punk
Kieron Tyler
Of all the idiosyncratic artists coming through the door opened by punk, Adrian Sherwood remains one of the most singular. Reggae had been given a new platform and Sherwood, though he has never done anything remotely musically akin to punk rock, comfortably found a place alongside boundary-crossing post-punk individualists like The Pop Group and Public Image Ltd. The former’s Mark Stewart and the latter’s Jah Wobble went on to record with Sherwood’s On-U Sound label.Although Sherwood would deconstruct and then reassemble hip-hop with Tackhead and similarly explore various forms of electronic Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
There's a line of argument – and a fairly convincing one – that this is the decade that pop culture lost its imagination. Right now the cinemas are booked out with the latest sequel to a 38-year-old movie franchise, my Twitter feed is collectively losing its shit to a new Twin Peaks trailer and a Stone Roses reunion is headlining half of next year's festivals. We haven't even been bothered to come up with a name for this decade, although when our children's children run nostalgic compilation shows dedicated to the "twen-teens" I will happily take the credit.Against a backdrop of Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The Comsat Angels’ debut single for Polydor, July 1980’s “Independence Day”, was an instant classic. After setting a rhythmic bed, each subsequent instrumental contribution is measured out: a guitar string's harmonic; a spare keyboard line; drop-outs drawing from dub. The melody was anthemic, yet not overbearing, and the forward momentum unyielding. It still sounds fantastic.After an independently issued single, the Sheffield quartet released “Independence Day” on the major label which had brought The Jam and Siouxsie & the Banshees into the charts. In the wake of punk, Polydor seemed to Read more ...
Jasper Rees
It’s Patti Smith week. Her second memoir M Train is out. To mark its publication she spoke on Wednesday night at a Guardian event of her love of Morse, Lewis and George Gently. On Thursday she had an appointment with U2 at the O2. Last night (and again tonight) Smith was back at the Roundhouse, where she first performed in the UK in 1976. The question on nobody’s lips was whether, at 68, senior citizenship has remotely withered the savagery of her voice. “We Smiths age well,” she said before she sang a note.On the setlist was a complete performance of Horses, which turns 40 on 10 November, Read more ...
Barney Harsent
Killing Joke are a band that inspire near devotion in their fans. Their 1980 eponymous debut is regularly cited as one of the best of all time, and they’ve managed two very decent outings since the original line-up of Jaz Coleman, Paul Ferguson, Kevin "Geordie" Walker and Martin "Youth" Glover reformed in 2008.With Pylon, their 15th studio album, not a great deal has changed. The band show absolutely no sign of letting up on the raging fire and apocalyptic anger that have become trademarks, but it seems to suit the times a little better now. Perhaps the world has caught up with them – maybe Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Little Bob Story: Off the Rails + Live in ‘78Aki Kaurismäki’s 2011 film Le Havre features a cameo from a hard-rocking band fronted by a grey-haired gentleman who crops up elsewhere in the action. He is Roberto Piazza, and trades under the name Little Bob. Although born in Italy, his family moved to France in 1958 when he was 13. Integral to and at one with France’s perennial love affair with classic rock ‘n’ roll, he formed the band Little Bob Story in Le Havre in 1974.Kaurismäki recognised that the wilful Little Bob is the genuine article: a man forever marinated in the spirit of high- Read more ...
Barney Harsent
The British, it is said, are victims of reserve – eschewing anger, open affection and hurt for crossface winkyface sadface. While an over-simplified (not to mention shockingly solipsistic) take on a far from unique tendency, there is a kernel of truth here. A difficulty, perhaps, in conveying emotions accurately. A mistrust of heightened states – a tendency to misconstrue and get caught up in guilt, blame and shame.This could go some way to explaining why, when John Lydon, the russet-topped frontman of the Sex Pistols accosted the nation with his thousand-yard stare and combination of Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Pere Ubu: Elitism for the People 1975–1978Pere Ubu’s early records still sound great. The ethos of the Cleveland, Ohio band had nothing to do with prevailing trends when they formed in 1975, and had nothing to with the punk, new wave or what was later termed post-punk which opened many doors for and ears to them shortly afterwards. The timelessness stems from being singular, an aspect of which resulted in them issuing four singles on their own label between December 1975 and August 1978. Yet Pere Ubu were not isolated: their precursor band Rocket From the Tombs was co-billed with Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Don’t be fooled by the header picture. Despite the relaxed poses, Iceland’s Pink Street Boys are amongst the angriest, loudest, most unhinged bands on the planet right now. Hits #1, their debut vinyl album – which follows distorted-sounding, lower-than-lo-fi cassette and digital-only releases – is so impolite and wild that once the rest of the world gets the message the story of what constitutes the current-day music of their home country will have to be rewritten.They are not an anomaly. Iceland is currently witnessing a groundswell of loosely punk–inspired bands drawing from the edgy spirit Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
Sad singers never write truly happy albums, but Positive Songs for Negative People – and was there ever a title that so perfectly summed up the work of Frank Turner? – is probably as close as this one gets to putting a brave face on it. Turner’s sixth album opens where 2013’s Tape Deck Heart left off: a sinner amongst saved men on the banks of the muddy Thames, dusting himself off and falling back in love with the city he calls home anthropomorphised as the Angel of Islington. Along the way expect choruses designed to get punk pulses racing, awkward tennis metaphors and not a little Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The Love Affair/Steve Ellis: Time Hasn’t Changed us - The Complete CBS Recordings 1967-1971The connection between Sex Pistols, the stars of last week’s Reissue CDs Weekly, and late-Sixties London soul-pop hit-makers The Love Affair is unlikely, but genuine. Shortly after they formed, when their repertoire of originals was thin, the instigators of UK punk rehearsed a version of The Love Affair’s 1968 Top Ten single “A Day Without Love”. Despite the supposed year-zero ethos of Brit-punk, Sex Pistols covered a fair amount of pre-hippy nuggets, including – as well as that Love Affair song Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Sex Pistols: SpunkFor an album that was never meant to be widely available, what’s become known as Spunk has had a surprising afterlife. The bootleg Sex Pistols album first became available in selected shops around three weeks before the release of Never Mind the Bollocks Here's the Sex Pistols, the band’s debut album proper, issued on 28 October 1977. Knowledge of Spunk’s existence was pretty instant as the weekly music paper Sounds wrote about it that October, as did the monthly music magazine Zig-Zag the following month.Never Mind the Bollocks was less an album, more a greatest hits Read more ...