Now I'm of two minds on this one. Love that 'ole that former Strangler Hugh C. is willing to re-visit the catalog in a fitting-yet-unexpected way but also leery of this move towards becoming Hugh Cornwell and the Tijuana Brass. Whatever else, the sheer joy on everyone's face as they do this thing is sorta infectious - party with me, punker!
Hey, Stranglers fans - come check out Ten MORE Great Stranglers videos (1978-1981) over at THE BIG TAKEOVER- please come take a look and leave a COMMENT to keep The Silence at bay!
Unlike, say, The Ramones, where doing a Xeroxed knock-off cover version is always an option, covering The Stranglers can be a daunting task. So, therefore, a lot of the bands on this 1998 Elevator Music Records collection of (mostly) American bands gives The Stranglers' catalog a more guitar-heavy, straight-up punk sound - like, say, The Ramones! Of course there's still variety of sounds here from oi!, to ska, to garage-rock and beyond, so check out some possible highlights below:
Comments on these (or others) Stranglers covers are most welcome!
Speaking of comments, that is the section wherein you will find the No More Heroes link.
(Waaaaaay more Stranglers stuff on MRML can be found here!)
Here's what I was hoping to find yesterday, the 21st century version of the band (the earlier in the decade, five-man version) belting it out in all their glory in fantastic-sounding FM broadcast quality sound - enjoy!! (Waaaaaay more Stranglers can be found here!)
When my friend CallPastorJekface told me back in 2004 that I had to listen to the new Stranglers album, my response was likely both incredulous and dismissive. After all, at that point, I hadn't listened to a new Stranglers album since I mistakenly picked up Dream Time on L.P. back in the 80's. But low, behold and HOLY HELL Norfolk Coast was one of the mightiest comebacks I'd ever heard. With a new lead singer (or two) the band had bludgeoned together aspects from all over it's career (and not just my beloved '77). Witness, the amazing "Big Thing Coming" from that album as proof:
or check out "Specter of Love" this from their 2006 follow-up, Suite XIV
Or even their latest single from 2010:
This Sheffield show is an audience recording but a good-sounding one and there's only enough audience noise to remind you that you made it though the door and get to take in the show from right up close. It's well worth a listen, especially as it offers hard proof of how much bottle this band has left at this late stage of the game.
Comments on TheStranglers of the 21st century are most welcome!
Speaking of comments, that is the section wherein you will find the Sheffield, 2010 (parts one and two) link.
The Epic years of The Stranglers (more here) represent a not-so-gradual subsuming of all the musical elements that made the band wholly original. The music is still fine by eighties standards but it's really not The Stranglers as we knew them.
This long out-of-print collection ($129.00 on Amazon!) collects up the extended versions of their eighties hits.
Comments on the Epic years (1983-1990) and their place in Stranglers' history are invited!
Speaking of comments, that is the section wherein you will find All Twelve Inches link.
A live hodge-podge culled from various dates in the 80's, that proves that The Stranglers (more here) could still show their mettle on stage if not always in the studio.
Comments on The Stranglers live work in the 80's are strongly encouraged!
Speaking of comments, that is the section wherein you will find the Live in London link.
By 1982 things were changing in Strangler-land. 1981's La Folie represents kind of a dividing line between the Stranglers (more here) we'd loved to hate (and vice versa) and The Stranglers we'd have to settle for a long, long time. One the one hand, the album has catchy but still snarky tunes like "Duchess":
But then of course the album has the lovely-but-let's-still-call-it-an-ominous sign, "Golden Brown".
I'm done a volte face and am now a proud owner of La Folie (despite the CD re-issues' criminal neglect of "Who Wants the World") but it marks the last Stranglers album of the 20th century in my collection. That said, this never-aired BBC concert, which includes punchier takes on lots of the band's early 80's material, would be a welcome addition to a well-curated Stranglers collection.
Comments on the La Folie-era Stranglers are encouraged!
Speaking of comments, that is the section wherein you will find the BBC Live link.
Hey, Stranglers fans. I've posted Ten Great Stranglers videos (1976-1978) over at THE BIG TAKEOVER - please come visit, take a look and leave a COMMENT over there before I get spooked by the silence.
As a Canadian adolescent, you couldn't find The Stranglers' (more here) 1980 album The Raven domestically, instead we followed band's progress via an I.R.S. Records' North American hodge-podge entitled The Stranglers IV (see below):
The album was a chronological mess but it did offer some early rarities and a cherry-picking of the hits from The Raven as well as few killer then-new tracks like "Who Wants the World (more cool stuff on this subject can be found here).
This particular bootleg, a great-sounding FM broadcast, captures the taut, aggressive show from 1980 tour, the era between The Raven and the indulgently-disappointing The Meninblack.
Comments on The Raven-era Stranglers are most welcome!
Speaking of comments, that is the section wherein you will find Live in Toronto link.
For all my Stranglers commenters (there's nothing like the hum of feedback!) here's two sets from fabled venue The Roundhouse, in the year 1977. That's the calendar year in which the band put out BOTH Rattus Norevegicus and No More Heroes, leading to the inevitable question, was 1977 the year we hit peak Stranglers? Let us know, down below...
Was '77 the best year in Stranglers' history? Let us know in the comments! Speaking of comments, that is the section wherein you will find the Live at the Roundhouse link.
So, like so many bands that flushed to fame in the late seventies, The Stranglers (more here) would have to grow up in public. Unlike The Jam, The Damned and The Clash, there would be no sophomore slump (No More Heroes being an indisputable classic) but then there would be no need of a third album comeback on the scale of All Mod Cons, Machine Gun Etiquette or London Calling either. Instead, The Strangler began a wildly unpredictable career trajectory that held some fearsome works and some yawn-inducing ones.
By 1978's Black and White, The Stranglers had grown more belligerent and less tuneful, though the album is still a fan fave. Live, the '78 version of the band sounded like a cross between The Doors and The Ramones as they rammed through their catalog with incredible velocity and veracity. To hear the band at their most bludgeoning stage, don't miss this bloody-sounding bootleg of a show at The Agora Ballroom in Cleveland, Ohio in 1978.
1. Threatened. 2. Burning up time. 3. Straighten out. 4. London lady. 5. Down in the sewer. 6. Five minutes. 7. Toiler on the sea. 8. Grip. 9. Dagenham Dave. 10. Bring on the nubiles. 11. Dead ringer. 12. Hanging around. 13. Nice 'n sleazy. 14. No more heroes. 15. Tank.
So what do you think of Black and White era Stranglers? Let us know in the comments!
Speaking of comments, that is the section wherein you will find Eastern Front link (though you have to scroll down to the second comment).
This is the entire Stranglers' (more here) set from the opening night at the Hope & Anchor's Front Row Festival (the compilation album is here) back in 1977 .
This loud, raw, gritty, ugly and foul-mouthed recording wasn't released till 1992 but then fell out-of-print and now fetches Peachy money on eBay, Amazon et al.
Comments on this rare Stranglers bonanza, are most welcome!
A hard-hitting Stranglers (more here) radio session from 1977, featuring: Dageham Dave Goodbye Toulouse Hanging Around I Feel Like a Wog No More Heroes
Comments on all this Stranglers business, are most welcome!
Speaking of comments, that is the section wherein you will find The Sessions link
Early accusations of The Stranglers being merely old, bearded, Doors-loving band-wagon-jumpers have, in the 35 years since their debut single, come to sound ridiculous. Okay the old, bearded and Doors-loving part wasn't entirely unfair. But the accusations of band-wagon jumping missed the point. After all, The Stranglers had been hiding away up in Guildford breeding an ugly, scuzzy mutation of mid-sixties rock n' roll since the early part of the decade. The rise of punk just allowed them to unleash their creation on an unsuspecting world.
Since I've been on a historical video kick of late (especially after getting reproached for mentioning said videos on blog aggregator Totally Fuzzy), here's a fabulous BBC doc on the band:
If you've ignored the Strangles for a decade or two, you've missed the full-blooded return of a band whose drummer is three years older than Charlie fuckin' Watts! Sure the absence of Hugh Cornwell is still felt but if you consider how they slid into being a bit of a frat-rock cover band ("96 Tears", "All Day and All of the Night") during his final years, it's an endurable loss. In 2004 the remaining band (Burnel, Black and Greenfield along with new guitarist Baz Warne and front man Paul Roberts) roared back, spitting nails. Back on E.M.I., the band set about living up to their name, reclaiming diverse elements from their most fertile period ('76-'82 give or take). The single, "Big Thing Coming" (which hit # 31 on the English charts) proves the firepower of this incarnation, with Roberts' gauzy vocals erasing memories of Cornwell and the glorious tension between Greenfield's bubbling keyboards and Burnel's guttural bass being kept taut by Black's driving rhythms. Plus it's just a damn good song.
Support the band - buy Norfolk Coast or another Strangler-iffic album! Amazon Home Page MySpace
And speaking of the Stranglers (more here), why would their label re-issue their awe-inducing early albums (I bought the first six) without putting the brilliant "Who Wants the World" on any of them?
I first heard this song in the early eighties on the North American-only album IV, which was I.R.S.' bowdlerized version the Raven padded out with singles. I loved it then and now because it's got all of what made them such a devastating listen: Burnel's concussion bass, Greenfield's Manzarek-ian keyboards, Black's relentlessness and Corwell's gruff vocals and slashing guitar. As the Stranglers softened over time*, it would get harder to understand why they didn't change their band name to something more fitting but here, they still sound like a gang intent on strangling the pop charts.
* The latest version of the band has been on a roll, though Suite XVI is no match for Norfolk Coast, which was what set me back to the band's mid-period catalog in the first place.
This is the entire Stranglers set from the opening night at the Hope & Anchor's Front Row Festival (more here) back in 1977 . This loud, raw, gritty, ugly and foul-mouthed recording wasn't released till 1992 but then fell out-of-print and now fetches peachy money on eBay.
MRML is a blog about the devestating effects of culture: music, politics, comics plus etc. blah blah blah. At times MRML will post fine, unpurchasable three-chord obscurica (punk, pop-punk, new wave, mod, power-pop, gospel, reggae, hardcore, rockabilly, folk, country...whatever.) - - - - - - "The otherwise unavailable files in this blog are posted for a limited time and are intended for educational, non-commercial use. These files were transcribed from what are believed to be out-of-print sources. If you are aware of any of these items being readily available from commercial sources, or if any of these files infringe upon rights that you hold, please notify us so that we can quickly remove the referenced items immediately." - - - SUPPORT THE ARTISTS - BUY MUSIC!
If you have any questions or music to donate you can contact me at musicruinedmylife (at) gmail (dot) com
Re: Re-Ups
MRML does not plan to restore all of the content lost in The Great Mediafire Gutting of 2012. Polite requests may be made in the appropriate section, regular commenters will get priority.
