Posted by Steve.

1979 - this was a pretty difficult year to pick a track from!

Before plumping for this one I nearly went for The Clash with "London Calling" - but I couldn't embed it! "I Was Made For Loving You" from Kiss was another nearly, so was "Rock Lobster", "Alternative Ulster", "Gangsters", "Eton Rifles" numerous contributions from The Police and Blondie.

The Ramones were one of the most influential punk bands at their home in Queens, NYC and the rest of America and also here in the UK. They pre dated the likes of The Sex Pistols, The Clash and The Damned by 3 or 4 years.

This track was actually the B side to the 1979 single "She's the One" and featured on the '78 album "Road To Ruin". The video to this track was actually made in 1988!

In the year of the Ram disco reigned supreme, but looking at other genre's of music this year it was a real melting pot of styles. Disco, punk, new wave, metal, rock and Euro pop were all doing well in the charts. Judas Priest, Van Halen, Dire Straits, Specials AKA, AC/DC, M, The Damned, The Clash, ABBA, Scorpions and Sniff 'N' The Tears all released records.

INXS, Bad Brains, Venom, Was (Not Was), Europe, Diamond Head and Hanoi Rocks all form while The Runaways and Bachman-Turner Overdrive are amongst those disbanded. Ozzy is kicked out of Black Sabbath and replaced by Ronnie James Dio.

John Simon Ritchie (Sid Vicious) is found dead in a New York hotel, Snowy's dad's favourite actor John Wayne passes away too! John Diefenbaker and Angel of Death; Josef Mengele also dies this year.

Snow falls in the Sahara Desert. The IRA assassinates Lord Mountbatten and the Three Mile Island accident happens. The Iran hostage crisis starts and China's population hits 1 billion people!

Star Trek The Motion Picture, Alien, Kramer vs Kramer (one of my mum's favourite films!), Apocalypse Now and The Amityville Horror are all released in the cinema.

The Pittsburgh Pirates win the World Series, Arsenal lifts the FA Cup and the Stanley Cup stays in Montreal as they beat the New York Rangers 4 games to 1.



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Posted by Steve.

Getting back to the 35 years thingie and sticking to an Irish theme - all be it north of the border this time! From the year of the Horse is John Peel's favourite song ever and probably one of the few songs that I would ever attempt on karaoke if I ever plucked up the courage to attempt such a thing!

If you ever wanted to know what Feargal Sharkey was up to before he released "A Good Heart" in 1985 then look no further! Sharkey was the lead singer with Derry band The Undertones.

John Peel was an influential Radio 1 DJ in the Uk who made a habit of championing new wave, extreme grind bands and punk bands such as Napalm Death, Carcass, Exit Condition, Doom, The Fall and The Smiths. His Peel Sessions are legendary and go back to the late 60's. His first two from 1967 were a band called Tomorrow and Pink Floyd. When he received a copy of Teenage Kicks (the only promo single sent out by the band) Peel was so impressed with it he played it back to back. The song was played at his funeral in 2004 and "Teenage dreams, so hard to beat" is engraved on his tomb stone.

What else happened in 1978? Ted Bundy was captured in Pensacola, Fl. The Sex Pistols played their last show at San Fransisco's Winterland (until they ran out of money!) A 15 year old Rick Allen joins Def Leppard. Nancy Spungen and Keith Moon passed away. Dura Duran, Ratt, Dokken, Social Distortion and The Dead Kennedy's were all formed. Van Halen released "Van Halen"! "Hemispheres" by Rush, Judas Priest's "Stained Class" and "Outlandes d'Amour" by The Police were all released.

Grease and Superman were released and The Deerhunter won the years Oscar. Argentina won the World Cup. Ipswich Town won the FA Cup. The LA Dodgers were beaten by the Yankees in the World Series and the Stanley Cup remained in Montreal.



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Posted by Steve.

1976 was the launch pad for the punk revolution in the UK. The Sex Pistols released their debut single "Anarchy In The UK" in November 1976, but "New Rose" by fellow London punks The Damned is credited as being the first UK punk single released - a head of "Anarchy..." by a mere 35 days! They also have other notable firsts as being the first British punk band to release an album (Damned Damned Damned in February 1977) and the first British punk band to tour in America! They probably didn't get as much recognition and success as The Pistols or The Clash, but they can say they were first!

Random events also happening in the year of the Dragon... U2, Black Flag, Saxon and Diamond Head all formed. Toronto's CN Tower was completed and the Blue Jays from the same city were formed. It was the year of the first Concorde flight and the year that Son of Sam terrorized New York City.

The New York Yankees lost the World Series 4-0 to The Cincinnati Reds. The FA Cup was won by Southampton - beating Manchester United and Montreal's Canadiens beat the Flyer's for the Stanley Cup. Rocky won this years Oscar for Best Film.



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Posted by Steve.
Snowy and I seem to have developed this kind of text message game, I send the start of some lyrics and she sends the next line (it has to be that way because I'm so lame at remembering stuff like lyrics, phone numbers, vehicle registrations, etc..)

Any way, this was one that I did today - and for the life of me I didn't know if "knock on wood" was the actual lyric or another case of misheard lyrics. Find out for yourself below!

This song was by far their biggest hit with the mainstream in the UK - just fell short of the top ten, around number 12 I think. Not long after this was released the band toured the UK. I went to see them at the Wulfren Hall in Wolverhampton, the place was packed and it seemed like a large majority had come for one song... and they didn't play it! They have also been the only band that I can remember who had a "dancer" as a band member! Then again that's all Paul Rutherford in Frankie Goes To Hollywood ever did!!!

It was reported that the song was about people taking an AIDS test, but that has long been denied by the band.




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Posted by Steve.
I'm off to see GBH (or sometimes still refered to as Charged GBH) tomorrow at the Sugarmill in Hanley.

I'm guessing most of you haven't heard of GBH, but back in the early 80's they were an extremley influential second wave punk band from Birmingham. Signed early on by Stoke's own Clay Records (home of Discharge) they were front runners of the "new" punk sound that replaced the likes of the Sex Pistols, The Clash, Stiff Little Fingers, etc. They were up there with the likes of Discharge, The Varukers, Amebix, Broken Bones and The Exploited amongst many others. They all became collectively known as "UK82" (a sub genre within the punk scene) some time later. The bands in this genre mixed the sounds of the '77 punk with the (then) relatively new NWBHM (New Wave of British Heavy Metal) sound. In the mid to late 80's the majority of these bands all diverted into a more metal sound for some unknown reason, and most of them failed at the time and split up.

It's been some time since I've seen GBH, so I'm quite looking forward to tomorrow night. Just hope they aren't too drunk when they hit the stage. One of my best memories at a gig was the vocalist (Col) falling off the stage at a gig in Stoke!

Sorry the start of the song is missing, but this is the best version I can find at the moment!



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Posted by Steve.
A second headliner is Orange Couty punks The Offspring.

Don't get me wrong, I love The Offspring, but a head lining band? Not renowned for any kind of stage show, all those people at the back (about 3 miles away!!!) aren't going to get a very good experience. Go and see the band in some smaller venue - the more intimate the better - and experience a proper Offspring show! I'm 110% sure that they will play a great set, but it's just the spectacle part of it that will severely be lacking! Maybe they can borrow a few props from Iron Maiden?

I wanted to do "Bad Habit", my favourite Offspring track, but there is no video for it, well no official video anyway!




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Posted by Steve.
"Hi, we're J Church from San Francisco and we have no idea why we're here"
Reading Festival 1997

I finally came across decent video (albeit live) by J Church, so here's some Californian "punk" for ya!

I don't really remember a time when I got into the band, but I have (still have?!) a phase of just buying anything new that looks like it would sound good! And I seem to have a run on record labels and at one particular time I had a run on Allied Records. So I was introduced to the likes of Nausea, Spitboy, Buzzoven, Schwartzeneggar, Dogs On Ice, No Means No, Sleeper and J Church. And being a record collector (hoarder?) J Church were the perfect band to collect!

A quick glance at the web site and there's 20 or so albums, 30 singles (not counting the different coloured versions!), about the same with split singles and dozens of compilations featuring the band! All released by numerous labels all over the World - USA, England, Japan, Australia. And often featuring odd choices of cover versions (Duran Duran, ELO, Cirlce Jerks, Snuff, Beck, Nick Lowe, Radiohead, The Smiths, Trio...)

I got to see the band play quite a few times in the UK. At one time I drove a local band called Jayne Doe to Brighton and London as they were supporting them some time ago. So I got to meet the diminutive and very quietly spoken Hawaiian Lance Hahn. How he found the time to write for Maximum Rock 'N' Roll magazine, run his own label (Honey Bear) and write so many songs I'll never know!

Unfortunately Lance passed away in October 2007 due to complications from kidney dialysis. He'll be sadly missed, but at least record collectors can sleep a little bit easier!





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Posted by Steve.
Been listening to a band from Lodi, New Jersey, a lot just lately. The Misfits!

Their stuff is short sharp lo-fi horror punk, the longest song is about 3 and a half minutes long and I can wizz through my 40 or so songs in no time (well, and hour and 15 minutes any way! Shorter than some records of recent years!!)

This was their second ever release after "Cough/Cool" in 1977, and it's a bit of a controversial one this - due to the references and the cover art - depicting the shooting of JFK in 1963. Apparently Glen Danzig had (has?) a morbid fascination with the life and death of Kennedy. But I figure the shock value to the band was all intended!!

Released as a 7" vinyl single back in 1978/9 (2 pressings - black then red - about 2,000 in total) and it later appeared on the bands "Beware" album. But it was originally recorded for the "Static Age" album, but that didn't surface till 1997. A song covered by the legendary Refused in their brief time too!






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Posted by Steve.
Well tomorrow is October 31st, more commonly know as Halloween. So (a day early) here's my Halloween treat! Part 1!!!

There's no video to this song - that's really any better than this one - but I think it's kinda funny and fits pretty well with the subject matter.

May I introduce to you Glen Danzig, Jerry Only, Doyle Wolfgang von Frankenstein, Arthur Googy and Bobby Steele, more commonly known as The Misfits!

To be honest, my introduction to this band was via Metallica (covering "Die My Darling" and "Green Hell" on the "$5.98 EP"), and I bet I'm not the only one to say that. If you like short, sharp blasts of raw American Horror punk then look no further.

This song was originally released as a 5,000 edition single then resurfaced on their "Legacy Of Brutality" and "Collection II" releases. Over the years it has been covered by AFI, Cradle Of Filth and Alkaline Trio to name 3 that I know!




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Posted by Steve.
Just before we went away I fell off the back of my van (insert sarcastic comments here ________________ - and I've already heard them all by now!). Five weeks later when I finally get my self in gear to go to the doctors I find that I have fractured the radius bone at the elbow! And I've been to work with a broken arm! How cool is that? I'm tough, so I can take it!!

Anyway, what better band to see with my injury than Broken Bones?? (See what I've done there?).

The video is poor - a live recording from 2004 (I think), it's punk, and punk's don't do videos!! [joke], But the song is killer, one of my favourites and one that I grew up listening to at school! And after the glut of Canadian bands here's one from the UK. Well actually my home town of Stoke-on-Trent!

Formed by ex members of Discharge in the 80's - who themselves were / are the best band from the Potteries, closely followed by this lot along with Exit Condition, Reverse, Skate Drunks, Hatemonger, Spy Versus Spy, Robbie Williams .......

Enjoy!






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Posted by Steve.
OK, so I've had thrash metal and power metal thrown at me for 3 whole days, standing in pouring rain in the middle of muddy field, somewhere in the middle of England! So I thought I'd do something a bit more relaxed and not so serious...

Step up the Toy Dolls!

In a time when punk was aggressive and against the system this lot from Sunderland gave us irreverent adolescent fun with irreverent lyrics and song titles.

I can remember just starting high school in 1985 and going to a school disco (unfortunately at the time you had to go!) and the few punks in the school got this played and it was the first time that I pogo'd (basically jumping up and down on the spot!!) No chance of that 22 years later!




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Posted by Steve.
Sunday December 22nd 1991, the annual Christmas gig at the Wheatsheaf pub in Stoke, saw local favourites Exit Condition (years ahead of their time, kind of a less complicated Fugazi - melodic hardcore . A shame they called it a day too soon!) supporting some upstarts from the USA called Green Day! The room they played was tiny, smaller than some peoples living rooms! And it only cost £3! Bargain. Oh how times have changed!!

Shame I can't find any Exit Condition for you to all enjoy, so you'll have to do with Green Day. I wonder what ever happened to them? :-)





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By Snow.
Brilliant tune, and also with a piece of history thrown in, the song is political, and also fun with it's upbeat tempo. The song has gained a reputation as being an unofficial anthem during the Gulf War, surprising when The Clash have a anti-war stance. (Gotta love irony.)

Personally, I'd rather just enjoy the song than think too much about it. My piano playing is about as good as my guitar picking, but if I could play, then it'd be this one to tinkle the ivories with.



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Posted by Snow.
If the name of the band doesn't turn you off, Tim Armstrong's vocals might. Off tune, off key, this poor bloke makes me sound like Charlotte Church.

OK, that sounds really bad. In fact, I think it's Tim's vocals that set off the band and make them fun to listen to. It's off sounding, but it works, it gels well with the music and the other vocals on the chorus. Ruby Soho always ges me singing and dancing. Even if you don't know Rancid offhand, you're likely to have heard of Transplants, which Tim also plays in. Now, who wants a rousing chorus of 'DJ, DJ'?



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