The Stranglers

Where's my credit card.........

Magazine - Rhythm of Cruelty 7'' (1979)

I guess since I'm talking about John McGeoch it's only fair to post one of his finest moments. Here it is.

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I must have worn out 50 record player needles on this one 7'' alone.

Punk Lives issues 1-11 (a long time ago)

Seems like yesterday......as it says; Punk Lives issues 1-11.

Punk Lives!

John McGeoch - 25/8/1955 - 4/3/2004

I've said it a couple of time before that I get hooked on certain artists who I'll follow throughout their career; John McGeogh was one of the first I hooked onto as a teenager. From the first moments I heard Magazine I was drawn into the guitar and many, many years later I was still following that guitar.

John is one of the best kept secrets in music as far as I'm concerned and that is a tragedy; this guy should be lauded as a guitar hero, he's certainly one of mine. Look at the bands he was in and check out their best moments, he's there in all of them, sometimes not in their initial peak, but definitely within their resurgence. Some of the ones I love are: -

Magazine
Siouxsie & the Banshees
Generation X
The Armoury Show
PIL

Four of those bands are hugely influential, but mention his name to music fans and most will say "who?"; it's criminal. He had such a deft touch, but with a really strong distinctively melodic sound. I could listen to his work for years and not get bored. The link below is a radio broadcast made earlier this year as a tribute to John and is something that is long overdue.

This is a seriously good listen and is 60 minutes well spent if you download it; people from those bands take part.

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The Showbiz Kids - She Goes to Finos (1980)

Before the Toy Dolls there was The Showbiz Kids, this is Olgas first band of note. They played around '78 - '80, but Olga had left sometime earlier. The band continued and relesed this 7'' in 1980; they called it a day soon after. Their drummer would later rejoin Olga in the Toy Dolls.

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Jam - Demos

Sez it all really.

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Red Cross

The same night and Off!

CH3 - Live (1982)

Live in '82.

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MDC - Thanks for Giving Me What I didn't Want 7'' (1993)

I travelled to Sheffield in '82 to see the Dead Kennedys play the Lead Mill with Peter & the Test Tube Babies and the UK Mau Maus.....luckily we got the see MDC who were also supporting. I remember standing outside in the cold waiting for the doors to open as we'd got there about 8 hours early. Sometime later Jello walked past and stopped dead in his tracks to see my mates bikers jacket with Minor Threat on it; he was shocked we knew who they were. 

We'd also discovered MDC and their first album was a major hit with most of my friends, so to see them live was incredible. They, and the DK's, put the UK bands to shame; they looked so tame in comparison.   

The merchandising stall was selling the fledgling Maximum Rock n Roll fanzine and I grabbed a copy of issue 1 and 2. I got Dave Dictator to sign issue one later in the night. I still have that somewhere. I'd give my left nut go travel back in time and witness that gig again.

Here's an out of print 7'' from '93.

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Tool

As I've said by the early 90's I'd embraced a far wider range of new music due to many of the punk bands treading a formulaic path. Tool were one of the bands I was lucky enough to catch onto very early and was even luckier to see them a few times with 100 or so people the first time 200 the second and 400 the third. The next time was a crowd of a thousand and the last time was five thousand.

I clearly recall seeing them so close their sweat was splattering me and I was transfixed....they were incredible up close. This is a youtube find that has a link to download an earlyish live appearance. I was a huge Tool fan before they lost their edge, but I still love their early work.

There's another guy on youtube posting this but he's disabled embedding so the above film isn't his but the text below is: -

I uploaded this to megaupload for you all to download. It is the best quality version available and will look better than what you see here.
Download the two (2) files and join them with hjsplit.

Download both of the files:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=2P98A0W6
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=YM48922E

Join the files with:
http://hjsplit.en.softonic.com/download

Lost Cause - Born Dead 7'' (1981)

Lost Cause were formed in early 81' by five young punks and disbanded in mid '82 which was all too brief a period for a good band. Way back when my band used to cover this song....very badly I have to say. They were: -

Johnny Ernst - Vocals
Steve Young - Guitar/vocals
Scott Mitchell - Guitar
Helmut Zarth - Bass
Danny Oberbeck - Drums

They hailed out of California and went on to record an album in early 1982 before splitting up.

Music

The Crewd - Gather Round (1983)

One of the reasons I love SoCal.
One of the reasons I love hardcore.
One of the reasons I loved 1983.
One sided etched 12''.
One you need to get.

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