Saturday, November 28, 2009

V.A. Hope & Anchor Front Row Festival (1978)


Hats off to whoever did the bookings for the Hope & Anchor, a pub in Islington that championed first pub rock in the mid-seventies, then later punk rock as the decade wore on. Judging from the line-up for the pub's Front Line Festival that took place in late 1977, that booker had a deep sense of music's past and its future. Early sixties survivors like The Pirates and Steve Gibbons (and facsimiles of the same like the Pleasers) sit beside their pub rock disciples like Wilko Johnson, Tyla Gang and the Dire Straits, alongside older vets gone punk like the Stranglers, The Only Ones and 999 all of whom jostle with young punk upstarts like XTC, the Saints, X-Ray Spex (and don't forget reggae greats Steel Pulse!)



01 Wilko Johnson Band - Dr Feelgood
02 The Stranglers - Straighten Out
03 Tyla Gang - Styrofoam
04 The Pirates - Don't Munchen It
05 Steve Gibbons Band - Speed Kills
06 XTC - I'm Bugged
07 Suburban Studs - I Hate School
08 The Pleasers - Billy
09 XTC - Science Friction
10 Dire Straits - Eastbound Train
11 X Ray Spex - Let's Submerge
12 999 - Crazy
13 The Saints - Demolition Girl
14 999 - Quite Disappointing
15 The Only Ones - Creatures Of Doom
16 The Pirates - Gibson Martin Fender
17 Steel Pulse - Sound Check
18 Roogalator - Zero Hero
19 Philip Rambow - Underground Romance
20 The Pleasers - Rock & Roll Radio
21 Tyla Gang - On The Street
22 Steve Gibbons Band - Johnny Cool
23 Wilko Johnson Band - Twenty Yards Behind
24 The Stranglers - Hanging Around



Hope & Anchor Front Row Festival
double L.P.

8 comments:

  1. WOW!!!!!!!!
    thank you.
    It must of been 1978 or 1979 when I bought this at a closing down sale at an old Grace Brothers style department store in Ilford along with loads of other goodies. Needless to say the vynly LP has long been lost. I will listen to this on my own when the kids have gone to bed, it will probably take me back to the crancrook pub but what the hell it was n't such a bad period to grow up in.

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  2. Gee, another album(2 lps)I have not played since the early 1980s.Excellent to have a digital version.Thanks!

    A request if possible.I bought(and still have) the '20 of Another Kind' albums.I did get a nice vinyl rip of Vol 1 a few years ago.I wonder if you or anybody else has a rip of Vol 2?I have never seen a CD version of these albums.I am sure this is due to legal rights associated with so many artists.

    Thanks again for the Hope & Anchor post.Cheers.

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  3. Happy memories of a lot of drunken nights in the mosh-pit...

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  4. Abramson
    Glad you enjoyed, bringing it all back home is one of MRML's missions. As far as times and places to grow up, I can only dream of having lucked out like that!

    Doug
    While I have found the cover art for 20 vol. 2 I have yet to find the files. I'll keep my eye out, I'd love to post it. Thanks for the good words.

    Richard
    Yup, bringing at ALL back home, has to include drunken moshing.

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  5. Many, many thanks for this rip of a once-cherished but long-unheard LP. I'd love to have a lossless rip of the LP? Is it at all possible for you to provide one? Does anyone know of one elsewhere? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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  6. Fantastic ... loved this album and lost it a long time ago ..BIG thanks x

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  7. still play this - an excellent cross-section of music. Hope it will make a CD release one day.

    dave w york

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  8. Thanks for that great post... I've lost the record, and missed so many of it's versions of the songs, mostly the Saints WILD version of "Demolition Girl"... What a great memory...

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