V.A. Chiswick Charbusters Volume Two (1977)

Chiswick Records was the original pub-to-punk label, releasing the Count Bishops first single the year before Stiff Records (more here) began. Chiswick's reputation has often marked it as Stiff Jr., due to it's being longer on enthusiasm than on marketing savvy. And while Chiswick did release the best Damned album (Machine Gun Etiquette tops Damned, Damned, Damned on almost any metric you can design) it never signed huge artist like Stiff's Elvis Costello, Ian Dury, or Madness. Many Chiswick artist got bigger after they left the label. Chiswick released the 101'ers single just before Joe Strummer joined the Clash, they released the Riff Raff single many years before Billy Bragg talked the world's ear off, they released Motorhead's first single before Bronze Records brought their grizzled mugs to the world, they released singles by the Nips (Shane McGowan) and the Radiators (Philip Chevron) long before Stiff signed the Pogues and they even released the early Skrewdriver work before Ian Stuart, in their words, "joined an obscure religious cult".



Long Shots, Dead Certs and Odds on Favourites covers the great Chiswick-ians (Motorhead, the Radiators from Space) the good ones (the Rings, Radio Stars) the okay ones (the Rings, the Count Bishops) and Johnny Moped (Johnny's okay but he seems like a real "you-had-to-be-there" kinda figure).


Long Shots, Dead Certs and Odds-On Favourites L.P.


Support someone, buy Chiswick Chartbusters Volume One here!