Totally wired, jittery (all female?) 1981 UK postpunk/wavoid classic from the one-and-done Lancashire band TARZAN 5. This is from their 45, put out on 021 Records. B-side “Different Story” is fantastic dubby new wave, and you can listen to that here.
1981 minimalist DIY from Liverpool, England’s THE MODERATES. The second overwhelmingly positive pro-nuclear bomb song of the punk and postpunk era, but lacking lyrics as stellar as The Weirdos’ “Gonna drop it all over the place / You’re gonna get it on your face”.
At one point (1980-81) THE MEAT PUPPETS were so experimental and deranged that they fit best on bills with arty synth bands and weird hardcore punk/goth bands who spit fake blood on stage. I’d have enjoyed this night of Los Angeles debauchery very much had I not been such a young’un at the time.
I always thought the 1983 “Death Party” EP from THE GUN CLUB was pretty much their last gasp, and I don’t believe I’d get too many dissenters. In fact, I think it’s the best thing they did outside of their genius first album, as both the “Miami” and “The Las Vegas Story” LPs were fatally flawed.
Take a listen to this intense, wrenching bottle-blues beloved by goths, punks, rootsy Americana lovers and death cultists alike when it came out in ‘83.
Since we posted a terrific KLEENEX video earlier in the day, how about a scan of an all-Kleenex fanzine from the early 80s?
S-S Records did the universe a real service by taking an edition-of-200 1981 Belgian cassette tape, the “FM-BX Society Tape”, and converting it into vinyl last year. The tape was released by a Belgium-based radio station back then, and hidden on it were one of the great all-female, achingly raw, postpunk DIY bands of the day – UNIT 4 – although no one heard ‘em at the time. S-S made sure that we did, now, thirty years later.
The tape/LP has four UNIT 4 tracks on it, and they give Kleenex a decided run for some new ink to be spilled on great European punk & postpunk of the early 80s. Burning out and fading away after recording only four songs, and then having those songs “discovered” again by record nerds thirty years later, has a way of ensuring an unspoiled legacy. See what you think by listening to “Rules” here. All four of their songs are outstanding.
I made this compilation for my main blog The Hedonist Jive back in May of this year, and figured you folks might want to take a crack at hearing and downloading it.
It’s called “Hedonist Jive Post-Punk Blowout” (clever, hunh?) and spans the proverbial gamut from aggressive, limber noise; female-vocal art-thump; left-of-center punk rock; and early British DIY (including that blog’s namesake song from The Midnight Circus). Some of these songs have been favorites of mine since I was a wee pup; other were only discovered in the past decade of so. All date from 1978 to about 1983 and fit the already loose “postpunk” category very loosely.
There are two ways to enjoy this playlist – download here and “own” the mp3s I’ve carefully handpicked for ya, or go over to the playlist I made on 8Tracks, and listen to it streaming on your iPhone, Android devices or your computer. Same songs both ways.
Download The Hedonist Jive Post-Punk Blowout.
HEDONIST JIVE POST-PUNK BLOWOUT
1. SPK – Contact
2. DESPERATE BICYCLES – Smokescreen
3. VIRGIN PRUNES – Twenty Tens (I’ve Been Smoking All Night)
4. BUSH TETRAS – Too Many Creeps
5. 2x4s – Zipperheads
6. THE POP GROUP – 3:38
7. THE MISFITS – Cough/Cool
8. AU PAIRS – Set Up
9. WIRE – Outdoor Miner
10. THE FLOWERS – After Dark
11. ½ JAPANESE – Girl Athletes
12. SIOUXSIE & THE BANSHEES – Trophy
13. NOH MERCY – Caucasian Guilt
14. FLIPPER – Ha Ha Ha
15. SUBURBAN WIVES CLUB – Guru Eye
16. THE HOMOSEXUALS – Technique Street
17. THE BIRTHDAY PARTY – Jennifer’s Veil
18. MIDNIGHT CIRCUS – The Hedonist Jive
19. THE GORDONS – Future Shock
20. PYLON – Cool
21. THE FALL – Eat Y’Self Fitter
22. SARA GOES POP – Arab o Habab of Arabia
23. REMA REMA – Rema Rema
24. TEDDY & THE FRAT GIRLS – I Owe It To The Girls
25. TUXEDOMOON – No Tears
Interested parties can download the final AU PAIRS show, taken from a 1983 cassette, right here.
Bona Dish – Mutation
Excellent 1982 UK DIY from Bona Dish, with that gauzy minimalist shimmer so common to this era of weird, distant, micro-underground 45s of the day.
I just ordered this June 13th, 1981 issue of SOUNDS magazine for a king’s ransom of nearly $14 from a place in the UK. Looks pretty nondescript, doesn’t it? The value that us music obsessives assign to tokens from our youth, however, bears no relation to actual worth.
I was 13 years old when I bought this UK music paper at Little Professor Book Center in San Jose, CA (no joke). It totally upended my musical world. Already a fan of the “new wave” as I was, this was where I first heard the term “indie” – in relation to their Indie Top 20 chart, which was full of punk and post punk 45s that are considered legendary to this day. It was the first place outside of CREEM that I ever saw snarky, dismissive music journalism. (CREEM was a metalhead mag by this point anyway). In England, it appeared, it was all about the small-run 45rpm single, and there were dozens coming out every week from all corners of the UK.
I proceeded from that week in June 1981 to being a regular buyer of Sounds, NME and Melody Maker over the next four years or so. This one somehow got taken out with the trash a long time ago, and in a fit of nostalgia, I decided to spring for it again. Scans forthcoming.
DYNAMITE HEMORRHAGE 