Punk - Past, Present and Future... (1993)

As a quick thanks-you to all my great COMMENTERS, here's a l'il rarity, a compilation put together by Released Emotions, home of The Price (more HERE) in 1993.

As the title implies and label-man Vince spells out in the liner notes shown below, the idea here was to cram 16 years of punk history into 23 songs. It's a revisionist history of course, one that supposes that the English punk sound of '77-'78 never wavered. (How American straight edge satire band Crucial Youth ended up here is anyone's guess!)

 

Anyway it's fun version of history and there's lots of bands who never got what was coming to them here that you can enjoy and hope I'll be able to dig out some of THEIR obscurities some day...









Released Emotions licensed some great '77 vintage stuff here and while they weren't able to get any Clash they did end up with THREE Clash covers, including the Indestructible Beat (featuring Steve Drewett of The Neurotics) take on "Capitol Radio":





1 The Vibrators - No Heart 1:50
2 The Lurkers - Walk Like A Superstar (Talk Like A Zombie) 1:49
3 Chelsea - Come On 2:05
4 Maniacs - Chelsea '77 2:35
5 Sham 69 - Questions And Answers 3:18
6 UK Subs - Motivator 2:26
7 Stiff Little Fingers - Tin Soldiers 5:04
8 The Ruts - Babylon's Burning 2:16
9 Angelic Upstarts - When Will They Learn 2:56
10 Red London - This Is England 4:58
11 Resistance 77 - Chelsea Girl 2:38
12 Oi Polloi - Scum 1:59
13 Attila The Stockbroker - Washington Bullets 3:34
14 The Sect - The Whole World Gets Me Down 4:07
15 Red Letter Day - Last Night 2:44
16 Anhrefn - Rhywle Yn Moscow 2:11
17 Last Rough Cause - Hey Lady 3:53
18 Crucial Youth - Turn The Other Cheek 1:35
19 Exit Condition - Plan 9 Channel 7 4:00
20 The Price - Standing In Your Way 3:19
21 Leatherface - Melody Lee 2:09
22 The Blaggers ITA - Guns Of Brixton 3:21
23 The Indestructible Beat - Capital Radio 3:25





LEAVE US YOUR THOUGHTS ON THIS COMP. IN THE COMMENTS SECTION!

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Jake Burns and the Big Wheel: On Fortune Street

Between the end of Stiff Little Fingers' crucial era in 1982 and their resurgence in 1987 , SLF's leader Jake Burns tried his hand at being a heartfelt Irish version of Bruce Springsteen (akin to Welsh band the Alarm circa Strength).


Jake Burns and the Big Wheel - Race You to the Grave


Such a polished yet gutsy sound was a pretty respectable response to the mid-eighties when soullessness became a fashion statement. In fact the trio of singles plus a BBC session and two live tracks compiled on On Fortune Street continues the melodic and musical progress of the band, demonstrating pretty accurately how a fifth Stiff Little Fingers album would've sounded.As proof, here's the later incarnation of S.L.F. doing the Big Wheel's signature song, "She Grew Up".




Jake's never-ending commitment to the fundamentals of punk rock (loud guitars and louder words) brings to mind a recent Frank Turner interview where he posited that, like Catholicism, punk rock "...gets you when you’re young, you probably hate it at some point, but it never goes away. It still informs the way you see the world." May well be true...


{MRML Readers leave us a comment:
What's your take on Jake Burns solo work?
Do you agree that punk rock can warp your thinking forever?}

Download On Fortune Street CD



P.S. Punk Friction? Oh they've posted some Jake Burns too but different versions.

Stiff Little Fingers: Radio 1 Sessions

Hey, I was asked to contribute a guest post to Jemsite, and I happily did so. Please follow this link, read the piece and then leave a comment. Thanks!

I raved about Stiff Little Fingers punk heyday here, now it's time to see where they went next, but in the unfiltered, unproduced form of these 1980-1982 BBC radio sessions - essential for all fans.



Download The Radio 1 Sessions CD

Stiff Little Fingers: Peel Sessions

Belfast's Stiff Little Fingers had one of the best runs of the seventies punk bands. They grew, musically, lyrically and melodically with each release, yet never hit a false note, never undersold themselves, never surrendered. Then, in 1982, they broke up. They re-formed in 1987 and there followed a slew of live albums and uneven studio works that, while never terrible, muddied their record a bit. Over their entire career, however, there is a brilliant through-line of staunchly independent thinking driven home by a raucous hammering guitar sound .



It's undeniable that the first two albums, Inflammable Material and Nobody's Heroes, are S.L.F.'S masterworks. That being said, despite some duff tracks the original band's final albums Go For It and Now Then... do make a strong break for adulthood without watering down the passion of the band, especially that of singer/guitarist Jake Burns. Jake, like Joe Strummer, Mike Peters and maybe even his fellow countrymen Bono, has a broad earnest streak, a heart-on-sleeve-for-daws-to-peck-at-it openness which, while occasionally melodramatic, buoys his material over the ruthless pop climbers that blight any era's pop charts.

Here's some raw Stiff Little Fingers recorded between 1978 and 1979 at the BBC under the auspices of that patron saint of fuck-ups, John Peel (R.I.P.).


Download Peel Sessions CD