Musically, Canada's East Coast is most famous for Celtic-folk and indie-rock, so Moncton, New Brunswick's The Varsity Weirdos double-barrel pop-punk might come as a shock to those with regional preconceptions. While their label. It's Alive, is content to label them "straight-up pop-punk" there's more than just Ramones-by-way-of-Screeching-Weasel here. Amidst all the furious down-stroking, you can hear a certain quirky late seventies Englishness - a bit of XTC perhaps maybe the Buzzcocks - on tracks like, "You Bother Me". And of course, whatever else you say about Can't Go Home, you can't doubt the V.W.'s grew up in the nineties when you hear how they practically turn fellow Monctonites Elevator To Hell's Sub-Pop era "Why I Didn't Like August '93" into an outtake from Green Day's Dookie.
"I don't really sing in the shower, but one song I'm currently singing a lot is 'We Love Malcolm'. It was recorded by O Level in 1978, and the chorus goes (sings) 'We Love Malcolm, If no-one else does'."
Malcolm McLaren (22 January 1946 – 8 April 2010
Whatever else you can say about the man, Malcolm McLaren (NYT obit) was likely the single most crucial link between New York punk and it's London bastard child. Reading Clinton Heylin's Babylon's Burning has reminded me how glacial the pace of communication in the underground, such as it was, was in the seventies. But it was Malcolm who learned his managerial trade with the New York Dolls at their career's end and showed his eye for talent (and thievery) when he became enamored of Richard Hell and Tom Verlaine's band the Neon Boys. What he took from New York and brought to England helped fuck-up the world.
Dan Treacy and Ed Ball (documentary here) led The Television Personalities a late seventies D.I.Y. piss-take on punk and a foreshadow of the shambolic indie scene of 1986 (and beyond). 'O' Level was a 'side project' of the TVP but with Ed Ball's song-writing out front.
The Malcolm McLaren Life Story e.p. link is in the comments
The Strike (more here and here) never disappointed, even if they did love posing with broken-down scooters .
The three non-album tracks here ("Red Storm Rising" a Zinn-esque history of The Great Depression, "This Fragile Life" a rocked-up Neurotic cover and "Ball and Chain" half spoken-word-half-SLF fist-shaker) proved that punk could be catchy and still have a conscience back in 1995. Who says you need a Republlican president to inspire great American punk rock?
Victoria link is in the comments
Speaking of comments: Do we really need bad political leaders to make for good punk rock?
My career as a promoter was limited to three shows: an experimental art quintet who shall remained unnamed, a Latin America benefit show catered by Food Not Bombs and Minneapolis’ (via Winnipeg) mod-punk band The Strike featuring Chad Anderson on guitar/vocals Chris Anderson on drums, bassist Kris Adams and second guitarist Micah Garlich-Miller.
Garlich-Miller, the other "member" of my – uh-hum – "band", Jane Fonda and the Hondas, had asked me personally to book the show. So, Winnipeg being a small town, I asked one friend to book The Orange (an old Orangeman’s hall that had fallen into the hands of a theater collective), one to lend me his P.A. and another bunch to be the opening bands. Then we rounded up the volunteers (sound, posters and, of course, concessions) and soon enough, just like Mickey Rooney and Judy Fuckin’ Garland, we “put-on-a-show”. It killed! The bands rocked, everyone got paid and a stack of canned goods made it back to Winnipeg Harvest.
Those opening bands, The Bonaduces (discography here) and The Umpires (who politely declined to have their demo here), were still finding their legs but The Strike cruised. They donned the suits, ran through a dozen thundering originals, played two Jam covers and hawked a demo tape with a red star on it. Yup, in 1995 a Mod Revival Revival.
The Strike, along with the Odd Numbers and The Gain (with bands, one is an accident, two a coincidence but three is a movement!) were conscious throwbacks to the sounds of ’79. Mod revival (a.k.a. parka-punk) has an unfair reputation for derivitiveness but A Conscience Left to Struggle with a Pockets Full of Rust is no rip-off. In fact, this raging album owes as much or more to Woody Guthrie and The Clash as it does to Paul Weller. “"Kicking Ass" for the working class” is the rabble-rousing motto here, as Chad Anderson raspily excoriates a "Shallow", buckled culture. Propulsive Stiff Little Fingers-esque guitar riffs and inter-weaving backing vocals consistently ratchet up the tension on this already maddeningly tense brace of songs. Then come the reggae flashes on songs like “Downpressor Man” before the (vinyl version) of the album ends with a cover of an old Northern Soul raver, “You Can Forget It”. Enjoy this criminally MIA album you lucky bastards!
A Conscience Left to Struggle with Pockets Full of Rust link is in the comments
To hear the folk-core (sorry, my bad term) band, The Treason Brothers, that Chad Anderson formed after the Strike go here. (Thanks Holmes!)
Speaking of comments: Does this album "Kick Ass" or not?
The Strike's excellent second album is still available from Victory Records
A while back, a fruitful thread on the Pop Punk Message Board entitled "The Great Lost Pop-Punk Band" yielded some fine posts, such as the one on Funbug. Well, lo and lo and behold, Jason Funbug and co. were not only unperturbed by MRML's making of their music freely available but they were positively chuffed. So deeply chuffed, in fact, were they that Jason sent us words of encouragement, the artwork for the first seven inch and some new demos! Hell, yes!
Like some other early-nineties Lookout singles, budgetary limitations here can flatten the entire sound spectrum - especially the drums, obscuring the well-developed song-writing. While they played within the limiting confines of pop-punk (read: loud, fast sing-alongs about girls) Funbug never sounded like a knock-off of anyone. While the band surely learned a few tricks from Screeching Weasel and Green Day, these ears catch more echoes of late eighties pop-punk bands like Mega City Four, Leatherface, Big Drill Car, The Doughboys and (I swear this is a very good thing) Twin/Tone era Soul Asylum.
Funbug - Everything
If you think the artwork for this release is ugly, I'm told you're supposed to blame Lookout honcho Lawrence Livermore who tossed out the band's original artwork and replaced it with that picture of his sister and her baby.
Here's some demos for the forthcoming Funbug work, which is promising some great songs with the hooks pushed to the fore, like "Frankenstein Drives to Leamington".
Links for the Tezbinetop e.p and the demos can be found in the comments:
Speaking of comments: give us you review of Funbug new and old!
A big thanks to Jason Funbug for all the material for this post!
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.
