Exocet 7 Rouen 2nd October 1983

 

This one is courtesy of yesican... cheers! A nice sounding, though incomplete set from Rouen on the 'Feline' marathon tour.

FLAC: https://we.tl/t-rA0NtpyQmP2y6L4T

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-ai56JHQFzsERjhJL

Espace BASF Paris 29th September 1983

Back to Feline and another French gig from that marathon European jaunt. This gig sees the band back in the capital for the second time in '83. The resumption of the aborted 'Down In The Sewer' required an edit as my original recording broke into some unexpected dance music (now removed). Not the greatest of recordings, but hey, it's Feline in Paris!

WAV: https://we.tl/t-ncdAwHtNxnH6uh8V

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-eF1x74Us9C0gqUWh

Bow Wow Wow The Channel Boston 8th January 1983 (10 For Rebellion #4)

 

The story behind Bow Wow Bow must be one of the best known in the annals of punk. Young Adam Ant was despondent with the prospect of forever being frontman in a brilliant avant garde punk band, when what he really wanted was the bright lights of pop stardom. In a bid to change his fortunes he handed over a grand to Malcolm who filled his head with thoughts of pirates and braves all cavorting to an intense Burundi beat. Under normal circumstances, this would have been a sound investment for the Antman and ultimately Malcolm's advice enacted at the right time paid off and made Adam the star that he so longed to be. However, in the short term Malcolm made away with more than the money for he also had Adam's band the Ants (Dave Barbe, Matthew Ashman and Leigh Gorman) in tow.

Upon recruiting Annabella Lwin, the band to rise out of the ashes of the original Adam and the Ants, now going by the name of Bow Wow Wow, went on to have a string of chart hits built around the same Burundi beat in the opening years of the 1980s.

In the late '90's Lwin and Gorman reformed a version of the band. However, in more recent years both Lwin and Gorman have toured with separate versions of Bow Wow Wow. I do not think it likely that these two original members still exchange Christmas cards.

Broadcast on WBCN FM. Thanks to the original Dime uploader (KRW_CO).

FLAC: https://we.tl/t-kswxp1tsreVzkYvO

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-9OBUjVCr9eqX7rgC

Bow Wow Wow appear on the Opera House stage on Thursday (22:15 - 23:05) whilst Annabella is on the Literary Stage on earlier on the same day (16:20 - 17:00).

The March Violets Coasters Brighton 13th November 1983

 

Tonight the 100 Club plays host to The March Violets. When we saw them last year at Oslo in Hackney, it also coincided with the hottest day of the year. I wonder what the interior of the 100 Club will be like!

This is a recording from my home turf that features Cleo Murray on vocals who took on vox duties from part way through 1983 to the initial demise of the band.

I recall Coasters, but not as a music venue. I went there once or twice in the mid-'80's. It was a dreadful night club and I was never one for such places as right from the beginning my preference would always be a gig in the back room of a pub. 

On this occasion they were touring as support to Danse Society.

FLAC: https://we.tl/t-XM7FsRmWBN7nVdkF

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-27EcsJRzvybwVmiD

The Slits (Rat's Palace San Francisco 25th November 1980) and Marvin Gaye (Market Square Arena Indianapolis 9th June 1983) Got It Covered #6

 

Here's another one for all of the detractors of punk as a valid musical genre. As with the previously shared 'Walk On By' post, The Slits' treatment of 'I Heard It Through The Grapevine' is yet more evidence that punk bands dared to cover songs that even back in the late '70s were considered to be classics. The status of such songs, particularly if the work of such influential labels such as Motown, effectively rendered them uncoverable. Record at your peril!

Such dogmatic thinking did not sit well with the original Riot Grrrl band, The Slits, who recorded and released 'I Heard It Through The Grapevine' as the B-side of their debut single 'Typical Girls'. Needless to say version by The Slits is very different from any of the versions that emerged from the Motown stable. This bass driven slice of British post-punk has become something of a classic in its own right. Yet another example of a band reshaping someone else's song to such a radical extent that they can rightly claim a degree of ownership of it.

FLAC: https://we.tl/t-Gb4CJ1SLr4nOwxCn

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-qBDQdsDrDj065DBK

As for the original version, well that is a little complicated, a case of who did what first. Motown had a number of writers who wrote the arrangements and lyrics to songs that were then provided to the label, at which point it was decided who or which group among the label's talented roster would record a given song. 

The song is a Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong composition that they presented the Motown label with in 1966. The Miracles were the first act to record the song in the same year in which it was written but their version did not see the light of day until August 1968 when it was released on their second album, 'Special Occasion'. In the meantime, Gladys Knight and The Pips recorded the song in September 1967. Knight's version was released and reached number 2 in the Billboard chart, making it Motown's biggest selling single at that point. Marvin Gaye's version of the song was the second to be recorded in early 1967, but it became the third version to be released appearing as it did on Gaye's 'In the Groove' album of August 1968. Although the last version to see release, Marvin Gaye's version became the most successful, overtaking the Gladys Knight version to become Motown's biggest selling single at that time.

Marvin Gaye's 'I Heard It Through The Grapevine' is now the definitive version of a song that has become one of the best known songs ever written. The song (and specifically the Marvin Gaye version) was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame as a work having "historical, artistic and significant" value. In 2008, the song was ranked at No. 65 in a chart marking the 50th anniversary of the Billboards Hot 100.

The version presented here is not a patch on the 1968 'original'. This 1983 version had none of the subtle arrangements sitting behind it. It is rather brash and lacks the charm of the original. Recorded in the summer of 1983, in just nine months time Marvin Gaye would be dead having been shot by his father on 1st April 1984 - apparently someone once wrote a song about it!

FLAC: https://we.tl/t-P8sNJ18Zx1BXdM6i

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-JOGgzbBEOwVrFLyj

Peter And The Test Tube Babies Olympic Auditorium Los Angeles 25th November 1983

 

Here is a full on 'Mating Sounds' era gig from the Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles. This was one of many punk gigs in the area organised by long standing promotors Golden Voice, that brought many of the UK 82 bands to an American punk audience back in the early 1980s.

FLAC: https://we.tl/t-xGf5PmbethezCnyh

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-BbEZB4dtcJNQGEiS

I also note that there are a number of excellent photos of the band on line that this gig taken by Alison Braun.

Del

Ogs

Peter

Trapper

(Photos: Alison Braun).

Top 30 Punk Albums #10 Mating Sounds Of South American Frogs - Peter And The Test Tube Babies

 

The first studio album from the Test Tubes was released in December 1983. At that time I was three months shy of my 14th birthday. Musically, I was still very much into electronic bands, the likes of Gary Numan, Ultravox and OMD. At that time though I was also aware of some original punk bands, there were a few Stranglers and Damned records in my expanding record collection. But to most of my mates at the time who were into punk, for them this meant bands of the UK 82 scene. Peter and the Test Tube Babies were critical at this time (and importantly local - the home town of Burgess Hill being about 12 miles north of Brighton) and a bit before that too. Someone in our small circle of friends had a copy of 'Pissed & Proud' and this got a regular airing, its content being instantly appealing to a group of 14 year old boys!

Some friends were seeing the band from 1983 onwards, not me though, I had to wait until early '85 to see then (sometime around the release of the 'Rotting In The Fart Sack' EP - a Sunday lunchtime gig at the Richmond in Brighton for the princely sum of 50p).

From this point on, punk both present and past became increasingly important in my world. So this album, aside from being a great album, holds great importance and many adolescent memories for me. There isn't a duff track to be heard on the original release (the throwaway ode to fast food, 'Wimpeez' only appeared on later issues of the album). Tracks such as 'The Jinx', 'Guest List' and always my favourite 'Let's Burn' still sound great nearly 40 years down the line. The additional studio expense (the album was recorded in Pink Floyd's Britannia Row Studios and Southern Studios (of Crass et al. fame) coupled with proper production, not to mention better playing ability (thanks to a heavy gigging schedule over the previous 18 months) propelled the album into a different league.

If 'Pissed & Proud' captures the raw, disorder of early Test Tubes, 'Mating Sounds' stands out as the band's definitive album. A review of a set list from 2023 shows that 17 out of 22 songs played at that particular gig were from '82 to '85. That said '83 to '86 was a fine time to be into the Peter and the Test Tube Babies as 'Mating Sounds' was followed by the cassette only compilation 'Journey to the Centre of Johnny Clarke's Head' (this was the first thing I heard in proper stereo.... never mind 'Oxygene' or 'Tubular Bells' when your first experience of stereo is 'Tupperware Party'!). That was followed by the aforementioned 'Rotting in the Fart Sack' which unleashed the brilliant 'Spirit of Keith Moon' and then came 'Soberphobia' which followed in the same vain as 'Mating Sounds' but never quite scaled the same heights as its predecessor. Oh and I nearly forgot 1985's 'The Loud, Blaring, Punk Rock LP', an album that caused much mirth and merriment back then!

Here's what the critics had to say... not that any of it changes my opinion of the album.

New Musical Express (29th October 1983)

New Musical Express (15th October 1983)

New Musical Express (5th November 1983)

New Musical Express (24th December 1983)

New Musical Express (17th December 1983)

These were the opinions of the New Musical Express at the time, from the 'unlistenable legacy of punk' to 'zomboid metal thunder'. Still does it for me though!

Remembering Dave Greenfield 3rd May 2026 With 'Fire And Water'

 

Was it really six years ago that Mo charged through our back door to convey the news on that sunny lockdown afternoon that Dave had died?! Well yes it was.

I said it on here at the time that whilst it is said  that the whole is bigger than the part... the part that Dave's extraordinary musical virtuosity brought to the Stranglers' sound was immense. In that sense whilst it is undoubtedly the case, and most certainly in the early years, that that the four members of the band each contributed uniquely to that 'sound', it was Dave's keyboard handiwork that provided the wax seal to the whole and that confirmed that you were indeed listening to The Stranglers.

Working with JJ in 1983 he was responsible for the soundtrack of the French art film 'Ecoutez Vos Murs' entitled 'Fire & Water'. In terms of audio material, I have posted all that I have, but here is a link once again to the brilliant Rat Zone produced collection of outtakes (here) and please note that if you search the site for Dave there are another couple of posts that relate to this most quirky of albums.

What I have not posted before is some of the press reaction to the album and the accompanying single, 'Rain & Dole & Tea'... 'Non!' sums up the collective view of the music press. Then again by 1983 the band were yesterday's news in the eyes of most music journalists.

Smash Hits (8th December 1983)

New Musical Express (17th December 1983)

Dave as the 'missing link between Gary Numan and Vangelis' !!!???

Record Mirror (7th January 1984)

Sadly, the single 'Rain & Dole & Tea' faired no better in the hands of the critics (Marc Almond).

Record Mirror (25th February 1984)

The March Violets Melkweg Amsterdam 7th October 1983

 

Here's another one from The March Violets when they played at the Melkweg in Amsterdam in October 1983. Originally acquainted with and associated with the Sisters of Mercy (via Leeds and the fact that their first release was on the Sisters' 'Merciful Release' label), latterly they were more aligned with the likes of Red Lorry Yellow Lorry and Xmal Deutschland and they shared the stage with both bands on numerous occasions.

Consistently labelled as 'Goth', more importantly, The March Violets are a band of the post-punk era who were able to offer something edgy and different at a time (early to mid-'80's) when so much music in the UK turned to shit.

The March Violets are playing dates in the UK in the summer.

Thanks as ever to Peter for this one!

FLAC: https://we.tl/t-82HUjweqpEg8sGKS

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-XanzbUtMMPN7ZbmS

New Musical Express (8th January 1983)

Newtown Neurotics Winter Gardens Blackpool 6th August 2011

 

So, following on from my Top 30 post featuring 'Beggars Can Be Choosers' here is an audio to complement it. Newtown Neurotics bootlegs are anything but plentiful and the couple of recordings I have of the band playing in 1983 have already been posted on here (you can locate them from the band list that appears on the side bar on the right hand side of the site). However, this gig from 2011 perfectly fits the bill as in that year they decided to play their debut album in full. I wasn't at this Rebellion gig in Blackpool, but I did see them play a home turf gig at the hallowed Square in Harlow.

Look carefully.... they're in there somewhere!

Simon didn't play this gig, but Adam Smith did.

Newtown Neurotics Winter Gardens, Blackpool

6th August 2011

(photos: GutterPunk Wed Development)

FLAC: https://we.tl/t-N3iVsam20GgnACc5

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-d2MZXCHE0ZAAv9FH

This one is down to Peter I think... so a big thank you to him!

Whilst I cannot offer another 'Beggars Can Be Choosers' era gig, here's a contemporary live review that appeared in NME on 20th August 1983 (and written by the same journalist that didn't have a good thing to say about the album). Not the best of gigs it seems... regardless of the reviewer.

Top 30 Punk Albums #9 Beggars Can Be Choosers - Newtown Neurotics

On New Year's Eve 1977, after seeing the Ramones at London's Roundhouse, Steve Drewett was inspired to form a punk band. The resulting three-piece took the name of Newtown Neurotics, derived from a life time in their home town of Harlow in Essex, one of a number of post-war new towns that were to introduce people to a new way of living.

The band's debut album was preceded by a handful of brilliant, thoughtful punk rock singles, each of which now commands a high price if you want to get your hands on them. 'Beggars Can Be Choosers' arrived in the Autumn of 1983 which was a rough time in the UK. Margaret Thatcher had been returned for a second term of government on the back of the Falklands conflict, protests continued at Greenham Common as American cruise missiles were staged in the UK, unemployment topped 3 million, the charts were shite and unknown at the time, the Miner's Strike was less than six months away. Happy days they were not.

The Neurotics became somewhat associated with the 'UK 82' punk scene, but their presence was something of an anomaly. Many of the bands involved in that scene did not take themselves very seriously... the Test Tubes, Anti-Nowhere League, the Adicts, I could go on (that's not to say tha the Neurotics were dour though!). Their songs too, if not incompatible were coming at common subjects from considerably different directions, the Neurotics' 'No Respect' or 'Agony' were countered with the Test Tubes 'One Night Stand' and the League's 'Woman'... whilst in the background The Adicts were running girlfriends over with steamrollers! The biggest difference though was the fact that the Newtown Neurotics were overtly political... their anthem, 'Kick Out The Tories' does rather give the game away on that count.

New Musical Express (24th September 1983)

Despite the grim day to day situation in which the songs that make up the songs on 'Beggars' were written, those songs are unapologetically positive in a 'Don't let the bastards grind you down' kind of vein. 'Wake Up' which opens the album sets the positivity stake firmly in the ground.

'You religiously say oh, it's not worth trying

But Christ almighty, do you need enlightening!

I'm not talking about a type of career

I'm talking about just enjoying being here

Make the most of your life every day

And every opportunity that comes your way

Don't sit around; you've got to wake up and live

Don't piss around; you've got to wake up and live.'

Likewise, 'Get Up And Fight' triggered something in me. It wasn't that I was living the life of the song's subject, just getting out of my head... I was 14/15 at the time, but the sentiment of the song resoundingly struck a chord, especially the reference to political apathy in the face of the warheads that were at that time being transported across the country to airbases (this was the era of the 'Protect and Survive' leaflets and 'Threads' on TV!)

'There are people out there, who make me see red

They're making careers from getting out their heads

Competing to be the wreak of the year

Cultivating porridge between their ears

They take, they take and they give nothing back

To a world that may one day break their backs

There are people fighting in every way

To protect the freedoms you enjoy every day

Your opinions have a familiar ring

Nothing I do or say will change anything

You say politics are boring, boring and grey

But would you rather see 'Cruise' brighten everyone's day?'

Later on in the album, the classic 'Does Anyone Know Where The March Is?' lightens the tone a little, being a tale of a 'band with a message' wanting to participate in a demo, only to get stuck in traffic. The band not wishing to waste the moment play from the back of a flat-bed lorry to bemused shoppers.

A potentially lethal encounter with a night club bouncer follows with 'Life In Their Hands'. Throughout the 1980's clubs and music venues employed door security personnel (commonly known as 'bouncers' in the UK). Back then a lack of training and regulation at that time meant that these characters were feared and a night out at a gig could turn nasty very quicky (I caught the tail end of this... I remember witnessing some horrible violence meted out on a coupe of occasions by unregulated security at the Astoria in London). The same topic was addressed in Action Pact's 'London Bouncers'. Since that time and as a consequence of some high profile cases where people died, legislation was introduced which has vastly improved the situation.

The album closes with the Newtown Neurotics very own kitchen sink drama, albeit one borrowed from The Members. 'Living With Unemployment' was an anthem for the times as it recounted the boredom, frustration and loneliness encountered by the long term unemployed. This song often closed the band's live set.

Alternative artwork for the 2022 PNV release of 'Beggars Can Be Choosers'

Listening to this album through today, took me back to that time. Luckily, I was not unemployed or written off by my teachers, I was however taking on board the issues of the day and the things that were going on around me and continue to do so today, no matter how frustrating or demoralising that may be.

'Beggars Can Be Choosers' means the world to be, but it is not an opinion that was universally held as indicated by this shitty review that appeared in New Musical Express on 15th October 1983.

Ignore the doubters and take a look at the Newtown Neurotics. The documentary about the band entitled 'Kick Out' has recently been made available on YouTube.

YouTube link: https://youtu.be/7qGxWUlHL-U