So this one then is for the madcap daughter, Mo, who got to Wire before I did. As I mentioned in the earlier demos post, Wire may be overlooked in your run of the mill punk narrative, but their debut album is a classic slice of 1977 punk rock. Fast, aggressive and sharp as a razor. I think that it's great and so did the critics who were effusive in their praise for the album.
Here's what two of them said.
New Musical Express (12th November 1977)
I have no idea how knowledge of this one passed me by. I am familiar the title, Baz said it to me as I was stood in front of him at one of the acoustic gigs in The Netherlands... just about half an hour before he said 'If you're gonna call me a wanker do it to my face!'. Well, I never did say such a think, I don't think he is and besides he's much bigger than me! I guess as I leaned over to say something to Owen it must have looked that way. I think what I was saying was that the band seemed to be a little lubricated at that point in the proceedings judging from the banter on stage... any way I digress.
I am sure that this will be an excellent addition to The Stranglers library and for once, it may fill in some gaps in my own personal history with the band from the period when I walked away. I imagine that it will be quite a contrast to the choas and confrontation of the early years. Always interested tobetter understand inter-band relationships and how that helps or hinders the creative process.
FLAC: https://we.tl/t-XqAZkLHfdm
Artwork: https://we.tl/t-BcsCeX5jtx
Now here's a band that were very in vogue in the second half of the 1980's. As such they were on my horizon but I never really went after them as a band. I remember whilst in sixth form one of my mates latched on to them. We played the first live album, 'Land Speed Record' and being unacustomed to US hardcore at that time, how we laughed. I am listening to it now as I type this and I like it! In the years that followed that release they developed into a more melodic band and became beloved of the British music press. Of their later output I only know a handful of songs, 'Don't Want To Know If You Are Lonely', 'Books About UFOs', 'Could You Be The One'..... Bob Mould went on to further success after the demise of Husker Du with Sugar.
Husker Du would only play eight more gigs after this one before an acrimonious split.
FLAC: https://we.tl/t-i6HEhqDBI1
Artwork: https://we.tl/t-25dzj86LV5
NME announced in its pages of its 21st May 1977 edition the band's double event to take place on 26th June 1977. One of the two gigs can be found here, whilst Barry Cain's Record Mirror review is here. The news item goes on to report that elsewhere in the country this most 'undesirable' of bands were experiencing the frustration of gig cancelations as paranoia concering all things p**k rock reached silly proportions.
So further along in the 'Sound Affects' story and The Jam are in Japan. This recording was the bootleg LP 'Set Tokya Ablaze'. As single album it is not the full set, but it is a great sounding mixing desk document of the Jam at their peak. The sound has been 'seen to' by DomP who kindly shared this file with me.
I don't know if it is just me but whilst it is brilliant to have the technology available to record a full show with no breaks ('what no tape flip?' I hear you cry!). I still like the idea of the old style bootleg album... perhaps that's all down to the fact that I could never afford them!
FLAC: https://we.tl/t-AOdoB7u6Js
Artwork: https://we.tl/t-fVcTrJ5cVB
Of course The Jam took 'Sound Affects' out on the road on a tour that sold out country wide well ahead of the album's release.
The fifth studio album from The Jam. This is not actually my favourite album by The Jam, but that is of no consequence because all six of the band's studio albums warrent a place in this Top 30 (provided you don't get to pedantic about the 'punk' bit.
I have located two significant reviews of the album and I concur with them both, as do the reviewers from NME and Record Mirror (it was almost as if they compared notes prior to going to press). Paul Du Noyer got it right with his opening lines, in that no two albums from The Jam were the same, each represented a musical progression from the last. 'Sound Affects' was preceded by 'Setting Sons', their best in my view. But whereas 'Setting Sons' is darkly claustrophobic taking on gritty themes, especially in 'Private Hell' and 'Little Boy Soldiers', 'Sound Affects' is more upbeat... in parts a celebration of youth and a nod to the Mod Revival that they themselves had unwittingly fomented ('Pretty Green' and 'Boy About Town'). Regarding 'Boy About Town' I agree again with Du Noyer that this tune is more in keeping with 1980's crop of 'Mods May Day' Weller wannabes. The album does also revisit earlier themes, Weller's 10-minute masterpiece (the time taken to write it according to PW) 'That's Entertainment' is a sequel to 'Saturday's Kids', whilst 'Man In The Cornershop' once again views dreams and disappointments of the aspirational.
At the time of 'Sound Affects', The Jam could do no wrong and to be honest, they made very few mistakes from this point through to the break up of the band. Their legacy as one of Britain's greatest bands is untarnished.
Polydor knew this would be a hit (the album peaked in the UK at No. 2 being kept from the top spot by Abba's 'Super Trouper', so no disgrace there) and this was reflected in the promotional budget. Multiple variants of a promotional advert appeared across the music press.
Here's the critics view then.
New Musical Express (22nd November 1980)
The new songs represent a band that's as vital and as capable of anger as ever; butmore than ever before The Jam's attacking spirit is being allied to melodic invention, and to lyrics that are increasingly thoughtful. Ignore any suggestions that they're going soft or '67. That dense, heavy Jam sound which found its climax in 'Going Underground' and in the last album has been cut back, stripped down to only its most basic parts. Instrumentation is stark, spare and hard - though any bleakness that might imply is
amply compensated for by the ' richness of the playing and by the depth of the writing. The new songs include some of the simplest the band have ever done, yet also the most memorable.
Side one opens with 'Pretty Green', already an established feature in the live set. Built on a terse, insistent rhythm (inspired initially by Weller's liking for Michael Jackson), its lyrics describe an innocence that comes quickly to grasp the cash nexus: luxury or necessity, "this is society / You can't do nothing, unless it's in the pocket". By way of complete contrast comes 'Monday', a beautiful love song that climbs up to classic status via some soaring chorus harmonies, culminating in Weller's impassioned declaration: "I will never be embarrassed about love again': perhaps the record's most significant line.
Paul Weller's frank admiration for middle·period Beatles is evident throughout ‘Sound Affects', especially in the guitar work. 'Start' we already know about (included here in re-mixed form) and, another driving love song 'But I'm Different Now' comes stuffed with 'Dr Robert' riffing and 'I Feel Fine' ripples. The crucial point, though, is that these influences are incorporated only to enrich what's already there, and remain firmly subservient to Weller's own songwriting gifts and to the distinct, powerful identity of The Jam. As with The Who touches in earlier work, whoever they look to for inspiration it's always The Jam themselves who come out on top.
'Set The House Ablaze' has an 'Eton Rifles' feel, strident Buckler beat and marching army whistling. Its words, too, echo themes from 'Setting Sons' - old mate joins army, indoctrination sets in, communications breakdown follows. The tone is bitter, but with frustration not hatred .'That's Entertainment', which closes the first side, must rate as one of Paul Weller's finest pieces to date. Mellow, soothing harmonies underscore the chorus/title-line, brutally thrown into an ironic light by the verses, which amount to a jarring - litany of snapshot images seen through a young man's eyes in contemporary England, some violent, some sordid, some tender. "A police car and a screaming siren ... Paint splattered walls and the cry of a tomcat ... That's ' entertainment". No point me labouring songs that speak well for themselves, but it's been a perennial aspect of Paul's lyrics, this trick of taking the individual-in-a-crowd and throwing his perspective into sudden isolation, the participant as spectator ('In The Crowd’, 'Away From The Numbers', 'Tube Station', 'Wardour Street') retreating into himself. Sufficient to say that he's observing with more vivid descriptive ability than at any time previously.
Side two starts with a couple of similarly excellent numbers, but overall it fails to maintain the standard of the first. 'Dream Time' is harsh and abrasive, more traditional Jam in style. 'Man In The Corner Shop', another gorgeously memorable tune, returns to some gently sardonic reflections on the English class system: as always, the view-point is a humane, personalistic one rather than political in the mass, didactic sense. Although there are no Bruce Foxton compositions this time around, 'Music For The last
Couple' is credited as a group - effort. Essentially a studio session, it makes great play of the 'sound effects' parodied in the LP's title and cover art. Very loose in construction, with few words to speak of, it's the album's one lapse into self-indulgence; it's a pressure drop and, really, it lets the side down.
But the final tracks -:- 'Boy About Town' and 'Scrape Away' - also represent a tailing off. The former is strangely out of place, almost like one of those jaunty mod anthems that Jam imitators were churning out all last year. The lyrics do work to undercut the self-confidence of the chorus somewhat - but even the addition of 'Penny lane' brass doesn't lift the song much above average. 'Scrape Away', meanwhile, is disappointingly negative and vague. Like 'Last Couple', it gives an uncomfortable impression of being rushed through to beat a deadline.
But let's end on a positive note. Where Sound Affects' is good it's great, and where it's not so good it's still good. The Jam should go on being number one in our hearts and charts because they go on earning the right to be. I've got 'Sound Affects' and I'm chuffed with it and all want now ... is another Jam album.
Octoberfest came early this year! Gene and his merry men were busy across Europe entertaining audiences at festivals and at their own headline gigs. The tour included several dates in Germany and here are two of them.
Chelsea truely are part of the creation story around the birth of the London punk scene. They have been a consistent presence (albeit sometimes sporadic) on the live circuit. They never enjoyed the elevated status that was to be confirmed on their fellow pioneers such as The Clash, The Damned and the Pistols, and I don't think that kind of lionization would have been welcomed anyway.
I think I have said this before on the site, whilst Chelsea may have a 1976 vintage, it is their 1982 album 'Evacuate' that is generally considered to represent the band's musical high point and I would concur with that, but if you consider the two sets athat are presented here, they were never short of some great tunes beyond the 'Evacuate' material, 'Urban Kids', 'High Rise Living', 'I'm On Fire'...
Chelsea are one of a handful of first wave bands that are preparing for the big birthday next year... 50 years as a band. Catch them if you can.
Many thanks to the Aural Sculptors' German correspondents, Peter for the audio and David Devant for the photographs. Always highly appreciated!
A very positive review from Nick Kent, a big hitting journalist writing for the New Musical Express. And no surprises, The Jam played a bliner on the night as well!
The gig itself can be located here.
THE JAM WERE scarcely halfway through their set at half past six when the geezer at the door of the Roundhouse told the 300- plus still stranded outside that there were only a hundred tickets left to be sold . Surprising, I thought , as last week John Cale hadn't even filled the place.
The Stranglers, it gradually became apparent throughout the evening, are very much the dark horses of the new wave hoopla.
Not only have they produced arguably the best album to appear from out of this whole circus, but their pulling power is such that it can outstrip even an ex-Velvet Underground acolyte on their first large-scale bill-topping London gig. (Either that or the previous Sunday the New Wave fans were too intent on witnessing the second stretch of Lew Grade's Jesus Of Nazareth on Easter TV).
Anyway, the Roundhouse was packed to the cracks with a rather unsettling ratio of benign old hippie types ( You looking for bother? - Ed.) and the doyens of all:purpose " now"-ness - which meant mainly spotty looking types in a motley uniform salvaged from equal quotients of mod and rocker drag circa the old Brighton beach barney era. Not that you could tell the difference looking down from upstairs.
Back to The Jam, though .They're great. Simple as that. Any 18-year-old kid who takes pride in playing an old bright red 6-string Rickenbacker (a pox on all yer Telecasters and Les Pauls, now this is a guitar) and plays it well , even ringing out various feedback squeals at the end of every number, is more than alright in my code of rock lore.
In fact , The Jam impress me enough for me to envisage them taking over where The Feelgoods left off (not that The Jam ape The 'Goods, by the way), substituting youthful exuberance for some of that band's more idiosyncratically successful stunts.
The Jam, anyway, are superbly tight at virtually all times, each member juxtaposing his instrumental drive against the others for maximum effect, everything strictly in tune , harmonies always right on pitch. "In The City", their single, is still the best number in their repertoire; sometimes in their usurping of old numbers, specifically " Ride Your Pony" and "Sweet Soul Music", they forfeit too much of the song's real power in the name of speed . But I'd rather see The Jam any day than any number of attitude fetishists, if only because they've bothered to put the music first - and as such they will survive long after the "I'm So Bored With ... " merch ants have scurried back to their parents houses in Wanstead.
Cherry Vanilla is really a bit of a joke - at least to yours truly, who has the dubious distinction of recalling her as publicist for Mainman, when she was a butt for all manner of evil jokes courtesy of Iggy Pop and James Williamson.
On stage at the Roundhouse, Ms Vanilla did try very hard, aided by a surprisingly adept band whose musical savvy was· only parallelled by the heinous nature of their posing. The guitarist looked like he was giving birth every time he amped out a solo, gritting his teeth like he was in mortal combat with a bull-worker, while the pianist looked simply like a primping queen throughout. Vanilla's repertoire is all Stones- riffs and upfront horny posing, but her style is ultimately almost cautious, apologetic… and so hardworking that one almost wanted her to be granted an encore (she was), even at the cost of having to sit through more arch posing and torso bracing.
Finally The Stranglers came , saw and conquered . The last time I'd seen them was exactly the same spot well over a year ago, when they'd put virtually everyone's backs up with a dire set of surrogate Doors/Velvets soundalike songs with uniformly crummy lyrics.
This time they kicked off with the hypnotic "Sometimes", my favourite single track from the entire recorded works of the new wave (and if you think that 's jive then just consider that I'd prefer to hear an inspired Doors rip-off than an uninspired Ramones rip-off any day, OK?). The sound was thick and Gothic heavy , losing some of its doomy momentum due to the way is seemed weighted down at times.
Much of their repertoire was as impressive as it was unfamiliar - a new song called “I Feel Like A Wog" being most decidedly so . - More semi-established works like "Peaches" and "Ugly" were performed with a slide show lacking any real extradimensional power, while "Down In The Sewer" sounded even better than on record.
The only possible quibbles would be the occasional forced "heaviness" of their rhetoric (minimal) and bass player Jean Jacques Burnel's leg movements (forgettable). Otherwise, they are musically probably the best new wavers around right now. One can only hope for competition. Fast.
Nick Kent
