20 From '77(4) Siouxsie & The Banshees The Vortex London 5th September 1977

Here we have one of the few early recordings (or at least pre-signing recordings) of The Banshees. Remember what I said about The Jam, having learned their trade in front of audiences made up of  disinterested Double Diamond drinkers... well The Banshees were at the other end of the experience spectrum. On the bill at the first 100 Club Punk Festival, Siouxsie, Steve Severin, Marco Pirroni and the hapless Sid Vicious and later Kenny Morris and John McKay learned their stage craft very rapidly in the London punk clubs and the provincial venues that were still prepared to play host to the new music contagion against the will of the civic leaders.

You all know this anyway, but Siouxsie and Severin were on the scene early doors as part of the Bromley Contingent, early acolytes of the Pistols.

Early on the Banshees were one of a number of bands who decided to sport the swastika, not as a statement of political adherence but 'merely' as a sure-fire means of enraging their parents and grandparents generations. Once again in an earlier post on the Angelic Upstarts, the accompanying photographs showed Mensi wearing the Swastika armband. The Upstarts gave the same reason for choosing to wear such an abhorrent symbol. I couldn't countenance Mensi wearing one on stage today.

I can only speak from the perspective of a kid at the time, but my collection of toy guns was supplemented with genuine wartime equipment and paraphernalia, including badges and insignia bearing the Swastika and even SS marks. My Grandfather, a Normandy veteran himself picked this stuff up in junk shops for me as he knew I was interested.... in the Second World War rather than National Socialism itself!

Debbie Juvenile, Siouxsie and Steve Severin (1976)

Perusing 1977 music press for the purposes of this series of posts I stumbled across the following on the letters page in Sounds of 30th July 1977.

'Banshees shriek

WE ARE not Nazis and we are getting pissed off for being shunned because of misquotes by sensation seeking reporters - we don't need it!

So bollocks to all those who still haven't learnt that the press SUCKS. Also P.T. Fenton left the group a month ago. Love Siouxsie and the Banshees'

Woe betide any naive music journalist who touched in the swastika topic in leter yearss... Siouxsie, never known to be the easiest of interviewees, was known to lose it on this particular point.

Shock tactics aside, when the band did eventually secure a record contract, a staggering 18 months or so since their debut performance at the 100 Club, they went on to carve themselves a unique niche in British music with some outstanding albums to their name.

FLAC: https://we.tl/t-b9gdFk5QEy

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-iby6OvI3Lw

Emerald City Cherry Hills NJ 11th April 1981

An early Easter gift for you good people, seeing as the Bank Holiday weekend is going to be indistinguishable from any other day in the past three weeks!. Dom P has been tinkering again with a couple of versions of a great New Jersey gig played on the Meninblack tour of 1981.

So in Dom's own words....

'Here is a new mix I made of Emerald City  from some seriously good versions that were on Dime a while back but I never released them publicly… This wees on everything that has come before.

It is from two sources, one of which had a decent chunk of Baroque Bordello.... and also has some banter missing from other versions. The intro and outro are extended so likely the taper taped the gig literally live….as the announcer at the end gives up on the encore!

All other versions I’ve remixed in the past have been lossy as well. But this is full res…and lower gen recordings!! Fantastic Easter release in time for the Second Coming!!!!'

Cheers as always Dom!

WAV: https://we.tl/t-QJHUQqlP8r

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-MKrEUqGpeM

01. Intro (Waltzinblack)
02. Threatened
03. The Raven
04. Toiler On The Sea
05. Just Like Nothing On Earth
06. Thrown Away
07. Who Wants The World?
08. Baroque Bordello (Part)
09. Second Coming
10. Meninblack
11. Shah Shah A Go Go
12. Hallow To Our Men
13. Tank
14. Nuclear Device
15. Genetix

20 From '77(3)The Rezillos John Peel Session 12th December 1977

Here we have the Scottish clown princes + one princess of punk.... The Rezillos with their first session for the late, great John Peel. 'Can't Stand The Rezillos' will always be highly ranked in the shifting sands of my Top 20 album list!

FLAC: https://we.tl/t-ZDXoRdaf0I

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-2AKlWdAYri

20 From '77(2) 'The Damned can now play three chords, The Adverts can play one.... Hear all four of them at the Electric Circus Manchester 26th June 1977

Sunday 26th June saw a third return of The Damned to the Manchester, having previously played at the Electric Circus on the 21st January and at Middleton Civic Hall on 14th May. The London bands recognised  that more so than any other UK city outside of the capital, Manchester had a parallel scene and as such a receptive and enthusiastic audience. This northern hub of punk for a time had the Electric Circus in the Collyhurst area of the city. The Circus was to Manchester what the  Roxy was to London in terms of being punks home turf and this evening The Damned were once again with Stiff label mates The Adverts (who also supported at the May gig) with The Prefects from Birmingham on the bill too.

The Damned at the Electric Circus

26th June 1977

So here you have something unusual, an audio record of a complete night at the Circus with all three bands recorded by a diligent audience member, the noise of individuals in the crowd and the clink of glasses take you right into the heart of '77 punk in one of its most iconic venues.

The Prefects

FLAC: https://we.tl/t-vkIA3Igz4N

The Adverts

FLAC: https://we.tl/t-CCXyqPuKDG

The Damned

FLAC: https://we.tl/t-hfz8foEaCv

Artwork (Box case): https://we.tl/t-eCKCmPhnNH

20 From '77(1) The Jam CBGBs New York 16th October 1977 (Two Sets)

In 1977, the flow of touring punk bands favoured movement to the east with US bands arriving in the UK with earlier and greater regularity that western-bound UK bands heading to America. The Damned in keeping with nearly everything else in punk were first to make the journey in April, exporting the British take on punk rock. Their punk contemporaries were to follow significantly later. The Stranglers' visit planned for late '77 didn't come off and they along with the Pistols did not make the crossing until early in 1978. In doing so both bands fueled the anti-punk sentiment when they did tour). It is interesting then that one of the earliest bands to attempt the feat of winning over American audiences was The Jam, the most quintessentially English band of the lot.

Whilst indisputably a bonafide  first wave punk band, The Jam were outsiders on the scene. Interlopers from the Surrey suburbs they were also considered to be too conservative, both with a small and large 'C' to gain easy acceptance among the London punk elite. Paul Weller's open appreciation of '60's R&B labelled him early on as a revivalist (a toxic label in a new music scene whose declared mission was to destroy everything that came before it). In this respect it is funny that the early Pistols set featured as many Small Faces and Who covers as did The Jam's set.

The Jam also had a different genesis from the Pistols, Banshees and The Clash. Like The Stranglers, The Jam were a semi-professional band that significantly pre-dated the punk scene (by at least four years in the case of The Jam!). They served a time honoured musical apprenticeship, playing social functions, weddings and perhaps most importantly the Working Man's Club circuit that was still highly popular in the 1970's. If the punters called out for 'Tie A Yellow Ribbon' or 'Living Next Door to Alice' that is exactly what they were given in the main. Thus in contrast to many of the other first wave bands, by the time that The Jam first descended in to the fetid basement of the Roxy Club they had loads of gigs under their belt. The transition was quite straight forward. Weller witnessed an early Sex Pistols gig and like many other musicians and would be musicians he saw the future and nailed The Jam's colours to the punk mast. A tweak to the attitude of the band a bit of taking in of the suit trousers and ties was all it took and hay presto!..... authentic 1977 punk.

So fair play to The Jam as being in the vanguard of British bands to venture into CBGBs, the spiritual home of American punk. The set is a good mix of the first two albums. The second album, 'This is the Modern World' was set for its UK release the month following this New York appearance.

FLAC: https://we.tl/t-hNUm3sazXA

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-Xk1Hk6IJcZ

Early show

01. I've Changed My Address
02. Carnaby Street
03. The Modern World
04. Time For Truth
05. London Girl
06. All Around The World
07. Sounds From The Street
08. London Traffic
09. Bricks And Mortar
10. In The City
11. Takin' My Love
12. In The Midnight Hour

Late show

01. I've Changed My Address
02. Carnaby Street
03. The Modern World
04. Time For Truth
05. The Combine
06. All Around The World
07. Sounds From The Street
08. London Traffic
09. Bricks And Mortar
10. In The City
11. Takin' My Love
12. Batman Theme

No Elvis, Beatles, or The Rolling Stones.....In 1977

Everyone I am sure must have wondered at some point what it would have been like to be five years older. This I think is especially true for music fans. For many people, myself included, proper awareness of music that is around you, as opposed to the music that is favoured and played by your parents, kicks in at around the age of 10. Perhaps for those with older siblings in the house it may be a bit sooner. This being the case, differences of only a couple of years (representing as they do a significant percentage of  life time over those tender years) make a huge difference to an individual's experience of and engagement with the music that they are hearing for the first time.

My 18 year old daughter, who loves punk, gets annoyed with me for many reasons, one of those being because I saw The Stranglers with Hugh, Siouxsie & The Banshees, The Ramones and Adam & The Ants. She feels that she missed the punk boat (which she did), but I at 33 years her senior also feel the same.

Jordan's coming for ya Mo!

In 1977 I was eight years old, the music that I was exposed to at that time was served up in the morning over breakfast, on school days, by Terry Wogan, then doing his first Radio 2 Breakfast Show stint. For this reason the airwaves in our house were ruled by the likes of Wings with their 'Mull of Kintyre', along with Chrystal Gayle fretting over the possibility of an emotionally triggered change in eye colour. In 1977 my parents were in their late '30'sand rooted in the rock 'n' roll of their teenage years (my Mum saw Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent in Brighton on that fateful tour which is quite cool as well as Cliff Richard and The Shadows, which isn't). Although, by the time the '70's came round Elvis more often than not gave way to The Carpenters when it came to time spent on the Pye Black Box stereo. The only parental concession to the contemporary music scene came in the gaudy satin-clad form of Anni-Frid, Benny, Bjorn and Agnetha (a guilty pleasure of mine for that reason!).

Punk did not feature in our household at all. Even if my parents did scan he shock headlines of the Grundy incident over toast and marmalade, it never made it as a topic of conversation. Indeed, when the Pistols took to the Thames to outrage 'The Establishment' and the 'Jubilee ga-ga' public at large, I was clutching my commemorative coin whilst sporting a rather fetching Union Flag rosette!

Adrian, a punk in waiting! (blue cardigan with rosette!)

June 1977

My world at the age of eight revolved around Stoke City F.C., and TV shows such as 'The Six Million Dollar Man', 'Dad's Army' and 'Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em'. Not 'Star Wars'! I coveted my neighbour's plastic light sabre, but never saw the film.... still haven't.

When I did finally hear current music of the type hat was considered to be too brash for a Radio 2 playlist, it was in the back room of a local pub that I was occasionally taken to by my parents on a Sunday lunchtime. The Boomtown Rats, Squeeze and Tubeway Army provided the soundtrack to that day's game of pool with my Dad in 1979. The penny dropped, in my mind, rather than into the pool table coin slot, but my wherewith all to take advantage of this new discovery was rather curtailed by both my age and by a lack of disposable income to blow on 7" singles in Woolworths and W.H. Smiths. Albums were out of the question for a while yet at that point in time!

So what if I were five years older, seeing a band in 1977 would still be out of the question in most cases. Venues/pubs maintained pretty strict age policies (much relaxed now) which would have been no good for a newly promoted 12 year old! Besides which parental blessing to see a band called The Vibrators or The Damned would be highly unlikely.

As an aside, I did go to my first gig at the age of 12, it was the aforementioned Adam & The Ants in 1981, but this was only towards the end, a long time since Adam had switched from The Marquee to Her Majesty's Theatre.

So, '77 would be out, but the musically switched on 15 year old in 1980 would have much better options with which to gain musical satisfaction. So many bands would have been within reach .... you know, the ones that make it onto those Facebook lists of band's that you wished you had seen but never did (The Jam, The Ruts, The Adverts.... in case you're wondering).

But this is all the stuff of self-isolation daydreams! Whilst the imagined 56 year old would be five years closer to retirement with a gigography that could really turn my daughter against me, as Paul Cooklin would say, 'We are where we are'. And besides, since I write this in the middle (I hope) of the COVID-19 'lockdown' (God I hate that horrible American terminology!), we shouldn't be so frivolous as to wish our lives away with such fantasies.

So. that being the case I will accept my 'youthful' 51 years and just be happy to share some of the stuff I missed.

Nuremburg Stadhalle Erlanngen Germany 4th April 1985

35 years ago tonight!

FLAC: https://we.tl/t-c8SqSlBWYq

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-BLL3qAsZWn

01. Intro
02. Something Better Change
03. Uptown
04. Dead Ringer
05. No Mercy
06. Souls
07. Nice ‘N’ Sleazy
08. Skin Deep
09. Let Me Down Easy
10. Midnight Summer Dream
11. European Female
12. Golden Brown

01. Strange Little Girl
02. Peaches
03. Death & Night & Blood
04. Threatened
05. Punch & Judy
06. Hanging Around
07. I Feel Like A Wog
08. Down In The Sewer
09. Nubiles (Cocktail Version)
10. Toiler On The Sea