What Would You Do \/ No Ones Coming Outside \/ The Loner \/ Don’t Get Me Wrong \/ Decide \/ Come On<\/a><\/p>\nOne of the many good things that occur\u00a0while working on the music uploads\u00a0for this\u00a0site \u00a0is that I get to play records and cassettes\u00a0that I have not heard for many many years. It is nice to get reacquainted with bands like The Wall (the post underneath this one) and the mighty Chelsea, a great band with some massively fine recorded output\u00a0from 1977\u00a0up to 1982.<\/p>\n
As\u00a01983 arrived and went Chelsea split up\u00a0for the upteempth time, this time I think for several years by which time\u00a0any reformed versions of band were off my radar for good. I\u00a0have no idea when\u00a0the new version of Chelsea\u00a0got back together or what records were released with\u00a0any new versions of the band, or I can not remember at least…<\/p>\n
I do however distinctly remember Gene October eyeing me up a fair bit in The Intrepid Fox in Wardour Street on the occasions I visited\u00a0Soho for gigs at the Marquee club. He\u00a0followed me all around the pub once until I\u00a0had the chance to give him the slip and got over to the Marquee club opposite the pub!\u00a0\u00a0I am sure he is a nice enough fellow, I just did not want or need that kind of attention at that time in my life…I was confused enough!\u00a0<\/p>\n
Anyway, uploaded tonight\u00a0are the first two LP’s released by this great band. The second LP is a more or less a compilation of singles, which I prefer just very slightly to the debut LP as Chelsea were always a great ‘singles’ band.<\/p>\n
Go on, get reacquainted with tracks like ‘Look At The Outside’, ‘I’m On Fire’, ‘What Would You Do’, ‘Decide’,\u00a0‘No Escape’\u00a0and many other great punk powerpop tunes from Chelsea.<\/p>\n
Text below gloriously ripped from the chelseapunkband.com website.<\/p>\n
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It was in August 1976 that Gene October placed an advert in Melody Maker which led to replies from guitarist William Broad, bassist Tony James and drummer John Towe. On October 18th they made their live debut as Chelsea supporting Throbbing Gristle at London’s ICA. It was at this time that Gene convinced the manager of gay London nightclub, manager of a gay London nightspot in Covent Garden called \u2018Shageramas\u2019, to convert the club into London’s first live punk rock venue called \u2018The Roxy\u2019 – a fact for which he is given little credit. The band split in November 1976. Gene briefly recruited guitarist Marty Stacey and bassist Bob Jessie. The other three former members formed Generation X. When Gene was asked about his former band colleagues he said “Generation X? Oh yeah they used to be in Chelsea.”<\/p>\n
In early 1977 Jessie and Stacey left and Gene put together a new line up consisting of guitarist James Stevenson, bassist Henry Daze and drummer Carey Fortune. This line up was slightly more permanent and soon the band’s first single, the punk classic \u2018Right To Work\u2019, was released. However, not long after the release of the second single \u2018High Rise Living\u2019, Chelsea played their “farewell” gig on October 6th 1977 at The Roxy.<\/p>\n
As we all know “farewell” gigs are not to be taken seriously and in December Chelsea reformed as a five piece with rhythm guitarist Dave Martin, bassist Geoff Myles and drummer Steve J Jones joining October and Stevenson. Extensive gigging and the third single \u2018Urban Kids\u2019 was released before drummer Chris Bashford replaced Steve J Jones. In many peoples opinion the line up of October \/ Stevenson \/ Martin \/ Myles \/ Bashford is the definitive Chelsea.<\/p>\n
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The self titled first album was released in early 1979 and the band continued to tour extensively including U.K. dates supporting The Clash and another with The Police supporting them! They also made their first foray into the U.S. with an East Coast tour. As the first album contained none of the band’s singles a compilation of them was released as the second album. \u2018Alternative Hits\u2019 did also feature a couple of new tracks as well as drummer Bashford on the sleeve in typical rock and roll pose. This record became Chelsea’s first U.S. release and renamed \u2018No Escape\u2019 for that territory.<\/p>\n
This line up’s final show was at London’s Notre Dame Hall on May 2nd 1980. They’d actually been together for two years! Sting got up and guested on a few numbers. James Stevenson, after playing on Charlie Harper’s debut solo single \u2018Barmy London Army\u2019, ironically went on to join the final incarnation of Generation X. Dave Martin and Geoff Myles formed The Smart and as for Gene he did what he’d done before – recruited a new Chelsea line up and took it back out on the road.<\/p>\n
A temporary line up still featuring drummer Chris Bashford toured America later in 1980 during which their appearance in “Urgh! A Music War” was shot. Then in December 1980 the band split leaving Gene, once again, to rebuild and relaunch Chelsea. Having produced some of Punk’s finest moments such as the single \u2018Right To Work\u2019 and the self titled debut LP it seemed to many as though Chelsea’s finest days had gone. But Gene had other ideas and over the next three years came up with some of the band’s strongest and most enduring material.<\/p>\n
A new Chelsea line up featuring drummer Sol Mintz, bassist Tim Griffin and guitarists Stephen Corfield and Nic Austin debuted in January 1981. Austin became a strong song writing partner for Gene as aired on \u2018Rocking Horse\u2019 the line up’s first single and Chelsea’s first for over a year. The band was reduced to a four piece following the departure of Corfield and Griffin was replaced in September 1981 by Paul “Linc”. A gig at London’s Fulham Greyhound once again featured Sting guesting as Griffin left the day before the show.<\/p>\n
1982 saw continuous gigging and the release of the third album \u2018Evacuate\u2019 which gained substantial critical acclaim – a first for Chelsea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’m On Fire \/ Decide \/ Free The Fighters \/ Your Toy \/ Fools And Soldiers All The Downs \/ Goverment \/ Twelve Men \/ Many Rivers \/ Trouble Is The Day No Escape \/ Urban Kids \/ No Flowers For Him \/ All The Downs \/ Right To Work \/ Look At The Outside […]<\/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-4358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-links-downloads"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4358","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=4358"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4358\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4362,"href":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4358\/revisions\/4362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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