and Pus\u00a0never made it passed the eighties.<\/strong><\/p>\nOriginal line up of Blitz with the debut release \u2018All Out Attack\u2019 uploaded and posted <\/strong>HERE <\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Age Fatigue My favorite Blitz\u00a07\u2033 single is uploaded tonight and as I like all the records that this\u00a0band released that means a fair bit. This Blitz release though was the first release on Future Records, a \u2018progressive\u2019 sister label to the better known No Future Records and was the last release from the classic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-links-downloads"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4021"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4021\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4024,"href":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4021\/revisions\/4024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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