Gulp. Subtitled Rare Punk Gems and New Wave Nuggets 1977-1982, this compilation has been put together by veteran DJ Gary Crowley and his Soho Radio co-host, Jim Lahat, to (Ron)seal it all, it sets out to do exactly what it says on the tin.
There’s been no shortage of punk compilations over the last forty years (despite punk’s scorched earth, year zero policy, there were compilations that appeared in the early days), but what’s impressive about Crowley and Lahat is that they’ve set out not to make just another punk compilation. So there’s no Sex Pistols, Clash or Damned; no ‘Teenage Kicks,’, ‘Orgasm Addict‘ or ‘The Sound Of The Suburbs.’
Sure some of the bands here would go on to become quite well-known, but it’s to Crowley and Lahat’s credit that they’ve represented these bands by lesser-known tracks. Altered Images, for example, would go on to become proper pop stars in the early 1980s, but it’s their debut single ‘Dead Pop Stars‘ that is included here. Produced by the Banshees‘ Steve Severin, the song glistens with menace – and is a million miles away from their bigger hits like ‘Happy Birthday‘ and ‘Don’t Talk To Me About Love.‘ Similarly, Generation X are represented by ‘Wild Dub‘ the first Dub versions of a punk track to appear on a single. Within a few years, their frontman Billy Idol had gone solo to massive success (though that’s another story). The Nips‘ frontman Shane MacGowan would go on to form The Pogues. And if you need to have it explained to you who The Fall are, I can only assume you have wondered onto this website by mistake.
There’s some gems here that may have been featured elsewhere before -‘Suspended Sentence‘ by punk poet John Cooper Clarke with its fear and loathing of those who would write to the The Sun to bring back hanging sadly feels as relevant in 2017 as it did nearly forty years ago. In a completely different vein, the Mo-Dettes effervescent ‘White Mice’ with it’s ska-inflected post-punk feel still seems as fresh and essential as ever. And it’s great to see that Scotland is well represented, demonstrating that punk was not purely a London phenomenon – as well as the aforementioned Altered Images, there’s the Skids, TV21, the Scars and two bands that were completely new to me: The Zips and Fun 4.
There are, of course, a few tracks that do not particularly enrich your listening pleasure. While Girls At Our Best are a band who I keep meaning to investigate further, I cannot say the same of the likes of Eater or The Vibrators. The latter open the compilation with ‘We Vibrate‘ and it’s tempting to take the point that while punk encouraged anyone to form a band, inevitably some were going to be of greater merit than others.
The accompanying sleevenotes are comprehensive and illuminating, and overall this represents a great value for money package. While it’s perhaps inevitable that with some varying quality on display here, there’s some nice surprises (hello to Bobalouis‘ ‘Go Ahead‘), even if it might have been better across two CDs rather than three. No matter.
